The Mythology and Folklore Database
K123A - The broken jug.
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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
A boy or young man accidentally, or more often out of mischief, breaks or overturns a vessel belonging to a woman or girl. This episode forms the basis of the rest of the story.Berezkin category: Adventures: Acts of heroes
This is of motif type Adventures and tricks and is part group 10, Adventures
K12 has 2 other sub-motifsK12. The hero returns the woman whom his enemy or rival tried to take away from him. K12a. An unrecognised hero arrives at a place where his bride or wife is to be given to another man or turned into a servant. Contrary to expectations, he manages to draw a tight bow (raise a spear), with which he kills his rivals. K12b. The hero enters a world beyond the human world and marries there. His wife allows him to visit his former world, but on certain conditions. The hero breaks these conditions, which leads to (irreparable) misfortune. Cf. motif F94 (the hero betrays his fairy wife in her world); K25a6 (the hero visits his world together with his fairy wife). Click here if would you like to see a distrbution map combining all of K12's motifs? |
Top 10 Motifs with similar dispersal patterns
| Motif | Similarity | Motif Summary |
|---|---|---|
| K35A | 99.03% | In exchange for improving his current situation, the character agrees to have his body injured or branded. |
| K75A | 98.99% | The character chooses one of many suitors (a woman chooses a husband, a boy chooses a father, a young man chooses a bride) by throwing an object (often an apple) at him. Cf. motif K113A (throwing an object at random, not at a person who is nearby). |
| M75B | 98.83% | A person hides in the skin or carcass of a large animal. A bird brings a skin or carcass to the nest without knowing what it brought the person. |
| K32I | 98.78% | A girl finds the body of a young man who shows no signs of life and must sit next to him for a certain amount of time so that he comes back to life and takes her as his wife. Usually, she leaves at the last moment and an impostor becomes the wife of the revived man. |
| K123 | 98.62% | A boy, a young man, or, less commonly, a girl deliberately or accidentally offends an elderly woman (or a cripple). She utters words that cause him or her to want to do something dangerous (most often to find a marriage partner). |
| M116A | 98.30% | A man drags his father, intending to leave him to die in a deserted place, give him to an almshouse, throw him into a precipice, etc. He stops on the way. The father says that he also stopped at this place when he was dragging his father. Or the boy asks to keep the sledge, the skin, etc., on which his father is dragging his grandfather (or takes half of the cloak with which his father covered the old man): it will come in handy when he drags his father himself. Or the old man is given a wooden (broken, etc.) plate to eat from, and the boy says that he will give his father the same one when he grows old. The man brings his father home (begins to take care of him). |
| K27Z2A1 | 97.85% | Noticing that a woman is pregnant, her relatives or in-laws accuse her of promiscuity, because, according to their calculations, she could not have conceived by her husband or fiancé. After severe trials, the woman meets again the father of the boy she gave birth to. |
| K88B | 97.83% | The character suffers from thirst or hunger. His companion promises to share water or food with him (to make him rich) if he allows himself to be blinded. |
| K36 | 97.72% | The hero (heroine) is temporarily transformed into an animal (usually a dog/coyote or a donkey, with the face of the former]: 151-152t to the ground; and the strength of 99 men; if she had taken the hundredth, she would have remained a woman; if the young man had ground, a horse). When he or she is helped to regain their former appearance, the antagonist is transformed into an animal. In some texts, either only the hero or only the antagonist undergoes metamorphosis. Cf. motifs K62B, J62b1 (the character transforms many people into animals). |
| K73B | 97.69% | A woman falsely accused of murdering her newborn child, or of giving birth to a puppy instead of a child, etc., is subjected to cruel and humiliating punishment or execution. See motif K73. |
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Map of Motif Dispersal
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This motif has been recorded in 28 traditions: Arabs of Iraq, Iraqi, Algeria Arabs, Tunisia Arabs, Northern Munda of Kharwar branch: Birhor, Ho, Mundari, Kol, Asur (including Agaria, Kol, Birjhia), Bhumij, 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), Maltese, Sicily, Sicilians, Sardinia, Corsica, Sardinians, Corsicans, Greeks (modern), Balkarians, Romanians, Moldavians, Aromanians, Moldovans, Western Ukrainians, Baluch, Persians, Abkhaz, Abkhazians, Ossetians, Nogai, Mingrelians (Megrelians), Laz, Georgians, Armenians, Crimean Tatars, Karaims, Anatolia Turks, Central Tibetans (Yu Tsang, incl. Sikkim Tibetans, Tichurong of NW Nepal), Urums, Rumei, Kordofan, Parya of Gissar (Hisor) Valley (Tajikistan), Italians: Central (Toscana, Umbria, Marche, Lazio), Morocco, Egypt