| 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 |
| 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 |
| a23c | Who will fly higher? | Birds argue who of them will fly higher. One who seemed to have less chances wins (he hides himself in feathers of a strong bird using it as a vehicle) |
| 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) |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| a4 | Female sun | The Sun is female, the Moon is male or (more rare) also female |
| 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 |
| 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) |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| b2d | Marriage of the sky and the earth | The male Sky (the Sun, the Thunder, the creator of the sky) marries the female Earth (or its female creator) or the female Sky marries the male Earth |
| 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 |
| b5c | Primeval mother and daughter | There are two women in the beginning of time, an old and a young one. One or both conceive in a supernatural way. A son or twins are born, they establish natural order and social rules |
| b6 | A man and a woman move around a post and meet each other | The first or the only survived man and woman move in different directions around a post, a hill, etc. When they come together they marry each other |
| c25b | A spinner in the Moon | In the sky, on the Moon (rare: on the Sun), i.e. somewhere outside of our world certain person is spinning, weaving, plaiting, or embroidering |
| c8 | The couple of close relations originates the mankind | In the beginning of time or after the natural disaster brother and sister, mother and son, or father and daughters are the only human beings. They marry and the present day people are their descendents |
| c8b | Siblings change their looks and marry | In the beginning of time or after the world catastrophe brother and sister or mother and son are the only humans. They reject marriage or only the man does not want to marry his sister or mother. After their looks are changed (or only the sister or mother changes her face) they take each other for strangers, marry and beget the new race |
| c8c | Mother and son produce people | After the world cataclysm, in the beginning of time or coming to a new land a woman marries her son and produce people |
| e39 | Pig ancestor | A pig is an ancestor of a particular group of people |
| e8 | People of wood | The first people or (the first) woman (wife of a primeval ancestor) are made of wood |
| e9h | Dove-wife | A man marries dove-woman |
| e9i1 | Swan-wife | A man marries supernatural woman who is a swan |
| 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 |
| f45a | Conception from wind | A woman or a female animal is impregnated deliberately exposing her genitals to the wind |
| f64 | The lecherous parent | Person changes his or (rare) her guise to marry his or her close relative in descending or (rare) ascending line |
| f64a | Describes future husband | Going away or pretending to die, a person bids his or her relative to marry another person who resembles him (her) or has some special traits; or he describes a man who should be met as a dear guest; person comes himself unrecognized and is taken for one whom he had described |
| f64b | Incestuous woman | A woman pretends to be a stranger to have sexual relations with her (grand)son, daughter or brother |
| 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) |
| g23 | Alive being turns into many objects | Person or creature is transformed. Separate parts of its (his, her) body give origin to different objects or creatures (only etiological narratives are considered) |
| g24 | Food from the sky | First seeds (sprouts, tubors) of cultivated plants or of important edible wild plants are brought from the sky (received from the sky-dwellers) |
| g24a | Seeds of plants hidden on the body | Person steals cultivated plants for the people hiding the seeds on/in his body |
| g6 | Primeval tree | One of the trees is the principal, original one (emerged before all the other; ancestor of wild or cultivated plants; ocean or rivers inside it; world axis; higher than all the others; overshadows sky) |
| 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 |
| i19 | People inhale the odor of food | Anthropomorphic beings satisfy their hunger cooking food and inhaling the odor |
| i20 | The undeground dwarfs | Race of dwarfs lives under the ground (deep under the earth or in hills and rocks) or at the horizon where the earth and the sky meet |
| i20c1 | Dwarfes live in hills and rocks | Dwarfs live not deep under the earth but in hills and rocks, usually come from there to the earth |
| i37f | Fungi are ears | Fungi or mushrooms are named “ears” |
| i45b | Not to point at the rainbow | It to point at the rainbow, pointing finger or entire arm will rot, wither or become crooked |
| j47 | Pursuer falls from height | Person ascends to the sky (rare: descends from the sky; ascends the cliff) by a rope, a ladder, etc. Another person tries to follow him or her but the rope (the ladder) is broken or severed |
| 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 |
| j69 | The mock and the real beheading | Person is killed (with the cold weapon, with water of death) and then revived. Another person asks to be exposed to the same procedure but is not revived |
| k103 | Helpful cow | Cow (ox, bull) helps an orphan child or a young woman who got into trouble |
| k107 | Lost husband found | A woman is abandoned by her magic husband. She finds him and becomes his wife again |
| k116a | King is killed after putting on a strange attire | A powerful person abducts or is going to abduct a poor man’s wife. She tricks him to put on a strange attire (often her husband’s clothes). After this his men or dogs kill him taking for the poor man (fool, devil) |
| k12 | Woman is lost and returned | By trick or by force, a rival or adversary kidnaps hero's wife or bride. The man gets her back |
