Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
J40B — Avenged prisoners
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
OverviewAfter the hero comes back after a long absence and finds his parents enslaved, he tells them to demonstrate openly a lack of respect to their masters and punishes those who were cruel with them
Berezkin category: Avenger heroes: The amerinday cycle
This is of motif type Adventures and tricks and is part of group 10, Adventures.
J40 has 2 other sub-motifs
RelatedJ40. The sky is inhabited by creatures that descend to kill people. Usually, the creature carries away a person or many people, or a human head. The hero (usually a close relative of the deceased) avenges the killer and/or returns the kidnapped person (persons; the carried-away body part).
J40A. Returning after a long absence, the hero finds his parents or other close relatives in humiliating slavery, orders them to demonstratively show disobedience, and punishes those who humiliated them.
J40b. After the hero comes back after a long absence and finds his parents enslaved, he tells them to demonstrate openly a lack of respect to their masters and punishes those who were cruel with them
Top 10 motifs with similar dispersal patterns
Phylogeny| Motif | Similarity | Motif summary |
|---|---|---|
| J45 | 99.41% | The character extends his leg (dafla: arm; upper tanana: tail) or neck as a bridge across a water barrier. Usually, those being pursued or walking ahead cross such a bridge to the other side, while the pursuer or those walking behind fall into the water because the character removes his bridge. See motif J44. |
| L97 | 98.99% | Seeing a character who is unable to move (nailed to the ground, his lower body rooted to the ground, petrified, completely absent), the hero himself manages to avoid a similar fate. |
| L1B1 | 98.15% | A woman comes into conflict with her brothers and turns into a dangerous demon. |
| K8C4 | 98.09% | A small animal (bird, mouse, porcupine, fox) or (rarely) a tiny human being allows itself to be swallowed by a large ungulate (elk, deer, bison, tapir) in order to rip open its belly (and eat it). |
| M84B | 97.77% | An animal, bird or fish that is killed and eaten comes to life after its bones are thrown into the water. See M84 motif. |
| F64 | 97.71% | The character is presented as another person in order to mate with a close relative in the descending or (less commonly) ascending line. |
| K8C5 | 97.58% | A zoomorphic character no larger than a fox allows itself to be swallowed by a bear and kills it by tearing it apart from the inside. |
| J61 | 97.54% | The character has the ability to move or hover in the air like a feather or a fluff. |
| L98 | 97.15% | The demon that carries off children and threatens heroes, people, etc., is the eagle owl; there is a race of owls that is hostile to humans. |
| M49A | 97.15% | hero needs to penetrate unnoticed into the locus of dangerous creatures; he meets an old woman (usually a shaman, a doctor) going there, puts on her skin, and penetrates into dangerous ones in her guise creatures. |
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
0 recordedThis motif has been recorded in 0 traditions:
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