| Motif | Name | Description |
| 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) |
| a2b | Extra suns and moons annihilated | Other suns or moons besides present ones had been in the sky and were later annihilated |
| a3 | Male sun and female moon | The Moon is female or bisexual, the Sun is male |
| 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 |
| 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) |
| b116 | The first book eaten up | An animal or a person eats up the first book (writing, important document). (In some of European traditions the eating up of the book is not directly described but follows from the context) |
| b116a | Knowledge preserved in the stomach | Person or animal swallows sacred book or its remains. During rituals this knowledge is actualized in the oral text, in sounds of musical instruments made of the animal body parts or in animal body parts used for divination |
| b116b | Sacred book gets wet | Becasue sacred book gets wet or sinks when people were crossing a river, it is lost or the text becomes unreadable. Or it is destroyed when people try to dry it or when they go to bath and let it lie on a shore |
| b116c | Sacred book lost | In the past a particular groups of people possessed scripture and knowledge that were later lost or the people missed opportunity to obtain them |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| b2e | The male earth | The earth or the world as a whole is a male person (alone or together with a female person) |
| b36a | Two creatures decorate each other | Two zoomorphic personages decorates each other or somebody decorates each of them |
| b38 | The ruined painting | Person paints birds or animals or they paint each other. Some of them are not satisfied with the result |
| b38a | Two birds decorate each other | Two birds decorate each other, one becomes worse than it was before |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| b77b | Sky touched with a long object | The sky rose to its present height and/or the direct relations of the sky deity with the people were broken off when the sky or the deity was touched or struck with a long object (a pestle, a broom, etc.) |
| b77b1 | Sky touched with a pestle | The sky rose to its present height and/or the direct relations of the sky deity with the people were broken off when the sky or the deity was pushed up, touched or struck with a pestle or with a ladle during the preparation of food |
| b79 | Cosmic egg | From the primeval egg, eggs, or egg-like ball emerge the earth, the sky, sky bodies, different animals (all or part of the items of this list) |
| b79a | A bird laid an egg | In the beginning of time a bird flies, lays an egg or eggs, different objects and creatures emerge from them or a bird drops some solid substance on the waters and the dry land or an island appear |
| b79a1 | A bird dropped hard substance on water | In the beginning of time, a bird flies and drops some solid substance on the waters and the dry land or an island appear. Sometimes the precise nature of the substratum on which the solid piece falls is not defined |
| c34 | The deluge because of a wounded creature | Killing (injuring, offending) of some cruature (usually related to water) triggers deluge |
| 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. |
| e5c | People from the sky | The first people or first anthropomorphic divine beings descend to earth from the sky. |
| e8 | People of wood | The first people or (the first) woman (wife of a primeval ancestor) are made of wood |
| f2 | Pregnant limb | Child is born from a tumor or swelling on person's body (on thigh, knee, finger, etc.) or is temporarily placed there or child grows from blood that flew out from a cut |
| f54 | Oedipus | A young man and a woman (Konkani: a young girl and a man) marry and later get to know that they commited incest |
| f54a | Imperceptible scar (husband proves to be son) | After a rather long marriage, wife discovers some minor traits in her husband guise that help her understand that he is not a proper marriage partner but her close kin (brother, son or father) or a transformed animal; or a man getting to notice a scar on his wife’s head understands that she is his sister |
| 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) |
| g13b | Fungi as a false food | Before acquisition of cultivated plants people ate fungi. Fingi is a food of non-human beings. Fungi is a false food of inferior quality |
| g13c | Bad food of the pre-agricultural epoch | Before the cultivated plants or edible wild plants become known, people ate (decomposed) wood, bark, mud, stones, fungi |
| g17 | Gift of a reptile | Serpent (snake-eel in Oceania) or alligator is the original possessor or the source of cultivated plants or wild staples |
| 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) |
| g23a | Alive being turns into plants | Person or creature is transformed. Separate parts of its (his, her) body give origin to different plants, mostly edible or cultivated |
| g5 | Food tree | Fruits and shoots of different cultivated plants grow on the branches of one tree (on one vine) or certain plant has a tree form that is alien to it in nature |
| 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) |
| g9 | Restored forest | People fell trees to make a garden. In the morning, the forest is intact again |
| 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 |
| h34g | One grain porridge | One cereal grain (cob, etc.) is enough to prepare a meal |
| h36b | Death and the chameleon | Chameleon is responsible for introduction of permanent death or hard life; loses object that the deity trusted him to bring to the earth |
| 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 |
| h51 | The demonic horse | A horse eats people or is associated with antagonist of the God |
| 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 |
| i108 | The Pleiades are a person | The Pleiades are only one anthropomorphic being, not several persons |
| i125 | The Hiades are a jaw-bone | The Hyades are a jaw bone or a head of a big animal or anthropomorphic creature |
| i27 | Chthonic canine | A dog is the lord, guard or guide of/to the land of the dead; or dogs live on the way to the land of the dead |
| 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 |
| i44 | Chthonic serpent | Giant serpent lies on the perimeter of the earth or supports the earth |
| i44 | Chthonic serpent | Giant serpent lies on the perimeter of the earth or supports the earth |
| i45b | Not to point at the rainbow | It to point at the rainbow, pointing finger or entire arm will rot, wither or become crooked |
| i51a | Bull the earth-holder | Big mammal supports the earth |
| i62 | Milky Way is a river | Milky Way is a sky river, water body, chain of beings that swim |
| i82i | Venus is Zahra (Zuhra, Zura, etc.) | The name of an object of the night sky (usually Venus) is like Zakhra, Zukhra, Zura, etc. |
| i98a | The Pleiades are a hen with its chickens | The Pleiades are a brooding hen, hen with its chickens, chickens |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| k27k | Diving contest | A contest: to dive deep or for a long time |
| k27n | Difficult tasks of the in-laws | A man must fulfill difficult tasks (to win competition) to receive the permission for a marriage |
| k27n3a | Task-giver is the Sun, Moon, Thunder, or Wind | Person who gives difficult tasks to the hero is associated with the Sun, Moon, Thunder, or Wind (Cloud, Rain) |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| k60a | How strong are these bonds? | Person lets be firmly tied up when another one say that it's only a joke (e.g. a test to see can the first one break bonds) |
| 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 |
| l112 | Complete body obtained | A boy is born having only half of a body or only a head. Ultimately he obtains normal body |
| l28a | Eating of snake meat triggers flood | Because people (or certain person) eat the meat of a snake (dragon, strange fish), a flood begins or a landslide occurs, or a river (lake) appears |
| l37a | To get know causes of problems | |
| l6 | Demon clings to person | A demonic being demands that a person would carry it permanently, clings to his shoulder or back |
| l81 | Demon’s fire | Person sets off in search of fire and finds it in the house of a demon. The demon makes harm to the person |
| 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) |
| m124 | A bull’s tail | Person buries a tail or head of a bull or other domestic animal with a tail or horns outside. He explains that the animal sank into the ground and usually asks the others to pull the tail (horns). When they are “torn off”, he tells that people are guilty of the animal being lost |
| 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.) |
| m180a | The unwashed monkey | An animal person invites another but asks him to wash his hands or feet before dinner. This proves to be impossible and the hungry guest goes away |
| m29k | The turtle (tortoise, toad, frog) wins thanks to his smartness | Being smart and persistent, the turtle (toad, frog) overcomes strong adversaries |
| 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 |
| 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 |