The Mythology and Folklore Database
I87D - People in the time of giants, ATU 701.
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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
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.Berezkin category: Supernatural objects, objects and creatures
This is of motif type Cosmology and etiology and is part group 5, Origin of human beings, ethnic groups, etiology of human anatomy, strange body configuration, ways of behavior, marriages before the establishment of the present norms
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 |
|---|---|---|
| M199E | 99.93% | A man and his opponent compete to see who can carry a horse. The opponent struggles to lift the horse, while the man rides it, saying that he easily carried it between his legs. |
| L122 | 99.92% | The character rides on a rooster. |
| M191 | 99.86% | The fox (dog, squirrel) lives with the cat and pretends to be a strong beast; forest predators are frightened and bring meat to appease the cat. |
| L42I | 99.82% | Creatures from another world carry off a little boy. His sister takes him and safely escapes from their pursuers. Usually the boy has two or three sisters, and only the youngest succeeds. |
| L100F1 | 99.80% | A worker (the young son of the master) arranges things so that the food prepared by the mistress for her lover, who is working in the field, goes to the master, and when the master goes to the man, not knowing that he is his wife's lover, the man thinks that the husband is coming to kill him and flees. |
| G25 | 99.76% | Cereal seeds are scattered across the world, fell to the ground, now people grow bread. |
| I132B | 99.76% | A girl comes to the Sun to become his wife, but at the last moment undergoes a metamorphosis (usually turning into a bird). |
| I7B | 99.76% | Lightning – a crack in the sky through which the heavens are visible for a moment. |
| K102C | 99.76% | The enemy seizes the object that makes the hero invulnerable and kills him. The hero is revived. Changing his appearance, he provokes the enemy to put the magical object on the ground, seizes it again and kills the enemy. |
| K150 | 99.76% | A magical horse (rarely: dog) eats (hot) coals, nails, etc., or attempts are made to feed these to the horse. |
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Map of Motif Dispersal
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This motif has been recorded in 20 traditions: England, British, Bretons, Dutch, Flemish, 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, Poles, Hungarians, Slovenians, Slovenes, Lithuanians, Livonians, Finns, Western Sami, Norwegians, Swedes, Western Ukrainians, Georgians, Crimean Tatars, Karaims, Mari (Cheremis), Chuvash, Udmurt, Frisians, Occitanie (southern France): Limousin, Auvergne, Provence, Aquitaine, Albret, Gers, Aveyron (Rouerge), Armagnac, Landes, Gascogne, Vivarés, Roussillon, Pyrénées, Bearne, Guyenne, Bigorre, Ain, Hautes Alpes, Ariège, Vienne, Aude, French part of Swiss