The Mythology and Folklore Database
M57A1 - Where it comes, there's gold
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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 beautiful woman walks on the ground, jewels appear under her feet, flowers bloom, etc.Berezkin category: Adventures: Tricks and episodes
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
M57 has 11 other sub-motifsM57a. Instead of the usual secretions from the human body, beads, flowers, gold and other valuables pour in. M57a1. When a beautiful woman walks on the ground, jewels appear under her feet, flowers bloom, etc. M57a2. Instead of common body discharges a a man urinates, spits, etc. beads, flowers, gold and other valuables; valuables are produced by the very presence of particular male person. See motif m57a M57a3. Instead of common body discharges a a woman urinates, spits, etc. beads, flowers, gold and other valuables; valuables are produced by the very presence of particular female person. See motif m57a M57b. Beads or metals are the bodily secretions of a deity. M57c. An animal (donkey, bull, horse, goat, bear, leopard) or inanimate object makes gold or food stand out, or a character makes others believe that this is the case. M57c1. A man fights a bear or (Malayali) leopard and makes another person believe that this animal is defecating with gold. M57d. A person consistently receives magical items that bring wealth. Others replace them or take them away. A person returns what has been taken - usually by receiving another wonderful object (baton, whip) that hits the kidnappers. M57d1. bird consistently gives a person magical objects (or gives one, with which he receives the rest) or consistently fulfills his wishes. M57d2. The man was about to cut down a tree. It himself, or the creature living on it or in it, asks not to do so and fulfills the person's wishes. M57d3. A person receives a reward from a character who is associated with the wind. Cf. Motive K175 (“The wind carried away the flour”). M57d4. A person receives a reward from a character who is associated with frost. Click here if would you like to see a distrbution map combining all of M57's motifs? |
Top 10 Motifs with similar dispersal patterns
| Motif | Similarity | Motif Summary |
|---|---|---|
| K107 | 98.74% | A magical husband leaves his wife. She finds and returns him. |
| H55 | 98.57% | A person going to the other world sees people who are punished or rewarded for their actions in life. |
| K81 | 98.55% | For a minor offence or on false charges, a young woman is maimed and expelled from her home (rarely: she is killed or maims herself). The cripple miraculously recovers (the dead woman is resurrected). |
| M90 | 98.53% | Someone asks a riddle about the material from which a particular item is made or originated. It is almost impossible to guess, but the character learns the secret, forcing the hero or heroine to fulfill the conditions set. (Usually requires a girl to marry him). |
| K67B | 98.47% | A character of low social status (without supernatural abilities) takes a job with a character of high social status (with supernatural abilities) on the condition that the employer will not get angry with the employee. By repeatedly annoying the employer, the employee causes him to become angry and, as a result, be severely punished or pay a large sum of money. |
| K14C | 98.38% | Returning after a long absence and seeing signs that there is another man in the house, a man thinks that his wife has a lover, but does not rush to act and convinces himself that it is his own son or his wife's relative. |
| H46 | 98.32% | A character (usually God) is about to deprive people of their food (most often grain), but does not do so for the sake of the dog (and/or cat; rarely for the sake of birds). Either God gave the ear of corn to the dog, and the man took it for himself. |
| I121 | 98.15% | Constellations (usually Ursa Major and Ursa Minor) are considered as two similar, paired objects. (For Africa, Eurasia and Alaska – paired names; for most of America – semantic association, but the names are not paired). |
| M39A3 | 98.14% | fool kills a man, throws him into a pond, well, etc. A clever man throws a goat there. A fool searches for a corpse in the pond, asks if the victim had horns, etc. Everyone is obviously crazy, and the murder charge has been denied. {The Buryat and Yakut versions may be recent Russian borrowings. The ATU 1581B definition also includes an episode where a human corpse was replaced with a goat carcass, but most of the texts that have been verified do not contain this motive}. |
| K38E | 98.12% | Locations or objects made of three (rarely four) materials of varying degrees of value, but all valued positively (copper, silver, gold; silver, gold, diamonds, etc.) are mentioned. |
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Map of Motif Dispersal
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This motif has been recorded in 19 traditions: Tamil, Muthuvan, Marvar, Tamils, Nepali; Tharu, Serbs, Monte Negro, Balkarians, Albanians, Balkarians, Karelians, Danes, Danish, Russians: Central part of ethnic territory as in A.D. 1500 (Tver, Yaroslavl, Moscow, Kostroma, Vladimir, Ivanovo, Nizhny Novgorod, Ryazan, Tula, Kaluga, Smolensk provinces; in case of absence in other areas also Russians in Vyatka, Perm, Kazan provinces), Uzbek, Tajik, Persians, Karachays, Balkar, Armenians, Anatolia Turks, Buryats: Western (cis Baikal), Mongols (Khalkha), Central Yakuts (Sakha), Arabs of Kuwait, Bahrein, Qatar, Emirates, Oman,, Italians: Central (Toscana, Umbria, Marche, Lazio), Berbers of Algeria