Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
K103B — The spinning cow.
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
OverviewA cow (goat) miraculously spins or weaves: it chews tow, turning it into thread, orders the yarn to be wound onto its horns, put into its ear, etc.
Berezkin category: Adventures: Acts of heroes
This is of motif type Adventures and tricks and is part of group 10, Adventures.
K10 has 9 other sub-motifs
RelatedK10. A monstrous bird (bat) attacks people, heroes engage in battle with it. See motifs K10A â K10G.
K10a. Heroes kill a dangerous bird; during or before the battle, they hide in a shelter (hut, cage, vessel, sack, well) or cover themselves with an object that protects the body.
K10b. A huge bird carries away to its nest a cage, bag or other container in which people are located. See motif 10A.
K10c. The hero (twins) is weighed down with the blood-filled intestines of an animal. A bird pierces them with its claw, blood flows, the bird thinks its prey is dead, and brings the man to its nest. He kills the adult bird and either kills or transforms the chicks. Cf. motif M91A.
K10d. A flying monster carries the hero away to a distant island. The hero kills the monster and uses a boat, bridge or rope made from part of the monster's body to return.
K10e. In the bird's habitat, the hero finds the people it has kidnapped and helps them return home.
K10f. The character turns the children of a flying monster into ordinary eagles or owls.
K10g. Finding himself in the nest of a giant bird on a tree or rock, a man descends to the ground with the help of an adult bird (attaching its feathers or wings to himself), and more often - a chick (grabbing its legs, sitting on the chick, attaching its feathers or wings).
K10h. A bird carries a woman or boy to its nest, feeds them, but does not let them go. The captive runs away.
K10i. The tree opens its trunk and hides the hero fleeing from a man-eating bird. The monster that flies in after him is held tightly by the tree, which squeezes its trunk again.
Top 10 motifs with similar dispersal patterns
Phylogeny| Motif | Similarity | Motif summary |
|---|---|---|
| M135B | 99.84% | The wolf (rarely a bear, jackal, or fox) approaches various domestic animals in order to eat them, but, agreeing to fulfil their request, remains hungry and usually beaten, and in conclusion blames himself ("Am I a mullah to read?" etc.). In the Persian version, the fox tells him this. |
| M135A | 99.83% | A wolf (or, less commonly, another predator) approaches various (more than one type of) domestic animals (animals and humans) in order to eat them, but, agreeing to fulfil the request, remains hungry and is usually beaten. |
| K160A | 99.71% | A woman living in the house of a supernatural character hides a man who has come to her and asks the character questions, the answers to which the man must find out. |
| C3 | 99.51% | The snake (eel, frog) saved the ship (or the whole world) by plugging the hole from which water was pouring with its body. |
| M114B1 | 99.50% | When answering the question of what is the sweetest (fattest, fastest, etc.), a clever person names abstract concepts and entities (while a foolish person names specific objects or creatures). |
| L94B1 | 99.49% | A man receives a box (bag, horn, etc.) as a gift, which he must open only at home. Driven by curiosity, he opens it on the way, and everything that should make him wealthy (houses, livestock, etc.) spills out. The demon who appears agrees to return everything, but sets a condition, the severity of which the man does not immediately understand. |
| C30C | 99.33% | A man promises to drink the sea (to count how many drops of water there are in the sea), but asks his opponent to first separate the sea water from the water of the rivers flowing into the sea. |
| K27G | 99.25% | The character is ordered to bathe in (hot) milk, in boiling water, to jump into the fire; he remains unharmed, while his opponent usually perishes. |
| K56A9 | 99.19% | When a small animal (usually a mouse) rings a bell, beats a drum, etc., a blind or distant antagonist believes that these sounds are made by the hero (heroine). Thanks to this, the hero (heroine) is saved. |
| L42G1 | 99.19% | Father (stepfather) takes children into the forest and slips away unnoticed. To make the children think he is nearby chopping wood, father hangs a board, pumpkin, etc. on a tree, which bangs against the trunk in the wind. |
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
26 recordedThis motif has been recorded in 26 traditions: Meo (Hmong) of Thailand, Laos and Northern Vietnam, Spain, Spaniards, Portuguese, Portugal, Sicily, Sicilians, France, Bulgarians, Balkarians, Serbs, Monte Negro, Balkarians, Slovenians, Slovenes, Lithuanians, Western Ukrainians, Byelarusians, Belarusians, Uzbek, Tajik, Persians, Cherkassians, Adyghe, Kabardin, Karachays, Balkar, Kara Kalpak, Kazakh, Turkmen, Central Tibetans (Yu Tsang, incl. Sikkim Tibetans, Tichurong of NW Nepal), Eastern Ukrainians, Northern Ukrainians, Italians: Central (Toscana, Umbria, Marche, Lazio), Terek Cossacks, Transylvanian Saksons, 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 Š 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.
Š 2024â2026 Crecganford / Jonathan Fielder-White. All rights reserved.