The Travelling Girl and Her Helpful Siblings: An Unnoticed Boreal Tale and the ATU Index

Abstract

After presenting the results of statistical processing of data on the distribution of folklore motifs in Eurasia, the author describes a previously unnoticed tale that is widespread across Northern Asia. The protagonist of the story is a travelling girl who successfully competes with her rival, often a frogwoman. In the beginning, the heroine parts with her brother(s) or sister, taking them for dead or disappeared forever. Later they appear again and demonstrate their supernatural qualities by helping her. Many particular motifs found in the corresponding Siberian narratives have parallels in the New World, though the basic scheme of the plot is not known in America. Unlike the Western and Southern Eurasian and North American oral traditions well systematized by Stith Thompson, Central and Northern Asian traditions were ignored by him and remain severely underrepresented in comparative folklore studies. The tale described in this article is one of the many not registered in international indexes. Limitations of the present-day system of classification of traditional narratives are related to the uncertainty concerning the purpose of their study.