Resources · A view of the collection

Folklore, by the numbers

From the sun and moon to ghosts and giants: explore how the narratives in the database are distributed across themes and legend types.

Figures updated 28 October 2026, 10:32 (London time) · refreshed daily

286,878

Unique narratives

Distinct narrative texts

349,457

Occurrence records

Links to motifs, traditions and sources

1,209

Cultures & traditions

Entries in the tradition directory

3,494

Berezkin motifs

Entries in the motif catalogue

A narrative can belong to several categories. Each text is counted once within a category, but percentages across categories may add up to more than 100%.

Fourteen ways of seeing the world

Berezkin–Duvakin catalogue

Share of all Berezkin-derived narratives in this database.

Percentage base: 146,227 narratives

Category narratives share
  1. AThe Sun and Moon7,8335.4%
  2. BOrigins of the environment10,8087.4%
  3. CDisasters4,4073.0%
  4. DFire and Laughter2,2351.5%
  5. EOrigins of people and culture4,1912.9%
  6. FGender and sex7,0874.8%
  7. GFertility and Agriculture2,2181.5%
  8. HParadise Lost6,9784.8%
  9. ISupernatural objects and creatures14,1869.7%
  10. JAvenger heroes6,6954.6%
  11. KAdventures: Acts of heroes39,88327.3%
  12. LAdventures: Monsters and evil spirits16,61111.4%
  13. MAdventures: Tricks and episodes24,90017.0%
  14. NFabulous and epic formulas1,7301.2%

Bars share a 0–100% scale. Category links open the motif catalogue.

Explore the Berezkin catalogue

Fourteen kinds of legend

Briggs’s Folk Legends

Share of narratives successfully checked against Briggs’s legend types.

Percentage base: 5,836 narratives

Category narratives share
  1. 1Black Dogs641.1%
  2. 2Bogies4688.0%
  3. 3Devils4207.2%
  4. 4Dragons3005.1%
  5. 5Fairies81213.9%
  6. 6Ghosts4768.2%
  7. 7Giants3235.5%
  8. 8Historical Traditions92615.9%
  9. 9Local Legends1,63428.0%
  10. 10Origin Myths1,16219.9%
  11. 11Saints1682.9%
  12. 12The Supernatural66311.4%
  13. 13Witches5499.4%
  14. 14Miscellaneous Legends84514.5%

Bars share a 0–100% scale. Type links open matching stories; login is required to read them.

Explore the Briggs classification

Behind the numbers

What makes up the collection?

The database brings together several sources. These groups describe where the texts sit in the collection.

  • Berezkin/Duvakin Narratives146,22751.0%
  • Other and Unclassified Folklore Narratives5,2961.8%
  • Traditionally Attested Narratives and Primary Source Reference material135,35547.2%

Berezkin category coverage

99.6%

145,665 of 146,227 Berezkin-derived texts have a link to at least one recognised category.

562 have no recognised category link.

Briggs classification coverage

2.0%

5,836 of 286,878 texts have a successful Briggs classification.

5,201 match at least one legend type. A successfully checked text can match none.

Reading the figures

These are statistics about the contents and classification of this database. They show collection coverage and collecting history; they do not measure how common a story is in the world.

Unique texts, overlapping categories
Repeated occurrence records do not increase a category’s count. A text linked to two categories appears once in each, so adding category counts will not give the number of unique narratives.
Berezkin categories
Categories A–N follow the catalogue’s motif headings. Counts include Berezkin-derived texts linked to a recognised motif in that category. The percentage base includes all Berezkin-derived texts, including those with no recognised category link.
Briggs legend types
These are the database’s worldwide comparisons with Briggs’s fourteen Folk Legends headings, rather than counts of the stories printed in her dictionary. Only successful classifications of texts still in the database are counted; failed or incomplete runs are excluded. Percentages use all successfully checked texts, including those matching no legend type.
Updates and rounding
All figures on this page come from one saved daily snapshot. The first visit each day, using London time, refreshes it; subsequent visits use the saved figures. If an update is unavailable, the previous snapshot remains visible with its date. Percentages are rounded to one decimal place. A dash means no percentage can be calculated, rather than zero.




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How to cite: Fielder-White, Jonathan (2026). The Folklore Database. Citation version 1.261028.1 (28 October 2026). https://folkloredatabase.com. ORCID iD 0009-0006-1672-4451
The citation version records the access date and does not identify an archived database snapshot.
Please cite the relevant sources, catalogues, and classification systems, including the Folklore Database, Berezkin-Duvakin Catalogue, ATU, Thompson, alongside the page accessed and the last time accessed. Please respect copyright and licences.

Editorial annotations and database enhancements © Jonathan Fielder-White licensed under CC BY 4.0. Berezkin-Duvakin derived narrative and metadata licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. Full rights information can be found here.
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