| Motif | Name | Description |
| a14a | The conflict between the Sun and the Moon | The Sun and the Moon are or were enemies, either permanently or in particular situations |
| a20 | Childhood and youth of the Sun and Moon | The Sun and the Moon (rare: the Sun and a star, the Moon and a star) are two siblings who live on earth and then ascend to the sky being still young persons |
| a31 | The incestuous Moon | As a result of some intimate contacts and/or love affair, the Moon acquires its present appearance (often, the stains on his face) and/or ascends to the sky |
| a4 | Female sun | The Sun is female, the Moon is male or (more rare) also female |
| a44 | Moon the protector | 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 |
| a7 | The sun pursues the moon | The Sun and the Moon are two persons one of which is pursuing another in the sky or pursued him or her when they were rising to the sky from the earth |
| a7a | Torches in hands of celestial bodies | Light of the Sun (Moon, Venus) is a torch in hands of the celestial body |
| b27 | Variants of transformations | Persons ponders over what object, feature, or creature it would be appropriate for him or her to turn into. When the choice is made, the persons transforms himself or herself |
| b27a | Transformation into thunder and lightning | Persons ponders over what object, feature, or creature it would be appropriate for them to turn. When the choice is made, persons turn into thunder and/or lightning |
| 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 |
| b38a | Two birds decorate each other | Two birds decorate each other, one becomes worse than it was before |
| b3e | Earth falls on waters | In the beginning there are only air and water. 1) Person descends from the sky, creates the dry land or a hard support created for her or him grows into the earth. 2) The earth is sent or dropped from the sky, put on the surface of the water. 3) The earth is brought from somewhere (not from the underworld) and put on the water |
| b42 | Cosmic hunt | Certain stars or constellations are interpreted as hunters, their dogs and game that the hunters pursue |
| b42k | Cosmic hunt and the Pleiades | In the cosmic hunt tale either hunters or game is identified with the Pleiades |
| 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 |
| b44c | Should warmth and light exist? | It is discussed if darkness or light, cold or warm periods should exist |
| b54 | Chips turn into fish | Chips of wood, branches or pieces of bark thrown or fallen into the water turn into fish and/or aquatic animals |
| b82 | The white raven | Raven or other carrion-eating bird of dark color and a similar size was originally white |
| d13h | The dead should not laugh | Person should not laugh in the world of the dead |
| 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 |
| e30 | The make-believe spouse of wood | Person does not have a spouse, uses wooden fakes for his wife or her husband |
| e30a | Make-believe spouse replaced with alive person | Person does not have a spouse, uses wooden fakes for his wife or her husband till alive person comes to replace it |
| e9 | The mysterious housekeeper | Person observes traces of some activity that takes place in his (rare: her) house in his (her) absence and then takes by surprise the responsible one |
| e9a | Fox-wife | Man maries fox-woman |
| e9i3 | Goose-wife | A man marries supernatural woman who is a goose |
| f28 | Primeval penis | The penis is a particular monstrous being with whom copulate the primeval women, the amazons, or a certain woman |
| f28a | Primeval penis grows from the ground | There is only one monstrous penis, a husband of primeval women or the amazons, which grows out of the ground or out of the water in a lake |
| f30a | Worm-baby | Woman is nursing a worm (caterpillar, reptile, fish) as her baby. People kill the monster |
| 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 |
| f34b | The paramour is not a human being | 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 |
| f35 | Feeding with the paramour’s meat | Person feeds another with the meat of his or her sexual partner who cooks or eats it without knowing whose meat it is |
| f49 | The abnormal birth | Cesarean operation upon a woman at childbirth as a custom |
| f51 | The clandestine lover | Person who conceals his or her identity comes to his or her lover (at night). Next time, the lover puts a mark on the stranger's face, body or clothes doing this intentionally (to recognize him or her) or by chance (that leads to the identification) |
| f53 | Ugly husband | An ugly man marries a girl but conceals his face. Marriage is ruined after his face is seen |
| f67 | Old woman pretends to be man | An old woman makes herself false penis and testicles, marries or attempts to marry her (step)daughter |
| 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) |
| f91 | A worm-breeder | A man lets his wife to be eaten up by worms. She either dies or has a narrow escape |
| h29 | Origin of foreigners | A woman is impregnated by an animal, usually by a snake. People of hostile nation originate or receive their culture from her progeny or from her paramour's relatives |
| 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 |
| i14 | No-anus people | Person or creature has no anus opening |
| i14a | Eject digested food through the mouth | No-anus people eject digested food through the mouth or other orifice |
