| Motif | Name | Description |
| 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) |
| a32b | The Moon toad | Frog or toad are seen in the moon or the Moon is associated with them |
| a32b1 | Jumps on the face of the Moon | A woman sits (jumps) on the face (back) of the Moon man and now is seen as the shadows on the lunar disc |
| a40 | The Sun or Moon marry toad | Frog or Toad is a wife of the Sun or Moon |
| a5 | The Sun and the Moon are males | The Moon is male, the Sun is also male or (much more rare) asexual |
| 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 |
| b29 | Eschatological feast | People turn into animals, birds or stones at a feast, after the feast, after performing a ritual or after a victory over dangerous enemy |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| b44a | Council on seasons: units of time | Animals (Melanesia: persons) discuss the number of discrete units of time that should be in a certain calendar period or in the night |
| b44c | Should warmth and light exist? | It is discussed if darkness or light, cold or warm periods should exist |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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) |
| 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) |
| c6c | The diver is a bird | An aquatic bird dives and brings the desired object from the bottom |
| c6c1 | Birds: successful and unsuccessful divers | Two or more different birds (often a loon and a duck) dive one after another to get earth from under the ocean. Only one of them is successful |
| c6c4 | The duck is successful diver | The duck (or an aquatic bird similar to the duck) dives and brings a piece of earth that is transformed into the dry land (it 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) |
| d4c | Acquisition of summer | Warm season is obtained from its original owners |
| d4n | Person weeps asking for summer | A boy or (among the Kutenai) a woman weeps, asking for an element that is absent, i.e. for summer, fire, or rain |
| d5 | Woman as the owner of the fire | Female person is the owner or inventor (but not the personification) of the fire |
| d5a | Fire in woman’s genitals | First fire was hidden in genitals or anus of a woman |
| e9c | Ungulate animal-wife | A man marries a woman who initially has guise of an ungulate animal (buffalo, elk, derr, etc.) |
| f10 | Vaginal teeth knocked out | Woman has another toothed mouth (usually in vagina) or biting animals in vagina. Man inserts there a stone, bone, stick, etc. breaking or knocking out the teeth or extracting from there dangerous animals |
| f15 | Person’s penis sticks out of the ground | Person sticks out of the ground his penis that looks like a plant (provoking a woman to sit on it) |
| f21 | Woman turns into a tree, penis captured | Man copulates with a woman who turns into tree or rock, his penis is captured in it |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| f55a | To put an object on her naked body (the demon and the woman) | A demon forces a woman to show him a particular part of her body because certain object should be put only there. He kills the woman pulling this part of her body out. Usually the woman serves or names different places and the demon rejects each one before the the place he wants is opened |
| f56 | Watching vagina triggers incest | A man or boy thinks about incest when he gets to see his daughter(-in-law)'s, sister's, or mother(in-law)'s vagina |
| f63 | Trickster poses as woman and marries man | A male person turns into woman and marries a man. He is either unmasked or abandons his "husband" by his own will |
| f64 | The lecherous parent | Person changes his or (rare) her guise to marry his or her close relative in descending or (rare) ascending line |
| f64a | Describes future husband | Going away or pretending to die, a person bids his or her relative to marry another person who resembles him (her) or has some special traits; or he describes a man who should be met as a dear guest; person comes himself unrecognized and is taken for one whom he had described |
| 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.) |
| 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 |
| f82 | Incest with mother-in-law | A man uses a trick to have opportunity to make love to his mother-in-law or woman uses a trick to make love to her son-in-law. Usually a man takes with him on a hunt not his wife but her mother |
| f9 | A dangerous woman | For different reasons, sexual contact with a woman is deadly dangerous for a man |
| f92 | Homosexual play | A male person is tricked into being used sexually by another man |
| 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 |
| f9a | Vagina dentata | There are teeth, blades or sharp stones in woman’s genitals, vagina is the biting mouth. (Only texts that are believed to correspond to reality are considered but not anecdotes and jokes) |
| g2 | The return of Persephone | Person who is the incarnation of fertility and life first disappears and then (reriodically) returns |
| h18 | Hoarded game released | Game animals were concentrated in one single place. Certain person lets them disperse in the world |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| i105 | The celestial hand | One of constellations represents a hand with fingers |
| 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) |
