| Motif | Name | Description |
| a23a | Who will see the Sun first? | Two persons or animals argue about who of them will be the first to see the rising sun. One who seemed to have less chances wins |
| a23b | First beams on the tree tops | Two persons or animals argue who will see the rising sun first. One who got to see not the sun itself but its reflection or the first beams on trees or mountain tops wins |
| a2d | Suns of the other worlds | Different suns illuminate different worlds or will appear successively in the future |
| 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) |
| a32f | Water-carrier in the Moon | Person who went to fetch water and/or holds in hands a container for liquid is seen in the moon |
| a32g | Holding a bush | Person who had been carried up to the moon took hold of a bush or a small tree and is seen now on the lunar disc together with this bush |
| a32h | The Moon plant | A tree or bush is seen in the moon |
| a32k | First to the Sun, then to the Moob | Person seen in the Moon initially had to get to the Sun or the Sun and the Moon argue who of them should get the person |
| a44 | Moon the protector | A person pursued by an enemy or tyrannized by others asks the Moon to take her or him to the sky. The request is granted and the person is now seen in the Moon |
| b1 | Two male creators | Two male anthropomorphic creators compete in producing things. One of them is or becomes master of the underworld and/or spirits while another is associated with humans |
| b2a | The female earth | The earth is a female person (alone or together with a male person); she is female being or associated with a woman |
| b3a | Primeval waters | Water is the original element, the dry earth appears later |
| b3b | Earth grows big | Original earth was small and later increased in size or the fertile soil grew from a small amount of original substance |
| b42 | Cosmic hunt | Certain stars or constellations are interpreted as hunters, their dogs and game that the hunters pursue |
| b42b | Sky hunters pursue an ungulate | In the cosmic hunt tale the game pursued by the hunters is an ungulate (elk, deer, mountain sheep, etc.) |
| b42mn | One hunter chases the sky elk | In the cosmic hunt tale only one hunter (not many) pursues an animal (elk or bear) associated with a circumpolar constellation but not with Orion or the Pleiades. (In Kalevalaic tradition the association with particular sideral objects is absent |
| b45b | The bull of cold | Bull or cow are related to winter and cold, responsible for existence of the cold season |
| c6 | Valuables brought from the lower world | Persons or animals dive or otherwise decend to the lower world to get a desired object and to bring it to earth (besides episodes in the fairytales, cf. motif k27x9) |
| c6c | The diver is a bird | An aquatic bird dives and brings the desired object from the bottom |
| c6c2 | The punished loon | Birds must dive to get mud from the bottom of the waterbody, this mud will turn into the dry land. The loon is unable to reach the bottom, refuses to dive or attempts to hide the mud that brought by him (usually he is punished for this) |
| c6c4 | The duck is successful diver | The duck (or an aquatic bird similar to the duck) dives and brings a piece of earth that is transformed into the dry land (it is the only or the only successful diver) |
| c6d | The aquisition of the earth from the lower world | The dry land (the earth) grows from a small amount of solid substance (sand, clay, dirt and the like) brought from the lower world (usually from the bottom of the ocean) |
| c6j1 | The earth is brought by the God's enemy | God sends his enemy to bring earth from the bottom of the waterbody. In the beginning, the enemy or also the god can have guise of birds. When the earth is brought up and dry land created, two persons, now always anthropomorphic, are engaged into confrontation |
| d1b | Male spirit of fire | The fire is personified as an elder man (alone or with his wife, mistress of fire) |
| e13 | Drum is a lake | The shaman’s drum is likened with a lake |
| h16a | Rivers of blood | Rivers (lakes) of blood (also of puss, bones, sweat or water used for washing of corpses) are mentioned in narratives (in different context) |
| h28 | Plagues from the body of a person or creature | Killed and destroyed (often burned) person or creature (usually ogre, fierce animal, powerful shaman) turns into a multitude of biting insects or into other small molesting creatures |
