| 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 |
| a3 | Male sun and female moon | The Moon is female or bisexual, the Sun is male |
| b28b | Pacification of things | Hero comes to a country where inhabitants are afraid of objects or plants who attack them. He easily overcomes these objects and transforms them in what they are now |
| 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 |
| b2d | Marriage of the sky and the earth | The male Sky (the Sun, the Thunder, the creator of the sky) marries the female Earth (or its female creator) or the female Sky marries the male Earth |
| 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 |
| b41 | The talking dog | Because the dog was spreading some information, altercated with its masters, was talking in a wrong time, etc. it lost the ability to speak |
| b41a | Animal reveals master’s secrets | The dog or other domestic animal speaks aloud about those details of its masters' life that they would prefer to conceal. He is punished by depriving his ability to speak |
| b42p | Ursa major is a bear | Ursa major is identified with a bear |
| b42t | Ursa major is a big mammal | Seven main stars of Ursa major are interpreted as a figure of a mammal: bear, deer, mountain sheep, camel, dog |
| b5a | Two creators: a dialogue | In the beginning of time, a male and a female persons meet each other and become engaged into the dialogue |
| b5b | The universal mother | Woman (alone or with her companion) gives birth to or creates not only people but also different creatures and objects |
| b77 | Primeval sky close to earth | Originally the sky was close to the earth, then it has risen up |
| c13 | The objects’ revolt | During or before the world cataclysm (deluge, darkness) or (Suruí) in particular place at night, household objects and/or stones, trees, domestic animals turn into wild beasts and monsters |
| c14 | Monsters destroy people | During or before the world catastrophe (deluge, darkness) wild beasts and monsters attack and destroy people |
| c9 | Warning about the coming flood | God, animal, some person warns one of the people about the catastrophy (usuallly the flood) that will become soon and in which most of the people must perish |
| e13a | Sacred knowledge from under the water | Sacred knowledge, objects and rituals are initially obtained from the denizens of the underwater world |
| e35 | Webbed fingers | First people or people made by Creator's rival were imperfect, not completely anthropomorphic (often: had webbed fingers) |
| 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 |
| f20 | A strong embrace | Man and woman embrace each other forever or for a long time |
| f22 | Study of partner’s body | Person asks another person of the opposite sex about destination or place of her or his genitals. Usually it is made after putting questions about function of other body parts; or person tries to use for sex different parts of the partner's body or tests them before reaching the best place where the genitals should be put |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| f45b | Conception from the Sun | A woman gives birth to a son after being impregnated by the sun(shine) or sun(beam) |
| f70b | Revenge of a rejected woman | A woman revenges on a man who rejected her love but necessary not pretends to be an object of sexual harassment from his part |
| f88 | Odor of women | Initially women's genitals were fragrant or had no smell. Because of a bad chance they acquire unpleasant odor or do not acquire fragrant odor |
| f9 | A dangerous woman | For different reasons, sexual contact with a woman is deadly dangerous for a man |
| f94 | Rival wives in the sky | A man gets to the sky where he has a choice to marry one of two women, one of them being connected with life and another with death |
| 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) |
| g15 | Plant maidens | In the other world or in the time of the ancestors food products or materials used by people looked as persons |
| g2 | The return of Persephone | Person who is the incarnation of fertility and life first disappears and then (reriodically) returns |
| g23 | Alive being turns into many objects | Person or creature is transformed. Separate parts of its (his, her) body give origin to different objects or creatures (only etiological narratives are considered) |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| h14 | Woman flies back to the land of the dead | A dead woman returns to earth but flies back as a bird or a fly |
| h18 | Hoarded game released | Game animals were concentrated in one single place. Certain person lets them disperse in the world |
| 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 |
