| 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 |
| a12a | Eclipses: a predator animal | During an eclipse or at other circumstances the Sun or the Moon are attacked by a predator animal (a bear, a feline, a canine, a racoon) |
| a13a | Raven hides the Sun | A raven steals (hides) the Sun or tries to do it |
| a13a1 | Raven obtains the Sun | Raven (crow) gets the hidden or stolen Sun (daylight) |
| a16 | Dangers along the Sun’s way | Every night the Sun passes by creatures or objects which try to destroy them |
| a23a | Who will see the Sun first? | Two persons or animals argue about who of them will be the first to see the rising sun. One who seemed to have less chances wins |
| a23b | First beams on the tree tops | Two persons or animals argue who will see the rising sun first. One who got to see not the sun itself but its reflection or the first beams on trees or mountain tops wins |
| a3 | Male sun and female moon | The Moon is female or bisexual, the Sun is male |
| a32 | Figure on lunar disc | 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) |
| a32c | A man and a dog in the Moon | A human being and a dog together are seen in the moon |
| a32d | Man in the Moon | Human being or imprint of human being is seen in the moon |
| a32f | Water-carrier in the Moon | Person who went to fetch water and/or holds in hands a container for liquid is seen in the moon |
| a4 | Female sun | The Sun is female, the Moon is male or (more rare) also female |
| a45 | The insulted Moon | Person who teases or insults the Moon is punished |
| a4b | The Sun is afraid of the night | Being afraid of the night, the Sun decided to travel across the sky only at the day time |
| a6 | The Sun and the Moon are females | Both the Sun and the Moon are considered to be females (incl. cases when the gender is not directly specified but both emerge from parts of the body of a female person) |
| b116c | Sacred book lost | In the past a particular groups of people possessed scripture and knowledge that were later lost or the people missed opportunity to obtain them |
| b1d | Good and bad workers | Two persons are creating the world, one is a good and and another a bad worker, that’s because separate parts of the world look differently |
| b3 | A primeval swamp | Initially the earth is a swamp, water and dry land are not separated from each other |
| b31 | Women turn into water mammal | A woman (usually after a conflict with a man or remaining alone) or a man and a woman (married couple, lovers, brother and sister) turn into water mammals |
| b36a | Two creatures decorate each other | Two zoomorphic personages decorates each other or somebody decorates each of them |
| b38 | The ruined painting | Person paints birds or animals or they paint each other. Some of them are not satisfied with the result |
| b38b | Two animals decorate each other | Two mammals or reptiles (or a mammal or raptile and other creature) decorate each other or somebody decorates each of them |
| 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 |
| b4 | The fished out earth | Islands or continent are fished out of the ocean or pulled to their present place by rope |
| b40 | Rabbit as deer’s proxy | Hare or rabbit is a false deer or it was deer in the past or a close kin of the deer or had horns or antlers or missed opportunity to get them, its ears are the false horns |
| b41 | The talking dog | Because the dog was spreading some information, altercated with its masters, was talking in a wrong time, etc. it lost the ability to speak |
| 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.) |
| b42c | Sky hunters pursue a bear | In the cosmic hunt tale the game pursued by the hunters is a bear |
| b42p | Ursa major is a bear | Ursa major is identified with a bear |
| b42t | Ursa major is a big mammal | Seven main stars of Ursa major are interpreted as a figure of a mammal: bear, deer, mountain sheep, camel, dog |
| b44f | Fox stands for day | In a dispute about should it be dark or light, the fox stands for the light |
| b70 | Ears of the hare | Person beats hares, foxes or other medium size animals who became helpless (usually closed in his house). Tale explains why tips of the animals' ears or tails have a particular color |
| b85 | Wind pacified | Wind is too strong, hero makes it to blow more calmly |
| c19 | Acquisition of the sun | The Sun (the day light) that was absent, stolen or hidden appears (again) |
| c5a | Bird-scouts | Birds or humans later changed to birds are sent to explore the earth (is it dry, are any survivals, to investigate why smoke rises to the sky, etc.) or to bring some soil to make the land that would be good for living |
| c8c | Mother and son produce people | After the world cataclysm, in the beginning of time or coming to a new land a woman marries her son and produce people |
| d1 | Female spirit of fire | Fire is personified as an (elder) woman, alone or with her husband, master of fire |
| d10 | Fire sticks are two persons | A male and a female persons personify fire-sticks |
| d9 | Fire and vulture | Raven or other big dark-feathered bird scavenger is the owner, personification, spouse, obtainer or stealer of fire, daylight, or the Sun |
| e1b | Person of unfit materials | Certain person is made of improper material and proves to be short-lived or unfit for fulfilling his functions |
