Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
M199M — My grandmother's distaff.
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 explains to a demon that the heavy objects lying by the roadside, such as a harrow or a millstone, are just things used by his grandmother or mother, such as a spindle or a comb.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| A32I | 100.00% | A shepherd (shepherd and girl, shepherd and his flock, dogs) can be seen on the lunar disc. |
| B108 | 100.00% | An anthropomorphic character that has fallen apart into pieces turns into snow. |
| K156 | 100.00% | A girl pretends to be a man. To determine who it really is, flowers are placed under the pillow or mattress. If a man is sleeping, they will remain fresh, but if a woman is sleeping, they will wilt by morning (or if a woman is sleeping, the milk left under the bed will sour). |
| K77B3 | 100.00% | Goats encounter a wolf. One goat has one stomach, the second has two, the third has three, and so on. The goat with the most stomachs kills or scares away the wolf. |
| L65A2 | 100.00% | A man shoots off (damages) the finger of a demonic creature, and then sees that his sister, lying in her cradle, has lost her finger. |
| L85D | 100.00% | The hero encounters a giant and a strongman (usually a ploughman) with one arm, one leg, or one eye. He was crippled by a character who turned out to be much bigger and stronger than him. |
| M39A2E | 100.00% | Forgetting his name, a fool remembers it when he accidentally hears a word. |
| I87AB | 99.65% | Strong men or a crowd of people cannot move the body of a dead animal or the leg of a motionless person, but a child or a woman can do it easily. Cf. motif B83. |
| L15A2 | 99.65% | The human body is tempered (in a furnace, etc.) to make it invulnerable, but one place remains unprotected. |
| M141A | 99.65% | In a gathering of various animals, one of the participants refers to the weakest as insignificant to the others and bearing an ugly name. That one is eaten. This is repeated several times, each time the weakest of the remaining animals is eaten. |
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
7 recordedThis motif has been recorded in 7 traditions: Latvians, Finns, Tats, Kazan (Middle Volga) Tatars, Mari (Cheremis), Chuvash, Udmurt
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