Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
B71 — Dancing flashes.
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 northern lights are people who play, dance, sit by the fire, fight or run with torches.
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.
Top 10 motifs with similar dispersal patterns
Phylogeny| Motif | Similarity | Motif summary |
|---|---|---|
| L101 | 96.87% | While running away, a person gradually undresses and throws items of clothing behind them. The pursuer wastes time picking them up or destroying them. |
| B57A | 88.85% | Seeing the reddened sky, the character understands that another's blood has been spilled, or that another has spilled red liquid. See motif B57. |
| E9I3 | 88.72% | Before meeting the hero, his beloved (wife, helper) has the image of a goose. |
| K67 | 88.28% | At night, one person intends to throw another person's shoes or clothes into the fire, but ends up burning his own shoes or clothes. Usually, the father-in-law throws his son-in-law's shoes into the fire at night in order to freeze him out, but the son-in-law has already switched shoes, so the father-in-law burns his own. |
| K54 | 87.49% | When encountering a giant or a snake, a person is afraid of it, but it becomes his friend and asks for help when he is fighting another giant or snake. The person fulfils the request. |
| M46E | 87.25% | They (promise to) give a child the Sun (and or the Moon) to play with |
| F65A | 87.03% | The spouse leaves the character at the burial site; the (pretend) dead person comes back to life and leaves to be with their lover. |
| K19E | 85.26% | Returning from the sky to earth, a woman or two sisters encounter a male wolverine who tries to capture them. Usually, the women who have descended first find themselves in a tree. Some animals cannot or will not help them descend to the ground. The wolverine descends to take the sisters as wives; they run away from him. See motif K19B. |
| B42S | 85.08% | The Big Dipper or Polar Star – a small animal (ermine, marten, forest marmot) or anthropomorphic character with animal features, struck by a spear or arrow. |
| K27N3C1 | 85.07% | The inhabitants of the polar bear village – relatives of his wife – set the hero difficult tasks and trials. |
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
42 recordedThis motif has been recorded in 42 traditions: Maori, Moriori (Chatam Islands), Scotland, Scots, Picts, Scotti, Scottish, France, Germans: North (Low- and Central German dialects): Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg, Pommern, Niedersachsen (Lower Saxony, incl East Frisia and Oldenburg), Nordrhein-Westfalen, Hessen, Rheinland-Pfalz, Thüringen, Saxony-Anhalt, Sachsen, Brandenburg, Rügen, Latvians, Estonians, Setu, Finns, Western Sami, Eastern Sami (including Skolts), Norwegians, Swedes, Udmurt, Nenets, Chukchi, Asiatic Eskimo (Sirenek, Naukan, Chaplino), Nunivak Island, Upper Tanana (Nebesna), Tanacross, Tutchone, Inland Tlingit, Bering Strait Inupiat (incl. King Island), North Alaskan Inupiat, Baffin Land Inuit, West Greenland, Labrador Inuit (Koksoagmiut), Eyak, Tlingit, Haida, Kwakiutl (Kwakwaka'wakw), Nootka (Nu-chah-nulth), Makah, Malecite, Passamaquoddy, Wawenock, Abenaki, Penobscot, Western Ojibwa (Chippewa), Naskapi, Montagnais, Menominee, Sauk (Sak, Mesquakie), Fox, Kickapoo, Mandan, Plains Cree, Lkungen (Straits; including Samish, Songish, Sooke, Lummi), Klallam, Greenland, Russian Federation
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