Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
K169 — Pregnant doe.
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 hunter spares the hunted animal, noticing that it is a pregnant female and remembering his own pregnant wife.
Berezkin category: Adventures: Acts of heroes
This is of motif type Adventures and tricks and is part of group 10, Adventures.
K16 has 1 other sub-motifs
RelatedK16. Taking the form of a bird, bat, insect, small animal, or fish, the man enters the young woman's home (her father's house).
K16a. In an effort to show that he is a good hunter, a man regularly walks in front of a girl, pretending to carry prey. Once he slips, and the imaginary prey turns out to be a scarecrow stuffed with ashes or a bundle of termites.
Top 10 motifs with similar dispersal patterns
Phylogeny| Motif | Similarity | Motif summary |
|---|---|---|
| B46A | 99.01% | One of the stars of the Pleiades was separated from the others (usually stolen by the stars of the Big Dipper and identified with Alcor). |
| K27Z4B | 98.98% | The husband leaves, meets a swindler and loses everything he has to him. The wife comes disguised as a man, punishes the swindler and rescues her husband. |
| M130 | 98.88% | The fox and the bird hide from the hunter in the same burrow or hollow. The bird pretends to be dead and as a result is saved â either alone or together with the fox. Cf. motif M130A. |
| N30 | 98.80% | formula that describes the confusion of feelings: when a character looks in one direction, he cries, and when he laughs or smiles in the other direction. |
| M198A1 | 98.61% | Three characters sequentially and without apparent reason determine the characteristics of an object or person they have not seen. |
| M39A6B | 98.47% | The ruler, to whom the master builder went to work, is going to kill or maim him. The master asks to send a person to his house asking him to bring a forgotten instrument or something else. The daughter-in-law understands the true meaning of the request, captivates the messenger and saves her father-in-law. |
| I87A | 98.42% | A character of gigantic size turns out to be small in comparison with a character of even greater size, or the same character turns out to be small in some episodes and gigantic in others. |
| F9F1 | 98.37% | Inside the woman there is a snake (snakes, scorpions, just poison) that comes out of her mouth. {Motifs F9f1 and K100C are almost identical, but the first can be included in the cosmological-etiological category and is associated with the idea of a dangerous woman, while the second belongs to the adventure category}. |
| K40 | 98.29% | Two (rarely more) characters consider themselves doomed to death, but the one whose death will come later rejoices, while the one whose death will come earlier grieves. Cf. motif N30. |
| C29 | 98.17% | People (God) learn a secret by overhearing (spying on) a character talking to himself or his relatives (or performing actions that should be remembered). The knowledge gained is related to cosmogony or the acquisition of cultural values. |
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
6 recordedThis motif has been recorded in 6 traditions: Nogai, Tats, Kazakh, 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), Kazan (Middle Volga) Tatars, Chuvash
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