The Mythology and Folklore Database
K149 - Three knots.
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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 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.Berezkin category: Adventures: Acts of heroes
This is of motif type Adventures and tricks and is part group 10, Adventures
K14 has 7 other sub-motifsK14. A person receives or buys simple advice, the meaning of which is initially unclear (travel with a companion, do not skip breakfast, etc.) and either follows it, achieving success, or violates it, getting into trouble. K14a. The antagonist orders the killing of the first person to arrive at the agreed place in the morning. The hero is accidentally delayed, and the antagonist himself or his wife or son are killed. K14b. A man is advised not to do anything until he is expressly asked to do so. He unwisely offers to let someone use his knife and is subsequently accused of a crime. K14c. Returning after a long absence and seeing signs that there is another man in the house, a man thinks that his wife has a lover, but does not rush to act and convinces himself that it is his own son or his wife's relative. k14c1. A man who has gone away to work sends his wife a pomegranate, unaware of its value. His wife finds treasures in the pomegranate. K14d. Testing his wife (household member, acquaintance), a man pretends to have committed a crime or performs incomprehensible actions that could be interpreted as a crime. Usually, his wife (friend) betrays him, and he presents evidence of his innocence. K14e. The sons do not care for their elderly father (rarely: the daughter-in-law does not care for her mother-in-law). He pretends to be hiding something. The sons believe that these are valuables that their father will leave them, and they begin to care for him. K14F. After his father's death, the son consistently violates his father's instructions. Having preserved material evidence of what happened, he presents it to those gathered, proving his father's rightness and/or his wife's wrongness. Click here if would you like to see a distrbution map combining all of K14's motifs? |
Top 10 Motifs with similar dispersal patterns
| Motif | Similarity | Motif Summary |
|---|---|---|
| A8A | 100.00% | 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 | 100.00% | 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 | 100.00% | 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. |
| M114B3 | 99.99% | 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. |
| F87 | 99.94% | 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. |
| I113 | 99.94% | 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 | 99.94% | After the present humans, dwarves will live on earth. |
| K168B | 99.94% | 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 | 99.94% | Pretending to carry out his master's orders, the worker cuts off the animals' lips (to make them look like they are smiling). |
| G25 | 99.91% | Cereal seeds are scattered across the world, fell to the ground, now people grow bread. |
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Map of Motif Dispersal
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This motif has been recorded in 6 traditions: Ireland, Scotland, Scots, Picts, Scotti, Scottish, Greeks (modern), Balkarians, Finns, Swedes, Karachays, Balkar