Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
K123 — The old woman's curse.
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 boy, a young man, or, less commonly, a girl deliberately or accidentally offends an elderly woman (or a cripple). She utters words that cause him or her to want to do something dangerous (most often to find a marriage partner).
Berezkin category: Adventures: Acts of heroes
This is of motif type Adventures and tricks and is part of group 10, Adventures.
K12 has 2 other sub-motifs
RelatedK12. The hero returns the woman whom his enemy or rival tried to take away from him.
K12a. An unrecognised hero arrives at a place where his bride or wife is to be given to another man or turned into a servant. Contrary to expectations, he manages to draw a tight bow (raise a spear), with which he kills his rivals.
K12b. The hero enters a world beyond the human world and marries there. His wife allows him to visit his former world, but on certain conditions. The hero breaks these conditions, which leads to (irreparable) misfortune. Cf. motif F94 (the hero betrays his fairy wife in her world); K25a6 (the hero visits his world together with his fairy wife).
Top 10 motifs with similar dispersal patterns
Phylogeny| Motif | Similarity | Motif summary |
|---|---|---|
| K27Z3 | 99.40% | The character taught the cat (monkey, dog) to hold a candle (lamp) or to extinguish it on command. Seeing a mouse (rat), the cat rushes after it and as a result drops (does not extinguish) the candle. |
| K131 | 99.33% | Certain characters argue over the possession of magical objects, but the objects go to the hero. Usually, he suggests that the disputants race each other or asks them to let him try out the objects, after which he hides, taking the objects with him. |
| L100D | 99.27% | A man or several men pursue the love of a beautiful woman. Having agreed in advance with her husband, she pretends to agree, arranging a date (with each) for a specific time. Before the first suitor's desires are satisfied, the second arrives. The woman hides the first, then the second, and so on. The husband enters and the couple mocks the admirers who find themselves in a humiliating position. |
| K94 | 99.19% | Those who eat a miraculous bird, fish, animal or fruit gain wealth and power. |
| K32I | 99.17% | A girl finds the body of a young man who shows no signs of life and must sit next to him for a certain amount of time so that he comes back to life and takes her as his wife. Usually, she leaves at the last moment and an impostor becomes the wife of the revived man. |
| K27NN | 99.16% | Someone from the entourage of a powerful figure seeks to destroy the hero and persuades others to give him difficult tasks. |
| K14 | 99.14% | A person receives or buys simple advice, the meaning of which is initially unclear (travel with a companion, do not skip breakfast, etc.) and either follows it, achieving success, or violates it, getting into trouble. |
| K24B | 99.06% | A magical wife deceives her naive mother-in-law into giving her wonderful clothes or some other item that enables her to leave the human world. |
| M116A | 98.96% | A man drags his father, intending to leave him to die in a deserted place, give him to an almshouse, throw him into a precipice, etc. He stops on the way. The father says that he also stopped at this place when he was dragging his father. Or the boy asks to keep the sledge, the skin, etc., on which his father is dragging his grandfather (or takes half of the cloak with which his father covered the old man): it will come in handy when he drags his father himself. Or the old man is given a wooden (broken, etc.) plate to eat from, and the boy says that he will give his father the same one when he grows old. The man brings his father home (begins to take care of him). |
| I35C | 98.74% | One of the mythological characters who, using his craft skills, first makes (usually forges) tools and natural objects; he is the patron of craftsmen (usually blacksmiths). |
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
50 recordedThis motif has been recorded in 50 traditions: Saudi Arabia, Arabs of Levant (Syria, Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan); Bedouins of Sinai, Arabs of Iraq, Iraqi, Arabs of Egypt, Berbers of Morocco and adjacent parts of Algeria, Kabylia and other Berber of Northern and Central Algeria: Beni Snous, Beni Menacer (incl Zuav), Shaui, etc.), Algeria Arabs, Tunisia Arabs, Northern Munda of Kharwar branch: Birhor, Ho, Mundari, Kol, Asur (including Agaria, Kol, Birjhia), Bhumij, Oraon (Kurukh), Kannada, Lingayat, Halakki, Tamil, Muthuvan, Marvar, Tamils, England, British, Bretons, Maltese, Sicily, Sicilians, Sardinia, Corsica, Sardinians, Corsicans, France, Greeks (modern), Balkarians, Bulgarians, Balkarians, Romanians, Moldavians, Aromanians, Moldovans, Karelians, Western Ukrainians, Uzbek, Tajik, Persians, Abkhaz, Abkhazians, Ossetians, Ingush, Avar, Andi, Akhvakh, Nogai, Tats, Mingrelians (Megrelians), Laz, Georgians, Armenians, Gagauz, Anatolia Turks, Kara Kalpak, Kazakh, Uyghur, Kazan (Middle Volga) Tatars, Tuvinians of Tuva, Tuvans, Central Tibetans (Yu Tsang, incl. Sikkim Tibetans, Tichurong of NW Nepal), Arabs (literary tradition; incl. One Thousand and One Nights), Urums, Rumei, Galicians, Kordofan, Eastern Ukrainians, Northern Ukrainians, Italians: Central (Toscana, Umbria, Marche, Lazio), Russian Federation
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