Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
B44C — To be warm and light.
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 characters argue about whether there should be darkness or light, cold or warmth on earth. See motif B44.
Berezkin category: The Origins of the Characteristics of the environment
This is of motif type Cosmology and etiology and is part of group 7, Etiology of plants and animals and of their peculiar features, particular animals as protagonists of cosmological stories, metamorphoses, weather and calendar.
B44 has 7 other sub-motifs
RelatedB44. The first ancestors (usually human-animals) argue about how long the year, winter, night, or other periods of time should last, and whether cold and darkness should be replaced by warmth and light.
B44a. Characters argue about the number of discrete units of time that determine the duration of a certain period of time (most often winter or night). See motif B44.
B44b. The number and/or nature of the alternation of fingers, claws, feathers, hairs, and stripes on animal skins determines the number of time intervals in the calendar or daily cycle. See motif B44.
B44c. The characters argue about whether there should be darkness or light, cold or warmth on earth. See motif B44.
B44d. Night and day alternate because the slain beast was black and white, spotted.
B44e. First ancestors (usually birds or animals) argue with each other about the length of time periods in the calendar or daily cycle, or about the desirability of the dominance of cold and dark or warm and light times. See motif B44.
B44f. In the dispute over whether the world should be bright, the fox is on the side of light (almost always against the bear).
B44f1. In the dispute over whether the world should be light (warm), the bear is on the side of darkness (and cold); or the world is plunged into darkness because the bear hides the sun in his house.
Top 10 motifs with similar dispersal patterns
Phylogeny| Motif | Similarity | Motif summary |
|---|---|---|
| B44E | 98.93% | First ancestors (usually birds or animals) argue with each other about the length of time periods in the calendar or daily cycle, or about the desirability of the dominance of cold and dark or warm and light times. See motif B44. |
| B44A | 98.27% | Characters argue about the number of discrete units of time that determine the duration of a certain period of time (most often winter or night). See motif B44. |
| H19 | 98.14% | The raven hides game animals in a pen or cave or scares them away from hunters. See motif H18. |
| L67 | 97.75% | Having dug an underground passage to a lying monstrous hoofed animal, a small animal gnaws the wool from the place on the skin where the heart beats; the hero thrusts a spear or arrow into this place. See motif L66. |
| L33 | 97.63% | The stone rolls after the character, trying to crush him. |
| J61 | 97.41% | The character has the ability to move or hover in the air like a feather or a fluff. |
| K43A | 96.96% | People leave a boy, a girl, a sister and brother, a young woman or young spouses alone and depart. Someone sympathises with those who have been abandoned and secretly hides fire for them. |
| F68 | 96.94% | A woman pretends to be dead or actually dies. Her (former) lover comes to her grave. She goes with him, trying to avoid exposure, puts on men's clothes, but is eventually recognised. |
| M29C | 96.94% | See the motives in square brackets. |
| L66 | 96.83% | To help the hero, a small animal digs an underground passage beneath the lying monster, and the hero strikes it from below. |
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
22 recordedThis motif has been recorded in 22 traditions: Nganasans, Central Yakuts (Sakha), Chipewyan, Hare (K'ahsho Got'ine), Tutchone, Inland Tlingit, Tahltan, Koyukon, Gwich'in (Kuchin, Loucheux), Bering Strait Inupiat (incl. King Island), North Alaskan Inupiat, Copper, Netsilik, Caribou, Iglulik, Polar Inuit, West Greenland, Labrador Inuit (Koksoagmiut), Tlingit, Sauk (Sak, Mesquakie), Fox, Kickapoo, Miami, Illini, Ashaninca (Campa)
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.