Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
M199H — The giant's torn belly, (ATU 1088).
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 character hides a bag under his clothes, secretly putting food in it. After cutting open the bag, he pretends to have cut open his own belly. His opponent decides to do the same and, after cutting open his own belly, dies. Cf. motif M91A, "The Blood Blister." In the definition of plot 1088 in ATU, the motif of the giant's torn belly is optional.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| L15G | 99.89% | A person's life is connected to an object that can be burned. As soon as the object is burned, the person dies. |
| I80B | 99.86% | Man is allowed to control the weather in his own interests. He sends rain at the right time, but cannot take all factors into account (he usually forgets about the wind). The bread will not grow or will be unpalatable. |
| I37D1 | 99.86% | St. Peter secretly eats bread, and when Christ asks him what he is doing, he chokes, spits out the crumbs, and they turn into mushrooms. |
| I59B2 | 99.86% | The Milky Way – St. James' Way. |
| H7B2 | 99.85% | A man named Poverty makes Death swear that it will never come to him. Therefore, poverty is inevitable in the world. |
| K37B | 99.85% | A man must identify his chosen one blindfolded. He does this by touch, knowing that one of her fingers is damaged or missing. |
| B104A | 99.84% | The son was about to eat some meat (chicken). At that moment, his father came in, and the son hid the meat so as not to share it with him. When his father left and the son took out what he had hidden, the meat turned into a toad (snake) and jumped on his face. |
| K25A4A | 99.84% | A young woman finds herself in the power of a water creature, and when she comes ashore, she is chained. To free the woman, the chain must be broken. |
| K33A2 | 99.84% | A brother takes his sister to her fiancé. She cannot hear her brother's words, and the witch distorts them (as if the brother is telling his sister to throw herself into the water, to blind her, etc.). Having got rid of the heroine, the witch replaces her with her own daughter. |
| M38C3 | 99.84% | A conceited smith attempts to rejuvenate an old woman (man). His magic helper tries to save the victim but all that he do is to transform the woman into an animal, usually a monkey |
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
21 recordedThis motif has been recorded in 21 traditions: Berbers of southern Tunisia and adjacent part of Libya (Matmata and Ghadames areas), Ireland, England, British, Bretons, Spain, Spaniards, Portuguese, Portugal, Basques, Catalan, Maltese, Sicily, Sicilians, France, 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, Slovenians, Slovenes, Latvians, Norwegians, Swedes, Western Ojibwa (Chippewa), Eastern Ojibwa (Missisauga, Timagami and other groups in eastern Ontario), Northern Ojibwa (=Severn Ojibwa, Sandy Lake Cree), Plains Ojibwa, Galicians, Italians: Central (Toscana, Umbria, Marche, Lazio)
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.