Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
K137 — Sister brings women to revive her brother.
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 brother is killed, the sister, dressed in her brother's clothes and disguised as a young man, finds women who are able to revive the dead, puts her brother's clothes back on his body, and the women who have come revive him. Or the sister is killed, the brother lures women capable of reviving the dead, puts his clothes on his dead sister, the women think it is their husband, and revive the girl.
Berezkin category: Adventures: Acts of heroes
This is of motif type Adventures and tricks and is part of group 10, Adventures.
K13 has 3 other sub-motifs
RelatedK13a. The character's leg (rarely: both legs) is cut off, bitten off, torn off, or damaged. The character ascends to the sky: to the moon; becomes the moon; turns into a star or constellation; becomes the sun; blood flowing from the leg colours the sky.
K13b. A man crosses a body of water on the back of a caiman. The caiman bites off his leg. The cripple undergoes a metamorphosis, turning into a constellation or an animal.
K13c. The cannibal's daughter takes revenge on her husband for her mother's death and manages to cut off his leg. See motif K13A.
K13d. A group of boys reaches the sky, the last one's leg is cut off or torn off.
Top 10 motifs with similar dispersal patterns
Phylogeny| Motif | Similarity | Motif summary |
|---|---|---|
| K137A | 100.00% | The brother is killed. The sister, dressed in his clothes, finds a woman. The brother comes back to life, the sister puts on women's clothes again, and the woman believes that the girl's brother was the one who married her. |
| N21 | 99.93% | The warrior-hero was made of dough and then became alive (his name is “The Dough”) |
| M109A | 99.52% | One zoomorphic character advises another to sit on the ice for a long time – usually until food falls from the sky. The one who sits on the ice freezes to it. |
| N28G | 99.38% | In a list of things that do not exist in the world, a gall of horse or ass is mentioned |
| I20B | 99.01% | People in the upper world are different from those on earth and gird themselves below or above the waist. |
| K27L1 | 98.58% | Voluntarily subjecting himself to trials, the character allows himself to be frozen in ice and cannot free himself. |
| B115 | 98.57% | Conifers and some other trees and shrubs (small shrubs) became evergreen after the elixir of immortality was accidentally spilled on them. Cf. motif H6b. |
| N6 | 98.27% | horse tells the rider to whip it so hard that his blood splashes, his skin peels off, the meat is cut to the bone, etc. The rider follows these instructions. |
| L65B4 | 98.09% | The character pulls out his tooth to use it as a weapon or tool (often an axe). |
| M133 | 98.00% | Cumulative tale: a bird is injured by a thorny plant and asks for it to be punished, but everyone refuses because someone else has failed to do something; the last to be asked is the wind, which blows and causes all the characters to perform the necessary actions one after another. |
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
16 recordedThis motif has been recorded in 16 traditions: Western Ukrainians, Abkhaz, Abkhazians, Kara Kalpak, Turkmen, Bashkirs, Buryats: Western (cis Baikal), Daur (Daghur), Tuvinians of Tuva, Tuvans, Khakas, Southern Altai: Altai proper (Altai-Kiji), Telengit, Altaians, Northern Altai: Chelkan, Kumanda, Tubalar, Altaians, Central Yakuts (Sakha), Tlingit, Eastern Ukrainians, Northern Ukrainians, Buryats: Eastern (trans Baikal), i.e. Khori
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