Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
M136E — Should the bride be shortened?
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
OverviewInstead of asking a person to bend down in front of a low lintel, others suggest cutting off his head or legs.
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.
M13 has 2 other sub-motifs
RelatedM13. A person appeals to higher powers with a request, without considering that his words may have a different meaning than he intended. Either a person accidentally utters the wrong word or accidentally and hastily expresses an empty or absurd desire. As a result, something happens that he did not want at all. Cf. motifs I58B and M13A.Most of the references in ATU 775 (Midas' short-sighted wish) are either incorrect or impossible to verify. In connection with this plot, the reference to Uther 2000 is taken into account only for the Lithuanian variant, since there is a summary of the Latvian one, and for the Greek one, since the motif exists in Ancient Greece and among the neighbouring South Slavs. For ATU 750A, the reference to Bäcker 1988 in connection with the "Chinese" is incorrect; these are Manchus, not Chinese, and the stated motif is not present in the text.
M13a. A deity and a human meet so that the former can fulfil the latter's request. As a result, the human is turned to stone. Usually (except for the Squamish), one of the supplicants wants eternal life and is turned to stone. See motif M13.
M13B. People are promised the fulfilment of two (three, four) wishes. Without thinking, they wish for something they do not want at all. The last wish is spent on returning to the original state.
Top 10 motifs with similar dispersal patterns
Phylogeny| Motif | Similarity | Motif summary |
|---|---|---|
| K163 | 99.65% | A sorcerer orders a young man to retrieve a magical object (often a lamp) from a hard-to-reach place. The young man finds the object (but refuses to give it up), and the sorcerer grants his wishes. |
| K35C3 | 99.63% | For reasons that are not immediately clear, the ship stops in the middle of the sea (rarely: a horse stops in the middle of the road). |
| B33F | 99.50% | A certain character performs actions that determine the change from dark to light times of day. It always involves yarn, thread, rope, or fabric, which the character unravels or winds up, or with which the hero binds the entity responsible for the daily cycle. |
| K127 | 99.49% | A girl has many brothers, who are turned into birds or animals (rarely: into plants; killed by witchcraft), then usually disenchanted (brought back to life; usually all of them, in the Georgian version – one). See motif K127A. |
| K92B | 99.42% | A daughter tells her father (rarely her brother) that she loves him like salt (or that salt is more important than him, etc.). He sends his daughter away (gets angry with his sister), but then realises she is right. |
| I25B | 99.40% | This refers to women who work without the simplest tools, using parts of their bodies instead. |
| K33A7 | 99.39% | After the death of a woman, her daughter or son advises her father to marry a neighbour, teacher, etc., who usually persuades the teenager to give such advice. After marrying the widower, the new wife begins to tyrannise her stepdaughter or stepson. |
| M39A4A | 99.38% | fool sells or gives an animal (plant, statue) meat, pet, cloth, etc., believing that the buyer will pay; or the fool works where no one asked him to, and takes the animal for its owner. When he comes for money, he beats an animal (a tree, a statue, follows an animal) and as a result finds a treasure. |
| M29Z3 | 99.31% | The Gipsy (more often a female than a male) is an enemy overcome by the hero (heroine) or (rare) a weak failure |
| K120A5 | 99.27% | To obtain a woman, a man lures her onto a ship (boat, flying machine, etc.) and takes her away. |
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
3 recordedThis motif has been recorded in 3 traditions: Bulgarians, Balkarians, Macedonians, Balkarians, Albanians, Balkarians
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