Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
N10B — Transparent neck
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
OverviewA girl or (rarely) a young man with a transparent neck is described, through which you can see the drinks and/or food that this girl or boy swallows. This neck is a sign of beauty.
Berezkin category: Fabulous and epic formulas
This is of motif type Adventures and tricks and is part of group 8, Queer and monstrous beings, creatures, objects and loci, folk beliefs related to particular phenomena and objects.
N10 has 3 other sub-motifs
RelatedN10. A woman or (rarely) a man with a transparent body is described. This transparency is a sign of beauty.
N10a. A woman or (rarely) a man with a transparent body is described - bones are visible through the skin, bone marrow is visible through the bones. This transparency is a sign of beauty.
N10b. A girl or (rarely) a young man with a transparent neck is described, through which you can see the drinks and/or food that this girl or boy swallows. This neck is a sign of beauty.
N10c. A girl is described, through whose body you can see her internal organs or the food she has swallowed. This is a sign of beauty.
Top 10 motifs with similar dispersal patterns
Phylogeny| Motif | Similarity | Motif summary |
|---|---|---|
| I35B | 98.92% | The sky is considered to be metallic. The process of its creation resembles metal forging. |
| M91C3 | 98.63% | A person releases an animal or a bird - supposedly with his wife instructing his wife to cook food, etc. Another does not understand deception and buys an animal. |
| N24 | 98.49% | You can see a light that resembles a second moon or a second sun. It comes from a pretty girl. |
| C29 | 98.40% | People (God) learn a secret by overhearing (spying on) a character talking to himself or his relatives (or performing actions that should be remembered). The knowledge gained is related to cosmogony or the acquisition of cultural values. |
| N30 | 98.37% | formula that describes the confusion of feelings: when a character looks in one direction, he cries, and when he laughs or smiles in the other direction. |
| A32I | 98.29% | A shepherd (shepherd and girl, shepherd and his flock, dogs) can be seen on the lunar disc. |
| B108 | 98.29% | An anthropomorphic character that has fallen apart into pieces turns into snow. |
| K156 | 98.29% | A girl pretends to be a man. To determine who it really is, flowers are placed under the pillow or mattress. If a man is sleeping, they will remain fresh, but if a woman is sleeping, they will wilt by morning (or if a woman is sleeping, the milk left under the bed will sour). |
| K77B3 | 98.29% | Goats encounter a wolf. One goat has one stomach, the second has two, the third has three, and so on. The goat with the most stomachs kills or scares away the wolf. |
| L65A2 | 98.29% | A man shoots off (damages) the finger of a demonic creature, and then sees that his sister, lying in her cradle, has lost her finger. |
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
30 recordedThis motif has been recorded in 30 traditions: Saudi Arabia, Arabs of Levant (Syria, Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan); Bedouins of Sinai, Arabs of Iraq, Iraqi, Arabs of Egypt, Malay; Temuan (incl Mantra or Mentra), Jakun (Moken), Simeulue, Nias, Catalan, France, Germans: North (Low- and Central German dialects): Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg, Pommern, Niedersachsen (Lower Saxony, incl East Frisia and Oldenburg), Nordrhein-Westfalen, Hessen, Rheinland-Pfalz, Thüringen, Saxony-Anhalt, Sachsen, Brandenburg, Rügen, Serbs, Monte Negro, Balkarians, Uzbek, Wakhi, Ishkashimi (including Sanglich), Munji, Pashto, Persians, Cherkassians, Adyghe, Kabardin, Ossetians, Ingush, Dargin (Dargwa), incl. Müregin, Khürkilin, Kubachi, Laks, Avar, Andi, Akhvakh, Kumyk, Terekemen, Nogai, Kurds, Kara Kalpak, Kazakh, Kirghiz, Turkmen, Central Yakuts (Sakha), Arabs (literary tradition; incl. One Thousand and One Nights), Chechens
If you wish to get access to data for projects and research, then please contact us, we do our best to help
How to cite: Fielder-White, J. (2026). The Folklore Database. https://folkloredatabase.com
0009-0006-1672-4451
Where applicable, users should also cite the relevant original sources, catalogues, and classification systems, including Berezkin, ATU, Thompson, and other cited authorities, alongside the page accessed and the last time accessed.
Editorial annotations and database enhancements © Jonathan Fielder-White licensed under CC BY 4.0. Berezkin-derived narrative and metadata licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. Full rights information can be found here.
All rights are reserved in the database structure, selection, arrangement, metadata, classifications, software, interface design, and original editorial content.
Important: The Folklore Database expressly reserves all rights in relation to text and data mining, automated extraction, scraping, machine learning, dataset creation, and the training, development, validation, or improvement of artificial intelligence technologies or systems. No part of this website or database may be scraped, copied, reproduced, harvested, downloaded in bulk, or otherwise used for AI training or commercial data extraction without prior written permission.
Designed and Developed by Jon Fielder-White.
© 2024–2026 Crecganford / Jonathan Fielder-White. All rights reserved.