The Mythology and Folklore Database
F87 - Children transformed by a snake woman, ATU 425M.
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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 snake forces the girl to promise to marry him and takes her to the underwater world. She is happy there and gives birth to a son (or two sons) and a daughter. Together with her children, she returns to visit her relatives. They learn what words she must use to summon her husband from the water, summon him, and kill him. Seeing the bloody water, the snake's wife (rarely the snake himself) turns the children and herself into birds or trees.Berezkin category: Gender and sex
This is of motif type Cosmology and etiology 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
F87 has 2 other sub-motifsF87. The snake forces the girl to promise to marry him and takes her to the underwater world. She is happy there and gives birth to a son (or two sons) and a daughter. Together with her children, she returns to visit her relatives. They learn what words she must use to summon her husband from the water, summon him, and kill him. Seeing the bloody water, the snake's wife (rarely the snake himself) turns the children and herself into birds or trees. F87a. 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. F87b. A snake crawls onto the clothes of a bathing girl, 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 plants. Click here if would you like to see a distrbution map combining all of F87's motifs? |
Top 10 Motifs with similar dispersal patterns
| Motif | Similarity | Motif Summary |
|---|---|---|
| I113 | 100.00% | A pig or boar made of gold or with golden bristles is a precious object. (In ATU, "a pig with golden bristles" is one of the possible miraculous objects; the presence of a corresponding number in regional indexes does not necessarily mean the presence of an image; only cases where the image is directly named are taken into account). |
| I87E | 100.00% | After the present humans, dwarves will live on earth. |
| K168B | 100.00% | A person makes another person believe that he has turned into a bear (wolf), found himself in the forest, etc. When he wakes up, the bewitched person finds himself where he was before. |
| K67G | 100.00% | Pretending to carry out his master's orders, the worker cuts off the animals' lips (to make them look like they are smiling). |
| K56A4A | 99.98% | Left alone with the demon in the bathhouse (mill, etc.), the girl demands that he bring her new clothes, jewellery, etc., and while the demon is fetching them, morning comes. |
| M114B3 | 99.98% | When a girl is asked to weave clothes, given a negligible amount of yarn, she asks in return to make her weaving tools from sticks, twigs, straw, etc. |
| A8A | 99.94% | The sun, moon and star (stars) appear as three consecutive and comparable objects/characters in narratives about the abduction and subsequent liberation of celestial bodies. |
| H52B | 99.94% | Setting out in search of a land where there is no death, a man encounters characters engaged in tasks that can only be completed in an impossibly long time. However, the man needs eternal life, and so he continues on his way. |
| J7A | 99.94% | A girl (less often a boy) brings lunch to her father or brothers who are working in the field (in the forest), but encounters a demonic character. |
| K149 | 99.94% | The character has a rope or reins with three knots, allowing him to move faster or slower. Usually, untying the first and second knots causes the character's ship to sail faster (thanks to the rising wind) or his horse to gallop faster; however, contrary to the warning, the character (when almost reaching the goal) also unties the third knot and as a result loses the ship, the horse, ends up not where he wanted to be, etc. |
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Map of Motif Dispersal
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This motif has been recorded in 28 traditions: Bhuiya (now Aryans, originally Munda; Rahman 1955: 203), Baiga, Bhaina, Bhumia (subgroup of Baiga, incl Bharia, formerly Munda, now speak Indo-Aryan languages of neighboring groups), Gondi (mostly Northern Gondi), Tamil, Muthuvan, Marvar, Tamils, England, British, Bretons, Bulgarians, Balkarians, Croatians, Croats; Italians of Dalmatia (if the motif is absent among other Italians), Romanians, Moldavians, Aromanians, Moldovans, Lithuanians, Estonians, Setu, Finns, Vepsians, Western Ukrainians, Byelarusians, Belarusians, Karachays, Balkar, Tats, Kazakh, Kazan (Middle Volga) Tatars, Mari (Cheremis), Mordvins, Chuvash, Nanai, Nivkh, Central Tibetans (Yu Tsang, incl. Sikkim Tibetans, Tichurong of NW Nepal), Eastern Ukrainians, Northern Ukrainians, Lutsi (Ludza), Russian Federation