| 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 |
| a12d | Eclipses: birds | A bird or birds attack or shade the Sun or the Moon during an eclipse or at the sunrise and sunset |
| 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 |
| b1c | One creator deceives another | Two creators agree that whose object will be found in a certain condition (usually: whose tree or flower will grow or blossom first) should be recognized as a senior one. While one of the creators sleeps or is absent, another replaces the objects and so achieves the priority by deceit |
| b42 | Cosmic hunt | Certain stars or constellations are interpreted as hunters, their dogs and game that the hunters pursue |
| b42b | Sky hunters pursue an ungulate | In the cosmic hunt tale the game pursued by the hunters is an ungulate (elk, deer, mountain sheep, etc.) |
| b42h | The Belt of Orion is the game, other star is the hunter | The Belt of Orion is the animal or three animals, other star (of the Orion or outside of this constellation) is the hunter |
| b48 | Predators become herbivorous | Weak or herbivorous animals were dangerous predators but have been transformed |
| b48b | Human flesh in the animals | Some game animals have a piece of human flesh in their body that remained since the time when these animals were anthropomorphic |
| c19 | Acquisition of the sun | The Sun (the day light) that was absent, stolen or hidden appears (again) |
| 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 |
| f9 | A dangerous woman | For different reasons, sexual contact with a woman is deadly dangerous for a man |
| f9f | Asmodeus | Demon (snake) regularly kills woman’s husbands during the first night, the woman herself being ignorant about the reason of their death |
| 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) |
| 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 |
| h55 | Sinners in other world | Person who visits the other world gets to see different people punished or rewarded according to their behavior when they were alive on earth |
| i20b | Belt on armpits | People in the upper world are different than on earth and put their belts not on the waist but higher or below it |
| 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) |
| i22a | Rising and falling sky | The sky is constantly moving up and down in respect to earth |
| i25 | The bribed guards | Way to the place of a certain person is guided by dangerous creatures (which often stand on the both sides of the pathway). Person placates them by gifts or nice talk, and they let him or her go the both ways, sometimes being punished for this by their master |
| 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 |
| i48a | Falling down into the underworld | At the terminal part of the narrative the antagonist of the hero descends into the underworld |
| i50 | Ungulate animal with more than four legs | An ungulate animal (a horse, an elk, a moose) with six or more legs is described or represented in art |
| i82h | Venus’ name is Čolpan | The name of the Venus is like Čolpan, Čolbon, Tsulmon, etc. |
| i87a | Series of creatures ever greater in size | Personage of gigantic dimensions in respect to normal humans and animals proves to be tiny dwarf in respect to another personage |
| i87a2 | What is Two? | Antagonist names numbers from one to seven or nine, every time asking what it is. The hero gives answers that the antagonist accepts as correct ones. |
| i87ac | Bone in the eye | Something big or huge gets into the man’s eye but he takes it for a speck of dust. Usually a bird picks up and carries away an animal or a fish and drops its bone into an eye of a man. When the bone is found, it is dragged out with difficulty (people ride in a boat inside the eye, drag the bone with a fishnet, with many oxen, etc.) |
| j1 | The vengeful heroes | Persons avenge the death of their father, mother or other relatives who are one (rare two) generations older than they |
| j26 | Babies come out of the water | Baby heroes, embryos or objects from which they emerge are found in a river or lake or come to people out of the water |
| j28b | A hot scone | A youth gets to know that a woman (usually his mother) conceals from him important information about his father, brothers or bride. He causes her pain (usually putting hot scone, handful of hot grain, etc. into her hand) making her tell him the truth |
| j32a | To guard father’s grave | Before passing away a man asks his sons to guard his grave for a certain time or to bring something to his grave. The youngest son goes and obtains valuables |
| j4 | Revenge for the death of the male relatives | Heroes avenge the murder or captivity of the male relatives: (grand)father, uncles, or the elder relatives in general, the loss of the males being the most traumatic |
| j52b | Hare-woman or hare-children as heros | A girl, a young woman, or children who are associated with a hare or rabbit are heroines or successful tricksters |
| k100e | Aggressive stories | Stories act as particular persons: become harmful because they think that a certain person does not treat them in a correct way |
| k102 | Woman associated with the hero conspires in favor of his enemy | A woman who initially is friendly to the hero (his mother, sister, more rare his wife, sexual partner) begins to cooperate with his enemy. For this she provokes the hero to do something that is mortally dangerous for him |
