Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
L59A — Stuck to the whale.
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 who mocked the hero or his son were dragged into the sea and turned into sea animals or parts of its body or parasites on its skin.
Berezkin category: Adventures: Monsters and evil spirits
This is of motif type Cosmology and etiology and is part of group 7, Etiology of plants and animals and of their peculiar features, particular animals as protagonists of cosmological stories, metamorphoses, weather and calendar.
L59 has 1 other sub-motifs
RelatedL59. A woman eats the best food or eats fruit before it is ripe; as punishment, she undergoes metamorphosis.
L59a. People who mocked the hero or his son were dragged into the sea and turned into sea animals or parts of its body or parasites on its skin.
Top 10 motifs with similar dispersal patterns
Phylogeny| Motif | Similarity | Motif summary |
|---|---|---|
| K32C | 96.90% | The deceiver takes the place of the real wife, and the real wife becomes an owl. See motif K32. |
| M123 | 96.90% | A bird of prey or scavenger (raven, owl, hawk, coyote) marries (or attempts to marry) a partner who (or whose brothers) are geese or other waterfowl. The marriage is disrupted or proves unsuccessful. |
| M61A1 | 96.90% | The character (always a raven) provokes a seagull to quarrel with another bird, telling each one that the other was hostile or offensive towards her. |
| K27N3C2 | 96.87% | The hero's father-in-law, the bear, sets him difficult tasks and trials. |
| M190 | 96.87% | The beaver carries the porcupine across a water barrier. Usually, he throws it into the water or leaves it on an island. |
| M53E | 96.87% | A character (always a raven) kills a whale and points others to imaginary signs that whale meat is not suitable for food. People believe and all the meat goes to the deceiver. |
| E9M | 96.55% | A man marries a bear (white or grizzly) that takes the form of a woman, or a woman who takes the form of a bear. |
| C19A | 96.30% | The character (except Quileut: Raven) turns into a child, asks for and receives heavenly bodies to play, or (Chukchi) comes to play with the little daughter of the owner of the stars. |
| M68 | 96.22% | Because of his own stubbornness, the character suffers from an irrepressible gas eruption and scares away the game with a loud sound. Almost starves to death. |
| M16A | 96.10% | A character (usually a loon) restores a person's sight and/or health by diving into the water with them. See motif M16. |
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
7 recordedThis motif has been recorded in 7 traditions: North Alaskan Inupiat, Iglulik, Polar Inuit, Baffin Land Inuit, Labrador Inuit (Koksoagmiut), Yamana (Yaghan), Alacaluf, Greenland
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