| Motif | Name | Description |
| a1 | The old sun | Another sun, usually less benevolent and/or powerful, existed before the present one |
| a3 | Male sun and female moon | The Moon is female or bisexual, the Sun is male |
| 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 |
| a32e | Person with an object in hands | Person who holds some object in his or her hands is seen in the moon (rare: in the sun) |
| a32f | Water-carrier in the Moon | Person who went to fetch water and/or holds in hands a container for liquid is seen in the moon |
| a38 | The Sun caught in snare | Person prepares a snare, loop, noose, etc. to catch the Sun and/or the Sun is caught in a snare, tied by a rope, etc. |
| a38b | Mouse gnaws snare open | After the Sun is caught into snare only mouse, shrew or other small animal is able to cut it open |
| a38c | The Sun’s cloak | A boy or a girl has a cloak. The Sun spoils it or gives instead a better one |
| b101 | Slashes on birch bark | Angry against the birch, person beats or cuts it, whence scratches and slashes on its bark |
| b36a | Two creatures decorate each other | Two zoomorphic personages decorates each other or somebody decorates each of them |
| b36c | Fat animals | Animals get meat and fat extracted from some original creature or created otherwise. Some get a lot, some remain lean |
| b37 | Creatures are made appear as they are now | Person decorates different birds (rare: fish), share fat between anomals. Since then, the corresponding species acquire present characteristics |
| 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 |
| b38e | Tail base of the loon | Person kicks loon or other water bird. Since then this bird has flat tail base and it walks on dry land with difficulty |
| 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 |
| b50 | Whose blood is sweeter? | An insect feeds on human blood (flesh). Dangerous person asks it where it had sucked blood or whose blood (flesh) is the most delicious. Usually the insect lies or cannot answer (its tongue is cut off) and thanks to this dangerous person attacks certain plants or animals and not people |
| b82 | The white raven | Raven or other carrion-eating bird of dark color and a similar size was originally white |
| b96 | The antagonist turns into sturgent | The heroe's enemy turns into a big fish (usually a sturgent) or (rare) a water mammal that are fished or hunted by people |
| b97 | Grateful person makes the bird pretty | Grateful person decorates (rare: punishes) a bird who lives near water (kingfisher, loon, goose), thence its appearance (crest, beak, feathers) |
| b97a | The necklace of bird or animal | A strip of light or dark feathers or hair on the neck of a bird or animal is its necklace |
| c38 | People are coming soon | Those who inhabited the world in the time of creation were saying that real people were to come and so they had to do this and that |
| 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) |
| c6b | The diver is muskrat (otter, beaver) | A muskrat (more rare beaver or otter) brings the desired object from under the water |
| 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) |
| d4a | Theft of fire | Fire is stolen from its original owner or brought back to the people from somebody who had stolen it before |
| d4h1 | Robin obtains fire | A small singing bird (robim, wren) steals fire for people |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| f64 | The lecherous parent | Person changes his or (rare) her guise to marry his or her close relative in descending or (rare) ascending line |
| 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 |
| f65c | The feigned burial: boy exposes deceit | A man feigns death to marry his daughter or to eat burial food. One of the younger children recognizes the (adoptive) father or gets to see that the false dead is alive (escapes from the burial pyre, laughs, etc.) |
| h37a | Jump over brushwood kindles fire | Person gives a trickster ability to kindle fire easily. He uses it without need, it is lost |
| i106 | Ursa major is a person | Ursa major is only one anthropomorphic being, not several persons |
| i13a | The horned serpent | Giant water-chthonic or sky serpent or dragon has horns or antlers on its head |
| 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 |
| j1 | The vengeful heroes | Persons avenge the death of their father, mother or other relatives who are one (rare two) generations older than they |
| j25 | Babies escape and return | Heroes (usually one or two), being still babies or embryos, escape or are thrown away, often into the water. To bring them back into the human world, they are lured (persuaded) to come out or caught with difficulty |
| j4 | Revenge for the death of the male relatives | Heroes avenge the murder or captivity of the male relatives: (grand)father, uncles, or the elder relatives in general, the loss of the males being the most traumatic |
