| Motif | Name | Description |
| 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) |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| b18 | Light in container | Day light (also warmth, the sun, the moon) is kept as a particular object in a container, under a cover, etc. |
| b27 | Variants of transformations | Persons ponders over what object, feature, or creature it would be appropriate for him or her to turn into. When the choice is made, the persons transforms himself or herself |
| b27b | Transformation into stars | Persons ponders over what object, feature, or creature it would be appropriate for them to turn. When the choice is made, persons turn into stars |
| b28 | Travelling transformer | The transformer walks along coming across different persons and creatures, transforming them into birds, animals, stones, shrines, etc. (or transforming monstrous animals into present day ones) and introducing cultural norms, landscape features, etc. |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| b36b | Birds obtain their voices | Birds obtain their voices after pecking big reptile and smearing themselves with liquids from its body |
| b58 | Wild turkey’s red neck | After the original fire is stolen by the ancestors, a partridge size forest bird (Penelope sp.; Anhima cornuta; etc.; jacu, paujil) swallows burning coal and (besides the Andoque) its neck becomes red |
| b67 | Tree turns to rocks | People fell giant tree. The fallen tree and/or its stump turns into mountain(s) or rocks |
| b9 | Water in the tree trunk | There is enormous amount of water inside a trunk of a tree or a tree turns into water |
| c19 | Acquisition of the sun | The Sun (the day light) that was absent, stolen or hidden appears (again) |
| c2 | Deluge and conflagration combined | Inhabitans of the Middle World are (partly) destroyed (or will be destoyed) once by fire or draught, another time by a flood or the world is destroyed with a flood of fire or boiling water |
| c34 | The deluge because of a wounded creature | Killing (injuring, offending) of some cruature (usually related to water) triggers deluge |
| c6f | Diving for drowned person | Persons or animals dive to get from under the water a drowned person or creature or part of its body |
| d12 | Food baked in the sun | First people or inhabitants of a distant country cook food in the sun; or fire owner lies that he or she cooks food in the sun |
| 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 |
| d5 | Woman as the owner of the fire | Female person is the owner or inventor (but not the personification) of the fire |
| d5a | Fire in woman’s genitals | First fire was hidden in genitals or anus of a woman |
| 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 |
| e15 | Ducks and canoes | People learn from aquatic birds how to make canoes or how to paddle; or the first canoe is a transformed bird or is made of bird bones |
| e1a | First people of unstable materials | First human beings are made of unstable materials (mud, wax, fire, honey, etc.) and unviable |
| e1b | Person of unfit materials | Certain person is made of improper material and proves to be short-lived or unfit for fulfilling his functions |
| e2 | People made for a test | Making people, creator does not reach perfection immediately. First variants of creation are rejected, then proper form and material found |
| e20 | Fish poison person | Entering water, certain person makes fish die. From parts of his body or from his grave grows plant used to prepare fish poison (timbo) |
| e21 | Avenged victim of water creatures | Child fishes with poison or his or her body produces fish poison. Fish or water snake kills him or her. The perished child is avenged |
| 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 |
| e9g | Vulture-wife | Man marries vulture-woman |
| f20 | A strong embrace | Man and woman embrace each other forever or for a long time |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| f43 | The women disappear | The women of the ancestral community kill or abandon the men |
| f45 | The Amazons | There are (or were) women who live apart from men in their own village or villages |
| f51 | The clandestine lover | Person who conceals his or her identity comes to his or her lover (at night). Next time, the lover puts a mark on the stranger's face, body or clothes doing this intentionally (to recognize him or her) or by chance (that leads to the identification) |
| 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) |
| f80a | Genitals apart from the body | Genitals exist by themselves as separate beings, they can be stuck to the human body, remove, etc. |
| f9 | A dangerous woman | For different reasons, sexual contact with a woman is deadly dangerous for a man |
| f94 | Rival wives in the sky | A man gets to the sky where he has a choice to marry one of two women, one of them being connected with life and another with death |
| g10 | The hanging tree | A tree which trunk is cut through do not fall because it is hold from above |
| g11 | Squirrel the woodcutter | A squirrel plays crucial role in felling the gigantic tree |
| g13b | Fungi as a false food | Before acquisition of cultivated plants people ate fungi. Fingi is a food of non-human beings. Fungi is a false food of inferior quality |
| 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) |
| g28 | The fish tree | Tree contains fish in its trunk |
