| Motif | Name | Description |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| b12 | Rivers and snakes | The river bed follows the way of a snake, fish, dragon or crab; pieces of the snake’s body turn into rivers; a river is a snake |
| b17 | Night in container | Darkness is a particular object that can be carried (usually brought from its original owner in a container) |
| b50 | Whose blood is sweeter? | An insect feeds on human blood (flesh). Dangerous person asks it where it had sucked blood or whose blood (flesh) is the most delicious. Usually the insect lies or cannot answer (its tongue is cut off) and thanks to this dangerous person attacks certain plants or animals and not people |
| b51 | Mosquito and thunder | Thanks to intentional misinformation, Thunder did not get know that
bloodsucking insect has sucked human blood
|
| b5a | Two creators: a dialogue | In the beginning of time, a male and a female persons meet each other and become engaged into the dialogue |
| c14 | Monsters destroy people | During or before the world catastrophe (deluge, darkness) wild beasts and monsters attack and destroy people |
| c4a | The flood: survival in a tree | During the flood some persons survive in a tree |
| c7 | The flood: breaking the dam | In the beginning of times or after the flood a dam of earth, person or creature does not let water to recede. The dam is broken or opened, waters withdraw |
| c8 | The couple of close relations originates the mankind | In the beginning of time or after the natural disaster brother and sister, mother and son, or father and daughters are the only human beings. They marry and the present day people are their descendents |
| c8aa | Brother and sister beget the people | In the beginning of time or after the natural disaster brother and sister are the only human beings. They marry and the present day people are their descendents |
| d4a | Theft of fire | Fire is stolen from its original owner or brought back to the people from somebody who had stolen it before |
| d4f | Beaver or fish let themselves to be roasted | Beaver (in North American) or a small fish (in South America) lets fire owners catch and roast it, then revives and carries the fire away |
| d5 | Woman as the owner of the fire | Female person is the owner or inventor (but not the personification) of the fire |
| d7 | Fire and toad | Frog or toad possesses the fire, steals it from original owner, tries to extinguish or to save it |
| e13a | Sacred knowledge from under the water | Sacred knowledge, objects and rituals are initially obtained from the denizens of the underwater world |
| e22 | Swallowed person obtains knowledge | Getting into the body of certain being, person obtain knowledge of rituals, songs, ornaments, poison or drugs and then brings it to 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 |
| e6 | Because of a woman worlds become isolated | When a woman of the child-bearing age tries to come from one world to another (e.g. from sky to earth), the communication between the worlds is blocked or broken forever |
| e7 | Person stuck in a cosmic hole | To descend from the sky, ascend from the underworld or come out of the cave, people must pass through narrow hole. A person is stuck in the hole blocking forever communication between different parts of the universe |
| f17 | Misplaced genitalia | Originally, humans had (had to have; can have under some special confition) their genitals not on the place where they are now; the genitals were absent, or people did not know know their function and used for copulation other parts of the body |
| f2 | Pregnant limb | Child is born from a tumor or swelling on person's body (on thigh, knee, finger, etc.) or is temporarily placed there or child grows from blood that flew out from a cut |
| f33 | Water creature paramour | Certain woman or a group of women take for paramour a big water animal (caiman, otter, sea-lion, whale, anaconda; rare: water bird, crab), water spirit or monster. Husbands, brothers or (adoptive) children kill or maim paramour and/or (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 |
| 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 |
| f45 | The Amazons | There are (or were) women who live apart from men in their own village or villages |
| f7 | The underwater-maiden | Man takes or attempts to take a wife who is connected with the underwater world (fish, crab, snake, water animal and the like) |
| g10 | The hanging tree | A tree which trunk is cut through do not fall because it is hold from above |
| 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) |
| g7 | Blunt axes | Ancestors try to fell a tree (more rare a high rock) that has different useful fruits on its branchs (on its top) or contains water and fish in its tunck. The notch disappears as soon as the woodcutters abandon their work for a while or periodically |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| h33 | Walking babies | Children walked or could walk from the very birth but this ability was lost or never obtained |
| h34a | Controversy over conditions of life | Person has a series of suggestions how to make the world easy for living and free of hard work and death. His companion successively rejects them. Their dialogue forever defines conditions of human life |
| k25 | Magic wife | A man consciously marries a woman related to the non-human world |
| 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) |
| l65 | Demonic baby | A baby or small child proves to be a demon, devours or injures people |
| l83 | Incomplete body turns into thunder | A rolling head or a man who has burned off his foot turns into or produces thunder or lightning |
| m29g | Trickster-hare or rabbit | In episodes related to deception, absurd, obscene or anti-social behavior the protagonist is hare or rabbit |
| m8 | Breaking the obstacle | Non-human persons work hard to destroy a strong and durable obstacle that blocks access to some place or object |