| j40 | Enemy from the sky | Beings who live in the sky descend to kill people. Usually such a being carries away to its world a person or many people (or person's cut off head or limb). The hero (usually a relation of the perished one) revenges on the dangerous being and/or brings back the victim or victims (his or her head, etc.) |
| 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. |
| j41a | Son transforms mother into a bird | When hero returns, he finds his mother being tormented during his absence and transforms her (and usually himself) into a certain bird |
| j41b | Son returns and burns tormentors using magic | When hero returns and finds his mother being tormented during his absence, he burns the tormentors producing fire and heat by magic |
| j46 | Enemy drowns | Antagonist perishes falling into the water or trying to cross a water body |
| k176 | A man in search of the woman | A (young) man sets off to find or to return his bride or his wife |
| k18 | Infant picks out his unknown father | A boy is born whose father or (rare) mother is unknown. He himself points at his parent who as a rule occupies the lowest social position. Usually many men (women) come together and everyone hopes that the boy points at him (her) |
| k18aa | Pregnancy because of the non-sexual contact | A girl becomes pregnant without her knowledge thanks to the contact with body liquids of a male person or with objects touched by him (not because of the normal sexual contact, or a wish expressed by the father of her future child, or her mistical contact with a deity). The happy marriage of the girl with her child’s father follows |
| k18c | Urinates at his father’s arms | A baby boy has to recognize his father among many men. When his father takes him, the boy urinates at his arms |
| k1e | Marooned on an islet | Person is marooned on an islet or on another side of a sea or wide river |
| k1j | A marooned man returns home before his adversary | A man marooned on an islet or rock in the sea turns into a bird and flies home. When the man who marooned him comes home, the hero is already there |
| 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 |
| k27e | Eating or drinking contest | Person or animal must eat (drink) enormous quantity of food (beverage) or eat or drink poisonous beverage or food |
| k27n | Difficult tasks of the in-laws | A man must fulfill difficult tasks (to win competition) to receive the permission for a marriage |
| k27y | To get material for making bow and arrows | Hero is sent or sets off by his own will to get two or more different materials needed for making bow and arrows (wood or reed for shafts, feathers, tendons for string, flint for points, paint to paint the shafts, gum to stick points to the shafts) |
| k27yy1 | To get feathers of a dangerous bird | Hero brings a feather (feathers) of a dangerous bird |
| k34 | Fatal swing | Person kills others inviting them to sit on a swing and launching them into water, on rocks, etc. |
| 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 |
| k67 | Burned moccasins | Two men spend a night in a forest, take their moccasins or clothes off usually to dry them near the fire. One plans to burn the moccasins or the clothes of another at night. The latter imperceptible interchange their things and the first man burns his own property |
| 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 |
| 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) |
| k8d | Jonah: swallowed by anthropomorphic being | Person (often an animal-person) gets into the belly of anthropomorphic being. He kills it from the inside and/or returns to earth by himself (i.e. not extracted by other people) |
| k8e | Getting inside via anus | Person or animal gets into another being through its anus |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| l5c | Rolling head is a dangerous monster | Rolling head is a dangerous mobster (pursues celestial bodies, people etc.) |
| 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 |
| l72h | Obstacle flight: the thrown fire-stone | Running away from a dangerous being, person throws a tool (fire-stone, matches, tinder) creating an obstacle on the way of the pursuer. (A flint is considered as a fire-producing tool and ignored as a hard stone that turns into mountain or rock) |
| l86 | Demonic mother pursues her children | A woman turns into demon and pursues her children |
| l9 | Sharp body members | Body members of a person has the form of cutting or piercing weapon |
| l99 | Bring me a spit to roast you! | An ogre sends a man to bring him a roasting stick and/or firewood to cook him. The man intentionally does it slowly, brings unfit objects An ogre sends a man to bring a roasting stick and/or firewood to cook him. The man intentionally does it slowly, brings unfit objects or a an animal helps him to escape |
| l9b | Elbow-knives | Person's sharp elbows or (rare) knees are like awls or knives |
