Berezkin Analytical Catalogue of Motifs
The Source of Data from Berezkin's Analytics Catalogue can be found here:
Ю.Е. Березкин, Е.Н. Дувакин. Тематическая классификация и распределение фольклорно-мифологических мотивов по ареалам. Аналитический каталог.
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Quick Navigation for Motif Categories
- A – The Sun and Moon
- B – The Origins of the Characteristics of the environment
- C – Disasters
- D – Fire and Laughter
- E – The origins of people and culture
- F – Gender and sex
- G – Fertility and Agriculture
- H – Paradise Lost
- I – Supernatural objects, objects and creatures
- J – Avenger heroes: The amerinday cycle
- K – Adventures: Acts of heroes
- L – Adventures: Monsters and evil spirits
- M – Adventures: Tricks and episodes
Ref Title Summary Traditions Narratives k93b6 A sword grown in the garden. The fish eaten by the woman gives birth to sons, and what is buried in the garden are objects or items that are further associated with these young men. These are either weapons (swords, sabres, rapiers) or objects whose appearance allows one to judge what is happening to the young men. 0 0 L100b1 Dialogue between the male and the female pigeons The young man forgets his magic bride and meets another woman. At the last moment a bird tells the story about his real bride and he recalls everything. Usually two birds, a male and a female, have a dialogue in which the female can tell the male that he will be as cruel with her as this youth who has forgotten his bride. 0 0 l15h2 The soul of a character in a bird. The object in which the character's life is contained is enclosed in another, which is enclosed in a third (and so on). The final repository of the soul is a bird (a chick, several birds or chicks). 0 0 l15h3 The soul of a character in an insect (worm). The object in which the character's life is concentrated is enclosed in another, which is enclosed in a third (and so on). The final vessel of the soul is an insect or worm. 0 0 L31a Children carried away to the sky. An object descends from the sky. Children playing climb into it or stick to it, and it carries them away to the sky. See motif L31. 0 0 L39b The pie tree. The tree grows from a flatbread (pie, etc.) and usually bears flatbreads instead of fruit. 0 0 l44a1 Louse- turtle. A human and a demonic character agree to compare their lice. When the human shows a turtle or a frog, the demon believes that it is scarier and stronger than him. 0 0 l73a1 The fugitive creates fog. Throwing some object behind him, the fleeing character creates fog or darkness in the path of his pursuer. 0 0 m105a1 Allegedly killed children: two birds. One of two birds, both of which (rarely: only one) are flightless, suggests that the other break its eggs. The other agrees, but then sees that the first has kept its eggs. 0 0 m187d Race: turtle (toad) - participant. Participating in a race, the turtle or frog (toad) defeats its faster opponent. See motif M183. 0 0 m195c The clever or lucky person solves riddles. People of high status cannot determine the hidden difference between two or more outwardly similar objects or beings, or between two sides of the same object or being. Thanks to their own intelligence or chance, a person of low status does so. 0 0 M29 Trickster: identification with birds and animals trickster is defined as a protagonist in the following characteristic episodes. 0 0 M38b3b Hero warms and covers the nestlings Mighty bird (more rare other creature/mythological person) helps a man (rare: a woman) because he (she) warms/covers from bad weather its/hers nestlings (children) 0 0 a35b1 The moon hinders the thief. The criminal tries to make the moon dim because its light annoys him or prevents him from committing crimes. 0 0 A4e Rider of the clouds An anthropomorphic person associated with the thunder and rain rides on the clouds (uses them as a vehicle) 0 0 B42hh Cosmic hunting and Orion. Orion is associated with the theme of cosmic hunting. (Including motifs b42h, b42h1, b42m, b42r). 0 0 b87d Alcor - infant. Alcor (a faint star next to the second star of the Big Dipper's handle) – infant. 0 0 c4a The Flood: Salvation on a Tree. During the flood, those who climbed trees were saved. 0 0 c6h1 Earth was taken from the belly of an invertebrate. The earth brought from the underworld was found in the belly of a worm or insect, from where it was taken. 0 0 c8aa Brother and sister give birth to humans. At the beginning of time, or as a result of a catastrophe, the only human couple are a brother and sister. They marry and give birth to people. 0 0 c8e Salvation in a pumpkin during the flood. During the flood or at the beginning of time, people (usually a brother and sister) float in a large gourd. 0 0 e8b Woman hides in a fruit. A woman hides inside a fruit brought into the house and comes out when no one is around or when the fruit is cut open. 0 0 e8c Woman hides in a splinter. A woman hides inside a splinter or branch brought into the house and comes out when no one is around. 0 0 f2a Improper birth. The child deliberately leaves its mother's womb in an unusual way, making a hole in her body and often killing her. This is a sign of its malice and/or supernatural power. 0 0 F97a5 Snake is deprived of its limbs Being responsible for breaking food tabou by humans, snake lost its limbs as a punishment 0 0 H18a The puppy releases the animals. The owner of the hunting animals hides them underground; one of the first ancestors turns into a puppy, which is picked up by the owner's children, and releases the animals. See motif H18. 0 0 H32C Lost abundance: the wronged spouse. The woman's husband has a non-human nature and possesses magical knowledge and values. He is wronged, he leaves, and his knowledge and abilities can no longer be used by humans. 0 0 I37g Mushrooms - a step, a platform, an obstacle. A tree mushroom is a step, a platform; an object that helps or hinders movement; provides shelter or refuge. See motif I37. 0 0 i41b2 Rainbow from the mouth of an animal. A rainbow emerges from the mouth of a reptile, amphibian or invertebrate animal. 0 0 I42g3 Edible house In the forest person comes across a house that is made, completely or partly, of edible matter 0 0 I63 The Milky Way – the tapir's path. The Milky Way is the tapir's trail; the tapir can be seen on the Milky Way. 0 0 I79 Kirtimukha. The monster is beheaded or deprived of its body. Its head is depicted on temples and vessels (narrative texts and/or iconography). 0 0 J1 Avenging heroes (all variants). The characters avenge the death of their father, mother or other relatives who are older than them by a generation (less often by two generations). 0 0 J12E Skunk. The false bridegroom - skunk. See motif J12. 0 0 j23e Flies through the body of a cannibal. Wanting to make sure that the enemy is really dead, an insect or bird penetrates its body from one end and exits from the other. 0 0 j23f Temporarily incarnated in a human being. Something inanimate incarnates in a human being to solve people's problems and then returns to its original state. 0 0 j25c Raised by a wolf. A she-wolf nurses an abandoned infant. He becomes an outstanding leader. 0 0 J40b Avenged prisoners After the hero comes back after a long absence and finds his parents enslaved, he tells them to demonstrate openly a lack of respect to their masters and punishes those who were cruel with them 0 0 j4b Revenge within the family. The children (son, sons, son and daughter) of the murdered person take revenge on characters who are related to the victim by marriage or close kinship. 0 0 jia The myth of the avengers with a full plot. The myth of the avengers with a full plot. 0 0 k102c1 A splinter turns into a duck. The enemy systematically destroys the objects and creatures into which the hero is reincarnated. The hero wins after turning from a splinter into a waterfowl (duck, goose). 0 0 k135a The coward put out the door. The coward or lazybones has become so tiresome to his family that they leave him outside. He sets off on a journey and defeats powerful enemies, thanks to chance or cunning. 0 0 K184 When the forest comes to life. The character links the onset of an event that is impossible, in his view, with the time when the trees of the forest will start moving, as if they were people. 0 0 k185 Father fights son. Not recognising his son, the father fights him and kills him. {In this formulation, the motif is rare, and in more general ones it has no clear boundaries}. 0 0 k18aa Pregnancy from touch. A girl becomes pregnant without her knowledge through contact with the bodily secretions of a male character or with objects that he has touched (i.e. not as a result of sexual intercourse, not as a result of the simple desire of the father of her future child, and not through mystical contact with a deity). The story ends with the happy union of the girl and the father of her child. 0 0 K19 Marriage to a star. A man or woman marries a star. See motifs K19A, K19B. 0 0 K27b Smoking a pipe. Test: smoke a huge or poisonous pipe or breathe in clouds of poisonous smoke. See motif K27. 0 0 K27i Drain a body of water. Task: to drain a large body of water. 0 0 k27q2 Gusli-samogudy. The hero is sent to obtain a musical instrument, usually a gusli-samogudy. 0 0 k27z2a2 The unrecognised wife visits her husband, ATU 891. The husband leaves his wife without agreeing with her. The wife visits her husband incognito, and in the end he realises who is with him. Usually, the wife spends the night with her husband, gives birth to a son (three children), and the husband is convinced that the son is his. 0 0 k32g2 The daughter's meat is sent to her mother. An authoritative character marries, and an evil woman replaces her with her daughter. After the false wife is exposed and executed, the woman receives cooked meat as a gift, not immediately realising that it is her daughter's body parts. 0 0 k32g3 What does the perpetrator deserve? . The villain is asked what punishment he deserves for committing the crime in question. Not knowing that they are talking about him, he decides for himself how he should be executed. 0 0 k32n The false wife - a supernatural character. The false wife, who replaces the real one, is a supernatural character - a zoomorphic creature, a deceased woman, a female spirit, etc. See motif K32. 0 0 k33c2 Girl in a pomegranate. A young man obtains a girl who is inside a pomegranate. 0 0 k33c3 The girl in the orange. A young man obtains a girl who is inside an orange or other citrus fruit. 0 0 k33c4 Girl in a pumpkin. A young man obtains a girl who is inside a pumpkin, eggplant or cucumber. 0 0 k33c6 Only one girl survived. A young man receives several fruits (eggs, reeds). When he opens the first one, the girl who comes out of it disappears, either because the necessary provisions (usually drinking water) have not been prepared for her, or because the fruit has been cut incorrectly. Only the one who comes out of the last fruit (egg, reed) remains. Cf. motif k33c7. 0 0 k33c7 One fruit and a girl inside it. A young man obtains a fruit from which a girl emerges (rarely: two girls from two fruits, both remain with the young man). There is no episode of the loss of the girls who were in the other fruits. Cf. motif k33c6. 0 0 k33c8 Girl in a walnut. A young man obtains a girl who is inside a nut (walnut or hazelnut, but not coconut). 0 0 k33f1 Source of oil according to a vow. A person promises to create a source from which a valuable product (most often oil) flows and honestly fulfils their promise (rarely: promises to distribute a large amount of such a product). 0 0 k34a A rival lures a woman onto a swing. A rival puts a woman on a swing to get rid of her by throwing her into the water. She (almost) drowns or temporarily loses her human form, but manages to return to the world of humans. 0 0 K52a The slave pours water into the hearth. The hero goes to the bottom of the sea for a woman. The slave pours water into the hearth in the house of the water dwellers. Hiding behind clouds of steam, the hero takes the woman away. See motif K52. 0 0 K561 The wise carving of the fowl A poor man brings his master a chicken (goose, etc.) as a present. The master asks him to divide the bird appropriately among the members of his household. The poor man does it considering the symbolic meaning of particular parts (gives the master the head, his daughters the wings, etc.) and receives rich compensation. A neighbor brings the master five chickens but is unable to divide them approppriately. The first man does it again. 0 0 K56a1 Mother-in-law performs the work of her daughter-in-law. The groom, the bringer of prosperity, orders the girl who has come to perform work that she herself is unable to do. The groom's mother performs the work, and the girl is accepted by the groom. See motif K56A. Except for the Ket people: the work is performed by tiny women sitting in or behind the mother-in-law's ear. 0 0 k56a4f The evil girl becomes ugly. After meeting a supernatural character, the unkind girl becomes ugly. 0 0 k56a4g Ugly girl: growths on the face. After meeting a supernatural character, growths (tail, horns, warts, etc.) appear on the face (back of the head) of an unkind girl. 0 0 k56a8d Eaten by a boa constrictor. A girl agrees to become the wife of a snake, which turns into a handsome man. Another girl (or her mother or father) brings the snake to her or offers it to become her husband, but it does not turn into a man and kills her. 0 0 k67i Cows carried in pieces. The worker is instructed to follow a straight line or overcome the obstacle without breaking it. He kills and cuts up the animals entrusted to him, throws the pieces over the fence or breaks the fence, even though there is a passage nearby. 0 0 k76c1 A woman gave birth to a pumpkin. A woman gives birth to a pumpkin, inside which there is a person (many people) or which turns into a person. 0 0 K77c Those hiding in the house frighten the enemy. Various objects and/or animals hide in the house where a strong enemy is expected to appear. They take turns attacking or frightening him, and he either dies or flees. See motifs K77a and K77b. 0 0 k80a6 Talking pipe made from a plant that grew there. A musical instrument is made from a plant that grew where the character was killed (fell, touched the ground). When played, it produces a text with a specific meaning. 0 0 k84a Give to the first person who asks. On his deathbed, a father instructs his son, without specifying any conditions, to give his sister (sisters) to whoever comes for her. 0 0 K8f Deer in the belly of a monster. The swallowed one discovers a living deer in the belly of the monster. See motif K8A. 0 0 N39 Three-fold twisted rope The image of a three-ply rope is used to describe the invincibility of two close-knit friends 1 1 G3A Burnt grains. The first cereal grains were exposed to fire, burning to varying degrees. This resulted in different varieties of corn or rice with different colours. 1 1 I100b Pleiades - people. The Pleiades - a group of people of any gender and age. See motifs i99 - i100A, aggregate data. 1 1 A1a Before the sun, a parrot shone. Before the sun appeared, the world was lit by a large bird with bright colours (a parrot or toucan). 2 2 A2G Several suns in one day. At different times throughout the day, different suns shine in the sky. 2 2 A39B Full moon and crescent moon. The full moon and the crescent moon are different characters. 2 2 B124a Dent on the back. Ever since a piece of flesh was torn from a person's back, a dent has remained along the length of the spine. 2 2 B69b Striped frog. Wanting to reward or punish the frog, the character runs his hand or paw along its back, and since then, stripes have been visible on the frog's back. 2 2 C8c1 Father and daughter give birth to humans. At the beginning of time or after the destruction of the rest of humanity, a father and daughter (daughters) remain. They marry and give rise to humans or certain ethnic groups. 2 2 F34a The common husband of the first women. All women of the community of the first ancestors or all Amazons have a common lover of non-human nature or simultaneously mate with animals of a certain species, summoning them with a conventional signal. 2 2 F80C The dead with genitals in their hands. In the afterlife, women carry the penises of their lovers, and men carry the vulvas of their lovers. See motif F80. 2 2 F80D Genitals flew like geese. Female genitals flew like geese. 2 2 h36k Trees try to destroy people. Trees try to prevent humans from appearing on earth, fearing that they will cut them down. 2 2 H49A Husband, wife and innocently killed dog. A man does not understand that a dog or cat wanted to save his wife or preserve her honour and kills the animal. 1 2 I15a1 Vertical slit eyes. The demonic character has vertical slits for eyes. 2 2 I93A The Milky Way – the heavenly tail. The Milky Way is the tail of a creature that is being pulled by its tail. 2 2 J25b Dead mother brings food to her child. A pregnant woman dies and is buried. Her spirit leaves the grave to bring food to the child. The child is found and grows up. 2 2 K131c The kidnapped woman runs away while the archers compete. A woman offers her captors to shoot arrows – she will marry the winner. While they are figuring out whose arrow flew farther, the kidnapped woman runs away. 2 2 K32c The real wife becomes an owl. The deceiver takes the place of the real wife, and the real wife becomes an owl. See motif K32. 2 2 K56b3 Stench instead of fragrance. A man's intestinal gases become fragrant. An envious person tries to achieve the same result, but the outcome is the opposite. 2 2 L21A Live and dead mice. A character sitting in a tree throws small animals (snakes, mice) down, distracting the attention of a cannibal who is trying to catch them. When he throws dead animals instead of live ones, the cannibal grabs him. 2 2 M61a4 He tells everyone that the other is dying character lies to each of the spouses as if the other had a misfortune. They run to each other in panic. 1 2 M65a A squeaky tree The trees are creaking in the wind. Hearing a creak, the character climbs a tree and gets stuck. See M65 motif. 2 2 M97B A woman asks the trees 2 2 N33A Trampled into the ground The character's opponents trample him into the ground. 1 3 I4F Thunder – two combatants. The hero and his opponent engage in single combat and are still fighting in the sky. This is thunder. 2 3 i50a1 The dog's severed legs. The character sequentially tears off the dog's legs, but the dog continues to do what it considers necessary. 3 3 I55b The Sun Deer. The hero chases a deer or elk carrying the sun. 2 3 I82j Venus – husband of the Moon. Venus-man or another star is the husband of the Moon-woman. See motif I82a. 3 3 J23D Late twins defeat the monster. People in general or older brothers (siblings, older sister) disappear one after another. A woman raises two twins (or several children) from infancy. They defeat their antagonists, usually reviving or freeing those who have disappeared. 3 3 K167b What is a lamb in the womb of a sheep? A boy is able to determine the sex and colour of a young animal in the womb. 3 3 K73b7 The hero kills the enemy of his enchanted wife. The hero saves the magical wife from her enemy at a time when both the future wife and the enemy have zoomorphic appearances. Later, the rescued woman becomes a woman. 3 3 A19E Summer and winter suns. The summer and winter suns are two different characters. 2 3 A23E The first to rise has the best voice. Two birds argue about who will get up first, or agree to consider the one who gets up first to be the better singer. The bird that sings the most melodious trills wins, and the one with a shrill or hoarse voice loses. 3 3 B107 Black oyster. During the (world) fire, the oyster burns, which is why oyster shells are black. 2 3 B28c Lice drag a person into the water. Lice grab a person and drag him into the sea. 3 3 B32a Pursuers turn into aquatic mammals. The enemies of a hero sailing the sea turn into seals or dolphins. 2 3 B44d Black and white beast - night and day. Night and day alternate because the slain beast was black and white, spotted. 3 3 C32 A ship made of nails. Demonic characters will make a ship out of nail clippings. 3 3 D13B Menstruation passes to women. Menstruation passes from men to women after women laugh at an old man. 3 3 D13e Hunters laugh at the carcass of an animal. Hunters perish because they laughed at the killed (and revived) animal. 3 3 E1e Son-stalk. The son of the first human couple initially takes the form of a small plant that has grown from the ground, a stalk. 2 3 E36a Growing nails. Nails grow constantly, or the human body is covered with a hard crust only on the nails, because only they were washed with living water. 2 3 E42 The appearance of female breasts. Women have two breasts because the original breast was cut in half. 2 3 F100b A minor transgression by a chaste woman. Thanks to her virtue, a woman is capable of doing what others cannot, but she succeeds only after she remembers a minor transgression she committed in her youth. 3 3 F54b Stuck feathers. A young man or boy copulates with his mother or sister. This becomes known from the remains of paint or feathers with which he was covered during sexual intercourse. 3 3 F54c Recognised by nail marks. A husband sees someone's fingernail marks on his wife's body and gathers the men to find out who left the marks. 3 3 F72 Imitation of rape. A woman asks a man to tie her up before intercourse so that it looks like she is being raped. 2 3 F77C Penis-rope. The character climbs a tree or descends a huge penis, which turns into a rope or vine. 3 3 F9f2 The cobra's hood in the wife's handbag. A woman places a piece of flesh from her slain snake lover in her handbag and poses a corresponding riddle. If her husband fails to guess the answer, she has the right to kill him. The husband accidentally learns the secret and kills his wife. 3 3 I13F Wintering with a bear. In autumn, a man falls asleep in a bear's den. When he wakes up, he thinks that the night has passed, but it is already spring. Usually, the bear gives him advice before parting. 2 3 I140 Moses' rod. The staff thrown to the ground turns into a living snake. 3 3 I27d The mouth of a black dog. There is a certain black or red dog that (is associated with objects in the night sky and) negatively affects people's lives. 3 3 I28a Animals cause earthquakes. Large animals that are hunted go underground and cause earthquakes. 3 3 L85e Temporarily splits in two. The character is temporarily split vertically into two halves and then rejoined. 2 3 L94d The tale with a tail. A demonic character accuses a man of stepping on (tearing off) the tail of a fairy tale. Cf. motif K100E, "Dangerous Fairy Tales". 3 3 M109d Seized by the tail by a sea creature. A zoomorphic character dips his tongue or tail into the water. An octopus or shell grabs it and holds it tight, so that the character drowns during high tide. 3 3 M136e Should the bride be shortened? Instead of asking a person to bend down in front of a low lintel, others suggest cutting off his head or legs. 3 3 M157a7 Stolen children. A zoomorphic character took the children of a character of another animal species and claims that they are his own children. 3 3 M162C The removed skin is eaten. The fox persuades the bear to remove his skin, eats it, and the bear dies. 2 3 M29S Trickster - Crane See the motives in square brackets. 3 3 M29T Trickster - Armadillo See the motives in square brackets. 3 3 M39a2e Forgotten name Forgetting his name, a fool remembers it when he accidentally hears a word. 3 3 M45b Animals at the trough, ATU 179B* The old man carries a trough and lies down to rest, covered with it. The animals take the trough to the table and bring food. The old man gets up, the animals run away, the old man gets the food. 3 3 M53f Pretending to be a monster, it eats supplies The character is involved in preparing food supplies. After leaving under some pretext, he returns in the form of a monster or predator. Everyone runs away, the deceiver eats supplies, and then returns as usual. As a result, it was exposed. 3 3 M5d Squirrel and fish The squirrel and the creeping fish are smart and get medicines for each other 3 3 M74e Divides by biting off piece by piece Two characters ask the third to share something edible between them. He bites off a little bit from each of the halves, because one or the other is slightly larger. As a result, it eats everything. 3 3 L40c He who buys the bridle leads away the camel. Relying on the ambiguity of the statement, the buyer of a cheap item claims rights to a much more valuable one. 3 4 L7b Mistakenly chasing a calabash. While chasing a person, spirit, monster or beast, he mistakenly throws himself after a calabash floating down the river. 4 4 L90d Lips nailed to the sky and the earth. The hero attaches the upper lip (jaw) of the monster to the sky, and the lower lip to the earth. 4 4 M105B Carries his mother on his back. The character replies that the load, hump or bulge on his back or head is his deceased mother or grandmother. Another kills his mother or wife and places her on his back or head. 3 4 M116b The monstrous pursuer and the old man's advice. A monster chases people. An old man gives advice on how to kill it from ambush. 3 4 M143A Cheese mistaken for the moon, ATU 34. A character mistakes the reflection of the moon in a body of water for cheese. 3 4 M163b Inheritance brings good luck. A father leaves his son (each of his sons) something of little value as an inheritance. The son goes to a country where such objects or animals are unknown and sells what he has received for a large sum of money. 4 4 M163C Money thrown into the sea. A person is advised to throw money into the water and take only what floats up. This brings him happiness. 4 4 M168b The crooked stick. A bird or a person who becomes a bird is given the task of bringing a stick that is neither straight nor crooked. This bird is still searching for it. 3 4 M183a Who will eat more: one against many. Two people argue about who will eat or drink more. One of them is constantly replaced by his relatives, his opponent does not notice the substitution and loses. 4 4 M199g2 The thorny pole. The trickster arranges things so that the tiger, with whom they are carrying meat on a pole, holds the end of the pole with the thorns and suffers from pain. 3 4 M23a The turtle asks to be soaked, ATU 122G(2). The turtle says that before eating it, it must be properly soaked in water, but once in the water, it swims away. 4 4 M38a2 The hen boils eggs The hen (other bird) cooks her own eggs and serves them to other animal persons (who imitated her with disastrous consequences) 4 4 M39a4d A fool sells property to a lizard Fool sells property a lizard and believes it will pay him. Trying to get his money, he finds treasure 4 4 M60a3 The Imaginary Physician: Punishing a Scoundrel Avenging the seized property (a pet or a bird), the hero repeatedly comes to the offender in different guises (girl, doctor, etc.) and brutally mocks him. 4 4 I4d1 The stolen tendons of Grom, ATU 1148B. An enemy steals the tendons (heart and eyes) of a thunder god, who returns them and prevails over his enemy. Cf. motif L57A, "The hero's companion returns his organ." 2 4 I50c Sharabha (animal with legs on its back). Describes a hoofed animal with a second set of legs on its back that runs either normally or upside down. This makes it tireless. 4 4 I5b Thunder Jaguar. The flying jaguar causes storms, rain, and thunderstorms. 3 4 J23c The younger brother defeats the monster, ATU 312D. People in general or older brothers (siblings, older sister) disappear one after another. A woman raises a boy from infancy or, left alone, miraculously conceives a son or finds a baby. He defeats the antagonists, usually reviving or freeing the missing ones. 3 4 J33a An old woman beats a scarecrow. A boy, a young man, or two children live in an old woman's house. They kill her husband—a man or a large animal—and make a scarecrow out of him. Angry that her husband is not responding to her, the old woman beats the scarecrow and then discovers that her husband has been killed. See motif J33. 4 4 J58b Door to the sky. With the help of a chain of arrows, the sky or the sun is pulled down or pushed up, or a hole is made in the sky. 4 4 J62b1 The mistress of the island turns men into animals. A sorceress living on an island turns men into animals. 4 4 J6a Mother eaten, daughter saved. A pregnant woman with a young daughter fall into the hands of cannibals. The cannibals find and eat the woman, but her daughter and the baby in her womb are saved. 2 4 J6B Blinding of the victim. The mother of the heroes is not killed, but loses her sight. 4 4 K108a He who kills his wife loses everything. A man acquires a magical wife. Another woman orders him to kill her or divorce her, then she will become his wife. Having fulfilled the request, he loses everything. 3 4 K115A Dove at the entrance. When a character hides in a shelter, a dove builds a nest there. The enemies decide that no one has entered the cave or room for a long time and leave. 2 4 K155c The girl on the scales. The father regularly weighs his daughter and learns of her pregnancy when she becomes heavier. 4 4 K180 The time of the wolf and the time of the fox. The ruler demands an explanation of his dream. The snake tells the man that this dream signifies the coming of a time when people tend to behave in a certain way. This happens several times. Each time, the man's behaviour towards the snake confirms her words. 3 4 K27x6a The character encounters the mother of the sun. The character comes to the mother of the Sun when the Sun itself is not there. Cf. motif b33h ("Mother of the Sun"). 4 4 K32h2 Left to be eaten by ants. A man executes his wife by leaving her to be eaten by ants. 3 4 K35a2 Beast with a glowing skin. A man kills an animal with glowing fur. Upon learning of this, an authoritative figure gives him difficult tasks. 4 4 K38f3 Sword strike from a pit. To kill the dragon, the hero digs a pit and hides in it. When the dragon crawls nearby or over the pit, the hero strikes it with a fatal blow of his sword. 1 4 K56a8b A girl's hand in a cobra's hole. A virtuous girl (usually the daughter of a dog) wants to kill herself and puts her hand in a snake's hole. The snake does not bite her, but rewards her. 3 4 k73a5a A baby is replaced by a monkey. Malicious women replace a newborn baby with a monkey (telling the father that his wife has given birth to a monkey). 3 4 k80bb Grown from the remains of the slain. A boy is killed and eaten. His sister gathers his remains, from which a tree grows, and on it – the dead boy, often in the form of a bird. 3 4 N31 The departure of birds Late autumn and then winter sets in line with the departure of two or three species of birds flying in a wedge (Zugvogel). 4 4 A11D The Eye of the Moon and the Phases of the Moon. The moon opens and closes its eyes (phases of the moon). 4 4 A22d The burned person turns into a constellation. The burned character turns into a constellation or a dark spot on the Milky Way. 4 4 A2c3 Octagonal moon. In extraordinary circumstances, the moon or sun are not round, but have corners and edges. 4 4 B119 The husband of a magical wife turns into a rooster. A woman of non-human nature agrees to live with a man, but leaves him upon learning of his real or imagined infidelity. 3 4 B48d Pike swallows people. People or objects swallowed by a pike become part of its body (bones in its head, liver). 3 4 B4a Fish break off islands. Fish beat against the ground, breaking off islands from the mainland. 4 4 B6a Discarded egg. The first woman gives birth to several eggs. One or two of them remain unchanged for a long time and are thrown into the river, believing them to be spoiled. However, it is precisely from these eggs that characters of high status emerge (or should have emerged). 4 4 B77b2 The sky was touched with a broom. The sky moved away and/or the connection between people and the deity ceased after the sky or the heavenly deity was touched or struck with a broom. 4 4 C22 The Toad in Search of Thunder. During a severe drought or global fire, birds and animals are sent to the thunder gods living at the edge of the world to bring rain. The last of those sent achieves the goal. The toad plays an important role in the action. 4 4 C30b Remove traces from the field. In response to the claims of an animal or spirit, a person offers to remove their traces from the field or to walk without leaving any traces. The spirit is unable to do so. 4 4 C30d Not to spill a drop of urine. The character agrees that his locus will be contaminated with excrement, but only on condition that not a drop of urine is spilled. It turns out to be impossible to fulfil this condition. 4 4 C40 Stones fall from the sky. At first, stones fell from the sky and crushed people. 3 4 C6i1 A mound of earth rises above the water. There is water everywhere. Earth is raked up from the bottom into a mound, its top rises above the water and turns into dry land. 3 4 C8a2 Stone lion. The lion (often stone) helps to survive the flood. 2 4 D1a3 The fire wife. A man marries a woman who is fire. She is mistreated, or her husband does not like her, and the marriage breaks down. 4 4 E13 Tambourine – lake. The shamanic tambourine is compared or associated with a lake. 2 4 e9j1 Monkeys - ancestors of humans. Humans are considered descendants of monkeys. 4 4 F101 Rival prevents childbirth. With the help of magic, a rival or the spouse's mother tries to prevent a woman from giving birth. 4 4 F77B Hanging on the penis. A man cannot free himself for a long time after copulating with his partner, as a result of which his penis ends up high above the ground. See motif F19, motif F21. 4 4 F80B Left unattended. The vaginas were left unattended and became damaged. See motif F80. 4 4 F82a What the owl cries about. In order to lure a forbidden marriage partner into their hammock, the character cries out in the voices of birds and animals or interprets their voices in their own way. 4 4 H28c Mosquitoes bring back wives. The character creates blood-sucking insects to influence the behaviour of a mating partner. 3 4 H36g2 The beetle distorts the message. When a character, who later became a dung beetle, was ordered to convey certain instructions to people, he distorted them. 3 4 I100c The Pleiades and the Cuckoo. God turned the husband into a cuckoo, and the wife and children into the Pleiades. 3 4 I109 The Milky Way – the road of the heavenly bodies. The Milky Way – the road along which the Sun and Moon travel. 4 4 A12e The spider – enemy of the sun and moon. The spider attacks the sun or moon (usually causing lunar eclipses). 5 5 A12g Revenge on the moon for informing. The character tries to eclipse the moon for telling on him. 5 5 A19D One carries the Sun, the other the Moon. Two characters carry the luminaries across the sky – one carries the sun, the other the moon. 4 5 A48 The moon obtained and lost. A character brings the moon from another world and uses it as a lamp. Another character drops the moon, and it rises into the sky and remains there. 5 5 A8 The sun, moon and stars – three siblings. The sun, moon and stars – three brothers or three sisters. 3 5 B121 A little bird wants to fill the sea with stones. A small bird carries pebbles and sticks, trying to fill the sea. 2 5 B125a The nightingale and the copperhead. The nightingale (or, less commonly, someone else) takes the copper's eyes and does not return them, leaving her blind. 4 5 b125c The beaver and the muskrat swapped tails. Previously, the beaver had the same tail as the muskrat now has, and the muskrat had the same tail as the beaver. 5 5 B24a Transformation into wild pigs: a circle of feathers. After a character surrounds a group of people with a circle of feathers or throws feathers into their dwellings, the people turn into wild pigs or peccaries. 5 5 B42d Hunting the tapir. In the cosmic hunting plot, the object of pursuit is a bear. See motif B42. 4 5 B75c Sounds of the era of creation: the sound of water. The sound of the surf or water on the rapids has been heard since the time of creation. 4 5 B7d Water pours from a bone. Water pours from a broken bone, flooding the earth. 5 5 B95 Burnt sphincter. The appearance of the sphincter or buttocks is explained by the fact that a certain character burned his backside. 5 5 B95A The trickster punishes his own backside. To punish his own backside for misbehaviour, the trickster burns it. 5 5 D13i1 The one who showed his teeth was exposed. The characteristics of a character can be determined by his teeth. By laughing and showing his teeth, the character reveals himself. 3 5 E34 Sacred flutes made from the ashes of a cannibal. The cannibal is killed. From his ashes arise musical instruments taboo for women, used in male rituals. 3 5 E38c The first humans are mute. The first humans were mute and began to speak after being struck by something, made to laugh, etc. 4 5 E39a A female animal conceives from human urine. An animal (snake, pig) conceives from a man's urine and gives birth to a human child (or twins). 4 5 F100a A chaste woman revives a man. In order to revive a man or remove an arrowhead (bullet) from his body, a chaste girl or woman must touch (step over) the dead or wounded man. 4 5 F12 A husband kills his wife with his lover's penis. A husband kills his wife by inserting her lover's severed penis into her body. 4 5 F21 Penis stuck in a tree. While the character copulates with a woman, she turns into a tree or a rock. His penis gets stuck in her. 3 5 F28a2 Penises grow in the field. The owner of the field, either intentionally or having misheard the question, replies that he grows penises. After that, penises grow in the field instead of crops. 5 5 F48 Why women are different. Individual women differ physically because the pieces of flesh divided from the first woman were not identical, or because the males who copulated with the first woman were animals of different species. 4 5 F54d Conceives after drinking urine. A woman gives birth to a boy after accidentally drinking animal urine, or a female animal gives birth to a boy after drinking a man's urine. 4 5 F68 The supposed dead woman dresses up as a man. A woman pretends to be dead or actually dies. Her (former) lover comes to her grave. She goes with him, trying to avoid exposure, puts on men's clothes, but is eventually recognised. 4 5 F84 Imitation of chastity. A guest or younger brother has sexual intercourse with the wife of the host or older brother. Wanting to demonstrate long abstinence, the character sprinkles ash on the head of his penis or smears it with fruit juice. 4 5 G14 The swallowed one brings plants. A man swallowed by a water monster is carried away to an underwater or overseas world, obtains plants, and returns to people. 5 5 H1bb They did not spare the dog. One character refuses to resurrect another's beloved dog, and this conflict is linked to the loss of the ability to resurrect people. 5 5 H28b Mosquitoes made from animal wool. Shorn hairs on animal skins or ash and smoke from burnt skins covered with wool turn into blood-sucking insects. 4 5 h7g2 Escape from death from land to water. Knowing that Death is approaching, a person hopes that it will seek him on land, so he settles on the surface of the water or under the water. But Death finds him. 3 5 I129 The Heron Constellation. The rainy season is associated with the appearance of the Heron constellation in the sky. 2 5 I132a Girl on the swings of the sun. A girl sits on a swing and it lifts her up to the sky. 5 5 I137 The Lapti Constellation. One of the constellations is associated with footwear, usually with (worn-out) bast shoes. 4 5 I15a Vertical incision of the mouth. Due to ignorance or haste, the mouth of anthropomorphic creatures is first cut vertically. 3 5 I27b The dog-ferryman. A dog carries a person across a river to another world. See motif I27. 1 5 I35b1 Icy sky. The sky is made of ice. 5 5 I37e Mushrooms cry out. Tree mushrooms cry out like people. 3 5 J12m A woman turns into a duck. A woman or two sisters come to two men and become wives of one of them. The other kills or tries to kill his rival or the women. As a result, the women turn into waterfowl. 4 5 J51b A piece is missing: the reborn moon. The moon has been eaten or has died and its body has decomposed. It is revived, but a small part (the bone) is missing. This determines the characteristics of the moon or the characteristics of human anatomy. 4 5 J56a Transformation into frying pans. Heroic brothers are transformed into pots or frying pans, but only the elder is able to sit in the fire long enough. 