Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
B113 — Women's backsides and men's knees.
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
OverviewDue to certain events during the time of creation, women have cold backsides (and men have cold knees, or vice versa).
Berezkin category: The Origins of the Characteristics of the environment
This is of motif type Cosmology and etiology and is part of group 5, Origin of human beings, ethnic groups, etiology of human anatomy, strange body configuration, ways of behavior, marriages before the establishment of the present norms.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| I76B | 99.67% | After a certain amount of time or after performing certain actions, an ordinary mouse turns into a bat. |
| K35A4 | 99.57% | In order to get rid of the hero and take his place, the deceiver pushes him into the sea or leaves him on a distant island. The hero survives and returns. |
| K56A7 | 99.30% | In winter, a girl (rarely a boy) is sent to bring something that is normally only available in summer. She brings it. |
| F54E | 99.24% | Not knowing who is in front of him, a young man kills his father. |
| K61C1 | 99.17% | A person will die if they cannot find the answer to the demon's question. A person or their acquaintance accidentally learns the answer by overhearing the demon talking to himself or to another demon. See motif C29. |
| I110 | 99.07% | Constellations are associated with agricultural tools or with people engaged in agricultural work (most often ploughing and haymaking). See motifs I110A (plough), I110B (haymaking). |
| H7E | 99.04% | In the past, people knew when they would die, so before their death they stopped doing their work or performed their duties half-heartedly. |
| B33F1 | 99.03% | By performing certain actions, the (old) woman determines the daily cycle. |
| L130 | 99.03% | Two or more characters have only one eye between them. |
| E9L | 99.03% | Before meeting the hero, his beloved (wife) has the image of a mouse (rarely: a rat). |
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
9 recordedThis motif has been recorded in 9 traditions: Ireland, Dutch, Flemish, Greeks (modern), Balkarians, Bulgarians, Balkarians, Macedonians, Balkarians, Abaza (Abazins), Uyghur, Hui (Dungan) of Xinjiang, Gansu, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, Qinghai, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan (Dungan texts from Southern and Eastern China are clustered with the Chinese ones), Klamath, Modoc
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