| Motif | Name | Description |
| a17 | The Sun’s relax at the midday | After passing half of the its way across the sky (in the day time) or in the underworld (in the night time), the Sun stops to have a rest |
| a21 | Luminaries are objects fixed in the sky | The sun and/or the moon are inanimate objects thrown up to the sky or fixed in the sky |
| a22c | Person sacrificed to the Sun | To make the Sun rise above the horizon, to send him to the right distance from the earth, to make him move across the sky, etc. a person has to be sacrificed |
| a23 | Elections of the Sun to be | The primeval ancestors come together to choose the best candidate to become the Sun and/or to send the Sun to the sky or to see how the Sun rises to the sky for the first time |
| a27 | Crowns of the Sun and Moon | Light and/or heat of the Sun and/or Moon originate from their crowns, necklaces or clothes (of feathers, of animal teeth) |
| 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 |
| a5 | The Sun and the Moon are males | The Moon is male, the Sun is also male or (much more rare) asexual |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| b52a | Vulture creates the landscape | Flying above the earth and flapping its wings, a bird (usually a vulture) makes it dry after the flood or otherwise creates present landscape |
| b69 | Chipmunk's back scratched: hence his stripes | To thank or to punish a small mammal like chipmunk or (ground) squirrel, animal or person scratches or paints it producing stripes on its back |
| b77 | Primeval sky close to earth | Originally the sky was close to the earth, then it has risen up |
| 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 |
| b85b | Bag of winds | Wind was or is in a particular enclosure (bag, cave, etc.). It was released from it or comes out from time to time |
| b86 | Babylonian tower | To reach the sky (the Sun, Moon, particular star), people build a ladder or tower that consists of separate modules (bricks, logs, sticks, etc.). This construction collapses |
| c10 | The flood: the wet tails | During the flood birds or animals escape to some place (mountain, tree, boat, sky). Tips of their tails or other body parts get covered with water or foam and acquire their present color and form |
| c14 | Monsters destroy people | During or before the world catastrophe (deluge, darkness) wild beasts and monsters attack and destroy people |
| c2 | Deluge and conflagration combined | Inhabitans of the Middle World are (partly) destroyed (or will be destoyed) once by fire or draught, another time by a flood or the world is destroyed with a flood of fire or boiling water |
| 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 |
| c7 | The flood: breaking the dam | In the beginning of times or after the flood a dam of earth, person or creature does not let water to recede. The dam is broken or opened, waters withdraw |
| d1 | Female spirit of fire | Fire is personified as an (elder) woman, alone or with her husband, master of fire |
| d4a | Theft of fire | Fire is stolen from its original owner or brought back to the people from somebody who had stolen it before |
| d9 | Fire and vulture | Raven or other big dark-feathered bird scavenger is the owner, personification, spouse, obtainer or stealer of fire, daylight, or the Sun |
| e14a | Masks represent the killed demons | People prepare ritual costumes and masks coping the features from the real demons whom they have killed |
| e1b | Person of unfit materials | Certain person is made of improper material and proves to be short-lived or unfit for fulfilling his functions |
| e35 | Webbed fingers | First people or people made by Creator's rival were imperfect, not completely anthropomorphic (often: had webbed fingers) |
| e4 | Creation from dirt of the skin | Supernatural person creates the entire earth, human or other beings of dirt taken from his or her skin, from under the nails, etc. |
| e5a | Mankind ascends from the underworld | The first people (or only the first men or the first women) are not created but come to earth from the underworld (from a cave) or from a small enclosure under the earth or on its surface (tree trunk, rock, gourd, etc.). Many people of both sexes and of different ages or people and different species of animals come out together |
| 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 |
| f18a | The long penis | Penis is so long that he can turn it round his waist or send into a woman who is at a long distance from him. (Only texts considered to describe real events and beings and not anecdotes are included) |
| 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 |
| f28b | Penis of wax | Certain woman masturbates with a penis made of wax, gourd, wood, radish, etc. Usually her husband or male relative smears it with chile; the woman is hurt or killed |
| f28d | Artificial conception | Woman conceives after masturbating with an artificial penis |
| f38 | Women and sacred knowledge | Women were possessors of the sacred knowledge, sanctuaries or ritual objects which are now taboo for them or they made attempts to acquire such a knowledge or objects |
| f4 | Child born in jug | In the beginning of times, a particular person or children in general was or were conceived and grown up in pots, heaps of mud, etc. and not in a womb |
| f40b | A man in a village of women | A man gets into the village of women. Usually he has to satisfy every woman against his will or every woman claims him for herself |
| f42 | The men abandon the women | The men feel themselves offended by the women and abandon them |
