| Motif | Name | Description |
| 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) |
| a32d | Man in the Moon | Human being or imprint of human being is seen in the moon |
| a4 | Female sun | The Sun is female, the Moon is male or (more rare) also female |
| b18 | Light in container | Day light (also warmth, the sun, the moon) is kept as a particular object in a container, under a cover, etc. |
| b26 | Man joins wild animals | Person who follows the wild animals turns into one of them or into their master |
| 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 |
| b4 | The fished out earth | Islands or continent are fished out of the ocean or pulled to their present place by rope |
| b42c | Sky hunters pursue a bear | In the cosmic hunt tale the game pursued by the hunters is a bear |
| 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.) |
| 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 |
| b44e | Dispute of ancestors | The primeval ancestors (usually birds and animals) participate in discussion concerning the desired predominance or wamth/light or cold/darkness, number of the units of time in a tempoi cycle, etc. |
| b71 | Aurora borealis | Aurora borealis is spirits (of the dead) who run holding burning torches, play or fight with each other |
| c19 | Acquisition of the sun | The Sun (the day light) that was absent, stolen or hidden appears (again) |
| e10 | Pets turn into children | A lonely woman or married couple surprises childred who live nearby in guise of animals (plants, objects). After this the children preserve their human guise |
| e1b | Person of unfit materials | Certain person is made of improper material and proves to be short-lived or unfit for fulfilling his functions |
| e1c | Person of excrements | Certain person is made of human excrement or carrion |
| e9e | Puppy as a reward | Youth gets to supernatural beings, rejects any treasure, asks for a puppy, a dog's skin, a fruit, etc. When he returns home, the puppy (skin, etc.) turn into magic wife |
| e9i3 | Goose-wife | A man marries supernatural woman who is a goose |
| e9i4 | Crane-wife | A man marries supernatural woman who is a (white) crane |
| e9m | Bear-wife | Man marries a polar bear or grizzly who becomes a woman or a woman who becomes a bear |
| f20 | A strong embrace | Man and woman embrace each other forever or for a long time |
| f30a | Worm-baby | Woman is nursing a worm (caterpillar, reptile, fish) as her baby. People kill the monster |
| f49 | The abnormal birth | Cesarean operation upon a woman at childbirth as a custom |
| f51c | Provocative behavior after incest | When a girl gets to know that her night visitor was her own brother, she demonstrates him her genitals or her nake breasts and suggests to take what he had been desired so much. After this she runs away and he pursues her |
| f65 | The false burial | To realize his or her secret desire (illicit sex, refusal to share food with relations), person pretends to die and is abandoned at a burial place |
| f65a | Death feigned to meet paramour | Person pretends to die. His or her wife or husband abandons him or her on a burial place. He or she marries his or her paramour |
| g1 | A kidnapped child | Valuables (earth, soil, sun, crops, fire, sacred knowledge, hunting luck) are got or returned when son or daughter is stolen from his or her parent |
| h22a | Animals disperse after being touched by people | Big game animals were concentrated in one place, had no fear of people. They escape and disperse after somebody slightly strikes or stains them |
| h34a | Controversy over conditions of life | Person has a series of suggestions how to make the world easy for living and free of hard work and death. His companion successively rejects them. Their dialogue forever defines conditions of human life |
| 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 |
| i108 | The Pleiades are a person | The Pleiades are only one anthropomorphic being, not several persons |
| i109 | Milky Way is the path of the Sun | Milky Way is the path of the Sun and/or Moon |
| i17 | Body anomalies of inhabitants of a distant land | 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 |
| 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) |
| i22c | A plank from the stern of Argo | Person succeeds in getting through the opening which is going to bang shut but the stern of his boat, the tail of an animal or a bird, the body of his horse, or his own heel is flatterned, torn off, etc. |
| j1 | The vengeful heroes | Persons avenge the death of their father, mother or other relatives who are one (rare two) generations older than they |
| j2 | The tree-husband | Husband or lover is a tree (that temporarily turns into a man) |
| 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 |
| j37 | The antagonist is carried away by bird | A man turns into powerful bird or creates it. The bird carries away his enemy |
| j4a | Revenge for the death of the mother | A woman is murdered. Her son or children (rare: grandchildren, nephews) revenge for her death |
| j6 | Children of murdered woman grow up with her murderers | Pregnant woman is killed (and eaten up). Twins are cut off from her womb. They should be eaten too but survive, live (unrecognized) in the house of the antagonists and revenge on them |
| k10 | Fight with the monstrous bird | Monstrous bird (giant bat) predates on humans. Heroes fight with it |