3 5 K113b The Frog Princess – Mistress of the Storm. The younger prince marries a frog. She must first arrive at his parents' house. A thunderstorm begins. Rain, lightning, and thunder signify that the prince's wife is washing, dressing, travelling, etc. 5 5 K14F Material evidence of the father's righteousness. After his father's death, the son consistently violates his father's instructions. Having preserved material evidence of what happened, he presents it to those gathered, proving his father's rightness and/or his wife's wrongness. 5 5 K172 The deaf bride without arms and legs. A man describes his daughter to a potential groom as ugly and crippled. The groom agrees to the marriage, and the bride turns out to be beautiful. 5 5 K27n3a1 The hero in battle with the elements. In the course of his courtship, the hero enters into a struggle with characters (more than two) who embody the elements, celestial bodies, and parts of the universe. 2 5 K27v2 To hit a copper object with an arrow. The character must hit an object or creature made of copper with an arrow. 5 5 k27x6b Greeting addressed to the wind, ATU 298A*. Upon encountering the sun, moon (frost) and wind, a person greets only the latter. (In progress) 5 5 K27z2 Separated from her son, she avoided incest, ATU 674. A noble woman is forced to leave her home, gives birth to a son, and is separated from him. The young man grows up and almost marries his mother, but at the last moment everything is explained. {The Sudanese text, attributed to this plot in el-Shamy 2004 and subsequently in Uther 2004, does not fit the definition; it is quite possible that the Latvians, Romanians and Ukrainians are also mentioned incorrectly in Uther 2004}. 4 5 K27zz2 Blind in one eye. Several wives of one man (several sisters) go blind – the older ones in both eyes, and the younger one in one eye. 5 5 K56ac A row of stones and a row of logs. A girl finds herself in a forest hut, where a bear arrives. He orders her to make him a bed out of stones and logs. 4 5 K61f The Living Doll, ATU 459. Fearing her husband's wrath, a childless woman pretends to have given birth. Her husband believes that he has a daughter or son, and after some time marries her off (marries him off). During the wedding ceremony, a doll or animal is placed under the veil (in the palanquin), but at the last moment, a supernatural character transforms the supposed bride (groom) into a girl or boy. 5 5 K67g Smiling sheep. Pretending to carry out his master's orders, the worker cuts off the animals' lips (to make them look like they are smiling). 5 5 K73b2 Boil the kettle with a story. It is necessary to boil the pot by telling an incredible but nevertheless true story. 5 5 K73b6 The hero flies to his mother's enemies to eavesdrop on their conversation. The wife of a powerful character gives birth to wonderful children. Her jealous sisters conspire to make her husband order her to be disposed of (usually by locking her and the child in a barrel and throwing it into the water). The boy immediately grows up and rescues his mother and himself. He himself (in the form of a bird, animal, insect, or flying in on a miraculous object) or his puppy brother enters his father's lair and, eavesdropping on the conversation, learns of the existence of miraculous objects. Upon returning, he obtains them or already possesses them and demonstrates them to his father when they meet (the objects may include the young man's brothers). 5 5 L108f Luring from the bottom. A character (girl, boy) finds themselves in water, and the antagonist lures them to shore by imitating the voice of their father, brother or sister. 4 5 L108g Wash away the black. The character is black and must sit in water until he turns white. The antagonist carries him away. 3 5 l118a1 Man deceives monkey. A man deliberately performs certain actions in front of a monkey. The monkey imitates him, causing harm to itself. 5 5 L15b1 Deer antlers – a weapon against evil. In the battle between positive and negative creators, the positive one chooses the deer horn as a weapon – usually because this is the only weapon that the enemy fears. 3 5 L39a Demon from the underworld. A supernatural character emerges from the underworld and attacks a man who has climbed a tree. 5 5 L5i A multitude of skulls. A multitude of rolling heads or skulls try to take a woman away. 5 5 L81a1 Red bead in the hearth. Noticing a red bead (pebble) that has fallen into the hearth, the character thinks it is a coal and does not understand that the fire in the hearth has gone out. 5 5 l93d The hedgehog as helper. The hedgehog, resorting to cunning, helps the hero and saves him. 4 5 L94c Son or daughter sacrificed. If a deity grants victory, a person promises to sacrifice to it the first person who comes out to meet them at home. A son or daughter comes out. 4 5 M152f Whose voice is quieter, we will eat. Animals agree to eat the one among them who has the quietest voice. 2 5 M198b5 The imaginary fortune teller: an overheard conversation. The fake fortune teller accidentally overhears someone's conversation, otherwise he would not have been able to give the correct answer. 4 5 M204 Money will go to those who are destined to receive it, ATU 841, 947A. When a deity (an authoritative figure) tries to convey values to a person, they either get them or they don't, despite the unlikely circumstances (such is their fate, such is the will of God). 5 5 M38d4 The Hunting Needle, ATU 90 Several characters that embody small objects (and a squirrel with them) travel together. The needle penetrates the body of a large animal and kills it. (In the Baltic-Finnish texts, the needle first finds items that others find useless, but after the animal was caught, everything found turned out to be in demand for cooking meat). 4 5 M39a2d Meat is planted Fools plant meat, horns, or bones in the hope of raising animals. 4 5 M3b A severed rabbit tail Trying to grab a hare, another animal tears off (bites) its tail. It's been short ever since. 2 5 M5c Hairy octopus The octopus or star-fish was covered with hair but the rat had eaten it up 2 5 M60b1 The crow eats fish The crow promises to cure the fish, and eats it herself. 3 5 M61a2 The character quarrels stones The character provokes a quarrel between two stones of different breeds. To do this, he told everyone how the other supposedly spoke hostile or offensive towards the former. 4 5 M61a3 The character fights fish The character tells each of two different species of fish how the other allegedly used to be hostile or offensive towards the former. Fish kill each other and the character prepares them to eat. 4 5 M74c Handsome as a woodpecker Having noticed the woodpecker's beautiful plumage, the wolf or bear believes that the fox painted it and asks the fox to make him just as beautiful. The fox burns it alive. 2 5 M75b4 The Trojan horse: getting a woman To master a woman, the hero hides inside the hollow figure of a horse (bull, deer) or in an animal carcass. The character guarding the woman takes her to her. The hero gets outside and becomes a woman's lover. Or a woman hides inside the figure of a horse, which is taken to the man's chambers. 4 5 M7a Thrown in the water Birds or animals take the character into their boat, but take on a zoomorphic appearance and leave their passenger in the water (after he breaks a ban). (It is significant that the boat or raft only appears to be artifacts, but is actually the bodies of the corresponding birds or animals, or it is an ice floe; cf. Motive M31). 3 5 M81e2 It attracts people and animals By playing an instrument or otherwise, a character is able to attract an animal or person far away from him. 4 5 M82a Tail bells: tied unnoticed One animal person inconspicuously ties rattles to the tail of another. The latter thinks that he is pursued and runs in panic 3 5 M84b3 Eaten and revived goose (Wondrous wondrous). 2 5 M89a Horned hyena Only horned animals are allowed to attend the festival. The hyena makes fake horns for itself, exposed. 5 5 N19 It's still lame fairy-tale text ends with a formula stating that one or two people who met the narrator after the fabulous feast or were present directly at it at the festival, became bald/lame as a result of hot food and/or a bone or bowl thrown on the head. 4 5 N28h A horse doesn't have horns In a list of things that do not exist in the world, horns of the horse are mentioned 5 5 N40 The liver drowned and the lungs swam away The fabulous or epic text ends with a formula stating that the liver has drowned and the lungs have swam away (surfaced, stayed, etc.). 1 5 M90c Stepladder instead of wife man agreed with another that he could take the first thing he touched from his house. The visitor is going to take his wife, but when he takes up the stepladder to go up to the woman, he is told to pick up the stepladder and leave. 5 6 N21a Pea-bogatyr After swallowing a pea, a woman gives birth to a mighty hero. 4 6 N28f The water has no knots It is said that water has no boughs or twigs 4 6 I60a Milky Way – a stripe on the belly. The Milky Way – a stripe associated with a longitudinal stripe on an animal's body. 4 6 I81a1 Crab and snake. The struggle between the crab and the snake (eel) determines the features of the relief of a particular area or has cosmic proportions. 4 6 J22c Conjoined women. There is a demonic character in the form of Siamese twins – two semi-fused women. 6 6 j4c The young man from the egg. An egg remains from the deceased water character. The young hero who emerges from it avenges his father. 5 6 J59d Reviving the dead by stepping over their bones. The character steps or jumps over the remains of the slain, and the latter comes back to life. 5 6 K11b Reed made from bird bones. The bones of a huge bird are turned into reeds or bamboo for making arrows or sarbacanes. 5 6 K11D A disintegrated monster turns into ordinary animals. Pieces of flesh from a huge creature that has fallen apart or been cut into pieces turn into ordinary animals, birds or fish. 6 6 K13d Leg hanging in the sky. A group of boys reaches the sky, the last one's leg is cut off or torn off. 4 6 k14c1 Treasures in a pomegranate. A man who has gone away to work sends his wife a pomegranate, unaware of its value. His wife finds treasures in the pomegranate. 6 6 K169 Pregnant doe. The hunter spares the hunted animal, noticing that it is a pregnant female and remembering his own pregnant wife. 6 6 K170 Water without frogs, land without flies. The character sets off in search of a place where there are no ordinary creatures that live everywhere (water without frogs, air without flies). 4 6 K27q1 Lioness's milk in a lion cub's skin. The hero is sent to bring lioness milk in a wineskin made from a lion skin (usually from a lion cub's skin). 5 6 K27v3 Shooting an arrow through a ring. The character must hit a small ring with an arrow or shoot it through several rings. (The main materials were identified by Y.V. Vasilkov and presented in Vasilkov 2018). 5 6 K27yy3 Obtaining the fruits of a dangerous tree. The hero must bring the fruits growing on a tree that is dangerous to approach. 4 6 K27z2c Marries to lock up his wife. After marrying a poor girl, the prince locks her up. She turns out to be more cunning than him. 6 6 K2a2 The kidnapped princess drops her shoe. A monster rushes past a young man, carrying off the princess. The young man picks up the princess's lost shoe or, after shooting, finds a lock of the princess's hair. He sets off in search of her, descends underground and rescues the kidnapped princess. 4 6 K32b Mother-in-law replaces daughter-in-law. The man's mother takes on the appearance of his wife in order to take her place. 5 6 K37e Three-legged cast-iron bird. The clairvoyant cannot identify the person who revealed the secret, because that person does so while hiding among objects that are never found together in everyday life. 5 6 K38b1 A bird steals foals, a hero kills a snake. Every time a mare gives birth to a wonderful foal, a bird carries it away. Setting out in search of the foals, the hero kills the snake that was devouring the bird's chicks. The bird returns the foals. 5 6 K38b3c The hero shields the sleepers from the sun. Seeing sleeping fairies or their children, the hero covers them from the scorching rays of the sun. For this, they do him a favour. 3 6 K47c The origin of dogs. The marriage of a woman and a dog gave rise to dogs – friends and helpers of humans. 3 6 K52b Broken axe. The hero comes to capture the daughter of a supernatural creature. He sees a slave breaking an axe (adze, wedge). The hero repairs the axe, and the slave helps him in return. See motif K52. 6 6 K56a8c Married to a dog. A young man brings an animal to his home, and it turns into a girl. Imitating him, another man marries a dog (pig), but it remains an animal. 6 6 K56b2 Clenched jaws. A supernatural creature (object) bestows wealth upon a modest person. A greedy person, trying to take more than their fair share, is caught and cannot free themselves (for a long time). Usually, the creature pinches the outstretched hand. 5 6 K73a2a The child is replaced with a log. After hiding or discarding a newborn baby, ill-wishers replace it with a piece of wood and/or inform the father that his wife has given birth to a piece of wood. 6 6 B108 The remains of the deceased turn into snow. An anthropomorphic character that has fallen apart into pieces turns into snow. 3 6 B110a The falling one turns into snow and wind. A character who is dragged along the ground or who falls from the sky turns into atmospheric phenomena. 4 6 B118 Those who remain on earth become owls. A character who was unable to reach the sky or returned from the sky to earth becomes an owl. 4 6 b33e2 March breaks the bull's horns. The severity of the cold in early spring is said to break the horns of large hoofed animals. 6 6 B49b Cow teats. In the past, cows had more teats on their udders than they do now. 5 6 B74b The wedding of the owl and the moon. The owl is forced to part with the moon and now cries out when it sees the moon. Usually, the story tells how the marriage of the owl and the moon fell apart or did not take place. 5 6 B98c The bat is deceived by a deity. The heavenly deity could have healed the bat's mother or child, but did not do so, and they died. 5 6 C41 Why the sky is blue. At first, the sky has no specific colour. After a character hangs a cloth on it or performs other actions, the sky acquires its characteristic colour. 2 6 D12a At sunrise, the sun's heat is sufficient to cook food. People living in the east or west prepare food using the heat of the passing sun. 4 6 D1a Mother-in-law-fire. A girl marries a man whose mother is fire. 4 6 E9aa The fox wife in the burrow of all animals. A man searches for a missing woman, who is a fox by nature, and comes to the burrow where she has hidden. Various bird or animal women come out of the burrow and offer themselves in place of the fox. Then they let him inside. 4 6 F100 Test of chastity (queen and maid). A magic potion reveals that the only chaste woman is the maid, an orphan, etc. The king chooses the maid. 6 6 F45C Men without wives. There were men who lived separately from women. See also motif F8. 1 6 F51a Aggressive sister. After incest is discovered, the sister openly demands her brother as her husband, turns into a monster, and kills people. 6 6 F73a The vulva as a wound (first humans). The vulva is an unhealed wound on the body of the first women, or the first humans did not copulate because they thought that the vulva was a wound. 6 6 F93a The talking penis and the mother-in-law. A man's penis begins to talk incessantly, falling silent only after his mother-in-law takes it in her hand. 6 6 H38 The owner of the valuables comes to retrieve them. A supernatural character changes appearance and comes to the hero's children (less often to the hero himself). Unaware of the trick, they hand over the magical object they have obtained to its former owner, and the character disappears with it. 6 6 I132b Metamorphosis of the Sun's bride. A girl comes to the Sun to become his wife, but at the last moment undergoes a metamorphosis (usually turning into a bird). 6 6 I22g1 Colliding stones. In another world, the hero sees many strange things, including colliding stones (but they do not block his path). 5 6 I25b1 Hair instead of rope. This refers to women who pull buckets of water out of a well using their own hair instead of a rope. 3 6 K9a The punished person is suspended between heaven and earth. The punished character is suspended on a chain or metal thread between heaven and earth. 3 6 L102a Escape from the seagull husband. A seagull kidnaps a girl or woman, but she manages to return to people. 6 6 L127 Dancing ears. Having entered another world, the character sees dancing body parts and other strange creatures. He must not be surprised, laugh, or mention God. 5 6 L132 Food theft: family conflict. When one member of a small (family) group, left alone, secretly eats food, this leads to serious conflict, often resulting in the murder of the guilty party. 5 6 L15g1 One family member kills another, knowing his secret. A person knows a secret on which the life of a loved one (husband, son, wife) depends and, after a quarrel, commits an act that is insignificant to an outside observer but leads to the immediate death of the other. 4 6 l15h4 The character's soul in a needle. The object in which the character's life is concentrated is enclosed in another, which is enclosed in a third (and so on). The final container of the soul is a needle, which the hero breaks. 5 6 L17a2 Rival with an eye on her forehead. Instead of a beautiful woman, a man takes a devil with an odd number of eyes. 6 6 L23a Transformation into flame. In an attempt to free himself, the captured character sequentially changes his appearance, in particular turning into fire (and water). 5 6 L5d The head wants to drink. The rolling head suffers from thirst. See motif L5. 6 6 L72f Discarded entrails. Fleeing for his life, the character throws behind him the entrails or stomach contents of an animal, which become an obstacle in the path of his pursuer. 6 6 M132a Ears, not horns. Another animal thinks that a hornless herbivore has horns and is afraid of it, but these are just ears. 6 6 M147 The fox runs ahead of the tiger. A weak animal tells a strong animal that everyone is afraid of him, the weak one, and suggests testing this. He walks in front of the strong animal, everyone runs away, and the strong animal believes that they are running away from the weak one. 6 6 M170b The rim of a vessel on the neck. A zoomorphic character stuck its head into a vessel, which broke, leaving the rim on its neck. The character uses this as proof of its high status. 6 6 M173 Pretends to be dead several times. A zoomorphic character pretends to be dead where a traveller carrying luggage is supposed to pass. The traveller passes by, but the deceiver quietly runs ahead and repeats his trick. The traveller puts his luggage on the ground and returns to pick up the first dead person (for the skin or meat), and the deceiver takes the luggage away. 6 6 M173B Running ahead. The character repeatedly runs ahead of another person on the road to obtain food from them, each time pretending to be a different person. 5 6 M175 A lion carcass behind a hyena. The hyena sees the carcass of a larger predator behind it, does not realise that it is dead, and runs away in terror. 5 6 M195b Three dolls. A person sticks a needle (thread, stick) into the ear of two or three dolls (skulls). In different dolls or skulls, the object comes out of different holes (or does not go inside at all, remains inside, etc.). This refers to people who react differently to what they hear (inattentive, talkative, wise). 6 6 M203a Tell them that I have died. A supernatural being conveys a message to an unknown recipient via a passer-by, who dies or suffers harm after delivering the message. 6 6 M39a4b Frog strands foolish woman thinks that frogs will make yarn or cloth for her, or buy yarn and throw the material into the water. 5 6 M39a5a2 The screaming judge My husband found a treasure. He knows his wife will talk about it. In order not to believe her, her husband says, and the wife then repeats, that the judge suffered from the hail that fell at that time (soup spilled from the sky) (lost an eye, ulcers on his face). The judge furiously drives the woman away, the treasure remains with her husband. 6 6 M45c Plant boiled tubers The character advises the other person to plant or sow boiled or roasted seeds or tubers, who follows the advice. 6 6 M53a Crows and seals raven gathers seals or other marine mammals around and deceives them into killing them. 5 6 M76 A person climbing a tree has his leg cut off A woman cuts off a man's leg when he climbs a tree; a man cuts off a woman's leg when she climbs a tree. See K13A motif. 3 6 M84b2 Birds eaten and animated The character carefully preserves the bones of migratory birds eaten (not fish or animals) and the birds come to life again. (Episodes of reviving a domestic goose or rooster are not taken into account in everyday tales). 3 6 L108b2 Ants make the voice thin. To acquire a thin voice, the character allows ants to bite his tongue. 5 7 L110b The stomach eats the oak tree. The stomach (spleen) removed from the body of a domestic animal or bird turns out to be a voracious monster. 7 7 L33g Stone with a beard. A tree, a creature on a tree, a stone kills (seriously injures) anyone who calls it a certain way, climbs on it, etc. The character provokes others to do this and eats the dead, the last of the invited guests deceives the provocateur himself. 5 7 L5B The head turns into lightning/thunder. A rolling head turns into lightning/thunder. See motif L83. 7 7 L5j The rolling head laughs. The rolling head laughs for no reason. See motif L5. 6 7 L76 Severed testicles. When a female cannibal attacks a man, she devours or tears off his testicles. 2 7 L91 The Long Serpent. Two or four young men go on a journey or return from one. Their path is blocked by a long creature that cannot be bypassed. They burn a passage through it. One eats roasted meat, turns into a snake himself, or dies. See motif L28. 7 7 M100a Fire on the edge of a cliff. One of the characters leads another to the edge of a cliff with the aim of lighting a fire, or lights a fire at the edge of the cliff. As a result, the other falls and is killed. 5 7 M114f Crooked pipe. The girl has a minor physical defect. Man: The house is nice, but the pipe is crooked. Girl: But the smoke comes out well. 6 7 M130b The traitor is killed instead of the victim. A herbivorous animal falls into a hunter's trap. The predator does not want to release it, as it hopes to eat its entrails, but the bird helps it to escape. The hunter tries to kill the bird, but instead kills the predator. 5 7 M132 Ears instead of sandals. The enemy is ready to seize the character. The character asks the enemy to first take and throw away his clothes or shoes, and then offers his ears. The enemy grabs him by the ears and throws him away, and the character runs away. 5 7 M144a Burning straw on the back of a tiger. The character asks a large and dangerous animal (a tiger or an elephant) to carry a load of straw and sets it on fire. Then he or someone else advises the victim to run not to the river, but to the mountain. 4 7 M162b Cranberry juice in the bear's eyes. The character pretends to rub sour berry juice into his eyes. Another (always a bear) wants the same thing, goes blind, and the character kills him. 4 7 M198b1 A fortune teller named Rak. An authoritative character asks a man named Cancer to guess what is in a box (under a lid on a plate, etc.). There are crabs or crayfish inside. The man says that now he, Cancer, has been caught, while others think that he has guessed correctly. 7 7 m198b6 A fortune teller named Zhaba (Frog). An authoritative character asks a person to guess what is in his box. The person says that now he, so-and-so, has been caught, or utters an exclamation. This exclamation or name sounds like "toad" or "frog," and the character believes that the person has a special gift. 6 7 M1b A caiman/crocodile carries a monkey. A caiman/crocodile carries a monkey across a river. She manages to jump ashore and runs away from the caiman. 5 7 M39a3a Oiled soil fool sees cracked objects (stumps, earth, ice), sympathizes with them and oils them. 7 7 M39a3b A fool takes care of stumps fool decides that stumps need hats, puts pots on the stumps. 5 7 M39a5 Kills goats that have eaten pears fool led the goats to the fruit tree and killed them because they ate the fruit he had thrown. 5 7 M62e One field and two employees A weak character alternately negotiates with two strong ones to cultivate the site. Each of the strong works in due time and does not know about the existence of the other. As a result, a weak character takes the entire crop. 6 7 I46d Rainbow loop. Rainbow – a hunting loop, a trap. 7 7 J12a Penis in a vessel. A girl or two sisters come to an old woman who invites them to marry her son. In reality, he is a worm, a snake or a penis, which his mother hides in a vessel during the day. The girl (sisters) do not allow him to approach them and run away. See motif J12. 7 7 J19b Burnt belly. An evil spirit kills a woman by burning through her body. 3 7 J19c Torn out tongue. A demonic character comes to a woman and tears out her tongue. She dies (and comes back to life when her tongue is found and returned). 4 7 J4a Revenge for the death of a mother. A woman is killed. Her son or sons (rarely: grandsons, nephews) avenge her. 4 7 K101c By day in the palace, by night in the sky. The bride stipulates that she will only be with her husband during the day. The husband discovers that at night she meets with heavenly maidens (and usually flies away to dance in the sky). He follows her and in the end she stays with him on earth. 6 7 K107e1 Blood on the shirt. When a magical husband leaves his earthly wife, his shirt is stained with blood. Only his new wife manages to wash it clean. 6 7 K117d Two in bed with the princess, ATU 850. The princess, lying between two suitors, must choose blindly the one she likes best. The suitor of low birth arranges things so that his noble rival emits a foul odour (while he himself emits a pleasant fragrance). The princess turns to him. 6 7 K129a Half-living in the tomb. A young woman (lying in a tomb) comes back to life, then appears dead again, but is ultimately freed from the spell. 6 7 K13c The cannibal's daughter avenges her mother on her husband. The cannibal's daughter takes revenge on her husband for her mother's death and manages to cut off his leg. See motif K13A. 7 7 K15 No one but this beggar. A woman swears that she has not been with anyone except (her husband and) a dirty beggar. Others do not know that her lover has taken on the appearance of a beggar. 6 7 K16a Slipping, he drops the stuffed animal. In an effort to show that he is a good hunter, a man regularly walks in front of a girl, pretending to carry prey. Once he slips, and the imaginary prey turns out to be a scarecrow stuffed with ashes or a bundle of termites. 3 7 K181a Placing a hand on a horse's back. When a person puts their hand on a horse's back, it bends over and falls. This is a sign of heroic strength. 4 7 K18b The boy stops crying. Men or women approach the little boy one after another or take him in their arms. The person who makes the boy stop crying is recognised as his parent. See motif K18. 7 7 K1g The deer gores its enemy. The hero turns into a deer or creates a deer to gore the relative who sent him into a trap. 7 7 K27f3 Fill the feather bed with feathers. The character must quickly obtain enough feathers to fill a feather bed or pillow. 4 7 K27z2a Meeting for one night. Noticing the woman's pregnancy, her relatives or in-laws accuse her of promiscuity, because, according to their calculations, she could not have conceived by her husband or fiancé. After severe trials, the woman meets again the father of the boy she gave birth to. 5 7 K27z7a He who learns the family secret will die. A man is going to kill the person who found out why he severely punished his ex-wife. 5 7 K27zz4 The wife who cannot be beaten (ATU 888A). A conceited prince (the son of a merchant) beats his wife every day (he marries on the condition that he will beat his wife every day). She saves him by demonstrating her superiority. 5 7 K32f The bird son saves his mother. A woman or girl raises a bird of prey chick, which brings her food and fire. This usually happens after an evil spirit leaves the girl or young woman in a tree or on an island. 5 7 K48a Birds on a cap. The hero's costume and/or headdress are decorated with live birds or animals. Usually, the antagonist steals the clothes and pretends to be the hero, but the birds and animals on his headdress remain silent or cry out differently. See motif K48. 7 7 K65c2 Man and tiger. A woman or female animal gives birth to several sons, including a human and a tiger. 4 7 K77b3 The goat with three bellies. Goats encounter a wolf. One goat has one stomach, the second has two, the third has three, and so on. The goat with the most stomachs kills or scares away the wolf. 5 7 N26 When wheat grew on ice said that the action took place when cultivated plants (wheat, cotton) grew on ice or salt. 3 7 A39 Every day a new sun. Suns are born and die, and every day a new one rises in the sky. 4 7 A47A The lizard finds the sun. The lizard or iguana is associated with the appearance of the sun. 3 7 A9 The Moon as protector of humans. The moon-woman does not allow her son or husband, the Sun, to destroy people. 5 7 B109a Bear from the sky. Originally, the (human) bear lived in the sky, then descended to earth (and became a bear). 3 7 B120 Winter hibernation of snotty creatures. There are creatures that sleep in winter, and frozen snot hangs from their noses. (Motif identified by Evgenia Korovina). 6 7 B2f2 Carries an unburied corpse. The character carries the body of the deceased for a long time, unable to bury it or not knowing how to do so, but eventually buries the body in the ground. 6 7 B33e If February were like January. The last cold month regrets that it did not come earlier or that it is too short. In that case, it would have frozen everyone. 7 7 B38e The gull's rump. The character kicks a loon or other waterfowl. Since then, it has had a flattened tail and finds it difficult to walk on land. 5 7 B42a Blood or fat sprinkled on the ground. Hunters chase a bear across the sky and kill it in August-October. The bear's blood or fat falls to the ground in the form of dew or colours the foliage red. See motif B42. 6 7 B42o The Hunchback Constellation. A certain constellation is represented by a person who has been struck or wounded in the back. 7 7 B49a How many offspring per year. Powerful animals could have many cubs, but now they give birth to only one every few years. 6 7 B57a Red sunset – an indication of what has happened. Seeing the reddened sky, the character understands that another's blood has been spilled, or that another has spilled red liquid. See motif B57. 4 7 B86B Remove the bottom brick. When building a tower, there are not enough prepared modules (bricks, logs). The character removes the bottom one to put it on top, and the structure collapses. 3 7 B88 Job. A man's children all die. He turns to God with a request to explain why he is suffering so much. 6 7 C34a Buried in the sand. A supernatural character goes with people to catch fish or lives on the sand by the river; he is buried in the sand or thrown into the river, into a swamp, or otherwise persecuted. Usually, he himself or his father sends a flood. 6 7 C6g The diver – the boar. The boar brings earth from the bottom and/or scatters it on the water. 4 7 D4k The deer obtains fire. The deer obtains fire for humans. See motif D4A. 7 7 E14a Masks reproduce slain demons. People kill demons, examine their bodies, make ritual costumes and masks, reproducing the appearance of the slain. 6 7 E40 Nostrils facing upwards. The first humans had nostrils facing upwards, into which rain poured. 4 7 E9b The magical wife – the elephant. Before meeting the hero, his beloved (wife, helper) has the image of an elephant (elephant tusk). 6 7 F28a4 Penises on plants. The fruits or stems of plants are penises. 7 7 F45b Conception by the sun. A woman gives birth to a son conceived by (the rays or light of) the sun. 2 7 F97a The snake loses its legs. The snake is to blame for others eating food forbidden by the deity. For this, it is deprived of the limbs it once had. {The Efik variant may not be related to the biblical one, but the South Asian ones are most likely related. 5 7 G19 Burnt men bring plants. After a conflict in the community of the first ancestors, a group of men or young people (pareisi: boy and girl) burn in a bonfire (jump over it, etc.). As a result, people acquire cultivated plants, mainly corn. 6 7 G25 Grains scattered over the world. Cereal seeds are scattered across the world, fell to the ground, now people grow bread. 6 7 H34d A piece bitten off the sky. A zoomorphic character climbs or attempts to climb up to the sky or the moon to bite off a piece of them. 4 7 H6c2 Living water in the land of darkness. At the edge of the world lies the land of darkness. Those who want to obtain living water or gold strive to get there. 6 7 I100d Stars – kids. Stars are associated with kids. 5 7 I30 The lord of the dead meets women. In the world of the dead, its master or mistress copulates with all new arrivals. 4 7 A22b Hot fire and cold embers. The sun and its companion burn up. The companion burns in a less intense fire (is thrown into the ashes, etc.); therefore, the moon (or star) is cold. See motif A22. 6 8 B104b A woman turns into a woodpecker. A woman refuses to share bread with Jesus, who has come to her, and he turns her into a woodpecker. 7 8 B111 Bees from the body of an animal. Bees or wasps fly out of the carcass or body of a large animal (lion, bull) (usually the episode explains the origin of bees). 7 8 B1d Two workers. Two characters are building the world, one works poorly, the other well, so different parts of the universe (or a specific island) have different appearances. 8 8 B24 Transformation into wild boars. People who have entered into conflict or violated a prohibition are transformed into wild boars or peccaries. 8 8 B2g The chameleon walks on soft ground. The chameleon walked on the ground when it had not yet hardened. 5 8 B3F An object dropped from the sky. A character in the sky accidentally drops an object. The search for this object in the world below the sky leads to the creation of the earth or a change in its appearance. 4 8 B42o1 The Great Bear – the fisher. The Big Dipper is identified with the fisher (Mustela pennati). 7 8 B63 The transformation of lazy children. Children lie to their mother, pretending to work in the fields. When the deception is revealed, they are left without a harvest and are transformed into atmospheric phenomena or celestial objects. 3 8 B63A Brothers of the elements. Several brothers turn into Thunder, Storm and other elements. 4 8 B75b Sounds of the era of creation: the creaking of trees. The creaking or crackling of trees is the voice of a transformed character. 6 8 B75d Sounds of the creation era: the rustling of leaves. The sound of leaves or grass rustling in the wind has been heard since the time of creation. 7 8 B77c The serpent pushed back the sky. A snake-like creature pushes the sky away from the earth. See motif B77. 7 8 C21 Drought. During a severe drought, birds (and animals) go in search of the rainmakers and bring them back. 6 8 C25a Cooking soup on the moon. In the sky, on the moon, somewhere outside our world, a character (usually an old woman) cooks soup. The fate of the universe depends on his (her) behaviour. 7 8 C33b Ancient windlessness. The demise of the first race is associated with the appearance of wind. 3 8 C37 The sloth's catastrophe. The sloth causes a global catastrophe or saves people from it. 8 8 C39a The sky was patched up with ice. A hole in the sky or a crack in the ground was plugged with a piece of ice, which is why it is cold in the north (north-west, north-east). 1 8 D4q1 The bat and fire. The bat participates in obtaining fire. 5 8 D5a Fire in a woman's genitals. The first fire is hidden in a woman's genitals or anus. 8 8 D6b The burned one becomes a caiman. The one who is burned turns into a crocodile/caiman. 7 8 e9i5 The magical wife - the snail. Before meeting the hero, his wife takes the form of a snail. 4 8 F28A5 The penis and vulva as separate beings. The penis and vulva (in the singular or plural) are separate beings and characters. 8 8 F51d Ginseng child. Ginseng roots – boys or girls who help the hero. 6 8 F56a Shavings in the fire. To see a woman's genitals, a man throws something that flashes brightly into the hearth. The woman recoils, exposing her genitals. 6 8 F85 The Moon: women against men. The moon/moon leads women in their confrontation with men or takes women away from men. 6 8 F93 Talking penis, D1610.6.2. After a person performs a certain action, his penis begins to speak (often repeating what the person has said). 8 8 G30 The penis turns into plants. A long penis is cut into pieces, which turn into many edible plants or different types of trees. Cf. motif B53. 6 8 H12a Dead wife haunts her husband. The wife dies, the husband comes for her, or he kills her himself for adultery; she turns into a monster and haunts him. 3 8 H1f People learn to bury the dead. People learn how to treat the dead by observing the behaviour of crows. 7 8 H24g Woman in a vessel. A woman returned from the other world or obtained there disappears when a man opens the vessel in which she is kept prematurely. 4 8 I20b Girding under the armpits. People in the upper world are different from those on earth and gird themselves below or above the waist. 6 8 I37C Mushrooms: erotic associations. Mushrooms have erotic associations. See motif I37. 3 8 I37d Mushrooms - excrement. Mushrooms are the excrement of a mythological character. See motif I37. 8 8 I55a Stars – lakes. Stars – lakes on one of the heavenly tiers. 5 8 I82c1 The Moon's two wives. The Moon has two wives (usually the Morning Star and the Evening Star). With the caring one, he grows fat, with the other, he starves and grows thin. 8 8 I82e The star that sold its mother. It is said that Venus or another star sold her mother or father in order to adorn herself luxuriously and dress up. 4 8 I8h Man and woman hold up the earth. The earth is supported by a man and a woman in the underworld. 3 8 J12c Acquaintance at a festival. A girl meets her fiancé at a dance and then follows in his footsteps. See motif J12. 8 8 J12I Spitting beads. A desirable marriage partner secretes beads instead of saliva or excrement. See motifs J12 and M57. 8 8 J23b Spears are placed along the path. To defeat the monster, the young man (twins) prepares spears in advance and leaves them along the supposed retreat route. Fleeing from the monster, the young man throws spears at it one after another and eventually kills it. 6 8 J25a1 A child born in a grave saves his mother. A woman dies, but remains incorrupt and gives birth to a child in the grave. He is found and brings his mother back to life. 5 8 J51a2 A severed finger instead of a chicken bone. A girl must penetrate an inaccessible place with the help of chicken bones. She loses one or there are not enough bones. By cutting off her finger and using it as she would use the bones, the girl achieves her goal. 5 8 J65 The children of the Sun destroy their enemies. After the attack by enemies, a woman and her daughter remain. She rejects the marriage proposals of animal suitors and agrees to give her daughter to the heavenly deity (the Sun). The children from this marriage take revenge on their enemies. 6 8 K107a2 Shepherdess instead of princess. A nobleman (king) is forced to promise his daughter or son to a demon (monster, predatory beast). He tries to replace her or him with other girls or boys, but this does not work. 7 8 K109 Wife – puppy or object. The hero is advised to ask supernatural characters for something insignificant (a puppy, a cup) in return for his service. What he receives turns out to be the daughter of a deity. Another character unsuccessfully tries to take the hero's wife away from him. 6 8 K127b Brothers turned into oxen. A group of brothers are turned into bulls (oxen) and then enchanted. 8 8 K22aa Birds in the north – people in the south. There is a country whose inhabitants are migratory birds that live with us in the summer and turn into people when they fly away to their own country. 