The world was or will be (almost) burned when several suns had (will) appear(ed) simultaneously; or the only sun was too hot (or bright)
Other suns or moons besides present ones had been in the sky and were later annihilated
The Sun is female, the Moon is male or (more rare) also female
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
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)
The sun and/or the moon are inanimate objects thrown up to the sky or fixed in the sky
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)
A human being and a dog together are seen in the moon
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
Person intentionally and with special equipment (usually shooting arrows) attacks the Sun (or several suns if they were many)
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
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 drinks a lake or all the water in the world or all the water is originally inside person's belly. When a hole is made in it, the water pours out
Female person is incarnation of wind, mother of winds, etc.
Person paints birds or animals or they paint each other. Some of them are not satisfied with the result
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
Waves of the sea petrified and turned into dry land with mountain chains
Creator and his opponent ponder upon should the dog be able to use a bow or fire-arms
Raven or other carrion-eating bird of dark color and a similar size was originally white
In the beginning of time or after the natural disaster brother and sister, mother and son, or father and daughters are the only human beings. They marry and the present day people are their descendents
Against person's will, butchered, dried or cooked meat, tanned hides, etc. turn back into animals or fish and escape.
Mistress of animals or fish revives them after being offended
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)
First people are born by trees or come out of a tree, flower, reed
Man takes or attempts to take a wife who is connected with the underwater world (fish, crab, snake, water animal and the like)
For different reasons, sexual contact with a woman is deadly dangerous for a man
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)
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
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
Certain woman or a group of women takes for a paramour a big land animal. Husbands, brothers or (adoptive) children kill or maim paramour and (sometimes) the woman
There are (or were) women who live apart from men in their own village or villages
A woman pretends to be a stranger to have sexual relations with her (grand)son, daughter or brother
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)
Sister and brother live alone. The brother rejects the incest. The sister makes him take her for unknown girl, marries him
Brother and sister marry each other. When their children get to know about the incest, they kill their parents, or father kills children, or parents suicide, or wife/sister suicides when her husband/brother has died
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
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
Lightning emerges from eyes or mouth of the being who is thought to produce thunderstorms
Reptiles possess treasure which a person gets or tries to get. Usually it is a crown, jewel or small horns on the snake's head
Anthropomorphic inhabitants of the upper world are giants
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)
The sky is constantly moving up and down in respect to earth
Migratory birds (or shamans in guise of birds) fly from our world to the outer world through the narrow opening, between clashing rocks, under the edge of the sky which is rising and falling, etc. Many birds perish; and/or the person who lives at this place feeds on these birds; the person can be mistress of birds, lives on another side of the pulsating obstacle
Souls of the dead dogs have their own towns in the Beyond or their own paths to travel there
Dogs having spots over the eyes are called the four-eyed and believed to have special properties (e.g. to see ghosts)
Rainbow is the ornamented part of the clothes, its decoration, a belt
The earth or the sky are identified with a big quadruped mammal or are made of parts of its body
The alive person who is travelling between the worlds is visible for inhabitants of one world and invisible for inhabitants of another
Thunder's enemies are evil spirits, reptiles, animals living in burrows. They hide from him in different objects, Thunder destroys these objects
On a certain moment, a crack, a window or the like opens in the sky vault (rains flows though it, the upper world is seen, communication with inhabitants of the upper world becomes possible)
The fire is personified as an elder man (alone or with his wife, mistress of fire)
Stars are people, ghosts, anthropomorphic beings (interpretations of unique star objects like Venus or Polaris as persons not considered)
Master of living beings sends down, hairs, scales, etc. which turn into birds, animals, fish
Several bright stars of Big Dipper or other constellation are poles which support or stretch an object like skin, shelter, etc.
The earth is the body of a crocodile or a dragon
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
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
Baby heroes, embryos or objects from which they emerge are found in a river or lake or come to people out of the water
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
Person or his helper draws his enemies on the unstable bridge and destroys it. The enemies fall into water, into a precipice
Person stretches his or her leg or neck as a bridge across water body. The fugitives or those who walk ahead cross the bridge; the persecutor or those who are behind usually fall because the person takes his bridge off
Hero climbs up (e.g. to a tree) or down (e.g. into a deep cave) by ladder, rope, from branch to branch, etc. The rope etc. breaks or is intentionally destroyed and the hero cannot return to the ground. (All cases of motif K2A, besides the Koreans, also contain motif K2)
Hero is sent to the lower world though a well, precipice, etc. After he obtains valuables (young women), his envious companions cut the rope to get rid of him but he succeeds in returning back
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)
Inhabitants of a distant land who have different nature than (normal) human beings struggle from time to time with some non-human enemies. Man helps local dwellers because their enemies are not dangerous for the human beings
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 must fulfill difficult tasks (to win competition) to receive the permission for a marriage
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.
