| 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 |
| a18 | The Sun boat | During the day and/or the night (in the underworld, beyond the horizon etc.) the Sun and/or the Moon regularly travel in a boat. |
| 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) |
| 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) |
| a32d | Man in the Moon | Human being or imprint of human being is seen in the moon |
| a5 | The Sun and the Moon are males | The Moon is male, the Sun is also male or (much more rare) asexual |
| b100 | The acquisition of the sleep | Formerly or in a certain country the sleep was not known; certain person possesses sleep, is its incarnation or teaches to sleep; the sleep is a particular substance |
| 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 |
| b29 | Eschatological feast | People turn into animals, birds or stones at a feast, after the feast, after performing a ritual or after a victory over dangerous enemy |
| 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 |
| b36 | Creatures acquire their physical traits | Birds, fish, reptiles, mammals intentionally or by chance are smeared with colorful substances or divide among themselves parts of somebody's body thus acquiring their present characteristics |
| b75d | Sounds of the time of creation: a murmur of the forest | The murmur of the forest or grass swayed by the wind is heard from the time of creation |
| b7b | Waters from broken pot | Sea, river, waters of flood flow out of a small receptacle |
| 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 |
| c5b | Animal-scouts | During the creation of the world or after the world cataclysm animals run around making the earth big, reporting about its condition or they are sent to report the size of the growing earth |
| d1b | Male spirit of fire | The fire is personified as an elder man (alone or with his wife, mistress of fire) |
| d4a | Theft of fire | Fire is stolen from its original owner or brought back to the people from somebody who had stolen it before |
| d8 | Fire and a predator animal | Fire or summer is stolen from a big predator: a lion (in Africa), a tiger (in Asia), a bear (in Siberia and North America) or a jaguar (in South America) |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| e9k | Spouse is honey (bee) | A man or a woman is incarnation of the honey or a bee-person |
| 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 |
| f28b | Penis of wax | Certain woman masturbates with a penis made of wax, gourd, wood, radish, etc. Usually her husband or male relative smears it with chile; the woman is hurt or killed |
| 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 |
| f39 | The time of women | The women dominated over the men in the past or in a far away land, were the active part in marriage relations, practiced activities which now are reserved of the men only. Or the women could obtained supremacy but failed to do it for some reason |
| f3a | The pregnant man | A man carries a child like a woman |
| f45b | Conception from the Sun | A woman gives birth to a son after being impregnated by the sun(shine) or sun(beam) |
| f49 | The abnormal birth | Cesarean operation upon a woman at childbirth as a custom |
| f53 | Ugly husband | An ugly man marries a girl but conceals his face. Marriage is ruined after his face is seen |
| f53a | Bat or owl hides his face | A man hides his face from his wife because she does not know that he is a nocturnal being (a bat or an owl) |
| 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) |
| f86a | An eaten up pet | Person take care for a fish, crab or other small creature. Another person spies on him or her, kills the pet and eats it up or try to do it |
| f9 | A dangerous woman | For different reasons, sexual contact with a woman is deadly dangerous for a man |
| f92 | Homosexual play | A male person is tricked into being used sexually by another 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) |
| g15 | Plant maidens | In the other world or in the time of the ancestors food products or materials used by people looked as persons |
| 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) |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| h32a | Superfertility lost: a maltreated wife | Supernatural woman comes to live with humans. Thanks to that, food becomes easily available. She is maltreated, goes away, temporal superfertility is lost forever |
| i117 | Spider ferries from one world to another | Spider person raises the hero to the sky, helps him or her to return back to earth or otherwise helps to overcome the borderlines between worlds |
| i13a | The horned serpent | Giant water-chthonic or sky serpent or dragon has horns or antlers on its head |
| i16 | Body anomalies of the first people | First human beings have no mouth, anus or genitals, their women do not know how to give birth |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| i29 | Animal’s hole leads to the underworld | Person follows an animala through its hole or digs a hole himself and gets into the lower world where the animals who dig holes live |
| 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 |
| i65 | Milky Way of the dead | Milky Way is the path over which souls travel to the beyond or a path of the funeral procession |
| i72 | Stars are people | Stars are people, ghosts, anthropomorphic beings (interpretations of unique star objects like Venus or Polaris as persons not considered) |
| i74 | Stars are stones | Stars are shining stones, spangles, beads |
| i82b | Venus is female | Morning and/or Evening Star is a female personage |
