| Motif | Name | Description |
| a1 | The old sun | Another sun, usually less benevolent and/or powerful, existed before the present one |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| a2d | Suns of the other worlds | Different suns illuminate different worlds or will appear successively in the future |
| a3 | Male sun and female moon | The Moon is female or bisexual, the Sun is male |
| a31 | The incestuous Moon | As a result of some intimate contacts and/or love affair, the Moon acquires its present appearance (often, the stains on his face) and/or ascends to the sky |
| 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 |
| a40 | The Sun or Moon marry toad | Frog or Toad is a wife of the Sun or Moon |
| 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 |
| b2c | The earth is a human body, is born by the woman | The earth, elements of the landscape or the fertile soil are the transformed body of a person or the earth (islands) were born by a woman |
| 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 |
| b82 | The white raven | Raven or other carrion-eating bird of dark color and a similar size was originally white |
| c14 | Monsters destroy people | During or before the world catastrophe (deluge, darkness) wild beasts and monsters attack and destroy people |
| c15 | The imprisoned feline | Monstrous puma or jaguar is imprisoned in a cave or tree trunk |
| d1b | Male spirit of fire | The fire is personified as an elder man (alone or with his wife, mistress of fire) |
| d2 | Woman gives birth to the fire | A woman gives birth to a son who is very hot (usually the fire or Sun) |
| d5 | Woman as the owner of the fire | Female person is the owner or inventor (but not the personification) of the fire |
| e14 | Sacred knowledge from the dead | People obtain sacred knowledge, objects and rituals from ghosts |
| e25 | Arachne (the spider-weaver) | The art of weaving people get from a spider or from a person who turns into spider afterwards; a spider is weaving for people |
| e35 | Webbed fingers | First people or people made by Creator's rival were imperfect, not completely anthropomorphic (often: had webbed fingers) |
| e5c | People from the sky | The first people or first anthropomorphic divine beings descend to earth from the sky. |
| f1 | First woman is a transformed man | Woman, female supernatural or animal females are created by changing the sex of a man (or male animals) |
| f16 | Men and women: exchange of anatomical characteristics | Initially men possessed women's biological traits and vice versa (beard, menses, breasts, bearing children) |
| f24 | Origin of menses: a bite | Women bleed because fish or snake bites them. Usually it is invisible fish inside their body |
| f28d | Artificial conception | Woman conceives after masturbating with an artificial penis |
| f30 | Snake paramour | A woman or a girl takes a snake, an eel (i.e. Pacific snake-eel), a lizard, or a worm for husband or paramour. People kill or badly injure him, the woman and/or her progeny or the woman herself is transformed into snake. Cf. motif k76b: the snake-husband becomes and remains a handsome man |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| f45 | The Amazons | There are (or were) women who live apart from men in their own village or villages |
| f78 | Toothed anus | Person or creature has toothed anus or second head in place of the anus |
| 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) |
| 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 |
| g10 | The hanging tree | A tree which trunk is cut through do not fall because it is hold from above |
| g15 | Plant maidens | In the other world or in the time of the ancestors food products or materials used by people looked as persons |
| 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) |
| g23a | Alive being turns into plants | Person or creature is transformed. Separate parts of its (his, her) body give origin to different plants, mostly edible or cultivated |
| g24 | Food from the sky | First seeds (sprouts, tubors) of cultivated plants or of important edible wild plants are brought from the sky (received from the sky-dwellers) |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| h16 | Rivers of tears | Rivers of tears exist in the other world. Tears shed on earth fill there big containers |
| h16a | Rivers of blood | Rivers (lakes) of blood (also of puss, bones, sweat or water used for washing of corpses) are mentioned in narratives (in different context) |
| h24 | Container opened too early | Container with valuables or with dangerous creatures is opened (before time). Its content goes out of control or disappear |
