The Mythology and Folklore Database
B51 - The Mosquito and Thunder.
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Source Data from Berezkin's Analytics Catalogue, if using this data please acknowledge and link to it here:
Ю.Е. Березкин, Е.Н. Дувакин. Тематическая классификация и распределение фольклорно-мифологических мотивов по ареалам. Аналитический каталог.
Summary of Motif
Thanks to a deliberate lie, Thunder did not learn from the bloodsucking insect that it had drunk human blood.Berezkin category: The Origins of the Characteristics of the environment
This is of motif type Cosmology and etiology and is part group 7, Etiology of plants and animals and of their peculiar features, particular animals as protagonists of cosmological stories, metamorphoses, weather and calendar
B51 has 1 other sub-motifsB51. Thanks to a deliberate lie, Thunder did not learn from the bloodsucking insect that it had drunk human blood. B51a. The snake is the enemy of the swallow (usually because the swallow prevents the snake from destroying people – the snake sends a mosquito or other blood-sucking insect to find out whose blood tastes better; the mosquito returns to report that it is human blood; the swallow bites off its tongue, and the snake plucks the feathers from the swallow's tail). Click here if would you like to see a distrbution map combining all of B51's motifs? |
Top 10 Motifs with similar dispersal patterns
| Motif | Similarity | Motif Summary |
|---|---|---|
| M22 | 97.56% | A long-necked bird living near water (crane, heron, bittern, swan) helps a fugitive escape from his pursuer (indicated in brackets). See motifs J44-J46 (a long-legged bird helps cross the river, drowns the pursuer; the pursuer is most often a bear). |
| M19 | 97.51% | The character ties another person (usually a child) to the end of a line, using them as bait or forcing them to catch fish with their hands. |
| F74 | 97.07% | Upon seeing a dangerous character, a man or woman undresses and pretends to be dead (or the character undresses the woman). Examining and sniffing the supposed corpse, the character finds what he takes to be a wound or signs of decay and leaves. |
| M42B | 96.91% | After losing his eyes, the character makes new ones out of resin or wax, sees again (often this is an episode on the way to finding good eyes, while tar eyes do not see well). |
| M42 | 96.22% | The character takes his eyes out of his orbits and loses them. He usually regains his eyes later, makes new ones, takes away from another character, etc. See the M41 motif. |
| I112 | 96.21% | The boat is a living creature with a mouth, a fish. |
| J44 | 96.17% | The hero lures the enemy onto a rickety bridge. The enemy falls into the water, into the abyss (see motif J46). See motif J52. |
| M32 | 96.14% | The character swallows food or water, or his own entrails, pieces of flesh flow out and fall out of his ass. |
| M87 | 96.11% | The character comes to a place that is abandoned or seems to have been abandoned by the inhabitants. He tries to take or touch things, but invisible owners prevent him from doing so, or the things themselves hurt him. |
| B75B1 | 96.08% | The character pushes his mother-in-law or wife into a hollow, and she turns into the creaking of trees or an echo. |
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Map of Motif Dispersal
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This motif has been recorded in 10 traditions: Micmac, Western Ojibwa (Chippewa), Naskapi, Shuswap, Thompson (Nlaka'pamux), Kalapuya, Shasta; Chimariko, Maidu, Nisenan, Konkov, Yaruro, Mataco