| i82c | Venus is the Moon’s wife | Venus or some other bright star seen near the eastern or western horizon is female and wife of the Moon |
| j1 | The vengeful heroes | Persons avenge the death of their father, mother or other relatives who are one (rare two) generations older than they |
| j15 | Woman gets to dangerous creatures | Walking in search of her husband, boyfriend, kinsmen, shelter woman or girl gets to the house of dangerous creatures where she is injured or killed |
| j15a | Woman gets to jaguars | Setting off (usually in search of her husband, boyfriend or kinsmen), woman gets to the place of dangerous felines |
| j4a | Revenge for the death of the mother | A woman is murdered. Her son or children (rare: grandchildren, nephews) revenge for her death |
| j57 | Son of the Sun | A virgin girl is impregnated by the Sun and gives birth to a son or twin boys. When her son (or the twins) grows up, he (they) comes to his father |
| j6 | Children of murdered woman grow up with her murderers | Pregnant woman is killed (and eaten up). Twins are cut off from her womb. They should be eaten too but survive, live (unrecognized) in the house of the antagonists and revenge on them |
| j9 | Unborn children talk from the womb | A woman is in search of her husband or other person or object. Her unborn children speak from her stomach and shows her the correct way |
| k10 | Fight with the monstrous bird | Monstrous bird (giant bat) predates on humans. Heroes fight with it |
| k15a | Substituted weapon | Hero substitutes powerful person's weapon or amulet with a fake |
| 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) |
| k24 | Stolen clothes of supernatural woman | Women (rare: men) who possess supernatural power and usually come from a non-human world (from sky, from under the water, they are winged beings, bird- or animal-persons; rare: a girl of higher social status than the hero) take off their clothes (feather skins and the like) or part of it. Because a person hides the clothes (of one of them), their owner(s) have (has) to marry him or help him (rare: her) |
| 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 |
| k27n | Difficult tasks of the in-laws | A man must fulfill difficult tasks (to win competition) to receive the permission for a marriage |
| k27n3a | Task-giver is the Sun, Moon, Thunder, or Wind | Person who gives difficult tasks to the hero is associated with the Sun, Moon, Thunder, or Wind (Cloud, Rain) |
| 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 |
| k86 | Weeping child stolen | Because a small child is ignored or punished by its parents (usually it cries late in the evening), bush spirit or animal carries it away |
| k87a | A stolen boy | A forest woman receives or steals a small boy and brings him up to make him her paramour |
| l13 | The reared up monster | A small creature is reared up by people. When it is grown up, it becomes harmful and dangerous |
| l14 | Reared up serpent | A small creature (often a worm or a reptile) is brought home and reared up or it becomes to live by itself in an artificial body of water. When big, it goes out of human control or becomes something huge and/or dangerous. Cf. motif L13A (The reared up monster attacks people) |
| l3 | Husband turns into demon | A demon takes appearance of a man and comes to his wife or (rare) to other woman. The woman (alone or with her child) runs away and/or kills the monster (herself or with somebody's help) |
| l54 | Lake coming to boil | To overcome a disaster, hot stones or ashes are thrown into the water |
| l58 | Avaricious man | 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 |
| l59 | Avaricious woman: metamorphosis | Man's wife, sister or mother eats all the nest food alone, she is transformed in punishment |
| 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 |
| l85 | One-sided people | One-sided people have one leg and/or also one arm, one half of a head, etc. The second leg is not cut or burned off, preserved as a stump but is absent completely |
| l85e | One-leg people | Person has only one leg (and one arm) but has no problems with moving. Unlike motif L85 (one-sided people), the person’s body is complete |
| m11 | The unclean food | 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 |
| 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 |
| m29w | Jaguar (ocelote, puma) is a failure | Because of its stupidity and unsocial behavior, the jaguar (ocelote, puma) 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 |
| m34 | Thrown object turns into tail | An object thrown into person becomes his tail and the person himself an animal |
| 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. |
| m44c | Thieves of food: a young hero | A boy or young man comes to steal food of a person who is elder than he. Usually he is caught but not punished and invited to live with the elder person |
| m7 | Hero waiting to be picked up | Getting into the lower or upper world, to an island, a country at the horizon, etc. a man is unable to move further and waits for somebody who could bring him to his destination. Some animals, birds or celestial bodies pass by, the last one (often the Sun or the Moon) picks him up and brings to the place he is eager to go |
| m8 | Breaking the obstacle | Non-human persons work hard to destroy a strong and durable obstacle that blocks access to some place or object |
| m8a | Birds peck a rock to release prisoners | Birds and sometimes also animals work hard to break from the outside or from the inside a rock, a tree truck, bonds, etc. to release some beings or themselves from confinement in a small enclosure or trap |