| 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 |
| h4 | The shed skin | Those who change their skin become young again |
| i108 | The Pleiades are a person | The Pleiades are only one anthropomorphic being, not several persons |
| i10b | Colored layers of the earth | Particular layers or categories of the earth have different colors |
| i11 | Cosmic turtle or toad | A turtle, toad, or frog supports the earth (sky) or is its embodiment |
| 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 |
| i27b | Dog as a ferryman | A dog ferries person across a river that forms a border between the worlds |
| 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 |
| i42 | Rainbow is a pair of creatures | Rainbow is two creatures or persons, usually a male and a female |
| i72 | Stars are people | Stars are people, ghosts, anthropomorphic beings (interpretations of unique star objects like Venus or Polaris as persons not considered) |
| i72a | Stars are children of the Sun and the Moon | Stars are children of the Moon and/or the Sun |
| i82b | Venus is female | Morning and/or Evening Star is a female personage |
| 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) |
| i8g | Atlas | One giant supports the earth or the sky |
| i9 | Colors of the cardinal directions | Four cardinal directions and/or some objects associated with them are associated with different colors |
| 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) |
| k17 | The ornitomorphic suitor | An ornitomorphic hero impregnates a girl magically or imperceptibly for her |
| 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 |
| k27n | Difficult tasks of the in-laws | A man must fulfill difficult tasks (to win competition) to receive the permission for a marriage |
| k27n3b | Task-giver lives in the sky but is not the Sun, Moon, Thunder or Wind | Person who gives difficult tasks or tests to the hero or heroine lives in the sky but is not associated with the Sun, Moon, Thunder or Wind |
| k29a | Surviving in a fire | Hero demonstrates his supernatural abilities remaining alive in a burning hot chamber, stove, bonfire, among burning vegetation |
| k38b | The nestlings and the aggressive snake | A serpent or water monster regularly devours or injures children of a bird or other flying creature (almost always nestlings of giant bird). The hero kills the serpent (monster) |
| k38b2 | Birds carries hero to its place, hero kills the monster | Somebody (almost always a giant bird) carries/brings a man to its place where he kills a monster who regularly devoured his children (usually the nestlings) |
| 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) |
| k9 | God’s wife thrown down from the sky | The sky chief discovers or thinks that his wife, sister or lover is untrue or incestuous. He throws her down from the sky. She becomes the mistress of the lower or middle world or a part of it or one of her sons gets power over the lower world |
| l18 | Multi-headed bird | A bird with two or more heads on top of one body is described in tales or represented in art |
| l20 | Eater of the raw meat | Two persons hunt or fish. One of them is or becomes a cannibal. He or she reveals his or her nature eating the quarry raw |
| l38 | Demon’s trap | A demon puts a trap to catch people, hero gets into it |
| 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 |
| l43 | Dangerous persons eat filth | Persons who are dangerous for the hero (demons, robbers, merchants) take for something pleasant and edible those objects, creatures or matters (excrements, snakes, insects, etc.) that are disgusting (not edible) |
| l52 | Hero escapes from top of a tree | Hero hides in a tree from an ogre. Before the ogre gets to fell the tree, the hero flies away or a bird helps him to escape |
| l55 | Monster killed with hot liquid | To kill a dangerous animal or monster, acrid or hot liquid (boiling water, resin, soup, etc.) is poured into one of his body orifices |
| l56 | Fire in monster’s belly | A monster or a big animal dies when fire is kindled in its belly |
| l63 | Person eats with vagina or anus | Person eats food with her toothed vagina or with her or his anus |
| l65b3 | The escape on the tree | Persons climbs a tree and thanks to this escapes from a demon (who usually tries to fell the tree) |
| l77 | Girl seen as a fruit eaten up | Person sees or smells people as delicious objects and devours them |
| 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 |
| m5 | Provoked insult | 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 |
| m8 | Breaking the obstacle | Non-human persons work hard to destroy a strong and durable obstacle that blocks access to some place or object |