Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
N13 — Girl with scissors
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, a girl is associated with scissors (and a boy, a boy with a knife or an ax).
Berezkin category: Fabulous and epic formulas
This is of motif type Adventures and tricks and is part of group 13, Formulae.
Top 10 motifs with similar dispersal patterns
Phylogeny| Motif | Similarity | Motif summary |
|---|---|---|
| I60 | 98.02% | The Milky Way - a seam, a crack between the two halves of the sky. |
| N28C | 98.00% | In a list of things that do not exist in the world, a pillar of the sky is mentioned |
| L95 | 97.54% | A person (usually a child or teenager) returns to a previous location for a forgotten item (often a toy) and finds a demon there, from which they struggle to escape. |
| K116C | 97.53% | In order to take possession of the girl, the priest arranges for her father to agree to place her in a chest (barrel) and lower it into the river (leave it in a deserted area). |
| I82H | 97.41% | The name of Venus sounds like Cholpan, Cholbon, Tsolmon, etc. (Δol- 'to sparkle, to shine' [VΓ‘mbΓ©ri 1879: 155]). |
| M60A2 | 97.05% | The servant must lick the master or mistress's feet or wound. The hero comes disguised as a servant and instead of licking his heels, touches them with the animal's cut off tongue. |
| E9E | 96.70% | An animal or object received by a young man from supernatural beings as a reward for his kindness, upon the young man's return home (to earth), turns into a girl. |
| J52B | 96.36% | A girl, young woman or children associated with hares (rabbits) are heroes-victors or successful tricksters. |
| M106B | 96.31% | The character who caused harm to the antagonist calls himself by a fictitious name such as "Last Year," and the other antagonists understand this to mean that everything happened a long time ago and there is no point in looking for the culprit. |
| M78F | 96.18% | When a woman falls asleep, a joker (usually a tiny boy) places an embryo or the entrails of an animal or something similar next to her to make the woman herself or others think she has a miscarriage or that her viscera has fallen out. |
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
8 recordedThis motif has been recorded in 8 traditions: Cherkassians, Adyghe, Kabardin, Ossetians, Kazakh, Buryats: Western (cis Baikal), Mongols (Khalkha), Tuvinians of Tuva, Tuvans, Central Yakuts (Sakha), Buryats: Eastern (trans Baikal), i.e. Khori
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How to cite: Fielder-White, J. (2026). The Folklore Database. https://folkloredatabase.com
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