| Motif | Name | Description |
| a14a | The conflict between the Sun and the Moon | The Sun and the Moon are or were enemies, either permanently or in particular situations |
| a21 | Luminaries are objects fixed in the sky | The sun and/or the moon are inanimate objects thrown up to the sky or fixed in the sky |
| 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 |
| a36 | The immortal Moon | The Moon, unlike people, revives or rejuvenates every month; or those who live in the Moon are immortal; or the Moon makes decision if people should die forever or regularly revive |
| a4 | Female sun | The Sun is female, the Moon is male or (more rare) also female |
| a41 | The Sun swallows her children | Two persons have children (younger siblings, mothers). One of them proposes to another that they should kill (eat, bake, etc.) their children (mothers, etc.) but hides his or her own. The opponent actually kills his or her own kin. One of the persons or/and the only survived child is the Sun |
| a47 | The Sun is born from an egg | The Sun is born or created from an egg |
| a5 | The Sun and the Moon are males | The Moon is male, the Sun is also male or (much more rare) asexual |
| a6 | The Sun and the Moon are females | Both the Sun and the Moon are considered to be females (incl. cases when the gender is not directly specified but both emerge from parts of the body of a female person) |
| a7 | The sun pursues the moon | The Sun and the Moon are two persons one of which is pursuing another in the sky or pursued him or her when they were rising to the sky from the earth |
| a8b | The Sun in the land of the dead | When the Sun descends below the horizon, it shines to the anthropomorphic denizens of the netherworld (the dead, dwarfs, etc.) |
| b10 | Drunk out water | Person drinks a lake or all the water in the world or all the water is originally inside person's belly. When a hole is made in it, the water pours out |
| b12 | Rivers and snakes | The river bed follows the way of a snake, fish, dragon or crab; pieces of the snake’s body turn into rivers; a river is a snake |
| b125 | Animals exchange their organs | During the time of creation particular species of animals (rare: plants) exchanged certain organs or traits or one animal borrowed an organ from another one but never brought it back. Thence the characteristics of these animals now. In rare cases the back exchange and restoring of the initial situation or the passing of certain organ from one animal to another without compensation are described |
| b20 | Expedition to the upper world | People regularly ascend to the sky for hunting, fishing or gathering; do not give honey, fish or proper meat to the old person remained below; she or he makes their return impossible, they remain in the sky |
| b21 | Destruction of the world tree | People ascend the tree to hunt, fish, or gather food in the sky. The tree is destroyed, people fall to earth or remain in the upper world |
| b42 | Cosmic hunt | Certain stars or constellations are interpreted as hunters, their dogs and game that the hunters pursue |
| 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 |
| 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) |
| b57 | Blood reddens world | When some person or animal is killed, blood paints the sky (origin of the sunrise or sunset, of reddish colors of Aurora borealis) or other natural objects (Moon, autumn vegetation) |
| b77 | Primeval sky close to earth | Originally the sky was close to the earth, then it has risen up |
| b77a | Giant pushed the sky up | One or several (animal)-persons push sky up to its present height |
| b7b | Waters from broken pot | Sea, river, waters of flood flow out of a small receptacle |
| b7c | Water splashed out | Person or creature possesses all the fresh water. Another person splashes it out of a container or pond making it available for everybody |
| b8 | Frog hides the water | Frog hides all the water but other person makes it available for everybody |
| b82 | The white raven | Raven or other carrion-eating bird of dark color and a similar size was originally white |
| b9 | Water in the tree trunk | There is enormous amount of water inside a trunk of a tree or a tree turns into water |
| 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 |
| c6f | Diving for drowned person | Persons or animals dive to get from under the water a drowned person or creature or part of its body |
| 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 |