| k10h | A bird feeds but does not release its prisoner | A giant bird carries a woman or a boy to its nest. It supplies them with food but does not release. The prisoner escapes |
| k1c | One who comes to look at adversary’s bones dies himself | A man is marooned on an islet, a rock but survives thanks to helpful birds and animals. The next time the hero and the antagonist exchange roles. Usually the antagonist comes to the islet to see the bones of the abandoned man but the man takes the canoe of the antagonist and paddles away. The antagonist dies |
| k2 | The destroyed ladder | 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) |
| k22 | Dwarfs and cranes | Different from (common) people inhabitants of a distant land fight from time to time with non-human enemies who periodically attack them |
| k22b | Man helps inhabitants of other world | 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 |
| k22c | Birds are attacked | Inhabitants of a distant land who are birds (the bird-people) are afraid of birds or animals, which are not dangerous for humans and which usually attack them regularly |
| k23 | Battle with birds | Birds attack the inhabitants of a distant land or a man who had got to this land |
| 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 |
| k27d | Ordeal: chamber with dangerous beings | An ordeal: to remain alive in a closed room full of beasts of prey, poisonous or other dangerous creatures |
| k27k | Diving contest | A contest: to dive deep or for a long time |
| k27n | Difficult tasks of the in-laws | A man must fulfill difficult tasks (to win competition) to receive the permission for a marriage |
| k27n3c | Task-giver is a zoomorphic being | Person who gives difficult tasks to the hero is associated with an animal, a bird or a fish |
| k27n3c1 | Hero’s adversaries are polar bears | Inhabitants of the village of the polar bears who are relations of the hero’s wife give him difficult tasks and tests |
| k27o | Ball game | A contest: ball game |
| k27o2 | To play with a dangerous ball | To kill the hero, his enemies involve him into a game with a dangerous ball (or ice, stone, bone, iron, a walrus head, a biting skull, etc.) |
| 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 |
| 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. |
| k4 | The bird nester | Person climbs up a tree or rock or descends to a cave to get eggs or nestlings from the bird's nest. Another person remains on the ground. They get into conflict and/or the first person is unable to get back to the ground |
| k41 | Thunder against a serpent | Thunder or giant bird fights against a reptile, big water animal or other big and strong creature who lives in water or under the earth |
| k45 | Sedna (fingers cut off) | A man rides away from a woman or girl in a boat (on raft, sledge). When she tries to snatch a border of the boat (raft, sledge), he cuts her fingers off |
| k45a | Fingers turn into water animals | A man rides away from a woman or girl in a boat (on raft). When she tries to snatch a border of the boat (raft), he cuts her fingers off. The fingers turn into water animals |
| 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 |
| k51 | The deceived wife | 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 |
| k53 | Animal skins as metamorphosis amulets | Person temporarily turns into bird or animal putting on corresponding skin or animal skins are amulets that become alive and help the person |
| k59 | Box for Osiris | One man puts another into a box, closes the lid (or ties him to a board, to canoe, etc.) and puts the box adrift. It floats to another land, man is released there, returns home, revenges on his enemy |
| 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) |
| k8b | Woman is soul of a whale | Raven gets inside a whale where he sees a woman who asks him not to touch an inner organ of the whale (usually its heart) or a burning lamp. Raven touches it, woman disappears, the whale dies |
| l101 | Pieces of clothes thrown to pursuer | Pursued by demonic creature (usually a whale or walrus), people throw behind piece by piece children’s or woman’s clothes. These attract the pursuer’s attention, he loses time, the runaways escape |
| l103 | Obstacle flight (Atalanta type) | Treasure, or the like, is thrown back to tempt pursuer to delay |
| 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 |
| l118 | Caught in a split log | (Animal) person provokes another to put a part of his body into a split log (between two planks, etc.) and removes the wedge |
| l13 | The reared up monster | A small creature is reared up by people. When it is grown up, it becomes harmful and dangerous |
| l1a | Woman turns into the bear | A young woman turns into the bear (in Asia, into the tiger) and attacks her husband or close relatives |
| l31 | People stick to monster | 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 |
| 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 |
| l4 | The unmasked murderer (Blue Beard) | Person kills girls (rare: his nephews or younger brothers of his wife) in succession (usually the male person kills his wives). The last of potential victims escapes, usually after finding remains of those who had been killed or imprisoned earlier |
| 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 |
