| 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 |
| a2 | Several suns | In a certain time in the past three or more suns were on the sky simultaneously |
| a2a | The sun is a source of distructive heat | The world was or will be (almost) burned when several suns had (will) appear(ed) simultaneously; or the only sun was too hot (or bright) |
| a2a1 | The Moon was as bright as the Sun | Initially, the Moon was as bright and hot as the Sun |
| a2b | Extra suns and moons annihilated | Other suns or moons besides present ones had been in the sky and were later annihilated |
| a37 | The Sun is attacked with weapons | Person intentionally and with special equipment (usually shooting arrows) attacks the Sun (or several suns if they were many) |
| a5 | The Sun and the Moon are males | The Moon is male, the Sun is also male or (much more rare) asexual |
| 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 |
| b118 | One who remained on earth turns into the owl | Person who was unable to ascend to the sky or had returned from the sky to the earth turned into the owl |
| 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 |
| b2c | The earth is a human body, is born by the woman | The earth, elements of the landscape or the fertile soil are the transformed body of a person or the earth (islands) were born by 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 |
| b30b | Murdered person turns into game animals | Different game animals emerge from remains of a murdered person |
| b3a | Primeval waters | Water is the original element, the dry earth appears later |
| b3e | Earth falls on waters | In the beginning there are only air and water. 1) Person descends from the sky, creates the dry land or a hard support created for her or him grows into the earth. 2) The earth is sent or dropped from the sky, put on the surface of the water. 3) The earth is brought from somewhere (not from the underworld) and put on the water |
| b52c | Earth bigger than sky | When the earth was created it proved to be bigger than the sky and had to be squeezed. This way mountains or swamps have appeared |
| b5b | The universal mother | Woman (alone or with her companion) gives birth to or creates not only people but also different creatures and objects |
| b74b | The marriage of the owl and the Moon | The (proposed) marriage of the owl and the Moon broke up or has never been realized |
| 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 |
| b9 | Water in the tree trunk | There is enormous amount of water inside a trunk of a tree or a tree turns into water |
| c19 | Acquisition of the sun | The Sun (the day light) that was absent, stolen or hidden appears (again) |
| c23 | Tree eclipses sky-light | Growth and falling of giant tree defines the condition of the sky with luminaries on it (tree eclipses the light of the sun, can destroy the sky, tears the sun off the sky, etc.) |
| c4a | The flood: survival in a tree | During the flood some persons survive in a tree |
| 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 |
| c8aa | Brother and sister beget the people | In the beginning of time or after the natural disaster brother and sister are the only human beings. They marry and the present day people are their descendents |
| d13e | Hunters laugh at killed animals | Hunters perish because they were laughing at the killed (and revived) animal |
| d4e1 | The dog and the fire | Dog obtains fire, daylight or the Sun or steals them |
| e2 | People made for a test | Making people, creator does not reach perfection immediately. First variants of creation are rejected, then proper form and material found |
| e4 | Creation from dirt of the skin | Supernatural person creates the entire earth, human or other beings of dirt taken from his or her skin, from under the nails, etc. |
| e5b | First couple from the underworld | First man (a group of brothers) or first human couple come out from the underworld (a cave) or from a small enclosure on its surface (tussock, reed, tree, rock, gourd) |
| 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 |
| f76 | Animals teach to make love | People learn to copulate after they see birds, fish or animals doing it |
| g15 | Plant maidens | In the other world or in the time of the ancestors food products or materials used by people looked as persons |
| g20 | Woman turns into plants | Food crops emerge from remains of a woman or girl |
| 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) |
| g23b | Alive being turns into nations | Different body parts of a being turn into people of different ethnic affiliation or such people receive their names and characteristics according to body parts that they got |
| 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) |
| g7 | Blunt axes | Ancestors try to fell a tree (more rare a high rock) that has different useful fruits on its branchs (on its top) or contains water and fish in its tunck. The notch disappears as soon as the woodcutters abandon their work for a while or periodically |
