Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
K126 — The wolf pays for the horse it ate.
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 predatory beast or demon eats the hero's horse, but in return is forced or voluntarily helps him.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| I13B | 98.92% | A small snake, the snake has horns on its head. |
| I94 | 98.89% | The Pleiades are something holey. |
| I46A | 98.38% | The rainbow is associated with a woman, usually an elderly one. |
| B33 | 98.31% | There is a female character who embodies the wind or is considered the mother or mistress of the winds. |
| K77B1 | 98.21% | When they see predators, domestic animals consciously or accidentally behave in such a way that the predators flee in fear. |
| I87AA | 98.05% | 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). |
| I128 | 97.93% | The Big Dipper â a ladle, a scoop. |
| N33 | 97.90% | hero drives the enemy into the ground, or he and the enemy alternately drive each other into the ground (ankle-deep, waist-deep, etc.). |
| M99A | 97.89% | The character is going to build a house (tower, etc.) from the bones or feathers of birds. |
| L72D | 97.88% | 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. |
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
30 recordedThis motif has been recorded in 30 traditions: Western Sahara and Mauritania Arabs; Berbers of Mauritania (Zenaga), Basques, Poles, Lithuanians, Latvians, Setu, Karelians, Norwegians, Western Ukrainians, Tajik, Karachays, Balkar, Ossetians, Kumyk, Terekemen, Georgians, Kazakh, Kirghiz, Hui (Dungan) of Xinjiang, Gansu, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, Qinghai, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan (Dungan texts from Southern and Eastern China are clustered with the Chinese ones), Bashkirs, Buryats: Western (cis Baikal), Tuvinians of Tuva, Tuvans, Southern Altai: Altai proper (Altai-Kiji), Telengit, Altaians, Northern Altai: Chelkan, Kumanda, Tubalar, Altaians, Tungus (Evenki): Baikal region, Evenks, Tungus (Evenki) of China (Solon, Birar, Oroqen, Manegir), Evenks, Tungus (Evenki): Russian Far East, Evenks, Kordofan, Eastern Ukrainians, Northern Ukrainians, Buryats: Eastern (trans Baikal), i.e. Khori, Russian Federation
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