| 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. |
| a3 | Male sun and female moon | The Moon is female or bisexual, the Sun is male |
| b26 | Man joins wild animals | Person who follows the wild animals turns into one of them or into their master |
| 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. |
| b3a | Primeval waters | Water is the original element, the dry earth appears later |
| 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 |
| e1b | Person of unfit materials | Certain person is made of improper material and proves to be short-lived or unfit for fulfilling his functions |
| e9g | Vulture-wife | Man marries vulture-woman |
| 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) |
| f18a | The long penis | Penis is so long that he can turn it round his waist or send into a woman who is at a long distance from him. (Only texts considered to describe real events and beings and not anecdotes are included) |
| f18b | Long penis after prohibited sex | After contact with a non-human or prohibited partner (close kin, animal, spirit) man's penis becomes so long that he had to carry it in a basket, etc. |
| f19 | Dangerous frog paramour | After copulation with a frog, man's penis is injured |
| f27 | Girls and the water spirits | For girls and young women it is dangerous to come near water. Water creatures swallow them or drag away; a girl can die or become pregnant from a spirit; she can trigger a flood (rare: other cataclysm). Water spirits can come themselves to a girl who has her periods |
| f28 | Primeval penis | The penis is a particular monstrous being with whom copulate the primeval women, the amazons, or a certain woman |
| f28a | Primeval penis grows from the ground | There is only one monstrous penis, a husband of primeval women or the amazons, which grows out of the ground or out of the water in a lake |
| 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 |
| 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) |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| h35 | Fragile teeth | Human teeth are made of material subject to easy damage (etiology of tooth ache in most cases) |
| h36 | The muddled message | Person is sent by god to bring instructions or certain objects but distorts, forgets or replaces them. This has fatal consequences for humans or for a certain species of animals. (Lithuanian case can be a mistification) |
| i100b | The Pleiades are a group of people | The Pleiades are any people (of any ages and sex, combined data of i99-i100a) |
| i14 | No-anus people | Person or creature has no anus opening |
| 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 |
| i19 | People inhale the odor of food | Anthropomorphic beings satisfy their hunger cooking food and inhaling the odor |
| 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 |
| i45b | Not to point at the rainbow | It to point at the rainbow, pointing finger or entire arm will rot, wither or become crooked |
| i72 | Stars are people | Stars are people, ghosts, anthropomorphic beings (interpretations of unique star objects like Venus or Polaris as persons not considered) |
| 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 |
| i99 | The Pleiades are boys or men | The Pleiades are a group of boys or men, or a group of different people but predominantly males |
| 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 |
| j21 | Birth from eggs | Gods, first people or founders of the royal lineages are born from eggs |
| j22d | Two animals from one cut in two | Two halves of one animal or person which was cut in two turn into two animals of different species or into foreigners |
| j47 | Pursuer falls from height | Person ascends to the sky (rare: descends from the sky; ascends the cliff) by a rope, a ladder, etc. Another person tries to follow him or her but the rope (the ladder) is broken or severed |
| j48 | Parrot cuts the sky rope | Person ascends to the sky or descends from the sky to earth by a rope. A parrot cuts the rope, the person falls to earth |
| j4a | Revenge for the death of the mother | A woman is murdered. Her son or children (rare: grandchildren, nephews) revenge for her death |
| 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 |
| k10 | Fight with the monstrous bird | Monstrous bird (giant bat) predates on humans. Heroes fight with it |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| k56b | The worthy man is rewarded, the unworthy punished | First one, then another man meets a powerful person or persons. The first man is worthy and rewarded with treasure, prestige or the like. The second man (or two men) follows him, behaves in a wrong way and is punished |
| 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) |
| k8f | Deer in monster’s belly | A swallowed up person finds alive deer in the belly of the monster |
| l22 | The sound sleep | After breaking some taboo, coming across a strange object or person, people fall asleep. They do not feel when at night spirits come and injure or kill them |
| 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 |
| l25 | Demonic girl sucks brains | People adopt a demonic child, girl or woman but discover that this being kills people (in particular babies left in its charge) sucking out their brains or taking out their eyes |
| l28 | The snake-eater | Person who have eaten a prohibited meat or fish turns into monstrous snake or fish |
| l28a | Eating of snake meat triggers flood | Because people (or certain person) eat the meat of a snake (dragon, strange fish), a flood begins or a landslide occurs, or a river (lake) appears |
| 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) |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| l5c | Rolling head is a dangerous monster | Rolling head is a dangerous mobster (pursues celestial bodies, people etc.) |
| l6 | Demon clings to person | A demonic being demands that a person would carry it permanently, clings to his shoulder or back |
| l68 | Two companions in the night | Person turns into monster at night when he remains alone with his companion in the wilderness |
| 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 |
| l77 | Girl seen as a fruit eaten up | Person sees or smells people as delicious objects and devours them |
| l7b | Chasing a gourd-vessel by mistake | Instead of chasing a person, a bush spirit, a monster or a dangerous animal follows by mistake a gourd vessel that floats downriver |
| l82 | The burned off foot | Intentionally or not, a man burns his foot or his whole body in a fire, then turns into demon |
| l98 | Cannibal owl | Dangerous cannibal or bush spirit who abducts children, attacks people, etc. is associated with an owl |
| 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 |
| m29o1 | The monkey is a failure | Because of its stupidity and unsocial behavior, the monkey suffers a reverse, is injured or dies |
| m29o1 | The monkey is a failure | Because of its stupidity and unsocial behavior, the monkey suffers a reverse, is injured or dies |
| m43 | Doll as a decoy | To kill or catch a monster, human figure of wood or clay or alive woman is exposed as a bait. Usually monster's claws or sharp leg get stuck in the wood |
| m8 | Breaking the obstacle | Non-human persons work hard to destroy a strong and durable obstacle that blocks access to some place or object |
| m9 | Stuck in a tree hollow | Person who puts her or his head or hand into a tree hollow or (rare) other hole is stuck fast in it or falls into the hollow and dies or undergoes a metamorphosis |
| m9a | Transformed into tree-frog | Person who sucks honey greedily from a tree hollow and/or is stuck in it turns into tree-frog |