Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
B28B — Taming of things.
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
OverviewThe 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.
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.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| A5A | 100.00% | The younger brother (usually the Sun) is made from the urine and swaddling clothes of his older brother (usually the Moon), who was kidnapped as a baby. See motif A5. |
| B107 | 100.00% | During the (world) fire, the oyster burns, which is why oyster shells are black. |
| B28D1 | 100.00% | 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. |
| B61 | 100.00% | The mole had to hold up the fallen sky and sun. Since then, its paw (hand) has remained dislocated backwards. |
| B64C | 100.00% | Fish, together with other earthly creatures, wage war on the inhabitants of the sky. Falling to the ground, they break their bones, which is why fish have many small bones in their bodies. See motif B64. |
| B91 | 100.00% | The snail had (the most keen-eyed) eyes. Another character borrows them and does not return them. |
| D1A | 100.00% | A girl marries a man whose mother is fire. |
| D4I | 100.00% | The beaver obtains fire for humans. See motif D4A. |
| D4Q | 100.00% | The fly rubs its legs together and produces fire. |
| E29 | 100.00% | Two characters (usually a coyote and a lizard) argue about whether human hands should be shaped like paws or end in fingers. |
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
16 recordedThis motif has been recorded in 16 traditions: Kiowa Apache, Lower Chehalis, Upper Chehalis, (Lower) Cowlitz, Tillamook, Takelma, Oregon Athabaskans: Lower Umpqua, Tututni (incl Joshua), Upper Coquille, Galice, Tolowa, Klamath, Modoc, Northern Paiute (=Paviotso), Northern Shoshone, Western Shoshone, Gosiute, Panamint, Ute, Southern Paiute, Chemehuevi, Navajo, Western Apache (White Mountain, San Carlos), Zuni
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.