| 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 |
| i18 | A spouse or husband without anus or mouth | Person visits people who have no anus or mouth. He or his sister marries or tries to marry a local dweller |
| i35 | Dragging a hide produces thunder | Thunder is produced by dragging behind a dry animal skin or (rare) a person (rare) or by shaking clothes |
| i36 | Thunder and lightning are relatives, spouses or in-laws | Thunder and lightning (two thunders, two lightings) are close relatives, spouses or in-laws |
| i38 | The dog-heads | Some beings are half-men and half-dogs (usually anthropomorphic with heads of dogs) |
| i7c | Rain or dew is urine | When a person or creature who lives in the upper world urinates, it rains (dew falls) on earth |
| i82a | Venus is male | Morning and/or Evening Star is a male personage |
| 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 |
| k176 | A man in search of the woman | A (young) man sets off to find or to return his bride or his wife |
| 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 |
| k25a3 | The picked up feathers | Magic bird-wife flies away after she had picked up many feathers and made of them her new bird-clothes |
| k26 | A hole in the firmament | Finding a hole in the ground or making it, person gets to see below another world. Usually the earth is seen from the sky |
| k26a | Sky opening covered with a stone | Opening in the firmament is covered with a flat stone. When person puts the stone aside, he or she gets to see the earth |
| k27o1 | Head used as ball | Severed human heads are compared with balls or used as balls |
| 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 |
| k30 | Flying enemy abducts woman | Flying person or creature abducts a woman but is ultimately killed or the woman escapes from 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. |
| k32b1 | Mother substitutes her daughter | Mother-in-law of a man takes the appearance of her daughter to replace her |
| 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 |
| k45b | Woman turns into water animal | A man and a woman of different generations (the father and the daughter, the son and the mother) get into conflict which results in the woman's transformation into the sea mammal. the sovereign of the sea mammals or into the frog (toad) |
| 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 |
| k66c | The bear takes human spouse | The bear (lion) takes a woman for sexual partner or the she-bear takes a man. They have children who look like humans or bear cubs. More rare the woman gives birth to her son in the bear den because being abducted by the bear she was pregnant |
| k87 | Marriage with an animal creates problems | A woman becomes the wife of an animal (rare: other non-human being). Her husband cares for her but ultimately the animal, the woman, her children or her relations are killed, she turns into an animal herself, animals and humans become enemies, etc. |
| l10 | Sharp tail | A monster kills victims with his or her sharp or stinging tail or protrusion on his or her back |
| 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 |
| l102 | Escape from animal husband | Seriously of for fun, a girl or a woman names an animal or remains of an animal as her husband or steps on the animal’s bones. The animal (revives and) carries her away. Her human husband or brother comes after her and they run away. The animal husband pursues them but abandons the chase or dies |
| l103 | Obstacle flight (Atalanta type) | Treasure, or the like, is thrown back to tempt pursuer to delay |
| l135 | The Traveller | Male person leaves his home and gets to unfamiliar places. On his way, he comes across different strange creatures. After all, he returns home or leaves the earth for the other world. (Rather often a long string of episodes breaks off or the story lacks the beginning and does not explain why the hero is travelling) |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| l42a | Ogre steals corpses | An ogre steals fresh corpses from graves and devours them |
| l50 | Cliff ogre | A person kills those who are passing by him. Usually he does not attack them all of a sudden but first distracts their attention. Usually he throws down his victims into a precipice, lake, etc. |
| l59 | Avaricious woman: metamorphosis | Man's wife, sister or mother eats all the nest food alone, she is transformed in punishment |
| l59a | Stuck to a whale | People who treated badly the hero or his son are pulled into the sea and turn into sea animal or into parts of its body or into parasites on its hide |
| l61 | Endocannibal | Person devours his or her own flesh or disembowels himself or herself |
| l73 | Ogre tries to drink a river dry and bursts | The antagonist tries to drink a river or sea and bursts |
| l9 | Sharp body members | Body members of a person has the form of cutting or piercing weapon |
| m123 | Raven marries goose | A bird of prey or a carrion-eater (raven, owl, hawk; coyote) marries or tries to marry goose-person or other water bird. This marriage is not realized or is a short one |
| m123c | Unlucky flight with migratory birds | A bird-person who usually does not fly away in the autumn makes attempt to fly with migratory birds but is unable to reach destination |
| 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) |
| 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 |