The Mythology and Folklore Database
K18B - The boy stops crying.
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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
Men or women approach the little boy one after another or take him in their arms. The person who makes the boy stop crying is recognised as his parent. See motif K18.Berezkin category: Adventures: Acts of heroes
This is of motif type Adventures and tricks and is part group 10, Adventures
K18 has 5 other sub-motifsK18. A boy is born whose father (rarely mother) is unknown. He chooses his true father (mother), who usually occupies the lowest social position. Usually, a group of men or women gather together, each of whom wants the boy to choose him or her. K18a. The boy's father is recognised as the man whose bow or arrows he chooses. See motif K18. k18aa. A girl becomes pregnant without her knowledge through contact with the bodily secretions of a male character or with objects that he has touched (i.e. not as a result of sexual intercourse, not as a result of the simple desire of the father of her future child, and not through mystical contact with a deity). The story ends with the happy union of the girl and the father of her child. K18b. Men or women approach the little boy one after another or take him in their arms. The person who makes the boy stop crying is recognised as his parent. See motif K18. K18c. The man in whose arms the boy urinates will be recognised as his father. See motif K18. K18d. A young man releases or saves a fish (frog, snake, supernatural creature), it grants his wishes, and he marries a princess. {References to ATU are not entirely reliable. In particular, Uther 2004 includes a Corsican variant (Massignon 1984, No. 66), in which the main part of the plot is missing. References to Balkan variants probably correspond to the definition of the plot, since it does exist among the Bulgarians}. Click here if would you like to see a distrbution map combining all of K18's motifs? |
Top 10 Motifs with similar dispersal patterns
| Motif | Similarity | Motif Summary |
|---|---|---|
| J53A1 | 99.39% | The children of the murdered man kill the murderer's children, luring them to a place where they perish from heat or smoke. |
| F21 | 99.38% | While the character copulates with a woman, she turns into a tree or a rock. His penis gets stuck in her. |
| J22A | 99.15% | Two men or a brother and sister emerge from a single body or embryo cut in half, or the second emerges from a part of the body or from the secretions of the first. Cf. motif M37. |
| L40A | 99.12% | An unattractive woman sees the reflection of a young man sitting in a tree in the water and thinks that she has become beautiful. |
| F56 | 98.80% | Upon seeing the vagina of his mother, daughter, daughter-in-law, sister, niece, or mother-in-law, a man or boy thinks about incest or commits it. |
| K58A | 98.35% | The character brings water for irrigation or a fish river to the place where the girl agrees to meet him, and does not bring water if she refuses. (The parallel between the myths of Peru and Oregon was first noted in Lehmann-Nitsche 1935a; 1936). |
| M103 | 98.35% | One character asks another how her (his) children acquired valuable qualities (became beautiful, obedient, etc.). The other replies that children must be baked in ashes, kept in fire, burned, etc. The first character does so, and her or his children die or are maimed. |
| K42 | 98.32% | A young bird woman energetically searches among a group of men for one she likes, takes him by force and makes him her husband; she turns into a monster, pursues and kills men, but is ultimately killed herself. |
| H20A | 98.24% | A woman or several women keep fish or water in some kind of container; a man releases all the fish into rivers or the sea, releases the water. See motif H20. |
| F61 | 98.19% | A male character pretends to be sick, weak, unconscious; a woman carries him on her back, he copulates or tries to copulate with her on the go. |
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Map of Motif Dispersal
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This motif has been recorded in 6 traditions: Trans-New Guinea and unclassified Papuan groups of Irian Jaya: Mejprat, Arandai-Bintuni, Inanwatan-Berau, Papua of Gelvink (Cenderawasih) Bay, Kamoró, Marind Anim, Sawi, Mafore; Korowai; Kwerba; Momina, Eipo, Yale, Awyu, Wichita; Spiro Mound iconography, Lushootseed (Puget Sound: Puyallup, Nisqualmi, Snuqualmi, Duwamish, Muckleshoot, Snohomish, Skagit), Nez Perce, Bolivian Guarani: Chiriguano (including assimilated Chane Arawaks), Pauserna (=Guarasu), Guarayu, Tapiete, Chorote