6 8 K25a3 Collected feathers. The magical bird-wife flies away when she makes herself new feather clothing from feathers collected on the ground. 6 8 K25a4a Rescue from the underwater world (broken chain). A young woman finds herself in the power of a water creature, and when she comes ashore, she is chained. To free the woman, the chain must be broken. 6 8 K27o1 Ball – human head. Severed human heads are compared to balls. Either a character plays with a severed human head or skull as a ball. 7 8 K27u2 News from the tumbleweed. An authoritative character orders to find out where the tumbleweed is rolling or what news it brings. 7 8 K27yy2 Catching the chick of a dangerous bird. The hero is sent to bring the chick of a dangerous bird. 7 8 K37d Recognised by teeth marks. The character recognises the presence of another by noticing traces of their teeth or nails on fruit or leaves. 6 8 K46 A woman throws herself into the sea. In a fit of fear or shame, a woman or girl runs to the sea, throws herself into the water or hides on the shore. The suitor tries in vain to catch up with her. 7 8 L110a Cut ear. A character swallows a person or (usually) many people and animals, the hero kills the monster, and while cutting it open, accidentally wounds one of those who were swallowed. Usually, the wounded person is offended and when those who were swallowed come out, they harm or destroy the hero. 5 8 L119 Battle in the air. The hero and antagonist fight in the air, tearing off each other's limbs. Usually, their allies on the ground try to preserve the limbs of their leader and destroy those of their enemy. 4 8 L133 Without arms and legs. The character keeps his limbs separately, connecting them to his body when necessary. 8 8 L26 Death of initiates. During the (first) initiation, supernatural beings teach boys rituals and kill them for violating rules related to the consumption and distribution of food. 5 8 L37b2 Overheard conversation: a snake inside a person. From the conversation of snakes or crows, a person learns the cause of another's illness: a snake has crawled inside him. The person expels the snake and the sick person recovers. 8 8 L67 Gnawed wool. Having dug an underground passage to a lying monstrous hoofed animal, a small animal gnaws the wool from the place on the skin where the heart beats; the hero thrusts a spear or arrow into this place. See motif L66. 8 8 L83 An incomplete body turns into lightning/thunder. A character who has only a head left (motif L5) or who has burned his leg (motif L82) turns into lightning/thunder (or emits lightning/thunderclaps). 7 8 L90c Horns reaching the sky and the earth. One horn of an animal (deer, ram, bull, goat, wolverine) touches the ground, while the other is raised to the sky or reaches the sky. 8 8 M113a A bird sees blood instead of water. A certain type of bird cannot drink water from rivers and lakes because instead of water it sees blood, fire, etc. 6 8 m11d Salt from bodily secretions. The character makes food taste good by adding salt to it. Another character learns that the cook extracts this salt from his own body (it is contained in his bodily secretions). 8 8 M138a One hundred and twenty years of life. At the beginning of time, the supreme deity or his messengers decided that the maximum lifespan of a human being would be 120 years. 7 8 M141a And who is the mouse to us? In a gathering of various animals, one of the participants refers to the weakest as insignificant to the others and bearing an ugly name. That one is eaten. This is repeated several times, each time the weakest of the remaining animals is eaten. 7 8 M155 Covered nakedness of the father. The father or mother (pretends to) fall asleep naked. One of the children covers him or her, which is a sign of respect. 8 8 M198b3 The collapsed mosque. A supposed fortune teller accidentally finds the missing items, is rewarded and brought close to the ruler. One day, for some reason, he rudely pushes him (or people in general) out of the room. Immediately afterwards, the roof of the building collapses. Since then, no one has doubted the fortune teller's abilities. 8 8 m203b The cat is associated with spirits. A person learns that a cat familiar to him and living in the human world also belongs to the world of spirits. 5 8 M204a Did not notice the money, closing his eyes. Gold is placed in a person's path so that they can take advantage of it. At that moment, the person accidentally closes their eyes and walks past. 8 8 M29n Trickster - Mouse See the motives in square brackets. 7 8 M29q Trickster - Raccoon See the motives in square brackets. 6 8 M29x1 Trickster - Badger See the motives in square brackets. 5 8 M30a They relieve the need for a fallen person The character flying over the village falls, is tied up, and defecated on him. 6 8 M39a4b1 A foolish woman throws away her yarn Foolish woman throws her yarn ways (into the water, into the bush) and believes that somebody with weave it 7 8 M39e2 Oracle tree, ATU 1543E* Two people hid their valuables together, and one of them secretly took them. He suggests asking the tree that grew in this place for clarification and hides his father in a hollow to broadcast from there. The tree is set on fire and the deception comes out. 7 8 M57c1 Gold-producing bear A man fights a bear or (Malayali) leopard and makes another person believe that this animal is defecating with gold. 8 8 M83c Who gets drunk faster Animals argue who of them gets drunk easier. The last one falls down because he becomes drunk as soon as somebody talks about alcohol 6 8 M84d A sick tree A person hears trees talking, one of which is (fatally) ill and suffers. 5 8 M88 Involved in a dance The character follows the dancing girls and dies. 7 8 M8b Birds are hammering the rock: extracting water Animals, and often birds, struggle to break through the rock to get water or honey hidden inside it. 7 8 M9a Turning into a tree frog A character who eagerly sucks honey from a hollow and/or gets stuck in a hollow turns into a tree frog. See M9 motif. 6 8 N28c Sky support In a list of things that do not exist in the world, a pillar of the sky is mentioned 6 8 N28d Sea cover In a list of things that do not exist in the world, a lid or covering for the sea, ocean or river are mentioned 4 8 N28e The bridge across the sea In a list of things that do not exist in the world, a bridge across the sea, ocean or lake is mentioned 4 8 N17 Paper suit, X1853 fairy-tale text ends with a formula stating that the narrator met with the characters described and that he wore clothes made of paper, glass, oil, etc. 7 9 N28g A horse has no bile In a list of things that do not exist in the world, a gall of horse or ass is mentioned 7 9 N37 Sheltered in the sky The character is said to sleep under the sky (like a blanket). 6 9 I70 Reptile with trees on its back. Trees or reeds grow on the back or head of a reptile. 6 9 I7b Lightning – a crack in the sky. Lightning – a crack in the sky through which the heavens are visible for a moment. 6 9 J12F Owl. False groom - eagle owl/owl. See motif J12. 9 9 J12j The false suitor turns out to be a jester. A girl or sisters end up with a false groom who plays the role of a jester in the chief's house. See motif J12. 9 9 J58a Three wizards by the river. To cross the river, each of the three men uses his own magical method. 8 9 J59c Reviving the dead with a whip. A character strikes the remains of the deceased with a whip or a lash, and the deceased comes back to life. 7 9 J67 Stones on the eyes. At night, the character places light-coloured stones or shells over his eyes. Thinking that the character's eyes are open, the antagonist either does not dare to attack him or takes the stones away instead of gouging out his eyes. 8 9 K105 The wonderful son and the rat children. A despised wife gives birth to miraculous children, while other wives give birth to animals. 8 9 K111 Animal suitors rejected, Sun accepted. The girl's mother consistently rejects birds and animals that propose to her daughter, but accepts the proposal of a heavenly anthropomorphic character. 7 9 K136d Two flutes. A young man receives two flutes (pipes, horns) from a cow (buffalo), which produce different effects when played (joy and sorrow, prosperity and a call for help, etc.). 8 9 K145b The newlywed eats her groom. After a man and a woman are left alone (usually on their wedding night), the woman turns into a predator or monster and eats the man. 9 9 K156b A dog helps a girl remain unrecognised. People suspect that the young man is a girl in disguise. She manages to avoid exposure thanks to a dog (rarely a cat) who learns how to determine his mistress's true gender and tells her about it. 9 9 K19f Working stars. A star or many stars descend from the sky to work in the fields. See motif K19B. 5 9 K27g3 One falls – all fall. To fell all the trees in the forest, a man fells one (lightly touching it with an axe), after which all the trees fall. 5 9 K27g5 Wooden axe. A person tries or must try to chop or dig with a wooden (lead, felt) tool instead of a steel one. Cf. motif L84. 7 9 K27l The water body is covered with ice. After the hero dives in, the antagonist freezes the water body or covers the surface with a net. 7 9 K27z2e Lost objects and meeting at the end, ATU 434. During a meeting (sometimes not in their true form), a young man or woman takes certain objects (jewelry) from the other. One of those who met falls ill. A new meeting leads to the healing of the sick person, the identification of the objects, and a wedding. 7 9 K27z2f The Biting Doll, ATU 571C. A poor girl buys a doll (goose) that defecates gold. When the neighbours take the doll, it only dirties their house. They throw it away, and the prince uses it to wipe himself, and it sticks to his backside. No one can help, but the poor girl easily solves the problem. The prince marries her. 8 9 K33a2 The witch distorts what is said. A brother takes his sister to her fiancé. She cannot hear her brother's words, and the witch distorts them (as if the brother is telling his sister to throw herself into the water, to blind her, etc.). Having got rid of the heroine, the witch replaces her with her own daughter. 4 9 k33c9 The girl in the apple. A young man obtains a girl who is inside an apple. 7 9 K37c Identifying an animal or object. The character must identify an animal or object among several identical ones. See motif K37. 4 9 K56aa The dog-groom tests the bride. Two or three sisters successively become the dog's brides. The first or the first two act incorrectly, perish or fail to achieve their goal. The last one acts correctly and succeeds. 7 9 K7 "Like your wife's pubic area." A man compares a certain object to the genitals of another man's wife. The offended man takes revenge. Usually, a man who climbs a tree to get chicks from a nest compares them to the genitals of the wife or sister of the man waiting below; the latter throws away the ladder. 8 9 K73a3 The child is replaced with a doll. The midwife's ill-wishers replace the baby with a statue or doll (telling the father that his wife has given birth to a doll). 7 9 K76f The calf-boy. A young man with the appearance of a calf marries and then turns into a handsome man. 9 9 K80c3 A name helps solve a murder. Before his death, a man asks his murderer to tell his pregnant wife to give their newborn a certain name. Upon hearing the unusual name of the child, a powerful figure begins to investigate the case, and the murderer confesses to his crime. (All texts containing motifs K80c3 and K80c4 also contain the more general motif K80c) 9 9 K87a The stolen boy. A forest woman receives or kidnaps a little boy and raises him to be her lover. 8 9 K8aa Jonah: swallowed by a bird. A huge bird swallows people. The hero kills it, freeing those who have been swallowed, or, if he himself has been swallowed, he manages to get out alive. 9 9 A19b In summer on a snail, in winter on a bird. Moving across the sky, the sun changes its mounts depending on the season – in summer it rides on a slow animal, in winter – on a fast one. Or in winter the sun is carried by a young man, and in summer – by an old man. 8 9 A21a The released moon. The moon is an object that was accidentally released by its owners or stolen from them and ended up in the sky. 6 9 A37c The arrow hits the barrier. The character shoots an arrow into the sky, aiming to hit a celestial body or deity, but the arrow hits an obstacle blocking the target. 5 9 B113 Women's backsides and men's knees. Due to certain events during the time of creation, women have cold backsides (and men have cold knees, or vice versa). 9 9 B16b The wolverine makes the sea salty. The sea is salty because a wolverine or a fox bathed in it or urinated in it. 6 9 B36b Birds acquire voices. Birds find their voices by pecking at a large reptile and smearing themselves with the fluids that flow out of its body. 6 9 B66 The rope turns into vines. Characters climb to the sky using a rope or chain of arrows; when it falls to the ground, it turns into forest vines. See motif J47. 6 9 B75b1 Sounds of the era of creation: the voice of a wife or mother-in-law. The character pushes his mother-in-law or wife into a hollow, and she turns into the creaking of trees or an echo. 7 9 B93a Bird bridge over the heavenly river. Once a year, birds form a bridge across the heavenly river with their bodies. Usually, the feathers on their heads are worn away as a result. 5 9 C16a The offended mistress of animals. The offended mistress of animals or fish takes them and food supplies away. See motif H32A. 9 9 C36 The Last Battle. The gods and their powerful adversaries clash in a decisive battle that changes the fate of the world. See Bray 2000, especially pp. 360-361. 6 9 C8c Son and mother give birth to people. After a global catastrophe, at the beginning of time or when settling a new land, a woman and her son give birth to humans. 5 9 C8D Having had smallpox, they did not recognise each other. A brother and sister survived the flood. They married after having had smallpox and therefore did not recognise each other. 6 9 D13c The trickster makes his brother's wife laugh. Two companions or brothers live together. The older one has a wife, whom he hides. To discover her, the younger one, left alone in the house, makes her laugh. 6 9 D13hh Those who visit another world should not laugh. A person visiting another world should not laugh or show surprise when seeing strange things. Those who break this rule will perish or suffer harm. 6 9 E15b Birds sew a boat. Bird women sew the birch bark covering of the hero's boat. See motif E15. 5 9 E16 Oars with edges. When rowing, the character first tries to push off with the edge rather than the flat side of the oar. 8 9 E1a1 Soaked by rain (why there are cripples). A deity or ancestor moulds people from clay. Some of the figures got wet, which is why there are cripples among people. 3 9 E28 The blood of the Moon pours onto the earth. People shoot at the Moon, its blood spills onto the earth. 4 9 E41 The blacksmith kneads iron with his hands. A skilled blacksmith, as a special gift, can take iron heated in a furnace with his bare hands, knead it like dough, and shape it as desired. Usually, he breaks a certain taboo and loses his gift. (The motif was identified and the material collected by Ruslan Doutalieyev). 7 9 E5 The half-finished man tries to stand up. God makes man out of clay. He must wait until it dries, but tries to stand up earlier. 9 9 E5e The two-headed creature does not come out onto the ground. People or animals come out from under the ground or descend from the sky. The two-headed creature following them gets stuck in the opening or is not allowed to come out. 8 9 F28a1 Jumping penis. The living penis is a dangerous creature that attacks people. 6 9 F75 Siren and tapir. A hunter sees a tapir summoning a woman who lives in the water with a secret signal; she emerges from the lake or river, and the tapir mates with her. The hunter himself summons the woman and becomes her lover. 5 9 F77a Penis bridge. A huge penis serves as a bridge. 8 9 F78 Toothy anus. The character has teeth in the anus or a second head in place of the anus. 7 9 F99 An infant copulates with its mother. An infant turns into an adult man, copulates with his mother, then returns to his former appearance. 5 9 G8e Cutting down a tree on the moon. A character unsuccessfully cuts down a tree growing on the moon. 6 9 G8g The Great Oak and Its Inhabitants. There is a unique tree that must be bent or felled. Different creatures inhabit its separate parts and/or objects of special importance are made from its wood. 6 9 H14 The woman flies back. A woman who has returned from the world of the dead flies back, becoming a bird or a fly. 7 9 H36h Unsuccessful jump (frog and death). Creatures, including a frog or toad, must cross an obstacle. This does not go as planned and results in humans becoming mortal. 6 9 H37a Jumping over firewood, lighting a fire. A character gives another the ability to easily light a fire. The latter uses it unnecessarily and loses it. 8 9 H40A A dog appears in times of danger. At the moment of attack by a dangerous creature, a randomly thrown substance or object turns into a dog, which drives away the attacker. 8 9 H54a The shaven old man. A man meets an old man whose face is completely covered with hair or snot. He cuts (wipes) it off and receives a reward for doing so. 9 9 H7f Death asks who is there, ATU 332C*(1). God gives instructions that certain categories of people must die and suffer. The character who receives the instructions, caring for the people, passes on other orders to the executors. 6 9 H7i Old Age, Hunger, Illness. Old Age, Illness, or Hunger are special characters, but Death is not mentioned. 5 9 I11b Sky supports made from animal legs. The pillars of the sky are made from the legs of a four-legged animal (usually a turtle). 2 9 I31 The master and mistress of the dead. In the afterlife, the souls of the dead are met by a pair of mythological characters – a man and a woman, or the master of the dead appears to women in female form and to men in male form. 3 9 L103c The protective dog and the cannibal. A dog, cat or other animal tries to drive away a demon (usually an old cannibal). The demon (or its victims, who do not understand the danger) kills the animal – usually by cutting off (breaking) its body parts one by one, after which the demon gains power over its victims. 4 9 L125a The werewolf wife suffers from thirst. The woman with whom the man has come together is a creature of a non-human nature. This becomes clear after she suffers from thirst at night and, finding no water in the house, takes on her true form, turning into a snake, separating her limbs from her torso, etc. 8 9 L15a1 Achilles' heel. The character's vulnerable spot is located at the bottom of the foot (heel, toe, sole, ankle). 3 9 L15e1 Discarded weapon. An ageing character and/or one who senses his death approaching instructs his son, a warrior, or his subjects to throw his cold weapon (sword, sabre or axe) into the sea, a lake or a river. Cf. motifs L15E and L15e2. 8 9 L16A Eyes on the feet. The creature's eyes are located on its feet. 7 9 L1d Woman kills a jaguar. The jaguar-werewolf kills most people and is killed by the woman who survives. 6 9 L42j The tree bends (children in the ogre's bag). The ogre catches children (usually mice), puts them in a bag, orders a tree (pole, crossbar in the house) to bend over, hangs the bag, orders the tree to straighten up again, and leaves. Another character (usually a fox) orders the tree (pole, etc.) to bend over and frees the children. 3 9 L5e A decapitated wife pursues her husband. The decapitated body of a woman pursues her husband, while her head pursues their children. 8 9 L65c1 Sisters fly away from a cannibal. Three or more sisters have the ability to fly and fly away from the cannibal – their older sister or mother. Only the youngest is saved. 4 9 M106d My name is "Son-in-law". By saying that his name is "Son-in-law" ("Husband," "Uncle," etc.), the character deceives others. The victims find no sympathy, since as a relative he has the right to behave in this manner. 8 9 M114g The long-bearded goat and the tall camel. Only the boy, the young man, answers the questions of the authoritative character wisely. When he asks why someone older and taller was not sent to him, the boy says that the goat has the longest beard and the camel is taller than everyone else. 9 9 M11b Meat extracted from the body. A woman feeds a man with good-quality meat or fat, which she cuts from her own flesh or extracts from her body, and stops doing so when he learns about the source of the food. 4 9 M121 Insects as spies. A louse or other similar creature (flea, tick, firefly) is sent to follow a certain character. 7 9 M144B A burnt tiger becomes striped. The stripes on the tiger's skin appeared after it was burned. 3 9 M170a The sinful camel. The predator accuses the herbivore of sin and eats it. 7 9 M192a Dried belts. The character agrees to have a freshly removed skin put on him or to be wrapped in wet belts. The skin or belts cause suffering or death (usually because they dry out and shrink). 9 9 M197d Shortened stick, ATU 926C.2. To find the thief, a man gives sticks to the assembled crowd and says that the thief's stick will become longer overnight. The thief cuts off the end of his stick and is thus discovered. 9 9 M24a Kills a woman, captured turtle man goes to war, kills people (usually a woman). He gets caught or killed. In his animal form, he continues to live on. See M24 motif. 8 9 M29y Trickster - Wren See the motives in square brackets. 6 9 M38d5 Cereals talking to each other, ATU 293E* Two or three types of cereals talk to each other, act together, etc. 6 9 M39a2 Misunderstood instructions: a sharp object The character does ridiculous things, understanding the instructions too literally or one episode late (i.e., doing what was relevant to the previous episode). One episode involves improper handling of a needle and other sharp objects. 6 9 M44a Food thieves are the first humans The character discovers that someone is stealing game or fish from his trap, mountain, etc. or ravages his garden, field; he or his messengers wait and catch the thief [magical tales clearly of European origin (e.g. Chamacoco, Wilbert, Simoneau 1987a, No. 121) are not included]. The kidnappers are the first people to get out of the ground, the first men. 8 9 M53b A bag with songs Trickster claims he's carrying songs in his bag. See M53 motif. 9 9 M56d Fill the vessel with flies The character promises to fill the vessel with small flying living creatures. He bets with them that they will not be able to fill the vessel. Creatures climb inside, the character closes the lid. Cf. K60B motif. 8 9 M60b2 To make the bear beautiful, ATU 8 A large predator asks (agrees with the proposal) to make his skin beautiful (variegated). The deceiver burns it (scalds it, burns his eyes, etc.). 6 9 M61a1 The character quarrels birds The character (always a raven) provokes a seagull to quarrel with another bird, telling each one that the other was hostile or offensive towards her. 4 9 M62f One assistant eats another The character asks others to come to him (to help him with his work or get a debt). Those called come, each next one is stronger than the previous one and eats it (or the previous one runs away when they see him), the last two die when they fight each other. 7 9 M70a A pierced old woman A character on whom an old woman defecates or whose face blows the winds pierces her from below with a sharp object. See M70 motif. 8 9 M78e Baby ear A tiny boy comes from an animal's ear, compared in size to an ear, his name is “ear”. 4 9 M7b The fox asks for help from people passing by zoomorphic character (usually a fox) finds himself in a place he can't get out of, and consistently asks for help from animals (fish) passing by or approaching him. The latter helps. 6 9 L103b1 A stream of excrement in the face of the pursuer. 28.30.-.32. The hero or heroine flees from a demon on the back of a domestic animal (often a bull). When the demon approaches, the animal releases a stream of manure or intestinal gas into its face, and it stops the chase. 5 10 L120b The fighting hero wakes his brothers. The hero fights the serpent and calls for help, but no one hears him. Then he throws an item of his footwear or clothing, and his awakened brothers or his horse come to his aid. 6 10 L122a Sewing up cracks in the earth. The character is busy sewing up cracks in the earth, just as one would sew up torn fabric. (Motif identified by Ruslan Doutalieyev). 6 10 L39c Grown from a seed. A boy (less often a girl) climbs a fruit tree that has just grown (usually from a discarded seed). A cannibal tries to force the boy (girl) to come down to the ground. 9 10 L40a A woman mistakes a young man's reflection for her own. An unattractive woman sees the reflection of a young man sitting in a tree in the water and thinks that she has become beautiful. 5 10 L42b1 Frying pans are placed on top of each other. A character kidnapped by a demon advises him to stack pots, pans and other kitchen items on top of each other and climb up them. He does so, falls and breaks. 6 10 L65b5 The hero's dogs at the princess's wedding. Despite obstacles, the young man's dogs or other animals serving him get to the princess just as she is about to be given away to a deceiver. 8 10 L9g Bluebeard. A man's hair or beard of an unusual colour is a sign of his demonic nature. 8 10 M109c Invisibly tied tail. A character is invisibly tied by the tail and tries to break free (successfully or unsuccessfully). Cf. motif M109. 7 10 M114b2 How many steps did your horse take? A man (an authoritative character) asks a girl (a subordinate) a question about the number of routine actions she has performed (or small items she has), which no one counts. She asks a counter-question about the number of similar actions performed by the questioner. 6 10 M114h Building a house in the air. An authoritative character orders a house to be built in the air. A man finds a clever way out of the situation. 9 10 M114i1 He throws away the dead ones and brings the unkilled ones. A man replies that his father (brother, etc.) hunts: he kills (discards) those he sees, and leaves (brings back) those he does not see (those not killed). This refers to lice or fleas. 9 10 M120c Shared children. Two animals agree to raise children together. One of them eats the other's children, continuing to pretend that the children are shared and that it does not matter which ones are missing. 9 10 M123a Three-toed paw. A raven marries or tries to marry, pretending to be a chief and a handsome man. One day, someone notices that he is eating carrion. Usually, everyone is forced to take off their moccasins, and they see that the raven has a three-toed paw. The raven is banished in disgrace or hastens to leave on his own. 6 10 M123b A girl ties her kidnapper to a boat. The trickster deceives the girl into marrying him and takes her away in a boat. The woman asks to be allowed to go ashore to relieve herself, secretly ties the kidnapper's clothes to the boat and runs away. 7 10 M152c The lion and the donkey at the ford. The weak companion of a large predator pretends to be strong and brave. When he is carried away by the river or drowns in a swamp, and the predator pulls him out, the companion pretends to be angry (for preventing him from catching fish, etc.). 9 10 M177a The one who looks away eats. One zoomorphic character teaches another to remain silent, to look at him or away when a third character asks who ate the best piece. It is a trap: the third character decides that the second is guilty. 10 10 M188a Jackal on the throne. The character demands to be addressed as a ruler (usually sits on a pile of rubbish and demands to be recognised as king). One of the animals exposes him. 8 10 M197f Black beard, grey head, ATU 921C. The dialogue plays on the fact that in youth the beard is black, and in old age it is white. Usually a person explains why his head has turned grey but his beard has not: the beard is 20 years younger. 10 10 M199d1 The devil and the squirrel climb a tree, ATU 1073. The devil (cannibal) challenges a man to a competition: who can climb a tree faster. The man puts his child, a squirrel, in his place. 9 10 M199m My grandmother's distaff. A man explains to a demon that the heavy objects lying by the roadside, such as a harrow or a millstone, are just things used by his grandmother or mother, such as a spindle or a comb. 7 10 M201 Oak and mushroom. A rapidly growing mushroom (melon) believes that it will soon outgrow the oak tree. The mushroom (pumpkin vine) soon rots, while the oak tree remains standing. 7 10 M21b Every deception is the beginning of the next. The character consistently harms others in such a way that each person who has been deceived is used as a tool to harm the next. 7 10 M29d Trickster - Mink See the motives in square brackets. 7 10 M29nn Trickster - Earth Squirrel (Xerus inauris) See the motives in square brackets. 8 10 M29qq Trickster - Anteater See the motives in square brackets. 9 10 M37 Shattered with an axe Although the character's head or entire body is cut in two with an ax or split with a stick, the character remains unharmed. Cf. motive J22. 4 10 M38e Mushroom and oak, ATU 293B* mushroom (pumpkin) thinks that it is as durable as a tree. 10 10 M39a2b A fool salts the river After buying salt or sugar, a fool pours them into a pond to salt or sweeten the water. 6 10 M39b He attacks his own plague A person does not notice that he turned and swam back on the way, so he takes his home for enemies, kills his own relatives. 7 10 I4e Thunder riding on a cloud. An anthropomorphic deity (associated with thunder and rain) rides on a cloud or a cloud. 7 10 I59b4 The Milky Way – snow, hoarfrost. The Milky Way is associated with snow, hoarfrost, and cold. 6 10 I87c1 Mouse in a boat. A mouse makes itself a boat out of a small object. 3 10 I87f Suicide of the Narts. Before modern humans, there lived others who differed in strength, height, nobility, or other qualities. They disappeared after committing suicide. 9 10 I92a Jumping over the rainbow. A person who jumps or steps over a rainbow changes their gender. 9 10 I98C Pleiades – a flock of birds. The Pleiades - a flock of (flying) birds. 5 10 J26a Boys and puppies. Among children of a woman or two women living together, there is a boy and a puppy, or a puppy was placed with a woman, and her son was thrown out. The puppy lives with the woman and helps her. 7 10 J3 Conception from under the earth. A woman conceives a son or twins in a way that is incomprehensible to her; the reason is that when she sits on the ground, a male character (animal) creeps under the ground and fertilises her from below. 7 10 J36 Antagonist - turtle. The turtle drags the hero's parents under water. 6 10 J41a Son turns mother into a bird. The son returns and finds his mother, who has been humiliated and tortured in his absence. The son turns his mother (and usually himself as well) into a bird of a certain species. 10 10 J47a1 Goats – owners of food. The character enters a house where goats live. He secretly eats the food he finds there, but is eventually discovered. 7 10 J50a Sons embrace their mother. The mother dies when her sons push or embrace her. 4 10 J58c Bridge of arrows. A chain of arrows forms a bridge across a water barrier. 10 10 J62b Those transformed into animals are disenchanted. The character turns those who come to him into animals. Thanks to the hero, they are disenchanted. 9 10 K100i Intoxication and immobilisation of a strongman. A powerful character loses his strength (self-control) after being intoxicated and then admits that the hop is stronger than him. (See Neklyudov 2025a; 2025b). 6 10 K102a6 The enemy and a woman blind the hero. The hero's wife, sister or mother participates in a conspiracy against him and helps to blind him. 9 10 K103c The bull-helper fights in the copper forest. Sitting on a bull or a cow, a young man or woman runs away from their stepmother's house. Along the way, the bull fights other bulls (monsters), the last of which usually kills it. 8 10 K104 The red swan. The youngest of the brothers stays at home, wounds a red swan or duck, and follows its trail. 8 10 K10h The bird feeds, but does not let go. A bird carries a woman or boy to its nest, feeds them, but does not let them go. The captive runs away. 7 10 K155b A girl's hair serves as a rope to climb up (ATU 310). A girl lets down her hair, which another character uses to climb up to her. 8 10 K15c Substituted clothing. The owner of stone (ice) clothing kills people. By hiding or replacing his clothing, the hero kills him. 5 10 K179 As much gold as the bride weighs. For an object (usually a girl), as much (or more) gold (silver) is given or promised as it weighs, or a pile of valuables as tall as the person being bought. 6 10 K27y1 Coal arrowheads. The character believes or pretends that arrowheads should be made of bark, coal, grass, and similar materials. 7 10 K33a3 The heroine is turned into a turtle. A woman, turned into a turtle because of her rival's intrigues, tries to establish contact with her children or husband. 10 10 K33c1 Transformation into a lotus. A character thrown into the water is transformed into a flower (usually a lotus). 10 10 K35a5 A sign by which the patron recognises the visitor. An authoritative character leaves an object (a letter) for a little boy, by which he will be able to recognise him when he grows up and comes to him. 7 10 K38f5 Fire-breathing horse, B15.5.1. Flames burst from the horse's mouth and/or nostrils, or the entire horse is engulfed in fire. 9 10 K47d The dog fulfils the condition of marriage. A girl gives herself to a dog because it fulfils the condition of marriage set by her or her father for her future husband. See motif K47A. 8 10 K56a8a The good girl returns with her fiancé. A girl goes to another world, behaves correctly, returns with an animal or an object, inside which her groom is found. Usually, another girl behaves incorrectly and suffers damage. 7 10 K56b1 The Old Man with Golden Coals, ATU 751B*. A poor man goes in search of fire. An old man by the fire gives him coals. At home, they turn into gold. An envious neighbour (brother) deliberately extinguishes the fire in his house and asks the old man for coals. His house burns down. 9 10 K58b Turn of the watercourse: failure. The character builds a canal, bridge, or dam. For some reason, the work cannot be completed as planned. 7 10 K73b3 Throw a nut for good luck. A person who is asked to count the nuts in a barrel (taking them out one by one) accompanies his actions with a revealing story. 8 10 K87a1 The child is handed over. A demonic woman asks the baby's mother to let her hold him or secretly replaces another person who was supposed to take the child. Once she has the baby, the demon takes him away. 5 10 M90a3 The tree grew out of a snake plant grows from a killed snake or part of a snake's body. 8 10 M90b The sun is rising from the west The character was wrong when he claimed that the sun would never rise in the west or go down after midnight. 9 10 M92 Glued lashes Something red is glued to the character's eyelashes, he thinks it's a fire. 4 10 A2F Suns – fruits. Suns grow on tree branches. 5 10 A32de Headless man on the moon. A headless man is visible on the lunar disc. 10 10 B104a Meat turns into a toad, ATU 980D. The son was about to eat some meat (chicken). At that moment, his father came in, and the son hid the meat so as not to share it with him. When his father left and the son took out what he had hidden, the meat turned into a toad (snake) and jumped on his face. 9 10 B1b Two creators. Two female progenitors participate in the process of creation. The actions of one bring good, the other evil. 6 10 B1c One creator deceives another. Two creators agree that the older of them (the main creator) will be the one whose object is in a certain state (usually: whose tree or flower grows or blooms earlier). While one was asleep or absent, the other switched the objects and deceitfully achieved primacy. 10 10 B27a Transformation into thunder and lightning. The characters ponder what they should transform into and decide to become thunder and/or lightning. 10 10 B32 Women turn into fish. As a result of conflict with their husbands, women turn into fish. 6 10 B42h2 Reddish star – arrow. A large reddish star (Betelgeuse or Aldebaran) is identified with an arrow. 4 10 B61 The mole's paw. The mole had to hold up the fallen sky and sun. Since then, its paw (hand) has remained dislocated backwards. 6 10 B76 Frozen waves. The sea waves instantly petrified, forming land with mountains on it. 9 10 B7c Sprinkled water. Fresh water, which its sole owner hides in a vessel or pond, is scattered throughout the world. 5 10 B87 Alcor. Alcor (a faint star next to the second star of the Big Dipper's handle) stands out as a separate celestial object. 1 10 D4i The beaver obtains fire. The beaver obtains fire for humans. See motif D4A. 7 10 D4p The parrot obtains fire. The parrot obtains fire for humans. See motif D4A. Australian data is not taken into account, as the common origin of the motif in America and Australia is excluded. 9 10 E15a The boat as a bird's breastbone. The bow of the boat is modelled on a bird's breastbone. 6 10 E23 Revival by fleas. A handful of fleas or lice must be thrown at the character; only this will make him or her move, which is necessary for revival or for the existence of people. 5 10 E41a How ticks were invented. The first ticks were made as a result of observing animals (a dog's crossed paws, two snakes, snake jaws, etc.). 8 10 F20a People and dogs. At first, people mated as dogs do now, but then it became as it is now. 5 10 F47a Parts of the female body. Men use each part of the body of a single woman for copulation, or each man takes a part of her body cut into pieces. 6 10 F47b New people in the same place. In order to create new people (new women) to replace those who have been destroyed, the character leaves something (feathers or pieces of flesh) in each empty hut (in the hearth, in the hammock, in the village), from which new people (new women) appear. 9 10 F70f Accidental change of gender. Finding themselves in a deserted place, people accidentally change their gender. 7 10 G31 Trees tied with rope. A character ties trees with rope and effortlessly knocks them all down at once or pretends to do so. 6 10 H12b The dead feed on excrement. In the afterlife, the dead or demons feed on excrement. 7 10 H32b Lost abundance: the offended child. A girl and/or boy, who are the children of a deity, come to live with humans, leading to an abundance of food/resources. Due to the hurt they have caused, the children return to their own world, and human life becomes difficult or meagre. 8 10 H9a Who will give birth first. Of two women, one of whom is associated with a stone and the other with a plant, only the plant woman leaves offspring, which is why people are what they are (mortal, capable of speech, etc.). Alternatively, children born to two women have opposite characteristics (skilled and unskilled, etc.). 5 10 I119a Earthquake – are there any survivors? Creatures shake the earth, either upon learning that there are no longer any inhabitants on it, or to check whether they are still alive, or to show that they themselves are still there. 5 10 I20a Heavenly giants. Anthropomorphic inhabitants of the upper world – giants. 7 10 I41c Celestial object – reflection of a snake. Rainbow or Milky Way – reflection of a snake (fish) on land or in the sea. 5 10 A5a The Sun from the swaddling clothes of the infant Moon. The younger brother (usually the Sun) is made from the urine and swaddling clothes of his older brother (usually the Moon), who was kidnapped as a baby. See motif A5. 8 11 A8a Liberation of the sun, moon and stars, ATU 328A*. The sun, moon and star (stars) appear as three consecutive and comparable objects/characters in narratives about the abduction and subsequent liberation of celestial bodies. 11 11 B106 The heavenly rooster. First, the heavenly rooster crows (or the underground roosters crow), and only then do the earthly roosters crow. 11 11 B124 Indentation on the foot. Ever since a piece of flesh was torn from a person's foot, a hollow has formed between the toe and the heel. 10 11 B1a Three worlds: division of the universe. Anthropomorphic characters agree to divide the tiers of the universe among themselves – heaven, earth and the underworld. 