Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
L10A — A demon approaches a hunter's campfire.
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 demonic character approaches a man's campfire. The man leaves a log in his place and hides. The character throws himself on the log, mistaking it for a sleeping man; usually, the hunter kills or wounds the demon.
Berezkin category: Adventures: Monsters and evil spirits
This is of motif type Adventures and tricks and is part of group 10, Adventures.
L10 has 1 other sub-motifs
RelatedL10. The character has a sharp (biting) tail or a protrusion on its back. See motif L9, cf. motif L9C.
L10a. A demonic character approaches a man's campfire. The man leaves a log in his place and hides. The character throws himself on the log, mistaking it for a sleeping man; usually, the hunter kills or wounds the demon.
Top 10 motifs with similar dispersal patterns
Phylogeny| Motif | Similarity | Motif summary |
|---|---|---|
| L81B | 99.86% | The hero's rivals abandon him, cutting off his legs (usually leaving a sword at the entrance to his tent, and when the hero rushes out, the blade wounds him). |
| M120C | 99.76% | Two animals agree to raise children together. One of them eats the other's children, continuing to pretend that the children are shared and that it does not matter which ones are missing. |
| I87AC | 99.42% | Something huge gets into a person's eye, which he mistakes for a speck of dust. Usually, a bird carries away an animal or fish and drops a bone into the man's eye. It is difficult to find and remove (to do this, they get into a boat and float it inside the eye, throw a net into the eye, pull it out with oxen, etc.). |
| N20 | 99.35% | fairy tale text ends with a formula that says that the characters have achieved their desires, goals and/or happiness, or that God has fulfilled their wishes. |
| I3A | 99.34% | During a thunderstorm, the character strikes with a whip – these are flashes of lightning. |
| I87 | 99.21% | The characters use an object belonging to the world of giants (a skull, an animal shoulder blade, a mitten) as a shelter. Cf. I87C: animals use an object belonging to the world of humans (a skull, a mitten, a sieve, etc.) as a shelter. |
| B73A | 99.19% | A girl (a young man, a girl with her brother; two little brothers) searches for a lost horse, cow, sheep and, as a result (alone or with her brother; both brothers), turns into a bird (usually a cuckoo) with a characteristic call. |
| K80C3 | 99.19% | Before his death, a man asks his murderer to tell his pregnant wife to give their newborn a certain name. Upon hearing the unusual name of the child, a powerful figure begins to investigate the case, and the murderer confesses to his crime. (All texts containing motifs K80c3 and K80c4 also contain the more general motif K80c) |
| M153B | 99.14% | The wolf is killed or maimed after agreeing to a domestic animal's offer to ride it. |
| M114A | 99.09% | The character is offered to sew clothes or shoes from stone or iron, or to remove the skin from the stone. |
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
32 recordedThis motif has been recorded in 32 traditions: Hadza, Slovenians, Slovenes, Western Ukrainians, Tajik, Cherkassians, Adyghe, Kabardin, Abkhaz, Abkhazians, Karachays, Balkar, Ossetians, Ingush, Dargin (Dargwa), incl. Müregin, Khürkilin, Kubachi, Avar, Andi, Akhvakh, Kumyk, Terekemen, Nogai, Mingrelians (Megrelians), Laz, Georgians, Anatolia Turks, Kazakh, Kirghiz, Bashkirs, Mari (Cheremis), Udmurt, Komi (Zyrians and Permyaks), Mongols (Khalkha), Tuvinians of Tuva, Tuvans, Khakas, Southern Altai: Altai proper (Altai-Kiji), Telengit, Altaians, Northern Altai: Chelkan, Kumanda, Tubalar, Altaians, Rikbaktsa, Chechens, Eastern Ukrainians, Northern Ukrainians, Russian Federation
If you wish to get access to data for projects and research, then please contact us, we do our best to help
How to cite: Fielder-White, J. (2026). The Folklore Database. https://folkloredatabase.com
0009-0006-1672-4451
Where applicable, users should also cite the relevant original sources, catalogues, and classification systems, including Berezkin, ATU, Thompson, and other cited authorities, alongside the page accessed and the last time accessed.
Editorial annotations and database enhancements © Jonathan Fielder-White licensed under CC BY 4.0. Berezkin-derived narrative and metadata licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. Full rights information can be found here.
All rights are reserved in the database structure, selection, arrangement, metadata, classifications, software, interface design, and original editorial content.
Important: The Folklore Database expressly reserves all rights in relation to text and data mining, automated extraction, scraping, machine learning, dataset creation, and the training, development, validation, or improvement of artificial intelligence technologies or systems. No part of this website or database may be scraped, copied, reproduced, harvested, downloaded in bulk, or otherwise used for AI training or commercial data extraction without prior written permission.
Designed and Developed by Jon Fielder-White.
© 2024–2026 Crecganford / Jonathan Fielder-White. All rights reserved.