The Sun is female, the Moon is male or (more rare) also female
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)
Human being or imprint of human being is seen in the moon
Person who holds some object in his or her hands is seen in the moon (rare: in the sun)
Person who went to fetch water and/or holds in hands a container for liquid is seen in the moon
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
The earth is a female person (alone or together with a male person); she is female being or associated with a woman
Water is the original element, the dry earth appears later
Original earth was small and later increased in size or the fertile soil grew from a small amount of original substance
Person kicks loon or other water bird. Since then this bird has flat tail base and it walks on dry land with difficulty
Certain stars or constellations are interpreted as hunters, their dogs and game that the hunters pursue
In the cosmic hunt tale the game pursued by the hunters is an ungulate (elk, deer, mountain sheep, etc.)
Ursa major (seven stars or only four stars of a dipper) is identified with an ungulate (elk, deer, mountain sheep, etc.)
Cassiopea (the Lady in the Chair) is associated with the deer or elk
A coming of warm (light, abundant, etc.) or cold (dark, barren, etc.) time is related to the marriage of certain person
Particular pieces of flesh or inner organs in the bodies of animals, birds, or fish originally belonged to other creatures
Inhabitans of the Middle World are (partly) destroyed (or will be destoyed) once by fire or draught, another time by a flood or the world is destroyed with a flood of fire or boiling water
Persons or animals dive or otherwise decend to the lower world to get a desired object and to bring it to earth (besides episodes in the fairytales, cf. motif k27x9)
A turtle or a frog (toad) brings the desired object from the bottom of the water body or from the lower world
An aquatic bird dives and brings the desired object from the bottom
The dry land (the earth) grows from a small amount of solid substance (sand, clay, dirt and the like) brought from the lower world (usually from the bottom of the ocean)
Monsters or ghosts try to invade our world. Powerful person or creature is on guard and prevents the invasion
Fire is personified as an (elder) woman, alone or with her husband, master of fire
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)
The first people or first anthropomorphic divine beings descend to earth from the sky.
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
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)
First people are born by trees or come out of a tree, flower, reed
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
After eating certain fruit, berry, tuber, etc. people become sexually aware
Raven is associated with death or contrasted with people as an immortal with mortals (is sent to the medicine of immortality; drinks itself water of immortality; gives instructions concerning funeral rites; etc.)
Dog guards (successfully or unsuccessfully) the (still unfinished) physical body of man or the entrance to paradise
Dog is responsible for people being mortal or imperfect. Usually the antagonist bribes dog with a warm fur and the dog lets him spoil the half-ready human figures
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
Creatures that produce rain and/or thunderstorms are birds or anthropomorphic beings with wings; or (rare) some or all birds are connected with thunder, lightning or rain though Thunder is not a bird
The lightning (and thunder) is (produced with) an object (axe, sword, mirror, belt, stones, skin, etc.) in hands of anthropomorphic being
A turtle, toad, or frog supports the earth (sky) or is its embodiment
Giant water-chthonic or sky serpent or dragon has horns or antlers on its head
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)
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
There is (or was) a tree on which souls of still unborn babies grow, which leaves transform into people, or which trunk is covered with female breasts or flowers that innumerable babies are sucking
Rainbow is a flatulence of a demon, a spray of a skunk, is associated with spit, urine, feces, genitals, etc., causes skin diseases, is associated with death
Stars are openings in the firmament; holes in dwelling's covering are thought to be stars
Thunder's enemies are evil spirits, reptiles, animals living in burrows. They hide from him in different objects, Thunder destroys these objects
Milky Way is the path of migratory birds (especially wild geese)
Milky Way is a path of a person who was walking on snow-shoes
Two constellations (usually Ursa major and Ursa minor) are interpreted as twin objects of the same type (two animals, two carts, etc.)
By trick or by force, a rival or adversary kidnaps hero's wife or bride. The man gets her back
Women 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) take off their clothes (feather skins and the like) or part of it. Because a man hides the clothes (of one of them), their owner(s) have (has) to marry him or help him
A man consciously marries a woman related to the non-human world
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
Hero demonstrates his supernatural abilities remaining alive in a burning hot chamber, stove, bonfire, among burning vegetation
Flying person or creature abducts a woman but is ultimately killed or the woman escapes from him
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.
