The Mythology and Folklore Database
M205 - Birds set fire to the city.
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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
Soldiers besieging a city or palace capture or obtain as ransom the birds living there. They smear them with an oily liquid or tie objects to them (shells with resin, shavings, tinder, etc.), which are then set on fire. The released birds fly back to the city or palace. Thanks to the fire that has started, the warriors capture it.Berezkin category: Adventures: Tricks and episodes
This is of motif type Adventures and tricks and is part group 10, Adventures
Top 10 Motifs with similar dispersal patterns
| Motif | Similarity | Motif Summary |
|---|---|---|
| K173 | 99.20% | A powerful and wealthy man loses everything, is separated from his wife and children, and they are separated from each other. The man regains his power and wealth, and the family is reunited. |
| K14C | 98.98% | 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. |
| M196 | 98.96% | A husband and wife agree to award a small prize to the one who remains silent the longest. Both or one of the spouses continue to remain silent even when others mistake them for dead or commit violence against them. |
| M39A7 | 98.84% | When instructed to wash the old man with warm water, the fool steams him with boiling water. |
| K33C | 98.72% | A young man obtains a girl who is inside a fruit or (rarely) a flower, stem, leaf, or egg. |
| K145B | 98.71% | After a man and a woman are left alone (usually on their wedding night), the woman turns into a predator or monster and eats the man. |
| K57 | 98.53% | A girl hides her beauty and/or lives in poverty, a man of high status sees her in her true form/in luxurious attire and takes her as his wife, recognising her by an item he gave her or she lost, usually a slipper or shoe, or by seeing her change her clothes. {All texts with this motif are also considered to contain the f62 motif}. |
| M136D | 98.43% | A person dreams of gradually becoming rich and forgets that this has not yet happened. As a result, he loses the initial source of future prosperity (breaks a jug, scares away a hare he was about to shoot, etc.) or senselessly causes harm to himself or others. |
| B33F | 98.43% | A certain character performs actions that determine the change from dark to light times of day. It always involves yarn, thread, rope, or fabric, which the character unravels or winds up, or with which the hero binds the entity responsible for the daily cycle. |
| M39H | 98.31% | The wife wants to get rid of her husband and usually asks the spirit to blind him. The husband hides in a hollow, behind an altar, etc., and answers on behalf of the spirit (usually advises to kill her husband with good food), or the husband tells his wife that delicious food can make you blind. Pretending to be blind, the husband kills his lover (and wife). |
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Map of Motif Dispersal
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This motif has been recorded in 14 traditions: Old and New Testament, Ireland, Wales, Hungarians, Scandinavians: early written sources ("Edda"; Saxo Grammaticus etc.); Gothland picture stones; Ancient Germans (Late Bronze Age in Scandinavia), Western Ukrainians, Tats, Armenians, Kazan (Middle Volga) Tatars, Mongols (Khalkha), Arabs (literary tradition; incl. One Thousand and One Nights), Eastern Ukrainians, Northern Ukrainians, Early Russian written sources