6 11 B1H The hero and his ten brothers 4 11 B33e1 Freezing in the womb. It is said that the cold, which is stronger than anything else, can freeze boiling water, a foetus in the womb, etc. 11 11 B33g Three horsemen (sun, moon, night). Horsemen or horses represent celestial bodies or different periods of the day. 8 11 B35 The club-footed bear. The bear hastily puts his left moccasin on his right foot and vice versa, which is why he is club-footed. 8 11 B44f The fox wants daylight. In the dispute over whether the world should be bright, the fox is on the side of light (almost always against the bear). 11 11 B51 The Mosquito and Thunder. Thanks to a deliberate lie, Thunder did not learn from the bloodsucking insect that it had drunk human blood. 11 11 B64c Small bones: fish fall from the sky. Fish, together with other earthly creatures, wage war on the inhabitants of the sky. Falling to the ground, they break their bones, which is why fish have many small bones in their bodies. See motif B64. 4 11 C2b The Burnt Moon. The Sun and the Moon are caught in a fire. The strong and intelligent Sun escapes, while the weak and foolish Moon is burned or consumed, but the Sun revives it. 5 11 C6h An insect brings soil. The insect brings soil (from the bottom of the sea or from somewhere far away). 5 11 C8a1 Let the thread enter the eye. Finding themselves alone and without other marriage partners, a brother and sister make their marriage possible by the occurrence of an incredible event: a thread far from the needle must enter the eye of the needle. 5 11 D1a2 A borrowed object does not burn. The house of the person who insulted the fire burns down, but the property inside it or the child of another person (or that person himself) who treated the fire with respect is not harmed. 10 11 D4d The opossum obtains fire. The opossum obtains fire for humans. See motif D4A. 7 11 D4m The owners of fire dance. The thief comes to the owners of fire or light. They feast or dance. He joins them and steals their valuables when the moment is right. See motif D4A. 11 11 D4n The weeping one demands summer. A boy or (among the Kutené) a woman cries, demanding the absent elements - summer, fire, rain. See motif D4A (demand for summer). 10 11 E19 The origin of drugs. Narcotic plants arise from the body of a human being torn to pieces by others. 5 11 E21 The victim of aquatic creatures finds revenge. A child catches fish (with poison), or fish poison is secreted from his body. Fish or water snakes kill him. Death is avenged. 7 11 E24 Knees and elbows. Joints appeared in humans after the first ancestor (or several first ancestors) fell from a height, breaking their arms and legs. 6 11 E31b Female saviours of men. Several women participate in reviving a dead man and argue about who did more to revive him. 7 11 F43b Women hide underground. Leaving the men, the women of the community of the first ancestors hide in a hole underground. 5 11 F43c Husbands of women - animals. The husbands of the first women, Amazons or single women are small animals - usually flying foxes. 8 11 F57 Persephone picks a flower. A girl or her father (rarely: mother) picks a plant (usually a flower) and as a result encounters a character with a non-human appearance and/or inhabiting the underworld. The girl becomes the character's wife. In some cases, the picked plant is the character's hair, but more often there is no direct association of this kind. 5 11 F94 Betrayal in the sky. A man ascends to the upper world, where he can choose a wife associated with either life or death. 7 11 G27 Harvest from urine. Cultivated plants appear together with urine or in the place where the hero urinated. 6 11 H34f Baskets carried heavy loads themselves. Baskets or clay vessels carried heavy loads themselves. 7 11 H54c Crucified eyelids. The character's eyelids are crucified so that he cannot close them, or he does so himself on the advice of another. 5 11 H55a Two under one blanket. Finding himself in another world, a man sees a husband and wife trying to cover themselves with a single blanket, which is not big enough for them, or they do not have enough room for two on the bed. See motif H55A. 7 11 I122 The Pleiades – a beehive. The Pleiades – a beehive, a nest, a cluster of bees or wasps. 9 11 I123 Altair – herald of the sun. Altair with a small neighbouring star from the constellation Aquila or Vega with a similarly faint star are considered to appear during or immediately after the winter solstice, although they are actually visible before that. 7 11 I133a The constellation of the great bird. There is a constellation that represents a bird and corresponds to several large constellations in European traditions (mainly equatorial, rather than circumpolar). 7 11 I34 Dangerous tree. It is necessary to approach a tree that is surrounded by fire, spews fire, throws sharp splinters, etc. 2 11 I37d1 St. Peter spits out mushrooms, ATU 774L. St. Peter secretly eats bread, and when Christ asks him what he is doing, he chokes, spits out the crumbs, and they turn into mushrooms. 10 11 I46c Rainbow rope. The rainbow is a rope to which cattle are tied. 6 11 I46e Rainbow sword. Rainbow - sword, cutting weapon. 8 11 I74a Stars – fireflies. Stars – fireflies. 3 11 J12G Waterfowl or marsh bird. The false bridegroom is a bird that lives on or near water. See motif J12. 10 11 J12k The groom and the deceiver live in the same house. Desirable and undesirable marriage partners live in the same house. The undesirable partner is a servant or junior partner, usually pretending to be the master. 11 11 J27a The rejected child kills his father. One of the babies is abandoned and lives in a river, forest, etc.; the other remains at home; after the abandoned brother returns home, the brothers kill their father or his men. See motifs J19, J25. 6 11 J50b The father remains half-dead. The father (alone or with his brother) is only partially resurrected and is unable to live among people (he cannot be a warrior). The hero leaves him (in another world) or allows him to die completely. 10 11 K103a1 The tree follows its mistress. A tree that suddenly grows allows only the heroine to enjoy its fruits and follows her when she moves to a new place. 6 11 K128a The best apples for the princess, ATU 610. Each of the three brothers brings the princess (prince) a gift of fruit (less often fish, etc.) and encounters a character who punishes rudeness and rewards politeness. As a result (after additional trials), the youngest brother enters into the desired marriage. 8 11 K171 The weaver creates an army. The heroes fight, but the number of enemies does not decrease, because someone is constantly weaving (forging) new warriors. 8 11 K176a The wind dries the laundry. The hero searches for his magical wife who has left him. It turns out that one of the winds is flying to her to perform a certain task. The hero follows him. 7 11 K23a Feathers – birds' weapons. Birds use their feathers as arrows, or falling feathers cover the mouths of their victims. 8 11 K27f2 Get the same shoes. A girl demands that her fiancé get her the same pair of shoes (or other items) as hers. These items either exist in a single copy, or it is not known what they look like. Having become invisible, the hero either steals the items (and the owner has to make new ones herself), or finds out what they look like. 7 11 K27f4 Build a house. Task: to erect a building. See motif K27. 11 11 K27n3c2 The enemy – the father-in-law bear. The hero's father-in-law, the bear, sets him difficult tasks and trials. 7 11 K2a3 The hero is left on the mountain. The hero's companions leave him on the mountain, destroying the rope (chain) by which he climbed up or which he lowered down. 8 11 K32e Gold, silver, wood. A negative character, object or locus is contrasted with one or two positive ones, such as wood with gold and silver. 7 11 K32l Horses are given for fattening. The ruler distributes horses (cows) to his subjects for fattening. Only the heroine returns hers well-fed. 6 11 k33c5 Girl in an egg. A young man obtains a girl who is inside an egg. 5 11 K35a6 Glowing feather. The character illuminates the room with a light-emitting object (usually a feather) that he has found. 9 11 K38b2 A bird carries away the hero, the hero kills the snake. A character (almost always a giant bird) brings the hero to its nest, after which the hero accidentally or at the bird's request kills the monster that was devouring the character's children (usually chicks). 8 11 K44a The frog pretends to be a mother. A frog or toad (coastal Koryaks: triton) kidnaps or finds a boy and lies that she is his real mother. See motif K44. 6 11 K56a4c Wash black until white. A person is tasked with washing something black until it is white or something white until it is black (yarn, clothing, a board, etc.). 10 11 K73a1 The child is replaced by an inanimate object. After hiding or discarding a newborn baby, the woman's rivals replace it with an inanimate object and/or inform the father that his wife has given birth to a stone, a broom, etc. See motifs k73a2, k73a2a, k73a3. 6 11 K85c Four legs are faster than three. A three-legged horse is strong and fast, but its four-legged brother is faster. 8 11 K89c Brother-helper is married to a bear. A girl parts with her brother or sister. He or she becomes the wife or husband of a bear and helps the girl. 9 11 L12 Vultures and incomplete bodies. Vultures lift into the sky a creature that has lost some of its limbs or has only one head left. 6 11 L123 Traces lead in all directions. In order to confuse the pursuer, the character leaves traces leading in all directions before running away. 8 11 L125b Eats carrion. After following his wife (husband), the husband (wife) discovers that she or he goes around devouring dead bodies. 10 11 L1e The character creates monstrous birds. A monstrous bird is created from a small amount of human or animal flesh (usually from the heart) or from lumps of manioc starch. 9 11 L37b4 Dog meat has miraculous properties. From a conversation between spirits or animals, a man learns that the meat (brain, blood) of a neighbouring shepherd's dog has miraculous properties. 8 11 L3a She asked for help – a demon came. Left alone, a woman carelessly calls for someone to help her with the housework; a demon comes and kills the woman or her child. 8 11 L42f The prey escaped, the wife was killed. The character intended for consumption slips away unnoticed. The master of the house thinks that his wife has eaten him alone and cuts open her stomach. 4 11 L42h Those gathered for the feast eat the host. A cannibal catches the hero and invites other cannibals to a feast. The hero escapes, and the cannibals eat the one who invited them. 10 11 L73b A line drawn. The fugitive draws a line on the ground (ice), creating an obstacle in the path of the pursuer. 7 11 M117 Head under the wing, ATU 56D. A fox or other predator asks a bird what it does when the wind blows. The bird shows how it puts its head under its wing, and the fox catches it. 6 11 M15 Tied to a tree. A man ties a girl or young woman to the top of a tree or places her on the treetop as if on a stake. People try to rescue her. 7 11 M152d Elephant saved from tiger's claws. The elephant and the tiger (lion) engage in combat (usually competing to see who can roar louder). The tiger wins and is about to eat the elephant, but a small animal saves it. 7 11 M152e Whose voice is louder. A tiger (lion) and another animal compete to see whose roar is louder. The tiger roars louder, but ultimately loses. 7 11 M179b The guest ruined the house, ATU 80. One zoomorphic character asks another (or a human) to let him in to dry off, warm up, etc. Once inside, he wreaks such havoc on the dwelling that it becomes difficult for the owner to stay there. Usually, in response to reproaches, he says that if the owner doesn't like it, there's the door. 11 11 M191c The wolf's song, ATU 163. Through singing (threats, pleasantries), the wolf (less often, the bear) gradually forces the old man to give him his domestic animals (and family members). 11 11 M198a2 Stone with a wormhole. A person determines, based on characteristics invisible to others, that a valuable item (a gemstone, an expensive sword) has a flaw and is of little value. 11 11 M29i Trickster - Hawk See the motives in square brackets. 10 11 M38c2 He cuts off a horse's leg to shove it To shove a horse or donkey, Jesus (the saint) cuts off his leg, nails a horseshoe to his hoof, and attaches his leg back. The other character tries to imitate in vain. 10 11 M39a4g A fool sells property to dogs Fool sells property to the dogs and believes that they will pay him. Trying to get his money, he finds treasure 10 11 M39a8b Tongueless Robber Using a stratagem, someone who hides in a tree cuts (bits) off the tongue of a dangerous person and the latter is unable to describe situation to his partners 11 11 M42c When it falls off a cliff, it eats its bone marrow Falling off a cliff and breaking his leg, the character eats his bone marrow. 3 11 M59a Porcupine at the crossing After asking a large animal to transport it across the river, a porcupine kills or damages it. See M59 motif. 10 11 M66a A mountain of excrement After eating a certain food, the trickster leaves a mountain of excrement that is larger than himself. 9 11 M67 The trickster was blown away by the wind By stupidity or carelessness, the character causes a wind that blows him away. See the M66 motif (The Trickster emits a stream of intestinal gases). 10 11 M68 When the winds blow, it scares the game Because of his own stubbornness, the character suffers from an irrepressible gas eruption and scares away the game with a loud sound. Almost starves to death. 7 11 M75d Vulture knife A man bereaves vultures of their hunting weapons or amulets 8 11 M78g Sleep-related When the inhabitants of the house fall asleep, a joker (usually a tiny boy) ties them together in pairs so that when they wake up, they quarrel. 10 11 M7a1 The luminaries float above the hero Person gets to a place from which he is unable to come out. Several (more than two) different celestial bodies rise and move near him or above him. He puts attention to them (and asks their help) 4 11 M90a6 Rejuvenating apples Owning some apples ensures eternal youth. 9 11 M99a1 Leaky beaks of birds The character is going to pierce all the birds with their beaks (to string them on a rope) or cut them off altogether. 7 11 N25 The path is a needle long said that characters spend a long time (days, weeks, months, years) on the road, but end up walking a journey as long as a grain, needle, or other small object. 3 11 M94b The wolf under the mill wheel The character is lured to look under the mill wheel, he dies or is maimed. 7 12 M94b1 The wolf under the mill wheel The character is lured to look under the mill wheel, he dies or is maimed. 7 12 N13 Girl with scissors A girl, a girl is associated with scissors (and a boy, a boy with a knife or an ax). 8 12 N32 Sitting on three oaks The ornithomorphic character is said to be sitting on several trees. 5 12 N35 Jelly shores Somewhere milk rivers flow with banks made of jelly (porridge) - a sign of abundance (impossible in reality). Cf. H16B motive. 8 12 N38 Which key is better The character asks others which key is better - lost and found or new. This refers to a forgotten and newfound marriage partner (less often a direct question is asked about this). 8 12 I7a Lightning snake. Lightning is associated with a snake. 7 12 J32b Extended night. In order to accomplish what he wants, the hero prolongs the night by changing the behaviour of the character on whom the alternation of day and night depends. 10 12 J59b The arrow falls, the dead person comes back to life. To revive the dead, the character shoots an arrow into the sky or throws an object. It is assumed that the dead, fearing the falling object, will come back to life and run away. 9 12 J68 First old, then fresh droppings on the trail. Characters who have been chasing an animal for a long time see increasingly fresh droppings on the trail and finally catch up with their prey (usually the droppings correspond to how long they have been lying there); or the pursuers see areas where less time has passed since sowing. 6 12 K11 The eyes of a monstrous bird: metamorphosis. Brothers (brother and sister) kill a monstrous bird. Its eyes turn into heavenly bodies (among the Oaxacan Indians) or something else (among the present-day Condors of the Yokuts). 8 12 K11C Plants grow from feathers. The plucked feathers of a huge bird turn into plants. 5 12 K123b Broken spinning wheel. A boy or young man damages an elderly woman's spinning wheel or yarn. This episode forms the basis of the rest of the story. 10 12 K140 Demonstratively ungrateful. Travelling with his sister or brother, the young man regularly kills his saviours and helpers, exposing himself to ever new dangers. 9 12 K143 The bird catcher hero. The protagonist of the narrative is a bird catcher or bird hunter, or the son of a bird catcher (hunter). 6 12 K145a The image kills. A person is predicted to die at the hands of an animal. He is killed (or attempted to be killed) by a living image of an animal or a statue in the form of an animal that falls on him. 12 12 K149 Three knots. The character has a rope or reins with three knots, allowing him to move faster or slower. Usually, untying the first and second knots causes the character's ship to sail faster (thanks to the rising wind) or his horse to gallop faster; however, contrary to the warning, the character (when almost reaching the goal) also unties the third knot and as a result loses the ship, the horse, ends up not where he wanted to be, etc. 7 12 K156 Will the flowers under the pillow wilt? A girl pretends to be a man. To determine who it really is, flowers are placed under the pillow or mattress. If a man is sleeping, they will remain fresh, but if a woman is sleeping, they will wilt by morning (or if a woman is sleeping, the milk left under the bed will sour). 11 12 K156a Trials: girl or boy? People suspect that the young man is a girl in disguise. Tests are proposed to determine this, but the girl manages to avoid exposure (for a long time). 11 12 K167 The Child King. A boy plays, pretending to be a king and demonstrating wisdom and/or magical abilities. 12 12 K18a The boy takes a bow and arrows. The boy's father is recognised as the man whose bow or arrows he chooses. See motif K18. 11 12 K25a2 Discarded feathers. An anthropomorphic character flies away or tries to fly away, attaching feathers shed by birds flying in the sky to his body. 6 12 K26a A stone covers the opening. The hole in the sky is covered by a flat stone. Moving it aside, the character sees the earth. See motif K26. 11 12 K27g2 Roof made of feathers. The character must build a house out of bird feathers or cover the roof, bridge, etc. with feathers. 7 12 K27z2d The sparrow's quarrel with her husband. A conflict arises between a pair of birds (sparrows, pigeons, etc.), in which the male is more likely (and more often clearly) to be at fault. This episode serves as the starting point for a story about the relationships between people of noble origin. 12 12 K27z4a The cripple demands the return of his leg, ATU 978. The cripple claims that the father of the visitor is to blame for his physical disability. The man's wife or the man himself, on someone's advice, promises to return the leg (eye) if the cripple gives him the other one as a sample or brings him a part of a dead person's body and demands money. 11 12 K30a The chief's wife and the vultures. The wife of the first ancestor flies away with the vultures (usually voluntarily, after she has already cheated on her husband), and the chief (Uito: her brother) brings her back. See motif K30. 9 12 K35a7 The magical feather. A character finds a feather, the touch of which brings health and beauty. 9 12 K52c1 Penis instead of fish. Demonstrating his power, a shaman, sorcerer or other character with magical abilities causes the dwelling in which he and other people are located to begin to fill with water. Sometimes it is said that this water is an illusion. One episode: the magical specialist orders those present to catch the birds or fish that have appeared with the water, or they begin to catch them on their own initiative; when the water disappears, people see that they are holding not caught animals, but their penises or something else. 7 12 K56a5a Skinning oneself to rejuvenate (ATU 877). To become a young beauty, an old or unattractive woman asks to have her skin stripped off. Cf. motif H4. 10 12 k57e Daughter is persuaded to kill her mother. Due to her naivety or by accident, a young girl causes her mother's death. 11 12 K61a1 Two heads in a sack. A dangerous character mistakes two people sleeping (hiding) in a sack or two people lying with their feet towards each other for a single creature. 10 12 K73a2 The child is replaced with a broom. The ill-wishers of the new mother replace the baby with a broom (they tell the father that his wife has given birth to a broom). 8 12 K85a The horse-thought and the horse-wind. When assessing the speed of a horse, the speed of thought (lightning, or something else) and wind are compared. 7 12 K90a Aimed at the black one, hit the white one. Seeing two snakes of contrasting colours fighting, a man tries to strike one, but accidentally hits the other. The relatives of this snake gather to punish him, but upon learning what happened, they reward him. 11 12 A24a First day or night: transformation into spirits. At the moment of the first day or the first night, people transform into supernatural characters. 8 12 A32l Silhouette in the sun. The silhouette of a certain character is visible on the solar disc. Or it is said that the character fell into the sun and remained there. 10 12 A32m Gypsy sun. The moon is called the "Gypsy sun". 8 12 B122 Infants and birds. Birds (cranes/storks, geese or crows) carry children away to another world or bring them back from there. See motif H6c3, "The Immortal Stork". 5 12 B22a Boys and the tapir. Boys climb a tree to eat fruit and refuse to throw the fruit down to the tapir, who tries to kill the boys. 8 12 B33f2 Following the fire, the hero ties up an old woman. At night, the fire goes out. The young man goes to look for fire and on the way ties up an old woman or an old man (usually a character responsible for the length of night and day). 11 12 B68a The bird is punished: let it carry another. Birds quarrel, and the one who claimed high status cripples the weak one. For this, the others order her to carry the crippled one on her back. 6 12 B78 Shaking off, produces a blizzard. When a character dusts himself off (or shakes out his clothes, plucks birds, etc.), snow falls from his hair, feathers, wool, bedding, clothes, etc. onto the ground. 12 12 B98b The Bat and funerals. The Bat comes into conflict with other creatures in connection with someone's death or funeral. 11 12 C35a The good advisor is punished. A zoomorphic character gives wise advice concerning the state of the Sun. The advice is accepted, but the advisor is punished by the Sun or is henceforth pursued by the Sun. 8 12 C35b Frogs – enemies of the sun. The frog (toad) prevents more than one sun from shining in the sky. 6 12 C6i Stuck mud turns into earth. A zoomorphic character returns from the underworld covered in mud. He shakes himself off, or the mud is scraped off him, and earth emerges from it. 8 12 D4f Beavers or fish allow themselves to be roasted. Once in the fire, the beaver (in North America) or fish (in South America) scatters and/or carries the fire away from its original owners. See motif D4A. 8 12 D7a Spider and fire. The spider possesses the first fire or steals it from its original owner (texts in which the spider acts together with other animals and does not play the main role are not included). 9 12 E22 The swallowed gains knowledge. Once inside a certain creature, the swallowed character learns rituals, songs, ornamental motifs, obtains drugs or poison, and, once outside again, passes this knowledge on to people. 9 12 E26 Those who have become fish are turned back into humans. People, or only women, go underwater and turn into fish. Men catch them with fishing gear. Those who are caught become human (women) again. (Narratives about the transformation of only one caught fish into the hero's wife are not included; see motif F7). 9 12 E6a The path through water. People walk across a (frozen) body of water to reach their current place of residence, while some remain on the other side or drown. 6 12 F24 Cause of menstruation: bite. Women lose blood when they are bitten by fish, snakes, etc. 10 12 F67 An old woman pretends to be a man. An old woman lives with her (adopted) daughter, niece or daughter-in-law. She (supposedly) turns into a man, marries a girl or tries to do so. 11 12 F95 The wife of one of the brothers. Two companions or brothers live together. One has a wife, whom he hides. The other suspects her existence, destroys her, or tries to get a wife for himself. 10 12 G12 Tree – human. A huge tree bearing various fruits and/or containing water in its trunk grows out of a human body or is a transformed human being. 5 12 I132 To the sky on deer antlers. A deer props its antlers against the sky, and a person climbs them to reach the upper world. Alternatively, a person finds themselves in the sky when they touch the deer's antlers. 6 12 I13e The devoted snake. The snake agrees to let the man go on condition that he does not tell anyone about their meeting. Under threat of death, the man breaks his promise. The snake teaches him to drink a broth made from its flesh and takes revenge not on the man, but on those who forced him to break his word. 10 12 I22h Pulsating Abyss. The character must jump over a gap (abyss) beneath his feet, which alternately widens and narrows, or a river whose banks converge and diverge. 9 12 I35a2 Thunder – rolling stones, vessels. Thunder is heard when stones or large vessels are rolled, dragged or overturned in the sky. 10 12 L15e2 What happened when you threw the sword into the lake? One character instructs another to throw a certain object (usually a sword or sabre) into the water. The messenger claims to have carried out the task, but cannot say what happened as a result, so it becomes clear that he has lied. 9 12 L15f Life in a necklace, ATU 412. A young woman or man dies as soon as her or his jewellery (rarely: organ) is stolen, and comes back to life when the jewellery is returned or when the antagonist removes it. 11 12 L42g3 Gingerbread house. In the forest or in the sky, the character sees a house that is made entirely or partially of edible materials. 10 12 L59a Stuck to the whale. People who mocked the hero or his son were dragged into the sea and turned into sea animals or parts of its body or parasites on its skin. 7 12 L72k A discarded bottle of oil. Fleeing for his life, the character throws a jar of oil behind him. Spilling out, it turns into a lake or river. (Only North American materials are taken into account. In the Old World, the motif is rare and unsystematic. In North America, it most likely refers to hair oil in all cases). 7 12 L73a Darkness behind, light ahead. The fugitives make sure that darkness spreads behind them, hindering their pursuers (while light pours in front of them). 11 12 L77 The girl seems like a pineapple. The character devours people because he sees them as a delicacy. 9 12 L81d After fighting, the cripples recovered. Two cripples with different physical disabilities quarrel and fight, and as a result become whole and healthy. 11 12 L85b A woman who has offended a god gives birth to a freak. A pregnant woman curses the Sun, Rain or another powerful character. Because of this, the child is born physically disabled. He possesses magical powers and usually acquires a normal body. 5 12 L88 The demon comes to life from touch. A man kills a demon, but when he touches its remains some time later, it comes to life. 8 12 L9f Golden nose or teeth. A person with a nose or teeth made of gold or silver is a sign of their demonic nature. 11 12 M13B Sausage sticks to the nose. People are promised the fulfilment of two (three, four) wishes. Without thinking, they wish for something they do not want at all. The last wish is spent on returning to the original state. 7 12 M149b Dogs in the stomach. A person says that in his stomach (in a box) there are dangerous creatures that he has swallowed (put in a box) and that they may come out. A predator that is about to eat (bite) a person believes this and runs away. 9 12 M154a1 Pregnant wife on a pregnant mare. A man who understands the language of animals hears the mare say that she is carrying four (three): she has a foal in her belly, and the woman in the saddle is also pregnant. 11 12 M18a Obtaining arrows. The character becomes the object of fishing or hunting, presenting himself as a target for enemies. Numerous arrows, darts, and harpoons stick into his body without causing harm, and he carries them away. See motif M18. 12 12 M1a The caiman carries the Pleiades brothers. The caiman transports one of the brothers or a group of brothers, who then turn into the Pleiades. It usually bites off the leg of the youngest. Cf. motif K13B. 6 12 M22a The crane as a watchman. In a foreign house, in a foreign country, where the hero finds himself, the crane or heron is a watchman who must raise the alarm in case of strangers appearing. 8 12 M29c Trickster - Jay See the motives in square brackets. 8 12 M29j A trickster is a waterfowl or marsh bird See the motives in square brackets. 10 12 M31 Discharged into water A character who can't swim asks another to take him by water. He agrees, but throws the rider into the water. 6 12 M32a Eats what falls out character's insides or pieces of flesh fall out of his back. He eats them, mistaking them for regular meat and fat. 7 12 M35 Who won't freeze? Two zoomorphic characters compete to see which of them will spend the whole night in the cold and stay alive. By morning, one of them dies. Cf. K27A motif (the cold test does not involve a two-animal competition). 4 12 M38d3 A blurred lump of earth The character, who is a lump of earth (oatmeal, salt), blurred in the rain or after going to get water. 8 12 M38d7 Sausage makes soup, (ATU 85) Person who represents something fat (a sausage, a piece of fat, etc.) prepares a rich soup adding to it its own fat. Another person tries to repeat the trick and dies 8 12 M39a5a1 Chicken Army Realizing that a son or wife, by telling the truth, will cause trouble for the family, the mother or husband makes them believe in the invasion of chickens (geese, crows), in the rain of stones, in the rain, from which they go blind, etc. In all cases, gullible people are planted in a hole covered with skin, in a barrel, etc., and let in the skin of poultry pecking grain (in Kyurins, chickens bite grain in the yard). See M39a5a motif. 10 12 M39g2 To rake nuts with a pitchfork, ATU 1229* Numskulls try to shovel nuts with a pitchfork. F stranger shows them how to do this work more easily with a shovel (a basket) 8 12 M53e Allegedly inedible whale A character (always a raven) kills a whale and points others to imaginary signs that whale meat is not suitable for food. People believe and all the meat goes to the deceiver. 6 12 M56c Try on a snake The character promises to bring a snake. The snake agrees to have the character measure its length. He ties the snake to a stick or, while measuring, finds out where to hit it to kill it. 9 12 M62d A hare in rotten skin trickster wears rotten skin, pretends to be another animal, and says that the name (i.e. himself) has caused him to get sick. The animals are frightened, they do not dare to take revenge on the trickster for his tricks. See M62C motif. 6 12 M6A Journey to the end of the night 5 12 M82 Tail bells: tied voluntarily, J2155 The character sees that something is tied to the other's tail. He also wants such a tail for himself, and as a result he suffers damage. 8 12 L100d1 Mullah in the cradle. A person endowed with (spiritual) power comes to a woman in the evening. When there is a knock at the door, the woman, having agreed in advance with her husband, tells the guest to lie down in the cradle and replies to her husband who has entered that their son is in the cradle. The man begins to turn the adult into a baby or threatens to do so: he shaves off his beard, knocks out his teeth, and grabs an axe to chop off his legs. The disgraced and exhausted guest runs away. 10 13 L103a They did not unlock the door for their daughter. A girl, a young woman, runs away from a demonic character; she manages to run home, but her relatives do not open the door. The pursuer finds and eats her. (A musical instrument is made from her hair or intestines). (Overview of variants in Rakhno 2016: 475-484). 7 13 L134 The Third Wave. The hero's adversary (usually a demonic woman) is inside a sea wave (the third or ninth) or embodies the wave. 10 13 L1c2 Hiding under the hearth. Fleeing from a demonic creature, the characters hide their children (younger brother or sister) in a camouflaged pit, usually under the hearth. See motif L1C. 11 13 L22B Metamorphosis of the blind. People who wake up blind in the morning turn into fish, birds or animals. See motif L22. 9 13 L26a Extermination of spirits. During the (first) initiation, men kill supernatural characters (reproducing their appearance and/or voices during rituals from that moment on). 7 13 L44b The blind man saw, the lame man ran. The blind and deaf (lame) began to live together, helping each other. After being mortally frightened or fighting, both (less often, one of them) got rid of their disabilities. 8 13 L72e1 The pursuer hides the axe. In order to destroy the obstacles created by the hero, the pursuer uses tools. Before continuing the chase, he is forced to spend time taking them home or hiding them, otherwise animals and birds will steal them. 9 13 L81a3 Demon with a golden spoon. A girl sees a demon in a frightening and repulsive form. When he asks her what she said about him (what she saw), the girl replies that she praised his beauty and manners (she saw him in an attractive form). Usually, the girl eventually tells the truth, and the men hiding in ambush kill the enraged demon. 5 13 L94e White wolf. A supernatural character who helps the hero or heroine under certain conditions – the white wolf. 10 13 M109a Sitting on the ice, waiting for food from the sky. One zoomorphic character advises another to sit on the ice for a long time – usually until food falls from the sky. The one who sits on the ice freezes to it. 5 13 M114k Water that is neither earthly nor heavenly. A liquid that is not normally used for drinking, washing or cooking is used once. It is necessary to guess what is meant, knowing that this water is neither from the earth nor from the sky (most often it is horse sweat). 11 13 M11a Fish extracted from the body. The character gives others the fish extracted from his body. 9 13 M133 The wind as saviour. Cumulative tale: a bird is injured by a thorny plant and asks for it to be punished, but everyone refuses because someone else has failed to do something; the last to be asked is the wind, which blows and causes all the characters to perform the necessary actions one after another. 13 13 M181b How the spider came to live under the roof. The story of the trickster Spider ends with his transformation into a spider that lives under the roof, in dark corners, etc. 8 13 M194 Division of a traveller's property. Several animals take possession of items that belonged to a human. When distributing the spoils, one keeps the food for himself and gives the others items that are more valuable than food but are only useful to humans. The animals that receive these items perish or suffer damage. 7 13 M29z2 Gypsy - a cunning winner Being smart and witty, the Gipsy overcomes strong adversaries 10 13 M38c3 An old woman was turned into a monkey A conceited smith attempts to rejuvenate an old woman (man). His magic helper tries to save the victim but all that he do is to transform the woman into an animal, usually a monkey 10 13 M38d1 Hair neck bubble-head, the straw leg, the hair-neck are successively dying, trying to act like ordinary people. 8 13 M39a2a A fool buys spoons and a table fool buys spoons and/or a table, tells the table to go on its own feet, throws away spoons because they rattle. The two episodes are usually combined. 6 13 M55 Dangerous overnight stay A human or weaker animal character takes a stronger character to sleep in a supposedly dangerous place where hot coals, sticks, etc. can fall on those lying at night; when A strong character falls asleep, his companion burns or hits him, pretending that both of them have suffered equally. 5 13 M57d4 Frost donor A person receives a reward from a character who is associated with frost. 9 13 M78b Too many kids Wishing a baby, a childless woman gives birth to many tiny boys. She or her husband kill them or throw them away, but she stays alone and helps their parents. 7 13 M7c Fish help: offered and rejected zoomorphic character is waiting to be transported across the water. Animals or fish consistently offer help. The character only accepts the latter's help - he was waiting for him to eat. 5 13 I4c Thunder in captivity. The enemy of the thunderer temporarily defeats and captures him. 6 13 I59b3 The Milky Way – the road of salt traders. The Milky Way – the road of salt traders, "Chumak Way". 8 13 I61a The Milky Way – belt. The Milky Way – the heavenly belt. 11 13 I87ad Hidden in a tooth cavity. A giant hides a persecuted person in his mouth – usually (perhaps always) in a tooth cavity; or the person remains alive in the giant's mouth, hiding in a tooth cavity. Cf. motif M21a. 11 13 I87e Dwarves after humans. After the present humans, dwarves will live on earth. 7 13 J12H Opossum. The false groom - the opossum. 13 13 J12l The hypocritical murderer. The murderer pretends to mourn the victim along with everyone else. The deception is revealed, and the murderer is pursued. See motif J12. 10 13 J14 The flute player. To find the man of her dreams, a woman follows the sounds of music or singing; she usually distinguishes imposters by listening to their clumsy performance. See motif J12. 9 13 J35 The frog kills its pursuer. A tree frog kills or neutralises a demon or beast pursuing the heroes. 10 13 J69 Murders in jest and in earnest. A person is killed (with a cold weapon, dead water) and then revived. Another person asks for the same thing to be done to him, but is not revived. 10 13 K138 Body swap (king and vizier), ATU 678. A person gains the ability to revive the dead by incarnating in their body. While they remain in it, their own body is dead. Another person takes the body of the first, leaving them with the body of an animal. 12 13 K168a Food turns into severed body parts, ATU 664*. A person thinks that they are holding something intended for food (a calf's head, a melon, bread, etc.), but these objects turn into human heads or limbs. Cf. motif K80c1. 13 13 K182 The deceived protector. A supernatural defender comes to the rescue upon hearing the alarm, but stops doing so after the alarm has been raised in vain. 5 13 K25c The boy under the onion. While digging roots, gathering shellfish, etc., a woman finds a baby. He grows up and enters into a struggle with dangerous characters. 10 13 K27d House with dangerous creatures. The test: to stay alive in a room full of predatory, poisonous and other dangerous creatures. See motif K27. 13 13 K27x8 The guiding frog. Only the frog (toad) knows the way to the object that is unattainable for ordinary people, which the hero is looking for (and helps him get there). 9 13 K43c The dog unties the children. The bound children (a young man and his sister) are left alone in an empty camp, and the animal frees them. 9 13 K56a4d Ashes turn into flour. A stepmother sends her stepdaughter to a house in the forest, giving her ashes, sand, etc. instead of food. The stepdaughter turns them into flour, groats, etc. 5 13 K56f2 Woman, two men, five eggs, ATU 1663. In order to divide a certain number (often five) of eggs equally among people of different sexes, a cunning woman takes into account that each of the men already has two eggs. 13 13 K65c3 Eve is ashamed of her large family. A woman (alone or with her husband) hides some of her children from God because she is ashamed of having given birth to so many offspring. 11 13 K73b5 And so the mother could not eat her child. A woman is accused of actions that she could not have committed by her very nature. To refute the accusation, an example of something equally absurd and impossible is given, or it is pointed out that the interlocutor accepts the impossible but does not believe in the possible. 