Two or three sisters are sent in succession to powerful person. The first or the first and the second sister behave in a wrong way, perish or do not succeed. The last one behaves correctly, gets a reward
Coming to powerful man, a girl must make work that she is unable to do. His mother makes the work for her, and she marries the man
Though laces on her clothes or shoes get loose, a girl on her way to the powerful persons or back should not tie them up
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
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
Master of the house allows person to feel himself (herself) free bit not to look into particular place. The person breaks prohibition
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
Life of a person or creature is preserved outside of his (her, its) body. Person or creature dies after the corresponding object is destroyed
A bird with two or more heads on top of one body is described in tales or represented in art
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
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
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
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
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
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)
In episodes related to deception, absurd, obscene or anti-social behavior the protagonist is fox, jackal or coyote
Two or three brothers live together (with their mother). One of them makes stupid actions like (all or some of them): lets free animals that got into a snare but kills his mother; cuts off the legs of domestic animals or flays them; thinks that a certain place on a head of a baby is a tumor, sucks baby's brains out; cuts a cloth into pieces and ties them to reeds of to branches of a tree; hearing a murmur of water throws food into the water; tries to build a hut not on a river bank but in the river
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.
A man falls asleep or pretends to be sleeping or dead. Animals take him for dead: mourn, carry to bury, are going to eat up, etc. The man kills a lot of animals or obtain valuables otherwise
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
A man tries to join a group of persons who are or become stars (usually the Pleiades) but suffers a reverse; or he pursues the stars to have sexual contact or to be reintegrated with members of his family
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.
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
Somebody suggests to guess what sort of material a certain object is made of. Another person (usually a monster) gets to know the secret and the hero or the heroin must do what they have promised
One person or animal suggests another to slide downhill to kill or harm him or her
The bear answers the fox (rare sable or wolf) that he is not afraid of the men (often says that he is afraid of the partridges when they fly up suddenly). When the bear attacks a man, he is wounded or killed. Cf. motif M101A
Animal person puts his tail (penis) down and waits in hope to get something edible. The tail (penis) is torn or cut off, the person escapes or dies
Trickster pretends to be dead, sick or weak and is picked up by those who carry something edible in a cart (sledge, boat, bag, etc.). The trickster secretly eats the food, often after throwing it out of the cart (sledge, etc.)
An animal person becomes a herdsman but eats the entrusted animals up
Eyes of wood-grouse became red because it shed tears
The fire is personified as an elder man (alone or with his wife, mistress of fire)
Beings without mouth, anus, genitals, whose women do not know how to give birth live in the underworld, in the sky, or in a far-away land
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)
A girl is promised to a man who would know her name or whose finger would fit her ring, or who would guess a material from which certain object is made or grown. Person finds a correct answer by deception
The first people grew or crawled out of the earth like a grass, mushrooms, worms, etc.
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
Ursus major (seven stars or only four stars of a dipper) is identified with the game animal or anmials (usually pursued by the hunter)
In the cosmic hunt tale only one hunter (not many) pursues an animal (elk or bear) associated with a circumpolar constellation but not with Orion or the Pleiades. (In Kalevalaic tradition the association with particular sideral objects is absent
Polaris is the opening though which one can get into the upper world
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
The name of the Venus is like Čolpan, Čolbon, Tsulmon, etc.
A woman (rare: a man) with transparent body is described. This transparence is an evidence of the beauty
A woman (rare: a man) with transparent body is described: bones are seen through the skin and marrow through the bones. This transparence is an evidence of the beauty
Dogs having spots over the eyes are called the four-eyed and believed to have special properties (e.g. to see ghosts)
Inner organs of a girl or food that she swallowed are seen through her body. This transparence is an evidence of the beauty.
The elder brother is a hunter, the younger brother (rare: sister) stays at home. When the elder gets to know that the bird-maidens visit the younger, he instructs him what he should do to catch one of the girls. The elder brother marries her but she finds her feathered clothes and flies away (in many versions the younger brother is a simpleton and tells his sister-in-law where her clothes are hidden). The elder brother goes away in search of his lost wife
Those who inhabited the world in the time of creation were saying that real people were to come and so they had to do this and that
Long trips, campaigns, flights or battles are described using cliché which contain expressions like “they get to know that it is winter seeing rime, that it is summer, seeing rain” and the like
Because of its stupidity and unsocial behavior, the wolf suffers a reverse, is injured or dies
Because of its stupidity or unsocial behavior, the bear suffers a reverse, is injured or dies
Spider person raises the hero to the sky, helps him or her to return back to earth or otherwise helps to overcome the borderlines between worlds
After the hero comes back after a long absence and finds his parents enslaved, he tells them to demonstrate openly a lack of respect to their masters and punishes those who were cruel with them
Beings who live in the sky descend to kill people. Usually such a being carries away to its world a person or many people (or person's cut off head or limb). The hero (usually a relation of the perished one) revenges on the dangerous being and/or brings back the victim or victims (his or her head, etc.)
