The Mythology and Folklore Database
M134B - Measuring the wolf.
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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
When a predator is about to eat a person, the person asks to be measured first and strikes the predator with an (imaginary) measuring instrument.Berezkin category: Adventures: Tricks and episodes
This is of motif type Adventures and tricks and is part group 11, Tricks and competitions won thanks to deception, absurd and obscene behavior
M13 has 2 other sub-motifsM13. A person appeals to higher powers with a request, without considering that his words may have a different meaning than he intended. Either a person accidentally utters the wrong word or accidentally and hastily expresses an empty or absurd desire. As a result, something happens that he did not want at all. Cf. motifs I58B and M13A.Most of the references in ATU 775 (Midas' short-sighted wish) are either incorrect or impossible to verify. In connection with this plot, the reference to Uther 2000 is taken into account only for the Lithuanian variant, since there is a summary of the Latvian one, and for the Greek one, since the motif exists in Ancient Greece and among the neighbouring South Slavs. For ATU 750A, the reference to Bäcker 1988 in connection with the "Chinese" is incorrect; these are Manchus, not Chinese, and the stated motif is not present in the text. M13a. A deity and a human meet so that the former can fulfil the latter's request. As a result, the human is turned to stone. Usually (except for the Squamish), one of the supplicants wants eternal life and is turned to stone. See motif M13. M13B. People are promised the fulfilment of two (three, four) wishes. Without thinking, they wish for something they do not want at all. The last wish is spent on returning to the original state. Click here if would you like to see a distrbution map combining all of M13's motifs? |
Top 10 Motifs with similar dispersal patterns
| Motif | Similarity | Motif Summary |
|---|---|---|
| B110A | 100.00% | A character who is dragged along the ground or who falls from the sky turns into atmospheric phenomena. |
| K182A | 100.00% | A mighty warrior residing in a cave (or crypt, etc.) will eventually emerge into the light (to assist his people), or he could emerge but chooses not to. |
| I136 | 99.95% | The rolling wheel (and the character riding on it) is a creature or weapon hostile to the hero (people) that he uses. |
| K2A3 | 99.89% | The hero's companions leave him on the mountain, destroying the rope (chain) by which he climbed up or which he lowered down. |
| K27Q1 | 99.76% | The hero is sent to bring lioness milk in a wineskin made from a lion skin (usually from a lion cub's skin). |
| F87A | 99.67% | A snake crawls onto the clothes of a girl bathing, climbs down in exchange for a promise to marry him, and takes her to the underwater world. She is happy there and gives birth to children. Together with them, she visits her relatives. They call the snake out of the water and kill it. After that, the wife transforms her children and/or herself into birds. |
| K85 | 99.67% | The antagonist owns the fastest horse. The hero obtains an even faster horse (usually the brother or sister of this horse), which is the only one that surpasses the antagonist's horse and usually orders the antagonist to throw off his rider. |
| L110C | 99.67% | An elderly couple makes a child out of clay (wood, straw, dough). The doll comes to life and eats everyone it sees. Usually a goat (ram) breaks it, and those who have been swallowed come out alive. |
| L94B1 | 99.61% | A man receives a box (bag, horn, etc.) as a gift, which he must open only at home. Driven by curiosity, he opens it on the way, and everything that should make him wealthy (houses, livestock, etc.) spills out. The demon who appears agrees to return everything, but sets a condition, the severity of which the man does not immediately understand. |
| K56A4 | 99.59% | When a kind girl returns home, an animal or bird (usually a dog) announces that she is well, but when an unkind girl returns or when her dead body is brought back, the dog (rooster, crow) announces that something is wrong with her. |
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Map of Motif Dispersal
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This motif has been recorded in 16 traditions: Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, Karelians, Western Ukrainians, Byelarusians, Belarusians, Tats, Kazan (Middle Volga) Tatars, Bashkirs, Mari (Cheremis), Chuvash, Udmurt, Eastern Ukrainians, Northern Ukrainians, Terek Cossacks, Russian Federation