10 13 K80a4 Hair turns into grass, (ATU 780A). The hair on a character's head turns into grass (thorns, bamboo, bushes). 11 13 N12 Beard cloak A powerful character makes or tells you to make a cloak or fur coat from human beards and/or mustaches. 6 13 N28b Stairway to Heaven In a list of things that do not exist in the world, a ladder or stairway to the sky (variant: a ladder in the sky) is mentioned 5 13 A13b Ants eclipse the sun. During an eclipse or at the first appearance of night, ants eclipse the sun. 5 13 A19a In the morning on an ox, in the evening on a horse. Moving daily across the sky, the sun changes its riding animals (usually in the morning it rides on an animal that moves slowly, and in the evening on another that runs faster). 10 13 A29a Torn apart by two women. Heavenly and earthly women (demons) pull a man in different directions. As a result, he (or his half) turns into a heavenly object. 10 13 A4b The sun is afraid of the night. The sun decided to walk across the sky during the day because it is afraid of the night. 9 13 B105 The transformation of a shy daughter-in-law. The father-in-law or mother-in-law catches the daughter-in-law in a situation she is ashamed of (with her hair down, bathing, etc.). Out of shame, she turns into a bird (usually a hoopoe) or a turtle. 9 13 B15 River from a woman's body. The river flows from the organs of a woman's body. 8 13 B16a Sea of urine. The sea is formed from urine or blood. 6 13 B1g Four brothers-transformers. Four brothers change the world, freeing it from monsters, transforming its inhabitants and obtaining valuable resources (water, fire, cultivated plants, etc.). Usually one of the brothers is the leader, and the others help him. All four often have a common name. 7 13 B30b The slain turn into animals. Animals arise from the remains of a killed person. 9 13 B42i Cassiopeia – deer. Cassiopeia is associated with a deer or elk. 6 13 B5c Mother and daughter at the beginning of time. At the beginning of time, there are an old woman and a young woman. One or both of them conceive in a miraculous way. A son or twins are born, who settle the world. 6 13 B64b Small bones: war between different fish. Two types of fish shoot arrows at each other. Since then, the fish have had many small bones in their bodies, or some of their bones have split in two. 11 13 B67 The tree turns into stones. A fallen tree and/or its stump turns into a mountain (mountain range) or rocks. (Usually, the branches of this tree bear the fruits and shoots of various cultivated plants, see motif G5). 9 13 B85a Regulating the wind. The wind stops blowing (after blowing too strongly). A character approaches it and establishes the necessary balance. Since then, the wind blows, but usually not too strongly. 13 13 C2a The Woodpecker's Fire. Two characters meet a woodpecker and receive an object from it, which causes the ground to catch fire upon contact. The stronger and smarter of the two characters escapes, while the weaker and stupider one is burned or burned to death. 6 13 C39 Repairing the sky. When the sky split or partially collapsed, it was repaired. 4 13 C6f Retrieving a drowned person. The characters attempt to retrieve a living creature or part of its body that has sunk to the bottom of the water. See motif C6. 12 13 c8f Salvation in a drum during the flood. During the flood, a brother and sister float in a drum. 6 13 D1a1 The old woman-fire takes the child away. Because a woman offended the fire, its mistress takes her child away. 8 13 D4h1 The robin obtains fire. A small songbird (redstart, robin, wren) obtains fire for humans. 4 13 E1b1 Prohibited work for a daughter-in-law. A man who has married an unusual girl is warned that she must not perform certain tasks or eat certain foods. Other members of his household ensure that the young woman breaks the prohibition, and as a result she dies or disappears. 10 13 E30b Pygmalion. A man makes a figure or receives a woman. She comes to life and becomes his wife. 12 13 F26 Cause of menstruation: loss of sacred objects. The transfer of sacred musical instruments (horns, trumpets) from women to men is associated with the onset of menstruation in women. 6 13 G12c The fox brings plants from the sky. The fox or coyote ascends to the sky and, upon returning, spreads plants across the earth that previously only existed in the sky. 4 13 G4 Mountain of abundance. Cultivated plants found on or inside a mountain. 10 13 H24a Bag of stars. Opening the bag, the character releases stars that rush chaotically into the sky. 8 13 H36e The rat betrays man. The rat is to blame for the fact that man is mortal. 11 13 H36j The lark betrays man. The lark is to blame for the fact that man is mortal. 7 13 H7h Death follows man. Despite the warning, man goes to where Death is at that moment. Death enters his body or follows him, and since then, people have been mortal. 3 13 I135 Heavenly skin or cloth. The sky (Milky Way, clouds) is an animal skin or a piece of cloth. 8 13 A2e The sun and moon – severed heads. The sun and/or moon – severed heads of anthropomorphic beings. 11 14 A43a The moon in one moccasin. The moon or character currently visible on the moon hastily ascends to the sky. He is missing one trouser leg or shoe on one foot. Cf. motifs A43 and K13A. 8 14 B104 The chicken turns into a turtle. A guest arrived, the host hid the chicken, and when he wanted to eat it, it turned out that it had turned into a turtle. 10 14 B112 The one who returned the stolen goods decorated. The character is called upon to help perform a task (usually to transport property or provisions across a river) and takes away what has been entrusted to him. A woodpecker or titmouse returns the stolen goods. The owner of the property paints or dresses the bird, hence the colour of its plumage 11 14 B115a Knots in wood, ATU 774H. Angry at the carpenters, the character (St. Peter) asks another (Christ) to make the knots in the wood or branches iron. The latter only makes them very hard. 8 14 B11B The drowned mammoth. At the beginning of time or during the flood, the mammoth drowned or sank into the ground, and since then it has not been seen on earth. 9 14 B20 Expedition to the upper world. People ascend to the sky to hunt, fish, or gather honey; they do not give honey, fish, or good meat to the person who remained below; that person makes sure that they remain in the sky forever. 5 14 B38d Raven and owl. The Raven and the Owl paint each other. 8 14 B40b The horse changes with the cow. The horse changes with the cow, gives up its horns and/or gets teeth. 10 14 B42s Wounded by a spear. The Big Dipper or Polar Star – a small animal (ermine, marten, forest marmot) or anthropomorphic character with animal features, struck by a spear or arrow. 11 14 B47a The cow's split hoof. 33.34. A cow steps on the Pleiades stars lying on the ground, which were demonic creatures. Some of the stars slipped through her split hoof. 7 14 B58 The red neck of the turkey. After the first ancestors steal the original fire, a forest bird the size of a partridge (Penelope sp.; Anhima cornuta; etc.; jacu, paujil) swallows a hot coal. As a result (except for the Andoc), its neck turns red. 9 14 B65 Intestines turn into vines. A mischievous character imitates other animal-people. As a result, his belly is torn open and his spilled intestines turn into vines. 9 14 C12a The Flood and the Dog. The dog warns of an impending global flood or fire and advises what to do. 7 14 C30c Drinking the sea. A man promises to drink the sea (to count how many drops of water there are in the sea), but asks his opponent to first separate the sea water from the water of the rivers flowing into the sea. 13 14 C31a Lights or fire promised to the devil. The master (mistress) of the underworld receives (should receive) heavenly lights or fire. Due to a trick or accident, they are not given to him or are returned. 9 14 D10 The fire drill is a pair of people. A couple of people serve as the embodiment of a tool for obtaining fire. 11 14 D13h He who goes to the dead must not laugh. Those who have entered the world of the dead should not laugh. 9 14 D2a Mother dies giving birth to fire or the sun. A woman gives birth to a son who is the embodiment of fire or the sun and dies from burns. 4 14 E9k Husband-honey (bee). The husband or wife is the embodiment of honey or a human bee. 9 14 F22A Names of body parts. The character repeatedly asks the woman about the names and/or functions of her body parts until he reaches the genitals. 8 14 F49a An animal teaches how to give birth. A small animal (mouse, rat, rabbit, two-wombed animal, bird) explains how to give birth. See motif F49. 12 14 F70d The disgraced informer. A girl pretends to be a man or a eunuch, or a girl hides a disability, or a man pretends to be a girl. Someone reveals a secret. At the last moment, the hero or heroine magically gets rid of the disability (acquires male or female nature), the informer is disgraced (executed). 7 14 F89 The sister's cunning. A sister and brother live alone. The brother refuses to commit incest. The sister resorts to cunning, as a result of which the brother mistakes her for a stranger and marries her. 9 14 F9e Mice in the vagina. Small mammals with sharp teeth are found in a woman's vagina. 9 14 F9g1 The heavy hand of the bride. On her wedding night, the bride-heroine throws herself on her groom to crush him. 10 14 H43ab The spat upon is mortal. Man is mortal because he was spat upon at creation. 10 14 H7f2 Death becomes invisible. The character embodying death had a body visible to humans. Then death became invisible. 14 14 I102 The Milky Way – a tree. The Milky Way – a tree, the trace of a tree. 11 14 I25b Wiping the stove with hair. This refers to women who work without the simplest tools, using parts of their bodies instead. 10 14 I47a Rainbow – fox wedding. The rainbow is associated with the wedding of a fox or jackal. 6 14 I5a Thunder tapir. The tapir is associated with the upper world (thunder, sky, moon). 6 14 I64a Race on the Milky Way. Two different hoofed animals race across the sky. Usually, the Milky Way is the dusty trail they leave behind. 11 14 I68a The night of magical water. Once a year, water briefly acquires unusual properties. 9 14 I81b Charybdis (ebb and flow). During high tide, a certain creature spews seawater or displaces it with its body, and during low tide, it swallows the water or makes room for it (or it is simply reported that the water is either spewed or recedes). 11 14 J15b Woman at the toad's house. While travelling, a woman finds herself in the house of a frog or toad. See motif J15. 6 14 J41 Foxes mock the abandoned. The hero leaves for a long time. When he returns, his relative does not immediately believe that it is really him. All this time, someone has been mocking him or her, imitating the voice of the departed, saying that he has returned and/or throwing ashes in his or her face. 9 14 K107e Delayed childbirth. A woman remains pregnant for many years and gives birth only after her wonderful husband, who has left her, or someone else allows her to do so. 10 14 k117c1 To play before death. A man sentenced to death asks to be given something from his possessions, usually a musical instrument. Once he has it, he gains power over those gathered and is saved. 12 14 K168b The bewildered man became a bear. A person makes another person believe that he has turned into a bear (wolf), found himself in the forest, etc. When he wakes up, the bewitched person finds himself where he was before. 10 14 K182a The sleeping defender. A mighty warrior residing in a cave (or crypt, etc.) will eventually emerge into the light (to assist his people), or he could emerge but chooses not to. 10 14 K24c An old man helps to obtain a bird wife, ATU 413. A young man comes to an old man (less often – to an old woman), who teaches him how to get a magical wife by hiding her bird clothes. Usually, the young man gives away the clothes for the first time and lives with the old man until the girls fly back. 11 14 K25b A woman follows a porcupine. A woman climbs a tree trying to catch a porcupine and ends up in the sky. 7 14 K27o2 Playing with a dangerous ball. To destroy the hero, his opponents play ball with him, throwing a heavy dangerous object (a ball made of ice, bone, stone, iron, a walrus head, a biting skull, etc.). 7 14 K29c Brings a tree. They hope to kill the hero by knocking a tree down on him or tying him to a tree. He comes back alive, dragging the tree behind him. 10 14 K32k False wife – beetle or larva. The false wife, replacing the real one – a foul-smelling beetle or larva. 7 14 K51a Pushes a rival into boiling water. One woman comes to another in the absence of a man and kills her by pushing her rival's head into boiling liquid or pouring boiling water or hot fat into her ear. See motif K51. 10 14 K56ab The girl takes off her shirts, the snake takes off its skin (ATU 433B). A girl marries a monster. On their wedding night, he orders her to take off her shirt, and she orders him to take off his skin. The girl survives, and the monster becomes handsome – usually because she has more shirts (or skins worn in advance) than he does. 12 14 K56d1 Treasures in a pumpkin. A pumpkin or watermelon (grown from gifted seeds) given to a person turns out to contain treasures. 12 14 K61e The one who laughs rewards. Seeing an absurd situation, a powerful (supernatural) character laughs and is thereby usually cured of his ailment. For this, the people involved in the situation are rewarded and saved from danger. 8 14 K76h The magical groom threatens disaster. A young man, temporarily having a strange or monstrous appearance (freak, animal, etc.), woos a princess, but is rejected. Then he causes natural disasters or creates personal troubles for the king, who is forced to give up his daughter. 10 14 K88c The blood of a dog will cure the princess. The character learns that the blood (brain, etc.) of the dog guarding the neighbouring herd will cure the princess (prince). He uses this medicine and is rewarded. 7 14 K89a Where to leave the sister? Having escaped danger, the girl or boy goes with their sister or brother. The sister or brother is crippled, rejects a number of places where they are to be left, and remains in the last place offered. See motif K89. 6 14 K8b Woman – the soul of the whale. A raven finds itself in the belly of a whale; the woman inside asks it not to touch a certain organ of the whale (usually the heart) or a burning lamp. The raven breaks the prohibition, the woman disappears, and the whale dies. 8 14 L128 You are Lyuta, and I am Pra-Lyuta. When a demonic character or predator reveals who he is, the hero or herbivorous animal responds by calling himself a name that implies his superiority over his opponent. 11 14 L129a Man asks, wolf explains. The wolf or demon is asked why its body parts and organs are the way they are. It explains sequentially. 12 14 L33d The hero defeats the stone monster. A rolling stone-monster kills people. The hero destroys it. See motif L33. 8 14 L41b Tar basket. A basket in which a cannibal puts people is smeared or filled with tar. See motifs L41, L42. 10 14 L42a Cannibal steals corpses. The cannibal steals fresh corpses from graves. 12 14 L42g2 The bird erases the trace. A person leaves traces behind by dropping seeds, pebbles, etc., or leaving drops of blood. These traces are unintentionally destroyed by birds, animals, wind, etc. 10 14 L65b1 Exchanging sheep for dogs. A man exchanges sheep (goats) for dogs. The exchange seems unequal, but the dogs help him achieve success. 6 14 L69 The puma defeats the monster. A monster attacks a person; a puma, jaguar or dog fights the monster, kills or drives it away; the person returns home. 11 14 L90b Fangs reaching the sky and the earth. One tooth (fang) of the creature touches the sky, the other reaches the earth or the underworld. 6 14 L93c The monkey helper. The monkey, resorting to cunning, helps the hero or heroine, saves them. 14 14 M100b Jumping off a cliff. One of the characters persuades another to jump from a high cliff or tree, because, allegedly, the other's ancestor did so. The other jumps, crashes or falls into the clutches of the first. 9 14 M130 The fox and the bird in one burrow. The fox and the bird hide from the hunter in the same burrow or hollow. The bird pretends to be dead and as a result is saved – either alone or together with the fox. Cf. motif M130A. 13 14 M147a Foxes meet at the market. When the foxes (wolves) meet and one of them (one of the wolves) asks when they will see each other again, the other replies that it will be at the fur market (at the furrier's, etc.). 14 14 M163a What do cats eat? A man sells a cat (rooster) to people who do not know about cats (or chickens). Having received a cat or rooster, people do not know what to feed them and fear that they will eat people. 10 14 M171c1 In exchange for a bast shoe. The character has only a bast shoe with him (or he pretends that he had a bast shoe). He asks for a place to stay for the night, and in the morning he claims that he had something more valuable with him. At each new place to stay, he continues to exchange something less valuable for something more valuable. 8 14 M190 Beaver and porcupine. The beaver carries the porcupine across a water barrier. Usually, he throws it into the water or leaves it on an island. 9 14 M29h Trickster - Owl See the motives in square brackets. 11 14 M39a4c The fool sells his property to the birds Fool sells property to birds and believes that they will pay him. Trying to get his money, he finds treasure 10 14 M39a6e Basket Maker, ATU 888A* A person learns a craft (weaving, painting) in order to earn a living for the family. His wife is kidnapped (separated if he is with him). The wife finds out that her husband is there when she sees baskets or other items he has made. 13 14 M4 Careless step When crossing a pond or descending from a tree, the character (usually despite a warning) steps at a specific animal or part of the animal's body . As a result, it falls into the water and often sinks. 4 14 M61a Owners quarrel to get valuables To get valuables, the character provokes a quarrel between their owners. When they start fighting each other, valuables fall out of their bodies and end up at the character's disposal. 7 14 M79 Reed Dancer, J1883 A person joins the dancers; it turns out that the dancers are reeds or trees in the wind. 5 14 M81b Don't go after a stuck arrow The character is warned not to try to reach an arrow if it gets stuck in a tree. He breaks the ban and gets into trouble. 8 14 M96 Imaginary guests In order not to share with family members, the character pretends to have guests and eats everything himself. 11 14 N21 Hero dough The warrior-hero was made of dough and then became alive (his name is “The Dough”) 8 14 M8c Cleaned eyes Birds pierce through a layer of clay, wax, resin, etc., that covers the character's eyes or anus. 7 15 M8d Extend the hole in the body Birds break through the hard cover on the character's body to reach his entrails. 8 15 M90a2 What did the tree grow from? It should be guessed that the plant grew from a part of the body of a man or a snake or from dirt scraped off from the body 12 15 M94a Mountain riding: antagonist victims The demonic character kills his victims, provoking them to slide down the mountain. 9 15 I4d The stolen weapon of Grom, ATU 1148B. An enemy steals a weapon (usually a musical instrument) used by the thunder god to summon a storm. The thunder god or his assistant comes unrecognised to the thief, takes possession of his weapon and kills his enemies. 13 15 I50b Many-legged beast (predator). Describes or depicts a predatory animal with six or more legs. 7 15 I80a Junior Thunder. Upon meeting the Thunders, a person becomes one of them. 10 15 J22e Man from the afterbirth, T541.12. The second character emerges from the afterbirth of the first. 10 15 J24 Ground into flour. The hero, ground into powder, is reborn. 6 15 J29 The shadow of the father. Murdered parents themselves inform their children about the circumstances of their death. 13 15 J49 The Moon's wife falls down. The wife and/or sister of the Moon unsuccessfully tries to climb up to him in the sky or reaches him but returns to earth. 10 15 K102a4 The wolf across the river. A hostile young character is located behind a water barrier. The young man's sister or mother helps him cross and becomes his lover. 6 15 K136 The young man and the cows. The young man turns out to be the owner and leader of a herd of cattle, and with his herd of cows or buffaloes he is summoned to the king (usually after his hair is found by the princess). 11 15 K137a A girl disguised as a young man finds a wife for her brother. The brother is killed. The sister, dressed in his clothes, finds a woman. The brother comes back to life, the sister puts on women's clothes again, and the woman believes that the girl's brother was the one who married her. 9 15 K181 The horse from the dungeon. The hero finds a suitable horse in the dungeon (in the basement, in an empty castle, in deep mud, etc.), where it has stood for many years. 10 15 K27a Night in the cold. Test: spend the night in the cold (the antagonist tries to destroy the hero in this way). See motif K27. Compare motif M35: two zoomorphic characters compete to see which of them will sit out the night in the cold. 13 15 K27v1 To hit a needle with an arrow. The character must hit the eye of a needle with an arrow (the eye of a needle). 10 15 K27zz3 The pit by the apple tree. The father or stepmother (werewolf) pushes/locks the sisters (the girl and her servants) into a pit. The heroine manages to escape and triumphs over her antagonists. 10 15 K38f2 A mark made with dragon's blood. The girl saved by the hero smears him with the blood of the monster he has slain. When the deceiver claims that he killed the dragon, the hero shows the bloodstain on his body, thus proving that he is the victor. 10 15 K55 Rewarded chastity. A powerful character finds out whether his guest has made love to his daughter or wife (if the character is a woman: whether he has attempted to have sexual contact with her). A man who is impotent or (successfully pretends to be) chaste is rewarded (at least not punished). In most cases, the other character engages in sexual contact or is unable to hide what he has done and is punished as a result. 12 15 k73a9 The talking bed. Lying on the marital bed, the deceiver, who has taken the place of the real wife, hears the conversation of her rival or her children, and in the morning orders the bed to be destroyed. 11 15 K76d The Hedgehog Son, ATU 441. The son or foster child of a married couple is a hedgehog. He marries a princess and turns into a handsome man. 13 15 K90b Deer antlers in the dragon's mouth. The antlers of a deer or the tusks of an elephant, which a snake or dragon is trying to swallow, get stuck in its mouth. 14 15 A19c1 The Sun Chariot. The sun or moon travels across the sky in a chariot or sleigh. 6 15 A32b1 Jumps on the face of the Moon. A woman sits (jumps) on the face (back) of the Moon Man and is now visible in the silhouette of the moon spots. 13 15 B123 A fly instead of a nail, ATU 772*. A fly lands on the chest of the crucified Jesus. His persecutors, who intended to drive a nail into his heart, do not do so, believing that the nail has already been driven in. 8 15 B42e Hunting the rhea. In the cosmic hunting plot, the object of pursuit is the rhea (Rhea americana, a large flightless bird). See motif B42. 7 15 B72b An offended child becomes a bird. A girl or, less commonly, a boy turns into a bird after his mother (father, guardian) refuses to give him water or food or otherwise mistreats him. 10 15 B74a Red cloths over the eyes. Red cloths are sewn over the character's eyes (threads, eyelids are painted red) or he does it himself. He sees everything in red or his eyes have turned red forever. 9 15 B87b Harnessed wolf. The Great Bear – a cart harnessed by a wolf or bear. Usually, the shape of the handle of the dipper is explained by the fact that a wolf or bear attacked an ox harnessed to the cart and took its place. In this case, it is associated with Alcor or the last star of the handle of the dipper – η. 10 15 B91 The sharp-eyed snail. The snail had (the most keen-eyed) eyes. Another character borrows them and does not return them. 9 15 D4b Retribution for fire. Those who stole or asked for fire and/or those who received fire are punished by the deity. 6 15 D4j The rabbit obtains fire. The thief, the thief's assistant, or the owner of fire is a rabbit, a hare, or (ofaye) a guinea pig. See motif D4A. 15 15 E1d Clay boats. (The first) boat is made of obviously unsuitable material. 9 15 E3 New people from the bones of the old. After the destruction of the previous world, new people (rarely: new earth) are made from the remains of the dead. 11 15 E8a People in fruits. Women or people in general emerge from fruits (often coconuts), or fruits or, less commonly, leaves turn into people or only women. Cf. motif k33c. 6 15 E9i4 The magical wife – the crane. Before meeting the hero, his beloved (wife, helper) takes the form of a crane. 10 15 E9l The magical wife – mouse. Before meeting the hero, his beloved (wife) has the image of a mouse (rarely: a rat). 14 15 F13 The red penis of primates. The genitals of humans or monkeys acquire their current shape and colour as a result of copulation with a girl who had a toothy womb or no vagina. 8 15 F18d Long clitoris. Female genitals were enormous in size. 11 15 F28a3 Pleasant for girls, dangerous for others. A girl (woman) possesses an object that is pleasant (useful). Once in the hands of others, it becomes harmful (dangerous). 14 15 F51c Provocative behaviour after incest. Upon learning that her unknown lover is her own brother, the girl shows him her genitals or bare breasts, offering him what he so desired. After that, she runs away, and he rushes after her. 9 15 F55a Placing on the naked body (demon and woman). A demonic character persuades a woman to expose a certain part of her body, because that is the only place where a certain object should be placed. The demon kills the woman, tearing off that part of her body. Usually, the woman uses or names various locations, and the character rejects each one in turn until he finds the right one. 8 15 F86a The pet is eaten. The character cares for a fish, crab or other creature. Others watch the character, kill and eat his pet, or try to do so. 12 15 G12a Plants from drops of blood. Cultivated plants arise from drops of blood or flow like blood from cuts on the body of a human or animal. 7 15 G13b Mushrooms as inferior food. Before the advent of cultivated plants, people ate mushrooms. Creatures of a non-human nature feed on mushrooms. Mushrooms are imaginary, inferior food. 9 15 G22 Frog/toad and cultivated plants. The frog/toad is associated with humans acquiring cultivated plants. 6 15 G24a Seeds hidden on the body. The character steals cultivated plants for people, hiding the seeds on/in his own body. 13 15 G8f Burnt wood chips. Characters cut down a tree, but the trunk grows back. They manage to finish the job after the splinters are carried away or burned. 13 15 H34c Flying rice. Rice flew (came) from the field to the house. 9 15 H43ac The antagonist brings people to life instead of the creator. The creator made human figures and left. By sneaking up on the figures, the antagonist brings them to life himself. That's why people are mortal and imperfect. 8 15 H7f1 Death as a devourer. Death devours the dead and thus satisfies its hunger. 12 15 I107 Stars – nails. Stars are nails or stakes driven into the sky, or stars are nailed down. 12 15 I14a Ejecting food through the mouth. People without anuses regurgitate what they have eaten through their mouths or other (marked) orifices. See motif I14. 14 15 I17a Dwarfs without bodily orifices. Creatures without an anal opening or mouth - dwarves. 9 15 I41a Rainbow from an anthill. A rainbow rises from an anthill or termite mound. 9 15 L108d Stones sewn into the belly. A character who swallowed his prey alive falls asleep. When his belly was cut open, the swallowed prey was removed and replaced with stones, but he did not notice anything. 12 15 L108e Children of the fox, ATU 123A. A fox has a child, usually adopted (she cares for a lamb, a foal, etc.), a wolf or a bear kills it, and the fox takes revenge. 15 15 L35 Severed hand. A shaman or spirit comes at night and, reaching his hand into the hut, steals food or disturbs a woman. A man in the hut cuts off or tears off the hand. 11 15 L37b3 The body of a bird has miraculous powers. From the birds' conversation, humans learn that their bodies or secretions have miraculous properties. 8 15 L5g The head of the older sister rolls after the younger one. Only the head remains of one of the sisters. It rolls after the other sister or sisters, or they take it with them; in the end, the head finds a place where it wants to settle. 13 15 L65a2 Shot finger. A man shoots off (damages) the finger of a demonic creature, and then sees that his sister, lying in her cradle, has lost her finger. 11 15 L72d Abandoned scissors. Fleeing for his life, the character throws behind him a pair of scissors, which turn into some kind of obstacle in the path of his pursuer. 13 15 M107 The turtle bites off the penis. A small character kills or maims a large four-legged animal by clinging to its genitals. 12 15 M140a The fox ties up its companion. The fox cunningly ties up the wolf or man and runs away. 8 15 M157c You are hens, and I am a rooster. To put a character in an awkward position, others present him with chicken eggs that they have prepared in advance, which the character does not have. (Usually, he crows and says that there are hens around him and only he is a rooster). 12 15 M186 Competition in speed: fish and animal. An animal (fox, wolf, leopard) runs along the shore, while a fish (burbot, goby, catfish) swims in the water. The animal calls out to the fish, which is always ahead (usually keeping other fish at a distance, but in the Negidal variant, the motif of competition is omitted). 11 15 M197b Rusted stallions and foaled mares. The owner claims that other mares foaled or aborted because his stallions, which were far away from the mares, whinnied, that any foal born was from his mare, etc. The young man begins to kill the owner's dogs: they did not chase away the wolves (they scared away the game, etc.), although they were far from the scene. The owner acknowledges the absurdity of his claim. 11 15 M29E Trickster - Skunk See the motives in square brackets. 11 15 M36 Disassembled into pieces fits into the hole The character finds himself inside wood, stone, ice, etc. He or someone else makes a hole, but it's too small. Then he disassembles himself (or turns into fog), pushes these parts into the hole and reassembles it. 11 15 M39a4f Fool sells property to statue Fool sells property to the statue and believes that it will pay him. Trying to get his money, he finds treasure 10 15 M39a5a3 The master's devils were beaten Realizing that a wife telling the truth will cause trouble for the family, the husband says that the sounds she hears are the screams of her master (official, etc.) who is beaten, dragged to hell, etc. She repeats this to the master (official), who declares her insane. 11 15 M75b2 Predetermined marriage: a bird tries to prevent bird tries in vain to prevent the marriage, which she learned was inevitable when the future spouses were still children. 13 15 M84c Spirit Guest Sleeping in a deserted place, a person finds himself among spirits. One of them explains that he has a guest, that is the same person. 8 15 K93b5 Disguised as a puppy. The character infiltrates the enemy camp disguised as a kitten or puppy. Usually, one of the enemies suspects deception, but the others believe that the cute animal is harmless. 8 16 L117 Imposed companions. A man is going to get married. An evil spirit, animal, etc. imposes itself on him as a companion (usually helping, feeding, or simply saying that it will then demand half of the wife). After the wedding, it takes or tries to take the bride or demands to share her. In the Gola text, a man obtains a wife for the spirit and demands to share her. 12 16 L121a The hunter's secret. The hunter has the ability to avoid danger by transforming himself into various objects. His shapeshifting wife tries to recognise them in order to destroy the hunter. 7 16 L124 The demon's treacherous gift. A person extracts a vein, spinal cord, or intestine from the demon's body, cuts out a strip of skin, or receives a belt as a gift, but does not gird himself or another, instead placing the belt on a tree. The belt cuts or burns the tree. 9 16 L4a Meat answers to the master. To test the loyalty of the heroine (hero), the demon demands that she eat food that humans should not eat. Usually, when the heroine reports that the food has been eaten, the demon asks where the food is, and the food answers him. 12 16 L5e1 A female demon pursues her children. A woman who has become a monster pursues her own children. 15 16 L65c The elder sister-cannibal. The eldest of three or more sisters turns out to be a cannibal, devouring her younger sisters and other people. 10 16 L74a Hanged over the hearth. The enemy carries the hero away or tears off and carries away part of his body, after which he hangs his victim or part of his body (usually over a fire) in order to cause the victim torment. Another character rescues the hero himself or returns the stolen part of his body to him. 13 16 L95a Light on water. A person sees lungs or a liver lying on the ground or floating in the water. As soon as he touches them, a demonic character appears before him. 12 16 M108 The trickster takes away property. The character is called upon to help perform a task (usually to transport property or provisions across a river) and takes away what has been entrusted to him. 9 16 M127c Foolishly frightened. Seeing an object that has been deliberately left behind or accidentally dropped, or hearing a sound it makes, the character sees it as a sign of danger and reacts inappropriately. 14 16 M171d Mena: receives a drum. The character exchanges one thing for another and ultimately receives a musical instrument (usually a drum). 14 16 M174 Eats from behind. The weaker character manipulates the stronger one so that he loses the ability to move, although he is still alive. The weak one begins to eat the strong one from behind, refusing, under one pretext or another, to approach from the front, or refrains from eating while the victim is still alive. 8 16 M2 Descending a tree. The hero descends from a tree or rock on the back of an animal or on the backs of animals. 11 16 M29m The Trickster is the Rat See the motives in square brackets. 15 16 M39a7 Misunderstood instructions: washing with boiling water, ATU 1013 When instructed to wash the old man with warm water, the fool steams him with boiling water. 13 16 M5b An Ungrateful Rat rat drowns, has difficulty getting to the shore (usually an aquatic animal takes it), and mocks other animals (usually its savior). 11 16 M70 The elder poisons the younger ones with intestinal gases The oldest character poisons the youngest with his intestinal gases. 11 16 M78a The tail boy A tiny little man emerges from the severed tail of a goat or sheep. 13 16 M81a Vivid female ducks The hero meets two blind women and makes them sighted. These women are birds (geese, ducks, hazel grouses, partridges). 7 16 I49 Runner-earthquake. Earthquake – an anthropomorphic character (or category of characters) that moves around, shaking the earth. 14 16 I77 The lame thunderer. A powerful character associated with thunderstorms and rain, lame. 14 16 J20 The sinister guest: the broken taboo. While the husband or brother is hunting, an evil spirit comes to his wife or sister; he kills or maims her or her brother after she breaks the taboo of opening the door to the guest, looking at him or talking to him. See motif J19. 14 16 J22d Animals cut in half. Foreigners or animals of two different species emerge from a single person or animal cut in half. 11 16 J23a Snot turns into a boy. A woman cries, and the discharge from her nose (her tears) turns into a boy, who grows up and defeats strong opponents. 10 16 J27b Water Father. An infant is thrown into a lake or river and occasionally comes ashore. In addition to his earthly parents, he has a father (and mother) in the underwater world. He does not want to part with them, nor do they want to let him go. 8 16 J34 Grandchildren scare their grandmother. After killing a dangerous enemy, the heroes make a scarecrow out of him to frighten the household. 11 16 J51a Ladder made of bones. To climb a rock or tower, one must stick bones into it and climb them like a ladder. 10 16 K137 Sister brings women to revive her brother. The brother is killed, the sister, dressed in her brother's clothes and disguised as a young man, finds women who are able to revive the dead, puts her brother's clothes back on his body, and the women who have come revive him. Or the sister is killed, the brother lures women capable of reviving the dead, puts his clothes on his dead sister, the women think it is their husband, and revive the girl. 11 16 K27p2 The enemy father-in-law takes the form of a bear. Demanding that the hero kill the bear, the father-in-law (rarely: mother-in-law) himself takes on the form of a bear or turns his daughter or wife (husband) into a bear (bear). 14 16 K27v Shooting a bird. The character must hit the bird with an arrow or a stone. (Cf. motif K27M, where it is not the accuracy of the archer that is important, but the unusual appearance of the creature that needs to be caught). 12 16 K27yy Approach a dangerous tree. The hero is sent to a tree that is supposed to fall on him. 11 16 K45a Fingers turn into aquatic animals. A man sails away from a woman or girl in a boat or on a raft. When she tries to grab the edge of the boat (raft), he cuts off her fingers. The fingers turn into aquatic animals. 9 16 K64c The blacksmith blinds the cyclops. The person who gouges out or burns out the cyclops's only (sighted) eye is a blacksmith. 6 16 K65d Incorrect marriage rites and the birth of spirits. The first human couple initially only have miscarriages, or their children are spirits or unpleasant and dangerous animals. After performing a formal marriage ceremony or repeating it according to new rules, the woman gives birth to real people or gods. 7 16 K67f Slaughter the sheep that looks at you. A fool or a rogue is instructed to slaughter the sheep (cow, bull) that looks at him, i.e. any one. He slaughters them all, because they all looked at him. 14 16 K67h Bear in the barn When a worker is sent to a place where he is to be torn apart by a predator, he tames it and lets it into the barn (stable) at home. As a result, the predator destroys the owner's livestock. 10 16 K73a6 A child turns into a tree. Malicious women kill (throw away) her wonderful children. Trees (flowers) grow from their remains, later reincarnating into humans. 14 16 M91E The Tsar orders himself to be burned The ruler, the leader, believes that a man who escaped death by cunning returned from the world where he received benefits. It tells you to burn, drown, etc. yourself or your close associates. 13 16 N10c The insides are visible A girl is described, through whose body you can see her internal organs or the food she has swallowed. This is a sign of beauty. 7 16 N27a There is even bird milk It is said that somewhere there is (or was) even bird’s milk 16 16 A10 The sun finds its eyes. The sun gets its sparkling eyes (eye) from an animal. 8 16 A22a The Hot Sun and its Companion. Two characters burn; one turns into the present sun, and the other into a less significant celestial object. See motif A22. 14 16 A4a The sun hurts the eyes. So that people do not look at it, the Sun blinds their immodest eyes (usually with needles, which are its rays). 10 16 B33f1 Mistress of night and day. By performing certain actions, the (old) woman determines the daily cycle. 15 16 B34 Caught by the first night. After the vessel of night is opened, a person caught by the onset of darkness turns into a bird or animal. 9 16 B42m1 Ket, Selkup and Evenk. The three main stars of the Big Dipper's handle are associated with people of three different nationalities. 9 16 B44b Fingers, claws, hair, feathers. The number and/or nature of the alternation of fingers, claws, feathers, hairs, and stripes on animal skins determines the number of time intervals in the calendar or daily cycle. See motif B44. 