The Mythology and Folklore Database
B71 - Dancing flashes.
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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
The northern lights are people who play, dance, sit by the fire, fight or run with torches.Berezkin category: The Origins of the Characteristics of the environment
This is of motif type Cosmology and etiology and is part group 3, Cosmogony, the earth and the sky, etiology of the elements, natural and biological phenomena (fire, water, soil, thunderstorms, dream, etc.), cataclysms and cosmic threats, spirits of nature
Top 10 Motifs with similar dispersal patterns
| Motif | Similarity | Motif Summary |
|---|---|---|
| L101 | 96.87% | While running away, a person gradually undresses and throws items of clothing behind them. The pursuer wastes time picking them up or destroying them. |
| B57A | 88.85% | Seeing the reddened sky, the character understands that another's blood has been spilled, or that another has spilled red liquid. See motif B57. |
| E9I3 | 88.72% | Before meeting the hero, his beloved (wife, helper) has the image of a goose. |
| K67 | 88.28% | At night, one person intends to throw another person's shoes or clothes into the fire, but ends up burning his own shoes or clothes. Usually, the father-in-law throws his son-in-law's shoes into the fire at night in order to freeze him out, but the son-in-law has already switched shoes, so the father-in-law burns his own. |
| K54 | 87.49% | When encountering a giant or a snake, a person is afraid of it, but it becomes his friend and asks for help when he is fighting another giant or snake. The person fulfils the request. |
| M46E | 87.25% | They (promise to) give a child the Sun (and or the Moon) to play with |
| F65A | 87.03% | The spouse leaves the character at the burial site; the (pretend) dead person comes back to life and leaves to be with their lover. |
| K19E | 85.26% | Returning from the sky to earth, a woman or two sisters encounter a male wolverine who tries to capture them. Usually, the women who have descended first find themselves in a tree. Some animals cannot or will not help them descend to the ground. The wolverine descends to take the sisters as wives; they run away from him. See motif K19B. |
| B42S | 85.08% | The Big Dipper or Polar Star – a small animal (ermine, marten, forest marmot) or anthropomorphic character with animal features, struck by a spear or arrow. |
| K27N3C1 | 85.07% | The inhabitants of the polar bear village – relatives of his wife – set the hero difficult tasks and trials. |
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Map of Motif Dispersal
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This motif has been recorded in 33 traditions: Maori, Moriori (Chatam Islands), Scotland, Scots, Picts, Scotti, Scottish, France, Germans: North (Low- and Central German dialects): Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg, Pommern, Niedersachsen (Lower Saxony, incl East Frisia and Oldenburg), Nordrhein-Westfalen, Hessen, Rheinland-Pfalz, Thüringen, Saxony-Anhalt, Sachsen, Brandenburg, Rügen, Latvians, Estonians, Finns, Norwegians, Swedes, 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), Udmurt, Forest Nenets, Chukchi, Nunivak Island, Upper Tanana (Nebesna), Tanacross, Tutchone, Tagish, Bering Strait Inupiat (incl. King Island), North Alaskan Inupiat, West Greenland, Eyak, Tlingit, Haida, Malecite, Passamaquoddy, Wawenock, Abenaki, Penobscot, Western Ojibwa (Chippewa), Naskapi, Montagnais, Menominee, Sauk (Sak, Mesquakie), Fox, Kickapoo, Mandan, Antarctica, Greenland