| i22b | Birds fly to the outer world | Migratory birds (or shamans in guise of birds) fly from our world to the outer world through the narrow opening, between clashing rocks, under the edge of the sky which is rising and falling, etc. Many birds perish; and/or the person who lives at this place feeds on these birds; the person can be mistress of birds, lives on another side of the pulsating obstacle |
| i22h | The pulsating precipice | Person must jump over a crevise or precipice under his feet that is widening and narrowing all the time or a river which becomes now wide, now narrow |
| i24 | A snake bridge | Snake, lizard or worm is a bridge or a rope over the river |
| i27b | Dog as a ferryman | A dog ferries person across a river that forms a border between the worlds |
| 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 |
| i6 | Weather birds | A man meets a giant bird that brings with it clouds, rain, hail, thunderstorm, etc. |
| i6a | Male and female birds: different kinds of precipitation | The male and the female birds bring with them different kinds of precipitations (e.g. the male comes with a hail, the female with a rain). Or (Buryats of Mongolia) one and the same bird brings different kinds of precipitations depending on is it angry or not. |
| i82a | Venus is male | Morning and/or Evening Star is a male personage |
| i83 | The sky of birds | Birds, first of all vultures and eagles, live in the sky, usually at one or more layers of the upper world |
| i85b | Polaris is a person | Polaris is a person |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| j19 | Wicked guest murders woman | When husband o brother leaves home to hunt, an evil spirit comes to his wife or sister. The spirit kills her or carries her away. Her baby boys extracted from her womb or born at this time survive |
| j19a | To serve food on the abdomen | A demonic person visits a woman when she remains alone. He or she claims that needs a particular part of her body to complete a particular act that is against logic and custom. After this the demon kills the woman (extracts a child from her abdomen, pulls out her tongue) |
| j19b | Belly burned through | An evil spirit kills a woman burning her belly through |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| j39 | Who killed a rabbit? | Antagonist makes a girl or a woman his or her slave. The slave's brothers or sons secretly come to her, kill for her some small game. Woman tries to pursue the antagonist that she herself killed the game |
| j40b | Avenged prisoners | After the hero comes back after a long absence and finds his parents enslaved, he tells them to demonstrate openly a lack of respect to their masters and punishes those who were cruel with them |
| j4a | Revenge for the death of the mother | A woman is murdered. Her son or children (rare: grandchildren, nephews) revenge for her death |
| j59 | Following arrow to get to the sky | To climb to the sky, person must first to shoot an arrow that reaches the sky and sticks to it |
| j59a | Flight after the arrow | Shooting and an arrow (rare: throwing a ball), person flies on it, after it or ahead of it or sends on the arrow another person |
| 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) |
| k22 | Dwarfs and cranes | Different from (common) people inhabitants of a distant land fight from time to time with non-human enemies who periodically attack them |
| k22b | Man helps inhabitants of other world | Inhabitants of a distant land who have different nature than (normal) human beings struggle from time to time with some non-human enemies. Man helps local dwellers because their enemies are not dangerous for the human beings |
| k23 | Battle with birds | Birds attack the inhabitants of a distant land or a man who had got to this land |
| k25b | Woman pursues a porcupine and gets to the sky | Pursuing a porcupine, woman climbs a tree and gets to the upper world |
| k25d | Prohibited bulb in the sky | Person gets to the sky, makes hole through the firmament digging out a root. Usually woman's husband or his kinsmen warn her against digging out a special bulb or tuber; breaking taboo, she gets to see the earth, decides to descend |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| k27m | To get an animal of unusual color | The hero must kill and bring an animal of special (often unusual) color or form |
| k27n3c | Task-giver is a zoomorphic being | Person who gives difficult tasks to the hero is associated with an animal, a bird or a fish |
| k27s | Contest: a race | Contest: a race |
| k27w | Monster brought by the hero kills the task-giver | Task-giver asks to bring him dangerous being or object possessed by a moster or deity. Hero fulfills the task. The beast, monster, deity or the object itself kills the task-giver |
| 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 |
| 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) |
| k37 | Recognition-test | To return or to get his or her son, wife, husband, domestic animal or (rare) object, person must recognize her, him or it among several identical persons, animals or objects |
| k37a | To recognize a man | Person must recognize her (or his) son or husband among several identical persons or animals |
| k38b | The nestlings and the aggressive snake | A serpent or water monster regularly devours or injures children of a bird or other flying creature (almost always nestlings of giant bird). The hero kills the serpent (monster) |
