The Mythology and Folklore Database
K169 - Pregnant doe.




6 Myths, Legends and Folktales
6 Unique Narratives for Motif K169
6 Cultures & Traditions where K169 is told
0 Mythemes Indexed
1 Sub-Motifs of Motif K169


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 Motif Summary  -   Motifs with Simlar Dispersals  -    Map of Myth Distribution   -   List of Traditions  -   Myths



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 hunter spares the hunted animal, noticing that it is a pregnant female and remembering his own pregnant wife.

Berezkin category: Adventures: Acts of heroes

This is of motif type Adventures and tricks and is part group 10, Adventures


K16 has 1 other sub-motifs


K16.  Taking the form of a bird, bat, insect, small animal, or fish, the man enters the young woman's home (her father's house).
K16a.  In an effort to show that he is a good hunter, a man regularly walks in front of a girl, pretending to carry prey. Once he slips, and the imaginary prey turns out to be a scarecrow stuffed with ashes or a bundle of termites.

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Top 10 Motifs with similar dispersal patterns

MotifSimilarityMotif Summary
B46A99.01%One of the stars of the Pleiades was separated from the others (usually stolen by the stars of the Big Dipper and identified with Alcor).
K27Z4B98.98%The husband leaves, meets a swindler and loses everything he has to him. The wife comes disguised as a man, punishes the swindler and rescues her husband.
M13098.88%The fox and the bird hide from the hunter in the same burrow or hollow. The bird pretends to be dead and as a result is saved – either alone or together with the fox. Cf. motif M130A.
N3098.80%formula that describes the confusion of feelings: when a character looks in one direction, he cries, and when he laughs or smiles in the other direction.
M198A198.61%Three characters sequentially and without apparent reason determine the characteristics of an object or person they have not seen.
M39A6B98.47%The ruler, to whom the master builder went to work, is going to kill or maim him. The master asks to send a person to his house asking him to bring a forgotten instrument or something else. The daughter-in-law understands the true meaning of the request, captivates the messenger and saves her father-in-law.
I87A98.42%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.
F9F198.37%Inside the woman there is a snake (snakes, scorpions, just poison) that comes out of her mouth. {Motifs F9f1 and K100C are almost identical, but the first can be included in the cosmological-etiological category and is associated with the idea of a dangerous woman, while the second belongs to the adventure category}.
K4098.29%Two (rarely more) characters consider themselves doomed to death, but the one whose death will come later rejoices, while the one whose death will come earlier grieves. Cf. motif N30.
C2998.17%People (God) learn a secret by overhearing (spying on) a character talking to himself or his relatives (or performing actions that should be remembered). The knowledge gained is related to cosmogony or the acquisition of cultural values.

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Map of Motif Dispersal

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This motif has been recorded in 6 traditions: Nogai, Tats, Kazakh, Hui (Dungan) of Xinjiang, Gansu, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, Qinghai, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan (Dungan texts from Southern and Eastern China are clustered with the Chinese ones), Kazan (Middle Volga) Tatars, Chuvash


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