| Motif | Name | Description |
| a11a | Eyes of the Sun and the Moon: coolness and night | Visible sun and/or moon are the Sun's and/or the Moon's eyes. If these eyes were not injured, light and heat would be more intense |
| a12 | Eclipses: monster’s attack | Some creature or creatures regularly (sunrise and sunset, summer and winter, lunar phases) or irregularly (solar and lunar eclipses, eschatological events) attack the luminaries or shade their light |
| a12c | Eclipses: reptiles and fish | During an eclipse or at the sunset the Sun or the Moon are attacked by a reptile (a snake, a lizard, a dragon, a crocodile) or a fish |
| a21a | The released Moon | The Moon is an object which its owners released by chance or which was stolen from them and ultimately ascended to the sky |
| a32 | Figure on lunar disc | A figure or an imprint of some being or object are seen in the Moon. (For statistical analysis motifs A32A – A32J are also included into A32) |
| a32d | Man in the Moon | Human being or imprint of human being is seen in the moon |
| a32e | Person with an object in hands | Person who holds some object in his or her hands is seen in the moon (rare: in the sun) |
| a35 | Spots on the lunar disc | Dark spots on the lunar disc are dirt, blood, paint, traces of beating, burning, scratching, etc. on the Moon person's body or face (Kiliwa: spots on the Sun) and do not form any particular figure |
| a38 | The Sun caught in snare | Person prepares a snare, loop, noose, etc. to catch the Sun and/or the Sun is caught in a snare, tied by a rope, etc. |
| a5 | The Sun and the Moon are males | The Moon is male, the Sun is also male or (much more rare) asexual |
| b13a | Stream follows person | A stream of water (with a monster in it) pursues person who tries to escape from it |
| b3a | Primeval waters | Water is the original element, the dry earth appears later |
| c4 | The flood: fruits fall from a tree | During the flood or in the beginning of times fruits, seeds or other objects are dropped into water one by one, usually by a person who has climbed a tree. As far as the objects fall, water recedes and the dry land appears |
| c4a | The flood: survival in a tree | During the flood some persons survive in a tree |
| d12 | Food baked in the sun | First people or inhabitants of a distant country cook food in the sun; or fire owner lies that he or she cooks food in the sun |
| d4a | Theft of fire | Fire is stolen from its original owner or brought back to the people from somebody who had stolen it before |
| e12 | The animated drawing | Person draws an object or creature and it becomes alive |
| e27 | People from drops of blood | People emerge from drops of blood that fall from the sky |
| e5a | Mankind ascends from the underworld | The first people (or only the first men or the first women) are not created but come to earth from the underworld (from a cave) or from a small enclosure under the earth or on its surface (tree trunk, rock, gourd, etc.). Many people of both sexes and of different ages or people and different species of animals come out together |
| e5c | People from the sky | The first people or first anthropomorphic divine beings descend to earth from the sky. |
| e8a | People from the fruits | Women or people in general come out of the fruits (orten the coconuts) or (more rare) leaves of the cocos palm spontaneously turn into women |
| f1 | First woman is a transformed man | Woman, female supernatural or animal females are created by changing the sex of a man (or male animals) |
| f16 | Men and women: exchange of anatomical characteristics | Initially men possessed women's biological traits and vice versa (beard, menses, breasts, bearing children) |
| f38 | Women and sacred knowledge | Women were possessors of the sacred knowledge, sanctuaries or ritual objects which are now taboo for them or they made attempts to acquire such a knowledge or objects |
| f39 | The time of women | The women dominated over the men in the past or in a far away land, were the active part in marriage relations, practiced activities which now are reserved of the men only. Or the women could obtained supremacy but failed to do it for some reason |
| f4 | Child born in jug | In the beginning of times, a particular person or children in general was or were conceived and grown up in pots, heaps of mud, etc. and not in a womb |
| g13a | People ate dirt | Before acquisition of cultivated plants (fire, hunting skills) people ate dirt, mud or stones |
| g13c | Bad food of the pre-agricultural epoch | Before the cultivated plants or edible wild plants become known, people ate (decomposed) wood, bark, mud, stones, fungi |
| g18 | Person wants to be sacrificed | A person asks people to abandon him or her in the forest, to burn or drag him or her around the future garden plot, to burn her in her house, etc. People fulfill the person's wish and find cultivated plants growing on the place |
