The Mythology and Folklore Database
L57B - The demon comes for a part of his body, ATU 161A.
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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 person tears off or cuts off a part of the body of a predatory animal or demonic creature and uses it. The creature comes for the lost part, usually killing or maiming the person.Berezkin category: Adventures: Monsters and evil spirits
This is of motif type Adventures and tricks and is part group 10, Adventures
L57 has 2 other sub-motifsL57. The character loses an internal organ or part of the body, which is taken away by others; he approaches unnoticed and takes back what was lost. L57a. The enemy takes possession of part of the character's body (remains). Another (usually resorting to trickery) returns what is missing, and the character comes back to life or recovers. L57b. A person tears off or cuts off a part of the body of a predatory animal or demonic creature and uses it. The creature comes for the lost part, usually killing or maiming the person. Click here if would you like to see a distrbution map combining all of L57's motifs? |
Top 10 Motifs with similar dispersal patterns
| Motif | Similarity | Motif Summary |
|---|---|---|
| K56A4C | 98.11% | A person is tasked with washing something black until it is white or something white until it is black (yarn, clothing, a board, etc.). |
| K128 | 98.03% | A character orders the hero to graze animals (or birds) and promises to execute him (deprive him of his reward) if even one animal is lost. Cf. K128B (ATU 570). |
| M199C | 98.02% | A person pretends to throw or is about to throw an object somewhere from which it cannot be retrieved (often into the sky, the clouds, or the sea). The opponent asks them not to do so and to stop the contest. |
| M26A | 97.95% | The character catches birds by feeding them bait tied to a rope, which they swallow one by one, or by shooting several birds with one bullet, or by soldering birds drunk and tying up. Birds usually take off and carry away a catcher holding a rope. |
| M199E | 97.93% | 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. |
| M197F | 97.91% | The dialogue plays on the fact that in youth the beard is black, and in old age it is white. Usually a person explains why his head has turned grey but his beard has not: the beard is 20 years younger. |
| M39A2C | 97.90% | A fool (or a character pretending to be crazy) sows salt (small objects) like a grain. |
| L100B | 97.89% | Having escaped from his pursuers, the young man parts with the girl, intending to return for her soon, but forgets her. When he is about to take another wife, the girl manages to restore his memory with the help of magic, and she marries him. Alternatively, the girl, who has briefly parted from her magical spouse, herself forgets him after an embrace or a kiss in her parents' house. |
| M106G | 97.86% | A man lifts a cow (donkey, ox, wife) onto the roof so that the animal can eat the grass growing there (the wife has gathered turnips, etc.) – usually by throwing a noose around the neck of the wife or animal. |
| L100F1 | 97.86% | 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. |
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Map of Motif Dispersal
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This motif has been recorded in 19 traditions: 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, Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, Karelians, Western Ukrainians, Byelarusians, Belarusians, Bashkirs, Mordvins, Komi (Zyrians and Permyaks), Tungus (Evenki): Baikal region, Evenks, Tungus (Evenki) of China (Solon, Birar, Oroqen, Manegir), Evenks, Tungus (Evenki): Russian Far East, Evenks, Shuar, Achuar (Shiwiar), Aguaruna, Huambiza, Ticuna (Tucuna), Eastern Ukrainians, Northern Ukrainians, Russian Federation