Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
I94 — Pleiades – holes.
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 Pleiades are something holey.
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.
Top 10 motifs with similar dispersal patterns
Phylogeny| Motif | Similarity | Motif summary |
|---|---|---|
| K126 | 98.89% | A predatory beast or demon eats the hero's horse, but in return is forced or voluntarily helps him. |
| I46A | 98.02% | The rainbow is associated with a woman, usually an elderly one. |
| I13B | 97.84% | A small snake, the snake has horns on its head. |
| L72D | 97.60% | Fleeing for his life, the character throws behind him a pair of scissors, which turn into some kind of obstacle in the path of his pursuer. |
| K112 | 97.37% | A man accuses the Sun and other characters responsible for the weather, wild animals, etc. of causing him to lose his property; he punishes his offenders. |
| M57D1 | 97.29% | bird consistently gives a person magical objects (or gives one, with which he receives the rest) or consistently fulfills his wishes. |
| N10 | 97.28% | A woman or (rarely) a man with a transparent body is described. This transparency is a sign of beauty. |
| K73A4 | 97.18% | Malicious women replace the newborn with a puppy (telling the father that his wife has given birth to a puppy). See motifs K73, K73A. |
| I128 | 96.95% | The Big Dipper – a ladle, a scoop. |
| I87AA | 96.75% | Describes a giant bull (rarely: horse): head in one field, body in another; a bathhouse on its tail, a lake on its back; people standing at its head and tail have to walk a long way to meet each other; etc. Usually the bull is killed and eaten (by people in Baltic-Finnish traditions and in Olonets antiquity; by birds in most southern traditions). |
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
39 recordedThis motif has been recorded in 39 traditions: Ireland, Poles, Hungarians, Lithuanians, Latvians, Livonians, Estonians, Finns, Vepsians, Western Sami, Byelarusians, Belarusians, Persians, Lezgians, Archin, Kürin; Khinalug, Dargin (Dargwa), incl. Müregin, Khürkilin, Kubachi, Laks, Avar, Andi, Akhvakh, Kumyk, Terekemen, Tats, Armenians, Talysh, Kazakh, Kazan (Middle Volga) Tatars, Bashkirs, Mari (Cheremis), Chuvash, Udmurt, Central Yakuts (Sakha), Oroch, Uilta (Orok), Reindeer Koryak, Maritime Koryak (Alyutor), Chukchi, Western Ojibwa (Chippewa), Eastern Ojibwa (Missisauga, Timagami and other groups in eastern Ontario), Northern Ojibwa (=Severn Ojibwa, Sandy Lake Cree), Plains Ojibwa, Italy, Japan, Russian Federation
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 © 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.
© 2024–2026 Crecganford / Jonathan Fielder-White. All rights reserved.