| 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 |
| h21 | Animals or fish kill a child | Person possesses game animals or fish. A boy or a girl knows this secret or is used as a luring device. Another person asks or forces the boy or girl to serve him the same way or the boy himself makes an attempt to hunt or fish. As a result, the boy or girl is killed or carried away by animals or fish |
| h24 | Container opened too early | Container with valuables or with dangerous creatures is opened (before time). Its content goes out of control or disappear |
| h24f | Meat in a package | Person can magically put a lot of meat or fish into a small package or vessel which is easy to carry |
| 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 |
| h30 | A wrong choice | Seeing two women who have come together or in succession, man has to choose one of them. Usually he takes the one who is less pretty and smart or more dangerous inflicting troubles on himself and humanity |
| 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 |
| h36ff | Death and the raven | Raven is responsible for introduction of permanent death |
| h37 | Magic device lost by a failure | Magic object, device that makes hunting or fishing easy gets into possession of a person who is unable to operate it or abuses it. The device kills or injures the failure himself, other people and/or disappears |
| i108 | The Pleiades are a person | The Pleiades are only one anthropomorphic being, not several persons |
| i14 | No-anus people | Person or creature has no anus opening |
| i14a | Eject digested food through the mouth | No-anus people eject digested food through the mouth or other orifice |
| 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 |
| i24 | A snake bridge | Snake, lizard or worm is a bridge or a rope over the river |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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) |
| i80a | The youngest Thunder | Man meets Thunders and becomes one of them |
| i82a | Venus is male | Morning and/or Evening Star is a male personage |
| 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 |
| i82c1 | Two wives of the Moon | The Moon has two wives (usually the Morning and the Evening stars). One of them takes care of him and he becomes fat, another neglects him and he becomes thin |
| 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 |
| k10 | Fight with the monstrous bird | Monstrous bird (giant bat) predates on humans. Heroes fight with it |
| k11b | Reeds from bird’s bones | Bones of a giant bird turn into reeds or bamboo from which arrows or blowpipes are made |
| 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 |
| k13c | Ogress’ daughter avenges death of her mother | A man marries an ogress' daughter, kills her mother. The wife revenges on him, gets to cut off his leg |
| 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) |
| k176 | A man in search of the woman | A (young) man sets off to find or to return his bride or his wife |
| k1e | Marooned on an islet | Person is marooned on an islet or on another side of a sea or wide river |
| k2 | The destroyed ladder | Hero climbs up (e.g. to a tree) or down (e.g. into a deep cave) by ladder, rope, from branch to branch, etc. The rope etc. breaks or is intentionally destroyed and the hero cannot return to the ground. (All cases of motif K2A, besides the Koreans, also contain motif K2) |
| 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 |
| k27h | To represent the head that is permanently concealed | The hero has to carve the representa-tion of the head of a person who never opens his face. Usually such a representation decorates the wooden bench |
| k27i | Task: to dry a body of water | A task: to dry a body of water |
| 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) |
| 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 |
| k28 | Father or uncle is rival and enemy | Maternal uncle or father (or grandfather if he replaces father who is not mentioned) of the young man is his rival or enemy and tries to kill him |
| k30 | Flying enemy abducts woman | Flying person or creature abducts a woman but is ultimately killed or the woman escapes from him |
| k32 | The false wife | An ugly, old, lazy, etc. woman or (in Chaco) a male trickster comes to man under disguise of his wife or bride who is driven out, confined to the underworld, killed, etc. |
| k34 | Fatal swing | Person kills others inviting them to sit on a swing and launching them into water, on rocks, etc. |
| k4 | The bird nester | Person climbs up a tree or rock or descends to a cave to get eggs or nestlings from the bird's nest. Another person remains on the ground. They get into conflict and/or the first person is unable to get back to the ground |
| 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 |
| 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) |
| k8d | Jonah: swallowed by anthropomorphic being | Person (often an animal-person) gets into the belly of anthropomorphic being. He kills it from the inside and/or returns to earth by himself (i.e. not extracted by other people) |
| k8e | Getting inside via anus | Person or animal gets into another being through its anus |
| l110 | The devourer | A demonic being swallows a multitude of people and animals. When it is killed and cut open, the swallowed ones come out alive or are revived |