| e32 | People born from trees | First people are born by trees or come out of a tree, flower, reed |
| e5c | People from the sky | The first people or first anthropomorphic divine beings descend to earth from the sky. |
| e8 | People of wood | The first people or (the first) woman (wife of a primeval ancestor) are made of wood |
| e9i1 | Swan-wife | A man marries supernatural woman who is a swan |
| f10 | Vaginal teeth knocked out | Woman has another toothed mouth (usually in vagina) or biting animals in vagina. Man inserts there a stone, bone, stick, etc. breaking or knocking out the teeth or extracting from there dangerous animals |
| f16 | Men and women: exchange of anatomical characteristics | Initially men possessed women's biological traits and vice versa (beard, menses, breasts, bearing children) |
| f17 | Misplaced genitalia | Originally, humans had (had to have; can have under some special confition) their genitals not on the place where they are now; the genitals were absent, or people did not know know their function and used for copulation other parts of the body |
| f30 | Snake paramour | A woman or a girl takes a snake, an eel (i.e. Pacific snake-eel), a lizard, or a worm for husband or paramour. People kill or badly injure him, the woman and/or her progeny or the woman herself is transformed into snake. Cf. motif k76b: the snake-husband becomes and remains a handsome man |
| f33 | Water creature paramour | Certain woman or a group of women take for paramour a big water animal (caiman, otter, sea-lion, whale, anaconda; rare: water bird, crab), water spirit or monster. Husbands, brothers or (adoptive) children kill or maim paramour and/or (sometimes) the woman |
| f40b | A man in a village of women | A man gets into the village of women. Usually he has to satisfy every woman against his will or every woman claims him for herself |
| f45 | The Amazons | There are (or were) women who live apart from men in their own village or villages |
| f45a | Conception from wind | A woman or a female animal is impregnated deliberately exposing her genitals to the wind |
| f54a | Imperceptible scar (husband proves to be son) | After a rather long marriage, wife discovers some minor traits in her husband guise that help her understand that he is not a proper marriage partner but her close kin (brother, son or father) or a transformed animal; or a man getting to notice a scar on his wife’s head understands that she is his sister |
| f77a | Penis bridge | Penis is stretched across a body of water as a pole or bridge |
| f86 | Conditional signal | Person summons with a certain signal a non-human being (usually his or her sexual partner or his or her protégé). Another person spies, uses the same signal or pronounces the same words and kills the being who comes to him (or uses this being sexually himself) |
| f9 | A dangerous woman | For different reasons, sexual contact with a woman is deadly dangerous for a man |
| f9a | Vagina dentata | There are teeth, blades or sharp stones in woman’s genitals, vagina is the biting mouth. (Only texts that are believed to correspond to reality are considered but not anecdotes and jokes) |
| g2 | The return of Persephone | Person who is the incarnation of fertility and life first disappears and then (reriodically) returns |
| g20 | Woman turns into plants | Food crops emerge from remains of a woman or girl |
| g24 | Food from the sky | First seeds (sprouts, tubors) of cultivated plants or of important edible wild plants are brought from the sky (received from the sky-dwellers) |
| g24a | Seeds of plants hidden on the body | Person steals cultivated plants for the people hiding the seeds on/in his body |
| 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) |
| h12 | The alive person comes to the land of the dead after somebody’s death | The alive person comes to the land of the dead to bring back somebody who has recently died (besides stories about shamans who journey to the other world to bring back the soul of a sick person) or, having no particular aim, goes there in company of somebody who had recently died or following his or her tracks |
| 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 |
| h28a | Mosquitoes from sparks and smoke | A burned person or creature immediately turns into a multitude of mosquitoes or biting flies |
| h34b | Rivers flow in both directions | Rivers were flowing or according to the original plan had to flow in both directions; somewhere there is a river that flows in both directions |
| h36 | The muddled message | Person is sent by god to bring instructions or certain objects but distorts, forgets or replaces them. This has fatal consequences for humans or for a certain species of animals. (Lithuanian case can be a mistification) |
| h36a | Origin of death from the falsified message | Person distorts instructions that he must pass to others, intentionally lies, forgets or replaces certain objects that must be given to others. Because of this human beings become mortal (do not revive after death) |
| h37 | Magic device lost by a failure | Magic object, device that makes hunting or fishing easy gets into possession of a person who is unable to operate it or abuses it. The device kills or injures the failure himself, other people and/or disappears |
