The Mythology and Folklore Database
M114J - All women are the same, ATU 983.




26 Myths, Legends and Folktales
16 Unique Narratives for Motif M114J
21 Cultures & Traditions where M114J is told
63 Mythemes Indexed
4 Sub-Motifs of Motif M114J


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 Motif Summary  -   Motifs with Simlar Dispersals  -    Map of Myth Distribution   -   List of Traditions  -   Myths



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 woman does not refuse those who harass her, but calmly explains that there is no point in trying to possess many, since they are all the same (they differ no more than eggs painted in different colours).

Berezkin category: Adventures: Tricks and episodes

This is of motif type Adventures and tricks and is part group 11, Tricks and competitions won thanks to deception, absurd and obscene behavior


M11 has 4 other sub-motifs


M11.  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).

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Top 10 Motifs with similar dispersal patterns

MotifSimilarityMotif Summary
M90B97.55%The character was wrong when he claimed that the sun would never rise in the west or go down after midnight.
K56AB96.39%A girl marries a monster. On their wedding night, he orders her to take off her shirt, and she orders him to take off his skin. The girl survives, and the monster becomes handsome – usually because she has more shirts (or skins worn in advance) than he does.
K56F295.96%In order to divide a certain number (often five) of eggs equally among people of different sexes, a cunning woman takes into account that each of the men already has two eggs.
A19C95.46%The sun is associated with a horseman or rides in a carriage drawn by horses (equidae).
K27Z695.29%Having fallen victim to injustice and endured suffering, a young woman tells her story to certain inanimate objects (often a "stone of patience"), or her husband tells the story after learning of his wife's fate. The woman is saved, justice is restored.
L4A95.00%To test the loyalty of the heroine (hero), the demon demands that she eat food that humans should not eat. Usually, when the heroine reports that the food has been eaten, the demon asks where the food is, and the food answers him.
M39A5B94.91%The wife throws fish into the furrows or into the beds. My husband believes that the fish ended up there on its own, he is mistaken for a madman.
M38B94.44%The first wife, rejected or taken later than others, performs certain actions with the help of magic. Other wives try to imitate her but are killed, maimed, or disgraced.
K27Z2B94.18%The complicated relationship between a simple girl and a prince leads to the prince intending to kill his bride on their wedding night. The girl substitutes a doll for herself, the prince stabs the doll with his sword, mistakes the spurting juice (syrup, honey) for blood, and repents of the murder. The real girl appears, and the young couple are happy.
A19C194.11%The sun or moon travels across the sky in a chariot or sleigh.

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Map of Motif Dispersal

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This motif has been recorded in 21 traditions: Yemen, Arabs of Iraq, Iraqi, Arabs of Egypt, Amhara; Zay, Harari; Silte, Gogot, Telugu (incl. Yanadi, Chenchu), Spain, Spaniards, 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, Bulgarians, Balkarians, Albanians, Balkarians, Lithuanians, Latvians, Finns, 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), Persians, Anatolia Turks, Kurds, Hui (Dungan) of Xinjiang, Gansu, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, Qinghai, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan (Dungan texts from Southern and Eastern China are clustered with the Chinese ones), Bashkirs, Arabs (literary tradition; incl. One Thousand and One Nights), Arabs of Kuwait, Bahrein, Qatar, Emirates, Oman,, Bahrain


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