| h34b | Rivers flow in both directions | Rivers were flowing or according to the original plan had to flow in both directions; somewhere there is a river that flows in both directions |
| h48 | Daughters of evil spirit | Diseases are sisters (rare: brothers), usually children of evil spirit |
| h54 | The eyelids of Viy | Eyelids (eyelashes, eyebrows) of personage hang long down over his eyes. To make the eyes widely opened, the eyelids (eyelashes, eyebrows) should be propped up with poles, folks, sticks, etc. (rare: cut off) |
| i10a | Colored layers of the sky | Different sky levels or different categories of clouds have different colors |
| i22b | Birds fly to the outer world | Migratory birds (or shamans in guise of birds) fly from our world to the outer world through the narrow opening, between clashing rocks, under the edge of the sky which is rising and falling, etc. Many birds perish; and/or the person who lives at this place feeds on these birds; the person can be mistress of birds, lives on another side of the pulsating obstacle |
| i22b1 | Birds perish at the border of our world | Some migratory birds (or shamns in guse of birds) perish when they reach the border of our world |
| i32 | Tree of the babies | There is (or was) a tree on which souls of still unborn babies grow, which leaves transform into people, or which trunk is covered with female breasts or flowers that innumerable babies are sucking |
| i46 | Rainbow belt | Rainbow is the ornamented part of the clothes, its decoration, a belt |
| i55 | Stars are openings | Stars are openings in the firmament; holes in dwelling's covering are thought to be stars |
| i55a | Stars are lakes | Stars are lakes in one of the sky levels |
| i56 | Ghosts do not see people from earth | The alive person who is travelling between the worlds is visible for inhabitants of one world and invisible for inhabitants of another |
| i56a | In the land of the ghosts human being is an evil spirit | When a man who had got to the land of spirits touches a local dweller the latter dies or becomes sick |
| i57 | Thunder pursues his enemy | Thunder's enemies are evil spirits, reptiles, animals living in burrows. They hide from him in different objects, Thunder destroys these objects |
| i68 | Opening of the sky | On a certain moment, a crack, a window or the like opens in the sky vault (rains flows though it, the upper world is seen, communication with inhabitants of the upper world becomes possible) |
| i68b | Night of the fulfilled wishes | In a certain night of the year any wish that was thought of or voiced is fulfilled |
| i82h | Venus’ name is Čolpan | The name of the Venus is like Čolpan, Čolbon, Tsulmon, etc. |
| i84 | Milky Way is a snow-shoes track | Milky Way is a path of a person who was walking on snow-shoes |
| i85a1 | Polaris is the hole in the sky | Polaris is the opening though which one can get into the upper world |
| i91 | Water body at the base of a tree | There is a source or body of water at the base of a tree which connects layers of the universe and/or has gigantic dimensions and considered to be the main tree of the world |
| j45 | The stretched out leg (crane bridge) | Person stretches his or her leg or neck as a bridge across water body. The fugitives or those who walk ahead cross the bridge; the persecutor or those who are behind usually fall because the person takes his bridge off |
| k52c | The flood in a dwelling | A shaman, wizard or other character with magical powers demonstrates his skill. The dwelling in which he and other people are situated begins to fill with water. It is sometimes said that this water is an illusion and that the people also see animals (waterfowl, fish or marine mammals) swimming around |
| k52c1 | Penis instead of a fish | A shaman, wizard or other character with magical powers demonstrates his skill. The dwelling in which he and other people are situated begins to fill with water. It is sometimes said that this water is an illusion. One of the episodes: the character tells the people to take the waterfowl or fish that have appeared with the water or they start to catch them on their own initiative; when the water disappears, the people see that they hold in their hands not those animals, but their own penises or something else |
| l126 | The bird indifferent to pain | A small bird makes a powerful anthropomorphic person lose his temper. The bird cannot be annihilated, cries from inside person's stomach, the person suffers or dies |