| i117a | Bat helps to descend from a rock | Bat(-woman) helps the hero to descend from a high rock |
| i118 | Helpful spider-woman | Spider-woman (rare: spider-man) is a patron of the hero who lives in her house and marries her daughter |
| i133 | Whole-sky constellation | Sideral objects in different parts of the sky are identified with one and the same humanoid figure (parts of its body, decoratioons, etc.). |
| i13a | The horned serpent | Giant water-chthonic or sky serpent or dragon has horns or antlers on its head |
| i14 | No-anus people | Person or creature has no anus opening |
| i15 | No-mouth people | Anthropomorphic beings have no mouths |
| i17 | Body anomalies of inhabitants of a distant land | Beings without mouth, anus, genitals, whose women do not know how to give birth live in the underworld, in the sky, or in a far-away land |
| i17a | Dwarfs without body openings | Beings without anus or mouth are dwarfs |
| i19 | People inhale the odor of food | Anthropomorphic beings satisfy their hunger cooking food and inhaling the odor |
| i20 | The undeground dwarfs | Race of dwarfs lives under the ground (deep under the earth or in hills and rocks) or at the horizon where the earth and the sky meet |
| i20c | Dwarfs live in the underworld | Dwarfs live in the underworld that somewhat reminds the world of humans. If the dwarfs and the humans meet, it is deep under the earther |
| 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 |
| i39 | Rainbow road or bridge | Rainbow is a road, a bridge or a ladder |
| i40 | Rainbow bow | Rainbow is a bow |
| i41 | Rainbow serpent | Rainbow is a reptile (usually a snake) or (more rare) a fish, or it is related to snake, to its tongue, breath, or to scorpion's tail |
| i45b | Not to point at the rainbow | It to point at the rainbow, pointing finger or entire arm will rot, wither or become crooked |
| i46 | Rainbow belt | Rainbow is the ornamented part of the clothes, its decoration, a belt |
| i6 | Weather birds | A man meets a giant bird that brings with it clouds, rain, hail, thunderstorm, etc. |
| i66 | Ashes on Milky Way | Milky Way is ashes or smoldering coals |
| 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. |
| i7 | The cloud serpent | A flying reptile produces rain, thunderstorm |
| i72 | Stars are people | Stars are people, ghosts, anthropomorphic beings (interpretations of unique star objects like Venus or Polaris as persons not considered) |
| i75 | World ages | Before present world, several (two or more) other worlds or races of people existed |
| 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 |
| i8e1 | Four supports of the world | The sky or the earth rests upon four or five (cardinal points and the center) supports of any kind (poles, mountains, giants) |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| j30 | Parents’ remains | Before the hero destroys the antagonists or escapes from them, he finds or receives the remains or possessions that belonged to the antagonists' victim |
| 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 |
| j4a | Revenge for the death of the mother | A woman is murdered. Her son or children (rare: grandchildren, nephews) revenge for her death |
| j50 | An attempt to revive the victim | Twin heroes' parent dies or is killed, an attempt to revive him or her fails |
| j51 | One piece is missing | Person or animal is eaten up or destroyed otherwise. His bones are put together and he or it is revived. Because one bone was broken, swallowed or lost (or a drop of blood, a small piece of flesh lost), the person or animal cannot be revived or being revived misses some part of his or its body |
| j69 | The mock and the real beheading | Person is killed (with the cold weapon, with water of death) and then revived. Another person asks to be exposed to the same procedure but is not revived |
| k10 | Fight with the monstrous bird | Monstrous bird (giant bat) predates on humans. Heroes fight with it |
| k10c | Wrapped in guts | Hero (or twins) hangs on his body a bag with animal bowels full of blood. Breaking them with its claws, the bird thinks that its victim is killed and brings the man to its nest. He kills the adult bird, kills or transforms its nestlings |
| k10f | Nestlings turn into eagles | Hero transforms nestlings or monster bird into common eagles or owls |
| k11a | Feathers turn into birds or men | Feathers of (giant) bird turn into different present day birds (in their plumage) or into the men |
| k11a1 | Birds emerge from the monstrous bird | Pierces of flesh or feathers of monstrous/unusual bird turn into common birds (or into their plumage) |
| 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 |
| k1f | Conflict because of a woman | A man maroons another because of jealousy or because he plans to take hold of his wife |
