| Motif | Name | Description |
| a10 | The sun finds its eyes | The sun gets his bright eye or eyes from an animal |
| a11c | The Sun, the Moon and monster’s eyes | The Sun and the Moon kill a monster whose eyes are unequally bright. The Moon takes the brighter eye but gives it back to the Sun |
| a12 | Eclipses: monster’s attack | Some creature or creatures regularly (sunrise and sunset, summer and winter, lunar phases) or irregularly (solar and lunar eclipses, eschatological events) attack the luminaries or shade their light |
| a20 | Childhood and youth of the Sun and Moon | The Sun and the Moon (rare: the Sun and a star, the Moon and a star) are two siblings who live on earth and then ascend to the sky being still young persons |
| a24 | The first sunrise | 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 |
| 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) |
| a32a | The Moon rabbit | Rabbit or hare are seen in the moon |
| a35 | Spots on the lunar disc | Dark spots on the lunar disc are dirt, blood, paint, traces of beating, burning, scratching, etc. on the Moon person's body or face (Kiliwa: spots on the Sun) and do not form any particular figure |
| a47 | The Sun is born from an egg | The Sun is born or created from an egg |
| a5 | The Sun and the Moon are males | The Moon is male, the Sun is also male or (much more rare) asexual |
| b125 | Animals exchange their organs | 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 |
| 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 |
| b2b | The earth eats the dead | The earth devours bodies of the people when they die and are buried |
| 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 |
| b62 | Buzzard husband | 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 |
| b80 | Measuring of the world | The process of world creation includes the measuring of its size |
| 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 |
| c12b | People descend from a dog | In the beginning of time or after the flood man marries a bitch. Present people descend from them. |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| d4a | Theft of fire | Fire is stolen from its original owner or brought back to the people from somebody who had stolen it before |
| d4d | Opossum steals fire | Opossum steals fire for people |
| d4e | Coyote or fox obtain fire | Coyote or fox bring people the fire, the daylight or the Sun |
| d5 | Woman as the owner of the fire | Female person is the owner or inventor (but not the personification) of the fire |
| e11 | The burned skin | Magic person reveals his true nature and/or remains with the real people after the object responsible for preserving the non-human appearance (usually an animal skin) is destroyed (usually burned) |
| e23 | Fleas make person move | A handful of fleas or lice is thrown into people or into particular person. It was the only way to make him, her or them move and live |
| e32 | People born from trees | First people are born by trees or come out of a tree, flower, reed |
| 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 |
| e5b | First couple from the underworld | First man (a group of brothers) or first human couple come out from the underworld (a cave) or from a small enclosure on its surface (tussock, reed, tree, rock, gourd) |
| e9 | The mysterious housekeeper | Person observes traces of some activity that takes place in his (rare: her) house in his (her) absence and then takes by surprise the responsible one |
| e9d | Dog-wife | Man marries a girl who initially has guise of a dog |
| 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 |
| f23 | Origin of menses: sexual act | Women menstruate because they bled in primeval time after the first defloration |
| f34 | Land animal paramour | 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 |
| 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 |
| f35 | Feeding with the paramour’s meat | Person feeds another with the meat of his or her sexual partner who cooks or eats it without knowing whose meat it is |
| 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 |
| f86 | Conditional signal | Person summons with a certain signal a non-human being (usually his or her sexual partner or his or her protégé). Another person spies, uses the same signal or pronounces the same words and kills the being who comes to him (or uses this being sexually himself) |
| 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) |
| f9c | Snake in vagina | Snake (Pacific snake-eel in Polynesia) is in vagina; around the woman's thighs; vagina is a mouth of a snake; a woman with toothed vagina is associated with a snake; a snake crawls out of woman's mouth to bite off the man’s penis during the copulation |
| g2 | The return of Persephone | Person who is the incarnation of fertility and life first disappears and then (reriodically) returns |
