| Motif | Name | Description |
| a1 | The old sun | Another sun, usually less benevolent and/or powerful, existed before the present one |
| a11a | Eyes of the Sun and the Moon: coolness and night | 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 |
| a11b | One-eyed luminaries | The Sun or the Moon is one-eyed (usually another eye was knocked or sucked out but sometimes this defect is not explained |
| a22 | To the sky from a bonfire | After getting into the fire or boiling water, one or two persons ascend to the sky and turn into the Sun and/or Moon |
| a22a | The hot Sun and its cold companion | After two persons burn up, one turns into the present Sun and another into a less important sky object |
| 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 |
| 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) |
| a2a | The sun is a source of distructive heat | The world was or will be (almost) burned when several suns had (will) appear(ed) simultaneously; or the only sun was too hot (or bright) |
| a3 | Male sun and female moon | The Moon is female or bisexual, the Sun is male |
| b2e | The male earth | The earth or the world as a whole is a male person (alone or together with a female person) |
| 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 |
| d11 | Food baked in armpits | Before fire became known, people prepared food using warmth of their bodies (usually putting food in their armpits); or a person keeps fire in his or her armpits |
| d4a | Theft of fire | Fire is stolen from its original owner or brought back to the people from somebody who had stolen it before |
| d4e1 | The dog and the fire | Dog obtains fire, daylight or the Sun or steals them |
| e12 | The animated drawing | Person draws an object or creature and it becomes alive |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| f53 | Ugly husband | An ugly man marries a girl but conceals his face. Marriage is ruined after his face is seen |
| f6 | Gouged our vagina | Woman has no vagina and it is later made by bird or animal |
| 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 |
| g1 | A kidnapped child | Valuables (earth, soil, sun, crops, fire, sacred knowledge, hunting luck) are got or returned when son or daughter is stolen from his or her parent |
| g16 | Ants find cultivated plants | Ants are the first who find cultivated plants (corn or manioc) which are concealed from the others in particular place |
| g2 | The return of Persephone | Person who is the incarnation of fertility and life first disappears and then (reriodically) returns |
| g3 | A rock of crops | Cultivated plants or fertile soil to plant them are hidden inside a rock. Birds or Thunders get them destroying the rock |
| g5 | Food tree | Fruits and shoots of different cultivated plants grow on the branches of one tree (on one vine) or certain plant has a tree form that is alien to it in nature |
| g6 | Primeval tree | One of the trees is the principal, original one (emerged before all the other; ancestor of wild or cultivated plants; ocean or rivers inside it; world axis; higher than all the others; overshadows sky) |
| g8 | Restored tree | A deep notch in the tree (or in the sky support) is magically restored as soon as persons or creatures who cut or gnaw it stop working |
| g8c | Cutting tree to get valuables | (Animal-)people try to fell a tree that contains water and fish or has cultivated plants on its branches. The notch disappears and the tree becomes intact |
| h18 | Hoarded game released | Game animals were concentrated in one single place. Certain person lets them disperse in the world |
| h20 | Fish disperse in the world | All the fish or (rare) shellfish) was concentrated in one place. Certain person lets it lose or puts it into the rivers or sea |
| h24 | Container opened too early | Container with valuables or with dangerous creatures is opened (before time). Its content goes out of control or disappear |
| h26 | Mosquitoes had to be drowned | The right way to dispose of container with stinging insects would be to throw it into the river or sea or bury in a far away place, but it was not done |
| h27 | Mosquitoes let lose | Stinging insects (rare diseases) had been inside a container or some enclosure. They escaped to the world when the container or enclosure was foolishly opened |
| h28 | Plagues from the body of a person or creature | Killed and destroyed (often burned) person or creature (usually ogre, fierce animal, powerful shaman) turns into a multitude of biting insects or into other small molesting creatures |
| i13a | The horned serpent | Giant water-chthonic or sky serpent or dragon has horns or antlers on its head |
| 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 |
| i37f | Fungi are ears | Fungi or mushrooms are named “ears” |
| i43b | Milky Way is a serpent or fish | Milky Way is a reptile, fish, or chain of fish |
| i48 | Confined to the underworld | Certain person loses his or her freedom, is confined to a far away place (often, to the underworld) and acquires cosmic dimensions: supports the earth or the sky and/or his or her movements produce earthquakes or (rare) storms |
