Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
M106A — "I Myself" and "No One" in the Demon's House.
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
OverviewThe character who caused the damage calls himself by a fictitious name such as "Nobody," "I Myself," etc. Usually, others decide that the victim himself is to blame for what happened.
Berezkin category: Adventures: Tricks and episodes
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.
Top 10 motifs with similar dispersal patterns
Phylogeny| Motif | Similarity | Motif summary |
|---|---|---|
| K100F1 | 99.88% | A man (king) catches a strange (anthropomorphic) creature. His son releases the wondrous captive (after which he flees from his father's wrath or is banished). The freed captive helps him. Cf. motif K161. |
| K38F5 | 99.86% | Flames burst from the horse's mouth and/or nostrils, or the entire horse is engulfed in fire. |
| H7D | 99.83% | A man calls Death, and when it comes, asks it to help him lift a bundle of firewood or pull a cart with firewood. |
| K131D | 99.82% | Mention is made of footwear that allows the character to quickly cover enormous distances. |
| H52 | 99.67% | A man finds a land where there is no death. Having decided to visit his native places, he never returns to it. |
| K117B | 99.66% | The hero causes various people (and animals) to stick to each other (or to objects). |
| K119C | 99.61% | The antagonist believes that he has been attacked by the lord of thunder (the father of the bride, whom a zoomorphic assistant has tricked into marrying a poor young man, motif K119). |
| L23A | 99.61% | In an attempt to free himself, the captured character sequentially changes his appearance, in particular turning into fire (and water). |
| L42B1 | 99.61% | A character kidnapped by a demon advises him to stack pots, pans and other kitchen items on top of each other and climb up them. He does so, falls and breaks. |
| M39A4E | 99.57% | Fool sells property to a tree (stump, pole, a cross in the countryside) and believes that it will pay him. Trying to get his money, he finds treasure |
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
30 recordedThis motif has been recorded in 30 traditions: England, British, Bretons, Scotland, Scots, Picts, Scotti, Scottish, Basques, France, Germans: North (Low- and Central German dialects): Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg, Pommern, Niedersachsen (Lower Saxony, incl East Frisia and Oldenburg), Nordrhein-Westfalen, Hessen, Rheinland-Pfalz, Thüringen, Saxony-Anhalt, Sachsen, Brandenburg, Rügen, Poles, Greeks (modern), Balkarians, Romanians, Moldavians, Aromanians, Moldovans, Latvians, Estonians, Setu, Finns, Western Sami, Eastern Sami (including Skolts), Norwegians, Swedes, Western Ukrainians, Byelarusians, Belarusians, Persians, Karachays, Balkar, Ingush, Armenians, 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), Oirats (incl Torgouts, Derbets, Oilots), Lkungen (Straits; including Samish, Songish, Sooke, Lummi), Klallam, Central Tibetans (Yu Tsang, incl. Sikkim Tibetans, Tichurong of NW Nepal), Eastern Ukrainians, Northern Ukrainians, Greece, Russian Federation
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