Another sun, usually less benevolent and/or powerful, existed before the present one
The Moon is female or bisexual, the Sun is male
Female moon does not permit her husband or son to destroy people
Visible sun and/or moon are the Sun's and/or the Moon's eyes. If these eyes were not injured, light and heat would be more intense
During an eclipse or during the first night ants shade or shaded the Sun
Coming together of the Sun and the Moon is the reason of their eclipses
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
In the beginning it is dark. When the Sun first appears on the sky, primeval beings or part of them perish or turn into animals, spirits, stones
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)
The earth is a female person (alone or together with a male person); she is female being or associated with a woman
The earth devours bodies of the people when they die and are buried
Insect-person knows the source of food (cultivated plants) and water but does not share his knowledge. To make him speak, ancestors tie a rope around his waist and pull it till the waist becomes narrow (origin of narrow place between breast and belly of insects)
Hare or rabbit is a false deer or it was deer in the past or a close kin of the deer or had horns or antlers or missed opportunity to get them, its ears are the false horns
Animal who has no horns now had them before or missed opportunity to get them
Man thinks that buzzard or hawk has better life than he. They exchange clothes. The bird lives with the man's wife as her husband, the man usually does not enjoy his bird life
Catastropic displacement of layers of the univers in the past or in the future is mentioned. Among variants (sometimes combined):
the sky fell on the earth; the earth (the underworld) and the sky interchanged their positions; the earth turned upside down; the layers of the universe collapsed in one after another; they will change their place during the future cataclysm
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
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
Fire is stolen from its original owner or brought back to the people from somebody who had stolen it before
Hummingbird discovers where the fire is (and brings it to people)
Certain woman or a group of women takes for a paramour a big land animal. Husbands, brothers or (adoptive) children kill or maim paramour and (sometimes) the woman
Person feeds another with the meat of his or her sexual partner who cooks or eats it without knowing whose meat it is
The (adoptive) children or grandchildren and not person's spouse or brother kill the paramour of their (step)mother or father
Cultivated plants or fertile soil to plant them are hidden inside a rock. Birds or Thunders get them destroying the rock
Cultivated plants are found above or inside a mountain
Ants are the first who find cultivated plants (corn or manioc) which are concealed from the others in particular place
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
Game animals were concentrated in one single place. Certain person lets them disperse in the world
The lightning (and thunder) is (produced with) an object (axe, sword, mirror, belt, stones, skin, etc.) in hands of anthropomorphic being
The sky or the earth rests upon four or five (cardinal points and the center) supports of any kind (poles, mountains, giants)
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
Game animals live inside a mountain, in a cave or in the underworld where they often look like humans and have a master
Person who got into the place of a deity responsible for atmospheric phenomena breaks certain taboo or instructions producing excessive thunderstorm, rain, snowfall or wind
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)
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
Hero demonstrates his supernatural abilities remaining alive in a burning hot chamber, stove, bonfire, among burning vegetation
In a non-human world objects of everyday life have appearance of animals and monsters, mainly fish, amphibians and reptiles
After breaking some taboo, coming across a strange object or person, people fall asleep. They do not feel when at night spirits come and injure or kill them
After breaking some taboo, coming across a strange object or person, people fall asleep and awake blind
A man does not share food with his wife or kinsfolk. He or his food is transformed (turns into a bird, into worms, etc.) in punishment
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
Being in a situation when his life depends on a good will of a demon or animal, person either resists or does not resist the temptation to insult or to beat, bite, etc. the latter
Non-human persons work hard to destroy a strong and durable obstacle that blocks access to some place or object
In episodes related to deception, absurd, obscene or anti-social behavior the protagonist is hare or rabbit
A turtle (tortoise, toad, frog) behaves foolishly creating serious problems for himself
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
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.
Punishing a person or animal or restoring his or its body after its disintegration, a powerful being intentionally or by chance puts head to bottoms
A man or an animal beats alligator but it remains unharmed and says that he would be killed if stricken in one special place on his body. The next time the same person strikes alligator this way and kills it
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
Four (or eight) anthropomorphic male persons support the earth or the sky or are placed at the four cardinal points
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
During the time of creation particular species of animals (rare: plants) exchanged certain organs or traits or one animal borrowed an organ from another one but never brought it back. Thence the characteristics of these animals now. In rare cases the back exchange and restoring of the initial situation or the passing of certain organ from one animal to another without compensation are described
The Sun and the Moon are or were enemies, either permanently or in particular situations
In the sky there is a special container (vessel, skin, box, etc.) for storing the rain
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
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