| l12 | Vultures and incomplete body | Vultures bring to the sky a being who has lost part of its body members or is reduced to the head or skull |
| 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) |
| l18 | Multi-headed bird | A bird with two or more heads on top of one body is described in tales or represented in art |
| l1e | Person creates monstrous birds | A monstrous bird is created from small amount of the flesh of a human being or animal (usually a heart) or from manioc starch |
| l24 | Monsters suffocated | Demons (or one of them) attack people and return to their den (usually a cave or tree hollow). People make suffocating fire around the den killing most or all of the demons |
| l27 | Girl eaten up | Two girls or young women meet a demon. One or both are not aware of danger. One is eaten up, another escapes |
| 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) |
| l36 | Woman attacks man who climbs a tree | When a man climbs a tree (escaping from persecutor; to get bird nestlings, honey, fruits, etc.), his wife (rare: her brother) kills, injures him or turns into demonic creature who pursues him |
| l38 | Demon’s trap | A demon puts a trap to catch people, hero gets into it |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| l42 | Hero carried to ogre’s home | An ogre or ogress catches a person and brings him to his or her home where he or she plans to cook and eat him. The hero escapes |
| 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) |
| l45 | Duped watchman | An ogre or a stronger animal catches a man or a weaker animal or drives him into a small enclosure and goes away for a time leaving a watchman. The hero dupes the watchman, escapes. (Most, though hardly all American cases can have post-Columbian African origin) |
| l48 | Demons devour their comrades | A man kills (usually in a tree, on a rock, at the edge of a well, of a precipice) and/or throws down one of his enemies. The other enemies do not recognize their comrade and think that their prey is falling down |
| l56 | Fire in monster’s belly | A monster or a big animal dies when fire is kindled in its belly |
| l6 | Demon clings to person | A demonic being demands that a person would carry it permanently, clings to his shoulder or back |
| l63 | Person eats with vagina or anus | Person eats food with her toothed vagina or with her or his anus |
| l7 | Chasing an animal by mistake | Instead of chasing a person, a bush spirit, a monster or a dangerous animal follows by mistake an object or animal that moves nearby |
| l7a | Sticking demon: first to person and then to animal | A demon who sticks to other creatures and refuses to get down sticks first to a person and then to an animal or first to an animal and then to a bird |
| 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 |
| m11a | Fish extracted from body | Person serves people fish extracted from her or his own body |
| m151a | Holding up the rock | (Animal) person pretends to hold up a rock, tree etc. and explains that otherwise it will fall |
| m18 | Stolen arrows and hooks | Person transforms himself into an object of hunting or fishing, provokes hunters of fishermen to catch or shoot him and carries way the tools that they use (arrows, darts, harpoons, hooks, baits). Or he fishes by turning himself into a hook. Or he is caught but escapes turning back into a person |
| m18b | Getting fishing hook or harpoon | Person turns into a fish to steal fishing hook or harpoon or he turns into fishing hook to catch a fish |
| 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 |
| m29k | The turtle (tortoise, toad, frog) wins thanks to his smartness | Being smart and persistent, the turtle (toad, frog) overcomes strong adversaries |
| 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 |
| m41 | The eye-juggler | Person plays throwing his eyes or (Alaska Athabascans) his tooth up or away. Eyes or tooth first come back to eye sockets or mouth but eventually are lost |
| m42 | Eyes: taken out of orbits and lost | Person loses his eyes because of his playfulness or negligence. He makes new eyes of some substance or/and takes eyes of another person |
| m44b | Thieves of food: the women | Person discovers that somebody steals game or fish from his trap or devastates his garden. He or his guards catch the thieves who prove to be (the first) women or the thief is the water being whom the hero lets go after receiving a woman for ransom |
| m55 | Sprinkling hot coals | A man or a weaker animal leads the stronger one to a place that is allegedly dangerous (hot coals, ashes, sticks, etc. can fall there at night). When his companion is asleep, man throws sticks, sprinkles hot ashes or coals on him pretending that they fall on them both |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| m72 | Hand in animal’s anus | Person puts (for different reasons) his or her hand into the anus of a tapir or other herbivorous animals and is unable to extract it back. Animal starts to run and drags the person behind him for a long time |
| 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.) |
| m76 | Person climbs a tree, leg is cut off | When a man climbs a tree, a woman cuts his leg off or when a woman climbs a tree, a man cuts her leg off |
| m8 | Breaking the obstacle | Non-human persons work hard to destroy a strong and durable obstacle that blocks access to some place or object |