Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
N13 — Girl with scissors
Source data for narratives and traditions is drawn from Berezkin’s Analytical Catalogue. If you use this data, please acknowledge and link to it: Ю.Е. Березкин, Е.Н. Дувакин. Тематическая классификация и распределение фольклорно-мифологических мотивов по ареалам. Аналитический каталог.
Summary of motif
OverviewA girl, a girl is associated with scissors (and a boy, a boy with a knife or an ax).
Berezkin category: Fabulous and epic formulas
This is of motif type Adventures and tricks and is part of group 13, Formulae.
Top 10 motifs with similar dispersal patterns
Phylogeny| Motif | Similarity | Motif summary |
|---|---|---|
| I60 | 98.02% | The Milky Way - a seam, a crack between the two halves of the sky. |
| N28C | 98.00% | In a list of things that do not exist in the world, a pillar of the sky is mentioned |
| L95 | 97.54% | 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. |
| K116C | 97.53% | In order to take possession of the girl, the priest arranges for her father to agree to place her in a chest (barrel) and lower it into the river (leave it in a deserted area). |
| I82H | 97.41% | The name of Venus sounds like Cholpan, Cholbon, Tsolmon, etc. (čol- 'to sparkle, to shine' [Vámbéri 1879: 155]). |
| M60A2 | 97.05% | The servant must lick the master or mistress's feet or wound. The hero comes disguised as a servant and instead of licking his heels, touches them with the animal's cut off tongue. |
| E9E | 96.70% | An animal or object received by a young man from supernatural beings as a reward for his kindness, upon the young man's return home (to earth), turns into a girl. |
| J52B | 96.36% | A girl, young woman or children associated with hares (rabbits) are heroes-victors or successful tricksters. |
| M106B | 96.31% | 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. |
| M78F | 96.18% | When a woman falls asleep, a joker (usually a tiny boy) places an embryo or the entrails of an animal or something similar next to her to make the woman herself or others think she has a miscarriage or that her viscera has fallen out. |
See the 100 most similar distributions →
Map of motif dispersal
DistributionDrag the map to pan, use the scroll wheel to zoom — choose a texture or projection below
Cite this map
Distribution of the traditions attesting motif N13, ‘Girl with scissors’, as recorded in the Berezkin–Duvakin Analytical Catalogue of Folklore Motifs (8 traditions mapped). Geolocation and cartography by Jonathan Fielder-White, Folklore Database, release 1.26206.1 (25 July 2026), https://www.folkloredatabase.com/motif/N13 (accessed 8 August 2026). Basemap © OpenStreetMap contributors.
Traditions
8 recordedThis motif has been recorded in 8 traditions: Cherkassians, Adyghe, Kabardin, Ossetians, Kazakh, Buryats: Western (cis Baikal), Mongols (Khalkha), Tuvinians of Tuva, Tuvans, Central Yakuts (Sakha), Buryats: Eastern (trans Baikal), i.e. Khori
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How to cite: Fielder-White, Jonathan (2026). The Folklore Database. https://folkloredatabase.com
0009-0006-1672-4451
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