The Mythology and Folklore Database
M113 - Birds are forbidden to drink.
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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
In summer, during the height of the heat, or constantly, birds of a certain species are not allowed to drink from ponds and springs. It is generally believed that they drink only rainwater and cry out, begging for rain. See motif M112.Berezkin category: Adventures: Tricks and episodes
This is of motif type Cosmology and etiology and is part group 7, Etiology of plants and animals and of their peculiar features, particular animals as protagonists of cosmological stories, metamorphoses, weather and calendar
M11 has 4 other sub-motifsM11. The character gives others food extracted from his or someone else's body or contaminated with bodily secretions, without revealing the source of the food. M11a. The character gives others the fish extracted from his body. M11b. A woman feeds a man with good-quality meat or fat, which she cuts from her own flesh or extracts from her body, and stops doing so when he learns about the source of the food. M11c. Without harming himself, a male character cuts off, pierces, roasts, holds over a fire, etc. a part of his body (or his wife's body). The character cooks the meat, fat, etc. obtained in this way and treats his guest to it. This food is not perceived as unclean (cf. motifs M11B and M38). m11d. The character makes food taste good by adding salt to it. Another character learns that the cook extracts this salt from his own body (it is contained in his bodily secretions). Click here if would you like to see a distrbution map combining all of M11's motifs? |
Top 10 Motifs with similar dispersal patterns
| Motif | Similarity | Motif Summary |
|---|---|---|
| M91B1 | 99.66% | A man is going to sell a pet skin. On the way, he gets big money by deception or by chance. Usually, upon return, a person says that he received money for the skin, after which others slaughter their livestock and try unsuccessfully to sell the skins for money they are not worth. (In India, the hero sometimes supposedly sells not skin, but beef, which is forbidden to brahmanas). |
| K24C | 99.44% | A young man comes to an old man (less often – to an old woman), who teaches him how to get a magical wife by hiding her bird clothes. Usually, the young man gives away the clothes for the first time and lives with the old man until the girls fly back. |
| M157A4 | 99.41% | The character proves the absurdity of another's statements by claiming that he (or someone else) fished on a mountain, extinguished a fire with straw, sowed wheat in the sea, watched flying fish, etc. (or he himself imitates such actions). The absurdity of the statements stems from the incorrectly chosen locus or means for performing certain actions. |
| K56C | 99.39% | A man loses his axe. A spirit or chief offers him a golden one, but the man says that the axe is not his and for this he receives axes of gold and silver as a reward. Another man deliberately loses his ordinary axe, seeking to obtain a golden one, but suffers a fiasco. |
| I13C | 99.31% | Reptiles possess a treasure that humans take or try to take. Usually it is a crown, a precious stone, or horns on a snake's head. |
| K2B | 99.31% | The occupations or names of the hero's companions are unusual and different for each one, but their specific abilities, which can be inferred from these names, are insignificant for the development of the plot. Cf. motif K66, "Heroes with different abilities". |
| I107 | 99.19% | Stars are nails or stakes driven into the sky, or stars are nailed down. |
| M78 | 99.16% | A tiny little man performs a series of tricks, mocks people he meets and opponents. |
| K100F2 | 99.12% | A captured supernatural character breaks his chains and escapes to freedom after being given water (or wine, etc.) to drink. |
| M114 | 99.01% | The character is asked to make (or actually makes) a rope or other object out of sand, ash, smoke, etc. |
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Map of Motif Dispersal
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This motif has been recorded in 36 traditions: Lozi (Losi, Rotse, Barotse), Lui, Subiya (Subia), Kuki, Chiru, Falam (Hallam), Chin (Meitei =Manipuri, Khami, =Kumi), Lakher, Mizo (Lushei), Anal, Pawi (Lai), Purum, Koireng, Milhiem, Kolhen, Mru, Indian literary tradition (Vedic, Brahman, Purana, Indian Buddhism, Hinduism, Ramayana, Mahabharata, Panchtantra, Jatakas); iconography of Hindu temples, Bengali, Marathi (incl. Bhamta; incl. Mumbai area), Sinhalese; Vedda, France, 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, Poles, Czech, Czechs, Slovakians, Slovaks, Greeks (modern), Balkarians, Bulgarians, Balkarians, Macedonians, Balkarians, Serbs, Monte Negro, Balkarians, Slovenians, Slovenes, Romanians, Moldavians, Aromanians, Moldovans, Latvians, Livonians, Estonians, Vepsians, Western Ukrainians, Byelarusians, Belarusians, 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), Tajik, Mingrelians (Megrelians), Laz, Georgians, Mari (Cheremis), Mordvins, Chuvash, Udmurt, Japanese folklore outside of Ryukyu, Takelma, Italians: Central (Toscana, Umbria, Marche, Lazio), Bhutan, Transylvanian Saksons