| Motif | Name | Description |
| 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 |
| a12a | Eclipses: a predator animal | During an eclipse or at other circumstances the Sun or the Moon are attacked by a predator animal (a bear, a feline, a canine, a racoon) |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| b109 | Person turns into bear | Person turns into a bear (origin of bears) |
| 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.) |
| b42n | Orion is one person | Constellation of Orion or the Belt of Orion is identified with only one male person, usually with a warrior or hunter |
| b45b | The bull of cold | Bull or cow are related to winter and cold, responsible for existence of the cold season |
| b46a | Stolen star of the Pleiades | One of the stars of the Pleiades was separated from others (usually abducted) by stars of Big Dipper and now is seen among them) |
| b47 | The Pleiades bring cold | In former times or regularly the Pleiades or other group of stars produced or produce till now severe cold. (The heliacal set of the Pleiades is in May-June while in the Northern Hemisphere they are seen best of all in the winter time) |
| b52b | Some earth is concealed | Person spits out earth that he swallowed or concealed otherwise. This way the broken landscape is created |
| b68 | The giant grouse | Hazel-grouse was big and dangerous. He is torn to pieces which are shared between other birds and animals. What remains is the present grouse |
| b68a | A punished bird: must carry a weaker one on its back | Birds quarrel and one who pretended to obtain a high position badly beats a weaker one. Other birds decide that the offender must carry another one on his back |
| b69 | Chipmunk's back scratched: hence his stripes | To thank or to punish a small mammal like chipmunk or (ground) squirrel, animal or person scratches or paints it producing stripes on its back |
| c28 | Unconsidered promise | A demon obtains valuables essential for another person's (and for all the people) survival but is tricked to return the valuables |
| 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) |
| 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) |
| e11 | The burned skin | Magic person reveals his true nature and/or remains with the real people after the object responsible for preserving the non-human appearance (usually an animal skin) is destroyed (usually burned) |
| e13 | Drum is a lake | The shaman’s drum is likened with a lake |
| e36 | Hard covering of the body | Human body was or could be protected with a hard layer (rare: with hair) but it has been preserved only on fingers and toes (on the head) |
| e9 | The mysterious housekeeper | Person observes traces of some activity that takes place in his (rare: her) house in his (her) absence and then takes by surprise the responsible one |
| e9d | Dog-wife | Man marries a girl who initially has guise of a dog |
| e9e | Puppy as a reward | Youth gets to supernatural beings, rejects any treasure, asks for a puppy, a dog's skin, a fruit, etc. When he returns home, the puppy (skin, etc.) turn into magic wife |
| e9i4 | Crane-wife | A man marries supernatural woman who is a (white) crane |
| f35a | Feeding with the kin’s meat | Person does not know that he or she eats or cooks the meat of the member of his or her household (blood relation, more rare a spouse or servant) or serves it to his or her friends, or uses her or his bones for everyday needs, or slowly kills him ort her |
| 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) |
| h16b | The basin of milk | A river (wave, lake, basin) of milk that exists on earth (and not among the stars) is mentioned in narratives (in different context) |
| h18b | Cattle returns into water | After getting domestic animals from supernaturals a person immediately loses the animals or most of them (usually because of a broken taboo like to look, to speak in a loud voice, etc.; the animals disappear in water, remain in the sky, scatter in various directions, etc.) |
| 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 |
| i101 | Big Dipper is poles, a nailed skin | Several bright stars of Big Dipper or other constellation are poles which support or stretch an object like skin, shelter, etc. |
| i108 | The Pleiades are a person | The Pleiades are only one anthropomorphic being, not several persons |
| i121 | Twin constellations | Two constellations (usually Ursa major and Ursa minor) are interpreted as twin objects of the same type (two animals, two carts, etc.) |
| i41b1 | Rainbow swallows fish | Rainbow drinks and together with water swallows fish, people, etc. Sometimes this fish falls on earth from the sky |
| i45a | Not to point at the Moon or a star | Person who points at the Moon or a star or looks intently at them will get sick or die or his pointing finger will rot or wither |
| i50 | Ungulate animal with more than four legs | An ungulate animal (a horse, an elk, a moose) with six or more legs is described or represented in art |
| 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 |
| i60 | Milky Way is a seam in the sky | Milky Way is a sky seam, a concealed fissure or crack between two half of the sky vault |
| i78 | The square earth | The earth is square, the sky is usually round |
| i82h | Venus’ name is Čolpan | The name of the Venus is like Čolpan, Čolbon, Tsulmon, etc. |
| i94 | The Pleiades are openings | The Pleiades are holes in the firmament |
| j15 | Woman gets to dangerous creatures | Walking in search of her husband, boyfriend, kinsmen, shelter woman or girl gets to the house of dangerous creatures where she is injured or killed |
| j44 | The broken bridge | Person or his helper draws his enemies on the unstable bridge and destroys it. The enemies fall into water, into a precipice |
