| Motif | Name | Description |
| a29 | The Sun and a demon compete for the hero | Two persons one of which is connected with the upper and another with the lower or middle world, both are eager to possess another person and pull him or her to his or her side. One or both rivals are female. Person connected with the upper world and/or the object of the competition are luminaries – the Sun, the Moon, or Venus |
| a29b | The Moon torn in half | Person, connected with the upper world and another person connected with the lower world or the earth both are eager to possess a hero or heroin who is associated with the Moon |
| a3 | Male sun and female moon | The Moon is female or bisexual, the Sun is male |
| a5 | The Sun and the Moon are males | The Moon is male, the Sun is also male or (much more rare) asexual |
| b10 | Drunk out water | Person drinks a lake or all the water in the world or all the water is originally inside person's belly. When a hole is made in it, the water pours out |
| b13a | Stream follows person | A stream of water (with a monster in it) pursues person who tries to escape from it |
| b20 | Expedition to the upper world | People regularly ascend to the sky for hunting, fishing or gathering; do not give honey, fish or proper meat to the old person remained below; she or he makes their return impossible, they remain in the sky |
| b21 | Destruction of the world tree | People ascend the tree to hunt, fish, or gather food in the sky. The tree is destroyed, people fall to earth or remain in the upper world |
| b22 | Offended person destroys the tree | People who have climbed up a tree do not share food with a person who remained below. He or she revenges on them destroying the tree. The events have cosmic dimensions |
| 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 |
| b36c | Fat animals | Animals get meat and fat extracted from some original creature or created otherwise. Some get a lot, some remain lean |
| b60 | Offended children abandon parents | Children conflict with their parents who do not pay them enough attention, condemn their sexual behavior, do not give them enough food, clothes, etc.; the children abandon their parents and become birds, bats, atmospheric phenomena, or stars (usually the Pleiades) |
| 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 |
| b9 | Water in the tree trunk | There is enormous amount of water inside a trunk of a tree or a tree turns into water |
| c17 | Fire pit for the people | The men of primeval community destroy most of the people and/or themselves in a fire pit or on the bonfire |
| 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 |
| 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) |
| f22 | Study of partner’s body | Person asks another person of the opposite sex about destination or place of her or his genitals. Usually it is made after putting questions about function of other body parts; or person tries to use for sex different parts of the partner's body or tests them before reaching the best place where the genitals should be put |
| f24 | Origin of menses: a bite | Women bleed because fish or snake bites them. Usually it is invisible fish inside their body |
| f29 | Girl sits on the ground | A girl or young woman who is usually occupied with domestic work (is cooking, weaving, etc.) sits on the ground and copulates with a penis-like creature that crawls from below into her vagina |
| 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 |
| f34 | Land animal paramour | Certain woman or a group of women takes for a paramour a big land animal. Husbands, brothers or (adoptive) children kill or maim paramour and (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 |
| f35 | Feeding with the paramour’s meat | Person feeds another with the meat of his or her sexual partner who cooks or eats it without knowing whose meat it is |
| f4 | Child born in jug | In the beginning of times, a particular person or children in general was or were conceived and grown up in pots, heaps of mud, etc. and not in a womb |
| f42a | Men turn into birds | Young men and boys turn into birds or bats, fly away |
| f46 | One for all | In the beginning of time two or more men (animal people) have only one woman |
| f52 | Pubic hair for a bird’s crest | A bird person gets his crest putting on his head a pubic hair of a woman or part of her genitals |
| f53 | Ugly husband | An ugly man marries a girl but conceals his face. Marriage is ruined after his face is seen |
| f63 | Trickster poses as woman and marries man | A male person turns into woman and marries a man. He is either unmasked or abandons his "husband" by his own will |
| 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) |
| f8 | Women and men come together | Initially women and men live apart from each other. Later they meet each other and become to live together |
| 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) |
| f88 | Odor of women | Initially women's genitals were fragrant or had no smell. Because of a bad chance they acquire unpleasant odor or do not acquire fragrant odor |
| f9 | A dangerous woman | For different reasons, sexual contact with a woman is deadly dangerous for a man |
| f9b | Piranha in vagina | Biting piranha is in woman's genitals |
| f9e1 | Dangerous animal in vagina | Woman is dangerous because biting or stinging animal or animals is (are) inside her genitals (and not only the head of such an animal) |
| g28 | The fish tree | Tree contains fish in its trunk |
| 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 |
| h21a | Not to kill a big fish | |
| h34g | One grain porridge | One cereal grain (cob, etc.) is enough to prepare a meal |
| i1 | The thunderbirds | Creatures that produce rain and/or thunderstorms are birds or anthropomorphic beings with wings; or (rare) some or all birds are connected with thunder, lightning or rain though Thunder is not a bird |
| i6 | Weather birds | A man meets a giant bird that brings with it clouds, rain, hail, thunderstorm, etc. |
| i72 | Stars are people | Stars are people, ghosts, anthropomorphic beings (interpretations of unique star objects like Venus or Polaris as persons not considered) |
| i82b | Venus is female | Morning and/or Evening Star is a female personage |
| i8f | One support of the world | Only one pole or mountain supports the earth or the sky |
| j1 | The vengeful heroes | Persons avenge the death of their father, mother or other relatives who are one (rare two) generations older than they |
| j12 | Travelling girl walks across suitors | A girl (or two sisters) travel, usually in search of a proper marriage partner who lives far away or who has gone away. On her way or after reaching the place of destination the girl gets to some unpleasant suitors |
