The earth is a female person (alone or together with a male person); she is female being or associated with a woman
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
When it becomes warm, a person or animal (bird) decides that the winter is over (most often an old woman goes to graze her animals) but dies of cold or the animals that had been deiven to the pasture die
Old woman is incarnation of winter, is associated with snow, or there are several cold days between winter and spring (or fall) associated with a certain old woman
Person paints birds or animals or they paint each other. Some of them are not satisfied with the result
Two birds decorate each other, one becomes worse than it was before
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)
Several men take part in rescuing, creation or reanimation of a girl (rare: a bird) or several women take part in the reanimation of a dead man or they differetly express their grief. It is asked whose role was crucial (who behavior more noble) and/or who should be the spouse of the reanimated person. Or three men make something valuable and it is asked whose role in the corresponding enterprise was more important
A woman or a girl is in search of her husband (lover) or kinsmen or a man sets out on a journey to his bride. She (he) loses her (his) way because signs that should direct her or him to the right place had been changed
Baby heroes, embryos or objects from which they emerge are found in a river or lake or come to people out of the water
When person comes to the water body, waters are split apart so the person reaches the other bank walking on the dry ground
Son of the antagonist and the hero have the same father or mother (or they are nephew and uncle). When the antagonist conspires against the hero his (her) son becomes friend and companion of the hero
A man gives his last money for simple advices. Each of them saves his life or helps to achieve success or he does not follow the advices and gets into trouble
A man consciously marries a woman related to the non-human world
A man must fulfill difficult tasks (to win competition) to receive the permission for a marriage
Not the powerful person himself but his official or adviser tries to get rid of the hero and suggests that the person should give the hero difficult tasks
A task: to bring object or news from the land of the dead
Maternal uncle or father (or grandfather if he replaces father who is not mentioned) of the young man is his rival or enemy and tries to kill him
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)
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
A man who has a low social position is a nuisance for persons of high position. He gets to know that they plan to drown him or his preperty (rare: to strangle him) and tricks them to drown instead one of them or their own property
A young woman promises to bear a wonderful children (wonderful son). In her husband's absence other people (co-wives, mother-in-law, etc.) try to kill the mother and/or the child, usually slandering the young woman
Hostile women substitute baby of the newly made mother with a pup (inform the baby’s father that his wife has given birth to a pup)
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
Boy or girl selects one person among many throwing an object (usually an apple) into him or her. This way a girl makes a choice of a husband, a young man of a bride, a boy identifies his father
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
An object or a creature that emerged from remains, decorations, etc. of a killed person tells about his or her fate. Usually a reed grows from the person's grave and a pipe made from the reed tells the story
The (step)mother kills or orders to kill her small (step)son, eats him or feeds his flesh to her husband. The son revives, usually in the form of a bird who tells about the crime.
Being (any besides birds) with more than ten heads or with odd (but more than one) number of heads are described in tales or represented in art. If beings with ever more number of heads are named, the row ends with a being that has odd (or more than ten) number of heads
Person or animal is killed or injured with a heavy object dropped from a tree (or rock, etc.). The person or the animal knows that the objects will fall but has falls ideas about its character and weight
Cunning fox, jackal or coyote saves particular person or many people, helps them
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
A predator animal (ogre, ogress) swallows people or animals. The goat (rare: the sheep) punishes him or her and usually saves the victims (most often opens the ogre’s belly open and the swallowed ones come out alive)
In episodes related to deception, absurd, obscene or anti-social behavior the protagonist is fox, jackal or coyote
Hero comes across a (animal-)person from an enemy group and takes his or her appearance, usually dressing himself in a skin of his victim; after this he penetrates the enemy camp
To come unnoticed to his adversaries, the hero takes the guise of a servant (usually a herdsman) and before that gets know from the real herdsman how to act and to speak with his masters (usually what should be said to ferry the cattle across a river)
A servant has to lick soles or a wound of his master or mistress. The hero comes disguised as the servant and instead of licking the soles rubs them (rubs the wound) with a cut off animal tongue
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
An animal person (usually a fox or a jackal) threatens to cut down a tree on which mother bird (squirrel) made its nest unless she will throw down one of her nestlings (squirrel children) or eggs. Another bird lets the mother bird know that the predator is unable to realize his threat
Person gets other person’s possessions by trick (or pretends to get it; usually another person is drowned instead of him) and then demonstrates his possessions (usually a herd) and explains that he had received everything at the river bottom. His enemies believe him
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
Strong antagonist is going to kill the hero (a person or a weak animal). Another person or animal pretends not to know about the situation and tells that the antagonist is in search to be killed. The hero is saved. Usually the latter asks the man not to give him out and answer that it is a stump, a log and the like near him. This opens possibility to treat the antagonist as a corresponding object (to cut it with an axe, to tie up, etc.)
