| Motif | Name | Description |
| b73b | The cuckoo: in search of lost family member | Two teenagers or young people are in search of each other, call each other (or one of them call another): a girl in search of her lost (or dead) brother or brother’s wife, a boy in search of his brother or sister, young parents in seach their child. One or both of them turn into birds with specific cry |
| i87a | Series of creatures ever greater in size | Personage of gigantic dimensions in respect to normal humans and animals proves to be tiny dwarf in respect to another personage |
| i87ac | Bone in the eye | Something big or huge gets into the man’s eye but he takes it for a speck of dust. Usually a bird picks up and carries away an animal or a fish and drops its bone into an eye of a man. When the bone is found, it is dragged out with difficulty (people ride in a boat inside the eye, drag the bone with a fishnet, with many oxen, etc.) |
| i87b | The quest for a strong adversary | A man seeks a strong adversary to wrestle with and comes across person who is incomparably stronger than he |
| j42 | Waters split apart | When person comes to the water body, waters are split apart so the person reaches the other bank walking on the dry ground |
| j62a | People transformed into trees | Person transforms people who come to him or her into trees (or flowers). Hero escapes transformation and revives the victims |
| k118 | The prohibited room | Master of the house allows person to feel himself (herself) free bit not to look into particular place. The person breaks prohibition |
| k136a | Girl’s hair picked up from a river | A man finds the woman’s hair that was carried by water and decides to marry its owner |
| k138 | Exchange of bodies (king and his minister) | Person gets an ability to enter a dead body and revive it. His own body remains dead for this time. Another person takes it for himself while the first one remains in an animal’s body |
| k14 | Precious advices | A man gives his last money for simple advices. Each of them saves his life or helps to achieve success or he does not follow the advices and gets into trouble |
| k153 | Grateful animals, ungrateful man | Человек оказывает услугу нескольким (потенциально опасным) животным и другому человеку. Благодарные животные помогают ему, а человек предает и вредит |
| k27f1 | To build a bridge | Person builds a bridge (usually of gold etc.) during a very short time |
| k27x9 | To bring an object from the sea bottom | The hero must bring a small object (often a finger ring) from the bottom of a deep waterbody (often the sea) |
| k27z2c | Prince marries a girl to lock her up | A prince marries a poor girl only to lock her up in her room. She outwits him |
| k27zy | Hero between two ogresses | A youth (a girl) lives in the house of an ogress. To get rid of him (her) the ogress asks him (her) to bring some object from other ogres (often from her mother) who must kill him or her. The hero or heroine escapes and kills all the ogres |
| k27zz | The witch and the blinded queens | A man does not know that his (new) wife (rare: mother) is an ogress/witch/evil woman. Thanks to her intrigues (former) wives (wife) are blinded and/or confined in an underground hole. A son of one of them overcomes the ogress and returns sight to his mother and aunts |
| k27zz1 | Only the youngest queen's child survives | Several imprisoned (driven out) co-wives give birth but only the son of the youngest woman survives. The boy saves the women |
| k56b | The worthy man is rewarded, the unworthy punished | First one, then another man meets a powerful person or persons. The first man is worthy and rewarded with treasure, prestige or the like. The second man (or two men) follows him, behaves in a wrong way and is punished |
| k66 | Extraordinary companions | Several companions have extraordinary abilities (one who runs fast, one who eats great quantities, one who produces or can withstand severe frost, etc.); a hero comes across and takes for companions several men, each of them being involved into a special and unusual activity |
| k92 | King Lear | A man puts his children questions that seem easy to answer (how they love him, who is the elder in the family, etc.). The elder children flatter, the youngest daughter (rare: son) is reserved and her father drives her away or deprives of inheritance. Later her noble nature becomes evident to him |
| k92a | The princess responsible for her own fortune | A girl driven away from home or married to a poor man become prosperous |
| k96 | Fifty sons | Many brothers marry or have to marry in such a way that all their wives are (were) sisters |
