Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
M90A6 — Rejuvenating apples
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
OverviewOwning some apples ensures eternal youth.
Berezkin category: Adventures: Tricks and episodes
This is of motif type Cosmology and etiology and is part of group 8, Queer and monstrous beings, creatures, objects and loci, folk beliefs related to particular phenomena and objects.
M90 has 9 other sub-motifs
RelatedM90. Someone asks a riddle about the material from which a particular item is made or originated. It is almost impossible to guess, but the character learns the secret, forcing the hero or heroine to fulfill the conditions set. (Usually requires a girl to marry him).
M90a. The girl will marry the person who guessed her name, or someone who will fit the ring, or someone who says what material a particular object is made of or originated, etc. The deceiver fulfills the condition.
M90a1. It is required to sew clothes from the skin of lice (fleas) or guess the origin of a large animal, a large skin, the contents of the box; the animal (skin) arose from lice (fleas), in the box - louse.
M90a2. It should be guessed that the plant grew from a part of the body of a man or a snake or from dirt scraped off from the body
M90a3. plant grows from a killed snake or part of a snake's body.
M90a4. A tree is described on which jewelry or ornaments hang instead of fruits; individual parts of the tree are made of different metals or (semi) precious stones.
M90a5. The story mentions the golden fruits (rarely leaves) of a tree, usually golden apples.
M90a6. Owning some apples ensures eternal youth.
M90b. The character was wrong when he claimed that the sun would never rise in the west or go down after midnight.
M90c. man agreed with another that he could take the first thing he touched from his house. The visitor is going to take his wife, but when he takes up the stepladder to go up to the woman, he is told to pick up the stepladder and leave.
Top 10 motifs with similar dispersal patterns
Phylogeny| Motif | Similarity | Motif summary |
|---|---|---|
| K33A6 | 99.59% | A kid (lamb, gazelle, etc.) runs up to a pond into which its owner has pushed it and says that knives are being sharpened and water is being boiled to slaughter and cook it. |
| K162 | 99.53% | The antagonist (robber, sorcerer, witch) sneaks into the house of a girl or young woman, hiding inside a statue, in a wardrobe, etc., and/or putting her husband (guard, etc.) to sleep, but is destroyed at the last moment. |
| K56F1 | 99.53% | Five chickens (geese, etc.) must be divided among six eaters (other numbers are possible). The solution is to give each pair of participants one chicken and take two for oneself (two chickens and one person â three, two people and one chicken â also three). |
| K33A | 99.47% | Young siblings (most often a brother and sister) leave home. One of them (rarely: several brothers) accidentally breaks a taboo and is transformed into an animal (usually a hoofed animal) or (rarely) a bird; later, the spell is usually broken. |
| K152A | 99.46% | A man saves a devil (snake, predator) suffering from the proximity of a certain character or object. To reward his saviour, the devil promises to possess a princess and leave her when the man comes to treat her. The devil either breaks his promise or warns the man not to try to cure those whom the devil will later possess. The man informs the devil that the character or object he fears so much is approaching again. The devil flees and never returns. |
| M165 | 99.45% | One zoomorphic character promises another to sew a coat (boots), asks him to bring sheep, eats them, and does not sew anything. |
| K134 | 99.38% | A guest is planted with treasure in order to accuse him of theft. |
| M39A6H | 99.30% | The king tells the commoner to pluck a goose (geese, shear a ram, etc.). He understands correctly: to rob the vizier. |
| C30A | 99.27% | A man borrows money on the condition that if he fails to repay it by a certain date, he will have to give the lender a certain amount of his own flesh. The lender cannot cut off the flesh, because he is unable to fulfil the formally logical but essentially absurd demand made of him. |
| M39D | 99.16% | A person consistently and unintentionally harms others. The victims take him to a judge. He saves a person from punishment by making a formally logical but clearly unacceptable decision in each case. |
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
12 recordedThis motif has been recorded in 12 traditions: Kabylia and other Berber of Northern and Central Algeria: Beni Snous, Beni Menacer (incl Zuav), Shaui, etc.), Slovenians, Slovenes, Scandinavians: early written sources ("Edda"; Saxo Grammaticus etc.); Gothland picture stones; Ancient Germans (Late Bronze Age in Scandinavia), Western Ukrainians, Ossetians, Armenians, Azeris (Azerbaijanis), Kirghiz, Eastern Ukrainians, Northern Ukrainians, Berbers of Algeria, Russian Federation
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