A man, light-mindedly or against his own wish, makes an agreement with a dangerous predator. He does not want (cannot) keep it or breaks it and the predator is going to kill him but the man remains alive
Person gets to a country where rats or mice are a plague and receives a fortune selling a cat
Hero gives his rivals the food provided by him by order of the king but the king finds this food poisonous, useless or tasteless while the food presented by the hero is excellent even if it looks not so good
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
Person discovers (rare:still fails to discover) another getting to see his or her shadow or reflection in water
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
When three brothers (rare: a person) are Invited to khan (judge, king, etc.) and served delicious food, they claim that the food and drink have a taste (smell) of a corpse, dog, goat etc. and/or their host is of a low descent or a bastard. Investigation confirms that their deduction was correct
Two men agree to marry their future children if a girl and a boy will be born. The girl’s parents evade the given obligation. The boy grows up and finds his bride
A man gets into the dwelling of snakes and after a long time escapes or is permitted to go. In While in the dwelling of snakes, he usually licks a special stone that allows to live without water and food
Coming home after a long absence, a man understands that there is another man in his house but keeps patience and discovers that it is his own son or a close kin of his wife
Three (rare two or four) men take part in creation of a girl: one cuts her body of wood, another puts clothes on her, the third one makes her alive. To whom does she belong?
The name of an object of the night sky (usually Venus) is like Zakhra, Zukhra, Zura, etc.
A bird (that usually emerges from the remains of a murdered person or being incarnation of his or her soul) punishes the murderer or tells people about the crime
Father (step mother) abandons children in the forest. He (she) hangs a plank (gourd, shoe, etc.) on a tree that is striking trunk under the wind. Children believe that he is still nearby cutting woods
A married woman is eager to get rid of her husband and usually asks a spirit (God, saint, etc.) to make him blind. The husband hides in a tree, behind the alter, etc. and usually tells her that good food will make her husnad blind, or the husband himself tells his wife that the good food is dangerous for him. He pretends to become blind, kills the love (and his wife)
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
Listeners of a story must answer whom they liked more: a husband who let his wife go to another man, a robber who did not harm her, or the other man who immediately sent her back to her husband
Powerful person orders to build a house in the air. The man finds a clever solution for this puzzle
Because of its stupidity or unsocial behavior, the bear suffers a reverse, is injured or dies
A big predator (bear, lion, tiger) boasts about being stronger than a man. Being told that it’s not so, he finds a man and suggests to struggle but is killed or badly injured as a result. Cf. motif M101
Three or four brothers (rare: one man) see the track of a domestic animal and are able to deduce how it looked like (lame, had no tale, carried oil and honey, etc.) or they deduce how the man who had stolen the animal looks like
Closing formula of the folktale: the teller says that the characters stayed there (i.e. at the place where the action happened) or were left there by him, and that he returned home and/or came here (i.e. to the place of the performance)
A reptile monster demands humans (usually virgins) as a sacrifice or abducts a girl or closes sources of water. Hero kills him. Monster’s victims do not play an active part in the plot
A task: to bring objects (usually fruits) that act like people, i.e. dance, sing and the like
After eating a fruit (usually an apple, in Northern traditions also an egg), the sterile woman gives birth to a son or twins
A man goes away, comes across a deceiver and loses freedom and property. His wife comes unrecognized in the man’s guise, punishes the deceiver and saves her husband
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
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
A companion promises to share water or food with a thirsty or hungry person on condition that he or she allows to blind him or her
