The Mythology and Folklore Database
B33G - Three horsemen (sun, moon, night).
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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
Horsemen or horses represent celestial bodies or different periods of the day.Berezkin category: The Origins of the Characteristics of the environment
This is of motif type Cosmology and etiology and is part group 1, Sun and Moon
B33 has 14 other sub-motifsB33. There is a female character who embodies the wind or is considered the mother or mistress of the winds. B33a. Deciding that it has become (or will soon become) warm, the character believes that winter is over (most often an old woman goes to graze cattle), but dies from the cold or the cattle driven out to pasture perish. Cf. motif I84A ("The frozen son of God"). B33a1. A person (animal, bird) teases or insults March or another calendar month and is punished as a result. B33b. At the border between winter and spring, a bird (usually a thrush) flies away prematurely into the cold and dies, or raises chicks and they die or suffer from the cold. B33c. The month on the border between winter and spring (usually March) takes (rarely: buys, steals) a few days from its neighbour. B33d. An elderly woman embodies winter, is associated with snow, and/or at the border between winter and spring (autumn) there are several very cold days associated with a certain old woman. B33d1. In narrative folklore, the days of the week (most often Friday and Wednesday) are special (female) characters with a more or less pronounced demonic nature. B33e. The last cold month regrets that it did not come earlier or that it is too short. In that case, it would have frozen everyone. B33e1. It is said that the cold, which is stronger than anything else, can freeze boiling water, a foetus in the womb, etc. b33e2. The severity of the cold in early spring is said to break the horns of large hoofed animals. B33f. 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. B33f1. By performing certain actions, the (old) woman determines the daily cycle. B33f2. At night, the fire goes out. The young man goes to look for fire and on the way ties up an old woman or an old man (usually a character responsible for the length of night and day). B33g. Horsemen or horses represent celestial bodies or different periods of the day. B33h. The sun has a mother who lives with him (less often with her) in the same house. Cf. motif K27x6b ("The character goes to the mother of the sun") Click here if would you like to see a distrbution map combining all of B33's motifs? |
Top 10 Motifs with similar dispersal patterns
| Motif | Similarity | Motif Summary |
|---|---|---|
| I47A | 100.00% | The rainbow is associated with the wedding of a fox or jackal. |
| I87F | 100.00% | Before modern humans, there lived others who differed in strength, height, nobility, or other qualities. They disappeared after committing suicide. |
| K181A | 100.00% | When a person puts their hand on a horse's back, it bends over and falls. This is a sign of heroic strength. |
| K73B7 | 100.00% | The hero saves the magical wife from her enemy at a time when both the future wife and the enemy have zoomorphic appearances. Later, the rescued woman becomes a woman. |
| L108G | 100.00% | The character is black and must sit in water until he turns white. The antagonist carries him away. |
| M39A5A2 | 100.00% | My husband found a treasure. He knows his wife will talk about it. In order not to believe her, her husband says, and the wife then repeats, that the judge suffered from the hail that fell at that time (soup spilled from the sky) (lost an eye, ulcers on his face). The judge furiously drives the woman away, the treasure remains with her husband. |
| N12 | 100.00% | A powerful character makes or tells you to make a cloak or fur coat from human beards and/or mustaches. |
| F87A | 99.91% | A snake crawls onto the clothes of a girl bathing, climbs down in exchange for a promise to marry him, and takes her to the underwater world. She is happy there and gives birth to children. Together with them, she visits her relatives. They call the snake out of the water and kill it. After that, the wife transforms her children and/or herself into birds. |
| K85 | 99.91% | The antagonist owns the fastest horse. The hero obtains an even faster horse (usually the brother or sister of this horse), which is the only one that surpasses the antagonist's horse and usually orders the antagonist to throw off his rider. |
| L110C | 99.91% | An elderly couple makes a child out of clay (wood, straw, dough). The doll comes to life and eats everyone it sees. Usually a goat (ram) breaks it, and those who have been swallowed come out alive. |
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Map of Motif Dispersal
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This motif has been recorded in 7 traditions: Saibai, Dauan, Boigu, Badu, Waraber, Wet, Warei, Dauar, Badu, Moa, Slovakians, Slovaks, Lithuanians, Scandinavians: early written sources ("Edda"; Saxo Grammaticus etc.); Gothland picture stones; Ancient Germans (Late Bronze Age in Scandinavia), Russians: Central part of ethnic territory as in A.D. 1500 (Tver, Yaroslavl, Moscow, Kostroma, Vladimir, Ivanovo, Nizhny Novgorod, Ryazan, Tula, Kaluga, Smolensk provinces; in case of absence in other areas also Russians in Vyatka, Perm, Kazan provinces), Ingush, Papua-New Guinea Southern Lowland Papuan groups (Trans New Guinea and unclassified): Gimi, Kiwai, Bina, Mawabula, Mawatta, Keraki, Gambadi (incl. Kwavaru), Purari River delta, Masingara, Wiram (=Suki), Ngain, Daga, Elema