Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
M114B1 — What is the fattest, sweetest, fastest?
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
OverviewWhen answering the question of what is the sweetest (fattest, fastest, etc.), a clever person names abstract concepts and entities (while a foolish person names specific objects or creatures).
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.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| M135A | 99.80% | A wolf (or, less commonly, another predator) approaches various (more than one type of) domestic animals (animals and humans) in order to eat them, but, agreeing to fulfil the request, remains hungry and is usually beaten. |
| L94B1 | 99.73% | A man receives a box (bag, horn, etc.) as a gift, which he must open only at home. Driven by curiosity, he opens it on the way, and everything that should make him wealthy (houses, livestock, etc.) spills out. The demon who appears agrees to return everything, but sets a condition, the severity of which the man does not immediately understand. |
| K64A | 99.71% | A man blinds a sleeping or immobile giant-cannibal and escapes from him. |
| C3 | 99.68% | The snake (eel, frog) saved the ship (or the whole world) by plugging the hole from which water was pouring with its body. |
| K27X1 | 99.59% | Having received a difficult task (usually: to bring an object or creature that has no specific characteristics, such as "something, I don't know what," "a strange wonder," etc.), the hero meets an invisible man who serves others; he is kind to him, and the man becomes his assistant. (This motif is certainly present in some texts of the ATU 465A plot, but it is not specifically highlighted in the definition). (Cf. motif K131B). |
| M135B | 99.52% | The wolf (rarely a bear, jackal, or fox) approaches various domestic animals in order to eat them, but, agreeing to fulfil their request, remains hungry and usually beaten, and in conclusion blames himself ("Am I a mullah to read?" etc.). In the Persian version, the fox tells him this. |
| K103B | 99.50% | A cow (goat) miraculously spins or weaves: it chews tow, turning it into thread, orders the yarn to be wound onto its horns, put into its ear, etc. |
| K56A9 | 99.47% | When a small animal (usually a mouse) rings a bell, beats a drum, etc., a blind or distant antagonist believes that these sounds are made by the hero (heroine). Thanks to this, the hero (heroine) is saved. |
| M153 | 99.44% | A hoofed animal asks a predator to examine its hoof under various pretexts, and then kills or maims it with a kick. |
| L42G1 | 99.42% | Father (stepfather) takes children into the forest and slips away unnoticed. To make the children think he is nearby chopping wood, father hangs a board, pumpkin, etc. on a tree, which bangs against the trunk in the wind. |
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
40 recordedThis motif has been recorded in 40 traditions: Arabs of Levant (Syria, Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan); Bedouins of Sinai, Scotland, Scots, Picts, Scotti, Scottish, 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, Czech, Czechs, Slovakians, Slovaks, Hungarians, Serbs, Monte Negro, Balkarians, Croatians, Croats; Italians of Dalmatia (if the motif is absent among other Italians), Slovenians, Slovenes, Romanians, Moldavians, Aromanians, Moldovans, Lithuanians, Livonians, Western Ukrainians, Byelarusians, Belarusians, Persians, Abkhaz, Abkhazians, Ossetians, Ingush, Dargin (Dargwa), incl. Müregin, Khürkilin, Kubachi, Laks, Avar, Andi, Akhvakh, Tats, Armenians, Kalmyk, Uyghur, Kazan (Middle Volga) Tatars, Bashkirs, Mari (Cheremis), Chuvash, Komi (Zyrians and Permyaks), Buryats: Western (cis Baikal), Shor, Oriya (incl. Dom/Domba/Dombo, Ghasi, Bhat and other Oriya-speaking castes of Odisha), Eastern Ukrainians, Northern Ukrainians, Buryats: Eastern (trans Baikal), i.e. Khori, Lutsi (Ludza), Transylvanian Saksons, Don Cossaks, Russian Federation
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