Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
C3 — The snake plugged the hole in the ark, A1853.1, (ATU 825).
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 snake (eel, frog) saved the ship (or the whole world) by plugging the hole from which water was pouring with its body.
Berezkin category: Disasters
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.
Top 10 motifs with similar dispersal patterns
Phylogeny| Motif | Similarity | Motif summary |
|---|---|---|
| M135A | 99.79% | A wolf (or, less commonly, another predator) approaches various (more than one type of) domestic animals (animals and humans) in order to eat them, but, agreeing to fulfil the request, remains hungry and is usually beaten. |
| L94B1 | 99.74% | A man receives a box (bag, horn, etc.) as a gift, which he must open only at home. Driven by curiosity, he opens it on the way, and everything that should make him wealthy (houses, livestock, etc.) spills out. The demon who appears agrees to return everything, but sets a condition, the severity of which the man does not immediately understand. |
| B33D | 99.73% | An elderly woman embodies winter, is associated with snow, and/or at the border between winter and spring (autumn) there are several very cold days associated with a certain old woman. |
| K27X1 | 99.72% | Having received a difficult task (usually: to bring an object or creature that has no specific characteristics, such as "something, I don't know what," "a strange wonder," etc.), the hero meets an invisible man who serves others; he is kind to him, and the man becomes his assistant. (This motif is certainly present in some texts of the ATU 465A plot, but it is not specifically highlighted in the definition). (Cf. motif K131B). |
| M114B1 | 99.68% | When answering the question of what is the sweetest (fattest, fastest, etc.), a clever person names abstract concepts and entities (while a foolish person names specific objects or creatures). |
| K64A | 99.61% | A man blinds a sleeping or immobile giant-cannibal and escapes from him. |
| M153 | 99.52% | A hoofed animal asks a predator to examine its hoof under various pretexts, and then kills or maims it with a kick. |
| K97 | 99.52% | A man prepares to kill a large bird, but does not kill it. When the bird later carries him, it pretends to leave him on a rock or throw him down. In doing so, it makes it clear how frightened it was. Either the bird first drops and catches the man, and later he makes her experience fear herself (the Volyn variant is slightly different). |
| K103B | 99.51% | A cow (goat) miraculously spins or weaves: it chews tow, turning it into thread, orders the yarn to be wound onto its horns, put into its ear, etc. |
| I136 | 99.48% | The rolling wheel (and the character riding on it) is a creature or weapon hostile to the hero (people) that he uses. |
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
43 recordedThis motif has been recorded in 43 traditions: Catalan, France, Bulgarians, Balkarians, Macedonians, Balkarians, Croatians, Croats; Italians of Dalmatia (if the motif is absent among other Italians), Romanians, Moldavians, Aromanians, Moldovans, Albanians, Balkarians, Lithuanians, Latvians, Setu, Finns, Western Ukrainians, Byelarusians, Belarusians, Abaza (Abazins), Abkhaz, Abkhazians, Karachays, Balkar, Nogai, Tats, Georgians, Armenians, Anatolia Turks, Kirghiz, Uyghur, Hui (Dungan) of Xinjiang, Gansu, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, Qinghai, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan (Dungan texts from Southern and Eastern China are clustered with the Chinese ones), Turkmen, Kazan (Middle Volga) Tatars, Bashkirs, Mari (Cheremis), Chuvash, Udmurt, Khakas, Siberian Tatars, Southern Altai: Altai proper (Altai-Kiji), Telengit, Altaians, Northern Altai: Chelkan, Kumanda, Tubalar, Altaians, Southern Selkups, Northern Selkups, Chechens, Eastern Ukrainians, Northern Ukrainians, Terek Cossacks, Don Cossaks, Bosnians, Russian Federation
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