| f44 | Women and men separate | The women and the men of the primeval community quarrel and abandon each other |
| f45 | The Amazons | There are (or were) women who live apart from men in their own village or villages |
| f45b | Conception from the Sun | A woman gives birth to a son after being impregnated by the sun(shine) or sun(beam) |
| f67 | Old woman pretends to be man | An old woman makes herself false penis and testicles, marries or attempts to marry her (step)daughter |
| f80a | Genitals apart from the body | Genitals exist by themselves as separate beings, they can be stuck to the human body, remove, etc. |
| f9 | A dangerous woman | For different reasons, sexual contact with a woman is deadly dangerous for a man |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| h12a | Dead woman pursues her husband | Wife dies, husband comes after her or he kills his untrue wife. The dead wife turns into monster and pursues him |
| 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 |
| h23 | Fat horns | Objects (animal horns, tree fungi, heartwood) that are now stiff and inedible consisted of fat |
| h24 | Container opened too early | Container with valuables or with dangerous creatures is opened (before time). Its content goes out of control or disappear |
| h24a | A bag with stars | Person opens a bag with stars which ascend to sky in disorder |
| 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 |
| h54 | The eyelids of Viy | Eyelids (eyelashes, eyebrows) of personage hang long down over his eyes. To make the eyes widely opened, the eyelids (eyelashes, eyebrows) should be propped up with poles, folks, sticks, etc. (rare: cut off) |
| h55 | Sinners in other world | Person who visits the other world gets to see different people punished or rewarded according to their behavior when they were alive on earth |
| 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 |
| i104 | Stars are fragments | Stars are fragments of a bigger luminary (usually the Moon); or stars, the sun and the moon are formed from one and the same primeval person or creature |
| i118 | Helpful spider-woman | Spider-woman (rare: spider-man) is a patron of the hero who lives in her house and marries her daughter |
| 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) |
| i22g | Clapping rocks | There are mountains or rocks which permanently collide and separate again from each other or a crack (jaws) in a vertical cliff which is opening and closing |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| i3 | Weapon of Thunder | The lightning (and thunder) is (produced with) an object (axe, sword, mirror, belt, stones, skin, etc.) in hands of anthropomorphic being |
| i30 | Master of the dead welcomes women | Master or mistress of the realm of the dead copulates with every new human soul of the opposite sex who arrives to his or her realm |
| i39 | Rainbow road or bridge | Rainbow is a road, a bridge or a ladder |
| i45b | Not to point at the rainbow | It to point at the rainbow, pointing finger or entire arm will rot, wither or become crooked |
| i6 | Weather birds | A man meets a giant bird that brings with it clouds, rain, hail, thunderstorm, etc. |
| 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 |
| 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. |
| i75 | World ages | Before present world, several (two or more) other worlds or races of people existed |
| i9 | Colors of the cardinal directions | Four cardinal directions and/or some objects associated with them are associated with different colors |
| i9a | Zenith and nadir | The zenith and/or nadir are described together with four cardinal directions as the fifth (and the sixth) ones |
| 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 |
| j3 | Impregnated from under the earth | A woman gives birth to a boy or twin boys after being impregnated without her knowledge when one of the animal persons crawls under the earth to the place where she sits on a ground |
| j33 | The dummy | A youth or two siblings live in a house of an old man or woman. To produce a reaction from this older person, they kill a person or animal and stuff its skin with insects, worms, ashes, grass or blow it up |
| j34 | Frightened grandmother | After killing their enemy, heroes have fun frightening their (grand)mother or father with its dummy |
| j53 | The fawns and the cubs | Children of the ungulate animal person (deer, doe, antelope) become the enemies of a predator or bigger ungulate animal person. They kill her (him) and (or) successively escape from her (him) |
| j56 | Father tests his sons | Twin heroes (or one boy) come to their divine father. He puts them under trials to get know if they are really his children and possess supernatural power |
| j57 | Son of the Sun | A virgin girl is impregnated by the Sun and gives birth to a son or twin boys. When her son (or the twins) grows up, he (they) comes to his father |
| j60 | Two-fold impregnation | A woman is impregnated by two different males and gives birth to twin sons who have different fathers |
| k10 | Fight with the monstrous bird | Monstrous bird (giant bat) predates on humans. Heroes fight with it |
| k10a | Battle with a bird: a shelter | Heroes kill a dangerous bird. During or before confrontation they hide inside a shelter (hut, cage, vessel, bag, hollow log) or cover themselves with a protective object |
| k10e | Rescued people | Getting to a nest of a monstrous bird, a man finds there kidnapped people, helps them to return home |
