Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
M163A — What do cats eat?
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 man sells a cat (rooster) to people who do not know about cats (or chickens). Having received a cat or rooster, people do not know what to feed them and fear that they will eat people.
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.
M16 has 1 other sub-motifs
RelatedM16. The wife or relatives (often the mother) of the sick person do not care for him. He recovers, and those who treated him badly are punished. Cf. motifs F62 and F96.
M16a. A character (usually a loon) restores a person's sight and/or health by diving into the water with them. See motif M16.
Top 10 motifs with similar dispersal patterns
Phylogeny| Motif | Similarity | Motif summary |
|---|---|---|
| M29Z3 | 99.79% | The Gipsy (more often a female than a male) is an enemy overcome by the hero (heroine) or (rare) a weak failure |
| B33F2 | 99.76% | At night, the fire goes out. The young man goes to look for fire and on the way ties up an old woman or an old man (usually a character responsible for the length of night and day). |
| L131B | 99.70% | To make a bird or ladybird fly away, they are told that the place where their home and/or children are located is engulfed in fire. |
| K155B | 99.59% | A girl lets down her hair, which another character uses to climb up to her. |
| I25B | 99.54% | This refers to women who work without the simplest tools, using parts of their bodies instead. |
| B33C | 99.54% | The month on the border between winter and spring (usually March) takes (rarely: buys, steals) a few days from its neighbour. |
| K65E1 | 99.50% | A woman delivers a baby (baptises a child) for a creature that in the human world has the appearance of a toad or frog. |
| K120A3 | 99.47% | The character receives a nut containing valuables (beautiful clothes, jewellery, animal helpers, etc.), or (Germans, Latvians) hides the valuables in the nut himself to use them later. |
| K56A5C | 99.37% | A man who kindly answers the questions of characters representing the weather in certain months of the year is rewarded. Another man scolds them and is punished. |
| K38E3 | 99.37% | Among three (less often two or four) loci or objects associated with materials of high but varying degrees of value, the highest belongs to precious stones (usually diamonds, but also glass and crystal). |
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
15 recordedThis motif has been recorded in 15 traditions: Spain, Spaniards, Portuguese, Portugal, Catalan, 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, Bulgarians, Balkarians, Setu, Western Ukrainians, Persians, Armenians, Anatolia Turks, Galicians, Eastern Ukrainians, Northern Ukrainians, Frisians
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