Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
M90C — Stepladder instead of wife
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
Overviewman agreed with another that he could take the first thing he touched from his house. The visitor is going to take his wife, but when he takes up the stepladder to go up to the woman, he is told to pick up the stepladder and leave.
Berezkin category: Adventures: Tricks and episodes
This is of motif type Adventures and tricks and is part of group 11, Tricks and competitions won thanks to deception, absurd and obscene behavior.
M90 has 9 other sub-motifs
RelatedM90. Someone asks a riddle about the material from which a particular item is made or originated. It is almost impossible to guess, but the character learns the secret, forcing the hero or heroine to fulfill the conditions set. (Usually requires a girl to marry him).
M90a. The girl will marry the person who guessed her name, or someone who will fit the ring, or someone who says what material a particular object is made of or originated, etc. The deceiver fulfills the condition.
M90a1. It is required to sew clothes from the skin of lice (fleas) or guess the origin of a large animal, a large skin, the contents of the box; the animal (skin) arose from lice (fleas), in the box - louse.
M90a2. It should be guessed that the plant grew from a part of the body of a man or a snake or from dirt scraped off from the body
M90a3. plant grows from a killed snake or part of a snake's body.
M90a4. A tree is described on which jewelry or ornaments hang instead of fruits; individual parts of the tree are made of different metals or (semi) precious stones.
M90a5. The story mentions the golden fruits (rarely leaves) of a tree, usually golden apples.
M90a6. Owning some apples ensures eternal youth.
M90b. The character was wrong when he claimed that the sun would never rise in the west or go down after midnight.
M90c. man agreed with another that he could take the first thing he touched from his house. The visitor is going to take his wife, but when he takes up the stepladder to go up to the woman, he is told to pick up the stepladder and leave.
Top 10 motifs with similar dispersal patterns
Phylogeny| Motif | Similarity | Motif summary |
|---|---|---|
| K129A | 100.00% | A young woman (lying in a tomb) comes back to life, then appears dead again, but is ultimately freed from the spell. |
| K56A4B | 99.84% | A girl is told to clean the yarn, or to spin and weave. The wind blows the yarn (cloth, spindle) away, the girl goes in search of it, and comes across a character who rewards her. |
| B2F2 | 99.49% | The character carries the body of the deceased for a long time, unable to bury it or not knowing how to do so, but eventually buries the body in the ground. |
| L125A | 99.41% | The woman with whom the man has come together is a creature of a non-human nature. This becomes clear after she suffers from thirst at night and, finding no water in the house, takes on her true form, turning into a snake, separating her limbs from her torso, etc. |
| M114C | 99.39% | The character is puzzled as to how the other person's clothes (firewood, etc.) remained dry after the rain â the other person covered them with their body (hid them in a vessel, waited out the rain in a shelter). |
| M94B | 99.39% | The character is lured to look under the mill wheel, he dies or is maimed. |
| M198A2 | 99.01% | A person determines, based on characteristics invisible to others, that a valuable item (a gemstone, an expensive sword) has a flaw and is of little value. |
| M29Z1 | 98.94% | purely anthropomorphic character, or a character who bears the name of an animal or plant but does not act zoomorphic in the course of his adventures. See the motives in square brackets. {Data not fully entered} |
| I87A1 | 98.45% | Two people engage in a dialogue, contradicting each other in their descriptions of the sizes of creatures and objects. |
| L96B | 98.31% | A person encounters an ascetic, demon, etc. The latter intends to kill him by pushing him into a boiling cauldron or cutting off his head when he bows before the deity. The person asks the ascetic to do everything first, then pushes him into the cauldron or cuts off his head himself. |
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: Pashto, Ingush, Kumyk, Terekemen, Georgians, Kurds, Dogrib, Slavey, Central Tibetans (Yu Tsang, incl. Sikkim Tibetans, Tichurong of NW Nepal)
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