| m22 | Helpful stock | A long-necked bird living near water (stork, heron, bittern, swan) saves person from dangerous pursuer |
| m29a | Trickster-raven | In episodes related to deception, absurd, obscene or anti-social behavior the protagonist is raven |
| m29f | Wolverine is a failure | Because of its stupidity and unsocial behavior, the wolverine suffers a reverse, is injured or dies |
| m29k1 Not used in statistics | The turtle (toad, frog) is a tricky failure | A turtle (tortoise, toad, frog) behaves foolishly creating serious problems for himself |
| 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 |
| m30a | Person defecates on a trickster | Trickster who flies over a village falls to the ground. They bind him and defecate on him |
| m30c | Flying person falls down after breaking taboo | Person flies across the air but falls down when, despite warning, looks down to earth, flies above villages, becomes to talk, etc. |
| m32 | Anus opened | Food or liquid that person swallows are immediately pouring out from his bottom part |
| m32a | Eating pieces of flesh that fall out | Person's intestines or pieces of flesh from his bottom part fall out. He eats them up taking for a good meat or fat |
| m4 | A wrong step | Crossing a body of water or descending a tree, person steps on an certain part of a body of an animal or on a certain animal that have made a chain (usually despite warning that he should not do it) and falls down or drowns as a result |
| m41 | The eye-juggler | Person plays throwing his eyes or (Alaska Athabascans) his tooth up or away. Eyes or tooth first come back to eye sockets or mouth but eventually are lost |
| 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 |
| m42b | Eyes of gum | Person loses his eyes, makes new ones of gum and is able to see again (though usually not well) |
| 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 |
| m53b | Bag with songs | Trickster pretends to have songs in his bag |
| m59 | Treacherous rider kills ferry animal | A small animal asks bigger one to bring him across the stream, rejects one by one all possible places to sit; finds the position that lets him kill the big animal after crossing the stream |
| 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 |
| m62b | Trying to hit the hero hit each other | Two or more personages direct their weapons against the hero who is between them but hit each other |
| m65 | Trickster jammed, meat stolen | Trickster cooks meat that he got by deception but is unexpectedly jammed between trees or stuck to a stone. An animal (usually fox, wolf or coyote) steals all the meat |
| m66 | Itch after artichoke eating | After eating certain plant, small animal, or rubbing it over his body, person suffers from itch, diarrhea, or from breaking wind |
| m68 | Breaking wind scares game | Because of his own obstinacy, person suffers of breaking wind permanently and starves because a loud noise produced by him scaring game |
| m69 | Getting fast in an animal skull | Small animals or insects dance or feast inside a big animal skull or food is there. Person inserts his head into the skull and cannot take it out for a long time |
| m75a | Revenge for falling from the sky | Vulture suggests person to carry him in the sky but drops to earth. The person attracts vulture to revenge on him. Or the vulture drops the person (or abandons him on a high rock) to revenge on him for his attempt to catch him |
| m80 | Quail scares trickster | Person insults a partridge-like bird, kills or injures her chickens. The partridge scares him, he falls, usually into a river or lake |
| m81 | Blind persons | A man travels and comes to two or several blind (usually old) persons |
| m90 | Snake gives a correct answer of what material the object is made | Somebody suggests to guess what sort of material a certain object is made of. Another person (usually a monster) gets to know the secret and the hero or the heroin must do what they have promised |
| m93 | Body part as a guard | Before falling asleep, person tells his eyes (which he extracts and puts aside) or his anus to awake him in case of danger. Eyes or anus do not make an alarm or person himself does not react to it. As a result he suffers a damage |
| m93a | Guard punished | Person punishes the part of his body which he selected as his guard for the time of his sleep or absence (he burns his buttocks, breaks eyes) |
| m93a | Guard punished | Person punishes the part of his body which he selected as his guard for the time of his sleep or absence (he burns his buttocks, breaks eyes) |
| m97 | The blind is directed by trees | Person is lost or becomes blind. He walks asking different trees their names and makes decisions according to their answers reaching ultimately his destination |
| m97a2 | The blind person asks trees their names to find his was to the water | The blind person walks asking different trees their names and thus finds his way to the water |