Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
K77B3 — The goat with three bellies.
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
OverviewGoats encounter a wolf. One goat has one stomach, the second has two, the third has three, and so on. The goat with the most stomachs kills or scares away the wolf.
Berezkin category: Adventures: Acts of heroes
This is of motif type Adventures and tricks and is part of group 11, Tricks and competitions won thanks to deception, absurd and obscene behavior.
K77 has 5 other sub-motifs
RelatedK77a. Various objects and animals (rarely: only animals, but including those that are safe in reality) defeat a strong enemy (usually joining the hero who is going to take revenge on the strong enemy for an insult and hiding in the house where the enemy is supposed to appear), attacking him in turn; he dies or flees. Either someone or the attacked character himself places objects in his dwelling that then harm that character.
K77b. Having left their owners, domestic animals find an empty house or build a house. Robbers or predatory animals come there. Domestic animals attack or simply scare them away. Predators do not understand who they are facing and flee.
K77b1. When they see predators, domestic animals consciously or accidentally behave in such a way that the predators flee in fear.
K77b2. The goat (goat, ram, etc.) responds to the predator's questions in the sense that parts of its body are weapons and other objects designed to kill the questioner, or that the goat is actually armed.
K77b3. Goats encounter a wolf. One goat has one stomach, the second has two, the third has three, and so on. The goat with the most stomachs kills or scares away the wolf.
K77c. Various objects and/or animals hide in the house where a strong enemy is expected to appear. They take turns attacking or frightening him, and he either dies or flees. See motifs K77a and K77b.
Top 10 motifs with similar dispersal patterns
Phylogeny| Motif | Similarity | Motif summary |
|---|---|---|
| A32I | 100.00% | A shepherd (shepherd and girl, shepherd and his flock, dogs) can be seen on the lunar disc. |
| B108 | 100.00% | An anthropomorphic character that has fallen apart into pieces turns into snow. |
| K156 | 100.00% | A girl pretends to be a man. To determine who it really is, flowers are placed under the pillow or mattress. If a man is sleeping, they will remain fresh, but if a woman is sleeping, they will wilt by morning (or if a woman is sleeping, the milk left under the bed will sour). |
| L65A2 | 100.00% | A man shoots off (damages) the finger of a demonic creature, and then sees that his sister, lying in her cradle, has lost her finger. |
| L85D | 100.00% | The hero encounters a giant and a strongman (usually a ploughman) with one arm, one leg, or one eye. He was crippled by a character who turned out to be much bigger and stronger than him. |
| M199M | 100.00% | A man explains to a demon that the heavy objects lying by the roadside, such as a harrow or a millstone, are just things used by his grandmother or mother, such as a spindle or a comb. |
| M39A2E | 100.00% | Forgetting his name, a fool remembers it when he accidentally hears a word. |
| I87AB | 99.65% | Strong men or a crowd of people cannot move the body of a dead animal or the leg of a motionless person, but a child or a woman can do it easily. Cf. motif B83. |
| L15A2 | 99.65% | The human body is tempered (in a furnace, etc.) to make it invulnerable, but one place remains unprotected. |
| M141A | 99.65% | In a gathering of various animals, one of the participants refers to the weakest as insignificant to the others and bearing an ugly name. That one is eaten. This is repeated several times, each time the weakest of the remaining animals is eaten. |
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
5 recordedThis motif has been recorded in 5 traditions: Setu, Cherkassians, Adyghe, Kabardin, Ossetians, Ingush, Germans: South (Upper German dialects): Alsace (Elsass), Baden-Württemberg, Bawaria, Swabia, Switzerland, Bohemia, Sudeten, Austria
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