Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
K155B — A girl's hair serves as a rope to climb up (ATU 310).
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 girl lets down her hair, which another character uses to climb up to her.
Berezkin category: Adventures: Acts of heroes
This is of motif type Adventures and tricks and is part of group 10, Adventures.
K15 has 3 other sub-motifs
RelatedK15. A woman swears that she has not been with anyone except (her husband and) a dirty beggar. Others do not know that her lover has taken on the appearance of a beggar.
K15a. The hero secretly replaces the weapon or magical tool of a powerful character with a worthless fake. Traditions in which the replaced weapon belongs to Grom are highlighted in bold.
K15b. By secretly switching the vessels containing living and dead (giving and taking away strength) water (rarely: oil, etc.), from which the combatants drink during a duel, the hero defeats his opponent.
K15c. The owner of stone (ice) clothing kills people. By hiding or replacing his clothing, the hero kills him.
Top 10 motifs with similar dispersal patterns
Phylogeny| Motif | Similarity | Motif summary |
|---|---|---|
| M29Z3 | 99.81% | The Gipsy (more often a female than a male) is an enemy overcome by the hero (heroine) or (rare) a weak failure |
| B33C | 99.78% | The month on the border between winter and spring (usually March) takes (rarely: buys, steals) a few days from its neighbour. |
| K130 | 99.72% | A woman (rarely: a man) asks who is the most beautiful of all and receives the answer that she (he) is. One day she (he) is told that someone else is more beautiful. |
| M118A | 99.64% | The chieftain (demon) brings robbers (other demons) to the courtyard of someone else's house, hiding them in empty jugs, barrels, etc. At night, they are supposed to attack the owners. A girl or young woman (less often, the owner of the house) learns of the danger and destroys the robbers (usually by pouring boiling water into each jug or barrel). |
| K165 | 99.61% | The young man has never experienced fear and wants to know what it is like. Robbers and evil spirits do not frighten him. |
| K127 | 99.61% | A girl has many brothers, who are turned into birds or animals (rarely: into plants; killed by witchcraft), then usually disenchanted (brought back to life; usually all of them, in the Georgian version – one). See motif K127A. |
| K120A3 | 99.60% | The character receives a nut containing valuables (beautiful clothes, jewellery, animal helpers, etc.), or (Germans, Latvians) hides the valuables in the nut himself to use them later. |
| M163A | 99.59% | A man sells a cat (rooster) to people who do not know about cats (or chickens). Having received a cat or rooster, people do not know what to feed them and fear that they will eat people. |
| K33E | 99.58% | Newborn children disappear (die) one after another, but are returned to their wife or husband grown up and in good health. |
| K57C | 99.56% | The prince puts a ring on the finger of a beautiful girl, not knowing that she is the very girl who works in his kitchen. The girl slips the ring into the prince's food, and he recognises it. |
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
24 recordedThis motif has been recorded in 24 traditions: Arabs of Levant (Syria, Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan); Bedouins of Sinai, Arabs of Egypt, Kabylia and other Berber of Northern and Central Algeria: Beni Snous, Beni Menacer (incl Zuav), Shaui, etc.), Spain, Spaniards, Portuguese, Portugal, Catalan, Maltese, Sicily, Sicilians, Sardinia, Corsica, Sardinians, Corsicans, France, Germans: North (Low- and Central German dialects): Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg, Pommern, Niedersachsen (Lower Saxony, incl East Frisia and Oldenburg), Nordrhein-Westfalen, Hessen, Rheinland-Pfalz, Thüringen, Saxony-Anhalt, Sachsen, Brandenburg, Rügen, Poles, Greeks (modern), Balkarians, Bulgarians, Balkarians, Macedonians, Balkarians, Latvians, Georgians, Anatolia Turks, Turkmen, Urums, Rumei, Galicians, Arabs of Kuwait, Bahrein, Qatar, Emirates, Oman,, Italians: Central (Toscana, Umbria, Marche, Lazio), Montenegro
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