| Motif | Name | Description |
| 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 |
| 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) |
| a4 | Female sun | The Sun is female, the Moon is male or (more rare) also female |
| 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 |
| b12 | Rivers and snakes | The river bed follows the way of a snake, fish, dragon or crab; pieces of the snake’s body turn into rivers; a river is a snake |
| 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 |
| b38e | Tail base of the loon | Person kicks loon or other water bird. Since then this bird has flat tail base and it walks on dry land with difficulty |
| 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 |
| b3c | An attempt to drown God | When dry land is created, Creator takes a rest and sleeps. His antagonist decides to drown him and drags him to the edge of the earth. The dry land grows in size as long as the antagonist drags the Creator's body, the edge never reached |
| 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.) |
| b42f | Ursa major is an ungulate | Ursa major (seven stars or only four stars of a dipper) is identified with an ungulate (elk, deer, mountain sheep, etc.) |
| b42g | Ursa major is a game animal(s) | Ursus major (seven stars or only four stars of a dipper) is identified with the game animal or anmials (usually pursued by the hunter) |
| b42l | Animal is the dipper, hunters are the handle | Stars of the handle of the Big Dipper are identified with the hunters, the dipper itself with the game (bear or elk) or a neat-barn ravaged by bear |
| b42m | Second hunter’s cooking pot | Three stars of the Dipper’s handle of Ursa Mayor are three men (hunters, thieves) who are eager to get an animal (an elk or a bear) or an object (a cot). Alkor (a weak star near Mizar) is a receptacle in possession of the second man |
| b42m1 | Yurak, Selkup and Tungus | Three main stars of the Big Dipper’s handle are associated with three men of different ethnic afiliation |
| b42mn | One hunter chases the sky elk | 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 |
| b42u | Big Dipper’s handle are three persons | Three stars of Big Dipper’s handle are three persons. Four stars of the Dipper itself are objects of animals (one or several) |
| b48a | Other creatures’ flesh | Particular pieces of flesh or inner organs in the bodies of animals, birds, or fish originally belonged to other creatures |
| b48c | Artifacts (tools) in pike's head | In the pike’s head are (seen) tool used by people |
| b64 | The bony fish | Bones of fresh-water fish are result of a fighting or military expedition. The bones are arrows that have pierced the fish bodies (gill openings are pierced by arrows) or the small bones are fragments of originally big ones |
| b64d | Bones are arrows | Certain bones in the body of living creatures (usually birds and fish) are arrows that were shot into them |
| b68 | The giant grouse | 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 |
| b68b | One who tried to scare the God | (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) |
| b69 | Chipmunk's back scratched: hence his stripes | 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 |
| b72a | Mother, child and swans | Мать (мачеха, приемный отец) не дает еды девочке или (реже) мальчику. Ребенок просит перелетных птиц взять его с собой, те (Step)parent does not share his or her food with a child. The child (usually a small girl) asks the migrating birds (swans, geese, etc.) to take her or him with them. The birds give the child feathers (wings, etc.) and the girl (boy) flies away with the birds |
| b74 | The red-eyed wood-grouse | Eyes of wood-grouse became red because it shed tears |
| b87 | Alcor | Alcor (a weak star near the second star of the handle of the Big Dipper) is selected as a particular sky object |
| c6 | Valuables brought from the lower world | 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) |
| c6c | The diver is a bird | An aquatic bird dives and brings the desired object from the bottom |
| c6c1 | Birds: successful and unsuccessful divers | Two or more different birds (often a loon and a duck) dive one after another to get earth from under the ocean. Only one of them is successful |
| c6c2 | The punished loon | Birds must dive to get mud from the bottom of the waterbody, this mud will turn into the dry land. The loon is unable to reach the bottom, refuses to dive or attempts to hide the mud that brought by him (usually he is punished for this) |
| c6c4 | The duck is successful diver | The duck (or an aquatic bird similar to the duck) dives and brings a piece of earth that is transformed into the dry land (it is the only or the only successful diver) |
| c6d | The aquisition of the earth from the lower world | 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) |
