Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif

A47 — The sun is born from an egg.

34 Myths, legends and folktales
34 Unique narratives for motif A47
16 Cultures & traditions where A47 is told
1 Sub-motifs of motif A47
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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

Overview

The sun is born or emerges from an egg.

Berezkin category: The Sun and Moon

This is of motif type Cosmology and etiology and is part of group 1, Sun and Moon.

A47 has 1 other sub-motifs

Related

A47.  The sun is born or emerges from an egg.
A47A.  The lizard or iguana is associated with the appearance of the sun.

🌐 See a combined distribution map for all of A47’s motifs

Top 10 motifs with similar dispersal patterns

Phylogeny
MotifSimilarityMotif summary
G1698.23%Ants are the first to find cultivated plants that are unknown to others and concentrated in one place.
B2B98.08%The earth feeds on the people buried in it. See motif B2A.
A1098.06%The sun gets its sparkling eyes (eye) from an animal.
A11C98.06%The Sun and Moon kill a monster whose eyes shine differently. At first, the Moon takes the brighter eye, but then swaps with the Sun.
B2398.06%The deity forbids the use of fire for cooking and punishes those who violate the prohibition.
B3998.06%An insect or character, which later turns into an insect, knows where food (cultivated plants) or water is located, but refuses to share this knowledge. To find the valuables (usually to force the insect to reveal its secret), the first ancestors pull on a rope tied around the character's waist (the origin of the bridge between the abdominal and thoracic sections of insects).
G1298.06%A huge tree bearing various fruits and/or containing water in its trunk grows out of a human body or is a transformed human being.
G2798.06%Cultivated plants appear together with urine or in the place where the hero urinated.
J12A98.06%A girl or two sisters come to an old woman who invites them to marry her son. In reality, he is a worm, a snake or a penis, which his mother hides in a vessel during the day. The girl (sisters) do not allow him to approach them and run away. See motif J12.
J33A98.06%A boy, a young man, or two children live in an old woman's house. They kill her husbandโ€”a man or a large animalโ€”and make a scarecrow out of him. Angry that her husband is not responding to her, the old woman beats the scarecrow and then discovers that her husband has been killed. See motif J33.

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Map of motif dispersal

Distribution

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Traditions

16 recorded

This motif has been recorded in 16 traditions: Ngbakka, Mbum (incl Mbai), Mundang, Fali, Tupuri, Maya (=Bali), Nyong, Southeast Australia: Kamilaroi, Yualarai (Ualarai, Euahlayi), Milpulo (Mailpurgu), Wuradjeri (Wiradjurim, Wiradjeri, Wurundjeri, Yarra, Yarra Yarra), Wongaibon (Wonghibon), Noongahburrah (Narran, Narran River), Kurnai, and many others (see file 0.doc), Arnhem Land: Enindhilyagwa (Groote Eilandt), KuTiwi, Yulengor, Mara, Oenpelli, Murngin, Roper River, Maung, Murinbata, Murngin (Duwal), Millingimbi, Goulburn Island, Ngulugwongga, Yirrkalla, Voctoria River Downs, Alawa, Anu, Kunwinjku, Miao (Hmong) and Yao of Southern China, Komi (Zyrians and Permyaks), Shuswap, Tepehua, Totonac, Gulf Nahuatl, Chontal, Chinantec, Mazatec, Mixtec, Trique, Cuicatec; Amuzgo, Chol; pre-Columbian Mayan iconography outside of Yucatan, Yucatec, Itza, Shuar, Achuar (Shiwiar), Aguaruna, Huambiza, Karijona

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