Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
C22 — The Toad in Search of Thunder.
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
OverviewDuring a severe drought or global fire, birds and animals are sent to the thunder gods living at the edge of the world to bring rain. The last of those sent achieves the goal. The toad plays an important role in the action.
Berezkin category: Disasters
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 |
|---|---|---|
| K15C | 99.00% | The owner of stone (ice) clothing kills people. By hiding or replacing his clothing, the hero kills him. |
| F94 | 97.59% | A man ascends to the upper world, where he can choose a wife associated with either life or death. |
| I9A | 97.47% | Zenith and/or nadir are considered together with the four cardinal directions as one (or two) more main directions. |
| A40 | 97.30% | The Toad or Frog is the wife (or one of the wives) of the Sun or Moon. Traditions in which the frog jumps onto the face (chest, back) of the Moon and remains there are highlighted in italics; those in which the frog is visible on the lunar disc are marked with an asterisk; traditions in which the frog or toad is the wife of the Sun are marked with a hash (#). |
| B14 | 96.91% | In order to regulate the flow of the river in a certain way, the character creates rapids and waterfalls. |
| B1G | 96.48% | Four brothers change the world, freeing it from monsters, transforming its inhabitants and obtaining valuable resources (water, fire, cultivated plants, etc.). Usually one of the brothers is the leader, and the others help him. All four often have a common name. |
| F28D | 96.22% | By masturbating with an artificial penis, a woman conceives children. |
| A34 | 95.44% | The jackal, coyote or fox are associated with the moon (usually with the appearance of lunar spots). |
| H24E | 94.87% | Having brought the seeds of humanity into our world, the character drops or prematurely opens what he has brought. (Sometimes this explains the inequality of people and disorder in society). |
| J50B | 94.87% | The father (alone or with his brother) is only partially resurrected and is unable to live among people (he cannot be a warrior). The hero leaves him (in another world) or allows him to die completely. |
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
4 recordedThis motif has been recorded in 4 traditions: Viet, Muong, Oraon (Kurukh), Mayo, Yaqui, Sinaloa, Guaymi, Bocota, Dorasque; XVI century data on Western Panama
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.