Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
N11 — Like snow and blood, (ATU 709)
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 wants to have a child or spouse who is as white and blush as snow (milk) and blood.
Berezkin category: Fabulous and epic formulas
This is of motif type Adventures and tricks and is part of group 13, Formulae.
Top 10 motifs with similar dispersal patterns
Phylogeny| Motif | Similarity | Motif summary |
|---|---|---|
| M114D | 99.80% | A man eats boiled eggs and leaves without paying. Much later, he returns to repay his debt. The owner demands payment for the chickens that would have hatched from those eggs, become hens, laid eggs themselves, and so on. Someone comes to court and pretends to be boiling seeds for sowing. The judge agrees that chickens cannot hatch from boiled eggs. |
| B33F2 | 99.78% | At night, the fire goes out. The young man goes to look for fire and on the way ties up an old woman or an old man (usually a character responsible for the length of night and day). |
| L131B | 99.76% | To make a bird or ladybird fly away, they are told that the place where their home and/or children are located is engulfed in fire. |
| M154B | 99.65% | The husband (rarely: son) stays at home instead of his wife (mother), but does everything poorly and ineptly. |
| K38E1 | 99.63% | Characters pass through a forest with metal trees of two or more types (copper, silver, etc.). |
| K27X7 | 99.63% | On the way to their destination, people meet characters who have power over animals (birds, fish) or demons. They summon the animals (demons) and ask if anyone knows the way to a certain place. Only one person knows, usually the last to appear. |
| M39A8 | 99.59% | A fool drags the door from the house with him (usually raises it to a tree and drops it, scaring the crowd under the tree). |
| B33C | 99.59% | The month on the border between winter and spring (usually March) takes (rarely: buys, steals) a few days from its neighbour. |
| K99A | 99.57% | A young man or woman (often after having a dream) declares that a great future awaits him or her (usually that his or her father, parents, brothers, or sisters will show him or her signs of respect). The young man or woman is expelled, but the prophecy comes true. |
| M135 | 99.56% | Two ungulates – usually after the wolf agrees to share the meadow between them – gore the predator from both sides, killing or maiming it. |
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
29 recordedThis motif has been recorded in 29 traditions: Arabs of Levant (Syria, Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan); Bedouins of Sinai, Kabylia and other Berber of Northern and Central Algeria: Beni Snous, Beni Menacer (incl Zuav), Shaui, etc.), Algeria Arabs, Ireland, England, British, Bretons, Spain, Spaniards, Portuguese, Portugal, 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, Poles, Slovakians, Slovaks, Croatians, Croats; Italians of Dalmatia (if the motif is absent among other Italians), Albanians, Balkarians, Estonians, Norwegians, Danes, Danish, Tajik, Persians, Cherkassians, Adyghe, Kabardin, Tats, Anatolia Turks, Kazan (Middle Volga) Tatars, Mongols (Khalkha), Tuvinians of Tuva, Tuvans, Icelanders, Italians: Central (Toscana, Umbria, Marche, Lazio), Frisians, Montenegro
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