Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
M8B — Birds are hammering the rock: extracting water
Source data for narratives and traditions is drawn from Berezkin’s Analytical Catalogue. If you use this data, please acknowledge and link to it: Ю.Е. Березкин, Е.Н. Дувакин. Тематическая классификация и распределение фольклорно-мифологических мотивов по ареалам. Аналитический каталог.
Summary of motif
OverviewAnimals, and often birds, struggle to break through the rock to get water or honey hidden inside it.
Berezkin category: Adventures: Tricks and episodes
This is of motif type Cosmology and etiology and is part of group 3, Cosmogony, the earth and the sky, etiology of the elements, natural and biological phenomena (fire, water, soil, thunderstorms, dream, etc.), cataclysms and cosmic threats, spirits of nature.
M8 has 4 other sub-motifs
RelatedM8. Some characters (not humans) are struggling to break a strong barrier that prevents access to the desired location or to a high-value object. See also M8A - M8D motifs; they are included in the M8 motif in the correlation tables.
M8a. Animals, and more often birds, find it difficult to break through a rock from the outside or inside, make a hole in the tree, in the body of an absorber creature, tear fetters, etc., to help a character or get out of the confined space by yourself. The list includes groups whose texts deal with the exit of the first ancestors to earth from a confined space.
M8b. Animals, and often birds, struggle to break through the rock to get water or honey hidden inside it.
M8c. Birds pierce through a layer of clay, wax, resin, etc., that covers the character's eyes or anus.
M8d. Birds break through the hard cover on the character's body to reach his entrails.
Top 10 motifs with similar dispersal patterns
Phylogeny| Motif | Similarity | Motif summary |
|---|---|---|
| K10A | 100.00% | Heroes kill a dangerous bird; during or before the battle, they hide in a shelter (hut, cage, vessel, sack, well) or cover themselves with an object that protects the body. |
| I37G | 94.17% | A tree mushroom is a step, a platform; an object that helps or hinders movement; provides shelter or refuge. See motif I37. |
| L68 | 93.60% | Left alone (usually at night in a deserted place) with his companion, a man undergoes a monstrous metamorphosis. |
| F92 | 92.18% | A male character allows himself to be used as a sexual object. |
| F34B | 91.68% | A girl, woman or group of women voluntarily take as their lover a penis that exists as a special creature, snake, moray eel, lizard, worm, crab, large aquatic animal or aquatic monster, or large terrestrial mammal. People kill or maim the lover, the woman and/or her offspring, or she herself loses her human nature. The woman's behaviour is condemned. |
| D4O | 91.09% | In order to steal fire from its owner, the character pretends to be wet and cold, and after receiving permission to dry off, runs away, bringing fire to the people. |
| L5C | 90.10% | The monster head pursues celestial bodies, people, or attaches itself to someone else's body. See motif L5. |
| F34 | 89.92% | A woman takes a large land animal as her lover. Her husband, brother or (adopted) children kill or maim the lover and (sometimes) the woman herself. Sometimes there is mention of a group of women and their husbands. (Unlike motif K102, "The Demon's Mistress," the lover is not dangerous to the hero and plays a passive role, and the woman, if she becomes hostile and dangerous, does so only after the lover's death. Unlike motif K76, the woman and her husband/lover of non-human nature are clearly evaluated negatively). |
| J29 | 89.08% | Murdered parents themselves inform their children about the circumstances of their death. |
| B59 | 88.95% | A group of people (usually children, brothers or sisters) play, dance, rise to the sky and turn into the Pleiades or another small constellation. |
See the 100 most similar distributions →
Map of motif dispersal
DistributionDrag the map to pan, use the scroll wheel to zoom — choose a texture or projection below
Traditions
7 recordedThis motif has been recorded in 7 traditions: Alabama, Koasati, Choctaw, Chicasaw, Tepecano, Chol; pre-Columbian Mayan iconography outside of Yucatan, Kekchi; Mopan, Bororo, Kaingang, Xokleng
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