| i62 | Milky Way is a river | Milky Way is a sky river, water body, chain of beings that swim |
| i72 | Stars are people | Stars are people, ghosts, anthropomorphic beings (interpretations of unique star objects like Venus or Polaris as persons not considered) |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| i8e | Four men at the cardinal points | Four (or eight) anthropomorphic male persons support the earth or the sky or are placed at the four cardinal points |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| k16 | To get access to a girl in guise of a bird or an animal | Disguised as a bird, small animal or insect, a man penetrates into the place of a girl (into her father’s house) |
| k16a | Slips and drops dummy | Being eager to show that he is a successful hunter, a man walks in front of a girl carrying a game (deer, birds). The girl makes him slip, he drops the false game that proves to be a dummy stuffed with ashes or a termite nest |
| k17 | The ornitomorphic suitor | An ornitomorphic hero impregnates a girl magically or imperceptibly for her |
| k176 | A man in search of the woman | A (young) man sets off to find or to return his bride or his wife |
| 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 |
| k29a | Surviving in a fire | Hero demonstrates his supernatural abilities remaining alive in a burning hot chamber, stove, bonfire, among burning vegetation |
| k3 | Tree or rock grows taller | 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 |
| k30 | Flying enemy abducts woman | Flying person or creature abducts a woman but is ultimately killed or the woman escapes from him |
| k30a | The chief’s wife and vultures | Wife of a chief abandons him with vultures (usually by her own will being untrue to her husband). The chief (Witoto: her own brother) brings her back |
| 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 |
| 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) |
| l11 | Turtle-bench | In a non-human world objects of everyday life have appearance of animals and monsters, mainly fish, amphibians and reptiles |
| l28 | The snake-eater | Person who have eaten a prohibited meat or fish turns into monstrous snake or fish |
| l30 | Eating of snake meat triggers thirst | Person who breaks some sort of taboo (usually has eaten a prohibited food) is thirsty and drinks enormous quantity of water |
| l39 | Hero is compelled to descend from a tree | When a person climbs a tree, a demon comes to it and carries the person away, or the person follows the demon to his world by his own will |
| l39a | Demons from the underworld | A demon comes from the underworld and attacks a man who has climbed a tree |
| l46 | Head downward | Person ascends, descends, walks head downward or sees the world upside down |
| l6 | Demon clings to person | A demonic being demands that a person would carry it permanently, clings to his shoulder or back |
| 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 |
| m151a | Holding up the rock | (Animal) person pretends to hold up a rock, tree etc. and explains that otherwise it will fall |
| m2 | Riding down a tree | A man descends from top of a tree or rock down a chain of animals or on the back of an animal who climbs or runs down the trunk |
| 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 |
| m25 | Banquet in the sky | To take part in a feast or to visit God or celestial object, person ascends to the sky. To return, he either uses a rope but falls before reaching ground or jumps (falls) down from the sky and is badly hurt, dead, and/or transformed |
| m29g | Trickster-hare or rabbit | In episodes related to deception, absurd, obscene or anti-social behavior the protagonist is hare or rabbit |
| m29k1 Not used in statistics | The turtle (toad, frog) is a tricky failure | A turtle (tortoise, toad, frog) behaves foolishly creating serious problems for himself |
| m3 | Chain of animals | Person crosses a water or air space along the chain of many animals, birds or fish |
| 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 |
| m4 | A wrong step | Crossing a body of water or descending a tree, person steps on an certain part of a body of an animal or on a certain animal that have made a chain (usually despite warning that he should not do it) and falls down or drowns as a result |
| m40 | The distorted instructions | 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. |
| m56a | Alligator’s secret | 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 |
| m63 | Body parts enumerated | Before finding a part of the body that is the best for some particular function, other parts are proven or enumerated |
| m75 | Valuables taken off the vultures | Person attracts and catches the carrion-eaters (usually some birds) and thanks to this obtains valuables retrieves valuables (fire, woman, animals, etc.) |
| m8 | Breaking the obstacle | Non-human persons work hard to destroy a strong and durable obstacle that blocks access to some place or object |
| m8b | Birds break an obstacle to get water | Birds or (rare) animals work hard to break a rock or a cane and get water or honey concealed inside |