| k146 | Life-medicine brought by the hero is used to revive him | The hero is sent to bring a life-medicine. On his way back a friendly woman replaces the real medicine with a useless one or keeps part of it for herself. Using the medicine she revives the hero when he is treacherously killed |
| 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 |
| k25e | Magic wife is an ancestor | All humans, members of a particular ethnic or social group or a ruling dynasty are believed to descend from a mortal man and a woman of supernatural origin |
| k26 | A hole in the firmament | Finding a hole in the ground or making it, person gets to see below another world. Usually the earth is seen from the sky |
| k27 (motif is not in the correlation table) | Competitions and difficult tasks | Person is suggested to fulfill tasks that are mortally dangerous or cannot be fulfilled without supernatural helpers or capacities. The person fulfills the tasks and remains alive. A contest between persons has form of a competition or game in which the loser is deprived of his status or life |
| k27hh | To sort grain | A task: to sort a large amount or small particles of different kind (usually seeds of different plants) mixed in container or to count such particles or to pick up the spilled grains |
| 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 |
| k27r1 | The burnt person proves to be unharmed | The antagonist believes that the hero was burned but returned from the other world alive and prosperous therefore he asks burn him (her) or his representatives |
| k27r2 | The dancing apples | A task: to bring objects (usually fruits) that act like people, i.e. dance, sing and the like |
| 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 |
| 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) |
| 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 |
| k33c | Girl from a fruit | Young man gets a girl who is inside of a fruit or (rare) a flower or an egg |
| k34 | Fatal swing | Person kills others inviting them to sit on a swing and launching them into water, on rocks, etc. |
| k37 | Recognition-test | To return or to get his or her son, wife, husband, domestic animal or (rare) object, person must recognize her, him or it among several identical persons, animals or objects |
| k37d | Recognized by traces of teeth | One person gets to know about the presence of another seeing traces of his teeth or nails on a fruit or leaf |
| k56 | The kind and the unkind girls | One of (step)sisters, co-spouses or young female neighbors meets a being that is able to reward and to punish. She behaves herself properly and is rewarded. Another (other) girl comes to the same being but behaves in a wrong way and is punished (not rewarded). |
| k56a2b | To bath lizards and bugs | Supernatural person asks a girl to bath (to feed) his or her children. These are lizards, bugs, or wild animals. The girl does it well and is rewarded |
| k56a8 | An animal is taken for a bridegroom by mistake | A girl marries an animal (brings it with her), it turns into a handsome man. Another girl tries to do the same but perishes or suffers a reverse |
| k56a8d | Girl devoured by a python | A girl agrees to marry a serpent, it turns into handsome man. Another girl (or her mother or father) herself brings a serpent home or wants a serpent to marry her but it kills her |
| k60b | Invitation to coffin | Person is lured into a trap being invited to lie in a box or a hole to measure it. Being unable to liberate himself from the box etc., the person remains in power of his enemies |
| k74 | Hero, his companions and a dwarf | The hero and his companion or companions live together. Every morning one stays at home while another or others go to hunt, etc. A demonic person comes, eats up all the food and beats the cook. Or the man who remained at home comes to the demon himself in search of fire and is maltreated by him. The hero kills or neutralizes the demon |
| k74a | Only the hero gets to overcome the demon whose track he then follows | Every time a demon commits an outrage upon one of the men who remains at home. When it is the hero’s turn, he overcomes the demon and follows his track to his world |
| k75 | The youngest daughter is willing (The loathsome bridegroom) | A girl (usually the youngest of several sisters) does not reject but marries a poor, sick, dirty, old, too young, non-human, etc. man who later demonstrates his supernatural qualities |
| k76 | A strange son | A boy born into a family or found by his adoptive parents has a strange guise (ball of meat, nut, bag, half of a man, an animal). He possesses magic power, becomes a handsome man and usually marries a girl of high social status. The magic spouse of a princess originally has a non-human or monstrous appearance |
| k76b | Snake son and snake husband | An (adoptive) son is a snake who turns into handsome man. The snake is the magic spouse of princess, lost and returned |
| k76c | Child the gourd | An (adoptive) son (rare daughter) emerges from a gourd (rare water melon, coco nut) or is found inside it |
| k76c1 | Woman gives birth to a gourd | Woman gives birth to a gourd which turns into person or which contains a person or people inside |
| 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) |
| k94 | Bird of luck (eaten up head) | Person eats magic bird, fish, small animal, or fruit and becomes prosperous and powerful |
| k99b | Eloping with the wrong man | At night a girl’s lover has to carry her away but falls asleep or is late. She is carried away by another man who happened to be on the place |
| l105 | Invisible missile | Animal, fish or person wounded by hero runs or swims away, usually with the man's projectile in his or her body. Local doctors are not able to cure the wound (usually because they do not see the projectile). The hero or his companion comes to the place where the wounded one lives and cures him or her (usually extracting his projectile from the wound) |
| l106 | Lost object claimed back | An antagonist makes a demand to the hero which is correct in form but really is unjustified. The hero fulfills the claims or is punished. Now antagonist takes an object or animal possessed by the hero, is unable to give it back and is punished |
