Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
B97 — The character rewards the bird.
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 character rewards (rarely punishes) a bird living by the water, determining its current appearance (crest, beak, feather colouring).
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.
B97 has 1 other sub-motifs
RelatedB97. The character rewards (rarely punishes) a bird living by the water, determining its current appearance (crest, beak, feather colouring).
B97a. A strip of light or dark feathers (rarely: wool) on the neck of a bird (animal) is its necklace (scarf).
Top 10 motifs with similar dispersal patterns
Phylogeny| Motif | Similarity | Motif summary |
|---|---|---|
| L1A | 98.95% | A young woman turns into a bear (in Asia, a tigress) and attacks her close relatives or husband. |
| K27Y | 98.00% | The hero is sent or, knowing the danger, goes himself to obtain various (at least two) materials for making a bow and arrows (shafts, feathers, bowstring, flint for arrowheads, paint for colouring arrows, resin and fibres for attaching the arrowhead or feather to the shaft, etc.). See motif K27. |
| B44F1 | 97.89% | 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. |
| M81B | 97.46% | The character is warned not to try to reach an arrow if it gets stuck in a tree. He breaks the ban and gets into trouble. |
| A38C | 96.47% | The Sun exchanges a cape made of animal or bird skins with a boy or girl, or spoils it. As a result, the boy or girl raises their status or takes revenge on the Sun. |
| D4N | 96.47% | A boy or (among the Kutené) a woman cries, demanding the absent elements - summer, fire, rain. See motif D4A (demand for summer). |
| L66 | 96.27% | To help the hero, a small animal digs an underground passage beneath the lying monster, and the hero strikes it from below. |
| I6A | 96.14% | The male and female of a huge bird carry different types of precipitation (for example, the eagle carries snow, and the eagle carries rain). Or (Buryats of Mongolia) the same bird carries different types of precipitation depending on whether it is angry or not. See motif i6. Traditions associated with Na-Dene languages are highlighted in italics in the list. |
| K27P | 96.09% | The antagonist sends the hero to places where he is attacked by dangerous creatures; the hero kills them and brings them to the antagonist. The creatures turn out to be relatives, pupils or helpers of the antagonist, whom he (or his close relatives) mourns or revives. See motif K27. |
| B7A | 95.94% | Someone possesses water or a drink. Another character swallows what is hidden, runs away and spits out what is hidden, making the water or drink available to everyone. |
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
27 recordedThis motif has been recorded in 27 traditions: Nganasans, Tungus (Evenki): Baikal region, Evenks, Tungus (Evenki) of China (Solon, Birar, Oroqen, Manegir), Evenks, Tungus (Evenki): Russian Far East, Evenks, Central Yupik, Hare (K'ahsho Got'ine), Upper Tanana (Nebesna), Tanacross, Kaska, Denaina, Gwich'in (Kuchin, Loucheux), Bering Strait Inupiat (incl. King Island), North Alaskan Inupiat, Bella Coola (Nuxalk), Western Ojibwa (Chippewa), Eastern Ojibwa (Missisauga, Timagami and other groups in eastern Ontario), Northern Ojibwa (=Severn Ojibwa, Sandy Lake Cree), Montagnais, Sauk (Sak, Mesquakie), Fox, Kickapoo, Blackfoot, Yuchi, Omaha, Ponca, Plains Ojibwa, Carrier, Chilkotin, Owens Valley Paiute, Northern Paiute (=Paviotso), Southern Paiute
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