Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
M81B — Don't go after a stuck arrow
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 is warned not to try to reach an arrow if it gets stuck in a tree. He breaks the ban and gets into trouble.
Berezkin category: Adventures: Tricks and episodes
This is of motif type Adventures and tricks and is part of group 10, Adventures.
M81 has 8 other sub-motifs
RelatedM81. Wandering, the hero finds himself in a place where blind or blind (two or more) live.
M81a. The hero meets two blind women and makes them sighted. These women are birds (geese, ducks, hazel grouses, partridges).
M81b. The character is warned not to try to reach an arrow if it gets stuck in a tree. He breaks the ban and gets into trouble.
M81c. A person goes to heaven or (rarely) to the lower world, where he meets blind people (one or two), usually makes them sighted, and returns to earth himself.
M81d. A person meets (most often in the sky) one or two blind people and restores their sight.
M81e. young man undertakes to herd cattle and is warned not to cross the borders of a giant, dragon, witch, etc. The young man violates the ban and kills a giant.
M81e1. A young man lives with an old man whose eyes or eyes were carried away by a giant. The young man goes to the giant, kills him, brings his eyes, the old man sees the light.
M81e2. By playing an instrument or otherwise, a character is able to attract an animal or person far away from him.
M81f. blind beggar robs an honest man. He watches him and, when he enters the house, takes everything the blind man has accumulated. He often takes money accumulated by other blind people as well.
Top 10 motifs with similar dispersal patterns
Phylogeny| Motif | Similarity | Motif summary |
|---|---|---|
| K27Y | 99.33% | The hero is sent or, knowing the danger, goes himself to obtain various (at least two) materials for making a bow and arrows (shafts, feathers, bowstring, flint for arrowheads, paint for colouring arrows, resin and fibres for attaching the arrowhead or feather to the shaft, etc.). See motif K27. |
| I6A | 99.08% | The male and female of a huge bird carry different types of precipitation (for example, the eagle carries snow, and the eagle carries rain). Or (Buryats of Mongolia) the same bird carries different types of precipitation depending on whether it is angry or not. See motif i6. Traditions associated with Na-Dene languages are highlighted in italics in the list. |
| K27Y1 | 98.80% | The character believes or pretends that arrowheads should be made of bark, coal, grass, and similar materials. |
| K1D | 98.75% | The hero's wife's brothers try to kill him by leaving him on an island. |
| B44F1 | 98.47% | In the dispute over whether the world should be light (warm), the bear is on the side of darkness (and cold); or the world is plunged into darkness because the bear hides the sun in his house. |
| K87B | 98.20% | A woman is picking berries, steps in bear droppings, and scolds the bears. The offended bear takes her away and marries her. |
| K10F | 97.82% | The character turns the children of a flying monster into ordinary eagles or owls. |
| L1A | 97.67% | A young woman turns into a bear (in Asia, a tigress) and attacks her close relatives or husband. |
| L79 | 97.59% | The girl marries a powerful, benevolent character; his first wife is a monster; he kills her or is satisfied that she has been killed by his new wife. |
| B97 | 97.46% | The character rewards (rarely punishes) a bird living by the water, determining its current appearance (crest, beak, feather colouring). |
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
10 recordedThis motif has been recorded in 10 traditions: Chipewyan, Dogrib, Slavey, Hare (K'ahsho Got'ine), Bella Coola (Nuxalk), Montagnais, Blackfoot, Omaha, Ponca, Carrier, Shuswap, Yellowknife
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 Š 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.
Š 2024â2026 Crecganford / Jonathan Fielder-White. All rights reserved.