A Man disappears or goes away for long time. His wife sets off, comes to a house where her husband lives now or first sends her son there. She gets to know that he has married another woman
A man gets to a country which inhabitants hunts of fish people whom they consider wild and equivalent to the real game or fish
One brother marries a girl, another a frog or toad, both bring them to their parents, or one man takes two wives, a woman and a frog. Both wives have to pass a test. Values of the girl are highly assessed, the frog’s poor qualities are revealed
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
The hero and his companion or companions live together. Every morning one stays at home while another or others go to hunt, etc. A demonic person comes, eats up all the food and beats the cook. Or the man who remained at home comes to the demon himself in search of fire and is maltreated by him. The hero kills or neutralizes the demon
Every time a demon commits an outrage upon one of the men who remains at home. When it is the hero’s turn, he overcomes the demon and follows his track to his world
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
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
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)
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
Life of a person or creature is preserved outside of his (her, its) body. Person or creature dies after the corresponding object is destroyed
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
People against their will must follow an object, a creature, or a person (usually stick to it) who/which leads or carries them far away, usually into the water or to the sky
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
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
A baby or small child proves to be a demon, devours or injures people
Running away from a dangerous being, person throws small objects behind him or her which turn into mighty obstacles on the way of the pursuer
Running away from a dangerous being, person throws a comb (a brush) that turns into mighty obstacle (usually a thicket) on the way of the pursuer. (In South America the motif is probably of European origin)
Running away from a dangerous being, person throws objects that turn into mighty obstacles on the way of the pursuer. One of the thrown objects is a whetstone which turns into a mountain
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
The sky dwellers fish human beings who live on earth with a line and a hook
Person crosses a water or air space along the chain of many animals, birds or fish
Animal who does not swim well suggests animals who live in water to count their number. For this, they should make a chain and he would run along it. It is but a trick to cross a body of water
Person pursued by an enemy asks somebody whom he meets to help him. The helper hides him
In episodes related to deception, absurd, obscene or anti-social behavior the protagonist is fox, jackal or coyote
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
A slow and a fast animals (or not flying bird) agree to race. The slow one imperceptibly sticks to the fast one’s body (or to a vehicle) and getting to the finish pretends to come there simultaneously with the fast one or before him
Birds, animals or fish compete as about who is the fastest or can fly higher than others. A weak one imperceptible sticks to the body of the fastest or strongest and wins
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
Children conflict with their parents who do not pay them enough attention, condemn their sexual behavior, do not give them enough food, clothes, etc.; the children abandon their parents and become birds, bats, atmospheric phenomena, or stars (usually the Pleiades)
Because children do not give water to their mother, she turns into a bird, usually a cuckoo, and flies away
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
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)
Monster's upper lip (fang, horn, etc.) touches the sky, lower touches the ground
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)
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
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
Persons shoot arrows (darts) which hit each other’s end forming a chain (rope, ladder). Persons climb by this chain to the sky or (rare) across an obstacle
Person discovers that somebody steals game or fish from his trap or devastates his garden. He or his guards catch the thieves who prove to be (the first) women or the thief is the water being whom the hero lets go after receiving a woman for ransom
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 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)
A girl (rare: boy) turns into bird and flies away when her mother (father or other adult person in whose house she lives) does not give her food, water or makes her feel offended in other way
Person has only one leg (and one arm) but has no problems with moving. Unlike motif L85 (one-sided people), the person’s body is complete
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
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
The Sun (the day light) that was absent, stolen or hidden appears (again)
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
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
Fish of two species shoot arrows into each other. Since then there are many small bones in the fish or some bones are forked
Stars are openings in the firmament; holes in dwelling's covering are thought to be stars
One person or animal suggests another to slide downhill to kill or harm him or her
Because of its stupidity or unsocial behavior, the bear suffers a reverse, is injured or dies
Becasue sacred book gets wet or sinks when people were crossing a river, it is lost or the text becomes unreadable. Or it is destroyed when people try to dry it or when they go to bath and let it lie on a shore
Eyes of wood-grouse became red because it shed tears
In episodes related to deception, absurd, obscene or anti-social behavior the protagonist is hare or rabbit
Certain bones in the body of living creatures (usually birds and fish) are arrows that were shot into them
The art of weaving people get from a spider or from a person who turns into spider afterwards; a spider is weaving for people
A woman or a female animal is impregnated deliberately exposing her genitals to the wind
Disguised as a bird, small animal or insect, a man penetrates into the place of a girl (into her father’s house)
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)
In the past a particular groups of people possessed scripture and knowledge that were later lost or the people missed opportunity to obtain them
Being irresponsible and light-minded, animal person slides downhill and dies or gets into trouble (falls on sharp pole, into the water, etc.)
A man visits the place from there the salmons come to the human world
By trick or by force, a rival or adversary kidnaps hero's wife or bride. The man gets her back
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
A (young) man sets off to find or to return his bride or his wife
Husband follows his dead wife to the other world but is unable to bring her back or succeeds to do it but loses her once again
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
A simple man becomes a chance witness of the abduction of the princess by the demonic being or finds an evidence of the abduction. The girl’s father sends him to bring her back
All humans, members of a particular ethnic or social group or a ruling dynasty are believed to descend from a mortal man and a woman of supernatural origin
When a man who had got to the land of spirits touches a local dweller the latter dies or becomes sick
In a certain time in the past three or more suns were on the sky simultaneously
A man consciously marries a woman related to the non-human world
Some migratory birds (or shamns in guse of birds) perish when they reach the border of our world
Man marries a seal, dolphin or porpous who takes guise of a woman and lives with her in the human world
A girl (a woman, a group of women) intentionally takes a penis-being, a snake, an eel, a lizard, a worm, a big water animal or water monster or a big terrestrial mammal for paramour. People kill or maim the paramour, the woman and/or her progeny or she is transformed herself into an animal. She is blamed for her behavior
Person feeds another with the meat of his or her sexual partner who cooks or eats it without knowing whose meat it is
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 an egg
Fugitive throws an object behind himself and thus creates fog or darkness in front of pursuer
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
Two mammals or reptiles (or a mammal or raptile and other creature) decorate each other or somebody decorates each of them
Two zoomorphic personages decorates each other or somebody decorates each of them
In the beginning of time or after the natural disaster brother and sister are the only human beings. They marry and the present day people are their descendents