| Motif | Name | Description |
| a3 | Male sun and female moon | The Moon is female or bisexual, the Sun is male |
| a5 | The Sun and the Moon are males | The Moon is male, the Sun is also male or (much more rare) asexual |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| b27b | Transformation into stars | Persons ponders over what object, feature, or creature it would be appropriate for them to turn. When the choice is made, persons turn into stars |
| 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 |
| b36 | Creatures acquire their physical traits | Birds, fish, reptiles, mammals intentionally or by chance are smeared with colorful substances or divide among themselves parts of somebody's body thus acquiring their present characteristics |
| b36c | Fat animals | Animals get meat and fat extracted from some original creature or created otherwise. Some get a lot, some remain lean |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| b41a | Animal reveals master’s secrets | The dog or other domestic animal speaks aloud about those details of its masters' life that they would prefer to conceal. He is punished by depriving his ability to speak |
| b42 | Cosmic hunt | Certain stars or constellations are interpreted as hunters, their dogs and game that the hunters pursue |
| b42a | Blood or fat drops to earth | Hunters pursue a bear across the sky, kill it in August – October. Its blood or fat drops to earth as a dew or painting leaves of the trees in red |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| b42p | Ursa major is a bear | Ursa major is identified with a bear |
| b45 | Marriage of winter and summer | A coming of warm (light, abundant, etc.) or cold (dark, barren, etc.) time is related to the marriage of certain person |
| b48 | Predators become herbivorous | Weak or herbivorous animals were dangerous predators but have been transformed |
| b59 | A group of dancers ascends to the sky | A group of people (usually children, brothers or sisters) play, dance, ascend to the sky and turn into Pleiades or other compact constellation |
| b60 | Offended children abandon parents | 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) |
| b87 | Alcor | Alcor (a weak star near the second star of the handle of the Big Dipper) is selected as a particular sky object |
| b87a | Alcor is a dog | A weak star near the second star of the handle of the Big Dipper (the Tibetans: Small Dipper) is interpreted as a dog |
| c25b | A spinner in the Moon | In the sky, on the Moon (rare: on the Sun), i.e. somewhere outside of our world certain person is spinning, weaving, plaiting, or embroidering |
| 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 |
| c5b | Animal-scouts | During the creation of the world or after the world cataclysm animals run around making the earth big, reporting about its condition or they are sent to report the size of the growing earth |
| 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) |
| c6a | The diver is turtle or frog | A turtle or a frog (toad) brings the desired object from the bottom of the water body or from the lower world |
| c6b | The diver is muskrat (otter, beaver) | A muskrat (more rare beaver or otter) brings the desired object from under the water |
| c6c | The diver is a bird | An aquatic bird dives and brings the desired object from the bottom |
| c6c3 | The loon is successful diver | The loon dives and brings a piece of earth (a blade of grass etc.) that is transformed into the dry land or it brings other object which everybody is eager to get (the loon 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) |
| 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) |
| f2a | The wrong way to be born | Child is born not in a normal way but intentionally cutting his mother’s body. It is a sign of his malicious and/or supernatural nature |
| 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 |
| f45a1 | Accidental conception from wind | A woman is impregnated by wind in defiance of her wish |
| 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 |
| g2 | The return of Persephone | Person who is the incarnation of fertility and life first disappears and then (reriodically) returns |
| 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 |
| h12c | Orpheus: to return the dead 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 |
| h18 | Hoarded game released | Game animals were concentrated in one single place. Certain person lets them disperse in the world |
| 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 |
| 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) |
| i11 | Cosmic turtle or toad | A turtle, toad, or frog supports the earth (sky) or is its embodiment |
| i13a | The horned serpent | Giant water-chthonic or sky serpent or dragon has horns or antlers on its head |
| 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) |
| i22a | Rising and falling sky | The sky is constantly moving up and down in respect to earth |
| 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 |
| i28 | Animals in the underworld | Game animals live inside a mountain, in a cave or in the underworld where they often look like humans and have a master |
| i4b | Thunder in trouble: fights with his enemy | A man helps Thunder who fights with his enemy |
| i65 | Milky Way of the dead | Milky Way is the path over which souls travel to the beyond or a path of the funeral procession |
| i70 | Water reptile on plants on its back | Trees or reeds grow on the back of a monstrous reptile |
| i80a | The youngest Thunder | Man meets Thunders and becomes one of them |
| i99 | The Pleiades are boys or men | The Pleiades are a group of boys or men, or a group of different people but predominantly males |
| j18 | Woman falls from the sky | A woman who is pregnant or has a small child falls from the sky. She or a daughter born by her dies but her (grand)son is grown up |
| 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 |
| j59b | An arrow falls down, a dead one revives | To revive the dead, person shoots an arrow into the sky (it is suggested that the dead would be afraid of the arrow falling, jump aside and become alive) |
| j64 | Person moves on clouds of smoke | Not being burned in a fire, person ascends to the sky or gets across a river on clouds of smoke |
| k1e | Marooned on an islet | Person is marooned on an islet or on another side of a sea or wide river |
| k27k | Diving contest | A contest: to dive deep or for a long time |
| k27m | To get an animal of unusual color | The hero must kill and bring an animal of special (often unusual) color or form |
| k27n | Difficult tasks of the in-laws | A man must fulfill difficult tasks (to win competition) to receive the permission for a marriage |
| k38f4 | Fire-breathing monster | From the mouth of a monstrous creature or person who is the enemy of the hero fire is coming out; its breath is fire |
| k69 | A visit to God | A group of persons decide to go to the end of the world to meet the Sun or other supreme god. One (or several) of them perish on their way, some reach destination, at least one returns home using the shorter way than the one they have took before |
| k75 | The youngest daughter is willing (The loathsome bridegroom) | 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 |
| 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 |
| 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) |
| k9 | God’s wife thrown down from the sky | The sky chief discovers or thinks that his wife, sister or lover is untrue or incestuous. He throws her down from the sky. She becomes the mistress of the lower or middle world or a part of it or one of her sons gets power over the lower world |
| l13 | The reared up monster | A small creature is reared up by people. When it is grown up, it becomes harmful and dangerous |
| l14 | Reared up serpent | A small creature (often a worm or a reptile) is brought home and reared up or it becomes to live by itself in an artificial body of water. When big, it goes out of human control or becomes something huge and/or dangerous. Cf. motif L13A (The reared up monster attacks people) |
| 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 |
| l31b | Reptile carries people into the water | People find a snake or a turtle on a dry ground. They touch it or sit on it, stick to it, it carries them into the water |
| l46 | Head downward | Person ascends, descends, walks head downward or sees the world upside down |
| l69 | Puma rescues man from a monster | A man is attacked by a monster but puma or jaguar fights with the monster and rescues the man |
| l75 | Flint kills his mother | One of twin brothers is evil. Being still in the womb, he does not want to be born in a normal way and bursts through his mother’s side killing her |
| m13 | The short-sighted wish is granted | Some person makes a wish not taking in mind that his words can have other meaning or accidentally replacing one word with another. As a result, something quite undesirable takes place |
| m29b2 | The bear is a failure/enemy | Because of its stupidity or unsocial behavior, the bear 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 |