| g20 | Woman turns into plants | Food crops emerge from remains of a woman or girl |
| g23a | Alive being turns into plants | Person or creature is transformed. Separate parts of its (his, her) body give origin to different plants, mostly edible or cultivated |
| g5 | Food tree | Fruits and shoots of different cultivated plants grow on the branches of one tree (on one vine) or certain plant has a tree form that is alien to it in nature |
| h12 | The alive person comes to the land of the dead after somebody’s death | The alive person comes to the land of the dead to bring back somebody who has recently died (besides stories about shamans who journey to the other world to bring back the soul of a sick person) or, having no particular aim, goes there in company of somebody who had recently died or following his or her tracks |
| h12c | Orpheus: to return the dead wife | Husband follows his dead wife to the other world but is unable to bring her back or succeeds to do it but loses her once again |
| h1d | The first dead is rejected by the alive people | Person dies and returns soon but people send him or her back, refuse to accept as a member of their community or bury again. Since then death becomes permanent |
| h24 | Container opened too early | Container with valuables or with dangerous creatures is opened (before time). Its content goes out of control or disappear |
| h9 | Strong and weak | People are mortal because they have been likened to something subject to decay and easy destruction (e.g. to the soft wood and not to the stone) |
| h9a | Who will give birth the first | One woman is associated with stone, another with a plant. The plant-woman gives birth the first or the stone-woman do not have children at all. That's because people have their present characteristics (are mortal, capable to speak, etc.), or offsprings of the two women are different (skillful and not, etc.) |
| i108 | The Pleiades are a person | The Pleiades are only one anthropomorphic being, not several persons |
| i14 | No-anus people | Person or creature has no anus opening |
| i28 | Animals in the underworld | Game animals live inside a mountain, in a cave or in the underworld where they often look like humans and have a master |
| i45b | Not to point at the rainbow | It to point at the rainbow, pointing finger or entire arm will rot, wither or become crooked |
| i72 | Stars are people | Stars are people, ghosts, anthropomorphic beings (interpretations of unique star objects like Venus or Polaris as persons not considered) |
| i7c | Rain or dew is urine | When a person or creature who lives in the upper world urinates, it rains (dew falls) on earth |
| i82b | Venus is female | Morning and/or Evening Star is a female personage |
| j23 | A late son kills monsters | People (elder brothers, elder siblings, elder sister) disappear (one by one). A lonely woman has a baby or finds a baby or she becomes pregnant magically and gives birth to a boy or twins. The boy grows up, exterminates the antagonists, usually revives and releases those who had disappeared |
| j23d | Young twins kill monsters | People (elder brothers, elder siblings, elder sister) disappear (one by one). A lonely woman has baby twins (or more children) who grow up, exterminates the antagonists, usually revives and releases those who had disappeared |
| j25 | Babies escape and return | Heroes (usually one or two), being still babies or embryos, escape or are thrown away, often into the water. To bring them back into the human world, they are lured (persuaded) to come out or caught with difficulty |
| j25a | Son of the grave | Mother dies or is killed. Her (still unborn) baby-son is buried with her. He comes out of the grace, meets people, then returns to the grave but ultimately agrees to remain with the people |
| j27 | Lodge-boy and Thrown-away | A small boy (several babies) was thrown away, born by the dead woman, lives in the water (in forest, etc.). Another boy lives with his father or mother. Ultimately the first boy comes to live in the locus of the second one. Often (see motif j25, Babies escape and return) during some time the boy who lives in the wilderness meets secretly with his brother (with other children, with pups that had been fed up by his mother) who lives with the people |
| k28 | Father or uncle is rival and enemy | Maternal uncle or father (or grandfather if he replaces father who is not mentioned) of the young man is his rival or enemy and tries to kill him |
| k29b | Posthole murder | Hero is asked to climb into a hole or pit. When he does it, they fill it with soil or throw down a post, a stone, etc. The hero demonstrates his magic capacities coming back uninjured |
| 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 |
| l3 | Husband turns into demon | A demon takes appearance of a man and comes to his wife or (rare) to other woman. The woman (alone or with her child) runs away and/or kills the monster (herself or with somebody's help) |