| 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 |
| a12d | Eclipses: birds | A bird or birds attack or shade the Sun or the Moon during an eclipse or at the sunrise and sunset |
| b10 | Drunk out water | 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 |
| 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 |
| 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) |
| b42mn | One hunter chases the sky elk | In the cosmic hunt tale only one hunter (not many) pursues an animal (elk or bear) associated with a circumpolar constellation but not with Orion or the Pleiades. (In Kalevalaic tradition the association with particular sideral objects is absent |
| b42p | Ursa major is a bear | Ursa major is identified with a bear |
| b46 | Big Dipper is seven men | Every one of the seven main stars of the Ursa mayor is a an adult man |
| b46c | Big Dipper is seven persons or animals | Every main star of the Big Dipper is interpreted as a particular person or animal |
| b48 | Predators become herbivorous | Weak or herbivorous animals were dangerous predators but have been transformed |
| b57 | Blood reddens world | When some person or animal is killed, blood paints the sky (origin of the sunrise or sunset, of reddish colors of Aurora borealis) or other natural objects (Moon, autumn vegetation) |
| b71 | Aurora borealis | Aurora borealis is spirits (of the dead) who run holding burning torches, play or fight with each other |
| b78 | Shaking bed makes snowfall | When person or creature shakes himself or itself, shakes his or her bed, clothes, plucks birds, etc., snow falls down to earth |
| b8 | Frog hides the water | Frog hides all the water but other person makes it available for everybody |
| b85 | Wind pacified | Wind is too strong, hero makes it to blow more calmly |
| b85a | Wind regulated | Wind stops to blow (after blowing too much). Person comes to him and creates the desirable balance. Since then, wind blows but usually not too much |
| d4c | Acquisition of summer | Warm season is obtained from its original owners |
| e30 | The make-believe spouse of wood | Person does not have a spouse, uses wooden fakes for his wife or her husband |
| f27 | Girls and the water spirits | For girls and young women it is dangerous to come near water. Water creatures swallow them or drag away; a girl can die or become pregnant from a spirit; she can trigger a flood (rare: other cataclysm). Water spirits can come themselves to a girl who has her periods |
| f34 | Land animal paramour | 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 |
| 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 |
| f74 | Naked person shams dead | When a person sees a dangerous enemy, he or she shams dead taking his or her clothes off, or the enemy takes off them himself. The enemy believes that it is a corpse, lets it alone |
| g18 | Person wants to be sacrificed | A person asks people to abandon him or her in the forest, to burn or drag him or her around the future garden plot, to burn her in her house, etc. People fulfill the person's wish and find cultivated plants growing on the place |
| g20 | Woman turns into plants | Food crops emerge from remains of a woman or girl |
| h18 | Hoarded game released | Game animals were concentrated in one single place. Certain person lets them disperse in the world |
| h20 | Fish disperse in the world | All the fish or (rare) shellfish) was concentrated in one place. Certain person lets it lose or puts it into the rivers or sea |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| i72 | Stars are people | Stars are people, ghosts, anthropomorphic beings (interpretations of unique star objects like Venus or Polaris as persons not considered) |
| i82a | Venus is male | Morning and/or Evening Star is a male personage |
| i86a | Down turns into snow | Snow is created from bird's down when certain bird in the sky shakes itself or certain person shakes his or her clothes made of bird down |
| j41 | Foxes jeer at the abandoned person | When the hero returns home after a long absence, his relation does not believe at first that it is really he because all this time somebody jeered at him or her imitating the hero's voice, telling that the hero is back, etc. |
| j44 | The broken bridge | Person or his helper draws his enemies on the unstable bridge and destroys it. The enemies fall into water, into a precipice |
| j45 | The stretched out leg (crane bridge) | 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 |
| k1e | Marooned on an islet | Person is marooned on an islet or on another side of a sea or wide river |
| 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 |
| k27b | Ordeal: to smoke a pipe | An ordeal: to smoke a huge or poisonous pipe or to remain alive in poisonous smoke |
| 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.) |