| k38b2 | Birds carries hero to its place, hero kills the monster | Somebody (almost always a giant bird) carries/brings a man to its place where he kills a monster who regularly devoured his children (usually the nestlings) |
| k38b4 | Serpent comes out of the water | Powerful bird has its nest on the tree that stands in or nearby the body of water. The serpent (reptilian monster) comes out of it to devour the nestlings |
| 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 |
| k50 | False wife beheads enemy | A man disguised as a woman comes to his enemy and kills him at night (usually cuts off and carries away his head) |
| k51b | The killed ones smile | Bodies of the killed ones are put in such a position as if they are in a good mood (smile, laugh, dance) |
| k70 | Two sisters-in-law: the girl and the frog | One brother marries a girl, another a frog or toad, both bring them to their parents, or one man takes two wives, a woman and a frog. Both wives have to pass a test. Values of the girl are highly assessed, the frog’s poor qualities are revealed |
| 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) |
| 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 |
| l103 | Obstacle flight (Atalanta type) | Treasure, or the like, is thrown back to tempt pursuer to delay |
| 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 |
| l17b | Two faces | Person or creature has another face (another mouth) on the back of his (her, its) head |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| l1b1 | Demonic woman and her brothers | A woman gets into conflict with her brothers and turns into dangerous demon |
| l1c | Fugitives turn into stars | 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 |
| l28 | The snake-eater | Person who have eaten a prohibited meat or fish turns into monstrous snake or fish |
| 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 |
| l33 | Rolling stone | Stone chases people to crash them |
| l33a | Rock pursues stealer | Trickster takes off an object (often a blanket) that lies on or near a rock or other seemingly inanimate object and that has been presented to it. The object pursues or otherwise punishes the stealer |
| l33e | Presented blanket | Trickster takes a blanket or decorations which are a property of Rock or other seemingly inanimate object (usually the same trickster presented this blanket to Rock before) |
| l33f | Goatsucker breaks Rock | Rolling rock pursues person. The person cries for help, and goatsucker breaks Rock to pieces |
| l51 | Victims thrown to water creatures | A cannibal, a bush spirit or a dangerous animal throws his victims into the precipice where water creatures devour them |
| l53 | Stones into the maw | A monstrous being is killed or neutralized by (burning hot) stones (pieces of metal, heavy fruits, etc.) thrown into its maw or anus or the being retreats when they menace to throw a stone into its maw |
| l65d | Younger sister of cannibal woman | When the elder sister becomes a cannibal, the younger one (temporarily) escapes. Cf. motifs L1B, L65C |
| l66 | Tunnel under the monster | A small animal digs an underground hole to the place where the monstrous stag, elk, antelope, or buffalo lies. Hero climbs along the tunnel and kills the monster |
| l68 | Two companions in the night | Person turns into monster at night when he remains alone with his companion in the wilderness |
| l72f | Obstacle flight: the thrown entrails | Running away from a dangerous being, person throws entrails or contents of the stomach of an animal creating an obstacle on the way of the pursuer |
| l9 | Sharp body members | Body members of a person has the form of cutting or piercing weapon |
| l91 | Long serpent | Two or four boys go to war or are on their way home. A long serpent-like creature blocks the passage, they cannot find a path around it and burn it through. One eats its roasted meat and turns into serpent himself or dies |
| 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 |
| m28 | Icarus (failed attempt to fly on artificial wings) | Acquiring possibility to fly, person ultimately falls to the ground or remains in a faraway place being unable to fly any more |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| m44c | Thieves of food: a young hero | A boy or young man comes to steal food of a person who is elder than he. Usually he is caught but not punished and invited to live with the elder person |
| 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 |
| m53c | Red eyes | Trickster suggests water fowl to dance around him with their eyes shut, kills them one by one. He warns that eyes of a bird who would open them become red. In some versions, the bird who opened its eyes got them really red |
| 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
|
| 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 |
| m65a | Squeaking tree | Trees squeak in the wind. Trickster hears a noise, climbs up the tree and is caught between limbs |
| m65b | The lost quarry | Person kills game (usually by deception), gets to see how thieves carry it away but is unable to intervene |
| 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 |
| m67 | Trickster gone with a wind | Imprudent trickster produces wind that carries him away |
| m86 | Rock punishes trickster | Rock chases or otherwise punishes person who has offended it (usually deceived it or has taken objects that belong to Rock) |
| m8d | Birds break body covering | Birds work hard to peck through the substance that covers some beings' body or to reach its entrails |