Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
L81A — The cat extinguishes the fire.
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 girl offends a cat (rarely: a dog, a rooster) and the cat takes revenge by causing misfortune to befall the girl (usually by extinguishing the fire, after which the girl falls into the hands of a demon).
Berezkin category: Adventures: Monsters and evil spirits
This is of motif type Adventures and tricks and is part of group 10, Adventures.
L81 has 7 other sub-motifs
RelatedL81. A man who goes in search of fire finds it with a demon. The demon pursues the man, harms him, and kills him. Traditions in which there is only a story about men who are promised fire for a fairy tale (a tall tale) are marked with an asterisk*.
L81a. A girl offends a cat (rarely: a dog, a rooster) and the cat takes revenge by causing misfortune to befall the girl (usually by extinguishing the fire, after which the girl falls into the hands of a demon).
L81a1. Noticing a red bead (pebble) that has fallen into the hearth, the character thinks it is a coal and does not understand that the fire in the hearth has gone out.
L81a2. While the men are away, a demonic character comes to a girl or woman to drink her blood or otherwise torment her. The men notice that the girl is wasting away, but at first they do not know the reason.
L81a3. A girl sees a demon in a frightening and repulsive form. When he asks her what she said about him (what she saw), the girl replies that she praised his beauty and manners (she saw him in an attractive form). Usually, the girl eventually tells the truth, and the men hiding in ambush kill the enraged demon.
L81b. 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).
L81c. The legless man lives together with the blind and armless man (or with one of the two). By working together, they are healed.
L81d. Two cripples with different physical disabilities quarrel and fight, and as a result become whole and healthy.
Top 10 motifs with similar dispersal patterns
Phylogeny| Motif | Similarity | Motif summary |
|---|---|---|
| K120A2 | 96.50% | Family members want to marry their daughter off to a man who is unacceptable to her (usually they want to marry her off to her own brother). The girl refuses to address her father, mother, etc. as close relatives, but calls them in-laws (mother-in-law, sister-in-law, etc.) or enemies; or the relatives themselves demand that the girl address them as in-laws. |
| K27ZZ | 96.15% | A man does not suspect that his (new) wife (less often his mother) is a cannibal/witch/treacherous woman; she persecutes (former) wives (his wife) and/or blinds them or throws them into a pit, or her husband does so at her instigation. Contrary to the cannibal's plans, the son of one of the wives survives, kills the cannibal, and rescues his mother and sisters. |
| E5 | 95.96% | God makes man out of clay. He must wait until it dries, but tries to stand up earlier. |
| M39E1 | 94.94% | A person appropriates property. The owner or his assistant puts the kidnapper in such a position that he is forced to return everything (usually the victim kidnaps the child of the deceiver). {Apparently, all references in Ting 1978 do not refer to Chinese, but to Tibetans; Uther 2004 refers to the Dagestan text in Levin 1978, No. 52, but it is not clear which group we are talking about; there is also a deaf reference to the “Code of Japanese fairy tales - Tsukan”, it needs to be checked}. |
| K27ZZ1 | 94.71% | Several wives are thrown into a dungeon (banished), each gives birth to a child, but only one manages to save hers. The boy grows up and rescues the women. |
| K92A | 94.47% | A girl who has been driven from her home or has become the wife of an insignificant pauper becomes rich and respected. |
| L39D | 93.92% | A boy climbs a tree to pick fruit. A demonic character asks him to share, but not to throw the fruit on the ground, but to pass it from hand to hand. He grabs the boy and carries him away. |
| K27X3 | 93.39% | The ruler seeks to take possession of the wife or bride of a man of lower social status and, in order to get rid of him, gives him impossible tasks or secretly kills him. {Both ATU and some regional indexes (e.g., Cardigos 2006: 110) list texts that do not meet the definition of plot 465: the king's desire to take possession of the hero's wife is not explicitly stated as the reason why the king seeks to get rid of the hero}. |
| M99 | 93.01% | The character is going to abuse all birds or (less commonly) animals, but after hearing wise advice, he abandons his intention. |
| K102A | 92.59% | A man orders the killing of a young man's sister, wife or mother. The young man does not allow such an order to be carried out, and then repents of this. |
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
21 recordedThis motif has been recorded in 21 traditions: Berbers of Morocco and adjacent parts of Algeria, Kabylia and other Berber of Northern and Central Algeria: Beni Snous, Beni Menacer (incl Zuav), Shaui, etc.), Algeria Arabs, Marathi (incl. Bhamta; incl. Mumbai area), Assamese, Sinhalese; Vedda, Spain, Spaniards, Bulgarians, Balkarians, Yagnobi, Persians, Anatolia Turks, Kazakh, Uyghur, 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), Turkmen, Bashkirs, Mongols (Khalkha), Salars, Italians: Central (Toscana, Umbria, Marche, Lazio), Bhutan, Tunisia
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