| j12b | Honey-suitor | A suitor or husband who is a honey person or skillful honey-gatherer is attractive for a girl |
| j14 | A flute-player | A girl or two sisters walk in search of the man whose beautiful voice or whose flute-play they listen |
| j28a | Truth about father | Hero asks how one of his parents died and receives a series of false answers. Usually he successively exposes himself to the same dangers, survives and thus demonstrates that truth is still concealed from him |
| j30 | Parents’ remains | Before the hero destroys the antagonists or escapes from them, he finds or receives the remains or possessions that belonged to the antagonists' victim |
| j4 | Revenge for the death of the male relatives | Heroes avenge the murder or captivity of the male relatives: (grand)father, uncles, or the elder relatives in general, the loss of the males being the most traumatic |
| j54 | The last female survives | Animals of particular species that were enemies of the heroes are exterminated besides the only pregnant female (rare a female and a male). Thanks to this, these animals still exist |
| k10 | Fight with the monstrous bird | Monstrous bird (giant bat) predates on humans. Heroes fight with it |
| k10i | A tree that opens its trunk | A tree opens its trunk to provide a refuge for a hero pursued by the monstrous bird. When the bird follows the hero the tree crushes it squeezing its trunk again |
| k177 | The travelling heroine | A girl or young woman sets off to find or return her fience or her husband or she escapes from a fanger and ultimately marries happily |
| k19a | Star-wife | A man maries a star-woman |
| k19c | Non-human lover in man’s bed or bag | A man brings home a small being with whom he makes love at night. His mother, sister or wife discovers his non-human lover in his bed or bag |
| k19d | Star’s husband suffers from cold | When a man who has married a star gets to the sky, he suffers severe cold and dies either of cold or after touching a forbidden fire |
| 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) |
| k20 | Wish for star-husband or wife realized | A human person admires a star or (rare) the Moon in the sky, expresses desire to marry it or (rare) to get a star-object. Star descends to him or to her or takes him or her to the sky |
| 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 |
| 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. |
| k42 | Bird-woman kills men (The loon-woman) | Bird-woman is energetically searching a man whom she likes, takes him by force for her husband. Turning into a monster, she kills men but is ultimately destroyed |
| 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 |
| k87 | Marriage with an animal creates problems | A woman becomes the wife of an animal (rare: other non-human being). Her husband cares for her but ultimately the animal, the woman, her children or her relations are killed, she turns into an animal herself, animals and humans become enemies, etc. |
| k87a1 | Baby passed to the demon’s hands | Mother of a baby child is asked by demonic woman to give her the baby for a short while or the demon imperceptibly replaces another person who must take the baby. As soon as the demon gets the baby she carries it away to her place |
| 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) |
| l15a | Vulnerable place on the body | The only vulnerable spot is near the surface of person’s or creature’s body and not in his inner organs |
| l15a1 | Achilles' heel | Vulnerable place on the body of a person or creature is on his or her foot (toe, heel, sole, ankle) |
| l20a | Eater of parrots | A man climbs a tree, throws down bird nestlings to a woman. She eats them raw and then kills or tries to kill the man |
| 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 |
| l40 | Reflection and shadow | Person discovers (rare:still fails to discover) another getting to see his or her shadow or reflection in water |
| l63 | Person eats with vagina or anus | Person eats food with her toothed vagina or with her or his anus |
| l76 | Ogress devours testicles | An ogress attacks her male victim devouring or pulling off his testicles |
| l9 | Sharp body members | Body members of a person has the form of cutting or piercing weapon |
| l9a | Sharp leg | Person's leg is injured intentionally or by chance. The loss of one leg does not bother him. He uses the sharpened bone as a thrust weapon |
| m102 | Person lets his leg or head to be cut off | A bird stands with one leg tucked under it, putting its head under its wing; turtle draws its head and limbs under its shell. Person decides that the bird has one leg, no head, turtle has neither head nor limbs, asks to cut him his head and limbs off |
| 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 |
| m28 | Icarus (failed attempt to fly on artificial wings) | Acquiring possibility to fly, person ultimately falls to the ground or remains in a faraway place being unable to fly any more |
| m29b | Trickster-fox, jackal or coyote | In episodes related to deception, absurd, obscene or anti-social behavior the protagonist is fox, jackal or coyote |
| 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 |
| m38 | Stupid imitation (all versions) | Person sees how others act using magic or according to their animal nature. He or she imitates their actions and gets into trouble. Actions are not heroic deeds, competitions or tests and refer to everyday activity, mostly to providing and cooking food |
| m38a | The bungling host | Being on a visit to other people or (more often) animals, an (animal)-person sees them act using magic or according to their animal nature. Back at home, he imitates their actions and gets in trouble. Actions are not heroic deeds, competitions or tests and mostly refer to providing and cooking food |
| 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 |
| m62a | Quarrel provoked by action [not in correlation table] | Hero imperceptibly causes detriment to two persons or creatures. They accuse each other and fight |
| m63 | Body parts enumerated | Before finding a part of the body that is the best for some particular function, other parts are proven or enumerated |
| m8 | Breaking the obstacle | Non-human persons work hard to destroy a strong and durable obstacle that blocks access to some place or object |
| m81 | Blind persons | A man travels and comes to two or several blind (usually old) persons |
| m87 | Invisible ghosts | Person enters a seemingly empty house and attempts to take certain things. Invisible beings prevent him from doing it or objects themselves hurt him |
| m8c | Eyes cleared out | Birds peck through a layer of clay, wax, pitch etc. with which person’s eyes or anus are stuck up |
| m8d | Birds break body covering | Birds work hard to peck through the substance that covers some beings' body or to reach its entrails |