Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
B110A — The falling one turns into snow and wind.
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 character who is dragged along the ground or who falls from the sky turns into atmospheric phenomena.
Berezkin category: The Origins of the Characteristics of the environment
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.
B11 has 2 other sub-motifs
RelatedB11. A river (rarely: a chain of lakes, a narrow strait) or its current course is created by humans or animals. See motifs B12, B13. This section covers other variants of the motif.
B11a. The mammoth, represented as an underground fish-like creature, creates rugged terrain on wet ground and digs river beds.
B11B. At the beginning of time or during the flood, the mammoth drowned or sank into the ground, and since then it has not been seen on earth.
Top 10 motifs with similar dispersal patterns
Phylogeny| Motif | Similarity | Motif summary |
|---|---|---|
| K182A | 100.00% | A mighty warrior residing in a cave (or crypt, etc.) will eventually emerge into the light (to assist his people), or he could emerge but chooses not to. |
| M134B | 100.00% | When a predator is about to eat a person, the person asks to be measured first and strikes the predator with an (imaginary) measuring instrument. |
| I136 | 99.95% | The rolling wheel (and the character riding on it) is a creature or weapon hostile to the hero (people) that he uses. |
| K2A3 | 99.89% | The hero's companions leave him on the mountain, destroying the rope (chain) by which he climbed up or which he lowered down. |
| K27Q1 | 99.76% | The hero is sent to bring lioness milk in a wineskin made from a lion skin (usually from a lion cub's skin). |
| F87A | 99.67% | A snake crawls onto the clothes of a girl bathing, climbs down in exchange for a promise to marry him, and takes her to the underwater world. She is happy there and gives birth to children. Together with them, she visits her relatives. They call the snake out of the water and kill it. After that, the wife transforms her children and/or herself into birds. |
| K85 | 99.67% | The antagonist owns the fastest horse. The hero obtains an even faster horse (usually the brother or sister of this horse), which is the only one that surpasses the antagonist's horse and usually orders the antagonist to throw off his rider. |
| L110C | 99.67% | An elderly couple makes a child out of clay (wood, straw, dough). The doll comes to life and eats everyone it sees. Usually a goat (ram) breaks it, and those who have been swallowed come out alive. |
| L94B1 | 99.61% | A man receives a box (bag, horn, etc.) as a gift, which he must open only at home. Driven by curiosity, he opens it on the way, and everything that should make him wealthy (houses, livestock, etc.) spills out. The demon who appears agrees to return everything, but sets a condition, the severity of which the man does not immediately understand. |
| K56A4 | 99.59% | When a kind girl returns home, an animal or bird (usually a dog) announces that she is well, but when an unkind girl returns or when her dead body is brought back, the dog (rooster, crow) announces that something is wrong with her. |
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
4 recordedThis motif has been recorded in 4 traditions: 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, Lithuanians, Lezgians, Archin, Kürin; Khinalug, Tabasaran, Aghul
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