The Mythology and Folklore Database
I87AB - Only a child can move it.
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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
Strong men or a crowd of people cannot move the body of a dead animal or the leg of a motionless person, but a child or a woman can do it easily. Cf. motif B83.Berezkin category: Supernatural objects, objects and creatures
This is of motif type Adventures and tricks and is part group 10, Adventures
I87 has 13 other sub-motifsI87. The characters use an object belonging to the world of giants (a skull, an animal shoulder blade, a mitten) as a shelter. Cf. I87C: animals use an object belonging to the world of humans (a skull, a mitten, a sieve, etc.) as a shelter. I87a. A character of gigantic size turns out to be small in comparison with a character of even greater size, or the same character turns out to be small in some episodes and gigantic in others. I87a1. Two people engage in a dialogue, contradicting each other in their descriptions of the sizes of creatures and objects. I87a2. The antagonist names numbers from one to 7, 12, etc., the hero answers what each number corresponds to, and the antagonist is unable to refute him. I87aa. Describes a giant bull (rarely: horse): head in one field, body in another; a bathhouse on its tail, a lake on its back; people standing at its head and tail have to walk a long way to meet each other; etc. Usually the bull is killed and eaten (by people in Baltic-Finnish traditions and in Olonets antiquity; by birds in most southern traditions). I87ab. Strong men or a crowd of people cannot move the body of a dead animal or the leg of a motionless person, but a child or a woman can do it easily. Cf. motif B83. I87ac. Something huge gets into a person's eye, which he mistakes for a speck of dust. Usually, a bird carries away an animal or fish and drops a bone into the man's eye. It is difficult to find and remove (to do this, they get into a boat and float it inside the eye, throw a net into the eye, pull it out with oxen, etc.). I87ad. A giant hides a persecuted person in his mouth – usually (perhaps always) in a tooth cavity; or the person remains alive in the giant's mouth, hiding in a tooth cavity. Cf. motif M21a. I87b. When a character boasts of his strength, his wife or mother says that there is someone stronger than him. He sets off in search and meets a character who is much stronger than him. {ATU gives a definition of the plot (or rather, the first half of it) similar to ours, but some of the references given refer to our motif i87a, not i87b}. I87c. Animals use a small object belonging to the human world (skull, mitten, jug, etc.) for shelter or transportation. Cf. motif I87: characters use an object (skull, animal shoulder blade, mitten) belonging to the world of giants as a shelter. I87c1. A mouse makes itself a boat out of a small object. I87d. In the past, giants inhabited the earth. One of them finds a tiny human being and brings him to his father or mother. They usually say that such people will replace the current giants. I87e. After the present humans, dwarves will live on earth. I87f. Before modern humans, there lived others who differed in strength, height, nobility, or other qualities. They disappeared after committing suicide. Click here if would you like to see a distrbution map combining all of I87's motifs? |
Top 10 Motifs with similar dispersal patterns
| Motif | Similarity | Motif Summary |
|---|---|---|
| L15A2 | 100.00% | The human body is tempered (in a furnace, etc.) to make it invulnerable, but one place remains unprotected. |
| M141A | 100.00% | In a gathering of various animals, one of the participants refers to the weakest as insignificant to the others and bearing an ugly name. That one is eaten. This is repeated several times, each time the weakest of the remaining animals is eaten. |
| H7F2 | 99.83% | The character embodying death had a body visible to humans. Then death became invisible. |
| K27ZZ3 | 99.83% | The father or stepmother (werewolf) pushes/locks the sisters (the girl and her servants) into a pit. The heroine manages to escape and triumphs over her antagonists. |
| L108F | 99.83% | A character (girl, boy) finds themselves in water, and the antagonist lures them to shore by imitating the voice of their father, brother or sister. |
| N26 | 99.83% | said that the action took place when cultivated plants (wheat, cotton) grew on ice or salt. |
| N9 | 99.83% | Two characters discuss the rider's approach. A person with a higher social status explains that what seems like crows are actually clods of earth flying from under the horse's hooves, and what seems like snow, cloud or fog is falling from his foam or his breath. |
| A32I | 99.65% | A shepherd (shepherd and girl, shepherd and his flock, dogs) can be seen on the lunar disc. |
| B108 | 99.65% | An anthropomorphic character that has fallen apart into pieces turns into snow. |
| K156 | 99.65% | A girl pretends to be a man. To determine who it really is, flowers are placed under the pillow or mattress. If a man is sleeping, they will remain fresh, but if a woman is sleeping, they will wilt by morning (or if a woman is sleeping, the milk left under the bed will sour). |
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Map of Motif Dispersal
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This motif has been recorded in 15 traditions: Romanians, Moldavians, Aromanians, Moldovans, Lithuanians, Scandinavians: early written sources ("Edda"; Saxo Grammaticus etc.); Gothland picture stones; Ancient Germans (Late Bronze Age in Scandinavia), Abaza (Abazins), Cherkassians, Adyghe, Kabardin, Abkhaz, Abkhazians, Karachays, Balkar, Ossetians, Ingush, Svans, Georgians, Gagauz, Kazakh, Kirghiz, Mordvins