| k102a2 | Conflict between mother and son | Mother tries to kill her son (children) because he interferes with her love affair
|
| 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 |
| k123 | Old woman’s curse | A youth or (rare) girl offends an elder woman. Her words make him or her to be overcome by desire to undertake something dangerous (usually to get a particular marriage partner) |
| k12a | A strained bow | An unrecognized hero comes to a place where his bride or wife has to marry another man or is tuned into a slave. Despite expectations, he gets to strain a tight bow killing his rivals |
| k137 | Sister tricks women to come and revive her brother | When her brother is killed, a girl puts on his clothes and in a guise of a man wins competitions and gets women who are able to revive the dead. She puts the clothes back on her brother and the women come and revive him taking him for their husband. Or a sister is killed and her brother after winning wives tricks them to revive her |
| k137a | A girl in her brother’s guise gets a wife for him | A young man is killed. His sister puts on his clothes and pretending she is a man gets a wife for him. This woman beliefs that the girl’s brother from the very beginning was a man whom she married |
| k139 | Pheasant gets burnt | Roasting meat or baking bread for his master, a servant sees a girl (rare: small boy) and is so impressed with her (or his) beauty, that the meat or bread get burnt |
| k14 | Precious advices | 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 |
| k148 | The stolen colts | Every night or every year a mare gives birth to a colt but every time it is stolen |
| k159 | Peas poured under the feet | When two persons are fighting, somebody wants one of them fall (while another be firm on his feet) and for this throws something under his feet |
| k176 | A man in search of the woman | A (young) man sets off to find or to return his bride or his wife |
| 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 |
| k27e | Eating or drinking contest | Person or animal must eat (drink) enormous quantity of food (beverage) or eat or drink poisonous beverage or food |
| k27f | The task: to get a woman | A task-giver asks the hero to get for him a particular woman |
| 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 |
| k27q | Milk of the wild beast | Hero is sent to bring milk of a wild animal or milk in possession of a dangerous creature or person |
| k27u | Hide-and-seek | Hero and his adversary play hide-and-seek. The hero finds his adversary but the adversary cannot find him |
| k27v1 | To hit a needle | Person must hit a needle with an arrow (to shoot an arrow though the eye of a needle) |
| k27v3 | To shoot an arrow though the ring | Person must shoot an arrow through a small ring or several rings |
| 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 |
| k29a | Surviving in a fire | Hero demonstrates his supernatural abilities remaining alive in a burning hot chamber, stove, bonfire, among burning vegetation |
| k32 | The false wife | An ugly, old, lazy, etc. woman or (in Chaco) a male trickster comes to man under disguise of his wife or bride who is driven out, confined to the underworld, killed, etc. |
| k32g | Punishment: torn apart by horses | 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) |
| k33 | Drowned woman remains alive | A young woman is transformed into an animal, pushed into the water, into the underworld or she herself has to plunge into water (acquire animal form). Her connection with the human world is not completely lost, however, and usually she is helped to return to the people |
| k33g | Fruits of two kinds | One who eats certain fruit (leave, etc.) gets horns (long nose, etc.) or turns into an animal. After eating another fruit (leave) person recovers his or her normal body |
| k33h | The cat, the dog and the magic object | A man obtains an object that fulfills his wishes. The object is stolen but brought back by the animals (which had been saved by the man before) |
| k35b | The most delicious dish | 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 |
| k38 | Hero helps the nestlings | For helping its children, their powerful mother or father who is a giant bird or (rare) other flying being helps the hero |
| k38b1 | Bird steals colts, hero kills the serpent | Every time when a horse gives birth to wonderful colts, they are stolen by a giant bird. A hero goes to get the colts and kills a serpent that regularly devours nestlings of the giant bird |
| k61a | To get know a secret | To get know the precise number of certain units, to select certain object among many others, to get know a name of particular person or a reason of particular phenomenon, person tries to surprise (or unintentionally surprises) the possessor of the knowledge who becomes to speak aloud and so provides the hero with necessary information |
| k66 | Extraordinary companions | 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 |
| k72 | Three maidens | Powerful person listens in conversation of three (rare: two or four) women. Each of them tells what she would do if the person marries her. One promises to bear his son (children) who would have wonderful qualities, two others promise to practice some kind of work or (more rare) marry people of lower status |
| k73 | Children of the youngest wife | 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 |