| d13f | Laughter and fire | Laughter triggers emergence or spread of fire. Usually fire is obtained from a creature when it bursts out laughing |
| d13h | The dead should not laugh | Person should not laugh in the world of the dead |
| d4a | Theft of fire | Fire is stolen from its original owner or brought back to the people from somebody who had stolen it before |
| d4h1 | Robin obtains fire | A small singing bird (robim, wren) steals fire for people |
| d5 | Woman as the owner of the fire | Female person is the owner or inventor (but not the personification) of the fire |
| d9 | Fire and vulture | Raven or other big dark-feathered bird scavenger is the owner, personification, spouse, obtainer or stealer of fire, daylight, or the Sun |
| e13a | Sacred knowledge from under the water | Sacred knowledge, objects and rituals are initially obtained from the denizens of the underwater world |
| e35 | Webbed fingers | First people or people made by Creator's rival were imperfect, not completely anthropomorphic (often: had webbed fingers) |
| 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) |
| f18d | Long clitoris | Female genitals are as long as a big snake |
| f45 | The Amazons | There are (or were) women who live apart from men in their own village or villages |
| f7 | The underwater-maiden | Man takes or attempts to take a wife who is connected with the underwater world (fish, crab, snake, water animal and the like) |
| f82 | Incest with mother-in-law | A man uses a trick to have opportunity to make love to his mother-in-law or woman uses a trick to make love to her son-in-law. Usually a man takes with him on a hunt not his wife but her mother |
| h10 | Stone sinks, stick floats | People are mortal because stone thrown into the water sank. They have missed a chance to be like wood or other organic matter that floated |
| h20 | Fish disperse in the world | All the fish or (rare) shellfish) was concentrated in one place. Certain person lets it lose or puts it into the rivers or sea |
| h34a | Controversy over conditions of life | Person has a series of suggestions how to make the world easy for living and free of hard work and death. His companion successively rejects them. Their dialogue forever defines conditions of human life |
| h5 | People and snakes | Reptiles or invertebrates possess the medicine of immortality; are contrasted with men as immortal with mortals and/or are responsible for originating of death; or a snake's bite inflicts the first death |
| h7 | The personified Death | Death (also Old Age, Disease, etc.) is a particular person not identical with the Master of the Dead. He kills people usually carrying away their souls |
| i100 | The Pleiades are girls | The Pleiades are a group of girls or women (with children) |
| i100b | The Pleiades are a group of people | The Pleiades are any people (of any ages and sex, combined data of i99-i100a) |
| i108 | The Pleiades are a person | The Pleiades are only one anthropomorphic being, not several persons |
| i115a | Orion and the Pleiades as a man and women | Orion and the Pleiades are opposed as a man or men and a woman or women. Orion is usually male |
| i134 | Long neck on the Milky Way | Figure of a long-necked creature (llama or nandu) is seen along the axes of the Milkt Way |
| i22 | Objects in permanent movement | There are objects which remaining on the same place are moving permanently or periodically (meet and part. rise and fall down, shut and open, rotate) |
| i22e | Objects in permanent move on the way of the dead | On their way to the Beyond, souls of the dead must get between clashing rocks or other moving obstacles |
| i24 | A snake bridge | Snake, lizard or worm is a bridge or a rope over the river |
| 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 |
| i39 | Rainbow road or bridge | Rainbow is a road, a bridge or a ladder |
| i41 | Rainbow serpent | Rainbow is a reptile (usually a snake) or (more rare) a fish, or it is related to snake, to its tongue, breath, or to scorpion's tail |
| i43a | The celestial monster | Giant reptilian monster (serpent, more rare fish, chain of fish) extends in the sky and/or supports the sky being associated with Milky Way or the rainbow |
| i43b | Milky Way is a serpent or fish | Milky Way is a reptile, fish, or chain of fish |
| i45b | Not to point at the rainbow | It to point at the rainbow, pointing finger or entire arm will rot, wither or become crooked |
| 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 |
| i62 | Milky Way is a river | Milky Way is a sky river, water body, chain of beings that swim |
