Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
I100C — The Pleiades and the Cuckoo.
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
OverviewGod turned the husband into a cuckoo, and the wife and children into the Pleiades.
Berezkin category: Supernatural objects, objects and creatures
This is of motif type Cosmology and etiology and is part of group 2, Moon spots, stars, constellations.
I10 has 1 other sub-motifs
RelatedI10a. Individual layers or categories of the sky or clouds differ in colour.
I10b. Individual layers or categories of earth differ in colour (and other characteristics).
Top 10 motifs with similar dispersal patterns
Phylogeny| Motif | Similarity | Motif summary |
|---|---|---|
| K22AA | 98.20% | There is a country whose inhabitants are migratory birds that live with us in the summer and turn into people when they fly away to their own country. |
| K56AB | 96.70% | A girl marries a monster. On their wedding night, he orders her to take off her shirt, and she orders him to take off his skin. The girl survives, and the monster becomes handsome – usually because she has more shirts (or skins worn in advance) than he does. |
| M90B | 96.61% | The character was wrong when he claimed that the sun would never rise in the west or go down after midnight. |
| L19B1 | 96.06% | Describes or depicts a monster (usually a reptile) with seven heads (except in cases where snakes with an increasing number of heads are described sequentially and "seven" is not the largest number). |
| L4A | 95.55% | To test the loyalty of the heroine (hero), the demon demands that she eat food that humans should not eat. Usually, when the heroine reports that the food has been eaten, the demon asks where the food is, and the food answers him. |
| M197 | 95.48% | Seriously or demonstrating the absurdity of such actions, the character tries to fry or cook something on a fire (source of light) located far from the object that needs to be heated. |
| M170A | 95.39% | The predator accuses the herbivore of sin and eats it. |
| K80A1 | 95.08% | A bird (usually arising from the remains of the murdered person or embodying their soul) tells of the crime committed or takes revenge on the murderer itself. |
| M154A | 94.67% | One of the domestic animals (usually a donkey) persuades another to pretend to be sick. After that, the advisor has to work for both of them. Then he tells the pretend sick animal that the owner is going to slaughter him, and the animal rushes to work. |
| L94E | 94.57% | A supernatural character who helps the hero or heroine under certain conditions – the white wolf. |
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
3 recordedThis motif has been recorded in 3 traditions: Germans: North (Low- and Central German dialects): Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg, Pommern, Niedersachsen (Lower Saxony, incl East Frisia and Oldenburg), Nordrhein-Westfalen, Hessen, Rheinland-Pfalz, Thüringen, Saxony-Anhalt, Sachsen, Brandenburg, Rügen, Czech, Czechs, Danes, Danish
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