The Mythology and Folklore Database
K65E1 - Midwife to a toad.
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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
A woman delivers a baby (baptises a child) for a creature that in the human world has the appearance of a toad or frog.Berezkin category: Adventures: Acts of heroes
This is of motif type Cosmology and etiology and is part group 8, Queer and monstrous beings, creatures, objects and loci, folk beliefs related to particular phenomena and objects
K65 has 10 other sub-motifsK65. Having been cast out, discarded, or born of the first ancestors, creatures of a certain category acquire individuality, transforming into spirits who are the masters of various loci. K65a. After being thrown from a height or expelled, various creatures end up in different locations, acquiring corresponding functions and names. K65b. Spirits (deities) or unpleasant animals (snakes, frogs, worms, etc.) are generated by the same first anthropomorphic pair or the same pair of first ancestors as humans (deities). K65c. A woman (rarely a man) hides some of her children (less often, all of them) or some of her domestic animals from God. According to God, the hidden children become either poor people or creatures of a non-human nature, and the hidden domestic animals become wild. K65c1. A woman gives birth to many children, but hides some of them from God. Those who are hidden become the progenitors of people of low social status, and those who are shown become the progenitors of people of high status. {The definition of plot 758 in Uther 2004 largely coincides with ours, but the references also include traditions in which children hidden from God become spirits rather than people of low status}. K65c2. A woman or female animal gives birth to several sons, including a human and a tiger. K65c3. A woman (alone or with her husband) hides some of her children from God because she is ashamed of having given birth to so many offspring. K65d. The first human couple initially only have miscarriages, or their children are spirits or unpleasant and dangerous animals. After performing a formal marriage ceremony or repeating it according to new rules, the woman gives birth to real people or gods. K65e. A woman is invited into the non-human world, where she delivers a child for one of the creatures (or serves as a nanny for a certain period of time, baptises the child). Then she returns to the human world. K65e1. A woman delivers a baby (baptises a child) for a creature that in the human world has the appearance of a toad or frog. K65f. Once in the locus of demons, a person sees them in their true form. Upon returning, the person sees the demon again, which ordinary people are incapable of doing. The demon blinds him. Click here if would you like to see a distrbution map combining all of K65's motifs? |
Top 10 Motifs with similar dispersal patterns
| Motif | Similarity | Motif Summary |
|---|---|---|
| K56A5C | 99.71% | A man who kindly answers the questions of characters representing the weather in certain months of the year is rewarded. Another man scolds them and is punished. |
| K27Z2F | 99.56% | A poor girl buys a doll (goose) that defecates gold. When the neighbours take the doll, it only dirties their house. They throw it away, and the prince uses it to wipe himself, and it sticks to his backside. No one can help, but the poor girl easily solves the problem. The prince marries her. |
| K120A3 | 99.54% | The character receives a nut containing valuables (beautiful clothes, jewellery, animal helpers, etc.), or (Germans, Latvians) hides the valuables in the nut himself to use them later. |
| M163A | 99.50% | A man sells a cat (rooster) to people who do not know about cats (or chickens). Having received a cat or rooster, people do not know what to feed them and fear that they will eat people. |
| J62B1 | 99.47% | A sorceress living on an island turns men into animals. |
| K73B4 | 99.35% | A person is asked to fill a bag (cauldron) with truth (lies, fairy tales). He fulfils the request by telling a revealing story. |
| K56A5B | 99.08% | A person who responds kindly to the questions of characters representing the weather during certain periods of the calendar cycle is rewarded. Another person who scolds these characters is punished. |
| M29Z3 | 99.07% | The Gipsy (more often a female than a male) is an enemy overcome by the hero (heroine) or (rare) a weak failure |
| K57C | 99.05% | The prince puts a ring on the finger of a beautiful girl, not knowing that she is the very girl who works in his kitchen. The girl slips the ring into the prince's food, and he recognises it. |
| I138 | 99.02% | The glass mountain (tower, bridge) is mentioned as an unusual (inaccessible) locus. |
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Map of Motif Dispersal
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This motif has been recorded in 14 traditions: Arabs of Levant (Syria, Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan); Bedouins of Sinai, Ireland, Slovakians, Slovaks, Hungarians, Bulgarians, Balkarians, Croatians, Croats; Italians of Dalmatia (if the motif is absent among other Italians), Latvians, Norwegians, Western Ukrainians, Byelarusians, Belarusians, Arabs of Kuwait, Bahrein, Qatar, Emirates, Oman,, Eastern Ukrainians, Northern Ukrainians, Russian Federation