| l5c | Rolling head is a dangerous monster | Rolling head is a dangerous mobster (pursues celestial bodies, people etc.) |
| l5f | Helpful skull | A bodiless head, face, or skull is a woman's husband, suitor or son. He is not dangerous but a good provider, saves people from hunger, etc. |
| l65 | Demonic baby | A baby or small child proves to be a demon, devours or injures people |
| l72 | The obstacle flight | 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| m123a | Three-toed foot | Raven marries or tries to marry a girl pretending to be handsome chief. They notice that somebody is eating carrion. Usually when everybody have to take off there footgear, raven's three-toes feet are exposed. He is driven away or runs away being ashamed |
| m123d | Raven the filth-eater | Raven is going to marry a girl but is rejected after they see that he eats filth |
| m16 | Ugly or sick one becomes healthy and handsome | A kinfolk (often his mother) or wife (bride) of a sick (ugly, old) man or boy do not care for him. He becomes healthy (and handsome), punishes and/or abandons those who were evil with him |
| m16a | Diving bird’s medicine | A supernatural helper (usually a loon) makes a blind man to regain his eyesight diving with him into water |
| m17 | Woman lies that man missed | A blind man or lad kills an animal. His wife or (grand)mother lies that he has missed, cooks and eats all the meat alone |
| m17a | (Grand-)mother deceives her blind (grand-)son | (Grand-)mother of a blind man or boy secretly eats meat or fish (usually acquired by her son or grandson) but tells him that there is no food in their house |
| m29a | Trickster-raven | In episodes related to deception, absurd, obscene or anti-social behavior the protagonist is raven |
| m29a1 | Raven (crow) is the main trickster | In three or more different episodes related to deception, absurd, obscene or anti-social behavior the protagonist is raven (crow) |
| m29b | Trickster-fox, jackal or coyote | In episodes related to deception, absurd, obscene or anti-social behavior the protagonist is fox, jackal or coyote |
| m29b1 | The wolf is a failure | Because of its stupidity and unsocial behavior, the wolf suffers a reverse, is injured or dies |
| m29b2 | The bear is a failure/enemy | Because of its stupidity or unsocial behavior, the bear suffers a reverse, is injured or dies |
| 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 |
| m30 | Trickster falls down | Person or creature who has no wings or is unable to fly on a long distance attempts to ascend to the sky or to fly far away but falls down or, deprived of his wings, remains in a place from which he is unable to return |
| m46 | The false baby | Planning to get or to return valuables, person turns into baby or in a small objects that has power to impregnate a woman. The picked up or the born baby steals the valuables and acquires his real guise (including cases according to which the girl herself is the desired valuable)
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| m46b | A stratagem: baby born by woman | Person turns into tiny object or creature. Touching or swallowing it, the woman conceives and gives birth to a baby-boy. The boy steals valuables or make love to the woman |
| m46c | Swallowed conifer-needle | Person turns into conifer-needle, a tiny particle, a small insect. Swallowing it by chance, the woman becomes pregnant and gives birth to a boy |
| m46d | Child cries for a toy | A small child cries and becomes satisfied only when he gets a particular object to play with. This object is of high value and is hidden in the house. As soon as the object is given to him, the child or a person related to him carry it away |
| m46e | The Sun as a toy | They (promise to) give a child the Sun (and or the Moon) to play with |
| 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 |
| m49a | The substituted medicine-woman | The hero has to come unrecognized to the meeting place of his enemies. He meets an old woman (usually a shaman, a medicine-woman) who goes there, puts on her skin and acquires her appearance |
| m53 | Hoodwinked dancers | Person invites birds or animals (usually geese and ducks) to dance or stand around him and concentrate their attention on some activity (usually to dance with their eyes shut), kills them, usually one by one. Or (rare) he dances himself with his eyes shut and then kills water fowl who gather around him |
| m53e | Would believe evil omen | Person (always a raven) kills a whale. When people come, he tells them about some circumstances that can make the meat dangerous. People do not dare to touch the meat and the deceiver eats it alone |
| m60 | Sham doctor: finished off enemy | Hero wounds dangerous enemy (a monster, a robber) and then, in guise of a doctor, comes to him and kills his patient instead of curing him |
| m60a | A hunter comes to one whom he wounded | 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. |
| 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 |
| m75d | Vulture’s knife | A man bereaves vultures of their hunting weapons or amulets |
| m77 | A soiled bed | While person is asleep, another smears with excrements or something that reminds excrements his or her bed or clothes. The ashamed person runs away or agrees to make what the trickster wants in exchange of his silence |
| 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.) |