Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
B28A — Nailed to the ground.
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 pinned to the ground by a rod, transported somewhere to the edge of the world and associated with an object that continues to influence people.
Berezkin category: The Origins of the Characteristics of the environment
This is of motif type Cosmology and etiology and is part of group 8, Queer and monstrous beings, creatures, objects and loci, folk beliefs related to particular phenomena and objects.
B28 has 6 other sub-motifs
RelatedB28. Travelling from one locality to another, the character successively transforms people into birds and animals, into stones, sanctuaries (or transforms monstrous animals into ordinary ones), establishes cultural norms, determines the biological characteristics of creatures, the appearance of the locality, etc.
B28a. A character pinned to the ground by a rod, transported somewhere to the edge of the world and associated with an object that continues to influence people.
B28b. The inhabitants of the area where the hero finds himself are afraid of creatures that are tools, utensils, and plants that are now harmless. The hero easily defeats these creatures and usually transforms them into what they are now.
B28c. Lice grab a person and drag him into the sea.
B28d. Not understanding who they are dealing with, the characters respond to the wandering Transformer that they are preparing weapons to kill so-and-so or a hiding place to escape from so-and-so. The Transformer kills them himself or turns them into animals.
B28d1. Not understanding who he is facing, the man promises to kill the Transformer. The Transformer turns his weapon into deer antlers and him into a deer.
B28e. The Moon (alone or together with the Sun) transforms the original "incorrect" world into the one in which people now live.
Top 10 motifs with similar dispersal patterns
Phylogeny| Motif | Similarity | Motif summary |
|---|---|---|
| B32 | 100.00% | As a result of conflict with their husbands, women turn into fish. |
| J10 | 100.00% | A woman loses her way after being stung by a wasp (or bee, ant, snake). She slaps her stomach (either to kill the insect or to punish her unborn sons, because of whom she went to pick a flower and was stung; see motif J11). The offended sons fall silent, ceasing to show the way. See motif J9. |
| J11 | 99.99% | The son in his mother's womb asks her to pick flowers or fruit for him (usually when a woman picks flowers, she is bitten by an insect). See motif J9. |
| C37 | 99.95% | The sloth causes a global catastrophe or saves people from it. |
| K27H | 99.95% | The hero must carve an image of the character's head, which he never shows. It usually adorns a wooden bench. |
| I63 | 99.90% | The Milky Way is the tapir's trail; the tapir can be seen on the Milky Way. |
| I5A | 99.89% | The tapir is associated with the upper world (thunder, sky, moon). |
| K13D | 99.89% | A group of boys reaches the sky, the last one's leg is cut off or torn off. |
| K19F | 99.89% | A star or many stars descend from the sky to work in the fields. See motif K19B. |
| M139 | 99.89% | The fox caught the birds and put them in a bag. Another character secretly replaced them with thorns. |
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
7 recordedThis motif has been recorded in 7 traditions: Paez, Guambia, Pijao; Ilama culture, Aguaruna, Huambiza, Aimara, Amuesha, Ashaninca (Campa), Machiguenga, Moseten, Chimane
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 Š 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.
Š 2024â2026 Crecganford / Jonathan Fielder-White. All rights reserved.