| j46 | Enemy drowns | Antagonist perishes falling into the water or trying to cross a water body |
| j54 | The last female survives | Animals of particular species that were enemies of the heroes are exterminated besides the only pregnant female (rare a female and a male). Thanks to this, these animals still exist |
| 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 |
| k137 | Sister tricks women to come and revive her brother | When her brother is killed, a girl puts on his clothes and in a guise of a man wins competitions and gets women who are able to revive the dead. She puts the clothes back on her brother and the women come and revive him taking him for their husband. Or a sister is killed and her brother after winning wives tricks them to revive her |
| k161 | The liberated dragon | Person imprisoned a dragon (demon, Thunder, etc.) and warns the other not to open a certain room (not to give water to the prisoner, etc.). The instruction is broken and the demon liberates himself that has undesirable consequences |
| k176 | A man in search of the woman | A (young) man sets off to find or to return his bride or his wife |
| k24 | Stolen clothes of supernatural woman | Women (rare: men) who possess supernatural power and usually come from a non-human world (from sky, from under the water, they are winged beings, bird- or animal-persons; rare: a girl of higher social status than the hero) take off their clothes (feather skins and the like) or part of it. Because a person hides the clothes (of one of them), their owner(s) have (has) to marry him or help him (rare: her) |
| k25 | Magic wife | A man consciously marries a woman related to the non-human world |
| k25a1 | Magic wife finds her clothes | Magic wife abandons her mortal husband when she finds her clothes (often, her feathers if she is a bird-woman), makes herself the new clothes, receives them from her kin or her husband gives her her clothing believing that she will not abandon him. (Versions with magic wife abandoning her husband because she feels herself offended is not alternative to the “found clothes but in most of the texts these motifs are not combined) |
| k25a5 | Two brothers and the swan-maidens | The elder brother is a hunter, the younger brother (rare: sister) stays at home. When the elder gets to know that the bird-maidens visit the younger, he instructs him what he should do to catch one of the girls. The elder brother marries her but she finds her feathered clothes and flies away (in many versions the younger brother is a simpleton and tells his sister-in-law where her clothes are hidden). The elder brother goes away in search of his lost wife |
| k25a7 | Two brothers and the winged maiden | The elder brother is a hunter, the younger one is a housekeeper. When the elder brother gets to catch the winged maiden, the younger foolishly gives her winged back and she flies away. The elder brother sets off to return his wife |
| k27n | Difficult tasks of the in-laws | A man must fulfill difficult tasks (to win competition) to receive the permission for a marriage |
| k27n1 | Task-giver is a king or a chief | Person who gives difficult tasks to the hero and/or person who demands the fulfillment of certain conditions from those who want to marry his daughter is a prominent figure in social hierarchy. He is a head of the socio-political unit of community or super-community level and is neither a member of the hero’s household nor a mythical being |
| k27n3b | Task-giver lives in the sky but is not the Sun, Moon, Thunder or Wind | Person who gives difficult tasks or tests to the hero or heroine lives in the sky but is not associated with the Sun, Moon, Thunder or Wind |
| k27r | To visit the world of the dead | A task: to bring object or news from the land of the dead |
| k27w | Monster brought by the hero kills the task-giver | Task-giver asks to bring him dangerous being or object possessed by a moster or deity. Hero fulfills the task. The beast, monster, deity or the object itself kills the task-giver |
| k27x3 | The man persecuted because of his beautiful bride | A powerful person coverts a beautiful bride or wife of a man and gives him impossible tasks to get rid of him |
| k32 | The false wife | An ugly, old, lazy, etc. woman or (in Chaco) a male trickster comes to man under disguise of his wife or bride who is driven out, confined to the underworld, killed, etc. |
| k32g | Punishment: torn apart by horses | To punish an antagonist, he or she is tied to a horse (camel, bull) and dragged or he or she is torn apart (usually by horses) |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| k67d | Flight of the master with his goods in the bag | A master (ogre, devil, wife) tries to get away from his farmhand (her husband). The farmhand hides in the master’s bag (chest) so that the master unwittingly takes him along |
| k77a | Small objects and animals defeat the ogre | Small objects and animals (rare: animals alone but including those who really are harmless) revenge on a powerful enemy making attack on him in succession (usually they hide in his or her house); the enemy is badly injured, runs away or dies |
| k77c | Ones who hide in a house frighten dangerous enemy | Objects and/or domestic animals live in a house. When dangerous enemy comes, they attack him, he dies or escapes (all texts with K77A and K77B included) |
| k78 | Extracted from finger | An ogre (an ogress) swallows people, is killed but the people are not found in his or her belly or are found dead. Only when the ogre's finger is cut off, the hero finds a remedy to revive the people or the swallowed up (the swallowed hero himself) come out alive from the finger of the ogre |
