Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
K156A — Trials: girl or boy?
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
OverviewPeople suspect that the young man is a girl in disguise. Tests are proposed to determine this, but the girl manages to avoid exposure (for a long time).
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 |
|---|---|---|
| L19B3 | 99.79% | A creature with 12 heads is mentioned – either singly or at the end of a series of creatures with fewer heads. |
| L100 | 99.68% | A young man and woman fleeing from their pursuers take on the appearance of different but associatively related creatures or objects (a pond and a duck, a minaret and a muezzin, etc.). Usually, their pursuers do not recognise them. |
| N15 | 99.68% | fairy-tale text ends with a formula that says that the narrator ate food and/or drinks, but they did not get into his mouth. |
| K8C1 | 99.66% | A tiny man is first accidentally swallowed by a large herbivore, then carried off by a wolf that began to eat the carcass of this animal. |
| K161 | 99.64% | A character who has deprived a dragon (demon, thunder) of its freedom orders others not to unlock the dungeon (not to enter a certain room, not to give the chained creature anything to drink, etc.). The prohibition is violated, the chained creature is freed, which leads to disaster. Cf. motif K100f1. |
| M74AA | 99.61% | The character (several times) pretends to be his name (that he is going to visit), and eats up supplies himself. See M74A motif. |
| K100B | 99.55% | A person helps to bury a dead man (pays his remaining debt, honours a saint). The revived dead man (saint) helps him overcome difficulties. See motif K100A. |
| L120 | 99.54% | After overhearing a conversation between demonic characters who are planning to turn themselves into something edible, attractive, and safe, and to destroy anyone who touches them, the hero neutralises the demons. |
| M199K | 99.53% | A giant sends a man to fetch water, giving him a huge wineskin. The man cannot carry so much water, but he gets out of the situation with a trick (he pretends that he wants to bring the whole well at once; that he has already brought the water and drunk it all himself; etc.). |
| M199 | 99.49% | A man and a giant (devil, predator, robber) agree to test their strength by crushing a stone. The man squeezes a piece of cheese, an egg, etc., and the giant believes that he is facing a strong man. {ATU 1060 includes variants in which the character squeezes brains (guts, etc.) out of the ground, without specifying this in the definition; where we were able to verify this, we did not include such traditions}. |
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
28 recordedThis motif has been recorded in 28 traditions: 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.), Arabs of Sudan, Sudanese, Karen, Pa-O, Padaung, Kayah, Koreans, Portuguese, Portugal, Catalan, Sardinia, Corsica, Sardinians, Corsicans, 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, Romanians, Moldavians, Aromanians, Moldovans, Setu, Uzbek, Tajik, Persians, Lezgians, Archin, Kürin; Khinalug, Tabasaran, Aghul, Armenians, Gagauz, Mari (Cheremis), Mordvins, Nenets, Lima dep: Costa and adjacent Sierra (Spanish, Kechua, and Jacaru-speaking communities, mostly in Pachacamac, Cajatambo, Canta, Huarochirí; Spanish sources of XVI-XVII centuries), Italians: Central (Toscana, Umbria, Marche, Lazio), Russian Federation, Spain
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