| h11 | The call of God | People become mortal because they do not hear or answer a call of a being who promises them immortality (or do not pronounce his name) or answer a call (pronouns the name) of a being who brings death |
| 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 |
| h4 | The shed skin | Those who change their skin become young again |
| h42 | Creator goes away for a while | After creating the bodies of the first people or after getting a conception how to do it the Creator goes away for a while. During his absence another person, because of his or her ignorance or intentionally, spoils the creation or makes himself or herself what the Creator would make in a better way. Usually because of this people are mortal and subject to diseases |
| h46a | The dog and the spike | Properties of the cereals (usually the size of the spike) are defined by what the dog did in time of creation |
| 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 |
| 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) |
| i104 | Stars are fragments | Stars are fragments of a bigger luminary (usually the Moon); or stars, the sun and the moon are formed from one and the same primeval person or creature |
| i125 | The Hiades are a jaw-bone | The Hyades are a jaw bone or a head of a big animal or anthropomorphic creature |
| i35b | The bronze sky | Sky is made of metal. The technique of its creation reminds the work of a smith |
| i39 | Rainbow road or bridge | Rainbow is a road, a bridge or a ladder |
| i45b | Not to point at the rainbow | It to point at the rainbow, pointing finger or entire arm will rot, wither or become crooked |
| i8i | Original earth unstable | Originally the earth was unstable and swung, then it was fixed up |
| j17 | Frogs in hair | Instead of lice, there are other (bigger or dangerous) creatures in the hair of some persons or he or she pretends that his or her hair is infested with them |
| j49 | Moon’s wife cannot follow him | The Moon's wife or sister tries to follow him to the sky but is unable to do it |
| k103 | Helpful cow | Cow (ox, bull) helps an orphan child or a young woman who got into trouble |
| 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) |
| 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 |
| k27s | Contest: a race | Contest: a race |
| k27x | Former husband of magic wife | A man marries a non-human woman. In her world, she has another husband or suitor. She returns to her world, human husband follows her. He stands tests and/or fights with local inhabitants, gets his wife back |
| 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) |
| 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). |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| k56d1 | Treasure in a pumpkin | Man finds treasure in a pumpkin (water melon) that was (or which seeds were) presented to him |
| l108 | The wolf and the kids | An (animal) person gives a signal (special song, etc.) to his relative or friend who lets him or her in. Antagonist imitates the person's voice or guise and the relative lets him in |
| l112 | Complete body obtained | A boy is born having only half of a body or only a head. Ultimately he obtains normal body |
| l53 | Stones into the maw | A monstrous being is killed or neutralized by (burning hot) stones (pieces of metal, heavy fruits, etc.) thrown into its maw or anus or the being retreats when they menace to throw a stone into its maw |
| 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 |
| l85a | One-sided child | Person is born as half of a child or loses his or her half in an accident. The person does not belong to any category of supernatural beings and usually turns into normal girl or young man |
| l85b1 | After coming to the sky, the lad gets a normal body | A lad with incomplete or grotesque body becomes normal after coming to the sky (coming to God, getting back to the earth) |
| m114 | Rope of sand | Person is suggested to twist (or he really twists) a rope or make other object of sand, ash, smoke, etc. |
| 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 |
| m143 | Fox in a well | Getting into a well or pit and being unable to climb out animal person tricks another to descend and thanks to this gets out while the second person remains below |
| 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.) |
| m23 | Mock plea | Person or creature pretends to be afraid of a particular sort of treatment that really cannot do him any harm |
| m29o | Trickster is a monkey | In episodes related to deception, absurd, obscene or anti-social behavior the protagonist is a monkey |
| 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 |
| m31 | Trickster thrown into the water | Animal person who cannot swim asks a good swimmer to carry him. The latter agrees only to throw his rider into the water |
| 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 |
| m5a | Passengers of the sinking canoe | Small animals ride a canoe, it sinks, all try to save their lives in their own way |