| 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) |
| k2 | The destroyed ladder | Hero climbs up (e.g. to a tree) or down (e.g. into a deep cave) by ladder, rope, from branch to branch, etc. The rope etc. breaks or is intentionally destroyed and the hero cannot return to the ground. (All cases of motif K2A, besides the Koreans, also contain motif K2) |
| 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 |
| k22a | Dwarfs attacked | Birds or other creatures which not dangerous for common people attack dwarfs who live in another world |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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) |
| k27y1 | Arrow points made of coal | Person believes or pretends that the arrow points should be of coal, bark, grass and the like. |
| k27yy1 | To get feathers of a dangerous bird | Hero brings a feather (feathers) of a dangerous bird |
| k27z | Game of chance for life and death | Person becomes a master of another after winning a game (game of chance or Intellectual game but not a sport tournament) |
| 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 |
| k32 | The false wife | An ugly, old, lazy, etc. woman or (in Chaco) a male trickster comes to man under disguise of his wife or bride who is driven out, confined to the underworld, killed, etc. |
| k35 | False husband | An imposter pretends to be the hero to take his position and/or to marry or to violate his woman |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| k8c | Jonah: swallowed by terrestrial animal | Person gets into the belly of ground animal or bird. He kills it from the inside and/or returns to earth by himself (i.e. not extracted by other people) |
| l107 | The ear-sleepers | Anthropomorphic beings have huge ears (use them for blankets, umbrellas, etc.) |
| l11 | Turtle-bench | In a non-human world objects of everyday life have appearance of animals and monsters, mainly fish, amphibians and reptiles |
| l15d | The external soul | Life of a person or creature is preserved outside of his (her, its) body. Person or creature dies after the corresponding object is destroyed |
| l48 | Demons devour their comrades | A man kills (usually in a tree, on a rock, at the edge of a well, of a precipice) and/or throws down one of his enemies. The other enemies do not recognize their comrade and think that their prey is falling down |
| 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. |
| l57a | Hero's body part is returned by his companion | The antagonists acquire person’s organ or body part (his remains) . Another person gets back what has been stolen and the first one revives (becomes strong again) |
| l5f | Helpful skull | A bodiless head, face, or skull is a woman's husband, suitor or son. He is not dangerous but a good provider, saves people from hunger, 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 |
| l70 | Fruit falls and kills | Person or animal is killed or injured with a heavy object dropped from a tree (or rock, etc.). The person or the animal knows that the objects will fall but has falls ideas about its character and weight |
| l71 | Tip of a branch | Person has killed an animal. A trickster attempts to appropriate all the meat. The person gets to carry the meat to the top of a tree and helps the trickster (or trickster's child) to get there too to share their meal. After eating, the trickster wishes to defecate or (rare) to drink. The person points to the tip of a thin branch as a right place for doing it. The trickster climbs there, falls and dies |
| 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 |
| l98 | Cannibal owl | Dangerous cannibal or bush spirit who abducts children, attacks people, etc. is associated with an owl |
| m16a | Diving bird’s medicine | A supernatural helper (usually a loon) makes a blind man to regain his eyesight diving with him into water |
| m183 | A race: one against many | Many animals of one species that all look identical together fulfill the task that would be impossible for any of them if he were alone; the competitors believe that the task was fulfilled by only one animal. Usually a slow and a fast animals agree to race. The slow one puts other animals of his species at the finish or along the distance, each one answering the fast one that he is ahead of him. The fast one accepts his loss |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| m42a | Eyes of berries | Person (usually after losing his own eyes), makes new eyes of berries and is able to see again |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| m82 | Animal person ties rattles to its tail | An animal person sees that another has something tied to his tail, wants the same tail for himself and has a trouble as a result |