| k99a1 | Smart man is rescued from prison | An imprisoned man is rescued and exalted because only he gets to resolve problems that trouble the king or to save the princess (prince, the king himself) |
| l116a | Doe with golden horns | Hunting a doe (a deer), hero gets to the place of a magician or demon; the doe is a bewitched person or demon |
| l15d | The external soul | Life of a person or creature is preserved outside of his (her, its) body. Person or creature dies after the corresponding object is destroyed |
| l37b | Secrets accidentally overheard | Person accidentally overhears secrets of animals or demons and thus gets to know the causes of his and other people's misfortunes |
| l37b3 | The magic medicine is in the body of a bird | Overhearing conversation of two snakes or raven, person gets to know the cause of a sickness of another person: a snake has crawled into him. He snake out and the person regains his health |
| l93a | Helpful fox | Cunning fox, jackal or coyote saves particular person or many people, helps them |
| l94 | Child promised to demon | A demon helps a man or a woman or lets him or her free. As a reward, the person is forced to promise to give the demon his child |
| l96b | The yogi boiled in his own pot of oil | A man comes into the power of a yogi or demon. He asks the man to walk round the boiling pot of oil or to prostrate himself before the image of a deity. The man asks him to show how to do it and pushes him in or the pot or beheads him |
| m118 | Source of values is destroyed imprudently | Person or animal gets access to values that are inside an animal, a tree, a rock or other enclosure. Later he himself or more often somebody else tries to do the same but destroys source of values, blocks access to it or makes it too dangerous |
| m127a | The quail makes the fox laugh | Trickster animal asks a bird to make him laugh. The bird sits on the head of a woman (child, cow, etc.), other person tries to kill the bird, hits the wife (breaks cow's horn, etc.). Or the bird distracts person attention to let the trickster steal the person’s food |
| m13 | The short-sighted wish is granted | Some person makes a wish not taking in mind that his words can have other meaning or accidentally replacing one word with another. As a result, something quite undesirable takes place |
| m134 | A tower of wolves | Animals, demons or people stand one on another making a tower. The lowest one jumps off (bends, jerks), all the rest fall to the ground |
| m136c | The man takes seriously the prediction of death | Considering indirect signs or somebody’s word, a numskull thinks that he is dead and lies motionless |
| m136d | The air castles | A person plans to turn his (future) possessions into a great wealth (milk, eggs, small money, animal to be killed, etc.) but imagining this wealth, he destroys what he already has (eggs are broken, the animal runs away, etc.). Or two persons are involved into quarrel about possessions that they do not yet have |
| m138 | Human and animal life spans are readjusted | God originally gives 20 or 30 years to everybody. Some animals refuse some of their years because of their sufferings. Man wants to have more years and takes them from the animals |
| m138a | The lifespan of one hundred twenty years | At the beginning of time, a supreme deity or his messengers decided that the human lifespan would be limited to one hundred and twenty years |
| m152 | Why only one wolf? | When a weak animal or a person gets to see a predator animal or an ogre, he says in a loud voice (or asks to say his wife or children) something that frightens the predator (ogre): why the predator (ogre) brought to him is lean (small; only one instead of several), or it is good that more food gets to his house, etc. The predator (ogre) runs away |
| m152a | Animal tied to another for safety | A stronger and a weaker predator animals (ogre and an animal) tie together for safety. When the stronger one runs away, he drags the weaker one along with him |
| m156 | The ungrateful one returned to captivity | An (animal) person saves a dangerous animal from a snare or the like. The saved one is going to kill his savior but the third person saves the second (usually tricks the first one to captivity again) |
| m156a | Objects that give the answers | Dangerous animal seeks to kill a person or other animal who rescued it from captivity. The dangerous animal and its victim agree to ask somebody else if a good deed should be repayed with a bad one. Inanimate objects are among those who answer to this question |