| l15c | Hero lies and remains unharmed | Dangerous person tells simple-heartedly what he is afraid of giving the hero a good opportunity to scare him |
| l15c1 | The antagonist is defeated because he tells truth | Dangerous person tells simple-heartedly what he is afraid of or what particular object is the receptacle of his life giving the hero a good opportunity to scare or to kill him |
| l18 | Multi-headed bird | A bird with two or more heads on top of one body is described in tales or represented in art |
| l19a | Beings with even number of heads | Beings (any besides birds) with even but not more than ten number of heads are described in tales or represented in art. Beings that with even number of heads named in a row with other multi-headed beings and the highest number is even or bigger than ten are not considered |
| l38 | Demon’s trap | A demon puts a trap to catch people, hero gets into it |
| l38a | A sticky trap | Person sticks to an object, usually touching it one by one with his body members. The object is a trap of demonic creature or is a non human creature itself |
| l42 | Hero carried to ogre’s home | An ogre or ogress catches a person and brings him to his or her home where he or she plans to cook and eat him. The hero escapes |
| l42e | Caught again | An ogre catches a person and carries his or her prey home but the person escapes on the way. The ogre comes back, this time carries the person to his home. Or the ogre catches a group of children, most of them escape on the way, one is brought to the ogre's place |
| l64 | Removable head | Person removes part of his or her body (head, scalp, lungs) and then puts it back |
| l85 | One-sided people | One-sided people have one leg and/or also one arm, one half of a head, etc. The second leg is not cut or burned off, preserved as a stump but is absent completely |
| m101 | Some are afraid of men, and some of partridges | The bear answers the fox (rare sable or wolf) that he is not afraid of the men (often says that he is afraid of the partridges when they fly up suddenly). When the bear attacks a man, he is wounded or killed. Cf. motif M101A |
| m29b | Trickster-fox, jackal or coyote | In episodes related to deception, absurd, obscene or anti-social behavior the protagonist is fox, jackal or coyote |
| m39a | Fool takes off boots from animals’ legs | Two or three brothers live together (with their mother). One of them makes stupid actions like (all or some of them): lets free animals that got into a snare but kills his mother; cuts off the legs of domestic animals or flays them; thinks that a certain place on a head of a baby is a tumor, sucks baby's brains out; cuts a cloth into pieces and ties them to reeds of to branches of a tree; hearing a murmur of water throws food into the water; tries to build a hut not on a river bank but in the river |
| m39a4i | Fontanelle of a baby | Fool sees fontanelle on a baby’s head, takes it for abscess and squeezes off. The baby becomes silent, the fool thinks that he fell asleep |
| m39a6d | A coded message | A person sends to his or her kinsmen or spouse through other persons a text or an object. Only the receiver understands the real meaning of words or of the object, saves the sender and/or destroys his enemies |
| m57c | Gold producing animal | An animal (ass, cow, horse, goat, bear, leopard) extracts gold or food from its body or person makes others believe that it is so |
| m74aa | Theft of food by playing godfather | An animal person pretends (several times) that he has to make a visit (that he has been invited to be godfather at a baptism or invited to a funeral or wedding) but instead eats secretly food supplies |
| m91b | The sold ashes | Using trick, a man sells or exchanges for treasure ashes. Another person tries to sell ashes and is ridiculed |
| 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 |
| n10 | The transparent body | A woman (rare: a man) with transparent body is described. This transparence is an evidence of the beauty |
| n10a | The transparent bones | A woman (rare: a man) with transparent body is described: bones are seen through the skin and marrow through the bones. This transparence is an evidence of the beauty |
| n13 | Girl is the scissors | Girl is associated with scissors (and boy with a knife or an axe) |
| n5 | They recognize winter by rime, summer by rain | Long trips, campaigns, flights or battles are described using cliché which contain expressions like “they get to know that it is winter seeing rime, that it is summer, seeing rain” and the like |