Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
F2A — Improper birth.
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 child deliberately leaves its mother's womb in an unusual way, making a hole in her body and often killing her. This is a sign of its malice and/or supernatural power.
Berezkin category: Gender and sex
F2 has 1 other sub-motifs
RelatedF2. The child is born from a tumour on the character's body, either placed there temporarily or emerging from blood that has flowed from a cut.
f2a. The child deliberately leaves its mother's womb in an unusual way, making a hole in her body and often killing her. This is a sign of its malice and/or supernatural power.
Top 10 motifs with similar dispersal patterns
Phylogeny| Motif | Similarity | Motif summary |
|---|---|---|
| A1 | 0.00% | Another sun â less powerful or less favourable to humans â existed before the appearance of the current one. |
| A10 | 0.00% | The sun gets its sparkling eyes (eye) from an animal. |
| A11A | 0.00% | The visible sun or moon are their eyes; if the eyes of the luminaries were not damaged, it would be much brighter and hotter. |
| A11B | 0.00% | The sun or moon has one eye (usually the second eye is knocked out or sucked out, but sometimes the reason is not explained; among the Munduruku, the sun of the rainy season has lost both eyes, while the sun of the dry season has retained both). See motif 11A. |
| A11C | 0.00% | The Sun and Moon kill a monster whose eyes shine differently. At first, the Moon takes the brighter eye, but then swaps with the Sun. |
| A12 | 0.00% | A creature or creatures regularly (sunrise and sunset, winter and summer, night and day, phases of the moon) or occasionally (eclipses, eschatological catastrophes) attack the luminaries or block their light. |
| A12A | 0.00% | During an eclipse or under other circumstances, predators attack the luminaries: wolves, bears, jaguars, pumas, dogs, foxes, raccoons. See motif A12. |
| A12B | 0.00% | During an eclipse or at sunset (marked *), the luminaries are swallowed by a toad or frog. |
| A12C | 0.00% | Eclipses of the sun, moon or their setting (marked*) are caused by a snake, lizard, dragon, fish or crocodile; these creatures attack the luminaries now or attacked them at the beginning of time. See motif A12. |
| A12D | 0.00% | Birds attack the sun or moon during an eclipse (covering them with their wings) or (*) cover the sun during sunrise or sunset. See motif A12. |
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
11 recordedThis motif has been recorded in 11 traditions: Buryats: Western (cis Baikal), Lenape (Delaware), Western Ojibwa (Chippewa), Eastern Ojibwa (Missisauga, Timagami and other groups in eastern Ontario), Northern Ojibwa (=Severn Ojibwa, Sandy Lake Cree), Menominee, Huron (incl Wyandot), Five Nations Iroquois (Seneca, Mohawk, Onondaga, Oneida, Cayuga), Tuscarora, Plains Ojibwa, Buryats: Eastern (trans Baikal), i.e. Khori
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