Person accidentally overhears secrets of animals or demons and thus gets to know the causes of his and other people's misfortunes
Person who visits the other world gets to see different people punished or rewarded according to their behavior when they were alive on earth
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
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
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
Two men travel or argue about whether truth or falsehood (justice or injustice, etc.) is more powerful. The evil one abandons the good one robbing or blinding (maiming) him but the good one gets back his sight and becomes rich. The evil one usually perishes
Person eats magic bird, fish, small animal, or fruit and becomes prosperous and powerful
Wife dies, husband revives her, she abandons him for another man and is punished
To make a poor man rich (usually to marry him to a rich girl or to marry a poor girl to a prince), an animal makes other people believe that the groom is rich already. The man becomes prosperous indeed
An animal saves a man or helps him but the ungrateful man humiliates the animal, kills or tries to kill it
A man is going to marry his sister (often puts certain condition on his future marriage, only his sister complies with them). The girl gets to escape
Members of the girl’s family want to marry her to a man who should not be her marriage partner (usually it is her own brother). They ask her to name them as her in-laws or the girl herself tells that they are not anymore her mother, sister, etc. but her mother-in-law, sister-in-law, etc. or her worst enemies
Person can transform himself or herself into an animal or an object. Being sold in this guise, he or she achieves his or her aims and becomes a human again
A fugitive turns in succession into different animals or objects. A pursuer does the same, every time becoming an animal or a person who is dangerous for the fugitive in his given guise
Getting to see a donkey (horse, deer) for the first time, a strong predator thinks that this animal is dangerous. His further interpretation of the herbivorous’ behavior supports this impression
Wolf is killed or injured when he accepts a suggestion of the horse (donkey, etc.) to ride it
An animal person pretends to have no other interests than to fulfill religious rules and prescriptions (to confess his sins, to make a pilgrimage, to become vegetarian, etc.) and kills those who have believed him
A youth who initially has guise of a calf marries a girl and becomes a handsome man.
Hostile women substitute baby of the newly made mother with an animal or an object (inform the baby’s father that his wife has given birth to an animal or an object)
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)
A farmhand (a young son of the peasant) arranges a situation a series of tricks to the love affair between the wife of his master and another man. The wife is going to bring food outdoor to her lover but gets to her husband. Seeing the master coming with an axe (stones, etc.), the lover believes, that he is going to attack him and runs away
A man (usually a king) isolates his son (daughter) in a closed room, Once the boy (girl), usually because of some chance event gets to see the world outside and his (her) isolation comes the end
Clouds are associated with cattle (and rain is the milk of the cloud coes)
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
The sovereign orders his youngest daughter (together with a man chosen by her) to live in conditions that do not correspond to her high status. Her father does not know that her chosen one is not a poor wretch as he seems to be but a prince
Streams of honey and oil (oil and milk, milk and blood) instead of streams of water are mentioned as a sign of generosity and prosperity. Cf. motif K33F
Two or more different kinds of valuable edible liquids like oil, honey, milk, etc. are available or imaginable. Cf. motif n34
A river (wave, lake, basin) of milk that exists on earth (and not among the stars) is mentioned in narratives (in different context)
A woman with her new-born child (or a woman pregnant with a boy) or a young girl and a young boy is put into a barrel (box, skin bag, boat) and thrown into the sea (river)
The swiftest runner must receive the harvest
Two animal persons work their land together and agree to share the profits. While one is working hard, another only pretends to be useful but claims for himself (greater) part of the harvest