| d13i | Broken tooth | Person knows that the deceiver and trickster has one of his teeth broken. To identify him, person makes others laugh and thus open their mouths |
| d13i1 | Showing his teeth, person betrays himself | Person’s (demonic) nature becomes clear when he or she laughs and shows his or her teeth |
| e32 | People born from trees | First people are born by trees or come out of a tree, flower, reed |
| 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) |
| 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 |
| f80 | Primeval people have no genitals | The first men and/or women have no genitals |
| f80a | Genitals apart from the body | Genitals exist by themselves as separate beings, they can be stuck to the human body, remove, etc. |
| 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) |
| 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 |
| 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) |
| i22f | Clashing trees | Person must go beyond relatively small objects (trees, logs, blades) which are incessantly clashing and parting, rising and falling |
| 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 |
| i50a | Torn off legs of the helpful animal | Demon tears off or devours one by one legs of aт animal who helps the hero, usually of his riding horse |
| i55 | Stars are openings | Stars are openings in the firmament; holes in dwelling's covering are thought to be stars |
| i56 | Ghosts do not see people from earth | The alive person who is travelling between the worlds is visible for inhabitants of one world and invisible for inhabitants of another |
| i56a | In the land of the ghosts human being is an evil spirit | When a man who had got to the land of spirits touches a local dweller the latter dies or becomes sick |
| i57 | Thunder pursues his enemy | Thunder's enemies are evil spirits, reptiles, animals living in burrows. They hide from him in different objects, Thunder destroys these objects |
| i84 | Milky Way is a snow-shoes track | Milky Way is a path of a person who was walking on snow-shoes |
| j1 | The vengeful heroes | Persons avenge the death of their father, mother or other relatives who are one (rare two) generations older than they |
| j13 | Two sisters | Two sisters (if more, only two play a significant role in the plot) travel and meet an unpleasant suitor or get to an ogre |
| j15 | Woman gets to dangerous creatures | Walking in search of her husband, boyfriend, kinsmen, shelter woman or girl gets to the house of dangerous creatures where she is injured or killed |
| j23 | A late son kills monsters | People (elder brothers, elder siblings, elder sister) disappear (one by one). A lonely woman has a baby or finds a baby or she becomes pregnant magically and gives birth to a boy or twins. The boy grows up, exterminates the antagonists, usually revives and releases those who had disappeared |
| j23c | Youngest brother kills monsters | People (elder brothers, elder siblings, elder sister) disappear (one by one). A lonely woman has a baby or finds a baby or she becomes pregnant magically and gives birth to a boy. The boy grows up, exterminates the antagonists, usually revives and releases those who had disappeared |
| 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 |
| j40b | Avenged prisoners | 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 |
| j46 | Enemy drowns | Antagonist perishes falling into the water or trying to cross a water body |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| k10 | Fight with the monstrous bird | Monstrous bird (giant bat) predates on humans. Heroes fight with it |
| k177 | The travelling heroine | A girl or young woman sets off to find or return her fience or her husband or she escapes from a fanger and ultimately marries happily |
| k25 | Magic wife | A man consciously marries a woman related to the non-human world |
| k25a2 | Thrown down feathers | Person flies (makes attempt to fly) away after sticking feathers to his or her body dropped by migratory birds that fly above in 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 |
| k27s | Contest: a race | Contest: a race |
| k27x5 | Helpful persons of different age | Setting off for a search of a woman or magic objects, a man comes across several (usually three) supernatural (often demonic) persons who help him. All the persons are similar but usually every next one is older (younger) than another |
| k56a | The unworthy girl fails, the worthy one succeeds | 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 |
| 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) |
| k89 | A girl and a witch: presents of kinsfolk | A girl and her rival (a witch, a frog) marry two brothers. Both daughters-in-law have to bring presents from their kinsfolk. The girl finds her brother, brothers or sister who were lost or died in the beginning of the tale and they give her valuables. Presents brought by the rival are worthless |