15 16 B45b The bull of cold. The bull or cow is the embodiment of cold, the reason why winter is cold. 8 16 B48b Piece of human flesh. The bodies of animals that are now hunted contain a piece of human flesh that has remained since these animals had an anthropomorphic appearance. 10 16 B69a Dispute about time, Chipmunk participant. A chipmunk or a similar small animal (weasel, shrew) argues with another animal character (bear, moose, puma, snake) about whether there should be light and warmth or darkness and cold. 13 16 B72c The blood of those who run stains objects. Children run after their mother, injure themselves, and their blood stains plants, the ground, and the evening sky. 9 16 B93 Meeting in the sky once a year. Once a year or once every few years, celestial beings or messengers of the gods meet among the stars. 11 16 C31c The wise bat. The bat turns out to be smarter and wiser than other living creatures. 12 16 C32B Nails – material for the devil. Demonic characters will make something useful for themselves (and harmful to humans) out of nail clippings. 11 16 C33a1 Bird pecking at the liver. A bird of prey flies to the chained character every day and pecks at his internal organs. The character recovers overnight, and the cycle repeats itself. 4 16 E31a2 One is her father, another is her brother, and this one is her husband. The girl must be given to one of several men. She herself or someone else explains that one of the suitors can be called her father, another her brother (etc.), and only one can be her husband. 14 16 E9g The magical wife - the vulture. Before meeting the hero, his beloved (wife, helper) has the image of a vulture. 15 16 F46a Woman in a tree. Men (human-animals) discover a woman at the top of a tree and copulate with her there. 8 16 F54a The invisible scar (the husband turns out to be the son). In her husband's appearance, the woman discovers signs that are not immediately noticeable, indicating that he has hidden his true nature from her and is not the right marriage partner (he is an animal, or her son, brother or father); or the husband discovers in the same way that his wife is his sister. 11 16 F66 False house. In order to commit incest with his daughter, grandmother, sister (brother), father, grandson, brother (sister), the man pretends to be a stranger, or the husband takes on the appearance of his wife's brother so that she treats him as a blood relative. To do this, the character secretly moves to another house for a while, where the object of his desire mistakes him for someone else. 13 16 H34h Firewood came home. Firewood and brushwood came by themselves, flying into the house; there was no need to specially harvest and deliver them. 14 16 H36aa False news: incorrect instructions. The messenger must tell people what they should do if they want to avoid death, but he distorts the instructions and people become mortal. In Mesoamerican variants, it is not about people in general, but about a specific character. 6 16 H36i The goat betrays man. The goat or sheep is to blame for the fact that man is mortal. See motif H36. 12 16 H37b Skunk's volley wasted. One character gives another his power (usually a skunk gives his volley). The other wastes the resource unnecessarily to test its effect. Usually, when the need arises, the resource no longer works. 9 16 H52b The search for immortality, ATU 470B. Setting out in search of a land where there is no death, a man encounters characters engaged in tasks that can only be completed in an impossibly long time. However, the man needs eternal life, and so he continues on his way. 8 16 H7b2 Immortal poverty. A man named Poverty makes Death swear that it will never come to him. Therefore, poverty is inevitable in the world. 10 16 I111 Reptilian Earth. The earth as a whole or a mountain range is the body of a crocodile, dragon, or snake (eel). 9 16 A33 Sun Ram. The sun has the appearance of a large, non-predatory mammal (bull, ram, pig, antelope, rhinoceros, etc.) or rides on it. 11 17 A38b A mouse gnaws through a snare. The sun gets caught in a trap. Only a mouse or other small animal manages to gnaw through the trap and free the sun. 13 17 A6B The dual-sex sun. In the same ethnic group, the sun is described as both male and female. See motifs A3 – A5. 14 17 B30a The slain person turns into a fish. A fish emerges from the remains of a killed person or creature. At first, it is concentrated in one place, then spreads throughout the water. 8 17 B33b March bird. At the border between winter and spring, a bird (usually a thrush) flies away prematurely into the cold and dies, or raises chicks and they die or suffer from the cold. 9 17 B35a The tree turns into a bear. The tree asks not to be cut down and fulfils the man's wishes. When they go beyond what is reasonable, the tree turns the man into a bear. 12 17 B46b Seven Star Sisters. Each of the seven main stars of the Big Dipper is a separate female character. {Included in the online database, but not in the correlation table in *sav)}. 15 17 B72a Mother, child and swans. Mother (stepmother, adoptive father) does not give food to a girl or (less often) a boy. The child asks migratory birds to take him with them, they give him bird clothing, he flies away with them, becoming a bird. 11 17 B73a In search of a horse. A girl (a young man, a girl with her brother; two little brothers) searches for a lost horse, cow, sheep and, as a result (alone or with her brother; both brothers), turns into a bird (usually a cuckoo) with a characteristic call. 9 17 B83 Unliftable weight. A character attempts to lift a small object or creature, which turns out to be gigantic and unliftable. Cf. motif I87ab. 12 17 C11 Revenge of the insulted father. A father with magical powers destroys people (all or many) who have insulted or harmed his son. 13 17 C24 The world is in danger of falling. Someone is gnawing or chopping at the pillar supporting the sky or the earth; certain creatures are trying to destroy the barrier separating their world from the world of humans; if the work is completed, humans will perish. 9 17 C6c2 The punished loon. Birds must dive to retrieve soil from the bottom, from which land will emerge. The loon cannot reach the bottom, refuses to dive, or tries to hide the soil it has retrieved (usually punished for this). 9 17 E12 The living drawing. A character draws an object or creature on sand, ash, a wall or the surface of water, and it comes to life. 13 17 E27 People from drops of blood. People arise from drops of blood from a wounded anthropomorphic creature. 9 17 F19 Dangerous relationship with a frog. After copulating with a frog, a man's penis is crippled (unless otherwise stated: it becomes long, see motif F18A). 11 17 F3a Pregnant man. A man carries a child like a woman. 11 17 F70c The castrated becomes a man (ATU 318). A young man loses his male organ, but restores it with magic (and marries happily). Cf. ATU 750K. In ATU 318, this episode is described as one of many possible ones related to the theme of the unfaithful wife. 12 17 F87b The snake wife and her children: transformation into trees. A snake crawls onto the clothes of a bathing girl, climbs down in exchange for a promise to marry him, and takes her to the underwater world. She is happy there and gives birth to children. Together with them, she visits her relatives. They call the snake out of the water and kill it. After that, the wife transforms her children and/or herself into plants. 12 17 H24c Death in a vessel. People open a vessel (a bundle, a basket, etc.) containing death (or old age, illness), and therefore they are mortal. 11 17 H24e Scattered seeds. Having brought the seeds of humanity into our world, the character drops or prematurely opens what he has brought. (Sometimes this explains the inequality of people and disorder in society). 6 17 H3 Funeral games end in death. Death is sent to people as punishment for excessive sympathy for a dead animal or for funeral games, during which they bury an animal, tree, etc. 14 17 H36g1 The bull distorts the message. When a bull (ox, cow) is ordered to convey certain instructions to people, he confuses them or deliberately distorts them. 10 17 I38a Dogs – husbands of women. The husbands of human women are dogs or dog-headed creatures. 11 17 I95a Orion – scales. Orion (probably always Orion's Belt) is Libra. 10 17 J19a Placing food on the stomach. When a woman is left alone, a demonic character comes to her. He says that in order to perform certain actions, she must give him a certain part of her body, even though this contradicts logic and custom. After that, the character kills her (cuts open her stomach; tears out her tongue). 10 17 J53c1 Grizzly bear and black bear. Two women live together, both have children. One of them kills and (then) eats the other. The killer is associated with a grizzly bear, and the victim with a smaller species of bear. 11 17 J62a Turned into trees. The character turns those who come to him into plants (trees, flowers). The hero (heroine) remains alive and breaks the spell on those who have been transformed. 17 17 K100e Dangerous tales. Fairy tales act as separate characters: they usually try to harm people, believing that a certain person does not treat them with due respect. Cf. motif L94d, "The Tale with a Tail". 12 17 k136a1 The young man's hair carried away by the water. Seeing the young man's hair carried away by the water, a woman decides to marry the owner of the hair. 14 17 K139 The burnt pheasant. A servant is so struck by the beauty of a girl (rarely: a boy) that he lets the meat or bread intended for his master burn. 14 17 K162 The villain enters the bedroom (ATU 956B). The antagonist (robber, sorcerer, witch) sneaks into the house of a girl or young woman, hiding inside a statue, in a wardrobe, etc., and/or putting her husband (guard, etc.) to sleep, but is destroyed at the last moment. 10 17 K19e Wolverine under a tree. Returning from the sky to earth, a woman or two sisters encounter a male wolverine who tries to capture them. Usually, the women who have descended first find themselves in a tree. Some animals cannot or will not help them descend to the ground. The wolverine descends to take the sisters as wives; they run away from him. See motif K19B. 14 17 K1d The hero's wife's brothers abandon him. The hero's wife's brothers try to kill him by leaving him on an island. 8 17 K27h Depict a head that is not shown. The hero must carve an image of the character's head, which he never shows. It usually adorns a wooden bench. 8 17 K27zz1 Preserving her child. Several wives are thrown into a dungeon (banished), each gives birth to a child, but only one manages to save hers. The boy grows up and rescues the women. 14 17 K30b Went out for a walk and disappeared. A woman or girl is forbidden to go outside. As soon as she does, a flying creature kidnaps her. 10 17 K5 False chicks. To lure the hero into a trap and send him far away, the enemy makes fake birds from worthless materials (bodily secretions, etc.). See motif K4. 13 17 K76g The crab son. The son or foster son of a married couple – a crab. He marries a princess and turns into a handsome man. 8 17 K80a5 The boar and the fratricides. Brothers, competing as suitors or heirs, must hunt a boar. The younger brother succeeds. The older brothers kill him and take the boar for themselves. The truth comes out. 4 17 L10 Sharp tail. The character has a sharp (biting) tail or a protrusion on its back. See motif L9, cf. motif L9C. 16 17 L124a Cutting belt. The belt (wire, intestine, strip of leather, etc.) cuts or burns whatever it is applied to (a tree or a person). 9 17 L15a2 Not fully hardened. The human body is tempered (in a furnace, etc.) to make it invulnerable, but one place remains unprotected. 7 17 L15h1 The soul of a character in an egg. The object in which the character's life is contained is enclosed in another, which is enclosed in a third (and so on). The final container of the soul is an egg (to kill the character, the egg must be broken over his head). 9 17 L15i Life in hair. A man dies or loses his strength (or pretends to) if his hair is cut or pulled out. 13 17 L23e Transformations of the captured man. A man captures a male character. Trying to free himself, the latter transforms into various substances or animals. 14 17 L31b The reptile crawls into the water. Upon discovering a reptile on land, people touch it or sit on it, stick to it, and it crawls away with them into the water. See motif L31. 17 17 L33c The boulder crushes the trickster. The trickster and the boulder agree to race down the slope. The boulder rolls faster and faster and crushes the trickster. See motif L33. 14 17 L41a1 The cauldron split. When the demon tries to shake the meat out of the bag over the cauldron, stones fall from the bag into the cauldron and it splits, or the boiling water spills out and scalds the demon. 10 17 L51 The victim is thrown to aquatic animals. A cannibal, spirit, or predatory beast regularly throws its victims down, where they are devoured by aquatic or chthonic creatures. 9 17 L72j A needle (awl) turns into many needles (awls). Fleeing for his life, the character throws behind him an awl or needle, which turns into many awls or needles. 11 17 L74 The Returned Hand. A bear or other powerful character tears off and carries away another character's hand. A third character steals the hand and returns it to the one from whom it was torn off. 9 17 M112b Animals build a road, ATU 55. Animals that do not see the sun (moles, shrews, earthworms) refuse to build the road with everyone else and are punished for it. 13 17 M123d The raven – devourer of carrion. A bird from the corvid family is rejected after its mate or relatives discover that it eats carrion or filth. 15 17 M129 Loss of birthright, K1988. A parent intends to transfer primogeniture (royalty, other privileges) to a chosen son. Another son or brother comes under the guise of the chosen one and receives primogeniture. 14 17 M147b The fox gets rid of fleas, ATU 63. To get rid of fleas, the fox (jackal) takes a bunch of moss (hay, grass) in its mouth and dives into the water. The fleas, in order not to drown, move closer and closer to its head and then fall onto the moss or hay. The fox leaves the bunch in the water and comes ashore. 17 17 M153b Wolf riding. The wolf is killed or maimed after agreeing to a domestic animal's offer to ride it. 15 17 M162a Cuts off his genitals. The character pretends to eat his own genitals. Another believes him and castrates himself. 13 17 M198a1 Elder: round, middle: hard, younger: nut! Three characters sequentially and without apparent reason determine the characteristics of an object or person they have not seen. 13 17 M199j The awl in the giant's shoulder. A giant puts a man on his shoulders to carry him across a river. Believing that the man is strong, he asks why he is so light. The man replies that if he puts all his weight on the giant, the giant will not be able to carry him. The giant pricks him with an awl (knife, nail) and asks him not to put all his weight on him again. 10 17 M29z Beardless (Aldarkose) hero of the story is a character named “Beardless” or Aldar-Kose (Aldar is a “deceiver”, a braid is “beardless”). 16 17 M34 An attached tail An object is thrown at the character, which turns into a tail, and the character himself into a corresponding animal. 7 17 M39b1 They row in both directions, ATU 1276 Once in the boat, some people row in one direction and others in the opposite direction, the boat remains in place. 15 17 M81f A blind liar is robbed, ATU 1577 blind beggar robs an honest man. He watches him and, when he enters the house, takes everything the blind man has accumulated. He often takes money accumulated by other blind people as well. 17 17 N24 Like the second moon You can see a light that resembles a second moon or a second sun. It comes from a pretty girl. 12 17 M91d The drowned shaman The character deceives others by passing off the dead as alive, directing suspicions of murder to innocent people, etc. When a shaman (less often a shaman) is ready to discover the truth, he succeeds in it kill and avoid being charged with murder. 15 18 N9 Who's coming closer? Two characters discuss the rider's approach. A person with a higher social status explains that what seems like crows are actually clods of earth flying from under the horse's hooves, and what seems like snow, cloud or fog is falling from his foam or his breath. 3 18 I84a The frozen son of a god. Contrary to the warning of his father or mother, a young man or woman sets off on a journey in winter and freezes to death. Cf. motif B33A ("Frozen in Spring"). 10 18 I91 A body of water at the foot of a tree. At the foot or around the base of a tree connecting the tiers of the universe or of gigantic size and considered the main tree of the world, there is a spring or water body, the water of which usually has unusual properties. 14 18 J32e Stolen Foals. Every time a mare foals, the foal is stolen. The hero finds out who is doing this. 10 18 K10b The Carried Away Cage. A huge bird carries away to its nest a cage, bag or other container in which people are located. See motif 10A. 7 18 K22c Birds are attacked. Inhabitants of another world who are birds (bird-people) are afraid of birds or animals that are not dangerous to ordinary people, but which regularly attack them. 10 18 K2a1 A commoner witnesses the abduction of a princess. A demon carries off a girl of noble birth. A commoner accidentally witnesses the abduction or accidentally finds evidence of it. The girl's father sends him to search for his daughter. 6 18 K32b1 Mother replaces daughter. The man's mother-in-law takes on the appearance of her daughter to take her place. See motif K32. 17 18 K38b3a The hero feeds the chicks. A mighty bird helps a man for feeding its chicks. 12 18 K38b4 The serpent emerges from the water. The nest of a mighty bird is located on a tree in the middle (at the edge) of a pond, from where a snake (monster) emerges, threatening the chicks. 9 18 K56a3 Do not tie shoelaces. A wandering girl or young girl should not tie her shoelaces or the laces on her shoes or clothing. If she does so, she will get into trouble. 12 18 K56d Broken leg. One man treats a bird, which brings a seed, and something valuable grows. Another deliberately cripples a bird, then treats it, and it brings a seed, and something harmful and terrible grows. 17 18 K76c Pumpkin child. The son (rarely – daughter) or foster child of a married couple emerges from a pumpkin (rarely: watermelon, nut) or is found inside it. 17 18 K80c1 Melon and severed head, ATU 780C. Someone brings meat or fruit to another person or keeps it for themselves. At the decisive moment, the food turns into the remains of a (supposedly) murdered person. The owner is executed or is about to be executed. Cf. motif K168A. 15 18 K83a Where the father did not go. To fulfil the task, the character's sons must travel to a place where he has never been (or once was). 12 18 A11c The Sun, the Moon, and the Eyes of the Monster. The Sun and Moon kill a monster whose eyes shine differently. At first, the Moon takes the brighter eye, but then swaps with the Sun. 7 18 A26 The sun bird. The bird embodies the sun, daylight; it can be caught, released, killed. 3 18 A32j Shaman on the moon. A shaman with a tambourine ascends to the moon and remains there, visible in the silhouette of the lunar spots. 5 18 B100 Obtaining sleep. In the past or in a distant land, sleep was unknown; a certain character embodies sleep, possesses it or teaches how to sleep; sleep is a special substance. 13 18 B14 The character creates river rapids. In order to regulate the flow of the river in a certain way, the character creates rapids and waterfalls. 16 18 B1e The hero and his ten brothers. The protagonist of the narrative is one of many (seven or more) brothers with whom he is in conflict, but who are not his irreconcilable enemies. 7 18 B21 Destruction of the world tree. People climb trees to hunt, fish or gather honey. The tree is felled, people fall down and undergo a metamorphosis, or remain in the upper world. 9 18 B28a Nailed to the ground. A character pinned to the ground by a rod, transported somewhere to the edge of the world and associated with an object that continues to influence people. 7 18 B36c Fat animals. Animals receive meat and fat rendered from a certain creature or obtained in some other way. Some received a lot, others remained thin. 13 18 B42m The second hunter's pot. The three stars of the Big Dipper's handle are three men (hunters, thieves). The stars of the dipper are the object they seek to obtain (the hunted animal; the bed). Alcor (a faint star near Mizar) is a container, a vessel carried by the second of the three characters. 10 18 B42r Orion's Belt: running after each other. The three stars of Orion's Belt are three characters chasing each other. 16 18 B56 The crocodile's fiery tongue. The crocodile/caiman is left without a tongue after swallowing or losing the fire (which it previously possessed); something associated with heavenly fire (lightning, sunbeams, etc.) emerges from the crocodile's severed tongue. 15 18 B80 Measurement of the world. The process of creation includes measuring the dimensions of the earth or the world as a whole. 10 18 C15 The walled-up jaguar. A monstrous jaguar (puma) is locked in a cave or tree trunk. 8 18 C17 Fire pit for people. The men of the community of the first ancestors destroy most of the people and/or themselves on a pyre or in a fire pit. 11 18 C6e Diver – crab, shrimp. A crustacean retrieves earth from under water or from the underworld. 9 18 D2 Birth of the sun/fire. A woman gives birth to a son who is very hot. 11 18 D4aa The butterfly tries to steal fire. Moths try to steal the fire that humans possess. 16 18 E9f The magical wife – the parrot. Before meeting the hero, his beloved (wife, helper) has the image of a parrot. 12 18 E9n The magical wife – an aquatic mammal. A man marries a female seal, seal or dolphin that has taken the form of a woman and lives with her among people. 10 18 F69 Indecent invitation. A woman's husband (male relative) invites her through her children to come and make love to him; the invitation is made in a veiled form; the woman comes. 9 18 H24f Meat in a bag. The character has the ability to put a large amount of meat or fish into a bag or container that is easy to carry. 9 18 H39 Snakes become poisonous (spilled poison). Creatures that are now dangerous (snakes, insects) swallow an uncontrolled substance and as a result become poisonous or immortal; creatures acquire their nature (usually becoming poisonous) by drinking or licking a special potion. 13 18 H49d The Innocently Slain Parrot, ATU 916(4). A character (usually a bird) brings a healing (rejuvenating) fruit (seed, branch). Accidentally or maliciously, poison gets into the fruit. The person whom the fruit-bearer wanted to help kills or is about to kill his benefactor, and then learns of his mistake. 15 18 H7e People knew when they would die, ATU 934H(4). In the past, people knew when they would die, so before their death they stopped doing their work or performed their duties half-heartedly. 14 18 I24A The snake bridge to another world. The body of water over which the snake bridge is thrown separates our world from another. 11 18 K93b4 A woman, a mare, and a dog give birth to boys. When a woman gives birth to a son, at the same time a mare (dog, and/or other domestic animals) give birth to a boy. These boys grow up together and then set off on a journey. 10 18 L1c Fugitives turn into stars. Those fleeing from the monstrous bear ascend to the sky and turn into stars. 12 18 L22a People go blind. Having broken some taboo, seen an unusual object or strange character, people fall into a deep sleep and wake up in the morning blind. See motif L22. Among the Watut, Khmou and Trumai, a spirit eats out a person's eyes and they die immediately without waking up). 16 18 L65b4 Tooth-axe. The character pulls out his tooth to use it as a weapon or tool (often an axe). 9 18 L84 Unsuitable axes. The character attempts to chop down a tree with an axe made of obviously unsuitable material. Cf. motif K27g5. 16 18 L9e Copper nose. The anthropomorphic character has a nose resembling a copper or iron beak. 11 18 M114e Tie to winter or summer. A girl offers a visitor to tie his horse to winter or summer, which means to a sleigh or a cart. 11 18 M115 The eaten wolf. The character kills an animal that is dangerous to him by cunning. Relatives or friends of the killed animal find out about this and come to take revenge. The character escapes. 8 18 M157d Grandfather and the Turnip, ATU 2044. Animals (mainly domestic) and/or people join forces to achieve a goal (usually to pull a root vegetable out of the ground). They succeed after the last participant (usually the weakest) joins in. 16 18 M180a The unwashed monkey. A zoomorphic character invites another to visit, but demands that they wash their hands or feet before eating. This proves impossible, and the guest leaves hungry. 10 18 M187a Fish race, ATU 250. Two fish (a fish and a whale, a dolphin, a squid and a dolphin, etc.) agree to race each other. 15 18 M19 Bait man. The character ties another person (usually a child) to the end of a line, using them as bait or forcing them to catch fish with their hands. 12 18 M197c Remedy against fleas, ATU 1862A. A man sells sand, dust, etc. as a remedy against fleas, mice, etc. He explains that you need to catch a flea and pour sand into its eyes. The buyer replies that you can crush a caught flea. The seller: that's even easier. 16 18 M26 Ducks carry the catcher (grabbed by the legs) The character dives under waterfowl and ties a rope to their legs to catch them. Birds soar into the air, lifting the catcher with them. It later falls. 10 18 M29r Trickster - Porcupine See the motives in square brackets. 11 18 M38b1 The young woman is waiting for her husband to guess After the wedding, the wife is silent until her husband says certain words that indicate her origin. {In North Africa, the Pyrenees and the Arabs of Western Asia, the motive is very popular, which suggests that the list of traditions in which it is known may include some records that have so far been supported only with links to pointers, but not by the texts themselves}. 14 18 M6 Night with a partridge A young man or girl spends night in the forest. The forest partridge (Tinamus sp.) provides him or her a fire, a shelter and/or a hammock but takes them away and flies away itself when the person does something wrong 3 18 M78c The boy is a severed finger A tiny little man emerges from a severed finger. 12 18 K95a Burdock among rose bushes. The lovers are buried in the same grave or nearby. Two plants grow in this place, reaching towards each other, and between them is a thorny bush, embodying the character who separated the lovers. 11 19 L100a The pursuer abandons the transformed fugitive. The fugitive transforms into a small object (stick, stone) or hides in a similar object. The pursuer, in anger, throws the object far ahead, unwittingly helping the fugitive to escape. 13 19 L17 Face on the chest. Mouth and eyes of an anthropomorphic creature on the chest, no head. 12 19 L89 One secretly feeds another. One person, wishing to harm another, secretly gives him certain food to eat or a certain object to use. As a result, the other person dies (usually undergoing a metamorphosis). Cf. motif K82a. 18 19 L93 The discarded axe. A demon, a man-eater, chops down a tree or a rock on top of which the hero is hiding. While he is resting, the animal throws his axe into the water, carries it away or damages it. See motif L92. 17 19 L97 Those rooted in the earth. Seeing a character who is unable to move (nailed to the ground, his lower body rooted to the ground, petrified, completely absent), the hero himself manages to avoid a similar fate. 8 19 M130a Bird saves deer, ATU 239. A trickster lures an animal into a hunter's trap. Another animal advises the victim to pretend to be dead and helps it escape. 14 19 M148 Agreeing to be eaten. One zoomorphic character asks another to agree to be eaten – usually saying that he will be resurrected and compensated for the inconvenience caused. The animal agrees. 10 19 M164a The smell from the lion's mouth, ATU 51A. Asking animals whether his mouth really smells bad (or his lair is dirty), the predator (lion, wolf) kills both those who answer honestly and those who flatter him. The cunning one says he cannot answer because he has a cold (he forgot his glasses). 19 19 M189 Threading a string through a shell, H506.4. To thread a string through a spiral-shaped shell (a stone with a hole, a horn), the character ties the string to an ant and sends it into the hole. 13 19 M196a Talking dead people. Arguing over a trivial matter, a husband and wife (or one of them) lie down and do not move, and people gather to bury them. At the last moment, the supposed dead person opens their mouth, and people think that the dead have come back to life; or the supposed dead person is actually buried in the ground. 15 19 M199l Convinces the enemy that he can fly (ATU 1098*). When the giant blew, sneezed, etc., or let go of the bent tree on which the man was sitting, the man was thrown far away. The man says that he did it of his own free will (to show how he can fly, to repair the roof, etc.). 11 19 M57b The sweat of the Sun and the tears of the Moon Beads or metals are the bodily secretions of a deity. 12 19 M75b3 Trojan horse: victory over enemies Enemies are shown a life-size or larger image of a horse or bull. Not realizing that this is a ruse, they bring the figure to their own territory and are defeated as a result. 5 19 I59 The Milky Way – scattered straw. The Milky Way is associated with agriculture and scattered objects – straw, chaff, less commonly flour, hay, peas. 8 19 I76b A mouse becomes a bat. After a certain amount of time or after performing certain actions, an ordinary mouse turns into a bat. 13 19 j1d Heroic avengers - Like J1D, but the role of potential heroes is reduced to a minimum: a woman with a baby is saved from the antagonist and receives help from <i>the patron </i>. Heroic avengers - Like J1D, but the role of potential heroes is reduced to a minimum: a woman with a baby is saved from the antagonist and receives help from the patron . 13 19 J2 Tree husband. Husband or lover – tree (temporarily transformed into a human). 7 19 J41b The returned son burns his tormentors with magic. The son returns, finds his mother, who was humiliated and tortured in his absence, and burns his tormentor and his men, summoning fire and heat with magic. 10 19 K101b1 Black becomes white. The enchanted character (the castle where the action takes place) gradually changes its appearance over several days as the spell wears off: it acquires human features, turning from black to white, from ugly to beautiful. 12 19 K10g The chick descends to the ground. Finding himself in the nest of a giant bird on a tree or rock, a man descends to the ground with the help of an adult bird (attaching its feathers or wings to himself), and more often - a chick (grabbing its legs, sitting on the chick, attaching its feathers or wings). 14 19 K13b A caiman bites off a leg. A man crosses a body of water on the back of a caiman. The caiman bites off his leg. The cripple undergoes a metamorphosis, turning into a constellation or an animal. 9 19 K155a Bone in meat. A man (usually a king) raises his daughter (less often his son) in a closed room, ordering her to be fed boneless meat. One day, a bone is found in the meat, and the girl (boy) uses it to make a hole in the wall and sees the outside world for the first time. 13 19 K27g1 Task: clean out the stable. The character must quickly clean the stable or barn of the manure that has accumulated there over a long period of time. 13 19 K27h1 Bringing fruit. The character is tasked with bringing the fruits of a tree that is difficult to reach. 16 19 K27u1 From conception to birth day. Some people demand that the child be born the morning after conception or speak immediately after birth. 16 19 K27x The former husband of a magical wife. A man marries a woman from another world; the wife leaves for her world, the man follows her; there, the woman has another fiancé(e) or husband, or the woman's brothers want to destroy the man; he undergoes trials and brings his wife back. See motif K27. 17 19 K27x4 Not spilling water, climbing a tree. The character is told to climb a tree (pole, mountain, etc.) while holding a full open vessel in his hand and not spilling a drop from it. 10 19 K27z4b Dressed as a man, the wife rescues her husband. The husband leaves, meets a swindler and loses everything he has to him. The wife comes disguised as a man, punishes the swindler and rescues her husband. 18 19 K27z9 Why the fish smiled (ATU 875D). (Dried) fish (water, satyr, etc.) laughs, smiles or spits. The reason is that there is a man dressed as a woman in the house. 12 19 K35a4 Thrown into the sea. In order to get rid of the hero and take his place, the deceiver pushes him into the sea or leaves him on a distant island. The hero survives and returns. 14 19 K56a4e The stepmother's daughter burned to death. After meeting a supernatural character, a kind person receives valuables, while a greedy person burns to death upon returning home. 14 19 K56a5c Conversation with the months. A man who kindly answers the questions of characters representing the weather in certain months of the year is rewarded. Another man scolds them and is punished. 14 19 K65e1 Midwife to a toad. A woman delivers a baby (baptises a child) for a creature that in the human world has the appearance of a toad or frog. 14 19 K76e Son (daughter) as a piglet. The son (daughter) or foster child of a married couple is a pig. He marries a princess and turns into a handsome man (she marries a handsome man). 12 19 M97a1 The blind man questions the trees to get new eyes. 8 19 M97a2 The blind man asks the trees to get to the water. 14 19 N16 Ice horse fairy-tale text ends with a formula stating that the narrator had a horse and/or harness made of wax, ice, linen, vegetables, etc. In most cases, the narrator loses them (they melt, they are taken away, eaten, etc.). 9 19 A2c2 Extra moons. The catastrophe threatening the earth is associated with the appearance of not only several suns, but also several moons. 8 19 A38a Loop made of pubic hair. The sun is caught in a loop made of a woman's pubic hair. 11 19 A42a The sun imitator falls from the sky. Having risen into the sky, the character unsuccessfully performs the role of the sun and as a result falls or is thrown down to earth. 8 19 B102 Clouds – smoke. Clouds are formed from smoke rising from the ground. 15 19 B5a The pair of creators: dialogue. At the beginning of time, female and male characters meet and engage in dialogue. 13 19 B96 The enemy turns into a sturgeon. The heroes' enemy turns into a large commercial fish (usually a sturgeon) or (rarely) a commercial aquatic mammal. 13 19 C28 Rash promise. A demonic character takes possession of a valuable item without which another character (and people) will perish. The demon is tricked into returning the valuable item. 12 19 E14 Knowledge from the dead. Rituals received from the spirits of the dead. 16 19 E1a The first humans made of fragile materials. The first humans are made of fragile materials (clay, wax, fire, honey, etc.) and prove to be unviable. 13 19 E9a The magical wife - the fox. Before meeting the hero, his beloved (wife, helper) has the image of a fox. 13 19 F15 Character sticks his penis out of the ground, K1315.2.1. The character sticks his plant-like penis out of the ground (provoking a woman to sit on it). 14 19 F28 Monstrous penis. There is a separate penis character with whom the first women, Amazons, or simply some woman copulate. 15 19 F28b Penis made of wax. A woman uses a penis made of wax, wood, fruit or root. Usually her husband or male relative smears it with pepper, and the woman is maimed or killed. 14 19 F31 Snake egg. A girl or woman becomes pregnant, without knowing it, by a reptile when she unknowingly touches a dead reptile or when a liquid that has leaked from the reptile gets inside her (usually when the contents of a snake egg accidentally flow between her legs). 15 19 F79 Animal wives, B600.1. The character successively marries various women of non-human nature, but each time (usually, except for the last) he is disappointed. 12 19 F91 The worm grower. A man finds or breeds monstrous worms to eat his wife. 7 19 H1e The first to die opens the way for the rest. A certain character is the first to enter the world of the dead, after which all people follow the same path; he paves the way to the world of the dead; the first to die becomes the master or guardian of the afterlife. 15 19 H22a Animals were struck on the nose. Large game animals were concentrated in one place and were not afraid of people. They scattered after someone touched them, hit them lightly (often on the nose), or smeared them with something. Cf. motif H22. 15 19 H34d1 Edible sky. The sky or celestial objects were edible, but then this source of food became inaccessible or is now only used by inhabitants of a country beyond the human world. 8 19 H36f The raven – an unsuccessful messenger. The raven is sent to deliver an important item or message. He distorts the message or loses what has been entrusted to him. 13 19 H44a Heaven and Earth divide children. Two characters, one associated with the sky or water, and the other with the earth or the world of spirits and humans, divide the child they have given birth to or the people they have created. Usually, the sky (water, spirit) takes the imperishable part, and the earth (human) takes the perishable part. 5 19 H50 The sky god and the mistress of the dead. A pair of deities or first ancestors diverge. The man remains on earth or goes to heaven (remains in heaven), the woman becomes the mistress of the world of the dead, the earth, the underworld, usually associated with disease and poisonous animals. 10 19 H9b Children as plant shoots. People have become like plants, which, although mortal, live on in their descendants (shoots). 11 19 I114 The Golden Fleece. Describes a ram or sheep with golden wool or the skin of such a ram. 11 19 I116 The Milky Way – the boundary between seasons. The Milky Way separates the seasons of the year or worlds (dry from wet, sky from earth, etc.). 8 19 I117a The bat helps to descend. The bat helps the hero descend to the ground from a high cliff. 11 19 I18 Wife or husband without a mouth or anus. Visiting the world of people without an anus or mouth (the underworld, if not otherwise), the hero or heroine enters or attempts to enter into sexual relations with the local inhabitants. See motif I14. 14 19 I41b1 The rainbow swallows fish. The rainbow drinks, swallowing fish, people, etc. along with the water. Sometimes this fish falls from the sky to the ground. 11 19 A2c1 The Sun refuses to marry. The Sun is going to have children. One of the animals warns that if the Sun has children, the world will burn. The Sun has to (refuse marriage and) remain childless. 11 20 A30 The corpse-eating moon. The moon descends to earth to eat children, corpses or the bones of the dead. 7 20 A37b The archer's severed finger. A small animal (marmot, rabbit, mole, frog) or a person who turns into such an animal tries to hit a target in the sky (a celestial body or a bird) with arrows and as a result loses their thumbs. 9 20 B19 Night and married life. Before nightfall, people could not make love in peace. 11 20 B25 Pigs fall from trees. Characters who climb trees or vines and then fall turn into wild pigs or other game animals. 7 20 B28d1 Knives turn into deer antlers. Not understanding who he is facing, the man promises to kill the Transformer. The Transformer turns his weapon into deer antlers and him into a deer. 10 20 B28e The Moon as the Creator of the World. The Moon (alone or together with the Sun) transforms the original "incorrect" world into the one in which people now live. 9 20 B42l Ladle – beast, handle – hunters. The stars of the handle of the Big Dipper are hunters, the dipper itself is a bear, an elk or a meat storehouse where the bear climbs. 15 20 B99 Termite nest. A person or their head left on a tree turns into an insect nest. 14 20 C10a Birds clinging to the sky, A2211.1. During the flood, some birds save themselves by clinging to the sky with their beaks. Cf. A2211.7 ("During the flood, birds cling to the sky; their tails acquire their current colour"). 