The Mythology and Folklore Database
L95A - Light on water.
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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 sees lungs or a liver lying on the ground or floating in the water. As soon as he touches them, a demonic character appears before him.Berezkin category: Adventures: Monsters and evil spirits
This is of motif type Cosmology and etiology and is part group 8, Queer and monstrous beings, creatures, objects and loci, folk beliefs related to particular phenomena and objects
L95 has 2 other sub-motifsL95. A person (usually a child or teenager) returns to a previous location for a forgotten item (often a toy) and finds a demon there, from which they struggle to escape. L95a. A person sees lungs or a liver lying on the ground or floating in the water. As soon as he touches them, a demonic character appears before him. L95b. Having promised to give the child to the demon, the mother or father does not try to save him or her, but arranges for the child to fall into the demon's hands. Against all odds, the son or daughter is saved.[1] Motif L85 "Half-creatures, F525" (the character has only half a body (vertically) or only one leg, which does not prevent him from moving) [AKB]. See also text No. 35.[2] Voracity is a characteristic feature of šǝʔōl in Is 5:14, Hab 2:5, Pr 1:12, Ps 141:7 (see Gaster 1950:189, O’Callahan 1954:169). Click here if would you like to see a distrbution map combining all of L95's motifs? |
Top 10 Motifs with similar dispersal patterns
| Motif | Similarity | Motif Summary |
|---|---|---|
| B115 | 99.70% | Conifers and some other trees and shrubs (small shrubs) became evergreen after the elixir of immortality was accidentally spilled on them. Cf. motif H6b. |
| M83A | 99.15% | The characters are arguing which one is older. After some people tell us how long they were born, the latter says that this and that happened in his memory at that time. |
| M106B | 98.78% | The character who caused harm to the antagonist calls himself by a fictitious name such as "Last Year," and the other antagonists understand this to mean that everything happened a long time ago and there is no point in looking for the culprit. |
| N1 | 98.77% | The fabulous and epic texts start from the beginning, which states that today's huge objects were tiny at the time. |
| M109A | 98.69% | One zoomorphic character advises another to sit on the ice for a long time – usually until food falls from the sky. The one who sits on the ice freezes to it. |
| K159 | 98.42% | When two characters are fighting, someone nearby wants one of them to slip (while the other remains firmly on their feet) and throws something under their feet for this purpose. |
| K12A | 97.99% | An unrecognised hero arrives at a place where his bride or wife is to be given to another man or turned into a servant. Contrary to expectations, he manages to draw a tight bow (raise a spear), with which he kills his rivals. |
| I87A1 | 97.94% | Two people engage in a dialogue, contradicting each other in their descriptions of the sizes of creatures and objects. |
| N6 | 97.87% | horse tells the rider to whip it so hard that his blood splashes, his skin peels off, the meat is cut to the bone, etc. The rider follows these instructions. |
| I85A | 97.85% | Animals walk around the North Star, or the movement of the stars is compared to the movement of animals around a pole. See motif I85. |
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Map of Motif Dispersal
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This motif has been recorded in 12 traditions: Tajik, Nogai, Tats, Kazakh, Turkmen, Kazan (Middle Volga) Tatars, Bashkirs, Buryats: Western (cis Baikal), Mongols (Khalkha), Tuvinians of Tuva, Tuvans, Tofa (Karagas), Buryats: Eastern (trans Baikal), i.e. Khori