Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
M196 — Who will speak first? ATU 1351.
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 husband and wife agree to award a small prize to the one who remains silent the longest. Both or one of the spouses continue to remain silent even when others mistake them for dead or commit violence against them.
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.
Top 10 motifs with similar dispersal patterns
Phylogeny| Motif | Similarity | Motif summary |
|---|---|---|
| M136D | 99.88% | A person dreams of gradually becoming rich and forgets that this has not yet happened. As a result, he loses the initial source of future prosperity (breaks a jug, scares away a hare he was about to shoot, etc.) or senselessly causes harm to himself or others. |
| K57 | 99.74% | A girl hides her beauty and/or lives in poverty, a man of high status sees her in her true form/in luxurious attire and takes her as his wife, recognising her by an item he gave her or she lost, usually a slipper or shoe, or by seeing her change her clothes. {All texts with this motif are also considered to contain the f62 motif}. |
| M78 | 99.71% | A tiny little man performs a series of tricks, mocks people he meets and opponents. |
| K92 | 99.44% | The father asks his children a question, the answer to which seems obvious (does his daughter love him, who is the eldest in the family, etc.). The youngest daughter (less often – son) gives an unexpected answer, the father drives her away (deprives her of her inheritance), and later becomes convinced of her intelligence and nobility. |
| K107 | 99.37% | A magical husband leaves his wife. She finds and returns him. |
| M39A7 | 99.30% | When instructed to wash the old man with warm water, the fool steams him with boiling water. |
| H55 | 99.26% | A person going to the other world sees people who are punished or rewarded for their actions in life. |
| M158 | 99.26% | A human and an animal (devil) or two animals decide to cultivate a field and divide the harvest so that one gets the above-ground part and the other gets the underground part. One of the characters (always) loses out. |
| M39C | 99.23% | A fool is told that a round fruit is a mare's egg (donkeys, elephants, etc.). A fool buys fruit for a lot of money. When he throws it or drops it, a small animal (usually a hare) jumps out of the thickets. A person believes that this is a foal (donkey, etc.) that has hatched. |
| K24C | 99.22% | A young man comes to an old man (less often – to an old woman), who teaches him how to get a magical wife by hiding her bird clothes. Usually, the young man gives away the clothes for the first time and lives with the old man until the girls fly back. |
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
62 recordedThis motif has been recorded in 62 traditions: Arabs of Levant (Syria, Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan); Bedouins of Sinai, Arabs of Iraq, Iraqi, Berbers of Morocco and adjacent parts of Algeria, Swahili, Midjikenda (incl Giryama), Nyika, Duruma; Ngindo, Kiluguru and other Islamic groups of the Eastern Coast of Africa, Viet, Muong, Gondi (mostly Northern Gondi), Indian literary tradition (Vedic, Brahman, Purana, Indian Buddhism, Hinduism, Ramayana, Mahabharata, Panchtantra, Jatakas); iconography of Hindu temples, Kannada, Lingayat, Halakki, Tamil, Muthuvan, Marvar, Tamils, Bengali, Punjabi, Seraiki (Multani), Nepali; Tharu, Sinhalese; Vedda, Koreans, Ireland, England, British, Bretons, Scotland, Scots, Picts, Scotti, Scottish, Spain, Spaniards, Portuguese, Portugal, Catalan, Sicily, Sicilians, France, Dutch, Flemish, 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, Hungarians, Greeks (modern), Balkarians, Bulgarians, Balkarians, Serbs, Monte Negro, Balkarians, Slovenians, Slovenes, Romanians, Moldavians, Aromanians, Moldovans, Albanians, Balkarians, Lithuanians, Latvians, Finns, Norwegians, Swedes, Danes, Danish, Western Ukrainians, Uzbek, Tajik, Persians, Cherkassians, Adyghe, Kabardin, Abkhaz, Abkhazians, Ingush, Tats, Armenians, Anatolia Turks, Kurds, Kazakh, Kirghiz, Kazan (Middle Volga) Tatars, Bashkirs, Wallons, Picardie, Eastern Ukrainians, Northern Ukrainians, Italians: Central (Toscana, Umbria, Marche, Lazio), Frisians, Berbers of Algeria, Egypt, China, Japan, Russian Federation
If you wish to get access to data for projects and research, then please contact us, we do our best to help
How to cite: Fielder-White, J. (2026). The Folklore Database. https://folkloredatabase.com
0009-0006-1672-4451
Where applicable, users should also cite the relevant original sources, catalogues, and classification systems, including Berezkin, ATU, Thompson, and other cited authorities, alongside the page accessed and the last time accessed.
Editorial annotations and database enhancements © Jonathan Fielder-White licensed under CC BY 4.0. Berezkin-derived narrative and metadata licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. Full rights information can be found here.
All rights are reserved in the database structure, selection, arrangement, metadata, classifications, software, interface design, and original editorial content.
Important: The Folklore Database expressly reserves all rights in relation to text and data mining, automated extraction, scraping, machine learning, dataset creation, and the training, development, validation, or improvement of artificial intelligence technologies or systems. No part of this website or database may be scraped, copied, reproduced, harvested, downloaded in bulk, or otherwise used for AI training or commercial data extraction without prior written permission.
Designed and Developed by Jon Fielder-White.
© 2024–2026 Crecganford / Jonathan Fielder-White. All rights reserved.