| k73a | Baby child substituted with object or animal | 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) |
| k73a4 | Baby child substituted with a pup | 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) |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| k77b1 | The wolf flees from the wolf-head | When domestic animals meat the predators, they – deliberately or unintentionally – behave in such a way that the predators escape in panic |
| k77b2 | The goat's weapons | A predator animal asks a goat (a ram, etc.) about a purpose of certain parts of his body. The goat describes every part as a weapon able to injure his opponent or the goat really possesses weapons |
| k78 | Extracted from finger | An ogre (an ogress) swallows people, is killed but the people are not found in his or her belly or are found dead. Only when the ogre's finger is cut off, the hero finds a remedy to revive the people or the swallowed up (the swallowed hero himself) come out alive from the finger of the ogre |
| k78a | To cure a person, demon swallows him | The demon swallows and vomits maimed and disfigured persons that makes them healthy and handsome |
| k79 | Snake serves an example of resuscitation | Person in a desperate situation gets to see how a snake or other small animal uses remedy to revive or to cure itself or other animals. The person uses the remedy, succeeds |
| k8c | Jonah: swallowed by terrestrial animal | Person gets into the belly of ground animal or bird. He kills it from the inside and/or returns to earth by himself (i.e. not extracted by other people) |
| k91 | The invisible battle | Hero's dogs or horse or (rare) he himself fight with his adversary in the underworld (under the water). Those who are waiting for the outcome of the combat understand who overcomes whom by the color of water or foam that rises to the surface, or the color animal who comes first to the surface |
| k96 | Fifty sons | Many brothers marry or have to marry in such a way that all their wives are (were) sisters |
| k99 | Prophecy of future sovereiniy | A young man or (rare) a girl has a (day-)dream that predicts his or her future triumph. The dreamer either conceals or reports its contest to his family and in both cases is punished for too high opinion of himself. In the beginning the dreamer sometimes sells his dream to another young man, who becomes the protagonist of the tale. Adventures that follow explain the contest of the dream. The youth becomes rich and happy (e.g. marries heiresses of two kingdoms, that in the dream were symbolized by two suns or a sun and a moon), the girl marries king's son |
| k99a3 | The happy dream: Sun, Moon and stars | A young man has a dream: he sees the Sun, the Moon and a star (all of them or some of these luminaries). When the narrative come to the end, the man understands the meaning of the dream: these are people who love or adore him |
| l100c | Duped visitors of a chaste woman | When a man comes to a beautiful woman she tricks him by asking to finish some trivial task, keeping him by her magic in an awkward or ridiculous position until daylight. Episode is repeated next nights with other or (rare) the same suitor. Usually the first suitor being ashamed tells the other that everything was nice, so all of them are humiliated the same way |
| l125 | Demonic wife recognized | A man marries a beauty but catches her in a situation when her not human nature is revealed. After this their marriage breaks down |
| l15d | The external soul | Life of a person or creature is preserved outside of his (her, its) body. Person or creature dies after the corresponding object is destroyed |
| l15h | The external soul: three or more objects one inside the other | An object that contains the life (soul) of a person is inside two or more creatures or other objects (like an egg in a duck, a duck in a hare, etc.) or the zoomorphic soul container tries to escape and turns in succession to other animals (three or more transformations) |
| l15h2 | Person’s soul is in a bird | An object that contains certain person’s soul / death is inside other object, the latter is in the third one (etc.). The last receptacle of the life is a (small) bird (a nestling, several nestlings of birds) |
| 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 |
| l41a | Stone in basket | Hero escapes from the demon's basket or bag letting stone (a piece of wood, some sand) instead of him |
| l42 | Hero carried to ogre’s home | An ogre or ogress catches a person and brings him to his or her home where he or she plans to cook and eat him. The hero escapes |
| 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 |
| l42c | Now in, now outdoors | Person hides from the powerful one now in his house, now outdoors, the powerful cannot catch him |
| l42e | Caught again | An ogre catches a person and carries his or her prey home but the person escapes on the way. The ogre comes back, this time carries the person to his home. Or the ogre catches a group of children, most of them escape on the way, one is brought to the ogre's place |
| l43 | Dangerous persons eat filth | Persons who are dangerous for the hero (demons, robbers, merchants) take for something pleasant and edible those objects, creatures or matters (excrements, snakes, insects, etc.) that are disgusting (not edible) |