| h4 | The shed skin | Those who change their skin become young again |
| h5 | People and snakes | Reptiles or invertebrates possess the medicine of immortality; are contrasted with men as immortal with mortals and/or are responsible for originating of death; or a snake's bite inflicts the first death |
| h9 | Strong and weak | People are mortal because they have been likened to something subject to decay and easy destruction (e.g. to the soft wood and not to the stone) |
| h9b | Children as shoots of plants | People are likened to plants which are mortal but revive in their offsets |
| i1 | The thunderbirds | 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 |
| i100 | The Pleiades are girls | The Pleiades are a group of girls or women (with children) |
| i100b | The Pleiades are a group of people | The Pleiades are any people (of any ages and sex, combined data of i99-i100a) |
| i115a | Orion and the Pleiades as a man and women | Orion and the Pleiades are opposed as a man or men and a woman or women. Orion is usually male |
| i130 | The sky net | One of costellations is a hunting or fishing net, trap, snare |
| 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 |
| i29 | Animal’s hole leads to the underworld | Person follows an animala through its hole or digs a hole himself and gets into the lower world where the animals who dig holes live |
| i39 | Rainbow road or bridge | Rainbow is a road, a bridge or a ladder |
| i46 | Rainbow belt | Rainbow is the ornamented part of the clothes, its decoration, a belt |
| i52 | Fish the earth-holder | World is supported by fish or fish-like monster or the earth itself is such a monster |
| 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 |
| i62 | Milky Way is a river | Milky Way is a sky river, water body, chain of beings that swim |
| i7 | The cloud serpent | A flying reptile produces rain, thunderstorm |
| i72 | Stars are people | Stars are people, ghosts, anthropomorphic beings (interpretations of unique star objects like Venus or Polaris as persons not considered) |
| i7a | The lightning- serpent | The lightning is associated with a snake |
| i81b | Haribda (the origin of tides) | It is tide when a creature belches out the sea water or ousts it with its body and it is ebb when it swallows the water or lets it go back (or it is simply told that water periodically emerge and disappears into the maelstrom |
| i82b | Venus is female | Morning and/or Evening Star is a female personage |
| i83 | The sky of birds | Birds, first of all vultures and eagles, live in the sky, usually at one or more layers of the upper world |
| i85b | Polaris is a person | Polaris is a person |
| i86 | Hairs into animals, scales into fish | Master of living beings sends down, hairs, scales, etc. which turn into birds, animals, fish |
| j12 | Travelling girl walks across suitors | A girl (or two sisters) travel, usually in search of a proper marriage partner who lives far away or who has gone away. On her way or after reaching the place of destination the girl gets to some unpleasant suitors |
| j59a | Flight after the arrow | Shooting and an arrow (rare: throwing a ball), person flies on it, after it or ahead of it or sends on the arrow another person |
| k100c | Girl’s bridegrooms are bitten by a snake | . The hero or his companion eliminate the source of danger |
| 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 |
| k176 | A man in search of the woman | A (young) man sets off to find or to return his bride or his wife |
| 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 |
| k1e | Marooned on an islet | Person is marooned on an islet or on another side of a sea or wide river |
| k24 | Stolen clothes of supernatural woman | Women (rare: men) who possess supernatural power and usually come from a non-human world (from sky, from under the water, they are winged beings, bird- or animal-persons; rare: a girl of higher social status than the hero) take off their clothes (feather skins and the like) or part of it. Because a person hides the clothes (of one of them), their owner(s) have (has) to marry him or help him (rare: her) |
| k25 | Magic wife | A man consciously marries a woman related to the non-human world |
| 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 |
| k27a | Ordeal: survive cold | An ordeal: to survive cold (frosty night outdoors, chamber with ice, cold water and snow) |
| k27x | Former husband of magic wife | A man marries a non-human woman. In her world, she has another husband or suitor. She returns to her world, human husband follows her. He stands tests and/or fights with local inhabitants, gets his wife back |
| k28 | Father or uncle is rival and enemy | 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 |
| 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. |
| 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) |
| k38f6 | The fire-creature | A creature that consists of fire is mentioned |
| k47a | A woman and a dog | After having sexual contact with a dog, a woman gives birth to his children. The puppies turn into humans and usually become ancestors of particular groups of people |