| g9 | Restored forest | People fell trees to make a garden. In the morning, the forest is intact again |
| 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 |
| h34h | Firewoods come by themselves | Firewood, brushwood arrived to the house themselves, no work was needed to cut and carry them |
| h5 | People and snakes | Reptiles or invertebrates possess the medicine of immortality; are contrasted with men as immortal with mortals and/or are responsible for originating of death; or a snake's bite inflicts the first death |
| i27 | Chthonic canine | A dog is the lord, guard or guide of/to the land of the dead; or dogs live on the way to the land of the dead |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| i45b | Not to point at the rainbow | It to point at the rainbow, pointing finger or entire arm will rot, wither or become crooked |
| i4a | Thunder in trouble: falls to earth | Thunder falls to earth, cannot return to the sky. Usually a human person helps him to do it |
| i4b | Thunder in trouble: fights with his enemy | A man helps Thunder who fights with his enemy |
| i7 | The cloud serpent | A flying reptile produces rain, thunderstorm |
| i74 | Stars are stones | Stars are shining stones, spangles, beads |
| i80 | Thunder’s apprentice | 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 |
| i85c | Containers with weather | A person rises to the sky and finds there containers with different (two or more) types of precipitations, atmospheric phenomena, seasons and/or celestial bodies |
| i85c1 | The rain stored in the sky | In the sky there is a special container (vessel, skin, box, etc.) for storing the rain |
| i8f | One support of the world | Only one pole or mountain supports the earth or the sky |
| j21 | Birth from eggs | Gods, first people or founders of the royal lineages are born from eggs |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| j33a | Old woman beats the dummy | A youth or two siblings live in a house of an old woman. they kill her a person or animal who is her husband and make a dummy of him. The old woman is angry that her husband does not answer her, beats him and understands that it is a dummy |
| j47 | Pursuer falls from height | Person ascends to the sky (rare: descends from the sky; ascends the cliff) by a rope, a ladder, etc. Another person tries to follow him or her but the rope (the ladder) is broken or severed |
| k10 | Fight with the monstrous bird | Monstrous bird (giant bat) predates on humans. Heroes fight with it |
| k11 | Eyes of a monstrous bird: metamorphosis | Two brothers (brother and sister) kill monstrous bird. It eyes turn into the Sun and Moon (Oaxaca Indians) or in something else (Yokuts: common condors) |
| k25 | Magic wife | A man consciously marries a woman related to the non-human world |
| k25e | Magic wife is an ancestor | All humans, members of a particular ethnic or social group or a ruling dynasty are believed to descend from a mortal man and a woman of supernatural origin |
| 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 |
| l11 | Turtle-bench | In a non-human world objects of everyday life have appearance of animals and monsters, mainly fish, amphibians and reptiles |
| l18 | Multi-headed bird | A bird with two or more heads on top of one body is described in tales or represented in art |
| 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 |
| l69 | Puma rescues man from a monster | A man is attacked by a monster but puma or jaguar fights with the monster and rescues the man |
| 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 |
| m10 | A girl and a honey | A girl or a woman who was stuck in a tree-hollow when she tried to extract honey or who was greedily sucking honey otherwise, dies or turns into the honey or into the bee |
| m46 | The false baby | Planning to get or to return valuables, person turns into baby or in a small objects that has power to impregnate a woman. The picked up or the born baby steals the valuables and acquires his real guise (including cases according to which the girl herself is the desired valuable)
|
| m46a | A stratagem: the picked up baby | Person turns into baby, is picked up by the owner of valuables, steals the valuables or makes love to a woman. The baby is not a demonic creature and does not plan to kill those who picked him up (cf. motif L60) |
| m8 | Breaking the obstacle | Non-human persons work hard to destroy a strong and durable obstacle that blocks access to some place or object |
| m84 | Revived from bones | Person, animal, fish or (rare) a fruit is eaten up and then revived, usually after all bones (all seeds) being put together |
| m84b | Bones thrown into the water | Butchered and eaten animal, bird or fish revives after its bones are thrown into the water |