Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
B49B — Cow teats.
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
OverviewIn the past, cows had more teats on their udders than they do now.
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.
B49 has 2 other sub-motifs
RelatedB49. Animals of a certain species (in Toraja â humans) hear poorly or misunderstand instructions or questions about their future, or get confused when making requests to deities. This is how they acquire their current characteristics and habits.
B49a. Powerful animals could have many cubs, but now they give birth to only one every few years.
B49b. In the past, cows had more teats on their udders than they do now.
Top 10 motifs with similar dispersal patterns
Phylogeny| Motif | Similarity | Motif summary |
|---|---|---|
| A32M | 100.00% | The moon is called the "Gypsy sun". |
| A35B | 100.00% | The character tries to cover the moon with resin (so that it shines less brightly). |
| B123 | 100.00% | A fly lands on the chest of the crucified Jesus. His persecutors, who intended to drive a nail into his heart, do not do so, believing that the nail has already been driven in. |
| B124 | 100.00% | Ever since a piece of flesh was torn from a person's foot, a hollow has formed between the toe and the heel. |
| C32 | 100.00% | Demonic characters will make a ship out of nail clippings. |
| F101 | 100.00% | With the help of magic, a rival or the spouse's mother tries to prevent a woman from giving birth. |
| F57 | 100.00% | A girl or her father (rarely: mother) picks a plant (usually a flower) and as a result encounters a character with a non-human appearance and/or inhabiting the underworld. The girl becomes the character's wife. In some cases, the picked plant is the character's hair, but more often there is no direct association of this kind. |
| F87B | 100.00% | A snake crawls onto the clothes of a bathing girl, 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 plants. |
| H52A | 100.00% | Returning from the land of immortality, a person must not touch the ground. However, he dismounts from his horse to help an old man (old woman). Death, who has taken the form of an old man, immediately kills him. Rarely: at the last moment, the hero decides not to perform actions that are fatal for him. |
| I42G3 | 100.00% | In the forest person comes across a house that is made, completely or partly, of edible matter |
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
5 recordedThis motif has been recorded in 5 traditions: Soqotri, Slovenians, Slovenes, Estonians, Finns, Karelians
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