| l65b | Dogs save their master | A demonic woman or (rare) her paramour or a monster is going to kill a man usually after driving him up a tree. At the last moment the man's dogs or other animals or birds who are the man's pets come and kill the demon |
| l65b3 | The escape on the tree | Persons climbs a tree and thanks to this escapes from a demon (who usually tries to fell the tree) |
| 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 |
| l81a2 | Demon comes to drink blood of a girl | While the men of the household are not at home, a demonic person comes to drink blood of a girl or young woman or make her harm other way. Initially the men do not understand why the girl becomes thin |
| l81b | Hero’s legs are cut off | Hero’s companions cut off his legs and abandon him (usually they put a sword in front of his tent and when the hero runs out in a hurry, he is wounded by the blade) |
| l81c | Feetless, handless and blind | A man whose feet were cut off lives with two others, one of whom lost his hands and another eyes (or with one of them). Acting in cooperation, they become health again |
| l92 | Feigned suggestion to help the ogre | Person escapes to a tree or high rock. An ogre tries to cut it down. Some person or animal suggests the ogre to have a rest, promises to work instead of him but spoils his work or (in Subarctic) kills him when the ogre gives him his axe. (Africa versions have Eurasian origins) |
| l93a | Helpful fox | Cunning fox, jackal or coyote saves particular person or many people, helps them |
| l94 | Child promised to demon | A demon helps a man or a woman or lets him or her free. As a reward, the person is forced to promise to give the demon his child |
| l94a | Caught by his beard | A man, stooping down to water, is caught and held by his beard, and has to give the promise in order to be relieved |
| l95 | Coming back to pick up toys | Person (usually a kid or lad) returns to the former place to pick up the forgotten object (often a toy) and is caught there by a demonic being |
| l95a | Floating lungs | A lung or a liver lies on a road or floats in a pond etc. As soon as person touches them, a dangerous demon appears in front of him |
| l95b | Parents collaborate with a demon against their child | When a man or a woman promises to give his or her child to a demon, he or she does not try to save the child but help the demon to catch him or her. Despite all, the boy or girl escapes from the demon |
| l9e | Copper nose | The nose of anthropomorphic being is like a beak of copper or iron |
| m100 | Sleep at the edge of a cliff | Animal persons lie to sleep at the edge of a bluff or cliff. At night one of them tells another (others) to move a little, the companion (companions) falls down and dies |
| m106 | Meaningful name | Person lies that his name is so and so. Others understand it not as a name but as a common word and behave accordingly |
| m108a | Trickster as an adopted child | An old couple live alone and adopt a boy (a trickster-animal) as a son. He steals their property (and runs away) |
| m109a | To sit on the ice waiting for food | An animal suggests another to sit on the ice till some food will fall from the sky. Waiting this way for food to fall down the anima is frozen to the ice |
| m114 | Rope of sand | Person is suggested to twist (or he really twists) a rope or make other object of sand, ash, smoke, etc. |
| m114b | Not clothed and not naked | When a person is suggested to make something and simultaneously not to make it or to make it differently than it could be made at all (to come clothed and naked, with and without a gift, etc.), he or she finds the solution |
| m114b2 | How many steps made your horse? | A (powerful) man asks a girl (a person of low social position) concerning a number of repetitive and trivial acts made by her or a number of small objects that she has that nobody ever counts. The girl puts a reciprocal question concerning the number of acts of the same routine kind made by the man |
| m125 | Eating his own eyes | Person lies to another that he is eating his eyes. The companion agrees to be blinded. The first person extracts one of companion’s eye but gives him to eat something delicious instead. The companion believes that his eyes are good to eat and agrees to be deprived of another eye too |
| m133 | Wind saves situation | Cumulative tale: a small bird cuts itself with a sharp blade of grass or a thorn and asks the others to punish the plant. Everyone finds an excuse why they cannot do anything (sheep, wolves, boys, etc.). The last one is the wind, it blows making all other persons act |
| m150 | The deceitful herdsman` | An animal person becomes a herdsman but eats the entrusted animals up |
| m152 | Why only one wolf? | When a weak animal or a person gets to see a predator animal or an ogre, he says in a loud voice (or asks to say his wife or children) something that frightens the predator (ogre): why the predator (ogre) brought to him is lean (small; only one instead of several), or it is good that more food gets to his house, etc. The predator (ogre) runs away |
| m152a | Animal tied to another for safety | A stronger and a weaker predator animals (ogre and an animal) tie together for safety. When the stronger one runs away, he drags the weaker one along with him |
| m157 | The impossible giving birth | Person claims that a man or a male animal had given birth (or is menstruating) or that a female gave birth to a young of another species or that a woman gave birth to an animal |