| k80 | Repetitive reincarnation | Person (usually a young woman) turns into different objects or creatures which another person destroys one by one. However, the person is reincarnated again and again and ultimately acquires her or his original form |
| k8c | Jonah: swallowed by terrestrial animal | Person gets into the belly of ground animal or bird. He kills it from the inside and/or returns to earth by himself (i.e. not extracted by other people) |
| k8c4 | Elk dies after swallowing mouse | A mouse, a small bird, a porcupine or other animal (rare: person) of a small size gets inside a big ungulate (elk, deer, buffalo, tapir) to kill (and then usually to eat) him |
| l100c | Duped visitors of a chaste woman | When a man comes to a beautiful woman she tricks him by asking to finish some trivial task, keeping him by her magic in an awkward or ridiculous position until daylight. Episode is repeated next nights with other or (rare) the same suitor. Usually the first suitor being ashamed tells the other that everything was nice, so all of them are humiliated the same way |
| l110 | The devourer | A demonic being swallows a multitude of people and animals. When it is killed and cut open, the swallowed ones come out alive or are revived |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| l41 | Hero escapes on the way | An ogre or ogress catches a person and carries his or her prey home but the person escapes on the way or immediately after reaching the ogre's house |
| 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 |
| l42c | Now in, now outdoors | Person hides from the powerful one now in his house, now outdoors, the powerful cannot catch him |
| l42f | Prisoner escapes, wife is killed | Person that has to be eaten up imperceptibly runs away. The master of the house thinks that his wife had eaten the food alone and cuts her belly open |
| l72 | The obstacle flight | Running away from a dangerous being, person throws small objects behind him or her which turn into mighty obstacles on the way of the pursuer |
| l72a | Comb becomes a thicket | Running away from a dangerous being, person throws a comb (a brush) that turns into mighty obstacle (usually a thicket) on the way of the pursuer. (In South America the motif is probably of European origin) |
| 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 |
| m109 | The tail-fisher | Animal person puts his tail (penis) down and waits in hope to get something edible. The tail (penis) is torn or cut off, the person escapes or dies |
| m171 | The profitable exchange: from a pea to a horse | Person or animal stays for a night and the next morning declares that his possessions (which value is none or negligible) are lost. Or other persons whom the trickster meets really use or spoil objects that the trickster gives them. Every time he receives in compensation objects or animals with ever bigger value, the last acquisition usually being a costly animal or a girl. (All texts with motifs M171A and M171C contain also the motif M171) |
| m171a | The profitable exchange: getting a girl | Person or animal gets to exchange less valuable goods for ever more valuable. The last or the next to last one is a girl |
| m171b | Shoulder-blade with no meat | Person pretends that he has not a bare should-blade but a good piece of meat, asks people to cook it and then blames them for stealing the meat |
| m29b1 | The wolf is a failure | Because of its stupidity and unsocial behavior, the wolf suffers a reverse, is injured or dies |
| m29b2 | The bear is a failure/enemy | Because of its stupidity or unsocial behavior, the bear suffers a reverse, is injured or dies |
| m38d | Animated objects perish one after another | Two or several animated objects or small animals and live or travel together and perish one after another when they make the most simple acts |
| m38d1 | Neck like a hair | Persons whose body parts are obviously vulnerable (head like a bladder, neck like a hair, leg like a straw, etc.) attempt to behave normal people and perish one after the other. |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| m57a1 | Flowers blossom where she puts her feet | Where the beautiful woman steps, treasure appears, flowers blossom, etc. |
| 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 |
| m77 | A soiled bed | While person is asleep, another smears with excrements or something that reminds excrements his or her bed or clothes. The ashamed person runs away or agrees to make what the trickster wants in exchange of his silence |
| m78f | A planted empryo | When a woman falls asleep, the trickster (usually a tiny boy) puts animal embryo or entrails (or something that looks like this) near her to make her or other people believe that she has had a miscarriage or her own entrails have fallen out |
| m90a4 | The tree of gems | A tree which has gems or adornments instead of fruits is described; particular parts of the tree are made of different metals or precious stones |
| 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 |
| m91a | Simulated killing (a bag with blood) | Person pierces a bladder with blood or red juice, simulates murder or suicide |
| m91d | The drowned shaman | Person deceives the other (giving out a corpse for alive person, accusing incent people of murder, etc.). When a shaman (almost) gets to know the truth, the trickster kills her or him and gets to avoid any punishment |
| 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 |
| n10b | The transparent neck | A girl (rare: a youth) with transparent neck is described, food or drinks swallowed by her or him are seen. Such a neck is an evidence of the beauty |
| 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 |