| m157 | The impossible giving birth | Person claims that a man or a male animal had given birth (or is menstruating) or that a female gave birth to a young of another species or that a woman gave birth to an animal |
| m157a2 | Bull or cart gives birth | Person claims that a calf (colt, kid, etc.) was born (brought to the place) not by the cow (mare, etc.) of another person but by his own male animal (bull, stallion, etc.), his own animal of another species or by inanimate object (usually a cart) |
| m157a4 | To fish on a hill | Person demonstrates the absurdity of the claims of another person saying that he (or somebody else) was fishing on a hill, putting out a fire spilling straw, looking how the fish fly etc. or he is imitating such an activity. Either the place chosen for the activity or the means are irrational |
| m170 | Pilgrimage of the animals | An animal person pretends to have no other interests than to fulfill religious rules and prescriptions (to confess his sins, to make a pilgrimage, to become vegetarian, etc.) and kills those who have believed him |
| m170b | Rim of a pot around the neck | Animal person puts his head into a vessel. The vessel is broken, its rim remained as a necklace and the person demonstrates it as a sign of his superiority |
| m188 | The painted jackal | Animal person is highly respected by others after he changes his looks by chance; is smeared with a paint or gets a necklace-like object around his neck which he is unable to pull off |
| m188a | Jackal the king | Animal person claims to be the king (usually sitting on a garbage heap). One of the animals unmasks him |
| m193 | Flight inside pumpkin | To pass unnoticed dangerous animals on his or her way back, person crawls into a gourd, a big cattle, etc. and is rolling inside it along the road, or he walks transforming his appearance in a bizarre way |
| m197 | The effectiveness of fire | Seriously or demonstrating absurdity of the situation, a person tries to cook something using a fire (a source of light) that is far away from the object to be cooked |
| m197d | The shortened stick | A judge gives sticks to all the suspects in a court case and tells them that the guilty one’s stick will grow during the night. The guilty man cuts a bit off his stick and thus is discovered |
| m198 | Wise brothers (the king is bastard) | When three brothers (rare: a person) are Invited to khan (judge, king, etc.) and served delicious food, they claim that the food and drink have a taste (smell) of a corpse, dog, goat etc. and/or their host is of a low descent or a bastard. Investigation confirms that their deduction was correct |
| m198b | The pretended astrologer | A person who has not a bit of a skill to expose thieves and find the lost objects does it successfully thanks to a series of lucky coincidences |
| m198b2 | Grasshopper by name, the astrologer | A king (landlord, etc.) suggests to guess what he has in his hand (in a box). It is an insect there (usually a grasshopper). The man says that now you, Grasshopper, is caught. People think that he gave the correct answer |
| m198b4 | The pretended diviner: names of the thieves | The pretended diviner thinks that his exposure is inevitable and pronounces words that reflect his emotional condition. The thieves who stand nearby understand some of these words as their personal names, believe that the diviner knows all about their crime and ask him not to betray them |
| m28 | Icarus (failed attempt to fly on artificial wings) | Acquiring possibility to fly, person ultimately falls to the ground or remains in a faraway place being unable to fly any more |
| m29b | Trickster-fox, jackal or coyote | In episodes related to deception, absurd, obscene or anti-social behavior the protagonist is fox, jackal or coyote |
| m29b3 | The fox (jackal, coyote) is a failure | Because of its stupidity and unsocial behavior, the fox, jackal or coyote suffers a reverse, is injured or dies |
| m29o1 | The monkey is a failure | Because of its stupidity and unsocial behavior, the monkey suffers a reverse, is injured or dies |
| m29w1 | The leopard is a failure | Because of its stupidity and unsocial behavior, the leopard (panther) suffers a reverse, is injured or dies |
| m29w2 | The tiger is a failure | Because of its stupidity and unsocial behavior, the tiger suffers a reverse, is injured or dies |
| m30 | Trickster falls down | Person or creature who has no wings or is unable to fly on a long distance attempts to ascend to the sky or to fly far away but falls down or, deprived of his wings, remains in a place from which he is unable to return |