| m157a1 | Father is giving birth | Person proves the absurdity of the claims of another person saying that his or her father (or other man or a male animal) had given or is giving birth or is menstruating |
| m157a3 | To milk a bull | Person demands from the other to bring him an offspring or milk of a male animal |
| m199a | Extracting brain from the earth | A man buries something half-liquid and soft (animal bowels, eggs, etc.). He stamps (shoots an arrow) at this place and claims that got to extract brains (bowels, etc.) from the earth |
| m199c | Throwing a club | A man pretends that he had thrown or is going to throw a heavy object to the sky (to the clouds). His adversary asks him not to do it. |
| m199l | Hero shows his enemy how well he can jump or fly | When an ogre exhales or lets go a bent down tree with a man on its top, the man is flung far away but explains that he jumped by his own will to repair the roof, to catch a bird, etc. |
| m29b | Trickster-fox, jackal or coyote | In episodes related to deception, absurd, obscene or anti-social behavior the protagonist is fox, jackal or coyote |
| m29b1 | The wolf is a failure | Because of its stupidity and unsocial behavior, the wolf suffers a reverse, is injured or dies |
| m29b2 | The bear is a failure/enemy | Because of its stupidity or unsocial behavior, the bear suffers a reverse, is injured or dies |
| m29w2 | The tiger is a failure | Because of its stupidity and unsocial behavior, the tiger suffers a reverse, is injured or dies |
| m29z1 | The Bald-headed | A bald person acts in narratives (thence his usual name: Taz, Tazchi, Kal, Keloglan, Kechal etc.) |
| m38d | Animated objects perish one after another | Two or several animated objects or small animals and live or travel together and perish one after another when they make the most simple acts |
| m38d1 | Neck like a hair | Persons whose body parts are obviously vulnerable (head like a bladder, neck like a hair, leg like a straw, etc.) attempt to behave normal people and perish one after the other. |
| m39a6a | Clever daughter-in-law of the imprisoned khan | After an extensive search powerful man finds a smart wife for his son. Being caught by his enemies he sends some a message to his daughter-in-law, the messengers being chosen among the enemies. The young woman understands the real meaning of the received text, destroys the enemies and releases her father-in-law. (In Malagasy version the youngest wife is insyead of the daughter-in-law) |
| m39a6d | A coded message | A person sends to his or her kinsmen or spouse through other persons a text or an object. Only the receiver understands the real meaning of words or of the object, saves the sender and/or destroys his enemies |
| m40 | The distorted instructions | Person is sent to receive something of relatively low value. He asks to give him quite different object (to provide a service) and asks one who had sent him to confirm the demand. Usually a person or animal comes to a wife or a son of a powerful one and tells her or him that her (his) husband or father tells to give him food, to make love to him, to marry him, etc. |
| m74 | Vomits compared | Two animals or persons compare their vomits to know about the diet and habits of each other. The weaker one gets to exchange vomits, to swallow the unusual food before, or to swallow his partner's vomits |
| m77 | A soiled bed | 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 |
| m78 | A tiny boy (Thumbling) | Tiny boy as small as a thumb, a pea and the like taunts people, predator animals, ogres |
| m78f | A planted empryo | When a woman falls asleep, the trickster (usually a tiny boy) puts animal embryo or entrails (or something that looks like this) near her to make her or other people believe that she has had a miscarriage or her own entrails have fallen out |
| m91a | Simulated killing (a bag with blood) | Person pierces a bladder with blood or red juice, simulates murder or suicide |
| m91c1 | Herd from the river bottom | 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 |
| 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 |
| m91c3 | Hare the messenger | After warning his wife about the planned trick, person lets free a wild animal or bird asking it to pass a message to his wife. Seeing the same (actually another) animal or bird in his companion’s house another man buys the animal for a lot of money |
| m91c4 | Pot that does not need fire to cook | Man takes a pot from the fire but it is still boiling or he cooks the food beforehand and tells that his pot cooks it in no time (or that his stick touching ground creates the food). Another man buys the pot (the stick) |
| n1 | Initial formula: when Altai was but a small tussock | Epics and folktales begin with an initial formula in which it is claimed that objects that are huge now were tiny |
| n30 | Crying while looking in one direction and laughing while looking in another | The formula that describes the confusion of feelings: when a person looks in one direction, he or she cries, when in another – begins to laugh or smile; or one eye of a person laughs and another laughs; or person laughs looking at one object and weeps looking at another; or one of two persons who share the same fate laughs and another smiles, etc. |
| n4 | Ribs with no intervals | Strong men have ribs grown together to form a kind of an armor or shell |