| k10f | Nestlings turn into eagles | Hero transforms nestlings or monster bird into common eagles or owls |
| 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 |
| k15c | Substituted clothes | The owner of the stone (ice) clothes kills people. The hero hides these clothes or substitutes them with a fake and kills the owner |
| 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) |
| k1i | Tree to descend from a rock | A tree or vine quickly grows up near the rock or in the bottom of a pit where the hero was marooned. He gets to the ground climbing down (or up) this tree (vine) |
| 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 |
| k27a | Ordeal: survive cold | An ordeal: to survive cold (frosty night outdoors, chamber with ice, cold water and snow) |
| k27b | Ordeal: to smoke a pipe | An ordeal: to smoke a huge or poisonous pipe or to remain alive in poisonous smoke |
| k27c | Ordeal: knives and thorns | An ordeal: to remain alive after contact with sharp points or blades |
| k27e | Eating or drinking contest | Person or animal must eat (drink) enormous quantity of food (beverage) or eat or drink poisonous beverage or food |
| k27n3a | Task-giver is the Sun, Moon, Thunder, or Wind | Person who gives difficult tasks to the hero is associated with the Sun, Moon, Thunder, or Wind (Cloud, Rain) |
| k27p | Antagonist mourns loss of his helpers | The antagonist sends the hero to the place where he is attacked by dangerous creatures. The hero kills them and brings to the antagonist. The creatures are the antagonist's relatives, pets, or helpers, therefore he or she mourns their death or revives them |
| 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 |
| k29a | Surviving in a fire | Hero demonstrates his supernatural abilities remaining alive in a burning hot chamber, stove, bonfire, among burning vegetation |
| k30 | Flying enemy abducts woman | Flying person or creature abducts a woman but is ultimately killed or the woman escapes from him |
| k36 | Bewitched into animal | Person is temporary transformed into animal (usually into a dog or coyote or into donkey, ox, etc.). When he acquires his human guise again, the antagonist suffers similar transformation. In some texts only the hero or only the antagonist is transformed |
| 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 |
| k53 | Animal skins as metamorphosis amulets | Person temporarily turns into bird or animal putting on corresponding skin or animal skins are amulets that become alive and help the person |
| 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 |
| k86 | Weeping child stolen | Because a small child is ignored or punished by its parents (usually it cries late in the evening), bush spirit or animal carries it away |
| 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) |
| 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) |
| l40 | Reflection and shadow | Person discovers (rare:still fails to discover) another getting to see his or her shadow or reflection in water |
| l41 | Hero escapes on the way | An ogre or ogress catches a person and carries his or her prey home but the person escapes on the way or immediately after reaching the ogre's house |
| 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. |
| 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 |
| l67 | Monster’s hair gnawed off | After digging a tunnel under a lying monstrous animal, a small animal (usually a mouse) bites off the monster's hair at a certain place. Hero kills the monster thrusting his spear or arrow through the hairless place into the monster's heart |
| l98 | Cannibal owl | Dangerous cannibal or bush spirit who abducts children, attacks people, etc. is associated with an owl |
| m102 | Person lets his leg or head to be cut off | A bird stands with one leg tucked under it, putting its head under its wing; turtle draws its head and limbs under its shell. Person decides that the bird has one leg, no head, turtle has neither head nor limbs, asks to cut him his head and limbs off |
| m103 | Children with pretty spots | Person asks another how her or his children got their pretty colors. Another answers that she or he put them into the fire. roasted, etc. The first person believes, kills his or her children |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| m151a | Holding up the rock | (Animal) person pretends to hold up a rock, tree etc. and explains that otherwise it will fall |
| m21 | A protector hides fugitives | The protagonist pursued by an enemy comes across a person, an animal or an object to help him and receives help |
| m21a | Under false cause of illness | Person is pursued by an enemy. A bird or animal hides him or her in its mouth (under a wing) and pretends not to be able to open the mouth (to raise a wing) – because of a tooth ache, some injury and the like |
| m23 | Mock plea | Person or creature pretends to be afraid of a particular sort of treatment that really cannot do him any harm |
| 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 |
| m29k | The turtle (tortoise, toad, frog) wins thanks to his smartness | Being smart and persistent, the turtle (toad, frog) overcomes strong adversaries |
| 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 |
| m30b | Birds give and take back their feathers | Birds first give their feathers to a certain person to make him be able to fly or to make him beautiful and then take them back |
| 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 |
| 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 |