Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
M112B — Animals build a road, ATU 55.
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
OverviewAnimals that do not see the sun (moles, shrews, earthworms) refuse to build the road with everyone else and are punished for it.
Berezkin category: Adventures: Tricks and episodes
This is of motif type Adventures and tricks 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.
M11 has 4 other sub-motifs
RelatedM11. The character gives others food extracted from his or someone else's body or contaminated with bodily secretions, without revealing the source of the food.
M11a. The character gives others the fish extracted from his body.
M11b. A woman feeds a man with good-quality meat or fat, which she cuts from her own flesh or extracts from her body, and stops doing so when he learns about the source of the food.
M11c. Without harming himself, a male character cuts off, pierces, roasts, holds over a fire, etc. a part of his body (or his wife's body). The character cooks the meat, fat, etc. obtained in this way and treats his guest to it. This food is not perceived as unclean (cf. motifs M11B and M38).
m11d. The character makes food taste good by adding salt to it. Another character learns that the cook extracts this salt from his own body (it is contained in his bodily secretions).
Top 10 motifs with similar dispersal patterns
Phylogeny| Motif | Similarity | Motif summary |
|---|---|---|
| F83B | 99.93% | A strong female animal chases a weak male, but gets stuck between trees, rocks, etc. The fugitive mocks his pursuer, usually raping her. {In ATU, motifs f83a and f83b are described as one plot type, ATU 36. The degree of their plot connection can only be determined by having the original texts}. |
| M78C | 99.89% | A tiny little man emerges from a severed finger. |
| C30C | 99.84% | A man promises to drink the sea (to count how many drops of water there are in the sea), but asks his opponent to first separate the sea water from the water of the rivers flowing into the sea. |
| M39A8B | 99.81% | Using a stratagem, someone who hides in a tree cuts (bits) off the tongue of a dangerous person and the latter is unable to describe situation to his partners |
| M114D1 | 99.70% | The character demands that chicks be hatched (from boiled eggs), a chicken be raised, and it be cooked within a day. Another character responds with equally absurd demands. |
| F83A | 99.41% | One character asks the children of another to convey an insult to their mother or father â usually announcing his intention to make love to their mother. {ATU data is included in the correlation table, but not in the text}. |
| K103D | 99.39% | An animal (rarely a demonic creature) orders the hero or heroine to retrieve necessary items from its ear or to enter its ear in order to transform, fall asleep, etc. |
| B33G | 99.38% | Horsemen or horses represent celestial bodies or different periods of the day. |
| I47A | 99.38% | The rainbow is associated with the wedding of a fox or jackal. |
| I87F | 99.38% | Before modern humans, there lived others who differed in strength, height, nobility, or other qualities. They disappeared after committing suicide. |
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
13 recordedThis motif has been recorded in 13 traditions: Kuki, Chiru, Falam (Hallam), Chin (Meitei =Manipuri, Khami, =Kumi), Lakher, Mizo (Lushei), Anal, Pawi (Lai), Purum, Koireng, Milhiem, Kolhen, Mru, Poles, Romanians, Moldavians, Aromanians, Moldovans, Lithuanians, Latvians, Finns, Karelians, Swedes, Western Ukrainians, Byelarusians, Belarusians, Armenians, Eastern Ukrainians, Northern Ukrainians
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