10 20 C38 People will appear soon. Characters from the time of creation say that real people will appear soon, so we must do this and that. 10 20 D13d Making the hidden one laugh. One character tries to make another character, who is hiding somewhere in the house, laugh in order to find them. 12 20 E39 Pig ancestor. The child of a pig or boar is a woman or man – the ancestor of a certain group of people. 12 20 F28c Bear penis in the hands of an old woman. A woman masturbates with the penis of a large animal that one of the men killed while hunting. 11 20 F42a Men turn into birds. In the community of the first ancestors, young men or boys turn into birds or bats and fly away. 5 20 F49C The first humans do not know how to give birth. In the beginning of time, women do not know how to give birth. See motif F49. 18 20 F52 Bird's crest made of pubic hair. The first ancestor bird puts pubic hair or part of a woman's genitals on its head; since then, birds of this species have had a crest. 12 20 G11 The squirrel-woodcutter. The squirrel plays an important role in cutting down a giant tree (usually chopping or trying to chop the vine that holds it, see motif G10). 19 20 H23 Fatty horns. This hard and now inedible object originally consisted of fat. 13 20 H24b Souls fly out of the vessel. The character must open the vessel containing the soul of the deceased when he reaches the place or after a certain time has passed; if he opens it before the time is up, the soul flies away. See motif H24. 17 20 H49b The debtor gives his dog as collateral, Th B221.2.2; ATU 178B. A man gives his dog to another man. The dog is of great use to him (it finds stolen goods and drives away thieves). The man who received the dog sends it back with a letter of thanks. The owner thinks that the dog has run away, kills it, and only then finds the letter. 14 20 H7b1 Get into the bag. Having received a magic bag, into which any creature can be forced against its will at the owner's discretion, a person gains power over Death or devils. 16 20 H7c1 The trickster enters paradise. The trickster first deceives Death (the devil), and then, also by deception, enters paradise. 16 20 I22e Moving objects on the path of the dead. The deceased, travelling to the afterlife, must pass by colliding rocks or other moving obstacles. 13 20 I37B Mushrooms are associated with the world of the dead. Mushrooms are associated with the dead, the afterlife, evil spirits, and disease. See motif I37. 5 20 I59b2 The Milky Way – St. James' Way. The Milky Way – St. James' Way. 13 20 I7c Rain or dew – urine. When a character in the upper world urinates, it rains (dew falls) on earth. 9 20 I96 The bloody rainbow. A rainbow consisting of blood either heralds war and death. 12 20 J54b Mother's enemy and brother's ally. The antagonist's son and the hero are half-brothers or full brothers (uncle and nephew; sworn brothers). When the antagonist tries to destroy the hero, the antagonist's son takes the hero's side. 17 20 J7a Bringing lunch to father. A girl (less often a boy) brings lunch to her father or brothers who are working in the field (in the forest), but encounters a demonic character. 11 20 K102c Having changed his appearance, the hero recovers the magical object (ATU 318). The enemy seizes the object that makes the hero invulnerable and kills him. The hero is revived. Changing his appearance, he provokes the enemy to put the magical object on the ground, seizes it again and kills the enemy. 15 20 K119c Tsar-Thunder and Tsarina-Lightning. The antagonist believes that he has been attacked by the lord of thunder (the father of the bride, whom a zoomorphic assistant has tricked into marrying a poor young man, motif K119). 12 20 K119d Puss in Boots. A cat helps a poor young man marry a princess (a girl marry a prince). 15 20 K127a The silent heroine. The heroine must remain silent for a long time and therefore cannot respond to the accusations. They want to execute her, but at that moment the restrictions expire and she is saved. 17 20 K18c A boy urinates on his father's hands. The man in whose arms the boy urinates will be recognised as his father. See motif K18. 12 20 K27l1 Frozen in ice. Voluntarily subjecting himself to trials, the character allows himself to be frozen in ice and cannot free himself. 10 20 K27n3c1 The hero's adversaries – polar bears. The inhabitants of the polar bear village – relatives of his wife – set the hero difficult tasks and trials. 11 20 K27yy4 Obtaining tree bark. The hero must obtain tree bark, which is fraught with danger. 11 20 K33a1a Heroine in the belly of a whale. A woman thrown into the water finds herself in the belly of a fish (whale), but is then rescued. 13 20 K35b The most delicious dish. The hero gives his rivals the food that the king sent them all to get, but what the rivals got turns out to be poisonous, useless, or tasteless, while what the hero brought, regardless of how it looks, gets praised. 14 20 K65c1 Division into servants and masters, (ATU 758). A woman gives birth to many children, but hides some of them from God. Those who are hidden become the progenitors of people of low social status, and those who are shown become the progenitors of people of high status. {The definition of plot 758 in Uther 2004 largely coincides with ours, but the references also include traditions in which children hidden from God become spirits rather than people of low status}. 17 20 K78a Swallows and heals. A demonic character swallows cripples and regurgitates them healthy and beautiful. 13 20 L118a Imitation: knife to the throat. In order to get rid of a dangerous but foolish character, a person performs certain actions, which the character imitates, not realising that he is harming himself. 20 20 L129 Why such big teeth? (Little Red Riding Hood), (ATU 333) The character is asked why his body parts, organs, and tools are the way they are. He answers (or the questioner gives explanations for him). In the end, one kills or maims the other. 17 20 L15J Only with fire. The character can only be killed by fire. 17 20 L1c1 Flight to the heavens. Fleeing from demonic characters, a group of men – relatives of a girl – ascend to the sky and remain there. See motif L1C. 15 20 L25 The devil sucks out brains. By killing demons, people save the life of a child, girl or woman. Remaining among people, she or he kills people (usually children) left in her or his care. 13 20 L32 The voracious stone. The stone swallows, bites, beats or transforms people. 11 20 L36 A woman attacks when a man is in a tree. At the moment when the husband climbs or descends from a tree, his wife (or her brother) kills or maims him or turns into a demon that pursues him. 14 20 L42d The cannibal's frozen tongue. A man runs away from a cannibal across the ice, the cannibal pursues him, licks the blood spilled on the ice, his tongue freezes, he dies, or falls to his death after slipping on the ice. 11 20 L5A The head turns into a celestial object. A rolling head turns into a celestial object that emits or eclipses light (sun, moon, stars, fireball; it is the cause of eclipses). See motif L5. 15 20 L71 The end of a thin branch. The character kills an animal; the trickster tries to take the meat; the character lifts the meat onto a tree; helps the trickster or his cub to climb up too; after eating, the climber wants to relieve himself or (less often) drink; the character points out that this can be done at the end of a thin branch; the trickster or the trickster's cub climbs up, falls, and is killed. See motif L70. 19 20 L96c He hasn't learned anything! A young man is learning magic. In order for the sorcerer to let him go, he must pretend that he is incapable of learning. 14 20 M106b "Last Year" in the demon's house. The character who caused harm to the antagonist calls himself by a fictitious name such as "Last Year," and the other antagonists understand this to mean that everything happened a long time ago and there is no point in looking for the culprit. 13 20 M114b3 Clothing made from a bundle of flax and a loom made from three sticks. When a girl is asked to weave clothes, given a negligible amount of yarn, she asks in return to make her weaving tools from sticks, twigs, straw, etc. 15 20 M118b The bull-hiding place. Climbing inside the animal, the character obtains food there without harming the animal. 12 20 M126 The talking skull. A man sees a talking skull (turtle) and reports this to the chief, the king. In the presence of the king, the skull (turtle) remains silent, and the man who found it is accused of lying and punished. 16 20 M171b A shoulder blade without meat. The character pretends to have brought meat on a shoulder blade and gives it to the hosts to cook. Taking a bare bone without meat out of the pot, he accuses the hosts of stealing the meat. 14 20 M17a Mother or grandmother deceives a blind man. The mother or grandmother of a blind man or boy secretly eats (the meat or fish he has caught), pretending that there is no food in the house. 9 20 M192 Dried carcass, ATU 68. A scavenger who has climbed into an animal carcass or put on a fresh animal skin cannot get out of it (usually because the skin has dried out in the heat). He gets out when the skin becomes soft again or someone helps him. 13 20 M197e1 The demon claims the harvest. The demon claims that the harvest in a field belonging to a human belongs to him. But if the human brings him an animal unknown to him, he will renounce his claims. The man brings his wife, smeared with something sticky and covered in feathers, standing on all fours, with her hair loose, etc. The demon admits defeat. 13 20 M21a Under the pretext of illness. The character is pursued by an enemy. An animal hides the fugitive in its mouth or on its body, and when the pursuer appears, it refuses to open its mouth or expose part of its body. (Usually simulates illness – toothache, etc.). Cf. motif i87ad. 8 20 M46c Swallowed needle The character turns into a needle, a garbage, a small insect. A woman swallows it and becomes pregnant. See M46B motif. 18 20 M48 The trickster turns into a bison Trickster asks another zoomorphic character to turn him into a creature of his kind, but if he breaks the condition for transformation, he becomes himself again. Usually, a trickster asks a bison or elk to turn it into a bison or elk. The bison (elk) rushes to the trickster, which bounces off in fear. The next time the trickster stays in place, metamorphoses, but regains its former appearance after trying to turn another trickster into a bison, etc. 13 20 M53d Imaginary enemies The character pretends to be enemies coming; when people run away in fear, the character takes what the deceived people owned. 10 20 M54 The runaway wakes up in the same place The character lives or stays at someone else's house; then goes far away, falls asleep, but wakes up again in the same house. 12 20 M56a The crocodile's secret A weak character hits a crocodile, but the crocodile is safe. He says he would be killed if the attack hit a specific location. Next time, the same character hits this place and kills a crocodile. 12 20 M57d3 Wind donor A person receives a reward from a character who is associated with the wind. Cf. Motive K175 (“The wind carried away the flour”). 15 20 M60a1 The shepherd explains how to cross The hero meets a servant (usually a shepherd) and takes his form, after asking how he acts, how he talks to the hostess (usually finds out what to say in order transport the herd across the river). 11 20 M60a2 The imaginary servant licks his heels The servant must lick the master or mistress's feet or wound. The hero comes disguised as a servant and instead of licking his heels, touches them with the animal's cut off tongue. 12 20 M75a Revenge for falling from heaven The character lures a veteran to avenge his fall from the sky. Either the (potauatomi) shovel drops the character or leaves him on top to avenge being lured and caught. 12 20 M90a4 The jewel tree A tree is described on which jewelry or ornaments hang instead of fruits; individual parts of the tree are made of different metals or (semi) precious stones. 14 20 M86 The boulder punishes the offender A rock stalks or otherwise punishes a character when he unfairly insults her (usually takes away her property, see motive L33). 14 21 M91c6 The hat pays the bills, (ATU 1539) A person sells a hat to others, convincing them that it pays the bill, you just have to lift it up (throw it on the floor, etc.). He actually paid the innkeeper in advance. 13 21 N18 Selected gifts fairy-tale text ends with a formula stating that the narrator received food, drinks, money or other real world items from the characters described, but lost them against their own free will because of meeting dogs or people (robbers, boys, children or a neighbor). 9 21 N6 Whip a horse horse tells the rider to whip it so hard that his blood splashes, his skin peels off, the meat is cut to the bone, etc. The rider follows these instructions. 12 21 I60 The Milky Way – the heavenly seam. The Milky Way - a seam, a crack between the two halves of the sky. 13 21 J10 Wasp sting. A woman loses her way after being stung by a wasp (or bee, ant, snake). She slaps her stomach (either to kill the insect or to punish her unborn sons, because of whom she went to pick a flower and was stung; see motif J11). The offended sons fall silent, ceasing to show the way. See motif J9. 10 21 j1c Avenging heroes - with a missing or distorted final part of the plot (revenge is not described). Avenging heroes - with a missing or distorted final part of the plot (revenge is not described). 13 21 K102a1 Imaginary grave. To hide the truth, a person buries an animal or an inanimate object and says that the grave supposedly contains the remains of another person's wife (bride, mother, daughter, sister, children). 17 21 K10c Wrapped in entrails. The hero (twins) is weighed down with the blood-filled intestines of an animal. A bird pierces them with its claw, blood flows, the bird thinks its prey is dead, and brings the man to its nest. He kills the adult bird and either kills or transforms the chicks. Cf. motif M91A. 9 21 K112 The worker takes revenge on the Sun. A man accuses the Sun and other characters responsible for the weather, wild animals, etc. of causing him to lose his property; he punishes his offenders. 13 21 K116c The father was persuaded to leave his daughter in a chest, ATU 896. In order to take possession of the girl, the priest arranges for her father to agree to place her in a chest (barrel) and lower it into the river (leave it in a deserted area). 15 21 K132a The husband's rooster and the wife's hen, ATU 219E*, 715A. The husband (rarely: the wife) sends the rooster out to earn money, and it brings back money. The wife (husband) sends the hen (cat, her half of the rooster, etc.) and receives only mice, filth, etc. Or, instead of money, the rooster brings the wife something bad or nothing at all. 20 21 K136b Rubies from the river, (ATU 467). A character finds precious stones or unusual flowers (usually in a river) and learns where they come from. 13 21 K158 Recognising the woman in the portrait, (ATU 881A). In order to find her missing husband (and other men who helped her or caused her harm), a woman displays her image and calls to her those who, by their behaviour, show that they are familiar with the features in the portrait. 13 21 K166 Forty girls. A group of girls forms a community or troop and acts independently of men. Cf. motif F39. 13 21 K178 The enchanted husband drives away and finds his wife again, ATU 425E, 425L. A girl descends into the underworld to her magical husband, and when she breaks the ban, he drives her away (sends her away with a task). She comes to live with other people, she has a child from her magical husband. Her husband finds her, the spouses are reunited, the spell is broken. {Motif in the work} 15 21 K183 Which fish swallowed it? The character cuts open the bellies of aquatic creatures (birds of prey) or looks into their throats to find the swallowed person or part of their body. 17 21 K1j The abandoned returns faster than the abandoner. The abandoned one turns into a bird and returns home faster than the one who abandoned him. 9 21 K25a6 The magical wife does not forgive infidelity. A woman from another world agrees to live with a man in his earthly world, but leaves him when she learns that he has broken a taboo (often his infidelity). Cf. motif F94 (the hero betrays his magical wife in her world); motif K12B (the hero visits his world alone, contrary to the warning of his magical wife). 12 21 K25a7 Two brothers and a winged maiden. The older brother hunts, the younger brother takes care of the household. After catching the winged maiden, the older brother takes her as his wife, while the younger brother, out of naivety, returns her wings to her. The older brother sets off in search of his wife. 8 21 K33a5 The heroine is turned into a duck. A woman who has been turned into a duck (goose) by her rival's scheming tries to establish contact with her children or husband. 12 21 K45b A woman becomes an aquatic animal. A man and a woman belonging to different generations (father – daughter, son – mother) come into conflict, as a result of which the woman turns into a marine mammal, the mistress of marine mammals, or a frog. 12 21 K54a Blow to the legs. A man and a friendly giant live together. The friendly giant fights another giant and asks the man for help. The help consists of the man damaging the enemy's legs. 16 21 K81a Bezrucha in the prince's garden. A girl with severed hands comes to a fruit tree (garden) to find food. Seeing her there, the prince takes her as his wife. 14 21 K8c2 The swallowed mouse. The mouse is swallowed by a large land animal and comes out by cutting it open from the inside. 10 21 A13a The raven hides the sun. The raven steals or hides the sun, or attempts to do so. 12 21 A15 Crossing paths. An eclipse or the appearance of spots on the lunar disc is explained by the fact that the moon or sun turns onto the wrong path or the paths of the luminaries intersect. See motif A14. 16 21 A2d Suns of different worlds. Other suns illuminate other levels of the universe or will shine sequentially in the future. 15 21 A31a Severed breast. Upon learning that her husband or lover has committed an act incompatible with accepted norms, a woman cuts off her breast and shows it to him. 11 21 A32i Shepherd on the moon. A shepherd (shepherd and girl, shepherd and his flock, dogs) can be seen on the lunar disc. 14 21 B101 Stripes on a birch tree. Angry at the birch tree, the character beats or cuts it, leaving stripes on the bark that remain to this day. 11 21 B125b A person going to a festival borrows someone else's organ. A zoomorphic character goes to a festival and asks another to lend him a part of his body, which will make him look more attractive. 19 21 B13 The crossed riverbed. A character deliberately or accidentally makes a riverbed by digging it out, drawing it on the ground or spilling water as he walks (cf. motif B13A: water rushes in the footsteps of a person against his will, he tries to run away from it). 19 21 B33f The old woman-night unravels the yarn. A certain character performs actions that determine the change from dark to light times of day. It always involves yarn, thread, rope, or fabric, which the character unravels or winds up, or with which the hero binds the entity responsible for the daily cycle. 14 21 B42U The stars of the ladle handle – three people. The stars of the handle of the Big Dipper – three people, and the four stars of the dipper – animals or objects (one or more). 10 21 B55 Leaf fish. Fish grow on tree branches or tree leaves turn into fish. 15 21 B59 Dancers turn into the Pleiades, A773. A group of people (usually children, brothers or sisters) play, dance, rise to the sky and turn into the Pleiades or another small constellation. 15 21 B86A Reaching for the moon in the sky. People try to climb up to the sky to get the moon. (In brackets are traditions in which the goal of building a tower to the sky is the moon, but the task of getting it is not mentioned). 8 21 D13g Meat on the teeth. When the character starts laughing, people see his or her scary mouth (lots of teeth, human flesh on the teeth); they kill the monster or run away. 14 21 D4a1 Luring fire. A certain character possesses fire or steals it. His attention is attracted or distracted by singing, music, dancing, unusual gifts, indecent or strange behaviour, offers of sex, food and/or alcohol. 13 21 D4h The swallow obtains fire. The swallow obtains fire for people. See motif D4A. 11 21 E31 Imaginary Pygmalion. A man makes a wooden doll and behaves as if it were alive. It does not come to life, or comes to life only partially or temporarily. A real woman replaces the figure and marries the carver. 14 21 F29a The worm is scalded with boiling water. To kill a woman's lover, who has the appearance of a worm or snake and crawls into her vagina from under the ground, boiling water, resin or hot coals are poured on him. 10 21 F37 Calabash on the water. To summon her lover, the character taps on a calabash placed on the water. 13 21 F45a1 Accidental conception by the wind. A woman, against her will, conceives from the wind. 7 21 H1d The one who returned to the people was rejected. The deceased returns, but people send him back, dissatisfied with his appearance, refusing to accept him or burying him again. From then on, death is final. 14 21 H31 Death: man and the heavenly bodies. God summons several characters, including man and the heavenly bodies, and makes man mortal and the heavenly bodies immortal. 7 21 H52a Death provokes touching the ground. Returning from the land of immortality, a person must not touch the ground. However, he dismounts from his horse to help an old man (old woman). Death, who has taken the form of an old man, immediately kills him. Rarely: at the last moment, the hero decides not to perform actions that are fatal for him. 11 21 I10a Coloured layers of the sky. Individual layers or categories of the sky or clouds differ in colour. 17 21 I134 Long neck on the Milky Way. Along the axis of the Milky Way, a creature with a long neck (llama, emu, rhea) can be seen. 9 21 I35a Thunder – an old woman. Thunder is produced by an old woman in the sky. 13 21 K92C The wife weaves, the husband sells. A princess or sorceress turns out to be the wife of a poor man. She weaves or embroiders a scarf (or other item) and sends her husband to sell it. This marks the beginning of their path to success. 14 21 L130 One eye for three, ATU 328*. Two or more characters have only one eye between them. 14 21 L131a Your children are burning: appeal to the demon. To get rid of a demonic character (usually a woman), they inform her that the place where her home and/or children are located is engulfed in flames. 11 21 L15g The burnt log (death of Meleager), ATU 1187. A person's life is connected to an object that can be burned. As soon as the object is burned, the person dies. 19 21 L23b Transformation into a spindle. Trying to free himself, the captured character sequentially changes his appearance. The last transformation is into a spindle. 7 21 L30 He who eats a snake wants to drink. The one who broke the food taboo experiences terrible thirst and drinks a huge amount of water. 15 21 L65b2 Dogs with talking names. The hero's dogs have names that speak of their strength and agility (Wind, Ironbreaker, etc.). 14 21 L85b1 Ascending to heaven, he regains his physical wholeness. After ascending to the sky (meeting God, returning from the sky to earth), a physically disabled young man (usually with only half a body) becomes whole. 8 21 L85d Without arms and legs: the crippled ploughman. The hero encounters a giant and a strongman (usually a ploughman) with one arm, one leg, or one eye. He was crippled by a character who turned out to be much bigger and stronger than him. 10 21 M10 The girl and the honey. A girl or woman gets stuck in a hollow while extracting honey, or greedily sucks honey in some other way and as a result dies or undergoes a metamorphosis; a woman stuck in a narrow passage turns into honey, into a honey bee. 12 21 M105a Allegedly murdered children. A character hides his children, but tells another that he has killed them. The other believes him and kills his own children. See motif M104. 20 21 M106c My name is "Guest". Telling his companions that his name is "Guest," "For Guests," etc., the character appropriates the food intended for all who have come. 15 21 M108b The woodpecker helper. The deceiver takes away someone else's property in a boat or carries it away. A bird (usually a woodpecker) deceives him and returns the property to its owners. 11 21 M134a Three Little Pigs, ATU 124. A predator/cannibal destroys a flimsy house but cannot destroy a sturdy one. Usually, two or three weak characters build three houses to protect themselves from the predator, only one of which is sturdy. 14 21 M157a5 Golden mortar. A person finds a golden (rarely marble, etc.) mortar (bell) and brings it to an authoritative figure. Instead of gratitude, the latter demands that the pestle (the tongue of the bell, etc.) also be brought. 16 21 M168a The master is taken seriously, ATU 93. An animal or bird that regularly feeds on the fruits of a farmer's harvest or lives in his field continues to do so until the very last moment, when the threat to its life becomes obvious. Usually, a bird with chicks (a fox with fox cubs) does not leave the field (vineyard) where the harvest has ripened until the owner's children (workers) and he himself take up the sickle or begin to cut the vines. 21 21 M187b Harvest to the fastest runner. Two animal characters agree to give the harvest from the field they have cultivated together to the one who runs faster than the other. 13 21 M188 Jackal in the dyeing workshop. The character is honoured after accidentally acquiring an unusual appearance – getting paint on himself or attaching an object to himself that he cannot remove. 17 21 M193 Rolling home. To avoid predators (suitors) on the way back, the character climbs inside a pumpkin, a round cauldron, etc. and rolls down the road or walks, disguised beyond recognition. 16 21 M198b4 The imaginary fortune teller: names of thieves. The fake fortune teller, expecting to be exposed, utters words that reflect his state of mind. The thieves standing nearby perceive some of the words as their names, believe that the fortune teller has found out about them, and ask him not to reveal them. 16 21 M199c1 Whoever throws a stone farther, ATU 1063A. A man and his opponent agree to test their strength by throwing a heavy object as far as possible. The man pretends that he is going to throw the object so far that those who are across the sea, behind the mountain, in a distant city, etc. (including the opponent's relatives) may be harmed. The opponent refuses to take part in the test. 17 21 M29l Trickster - Possum See the motives in square brackets. 19 21 M84b1 A trip to the land of fish A person enters a country from where fish come to people (and comes back). 10 21 L1f Sister avenges her lover. The sister, using magic or transforming herself into a monster, kills her brothers in revenge for the death of her lover or husband. 12 22 M16a Gains sight by diving. A character (usually a loon) restores a person's sight and/or health by diving into the water with them. See motif M16. 19 22 M171c In exchange for a thorn, ATU 2034F. At the request of a character, another character removes a thorn from his body (cuts off the tip of his tail, etc.). The thorn (tip of the tail) disappears, or when it is removed, the character is wounded. As a result, he receives something more valuable than what he has lost. 14 22 M18b Obtaining a hook, spear. The character turns into a fishing object in order to carry away the hook with which he is caught or the spear with which they try to harpoon him, or he turns into a hook to catch fish. See motif M18. 21 22 M26a Ducks carry the catcher (strung on a rope), ATU 1881 The character catches birds by feeding them bait tied to a rope, which they swallow one by one, or by shooting several birds with one bullet, or by soldering birds drunk and tying up. Birds usually take off and carry away a catcher holding a rope. 20 22 M64 He pretends to own valuables The character comes to the owner of valuables (food, fire) and pretends that he already owns them. As a result, valuables are made available (littoral is exposed at low tide, salmon spreads in waters, etc.). 11 22 I81a Chthonic crab. The giant crab causes earthquakes or floods, closes or can close the water outlet. 12 22 J39 Who killed the rabbit? The antagonist makes the woman his slave. Other characters secretly come to her and kill a small animal or bird for her. The antagonist suspects that the woman could not have caught the game herself, but she insists that she did. 20 22 J41c Trials before meeting the antagonist. The character goes to fight a dangerous enemy. Along the way, he is given tasks to complete. This is a sign that he will defeat his enemy. Usually, the same tasks were previously given to another character who was unable to complete them and was defeated by the enemy. 16 22 J43 Bait for enemies. To destroy his antagonists, the hero creates edible bait for them, usually a fruit tree on the other side of the river. 13 22 J54a The Calf and the Tiger Cub, ATU 131. Two women, both or one of whom are animal characters, live together and have children. One of them kills and eats the other or is about to do so. The son of the murderer kills his mother for this, remains the sworn brother of the son of the murdered woman, or the children of the murderer and the victim run away together. Cf. motif J54B. 12 22 K120a2 Not by her mother, but by her mother-in-law. Family members want to marry their daughter off to a man who is unacceptable to her (usually they want to marry her off to her own brother). The girl refuses to address her father, mother, etc. as close relatives, but calls them in-laws (mother-in-law, sister-in-law, etc.) or enemies; or the relatives themselves demand that the girl address them as in-laws. 17 22 K145 Predicted death by a wolf, ATU 934B*. A person is predicted to be torn apart by a wolf or to die during a wedding. The prediction turns out to be true. In the case of a wedding, the bride turns into a wolf and kills the groom. 19 22 K22a Dwarves are attacked. Birds or other creatures that are harmless to ordinary people attack dwarves living in another world. See motif K22. 18 22 K27t Competition: climbing a pole. Competition: climbing a pole. See motif K27. 17 22 K44b Upon returning, throws food. The hero or heroine returns after a long absence. Seeing (usually from the roof of the house) his or her parents (mother, husband) languishing in poverty, he or she throws food at them, extinguishes the fire, pushes them, etc. At first, they usually do not understand what is going on. 12 22 K51b Smiles on the faces of the dead. The bodies of the slain are left in such a position that it seems as if they are rejoicing – smiling, laughing, dancing. 13 22 K56a2a Washing in red water. A girl becomes beautiful or ugly after washing herself with water of a certain colour. 15 22 K56a8 An animal mistakenly taken for a groom. A girl marries an animal (brings it with her), and it turns into a handsome man. Another girl tries to do the same, but dies or suffers harm. 13 22 K63 Fish babies and deer people. A man comes to people who hunt humans or catch fish-people. For them, these are wild animals or fish. 14 22 K73b4 Fill the bag with truth. A person is asked to fill a bag (cauldron) with truth (lies, fairy tales). He fulfils the request by telling a revealing story. 19 22 K85d A horse whose skin cannot be bitten through. Covered with skins (coated with resin and sprinkled with sand, etc.), the mighty horse becomes invulnerable to the bites of other horses. 12 22 N27b But there's no bird's milk It is said that someone is only lacking bird’s milk or that somewhere the only thing missing is bird’s milk 14 22 A35c Scratches and wounds on the face of the moon. Moon spots are scratches and wounds on the face of a character. 15 22 A37a The hidden archer. A small animal (marmot, rabbit, mole, toad, frog, earthworm) or a person who turns into such an animal tries to hit the heavenly body with arrows or helps the archer. Since then, this animal has been hiding in burrows and in water. 14 22 B116b The wet book. A book containing sacred knowledge falls into the water at a crossing or gets wet in some other way. After that, the book disappears or the text becomes unreadable. Either the book is ruined (damaged) when it is dried. Or it is ruined while left unattended on the shore while the people who kept it are swimming; or it burns, although traces remain. 18 22 B39 The narrow waist of an insect. An insect or character, which later turns into an insect, knows where food (cultivated plants) or water is located, but refuses to share this knowledge. To find the valuables (usually to force the insect to reveal its secret), the first ancestors pull on a rope tied around the character's waist (the origin of the bridge between the abdominal and thoracic sections of insects). 10 22 B42c Bear hunting. In the cosmic hunting plot, the object of pursuit is a bear. See motifs B42 and B42P. 22 22 B52a The vulture creates dry land. Flying over the world, a bird (usually a vulture) dries the earth after a flood with its wings or otherwise gives it its present appearance. 18 22 B77b3 Placing a pancake on the sky. In the past, either in a distant country, the sky was or is so low that various objects are placed on it as needed. 14 22 B91a Eyes: took and did not return. A blind character asks another to lend him his eyes or to swap eyes, keeping his own eyes. 9 22 H1b Death of someone else's child. The character performs actions that lead to death, because he is indifferent to or desires the death of the child or woman loved by another character. See motif H1A. 19 22 H20a The mistress of the fish loses it. A woman or several women keep fish or water in some kind of container; a man releases all the fish into rivers or the sea, releases the water. See motif H20. 17 22 H22 Sense of smell in animals. Large game animals did not have a sense of smell. They acquired it and began to flee from hunters after someone created olfactory organs for them or gave them a strong smell to smell. Cf. motif H22A. 10 22 H25 Choose life or death. People are offered a choice between two objects, one of which represents death and the other life, or they are asked whether they want to be reborn or die forever. Death is chosen. 10 22 H6c3 The stork and the otherworld. Large birds that fly in wedge formations (storks, cranes, swans, geese – German: Zugvögel) are associated with the otherworld (they bring children from there, carry children away to the non-human world, control living and dead water, etc.). 11 22 H6d Stolen immortality. Having obtained a means of ensuring immortality, the character falls asleep or leaves the means unattended. At this time, another character steals the means. 13 22 I3a Lightning – whip. During a thunderstorm, the character strikes with a whip – these are flashes of lightning. 19 22 A46a The sun and moon – the eyes of the deity. The sun and moon (Rigveda: only the sun) are associated with the eyes of an anthropomorphic being (the motif of their emergence from the eyes of this being may be absent). 12 23 B102a Clouds – cows. Clouds are associated with horned cattle, especially cows (and rain is their milk). 17 23 B116a Knowledge is stored in the stomach. A person or animal eats a sacred book or its remains. During the ritual, this knowledge is actualised in oral speech, in the sounds of a musical instrument made from part of an animal's body, or in parts of an animal's body used for divination. 14 23 B27b Transformation into stars. The characters ponder what they should transform into and decide to become a celestial object. 13 23 B48c Artefacts in the pike's head. In the head of the pike there are (visible) tools used by people. 18 23 B87c Rider. Alcor (the faint star next to the second star of the Big Dipper's handle) – rider, driver, coachman. 13 23 C32A Nails (hair) will be needed by the soul in the afterlife. Nails will be needed in the afterlife to save oneself (to climb a steep mountain, climb into the sky, build a bridge, etc.). 9 23 D1a4 Conversation between two fires. Two fires from different dwellings meet and converse. 13 23 E5aa People grew like grass. The first people grew out of the ground like trees, grass, and mushrooms. 17 23 E5d The predator watches over those who leave. The first people to arrive on earth and settle within a limited space are threatened by a predator or monster. 13 23 F40c The patriarch kills the boys. An authoritative man systematically kills the boys born to his wives or his sister. 12 23 F53a The Bat or Owl hides its face. The husband hides his face from his wife because she does not know that he is a bat or an owl. 14 23 F81 The bride in the river. The character does not recognise his reflection in the water, thinks that a person (usually a woman, with whom he immediately falls in love) is looking at him, and jumps into the water. (Cf. J1793, "Diving for a woman's reflection"; among the Kwinolts, diving for a real reflection of a woman; among the Menominee, diving for a woman in the water). 9 23 F9d Scorpions in the genitals. Small stinging creatures dangerous to the partner are found in the genitals of women or men. 17 23 G26 Swallowed food: obtained for people. After swallowing or hiding food in their mouth, the character brings it to earth (passes it on to people). 14 23 H15 Yawning and whispering. The dead or spirits cannot hear cries when the living call them, but they can hear whispers, yawns, gurgles, etc. See motif H12. 8 23 H21 Game or fish kills a boy. The character controls animals or fish; a boy, young man or girl knows his secret or serves as bait themselves; another character forces the boy (girl) to reveal the secret and/or help him in the same way that he or she helped the first character, or leads the boy to go fishing but kills him, or the boy himself starts hunting, breaking the rules; as a result, the boy or girl is killed or carried away by animals or fish. See motif H18. 9 23 H54b Deadly gaze. The character's gaze brings death (and destruction). 8 23 I82f Venus – Wolf Star. (Evening) Venus is associated with a predatory beast, usually a she-wolf. 13 23 J11 Asks to pick flowers. The son in his mother's womb asks her to pick flowers or fruit for him (usually when a woman picks flowers, she is bitten by an insect). See motif J9. 15 23 J22b Two women from one. A woman is cut or torn in half, and two new ones appear. 6 23 J60 Sons of two fathers. A woman conceives twins from two different fathers. 13 23 J8 Feathers at the crossroads. A woman or girl sets out in search of a husband (fiancé, etc.). Bird feathers left on the trail, at a crossroads or near a dwelling mark the right or wrong path. See motif J7. 17 23 K102a Father knew what he was doing. A man orders the killing of a young man's sister, wife or mother. The young man does not allow such an order to be carried out, and then repents of this. 16 23 K107a4 The daughter asks for a magical groom to be brought to her. When her father leaves, the daughter asks him to bring her an object or creature that embodies a magical groom. The father does not understand the meaning of her request. 12 23 K119e The Miller: A Success Story. The poor young man who was helped by an animal assistant, who presented him to the king as a rich man, is a miller or a miller's son. 13 23 K141 Tamed mischievous sisters. Supernatural women harm people. The hero tames them and usually takes them as wives. 14 23 K144 Predicted death by an animal, ATU 934A, 934B. When the animal, object, or person that was supposed to cause the character's death has already died or is far away, the character's remains or images become the cause of death. 15 23 K148 Missing foals. Every night or every year, a mare gives birth to a foal, and every time someone steals it. 13 23 K154 Inscription on a skull. A person finds a skull on which a mysterious and gloomy prophecy is written or which utters it. Then it becomes clear what it means. 12 23 K32a A man leaves on a journey. A man is carrying his wife or daughter. Another woman or demonic character replaces her when the man leaves on a journey (rarely: falls asleep). 14 23 K32h1 Placed in a barrel with nails. The antagonist is executed by being placed in a barrel (with nails) and rolled down a hill or tied to a horse. 