| i65 | Milky Way of the dead | Milky Way is the path over which souls travel to the beyond or a path of the funeral procession |
| i66 | Ashes on Milky Way | Milky Way is ashes or smoldering coals |
| i67 | Emu and rhea in the Milky Way | A giant figure of an emu (in Australia) or rhea (in South America) is seen in the Milky Way |
| i72 | Stars are people | Stars are people, ghosts, anthropomorphic beings (interpretations of unique star objects like Venus or Polaris as persons not considered) |
| i82a | Venus is male | Morning and/or Evening Star is a male personage |
| i8c | The suspended earth | The earth does not fall down or swing because it is suspended to ropes |
| i98c | The Pleiades is a flock of birds | The Pleiades is a flock of birds (in flight) |
| j58 | The arrow ladder | Persons shoot arrows (darts) which hit each other’s end forming a chain (rope, ladder). Persons climb by this chain to the sky or (rare) across an obstacle |
| j59 | Following arrow to get to the sky | To climb to the sky, person must first to shoot an arrow that reaches the sky and sticks to it |
| k10 | Fight with the monstrous bird | Monstrous bird (giant bat) predates on humans. Heroes fight with it |
| k11a | Feathers turn into birds or men | Feathers of (giant) bird turn into different present day birds (in their plumage) or into the men |
| k11a1 | Birds emerge from the monstrous bird | Pierces of flesh or feathers of monstrous/unusual bird turn into common birds (or into their plumage) |
| k19a | Star-wife | A man maries a star-woman |
| k1f | Conflict because of a woman | A man maroons another because of jealousy or because he plans to take hold of his wife |
| k2 | The destroyed ladder | Hero climbs up (e.g. to a tree) or down (e.g. into a deep cave) by ladder, rope, from branch to branch, etc. The rope etc. breaks or is intentionally destroyed and the hero cannot return to the ground. (All cases of motif K2A, besides the Koreans, also contain motif K2) |
| 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 |
| k3 | Tree or rock grows taller | Hero climbs up a tree or rock to get eggs, nestlings, fruits, honey, etc. Another person makes the tree (rock) grow higher or thicker and the hero is unable to descend back |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| l62 | The Stone man | Stone man kills people but ultimately is killed himself |
| m10 | A girl and a honey | A girl or a woman who was stuck in a tree-hollow when she tried to extract honey or who was greedily sucking honey otherwise, dies or turns into the honey or into the bee |
| m104 | Make believe killing of kinsfolk | Person conceals his or her close relatives (children, mother, brothers) and tells another that he or she has killed them. Another believes and agrees to kill his or her own children, mother, etc. |
| m105a | Make believe killing of children | Person conceals her children and tells another one that she has killed them. Another person really kills her own |
| m105a1 | Make believe killing of children: two birds | One of two birds (usually both, rarely only one of them, do not fly) suggests another one two break their eggs. Another bird agrees and later discovers that the eggs of the first one are preserved |
| m11 | The unclean food | Person feeds others a food that is extracted from his, hers or somebody else’ body or is polluted by body extractions not informing about the source of the food |
| m12 | The unlucky hunter | Not to return home empty-handed, a hunter or (rare) a fisherman cuts off a piece of flesh from his body (usually from his calf) or (more rare) extracts his blood or entrails. Usually he brings his flesh or blood to other people pretending that is a good game or fish; or a woman cuts off a piece of flesh from her calf to feed her husband |
| m29a | Trickster-raven | In episodes related to deception, absurd, obscene or anti-social behavior the protagonist is raven |
| m43 | Doll as a decoy | To kill or catch a monster, human figure of wood or clay or alive woman is exposed as a bait. Usually monster's claws or sharp leg get stuck in the wood |
| m50 | Man follows stars | A man tries to join a group of persons who are or become stars (usually the Pleiades) but suffers a reverse; or he pursues the stars to have sexual contact or to be reintegrated with members of his family |
| m9 | Stuck in a tree hollow | Person who puts her or his head or hand into a tree hollow or (rare) other hole is stuck fast in it or falls into the hollow and dies or undergoes a metamorphosis |