Ancient ✦ Wisdom ✦ Atlas

Motif family

Threshold Guardian

The figure who guards the boundary between worlds, states, or levels of reality. Must be confronted, appeased, or outwitted before passage is possible.

46 traditions

491 occurrences

484 mapped motifs

  • afro caribbean
  • ainu
  • andamanese
  • arctic inuit
  • arthurian
  • australian aboriginal
  • biblical
  • buddhist
  • celtic
  • celtic irish
  • celtic welsh
  • christian apocrypha
  • comparative
  • daoist
  • egyptian
  • estonian
  • filipino
  • finnish karelian
  • germanic
  • greek
  • greek roman
  • hawaiian
  • hindu
  • indigenous australian
  • inuit
  • islamic
  • islamicate folklore
  • japanese
  • jewish christian
  • khoisan south african
  • mesopotamian
  • nahua maya inca
  • native american northeast woodlands
  • native american northwest coast
  • native american plains
  • native american southeast
  • native american southwest
  • navajo
  • norse
  • persian
  • roman
  • romanian
  • shan
  • slavic
  • sufi
  • zuni

Conserved neighbors: descent · initiation · serpent guardian · enchanting music

This family has not yet been binned into sub-families; its mapped motifs are listed directly, most widespread first.

Mapped motifs

484 motifs, showing the 60 most attested

Each motif link opens its evidence page: every tagged passage with its quote, and a path into the book where the passage lives.