| m38 | Stupid imitation (all versions) | Person sees how others act using magic or according to their animal nature. He or she imitates their actions and gets into trouble. Actions are not heroic deeds, competitions or tests and refer to everyday activity, mostly to providing and cooking food |
| m38a | The bungling host | Being on a visit to other people or (more often) animals, an (animal)-person sees them act using magic or according to their animal nature. Back at home, he imitates their actions and gets in trouble. Actions are not heroic deeds, competitions or tests and mostly refer to providing and cooking food |
| m38a1 | Imitating wife’s kinfolk | Person imitates actions of his son- or brothers-in-law or (among Comox and Halcomelem) of his wives |
| m39a3 | Had your daughter horns? | Fool kills a person, throws the body into a pond or a well. His relation throws there a dead goat. Searching for the corpse in the pond, the fool asks if the killed person had horns, etc. People see that he is really crazy and do not suspect him of a crime |
| m39a4 | Fool and his shadow | Fool takes his own shadow for a person who pursues him and gives it his possessions |
| m39a5a | The sausage rain | Because telling the truth a stupid son (wife, husband)) can bring misfortune upon the family, his mother (wife; her husband) mystifies him (her) making him or her describe events that are definitely impossible. People take him (her) for a fool and let alone. |
| m39a6g | Four coins (The sharing of bread and money) | Man explains that one part of his incomes he puts out at interest while another part is used to pay debts, i.e. he cares for his children and keeps up his parents |
| m39e | What sort of a tree? | Asking about minor details of the case, a judge demonstrates that the plaintiff (or the defendant) lies because he does (not) know about them |
| m39e1 | The eaten up iron and the kidnapped child | A man steals money or property. The owner gets his property back after he or his helper puts the theft in such a position when the best choice for him becomes to return what he has stolen (usually the first man kidnaps a child of the second one) |
| m39e1a | The iron-eating mice | Person claims that iron or gold disappeared being eaten by mice |
| m57a | Beads discharged from the body | Instead of common body discharges a man or a woman urinates, spits, etc. beads, flowers, gold and other valuables; valuables are produced by the very presence of particular person |
| m57a3 | Female person is the producer of valuables | Instead of common body discharges a a woman urinates, spits, etc. beads, flowers, gold and other valuables; valuables are produced by the very presence of particular female person. See motif m57a |
| m57d | Beat, cudgel! | Person gets one by one magic objects that bring food or treasure. Other people replace them with common objects or take them away by force. The person takes his property back (usually beating the thieves with magic cudgel or whip) |
| m91 | The killed corpse | Person pretends that a person (often his or her mother, spouse or lover) who recently died is alive, claims that the death of the false alive resulted from negligence of others and gets a reward |
| m91b | The sold ashes | Using trick, a man sells or exchanges for treasure ashes. Another person tries to sell ashes and is ridiculed |
| m91b1 | The sold skin | A man goes to sell a skin of domestic animal and on his way, by trick or thanks to chance, gets a big sum of money. Usually coming back he explains that this was the price of the skin but when other people kill their animals they cannot sell skins for such a sum. (In India the hero sometimes pretends to sold cow meat to brahmins for whom it is forbidden) |
| m91c1 | Herd from the river bottom | Person gets other person’s possessions by trick (or pretends to get it; usually another person is drowned instead of him) and then demonstrates his possessions (usually a herd) and explains that he had received everything at the river bottom. His enemies believe him |
| m91c2 | Put into the bag | Person is put into a bag (a cage, tied up, etc.) to be drowned, burned, etc. He pretends to be in this situation by his own will or because he refuses to marry a princess, to become a chief and the like. Another person is willing to take his place and is killed |
| m94b1 | Wolf under the mill wheel | Animal person is tricked to creep under the mill wheel, he is killed or badly injured |
| n28b | Ladder to the sky | In a list of things that do not exist in the world, a ladder or stairway to the sky (variant: a ladder in the sky) is mentioned |