| k27o3 | Competition between two teams | Two groups of participants compete in fulfilling difficult tasks or are engaged into the game in which one team plays against another (at least two episodes with different participants from both sides). The participants are either anthropomorphic who possess different extraordinary qualities or they are different animals (natural phenomena, elements, etc.). {Texts in which the main participants are anthropomorphic and competitions are win by animals who accompany the hero are not included} |
| 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 |
| k54 | Two giants | A man meets a dangerous giant (or serpent) who proves to be friendly to him. When another giant fights with the first one, the man helps his friend |
| l15a | Vulnerable place on the body | The only vulnerable spot is near the surface of person’s or creature’s body and not in his inner organs |
| l15a1 | Achilles' heel | Vulnerable place on the body of a person or creature is on his or her foot (toe, heel, sole, ankle) |
| l15b | To kill with a reed | Person can be killed only with a particular plant that normally is not used as a weapon |
| l15c | Hero lies and remains unharmed | Dangerous person tells simple-heartedly what he is afraid of giving the hero a good opportunity to scare him |
| l15c1 | The antagonist is defeated because he tells truth | Dangerous person tells simple-heartedly what he is afraid of or what particular object is the receptacle of his life giving the hero a good opportunity to scare or to kill him |
| l1b | Bear-woman and her sister | A young woman turns into monstrous bear. She kills most of the people besides her younger sister (Ojibwa: younger sister of her former husband). Their brothers return from a hunt, kill the bear or she dies pursuing them |
| l33 | Rolling stone | Stone chases people to crash them |
| l33b | Trickster provokes a rock | Person suggests to another who looks like being unable to move (rock, stump, fire) a race competition or provokes this object to roll towards him. The competitor becomes to move, burns or crashes the person or runs away with his clothes |
| l33c | Rock crashes trickster | Trickster and rock agree to race down slope. The rock rolls with ever greater speed and crashes the trickster |
| l65d | Younger sister of cannibal woman | When the elder sister becomes a cannibal, the younger one (temporarily) escapes. Cf. motifs L1B, L65C |
| 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 |
| l72b | Whetstone becomes a mountain | 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| m12 | The unlucky hunter | Not to return home empty-handed, a hunter or (rare) a fisherman cuts off a piece of flesh from his body (usually from his calf) or (more rare) extracts his blood or entrails. Usually he brings his flesh or blood to other people pretending that is a good game or fish; or a woman cuts off a piece of flesh from her calf to feed her husband |
| m23 | Mock plea | Person or creature pretends to be afraid of a particular sort of treatment that really cannot do him any harm |
| m24 | Turtle’s war party | Turtle goes to war and/or is captured by enemies |
| m24a | Turtle kills a woman | Turtle goes to war, kills people (usually a woman), is caught and killed but continues to live in its animal guise |
| m29g | Trickster-hare or rabbit | In episodes related to deception, absurd, obscene or anti-social behavior the protagonist is hare or rabbit |
| m29k | The turtle (tortoise, toad, frog) wins thanks to his smartness | Being smart and persistent, the turtle (toad, frog) overcomes strong adversaries |
| m29q | Trickster is a racoon | In episodes related to deception, absurd, obscene or anti-social behavior the protagonist is a racoon |
| m38 | Stupid imitation (all versions) | Person sees how others act using magic or according to their animal nature. He or she imitates their actions and gets into trouble. Actions are not heroic deeds, competitions or tests and refer to everyday activity, mostly to providing and cooking food |
| m38a | The bungling host | Being on a visit to other people or (more often) animals, an (animal)-person sees them act using magic or according to their animal nature. Back at home, he imitates their actions and gets in trouble. Actions are not heroic deeds, competitions or tests and mostly refer to providing and cooking food |
| m42 | Eyes: taken out of orbits and lost | Person loses his eyes because of his playfulness or negligence. He makes new eyes of some substance or/and takes eyes of another person |
| m5 | Provoked insult | Being in a situation when his life depends on a good will of a demon or animal, person either resists or does not resist the temptation to insult or to beat, bite, etc. the latter |
| m62a | Quarrel provoked by action [not in correlation table] | Hero imperceptibly causes detriment to two persons or creatures. They accuse each other and fight |