Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
E9A — The magical wife - the fox.
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
OverviewBefore meeting the hero, his beloved (wife, helper) has the image of a fox.
Berezkin category: The origins of people and culture
This is of motif type Cosmology and etiology and is part of group 5, Origin of human beings, ethnic groups, etiology of human anatomy, strange body configuration, ways of behavior, marriages before the establishment of the present norms.
E9 has 21 other sub-motifs
RelatedE9. The character notices that someone is running the house in his absence and catches the person doing so by surprise.
E9a. Before meeting the hero, his beloved (wife, helper) has the image of a fox.
E9aa. A man searches for a missing woman, who is a fox by nature, and comes to the burrow where she has hidden. Various bird or animal women come out of the burrow and offer themselves in place of the fox. Then they let him inside.
E9b. Before meeting the hero, his beloved (wife, helper) has the image of an elephant (elephant tusk).
E9c. Before meeting the hero, his beloved (wife, helper) has the image of a large hoofed mammal (buffalo, antelope, moose, etc.).
E9d. Before meeting the hero, his beloved (wife, helper) has the image of a dog or puppy (wolf cub).
E9e. An animal or object received by a young man from supernatural beings as a reward for his kindness, upon the young man's return home (to earth), turns into a girl.
E9f. Before meeting the hero, his beloved (wife, helper) has the image of a parrot.
E9g. Before meeting the hero, his beloved (wife, helper) has the image of a vulture.
E9h. Before meeting the hero, his beloved (wife, helper) has the image of a dove.
E9i1. Before meeting the hero, his beloved (wife, helper) takes the form of a swan.
E9i2. Before meeting the hero, his beloved (wife, helper, adopted daughter) takes the form of a duck.
E9i3. Before meeting the hero, his beloved (wife, helper) has the image of a goose.
E9i4. Before meeting the hero, his beloved (wife, helper) takes the form of a crane.
e9i5. Before meeting the hero, his wife takes the form of a snail.
E9j. Before meeting the hero, his beloved (wife) has the image of a monkey, or the man hides the woman and pretends that the mistress is a monkey.
e9j1. Humans are considered descendants of monkeys.
E9k. The husband or wife is the embodiment of honey or a human bee.
E9l. Before meeting the hero, his beloved (wife) has the image of a mouse (rarely: a rat).
E9m. A man marries a bear (white or grizzly) that takes the form of a woman, or a woman who takes the form of a bear.
E9n. A man marries a female seal, seal or dolphin that has taken the form of a woman and lives with her among people.
E9o. A man marries a woman who has the appearance of a frog or toad.
Top 10 motifs with similar dispersal patterns
Phylogeny| Motif | Similarity | Motif summary |
|---|---|---|
| I46D | 97.01% | Rainbow â a hunting loop, a trap. |
| L102A | 95.26% | A seagull kidnaps a girl or woman, but she manages to return to people. |
| B44F | 94.28% | In the dispute over whether the world should be bright, the fox is on the side of light (almost always against the bear). |
| K51A | 93.91% | One woman comes to another in the absence of a man and kills her by pushing her rival's head into boiling liquid or pouring boiling water or hot fat into her ear. See motif K51. |
| B42O | 93.02% | A certain constellation is represented by a person who has been struck or wounded in the back. |
| M46D | 92.87% | A small child cries and calms down only after being given a valuable item hidden in the house to play with. After receiving an item, a child or an associated character takes it away. |
| K51 | 92.26% | The husband feigns death, disappears or leaves home for a long time. The wife learns that he has married another woman, finds and, as a rule, kills her husband and/or rival, who often turns out to be a creature of non-human nature. |
| L42A | 91.47% | The cannibal steals fresh corpses from graves. |
| F30A | 90.30% | A woman nurses a worm (caterpillar, reptile, fish) instead of a child; people kill the monster. |
| F91 | 89.51% | A man finds or breeds monstrous worms to eat his wife. |
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
13 recordedThis motif has been recorded in 13 traditions: Nenets, Nivkh, Chukchi, Aleuts, Koyukon, Bering Strait Inupiat (incl. King Island), North Alaskan Inupiat, Caribou, Polar Inuit, Baffin Land Inuit, West Greenland, Labrador Inuit (Koksoagmiut), Greenland
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