The Mythology and Folklore Database
M3B - A severed rabbit tail
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Motif Summary - Motifs with Simlar Dispersals - Map of Myth Distribution - List of Traditions - Myths |
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
Trying to grab a hare, another animal tears off (bites) its tail. It's been short ever since.Berezkin category: Adventures: Tricks and episodes
This is of motif type Adventures and tricks 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
M3 has 2 other sub-motifsM3. The character crosses a water or air barrier on the backs of chained animals, birds, or fish. M3a. The character invites aquatic creatures to count them, and to do this, form a chain; crosses it to the other side or climbs to land. See M3 motif. M3b. Trying to grab a hare, another animal tears off (bites) its tail. It's been short ever since. Click here if would you like to see a distrbution map combining all of M3's motifs? |
Top 10 Motifs with similar dispersal patterns
| Motif | Similarity | Motif Summary |
|---|---|---|
| K32E | 99.47% | A negative character, object or locus is contrasted with one or two positive ones, such as wood with gold and silver. |
| F89 | 99.00% | A sister and brother live alone. The brother refuses to commit incest. The sister resorts to cunning, as a result of which the brother mistakes her for a stranger and marries her. |
| H43AB | 99.00% | Man is mortal because he was spat upon at creation. |
| M45A | 98.40% | A person is sleeping or pretending to be asleep or dead. Animals take him for a dead man - they mourn him, carry him to bury him, they are going to eat it, etc. A person beats the crowd and/or obtains benefits. |
| K56A8 | 98.34% | A girl marries an animal (brings it with her), and it turns into a handsome man. Another girl tries to do the same, but dies or suffers harm. |
| M57C1 | 98.06% | A man fights a bear or (Malayali) leopard and makes another person believe that this animal is defecating with gold. |
| B72B | 97.59% | A girl or, less commonly, a boy turns into a bird after his mother (father, guardian) refuses to give him water or food or otherwise mistreats him. |
| M99A1 | 97.47% | The character is going to pierce all the birds with their beaks (to string them on a rope) or cut them off altogether. |
| C8B | 97.19% | A brother and sister (or mother and son) find themselves alone, without marriage partners. Both of them (or only the brother, son) refuse to marry, but do so after accepting each other (or the brother accepts the sister, the son accepts the mother) as strangers. They give birth to new people. |
| M147 | 96.90% | A weak animal tells a strong animal that everyone is afraid of him, the weak one, and suggests testing this. He walks in front of the strong animal, everyone runs away, and the strong animal believes that they are running away from the weak one. |
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Map of Motif Dispersal
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This motif has been recorded in 2 traditions: Mansi, China