Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
L135 — The Wanderer.
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 person leaves home and finds himself in unfamiliar places. His journey is marked by encounters with various strange creatures. In the end, he either returns home or leaves the earth for another world. (With an abundance of episodes, the story often either breaks off or does not contain the initial episodes explaining the reason for the hero's departure from home).
Berezkin category: Adventures: Monsters and evil spirits
This is of motif type Adventures and tricks and is part of group 10, Adventures.
Top 10 motifs with similar dispersal patterns
Phylogeny| Motif | Similarity | Motif summary |
|---|---|---|
| F46 | 98.92% | At the beginning of time, two or more men (human-animals) had only one woman. |
| H29 | 98.56% | A woman mates with an animal. The people of a hostile tribe originate from or derive their culture from the descendants of this union, from the relatives of the animal or from the children of the woman's brothers. |
| M70A | 98.54% | A character on whom an old woman defecates or whose face blows the winds pierces her from below with a sharp object. See M70 motif. |
| D8 | 96.36% | The first fire (or summer) is stolen from a large predator – a lion or leopard in Africa, a tiger in Asia, a bear in northern Asia and North America, and a jaguar in South America. |
| M70 | 95.01% | The oldest character poisons the youngest with his intestinal gases. |
| M75 | 94.37% | The character attracts and catches corpse eaters (usually birds) and as a result obtains valuables or returns something valuable (fire, woman, animals, etc.). |
| B36 | 94.24% | Birds, fish, and four-legged animals deliberately or accidentally smear themselves with colouring substances or divide parts of another's body among themselves, thereby acquiring their current appearance. |
| F95 | 93.60% | Two companions or brothers live together. One has a wife, whom he hides. The other suspects her existence, destroys her, or tries to get a wife for himself. |
| H37 | 93.34% | A magical item that makes hunting or fishing easy and reliable falls into the hands of a character who is unable to control it or abuses it. |
| L36 | 92.78% | At the moment when the husband climbs or descends from a tree, his wife (or her brother) kills or maims him or turns into a demon that pursues him. |
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
35 recordedThis motif has been recorded in 35 traditions: Melanesians of the islands of Massim District ( =Milke Bay Province) to the east of New Guinea: Dobu, Rossel, Fergusson, Goodenough, Murua (Woodlark), Trobrian Islands, d'Entrecasteau Islands, Ancient Greece, Dogrib, Slavey, Upper Tanana (Nebesna), Tanacross, Inland Tlingit, Upper Kuskokwim (Kolchan), Koyukon, Tanana, Gwich'in (Kuchin, Loucheux), Bering Strait Inupiat (incl. King Island), North Alaskan Inupiat, Copper, Netsilik, Caribou, Polar Inuit, Baffin Land Inuit, Tlingit, Blackfoot, Gros Ventre, Tillamook, Makiritare (Yecuana), Sanema, Siona, Secoya, Coreguaje, Aguaruna, Huambiza, Tacana, Bolivian Guarani: Chiriguano (including assimilated Chane Arawaks), Pauserna (=Guarasu), Guarayu, Tapiete, Chacobo, Rikbaktsa, Kayabi, Paresi, Caraja, Cayapo (incl. Kubenkranken, Pau d’Arco, Shikrin or Xikrin), Terena (Tereno) , Guarani of Paraguay and Brazil: Caygua, Mbia, Apapocuva, Nyandewa, Chiripa, Greenland
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