| l114b | To bring ogre's property | Getting a task or by his own initiative, a trickster several times comes to a person (usually an ogre) and steals in succession objects in his possession or members of his family |
| l114b1 | A task: to bring the ogre | Person has to bring a certain ogre and does it luring the ogre into a cage, a box, etc. |
| l114c | To exchange clothes with ogre's daughters | Children or youths (usually a group of brothers) exchange clothes (headgears, ornaments, blankets, sleeping places) with their enemy’s children. The enemy kills his or her own children by mistake. Usually brothers get to the ogre or ogress and the youngest advices to exchange places (clothes, etc.) with ogre’s daughters). Outside of Europe the actors can be animals |
| l42b | Credulous children of the ogre | An ogre's child or (rare) wife believes in what hero tells him (or her) and releases him. Usually the hero kills the child and puts its meat to cook in the very pot where the ogre planned to cook the hero |
| l93c | Helpful monkey | Cunning monkey saves person, helps him or her |
| m111 | Monkey on the banana tree | An animal person who can climb trees (usually a monkey) suggests another (a turtle, a crab) to harvest bananas. He climbs the banana, throws down but peels, rotten fruits and the like. His companion revenges on him |
| m115 | The eaten up wolf | Using a trick, (animal)-person kills a dangerous animal. Kinsmen and friends of the killed animal get to know about it and come to avenge its death. The person has narrow escape |
| m131 | Biting tree-root | A stronger (animal)-person gets to seize a leg or tail of a weaker one. To get free the weaker one pretends that his pursuer got hold of a tree root, and the pursuer lets his enemy free |
| m144 | The wasp nest as king’s drum | One animal person gets to convince another that dangerous or disgusting objects are attractive and delicious (a wasp nest is a drum, a snake is a girdle, a heap of dung is a delicacy, etc.) |
| m144 | The wasp nest as king’s drum | One animal person gets to convince another that dangerous or disgusting objects are attractive and delicious (a wasp nest is a drum, a snake is a girdle, a heap of dung is a delicacy, etc.) |
| 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 |
| m163 | The precious cat | Person gets to a country where rats or mice are a plague and receives a fortune selling a cat |
| m183 | A race: one against many | Many animals of one species that all look identical together fulfill the task that would be impossible for any of them if he were alone; the competitors believe that the task was fulfilled by only one animal. Usually a slow and a fast animals agree to race. The slow one puts other animals of his species at the finish or along the distance, each one answering the fast one that he is ahead of him. The fast one accepts his loss |
| m185 | On the tail of the fast one (animals) | A slow and a fast animals (or not flying bird) agree to race. The slow one imperceptibly sticks to the fast one’s body (or to a vehicle) and getting to the finish pretends to come there simultaneously with the fast one or before him |
| m185a | On the tail of the winner (all versions) | Birds, animals or fish compete as about who is the fastest or can fly higher than others. A weak one imperceptible sticks to the body of the fastest or strongest and wins |
| m187 | Snail is a participant of the race | A snail (other mollusk, trepang, etc.) participates in the race and wins |
| m23 | Mock plea | Person or creature pretends to be afraid of a particular sort of treatment that really cannot do him any harm |
| m29k | The turtle (tortoise, toad, frog) wins thanks to his smartness | Being smart and persistent, the turtle (toad, frog) overcomes strong adversaries |
| m29o | Trickster is a monkey | In episodes related to deception, absurd, obscene or anti-social behavior the protagonist is a monkey |
| m29o1 | The monkey is a failure | Because of its stupidity and unsocial behavior, the monkey suffers a reverse, is injured or dies |
| m29v | The duiker (mouse-deer) wins thanks to his smartness | Being smart and witty, a small ungulate overcomes strong adversaries. The hero is a duiker, a mouse-deer or other small even-toed ungulates that are not very close biologically but look similar. In some publications on African folklore it is difficult to say what species is meant in particular case |
| m3 | Chain of animals | Person crosses a water or air space along the chain of many animals, birds or fish |
| 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 |
| m3a | Counting water animals | Animal who does not swim well suggests animals who live in water to count their number. For this, they should make a chain and he would run along it. It is but a trick to cross a body of water |
| m44b | Thieves of food: the women | Person discovers that somebody steals game or fish from his trap or devastates his garden. He or his guards catch the thieves who prove to be (the first) women or the thief is the water being whom the hero lets go after receiving a woman for ransom |
| 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 |
| m60 | Sham doctor: finished off enemy | Hero wounds dangerous enemy (a monster, a robber) and then, in guise of a doctor, comes to him and kills his patient instead of curing him |
| m60a | A hunter comes to one whom he wounded | An animal or a supernatural creature is wounded but escapes. Local doctors are helpless. The hero or his companion, masked as a doctor, comes to the wounded one and either cures or kills him. |
| m7 | Hero waiting to be picked up | Getting into the lower or upper world, to an island, a country at the horizon, etc. a man is unable to move further and waits for somebody who could bring him to his destination. Some animals, birds or celestial bodies pass by, the last one (often the Sun or the Moon) picks him up and brings to the place he is eager to go |
| 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 |
| 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 |