| 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 |
| b48 | Predators become herbivorous | Weak or herbivorous animals were dangerous predators but have been transformed |
| b82 | The white raven | Raven or other carrion-eating bird of dark color and a similar size was originally white |
| b92 | Flint person turns into flints | Person whose body is extraordinary hard and invulnerable or (rare) a small object is broken to pieces that turn into flints or other hard stones (the origin of flints) |
| c19 | Acquisition of the sun | The Sun (the day light) that was absent, stolen or hidden appears (again) |
| d4a | Theft of fire | Fire is stolen from its original owner or brought back to the people from somebody who had stolen it before |
| d4e | Coyote or fox obtain fire | Coyote or fox bring people the fire, the daylight or the Sun |
| d4m | Fire owners dance | Person comes to the owners of fire or light. They feast and dance. He joins them and in a proper moment carries away the valuables |
| 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 |
| f35a | Feeding with the kin’s meat | Person does not know that he or she eats or cooks the meat of the member of his or her household (blood relation, more rare a spouse or servant) or serves it to his or her friends, or uses her or his bones for everyday needs, or slowly kills him ort her |
| f36 | Sons kill paramour | The (adoptive) children or grandchildren and not person's spouse or brother kill the paramour of their (step)mother or father |
| f93 | The talking penis | After a man commits some act, his penis begins to speak (often: repeats all his words) |
| f93a | The talking penis and mother-in-law | A man's member speaks and can be silenced only by his mother-in-law |
| h10 | Stone sinks, stick floats | People are mortal because stone thrown into the water sank. They have missed a chance to be like wood or other organic matter that floated |
| h18 | Hoarded game released | Game animals were concentrated in one single place. Certain person lets them disperse in the world |
| h18a | Pup lets animals lose | The owner of game animals conceals them underground. One of the ancestors turns into pup, is adopted by owners' children, lets the animals lose |
| h36ff | Death and the raven | Raven is responsible for introduction of permanent death |
| h54b | The glance of death | Person’s glance brings death (and destruction) |
| 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 |
| i117 | Spider ferries from one world to another | Spider person raises the hero to the sky, helps him or her to return back to earth or otherwise helps to overcome the borderlines between worlds |
| i13a | The horned serpent | Giant water-chthonic or sky serpent or dragon has horns or antlers on its head |
| i25 | The bribed guards | Way to the place of a certain person is guided by dangerous creatures (which often stand on the both sides of the pathway). Person placates them by gifts or nice talk, and they let him or her go the both ways, sometimes being punished for this by their master |
| i9 | Colors of the cardinal directions | Four cardinal directions and/or some objects associated with them are associated with different colors |
| 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 |
| j26 | Babies come out of the water | Baby heroes, embryos or objects from which they emerge are found in a river or lake or come to people out of the water |
| j27 | Lodge-boy and Thrown-away | A small boy (several babies) was thrown away, born by the dead woman, lives in the water (in forest, etc.). Another boy lives with his father or mother. Ultimately the first boy comes to live in the locus of the second one. Often (see motif j25, Babies escape and return) during some time the boy who lives in the wilderness meets secretly with his brother (with other children, with pups that had been fed up by his mother) who lives with the people |
| j4a | Revenge for the death of the mother | A woman is murdered. Her son or children (rare: grandchildren, nephews) revenge for her death |
| k12 | Woman is lost and returned | By trick or by force, a rival or adversary kidnaps hero's wife or bride. The man gets her back |
| k176 | A man in search of the woman | A (young) man sets off to find or to return his bride or his wife |
| k1f | Conflict because of a woman | A man maroons another because of jealousy or because he plans to take hold of his wife |
| 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 |
| k27n | Difficult tasks of the in-laws | A man must fulfill difficult tasks (to win competition) to receive the permission for a marriage |
| k27n1 | Task-giver is a king or a chief | Person who gives difficult tasks to the hero and/or person who demands the fulfillment of certain conditions from those who want to marry his daughter is a prominent figure in social hierarchy. He is a head of the socio-political unit of community or super-community level and is neither a member of the hero’s household nor a mythical being |
| k27v | To hit a bird with an arrow (stone) | Person must kill a bird with an arrow or a stone |
| k3 | Tree or rock grows taller | Hero climbs up a tree or rock to get eggs, nestlings, fruits, honey, etc. Another person makes the tree (rock) grow higher or thicker and the hero is unable to descend back |
| 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 |
| k64 | Escape from Polyphemos’ cave | Person gets into dwelling of master of animals or monstrous shepherd. The host can kill him. The hero escapes sticking to hair of one of the animals who are going out |
| k8c3 | Not from your mouth but through your side | One (animal) person refuses to use different body parts of another besides the only one the use of which causes another’s death |
| k8c4 | Elk dies after swallowing mouse | A mouse, a small bird, a porcupine or other animal (rare: person) of a small size gets inside a big ungulate (elk, deer, buffalo, tapir) to kill (and then usually to eat) him |
| k93b5 | A stratagem: hero turns into pup or kitten | Person gets into the place of his antagonists acquiring guise of a pup or a kitten. Usually one of his adversaries suspects the deception but other think that the animal is nice and harmless |
| l28 | The snake-eater | Person who have eaten a prohibited meat or fish turns into monstrous snake or fish |
| 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. |
| l9 | Sharp body members | Body members of a person has the form of cutting or piercing weapon |
| l9a | Sharp leg | Person's leg is injured intentionally or by chance. The loss of one leg does not bother him. He uses the sharpened bone as a thrust weapon |
| m11c | Person gets lard from his body | A male person cuts or roasts his own body to extract meat, lard or blood, cooks it and serves to his guest without injuring himself. Such a food is not considered to be unclean |
| m29b | Trickster-fox, jackal or coyote | In episodes related to deception, absurd, obscene or anti-social behavior the protagonist is fox, jackal or coyote |
| 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 |
| m29r | Trickster is a porcupine | In episodes related to deception, absurd, obscene or anti-social behavior the protagonist is a porcupine |
| 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 |
| m40 | The distorted instructions | Person is sent to receive something of relatively low value. He asks to give him quite different object (to provide a service) and asks one who had sent him to confirm the demand. Usually a person or animal comes to a wife or a son of a powerful one and tells her or him that her (his) husband or father tells to give him food, to make love to him, to marry him, etc. |
| 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 |
| m51 | Meat in a tree | One of two animal-persons kills game. In the absence of the stronger one, the weaker one hides the meat to eat it alone later |
| m52 | Butchered carcass | A small animal (not a predator) or a weak person kills a big game. He asks another (animal-)person to skin or butcher the carcass. The latter is willing but takes or tries to take all the meat for himself |
| 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 |
| m54 | Runway awakes in the same house | A man runs away from the house of powerful person but in the morning awakens in the same house again |
| 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 |
| m59a | Porcupine waiting for ferryman | Porcupine asks other animal to ferry him across river, rejects different places to sit, occupies a place where he can easily kill the animal after crossing the river and really kills him
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| 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 |
| m65b | The lost quarry | Person kills game (usually by deception), gets to see how thieves carry it away but is unable to intervene |
| m75 | Valuables taken off the vultures | Person attracts and catches the carrion-eaters (usually some birds) and thanks to this obtains valuables retrieves valuables (fire, woman, animals, etc.) |
| 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 |