Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
C36 — The Last Battle.
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 gods and their powerful adversaries clash in a decisive battle that changes the fate of the world. See Bray 2000, especially pp. 360-361.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| K94 | 99.04% | Those who eat a miraculous bird, fish, animal or fruit gain wealth and power. |
| L100D | 99.04% | A man or several men pursue the love of a beautiful woman. Having agreed in advance with her husband, she pretends to agree, arranging a date (with each) for a specific time. Before the first suitor's desires are satisfied, the second arrives. The woman hides the first, then the second, and so on. The husband enters and the couple mocks the admirers who find themselves in a humiliating position. |
| I13D | 98.99% | A person enters the dwelling of snakes, spends a long time there, is released or escapes. While in the dwelling of snakes, he usually licks a stone that relieves thirst and hunger. |
| K100 | 98.97% | A person learns about the dangers threatening another (and usually that by warning his friend/master, he will turn to stone). The person eliminates the dangers, despite the fact that his behaviour upsets the person he has saved. |
| M39A3 | 98.95% | fool kills a man, throws him into a pond, well, etc. A clever man throws a goat there. A fool searches for a corpse in the pond, asks if the victim had horns, etc. Everyone is obviously crazy, and the murder charge has been denied. {The Buryat and Yakut versions may be recent Russian borrowings. The ATU 1581B definition also includes an episode where a human corpse was replaced with a goat carcass, but most of the texts that have been verified do not contain this motive}. |
| K24C | 98.93% | A young man comes to an old man (less often â to an old woman), who teaches him how to get a magical wife by hiding her bird clothes. Usually, the young man gives away the clothes for the first time and lives with the old man until the girls fly back. |
| K135 | 98.87% | By accidentally defeating powerful opponents, a physically weak and timid person gains honour. |
| M157A4 | 98.86% | The character proves the absurdity of another's statements by claiming that he (or someone else) fished on a mountain, extinguished a fire with straw, sowed wheat in the sea, watched flying fish, etc. (or he himself imitates such actions). The absurdity of the statements stems from the incorrectly chosen locus or means for performing certain actions. |
| M75B1 | 98.84% | A person (usually of high status) learns that a poor boy who is born will inherit his property or become king. He tries to stop it, but what he predicted comes true. |
| K75A3 | 98.82% | Appearing incognito to an authoritative character, the hero works for him as a groom. |
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
9 recordedThis motif has been recorded in 9 traditions: Indian literary tradition (Vedic, Brahman, Purana, Indian Buddhism, Hinduism, Ramayana, Mahabharata, Panchtantra, Jatakas); iconography of Hindu temples, Ireland, Romanians, Moldavians, Aromanians, Moldovans, Ancient Greece, Danes, Danish, Scandinavians: early written sources ("Edda"; Saxo Grammaticus etc.); Gothland picture stones; Ancient Germans (Late Bronze Age in Scandinavia), Iranian literary tradition (including Avesta, Pahlevi scripts, Sah-nameh, Marzban-nameh); Zoroastrians of Iran, Indian Parsees, Zoroastrianism, Ossetians, Armenians
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.