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
A man must fulfill difficult tasks (to win competition) to receive the permission for a marriage
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
The earth or the sky are identified with a big quadruped mammal or are made of parts of its body
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
Raven or other carrion-eating bird of dark color and a similar size was originally white
Heroes (usually one or two), being still babies or embryos, escape or are thrown away, often into the water. To bring them back into the human world, they are lured (persuaded) to come out or caught with difficulty
Baby heroes, embryos or objects from which they emerge are found in a river or lake or come to people out of the water
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)
Young man gives his sisters to the first bridegrooms who claim them. These are demons or animals who usually later help him
Person kills or injures his enemy putting fire on his or her straw costume, mask, headgear, hair or object on his or her back
Raven is going to marry a girl but is rejected after they see that he eats filth
Creator and his opponent ponder upon should the dog be able to use a bow or fire-arms
Besides his parents on earth, the baby who had been thrown into a river or lake and comes from time to time to the shore has another father (and mother) under the water. He does not want to be separated from them or they do not want let him go
The sky (Milky Way) is a skin of an animal or a cloth
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)
A man gets into the nest of a giant bird on a high rock or tree. He descends to the earth killing the bird and fixing its feathers or wings to his body or (more often) using the bird’s nestling (riding on its back, holding its feet, fixing its feathers or wings)
Being irresponsible and light-minded, animal person slides downhill and dies or gets into trouble (falls on sharp pole, into the water, etc.)
A (young) man sets off to find or to return his bride or his wife
Rivers (lakes) of blood (also of puss, bones, sweat or water used for washing of corpses) are mentioned in narratives (in different context)
Monstrous bird (giant bat) predates on humans. Heroes fight with it
Person takes from the ear of an animal (usually a horse or a cow) food, clothes and other valuables
Severed human heads are compared with balls or used as balls
Parts of the body of the primeval person or creature are transformed into different elements of the landscape and parts of the universe
An animal (a demonic being) asks the hero or heroine to take objects necessary for him (her) from its ear or to enter its ear to make himself or herself handsome, to sleep. etc.
(Animal) person who tried to scare the God (people) with his/its, behavior, strange look or sudden appearance is punished being transformed into an animal (of different characteristics than it was before)
Hazel-grouse was big and dangerous. He is torn to pieces which are shared between other birds and animals. What remains is the present grouse
A woman pretends that her vagina is a mouth with teeth. (It is not suggested that women’s genitals are really dangerous)
The elder brother is a hunter, the younger one is a housekeeper. When the elder brother gets to catch the winged maiden, the younger foolishly gives her winged back and she flies away. The elder brother sets off to return his wife
A powerful person coverts a beautiful bride or wife of a man and gives him impossible tasks to get rid of him
Task-giver asks to bring him dangerous being or object possessed by a moster or deity. Hero fulfills the task. The beast, monster, deity or the object itself kills the task-giver
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
To thank or to punish a small mammal like chipmunk or (ground) squirrel, animal or person scratches or paints it producing stripes on its back
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
The hero presses his adversary into the ground or both of them press each other (ankle-, waist-, breast-deep and the like)
A monster with nine heads is mentioned either alone or at the end of the row of creatures with ever bigger number of heads
Person must go beyond relatively small objects (trees, logs, blades) which are incessantly clashing and parting, rising and falling
There are mountains or rocks which permanently collide and separate again from each other or a crack (jaws) in a vertical cliff which is opening and closing
For different reasons, sexual contact with a woman is deadly dangerous for a man
It is described how the earth was obtained and put on the back of a turtle or frog
God sends his enemy to bring earth from the bottom of the waterbody. In the beginning, the enemy or also the god can have guise of birds. When the earth is brought up and dry land created, two persons, now always anthropomorphic, are engaged into confrontation
The loon dives and brings a piece of earth (a blade of grass etc.) that is transformed into the dry land or it brings other object which everybody is eager to get (the loon is the only or the only successful diver)
The bear (lion) takes a woman for sexual partner or the she-bear takes a man. They have children who look like humans or bear cubs. More rare the woman gives birth to her son in the bear den because being abducted by the bear she was pregnant
Three stars of Big Dipper’s handle are three persons. Four stars of the Dipper itself are objects of animals (one or several)
Fool sees fontanelle on a baby’s head, takes it for abscess and squeezes off. The baby becomes silent, the fool thinks that he fell asleep