| k89a | In search of the place to abandon the sister | A girl with her maimed sister or brother escapes from a danger. The sister (brother) rejects some places where the girl wants to abandon her or him but agrees with her last suggestion |
| k89d | Person hides turning into a needle | Person who remained alone in a house or got into the house of dangerous creatures hides turning into a needle or other weaving or spinning tool |
| k98 | (Animal) helper turns into household | An animal or (rare) a person that gave birth to the hero or supported him for a long time asks his master or son to kill him or her. Its (her) remains turn into a house with a household where the hero can live |
| 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 |
| l110 | The devourer | A demonic being swallows a multitude of people and animals. When it is killed and cut open, the swallowed ones come out alive or are revived |
| l126 | The bird indifferent to pain | A small bird makes a powerful anthropomorphic person lose his temper. The bird cannot be annihilated, cries from inside person's stomach, the person suffers or dies |
| l19a | Beings with even number of heads | Beings (any besides birds) with even but not more than ten number of heads are described in tales or represented in art. Beings that with even number of heads named in a row with other multi-headed beings and the highest number is even or bigger than ten are not considered |
| l19b | Beings with odd number of heads | 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 |
| l38 | Demon’s trap | A demon puts a trap to catch people, hero gets into it |
| l38a | A sticky trap | Person sticks to an object, usually touching it one by one with his body members. The object is a trap of demonic creature or is a non human creature itself |
| 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 |
| l42f | Prisoner escapes, wife is killed | Person that has to be eaten up imperceptibly runs away. The master of the house thinks that his wife had eaten the food alone and cuts her belly open |
| l5g | Elder sister’s head rolls after her younger sister | Only head remains from a girl. It rolls after her younger sister or sisters or they take it with them. Ultimately the head finds a place to stop |
| l5h | Person stuck in an opening, head is torn off | Two sisters or two brothers get into demon's house. One crawls out through a tiny opening, another sticks there. Brother or sister pulls him or her by the head but tears it off |
| l65a | The cannibal sister | A girl born to the family or found proves to be a monster, devours people. Her brother escapes, (usually marries and returns home, finds that everybody had been eaten up), runs away, she pursues him but cannot get |
| l87 | Taste of blood | Unintentionally, person gets to taste his or her own blood or flesh, likes the taste, turns into a cannibal |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| m101 | Some are afraid of men, and some of partridges | 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 |
| m140a | The fox ties his companion | The fox lives with an old man or the wolf, ties him by deception and runs away |
| m140b | The wolf decorates a bird | The fox by deception ties the wolf. Released by a bird, the wolf decorates its plumage |
| m162a | Cuts off his genitals | Person pretends to eat his own genitals. Another one believes him and cuts off his genitals |
| m29b | Trickster-fox, jackal or coyote | In episodes related to deception, absurd, obscene or anti-social behavior the protagonist is fox, jackal or coyote |
| m29b2 | The bear is a failure/enemy | Because of its stupidity or unsocial behavior, the bear suffers a reverse, is injured or dies |
| m29f | Wolverine is a failure | Because of its stupidity and unsocial behavior, the wolverine suffers a reverse, is injured or dies |
| m39a | Fool takes off boots from animals’ legs | 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 |
| m42c | Animal person eats his own marrow | Breaking or cutting his leg, animal person becomes to eat his own bone marrow |
| m60b | False doctor: a finished off victim | The deceiver who promised to cure a sick or wounded person or animal devours him or suggests a remedy that makes the sick one to feel ever worse |
| m91 | The killed corpse | Person pretends that a person (often his or her mother, spouse or lover) who recently died is alive, claims that the death of the false alive resulted from negligence of others and gets a reward |
| m94 | Sliding downhill | One person or animal suggests another to slide downhill to kill or harm him or her |
| m94a1 | Sliding downhill: animal tricksters | Being irresponsible and light-minded, animal person slides downhill and dies or gets into trouble (falls on sharp pole, into the water, etc.) |