| k56 | The kind and the unkind girls | One of (step)sisters, co-spouses or young female neighbors meets a being that is able to reward and to punish. She behaves herself properly and is rewarded. Another (other) girl comes to the same being but behaves in a wrong way and is punished (not rewarded). |
| k56b | The worthy man is rewarded, the unworthy punished | First one, then another man meets a powerful person or persons. The first man is worthy and rewarded with treasure, prestige or the like. The second man (or two men) follows him, behaves in a wrong way and is punished |
| k76 | A strange son | 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 |
| 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 |
| k77c | Ones who hide in a house frighten dangerous enemy | Objects and/or domestic animals live in a house. When dangerous enemy comes, they attack him, he dies or escapes (all texts with K77A and K77B included) |
| k86 | Weeping child stolen | Because a small child is ignored or punished by its parents (usually it cries late in the evening), bush spirit or animal carries it away |
| k8a | Jonah: swallowed by monster | Person gets into the belly of water being or into the belly of giant creature which appearance and living place remain vague. He kills the monster from the inside and/or returns to earth by himself (i.e. not extracted by other people) |
| 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) |
| k8c5 | Bear dies after swallowing mouse | Animal person (mammal, bird, fish) of a small size (less than a fox) gets inside the bear and kills him from the inside (usually eat his meat) |
| k8d | Jonah: swallowed by anthropomorphic being | Person (often an animal-person) gets into the belly of anthropomorphic being. He kills it from the inside and/or returns to earth by himself (i.e. not extracted by other people) |
| k90 | The black and the red ones | A man gets to see two fighting monsters or animals (usually of contrasted colors like red and black, black and white). He helps one of them and/or one of them helps him |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| l46 | Head downward | Person ascends, descends, walks head downward or sees the world upside down |
| l48 | Demons devour their comrades | A man kills (usually in a tree, on a rock, at the edge of a well, of a precipice) and/or throws down one of his enemies. The other enemies do not recognize their comrade and think that their prey is falling down |
| l60 | Picked up baby-demon | Two or more sisters pick up a baby boy. In their absence he turns into adult man but when they come back they find him again in guise of a baby lying in its cradle |
| l65 | Demonic baby | A baby or small child proves to be a demon, devours or injures people |
| l79 | Two co-wives, human and monstrous | A girl marries a powerful benevolent man. His first wife is a monster. The man kills her or is glad that she is killed by his human wife |
| l84 | Unfit axes | Bush spirits and the like try to cut down a tree. The attempt fails because their axes are good for nothing being made of turtle shells, clay, etc.
|
| l85 | One-sided people | One-sided people have one leg and/or also one arm, one half of a head, etc. The second leg is not cut or burned off, preserved as a stump but is absent completely |
| l90 | Mouth from the earth to the sky | Monster's upper lip (fang, horn, etc.) touches the sky, lower touches the ground |
| m109 | The tail-fisher | 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 |
| m11 | The unclean food | Person feeds others a food that is extracted from his, hers or somebody else’ body or is polluted by body extractions not informing about the source of the food |
| m152e | Whose voice is louder | Еhe tiger (lion) and another animal make a competition whose voice is louder. The tiger’s voice is louder but ultimately he loses |
| m185 | On the tail of the fast one (animals) | 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 |
| m194 | Traveler’s possessions divided | Several animals get objects possessed by a person. Dividing their booty, one animal takes all the food for himself giving the others objects that can be used only by people. Animals that received them suffer or die |
| m29a | Trickster-raven | In episodes related to deception, absurd, obscene or anti-social behavior the protagonist is raven |
| 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 |
| m29b3 | The fox (jackal, coyote) is a failure | Because of its stupidity and unsocial behavior, the fox, jackal or coyote 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 |
| m45a | Old man and animals | 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 |
| m49 | Man in a skin of another | 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 |
| m62b | Trying to hit the hero hit each other | Two or more personages direct their weapons against the hero who is between them but hit each other |
| m75 | Valuables taken off the vultures | Person attracts and catches the carrion-eaters (usually some birds) and thanks to this obtains valuables retrieves valuables (fire, woman, animals, etc.) |
| m84b1 | A journey to the land of the fish | A man visits the place from there the salmons come to the human world |
| 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 |
| 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.) |