The Mythology and Folklore Database
L65B4 - Tooth-axe.
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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
The character pulls out his tooth to use it as a weapon or tool (often an axe).Berezkin category: Adventures: Monsters and evil spirits
This is of motif type Adventures and tricks and is part group 10, Adventures
L65 has 12 other sub-motifsL65. An infant or small child turns out to be a demon and kills people. L65a. A daughter is born, or people find a girl; she is a monster or turns into a monster and devours everyone. Her brother escapes (usually leaves, marries, returns), and she pursues him unsuccessfully. L65a1. A demonic character successively devours parts of the horse on which the hero arrived, each time returning to the hero and then leaving to devour another part. (Often asks whether the hero arrived on a three-legged, two-legged or one-legged horse). L65a2. A man shoots off (damages) the finger of a demonic creature, and then sees that his sister, lying in her cradle, has lost her finger. L65b. A demonic woman, less often her lover or another monster, is ready to kill or kills the hero. Dogs (or animals and birds that replace them – lions, bears, eagles, etc.) come running (flying), rescue the hero and kill the demon. L65b1. A man exchanges sheep (goats) for dogs. The exchange seems unequal, but the dogs help him achieve success. L65b2. The hero's dogs have names that speak of their strength and agility (Wind, Ironbreaker, etc.). L65b3. A character who climbs a tree manages to escape from a demon (who usually tries to knock the tree down). L65b4. The character pulls out his tooth to use it as a weapon or tool (often an axe). L65b5. Despite obstacles, the young man's dogs or other animals serving him get to the princess just as she is about to be given away to a deceiver. L65c. The eldest of three or more sisters turns out to be a cannibal, devouring her younger sisters and other people. L65c1. Three or more sisters have the ability to fly and fly away from the cannibal – their older sister or mother. Only the youngest is saved. L65d. When the older sister becomes a cannibal, the younger sister (temporarily) escapes. Cf. motifs L1B, L65C. Click here if would you like to see a distrbution map combining all of L65's motifs? |
Top 10 Motifs with similar dispersal patterns
| Motif | Similarity | Motif Summary |
|---|---|---|
| K27L1 | 99.23% | Voluntarily subjecting himself to trials, the character allows himself to be frozen in ice and cannot free himself. |
| N6 | 98.96% | horse tells the rider to whip it so hard that his blood splashes, his skin peels off, the meat is cut to the bone, etc. The rider follows these instructions. |
| M109A | 98.75% | One zoomorphic character advises another to sit on the ice for a long time – usually until food falls from the sky. The one who sits on the ice freezes to it. |
| J32E | 98.65% | Every time a mare foals, the foal is stolen. The hero finds out who is doing this. |
| K148 | 98.65% | Every night or every year, a mare gives birth to a foal, and every time someone steals it. |
| N21 | 98.54% | The warrior-hero was made of dough and then became alive (his name is “The Dough”) |
| M177A | 98.50% | One zoomorphic character teaches another to remain silent, to look at him or away when a third character asks who ate the best piece. It is a trap: the third character decides that the second is guilty. |
| L100D1 | 98.49% | A person endowed with (spiritual) power comes to a woman in the evening. When there is a knock at the door, the woman, having agreed in advance with her husband, tells the guest to lie down in the cradle and replies to her husband who has entered that their son is in the cradle. The man begins to turn the adult into a baby or threatens to do so: he shaves off his beard, knocks out his teeth, and grabs an axe to chop off his legs. The disgraced and exhausted guest runs away. |
| B73 | 98.48% | The character turns into a cuckoo. This happens so quickly that one foot remains unshod or one braid remains unbraided. Therefore, it is believed that the cuckoo's legs or wings are different. See motif A43A. |
| M197D | 98.48% | To find the thief, a man gives sticks to the assembled crowd and says that the thief's stick will become longer overnight. The thief cuts off the end of his stick and is thus discovered. |
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Map of Motif Dispersal
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This motif has been recorded in 8 traditions: Algeria Arabs, Uzbek, Tajik, Uyghur, Hui (Dungan) of Xinjiang, Gansu, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, Qinghai, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan (Dungan texts from Southern and Eastern China are clustered with the Chinese ones), Turkmen, Mari (Cheremis), Buryats: Western (cis Baikal)