Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
M174 — Eats from behind.
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 weaker character manipulates the stronger one so that he loses the ability to move, although he is still alive. The weak one begins to eat the strong one from behind, refusing, under one pretext or another, to approach from the front, or refrains from eating while the victim is still alive.
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.
M17 has 2 other sub-motifs
RelatedM17. A wife, mother or grandmother directs the arrow of a blind man or boy at game, lies that he missed, cooks and eats the meat herself. See motif M16 (man is blind, K333.1).
M17a. The mother or grandmother of a blind man or boy secretly eats (the meat or fish he has caught), pretending that there is no food in the house.
M17b. The wife directs the blind man's arrow at game, lies that he has missed, and eats the meat herself.
Top 10 motifs with similar dispersal patterns
Phylogeny| Motif | Similarity | Motif summary |
|---|---|---|
| J54B | 98.60% | The antagonist's son and the hero are half-brothers or full brothers (uncle and nephew; sworn brothers). When the antagonist tries to destroy the hero, the antagonist's son takes the hero's side. |
| J28B | 98.43% | Upon learning that a woman (usually the hero's mother) is hiding the truth about his father, mother, brothers, or bride, a young man (rarely a young woman) causes her pain, forcing her to tell the truth (usually by pressing hot bread into her palm or sticking her fingers into hot food). |
| K35B | 97.97% | The hero gives his rivals the food that the king sent them all to get, but what the rivals got turns out to be poisonous, useless, or tasteless, while what the hero brought, regardless of how it looks, gets praised. |
| L100D1 | 97.05% | A person endowed with (spiritual) power comes to a woman in the evening. When there is a knock at the door, the woman, having agreed in advance with her husband, tells the guest to lie down in the cradle and replies to her husband who has entered that their son is in the cradle. The man begins to turn the adult into a baby or threatens to do so: he shaves off his beard, knocks out his teeth, and grabs an axe to chop off his legs. The disgraced and exhausted guest runs away. |
| B73 | 97.04% | The character turns into a cuckoo. This happens so quickly that one foot remains unshod or one braid remains unbraided. Therefore, it is believed that the cuckoo's legs or wings are different. See motif A43A. |
| M197D | 97.04% | To find the thief, a man gives sticks to the assembled crowd and says that the thief's stick will become longer overnight. The thief cuts off the end of his stick and is thus discovered. |
| N23 | 96.98% | fairy-tale text ends with a formula that says that the characters stayed or left where the action took place, and the narrator returned home and/or came to the place fairy tale performances. |
| K78A | 96.95% | A demonic character swallows cripples and regurgitates them healthy and beautiful. |
| M148 | 96.91% | One zoomorphic character asks another to agree to be eaten – usually saying that he will be resurrected and compensated for the inconvenience caused. The animal agrees. |
| K99A2 | 96.80% | One person has a dream, and another buys it and obtains what was predicted in the dream. |
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: Algeria Arabs, Swahili, Midjikenda (incl Giryama), Nyika, Duruma; Ngindo, Kiluguru and other Islamic groups of the Eastern Coast of Africa, Kikuyu, Chuka, Embu, Emberre, Mwimbe, Wakhi, Ishkashimi (including Sanglich), Munji, Sarikoli, Tajik, Lezgians, Archin, Kürin; Khinalug, Rutul, Tsakhur, Tabasaran, Aghul, Kara Kalpak, Kazakh, Turkmen, Arabs (literary tradition; incl. One Thousand and One Nights)
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