10 23 K33a4 Heroine transformed into a forest animal (ATU 409). A woman, transformed into a medium-sized forest animal (lynx, wolf, vixen) by the machinations of a rival, tries to establish contact with her children or husband. 11 23 K57c The ring in the pie. The prince puts a ring on the finger of a beautiful girl, not knowing that she is the very girl who works in his kitchen. The girl slips the ring into the prince's food, and he recognises it. 15 23 K68 A clot of blood protects the father. T541.41.1. A strong man takes food from a weak man and forces him to work for him (usually a son-in-law mistreats his father-in-law). A boy appears in the house of the wronged man from a clot of animal blood that has been collected. He kills the offender. 12 23 L110c Clay child. An elderly couple makes a child out of clay (wood, straw, dough). The doll comes to life and eats everyone it sees. Usually a goat (ram) breaks it, and those who have been swallowed come out alive. 15 23 L131b Your children are burning: appeal to a bird or ladybird. To make a bird or ladybird fly away, they are told that the place where their home and/or children are located is engulfed in fire. 11 23 L33b The trickster provokes a stone. The character challenges someone who, at first glance, is unable to move (a stump, a boulder, fire) to race or roll over it. The challenged party sets off, crushes or burns the character, or runs away with their property. 12 23 M153a The Washed Pig, ATU 122G(1). A predator is about to eat a human or herbivorous animal. The intended victim asks to be allowed to wash first, and as a result is saved. (Among the Transylvanian Saxons, this involves being baptised with water). 18 23 M205 Birds set fire to the city. Soldiers besieging a city or palace capture or obtain as ransom the birds living there. They smear them with an oily liquid or tie objects to them (shells with resin, shavings, tinder, etc.), which are then set on fire. The released birds fly back to the city or palace. Thanks to the fire that has started, the warriors capture it. 14 23 M207 The Mouse in the Bowl, ATU 1416. The poor blame Adam and Eve for their misfortunes. An authoritative character gives them the opportunity to live comfortably on the condition that they do not violate a certain prohibition (usually not to open a certain vessel). They are unable to resist the temptation and are then returned to their previous state. 16 23 M38b2 Three daughters-in-law at the king's feast Each of the three brothers comes to his father with his wife (fiancée). The younger brother or his fiancée is considered worthless, but the girl turns out to be a sorceress and surpasses the brides of her older brothers in everything. 12 23 M39a4e A fool sells property to a tree Fool sells property to a tree (stump, pole, a cross in the countryside) and believes that it will pay him. Trying to get his money, he finds treasure 17 23 M53c Reddened eyes trickster, inviting birds to dance around him with their eyes closed, kills them one at a time and threatens to turn red at the one that opens their eyes; this is an empty threat, or for a bird that opens eyes and eyes have really turned red ever since. 14 23 M71 Selected piece of wood A character (usually carried away by a river or fallen from a height) turns into a piece of wood. Someone is picking it up. The character then takes on his true form, usually in the absence of the hosts. 12 23 M74ab The fox is in the boat Travelling in a boat or on a sledge, animal person (always the fox) steals food supplies or ruins objects and accordingly to his deeds, names different places. These names seem strange to the person’s companions (“River of broken arrows” and the like) 8 23 M93a The guard was punished The character punishes a part of his body (burns his ass, breaks his eyes) for not sounding the alarm. See Motive M93; cf. Motive M142. 15 23 N30 He looks one way, cries, looks the other way, laughs formula that describes the confusion of feelings: when a character looks in one direction, he cries, and when he laughs or smiles in the other direction. 8 24 N8 A storyteller instead of a core fairy-tale text ends with a formula that says that the characters placed the narrator in a gun or gun and fired a shot, or he jumped onto the core himself and thus arrived at the place where the fairy tale was performed 13 24 I53 An insect annoys the support of the earth. An insect or other small creature bothers the animal that supports the earth, so the animal moves and the earth shakes (or, conversely, the animal is afraid to move because of the insect). 14 24 I71 Stars – roots. Stars – roots of plants growing in the upper world. 14 24 I73 Stars – sparks. Stars (rarely suns and moons) – sparks, hot coals. 17 24 I80b The forgotten wind, ATU 752B. Man is allowed to control the weather in his own interests. He sends rain at the right time, but cannot take all factors into account (he usually forgets about the wind). The bread will not grow or will be unpalatable. 23 24 J16 Refuses to eat insects. The character perishes because, being forced to look for insects in the head of another, he refuses to chew insects, spits them out in disgust, or is suspected of doing so. 15 24 J40A Avenged captives. Returning after a long absence, the hero finds his parents or other close relatives in humiliating slavery, orders them to demonstratively show disobedience, and punishes those who humiliated them. 22 24 J41d Throwing a stick, he exposes his forehead. The strongman orders an iron club (sword, etc.) of monstrous size to be made, but breaks it and demands a new one, even heavier (often throwing it into the air and exposing his forehead, etc. – the club breaks). 15 24 J47b Two ropes. When a character runs away from a pursuer, a strong rope (chain, etc.) is lowered (thrown) to him. A rotten rope is lowered to the pursuer, it breaks, and the pursuer crashes (drowns). 6 24 K107d1 The magical wife cannot wake the young man. Waiting for his magical wife, the young man falls asleep. The wife cannot wake him up and leaves (this episode is often repeated). 14 24 K10e Rescued people. In the bird's habitat, the hero finds the people it has kidnapped and helps them return home. 12 24 K110 Reflection of the golden sword. The character is asked to retrieve treasure from the bottom of a pond. He does not understand that he is only seeing a reflection and that the treasure is located above. 15 24 K116a Nesmeyana (the disguised tsar perishes). The king takes or is about to take the poor man's wife. She suggests that the king put on clothes that are not his own (usually those that belonged to her husband). After that, the king is killed by his own soldiers (dogs), who believe him to be a poor man (jester, devil). 15 24 K150 The horse eats coals. A magical horse (rarely: dog) eats (hot) coals, nails, etc., or attempts are made to feed these to the horse. 14 24 K19g Stars differ in brightness and colour. One star is an old man, the other is a young man; both stars differ in brightness or colour, but it is impossible to determine the age of the star-man by these characteristics (a dim star may be young and vice versa); usually two girls want to marry stars of different types (one bright, the other dim, one red, the other blue, etc.). See motif K19B. 24 24 K27z4 The dice player's trained animal. The character always wins bets or outplays others thanks to a trained cat (mouse, rat) that holds (or extinguishes in time) a lamp, turns dice, etc. The hero releases the mouse (or cat, mongoose, respectively), the cat rushes after it (or the mouse is afraid to come out), and the character loses. 19 24 K35c2 The hero in the underwater kingdom, (ATU 677). When the ship unexpectedly stops, the hero descends to the bottom of the sea, behaves correctly with the local inhabitants, and returns to the ship. 12 24 K45 Sedna (severed fingers). A man and a woman belonging to different generations (father – daughter, son – mother) come into conflict. The man sails away from the woman in a boat or on a raft, or leaves her on a sledge. When she tries to grab the edge of the boat (raft, sled), he cuts off her fingers. (The common motif among the Warrau and Eskimos was first noted by O. Zerries [Zerries 1954: 346, 376]). 13 24 K56a2b Wash lizards and beetles. A supernatural character asks a girl to redeem (feed) his (her) children. These are snakes, beetles or wild animals. The girl does everything she is asked and is rewarded. 14 24 K56a4a While the demon brings clothes, ATU 480A. Left alone with the demon in the bathhouse (mill, etc.), the girl demands that he bring her new clothes, jewellery, etc., and while the demon is fetching them, morning comes. 12 24 K61b Learning names. In order to learn the names of strangers, the character finds or creates a situation in which they call each other by name aloud. 12 24 K89b The brother left on the tree. At the beginning of the story, the sister parts with her brothers (or one brother), who die, remain on trees, on a hill, ascend to the sky, etc. Usually, after a successful marriage, the sister meets her brothers again, who have acquired superhuman nature. 12 24 B114 Old men-anteaters. A woman or a man (usually old people) turn into anteaters (the origin of anteaters). 10 24 B41a Animals tell about the lives of their owners. A dog or other domestic animal reveals details about its owners' lives that they would prefer to keep private; it is punished for this by losing its ability to speak. 15 24 B49 The animals did not understand the instructions. Animals of a certain species (in Toraja – humans) hear poorly or misunderstand instructions or questions about their future, or get confused when making requests to deities. This is how they acquire their current characteristics and habits. 24 24 B75a Sounds of the Age of Creation: The Human Voice. The voice of a character who once lived can still be heard (most often it is an echo; A1195, The origin of Echo). 18 24 C25c The Big Dipper and the end of the world. A change in the configuration of a certain constellation (usually the Big Dipper) or its disappearance from the sky will signal a global catastrophe. 11 24 C8b Brother and sister did not recognise each other. A brother and sister (or mother and son) find themselves alone, without marriage partners. Both of them (or only the brother, son) refuse to marry, but do so after accepting each other (or the brother accepts the sister, the son accepts the mother) as strangers. They give birth to new people. 7 24 F28d Children are born from a wooden penis. By masturbating with an artificial penis, a woman conceives children. 17 24 F5 Brides for the first humans. The character does not want to or cannot give all the suitors his daughters in marriage and turns them into girls of various animals. (Usually after the flood or at the beginning of time, men want to marry the only daughter of a deity or patriarch). 23 24 F70e2 Father tests his daughters or sons. The father sends his daughters or sons on a difficult task one by one. At the very beginning of the journey, their courage is put to the test. Only the youngest son or daughter passes the test. Usually, the father stands in their way, taking the form of an enemy or a predator, but only the youngest son or daughter bravely enters the fight. 17 24 F83a Insult conveyed through children, ATU 36. One character asks the children of another to convey an insult to their mother or father – usually announcing his intention to make love to their mother. {ATU data is included in the correlation table, but not in the text}. 17 24 F88 The scent of women. Female genitals are initially fragrant or odourless, but then acquire an unpleasant odour (they do not acquire a fragrant odour). 12 24 F98 God and the cow. A heavenly anthropomorphic deity descends to earth and mates with a cow. 11 24 H33a Throwing children over the roof. God wanted to throw a newborn baby (over a fence, house, etc.) so that it would immediately stand up and start walking, but the woman was frightened and did not allow it. Therefore, children do not walk from birth. See motif H33. 14 24 H34e Edible snow. The snow was edible. 16 24 H53 The wolf – lord of the dead. The wolf participates in the creation of the earth or is the brother of the creator and/or conqueror of the demons of the underworld. He dies and/or is considered the first to die and/or becomes the lord of the land of the dead. 11 24 I10b Coloured tiers of the earth. Individual layers or categories of earth differ in colour (and other characteristics). 10 24 I124 Ursa Major – a boat. The Big Dipper is considered a boat. 16 24 L29 Fish from a puddle. A person catches fish where it should not be, usually in a small forest pond isolated from running water; those who eat this fish die, undergo metamorphosis and/or are attacked by monsters. See motif L28. 12 24 L42i1 The boy fisherman is carried away by a witch (ATU 327F). A boy is rowing a boat. A witch lures him out and carries him away. The boy escapes. 7 24 L42k The ogre regurgitates the axe. A demonic character regurgitates an axe (adze) to cut down a tree. 8 24 L47 Backwards – the slain enemy. The hero's enemy approaches him upside down or backwards, giving the hero the opportunity to kill him or escape. See motif L46. 15 24 L54 The boiling lake. To overcome the disaster, hot stones or ashes are thrown into the water. 13 24 L82 Burns his leg in a fire. A person deliberately or accidentally burns his foot in a fire or burns himself completely; he turns into a demonic creature. See motif L9 (man with a sharp foot). 11 24 L9d Sharp hands. The character has sharp nails or knife-like hands, which he uses to kill people. 17 24 M111 Monkey on a banana. Two animals (usually a monkey and a turtle) agree to gather fruit. The one who can climb trees eats the good fruit and throws one peel or rotten fruit to its companion. The companion takes revenge. 13 24 M114d1 Boiled eggs: by morning there should be chicks. The character demands that chicks be hatched (from boiled eggs), a chicken be raised, and it be cooked within a day. Another character responds with equally absurd demands. 17 24 M123c Unsuccessful flight south. A non-migratory bird sets off south with migratory birds, but is unable to reach its destination. 14 24 M139 Released birds. The fox caught the birds and put them in a bag. Another character secretly replaced them with thorns. 3 24 M152b The brave donkey and the cowardly lion, ATU 103C*. When seeing a herbivorous ungulate (usually a donkey) for the first time, a large predator thinks that it is strong and dangerous. The herbivore's subsequent behaviour usually convinces the predator that its first impression was correct. 17 24 M199o Who will pierce the tree, ATU 1085. A man and his opponent agree to pierce a hole in a tree trunk (stump) with their head (finger, penis) or to knock down a tree with a blow to the head. The man has made a hole in advance (sawed the tree). 22 24 M29z3 Gypsy - opponent and loser The Gipsy (more often a female than a male) is an enemy overcome by the hero (heroine) or (rare) a weak failure 22 24 M39a4 A fool turns to the shadow, (ATU 1681A) fool takes his own shadow for a character chasing him and gives her his property. 18 24 M39e1a Mice ate iron, ATU 1592, 1592A The character claims that the mice ate iron (gold). 20 24 M78f Substituted embryo When a woman falls asleep, a joker (usually a tiny boy) places an embryo or the entrails of an animal or something similar next to her to make the woman herself or others think she has a miscarriage or that her viscera has fallen out. 16 24 M83a He cries for dead children The characters are arguing which one is older. After some people tell us how long they were born, the latter says that this and that happened in his memory at that time. 13 24 K99a2 The sold dream. 26.29.30.32.33. One person has a dream, and another buys it and obtains what was predicted in the dream. 13 25 L111 Hook from the sky. The inhabitants of the sky or shamans catch or want to catch earthly people with a hook, net, noose, etc., dragging them up into the sky (somewhere above) like fishermen pull fish out of the water; the inhabitants of the earth fish with hooks for fish, which in their own world are people or domestic animals. 15 25 L115 The Perfect Gentleman. A girl who rejected suitors finally finds someone she likes. The groom turns out to be a werewolf: on the way to his home, he gives away borrowed items of clothing and parts of his body. 14 25 L15b To kill with a cane. The character can only be killed with a specific plant, which is not usually used for making weapons. 22 25 L21 The ogre runs away to pick up his prey. A cannibal or demon under a tree intends to grab a person who has climbed a tree; the person throws his prey or some object far away, and while the cannibal is looking for, picking up or eating what has been thrown, he runs away. 17 25 M108a Trickster-adopted child. A lonely elderly couple adopts a trickster. He steals from them (and runs away). 17 25 M199h The giant's torn belly, (ATU 1088). The character hides a bag under his clothes, secretly putting food in it. After cutting open the bag, he pretends to have cut open his own belly. His opponent decides to do the same and, after cutting open his own belly, dies. Cf. motif M91A, "The Blood Blister." In the definition of plot 1088 in ATU, the motif of the giant's torn belly is optional. 18 25 M39a9 Misunderstood instructions: a play on words The character asks a member of his family to bring vegetable products, cook food, and feed someone. He understands words as if he must kill a child (dog, etc.) and serve his meat. [section incomplete] 18 25 M69 The head gets stuck in the skull character is attracted by the inside of a large animal's skull (small animals or insects are dancing or feasting inside, or eating some meat); he sticks his head inside , it gets stuck. 15 25 M78d Pea child A tiny boy (rarely a girl) comes from a pea (bean, seed) or from a spool of goat droppings, he is almost as tall as a pea. Or he was born after his mother ate a pea. 17 25 I46b The rainbow predicts the harvest. The colour of the rainbow can be used to predict the harvest of individual crops. 9 25 I56a Man is an evil spirit in the world of spirits. When a person who has entered another world touches the local inhabitants, they become ill or die. 11 25 I86 Down in birds, scales in fish. The inhabitants of the upper world produce down, wool, and scales, which turn into birds, animals, and fish. 18 25 I95c Orion – staff. Orion's belt – staff, stick, three sticks, rod, crutch, etc. 17 25 J12b Honey groom. A honey groom or a skilled honey gatherer is attractive to a girl. 7 25 J32c The demon comes to harm the deceased. At night, a demonic character comes to the grave of the deceased, intending to harm him. 14 25 K100h The test of gratitude, ATU 750D, 751C*. A supernatural character fulfils the wishes of one or more people and later visits them again. The beneficiary or most of them turn out to be ungrateful and chase him away. In response, the character deprives them of what they have gained. 22 25 K10d A bird carries the hero away to an island. A flying monster carries the hero away to a distant island. The hero kills the monster and uses a boat, bridge or rope made from part of the monster's body to return. 10 25 K120a5 Luring a woman onto a ship. To obtain a woman, a man lures her onto a ship (boat, flying machine, etc.) and takes her away. 18 25 K12a The stretched bow. An unrecognised hero arrives at a place where his bride or wife is to be given to another man or turned into a servant. Contrary to expectations, he manages to draw a tight bow (raise a spear), with which he kills his rivals. 14 25 K164 A wife is not a best friend, ATU 921B. The person himself or someone else creates a situation in which he becomes convinced that his wife is not his best friend. Usually, the treacherous wife is contrasted with a loyal dog. 23 25 K27p The antagonist mourns his assistants. The antagonist sends the hero to places where he is attacked by dangerous creatures; the hero kills them and brings them to the antagonist. The creatures turn out to be relatives, pupils or helpers of the antagonist, whom he (or his close relatives) mourns or revives. See motif K27. 25 25 K31 Wooden seal. The character makes a marine mammal or fish out of wood. It kills his enemies or drags them out to the open sea. 16 25 K32h Buried alive. The antagonist is executed by being buried alive. 17 25 K56a5b Any weather is good. A person who responds kindly to the questions of characters representing the weather during certain periods of the calendar cycle is rewarded. Another person who scolds these characters is punished. 15 25 K56f1 The division of roosters, (ATU 1533.2). Five chickens (geese, etc.) must be divided among six eaters (other numbers are possible). The solution is to give each pair of participants one chicken and take two for oneself (two chickens and one person – three, two people and one chicken – also three). 19 25 K57d Tight shoe, cut-off toes. The prince marries the girl who fits the shoe. The girl cuts off her toes or heel so that the shoe will fit. 18 25 K58a Water in exchange for love. The character brings water for irrigation or a fish river to the place where the girl agrees to meet him, and does not bring water if she refuses. (The parallel between the myths of Peru and Oregon was first noted in Lehmann-Nitsche 1935a; 1936). 9 25 K60c Stropiva with the king, patient with the groom. The stubborn wife of a worthy man goes on a date with a demon or a servant. He beats her, but she patiently endures her lover's beatings. 17 25 M91c7 Tell them I'm dead When enemies come to kill a person, he pretends to be dead. 19 25 N36 Above the forest, below the clouds is said about the horse that it jumps above trees (grass, the surface of the earth) and below the sky (clouds, clouds). 7 25 A35b Covering the moon with resin. The character tries to cover the moon with resin (so that it shines less brightly). 11 25 A38c The Sun's Cloak. The Sun exchanges a cape made of animal or bird skins with a boy or girl, or spoils it. As a result, the boy or girl raises their status or takes revenge on the Sun. 14 25 A43 One foot is shod, the other is not. The character runs away in a hurry and undergoes a metamorphosis, turning into a bird or rising into the sky. He is missing one trouser leg, or a shoe on one foot, or one mitten. 12 25 B3c Attempt to drown God. When the creator, having created the land, lies down to rest, the antagonist tries to drown him, dragging him to the edge of the earth. As a result, the earth expands, and the antagonist is unable to reach its edge. 15 25 B46d Star brothers with different properties. Men, each of whom excels others in a particular art, turn into stars. 12 25 B6 Walking towards each other, they get married. The first or only remaining man and woman move towards each other, going around a mountain, a pole or otherwise following a circle from opposite sides, and when they meet, they get married. 12 25 B73 The cuckoo has different legs. The character turns into a cuckoo. This happens so quickly that one foot remains unshod or one braid remains unbraided. Therefore, it is believed that the cuckoo's legs or wings are different. See motif A43A. 11 25 B94 Trees lose the gift of speech. Trees (and animals) used to talk, asking people not to cut them down or kill them. 15 25 B97a Bird or animal necklace. A strip of light or dark feathers (rarely: wool) on the neck of a bird (animal) is its necklace (scarf). 15 25 C9a The Flood: people turn into aquatic animals. During the flood or when crossing a river, those who drowned or were saved turn into aquatic or amphibious animals. 8 25 D4q The fly obtains fire. The fly rubs its legs together and produces fire. 9 25 E13a Knowledge from the underwater world. Sacred knowledge, objects and rituals were first obtained by humans from the inhabitants of the underwater world. 12 25 E7 Stuck in a hole in the sky. The path from one part of the world to another passes through a narrow opening. The character gets stuck in the opening, permanently severing the connection between the worlds. 16 25 F11 Biting penis. The penis burns, bites, eats food. 21 25 F23 Cause of menstruation: sexual intercourse. Blood spilled during sexual intercourse or artificial defloration at the time of creation is the reason why menstruation occurs to this day. 14 25 F41 Husbands kill wives. Ancestral men kill women who behave contrary to social norms. 10 25 F55 What do you want? Not understanding what her interlocutor of the opposite sex wants, a woman or girl names or shows various objects and body parts. The interlocutor is satisfied when she names or exposes her genitals. Cf. motif f55a. 15 25 F65d The fake dead man: the wife doesn't believe it. The character pretends to be dying and is left at the burial site. However, his wife (mother, aunt) finds out about the deception and provokes the supposed dead man, forcing him to reveal himself. 10 25 F92 A pair of pederasts. A male character allows himself to be used as a sexual object. 18 25 H36d The hare betrays man. The hare distorts God's command and/or is responsible for the fact that humans are mortal. See motif H36. 9 25 I120a Entering the ear of an animal. Entering the ear of an animal (usually a horse or a cow) and coming back out, the character becomes beautiful (well-fed, well-dressed). 11 25 I136 The demonic wheel. The rolling wheel (and the character riding on it) is a creature or weapon hostile to the hero (people) that he uses. 13 25 I21 Sunburnt. The inhabitants of the underworld or the land of the rising sun have red (yellow) hair and/or red or black skin and/or suffer from the heat of the sun, which passes them by at a short distance. See motif I20. 18 25 I27a Settlements and dog trails. The souls of dead dogs go to a special place in the afterlife and/or go to the afterlife along a special path. 8 25 I32a The tree of destiny. When a leaf or fruit from a certain tree falls, one of the people on earth dies. 18 25 A32c Dog and man on the moon. The figures of a man and a dog are visible (or should have been visible) on the lunar disc. 16 26 A36a Sun and immortality. The sun is contrasted with humans as immortal to mortals; responsible for the mortal nature of humans. 9 26 B2c The earth as an anthropomorphic body. The earth as a whole, elements of the landscape or fertile soil arise from the human body and (or) the earth (islands) are born of a woman. 18 26 B3 Primary swamp. At first, the earth is soft, resembling a swamp. 13 26 B72d Wings from a cutting board. A woman makes herself wings (beak, tail) from clothing accessories and turns into a bird or a flying creature. 10 26 B79a1 The bird dropped the firmament onto the waters. At the beginning of time, a bird flies and drops pieces of solid ground onto the water, from which land or an island emerges. Sometimes the substrate onto which the piece of solid ground falls is not precisely defined. 20 26 B84 Mushrooms and growths (transformation of a cannibal). After a demonic character (usually a woman who pursues the hero) dies, her flesh turns into objects found on trees - mushrooms, resin, fruits, cones. 12 26 D4g The hummingbird obtains fire. Hummingbird steals, finds or spreads fire. See motif D4A. 19 26 E18 Vessels and snakes. People learn to make or decorate ceramics or baskets (usually learning to apply patterns) thanks to a water creature. 10 26 F28a A monstrous penis grows out of the ground. A penis grows out of the ground or out of the water in a lake. Women summon it as needed. 18 26 F59 Man in woman: modelling the figure. Pretending to be a woman, the trickster transforms part of his body, another character, or some object into a swaddled baby, female genitalia, or a female household item, or disguises an animal or object as a baby born to a new husband. 18 26 F60 The trickster heals the girl. A girl or woman falls ill. A character comes to heal her. The treatment consists of him copulating with her or attempting to do so. 17 26 F83b Rape of a woman in distress, ATU 36. A strong female animal chases a weak male, but gets stuck between trees, rocks, etc. The fugitive mocks his pursuer, usually raping her. {In ATU, motifs f83a and f83b are described as one plot type, ATU 36. The degree of their plot connection can only be determined by having the original texts}. 19 26 G9B Stop working – there will be a flood. A man clears a plot of land of vegetation, but by morning it has grown back. At night, a certain character orders the trees and grass to rise up, turning the cultivated field back into virgin soil. He explains that there will be a flood, that there is no point in working, and advises people to prepare a means of transportation. 6 26 H7g1 Death is more just and richer than God. A man (usually looking for a godfather for his newborn son) rejects God (the saints) and the devil, but praises Death: it treats everyone without prejudice (or is richer than everyone else). 21 26 I119 The dead shake the earth. Earthquakes are caused by inhabitants of the underworld; during earthquakes, they try to get to the surface of the earth to check whether people are still alive. 12 26 I45c Prohibition on counting stars. Those who count stars are destined for misfortune and illness. 15 26 I87ab Only a child can move it. Strong men or a crowd of people cannot move the body of a dead animal or the leg of a motionless person, but a child or a woman can do it easily. Cf. motif B83. 15 26 I9a Zenith and nadir. Zenith and/or nadir are considered together with the four cardinal directions as one (or two) more main directions. 18 26 J18a Mother eaten, children flee. A cannibal eats a woman and enters her house. The woman's children (daughter and son, or daughter only) run away, climb a tree or climb a rope to the sky. The cannibal pursues them and perishes. 10 26 J53b The breasts of a murdered mother. Two women live together, both have children. One of them leaves the house with the other, kills her, brings her meat home and starts cooking it. The children of the deceased notice their mother's breasts (in California – eyes or liver), or the mother's breasts themselves turn to her children. 17 26 K101b Three Nights of Trials, (ATU 400). A girl or young man is freed from a spell after the hero endures three nights of torment or fear inflicted by demons. The girl or young man themselves are not dangerous to the hero; they help him. 12 26 K10i The tree that opened up. The tree opens its trunk and hides the hero fleeing from a man-eating bird. The monster that flies in after him is held tightly by the tree, which squeezes its trunk again. 5 26 K119b Animals as gifts to the king. After tricking wild animals, the fox brings them to the king as a gift from her rich master. 14 26 K136c Sometimes alive, sometimes dead. Upon leaving, the demon temporarily kills or puts the girl to sleep, and upon returning, revives her. 18 26 K167a The Tsarevich and the Blacksmith's Son, ATU 920. The queen hates the son she is pregnant with and replaces him with the son (rarely – daughter) of a commoner, who raises the prince. The prince shows wisdom and becomes king. 17 26 K1c He who comes to look at the bones perishes himself. A man is abandoned on an island but survives. After some time, the person who abandoned him comes to look at his bones. The abandoned man sails away in his boat, leaving him to die. 14 26 K33a7 The widower, his daughter (son) and the teacher. After the death of a woman, her daughter or son advises her father to marry a neighbour, teacher, etc., who usually persuades the teenager to give such advice. After marrying the widower, the new wife begins to tyrannise her stepdaughter or stepson. 18 26 K35c3 The ship stopped. For reasons that are not immediately clear, the ship stops in the middle of the sea (rarely: a horse stops in the middle of the road). 18 26 K38e3 The Diamond Kingdom. Among three (less often two or four) loci or objects associated with materials of high but varying degrees of value, the highest belongs to precious stones (usually diamonds, but also glass and crystal). 17 26 K43b The bird brings meat. People leave a boy, a girl, a sister and brother, a young woman or young spouses alone and leave, or drive them away. Those who are left behind or driven away discover unusual abilities or helpers, obtaining blood and food. Those who are abandoned eat their fill, while those who abandon them go hungry. A character (often a bird - a crow, magpie, seagull, etc.) visits the abandoned and brings a piece of fat or meat to the camp of the starving. 16 26 K50 An imaginary wife cuts off the head of an enemy. A man approaches the enemy disguised as a woman and kills him at night (usually cutting off his head and taking it with him). 23 26 K52 In pursuit of the kidnapped to the bottom of the sea. A woman or young man who approaches the shore is carried away by predatory sea creatures to the bottom of the sea; a character descends to rescue the kidnapped person and brings him or her back with the help of cunning and shamanic powers. 17 26 K56a7 Greenery in winter. In winter, a girl (rarely a boy) is sent to bring something that is normally only available in summer. She brings it. 18 26 K56e1 Song mentioning the days of the week. A man sees dwarves (spirits, witches) having fun. Their song mentions the names of the days of the week. The man sings along, naming the days that the dwarves like. He is rewarded. (Usually, someone else tries to get the same reward, but names the wrong days of the week and is punished). 17 26 K70 Two daughters-in-law: a girl and a frog. One man marries a girl, another (usually the brother of the first) marries a frog or a toad, or the girl and the frog are the wives of one man. Usually, the wives are given certain tests, and the girl is recognised as a worthy wife, while the frog is recognised as worthless. 15 26 K71 Coyote betrays and saves his brother. The coyote's brother successfully defends himself against enemies until the coyote breaks a certain taboo. The enemies kill the brother; the coyote comes to the enemy camp, retrieves his brother's remains and either flees from the enemies or kills them. The brother comes back to life. 13 26 K73c The girl in the bird's nest, (ATU 705A, 709A). A girl finds herself in a bird's nest (usually the bird carries the baby girl away). The bird takes care of the girl, who grows up to be a beauty. 22 26 K75b Three melons from three daughters. Wanting to show that it is time for them to marry, daughters of different ages send their father fruits of varying degrees of ripeness (bread baked in different ways). 16 26 K85b Three-legged horse. The three-legged horse is distinguished by its strength and speed, and is ridden by a rider of non-human nature. 14 26 K87b A woman steps in bear droppings. A woman is picking berries, steps in bear droppings, and scolds the bears. The offended bear takes her away and marries her. 10 26 L122 Riding a rooster. The character rides on a rooster. 13 26 L16b Eyes on the knees. The eyes or mouths of creatures are located on joints (knees, etc.). 10 26 L23c Breaking an object in half. Trying to free himself, the captured character sequentially changes his appearance. The last transformation is a small wooden object (usually a spindle). When this object is broken in half, the character permanently regains his human form. 11 26 L33a The boulder pursues the thief. The trickster takes an object lying on or near a rock or other inanimate object, which he has given to that object. The object pursues or otherwise punishes the offender. See motif L33. 25 26 L33e The gifted cloak. The trickster demands back or takes the cloak belonging to the skale or another character (usually he himself had previously given this cloak as a gift). 15 26 L79 Two wives: a girl and a monster. The girl marries a powerful, benevolent character; his first wife is a monster; he kills her or is satisfied that she has been killed by his new wife. 16 26 L87 He who has tasted blood becomes a cannibal. A character accidentally tastes blood or human flesh, after which he devours himself and/or others. 16 26 M101 Who is afraid of what (the fox and the bear). The bear tells the fox (rarely the sable or the wolf) that he is not afraid of people (usually saying that he is afraid of flying partridges). After trying to attack people, he is killed or wounded. Cf. motif M101A. 11 26 M103 Children with beautiful spots. One character asks another how her (his) children acquired valuable qualities (became beautiful, obedient, etc.). The other replies that children must be baked in ashes, kept in fire, burned, etc. The first character does so, and her or his children die or are maimed. 14 26 M114j All women are the same, ATU 983. A woman does not refuse those who harass her, but calmly explains that there is no point in trying to possess many, since they are all the same (they differ no more than eggs painted in different colours). 22 26 M149a Contract with a tiger. The character, either recklessly or against his own will, finds himself bound by a contract with a predator, which he cannot or does not want to fulfil, or which he breaks. The predator intends to eat him, but the character remains alive. 12 26 M182a1 Animals redeem themselves, ATU 159. A man catches several wild animals and releases them on the promise that they will bring gifts or prove useful. The animals fulfil their promise. 17 26 M20 Severed beak, J2138. The character does something unacceptable, is caught, and his beak or jaw is damaged. Usually (except for the Koryaks), people keep the torn-off beak (jaw) in their homes, and the character comes and takes it back. 15 26 M33 Sealed anus The character plugs or seals his anus tightly (with wax, clay, grass, etc.), or someone else does it. See M32 motif. 19 26 M58 A trail or bush saves you from the heat The earth is burning, the fire is chasing the character. A number of elements and objects refuse to cover him, saying they will burn or heat up; the last in the row shelters him. The earth cools down, the character leaves the shelter. 11 26 M62b When aiming at a hero, they hit each other Two or more characters aim their weapons at the hero in between, but they hit each other. 18 26 M74d Who ate the kidneys? ATU 785 God (the saint) travels with his companion. When he leaves, he eats the kidneys (heart, etc.) and says that the animal did not have kidneys. He continues to persist (even in the face of death), but confesses when he is promised wealth. 21 26 L102 Escape from an animal husband. A girl or woman (for various reasons, jokingly or seriously) calls an animal or animal remains her husband, or steps on bones and addresses them. The animal (comes to life and) carries her away. Her human husband, parents or brother come for her, and they flee; usually the animal husband pursues them, but stops the chase or dies. 18 27 L116 The Singer in the Sack, ATU 311B. A cannibal (old man, gypsy) grabs a girl, carries her away, and forces her to sing (beg). People recognise the girl's voice and free her. 20 27 L41c Children sledding down a hill. A cannibal grabs children as they slide down a hill. 9 27 L62 Stone Man. The Stone Man kills people, but is then killed himself. 19 27 L72e The pursuer returns for the axe. In order to overcome the obstacles created by the fleeing hero, the pursuer is forced to return home for the necessary tools. 14 27 L7a Sticky: first to humans, then to animals. A character who sticks to another creature and refuses to let go, first sticking to a human, then to an animal, or first sticking to an animal, then to a bird. 12 27 M112a The turtle catches the thief. Animals take turns guarding water or food or using water. The deceiver takes what he needs or prevents others from doing so. The turtle, toad or frog proves to be more cunning than the deceiver and catches him. See motif M112. 24 27 M114c Shielding from the rain with one's body. The character is puzzled as to how the other person's clothes (firewood, etc.) remained dry after the rain – the other person covered them with their body (hid them in a vessel, waited out the rain in a shelter). 14 27 M125 Eats one's own eyes. One character lies to another, pretending to eat his own eyes. The other agrees to eat his own. The first character gouges out one of his eyes and gives him something tasty in its place. The character believes that this is the same eye that was gouged out and agrees to give up the second. 14 27 M134b Measuring the wolf. When a predator is about to eat a person, the person asks to be measured first and strikes the predator with an (imaginary) measuring instrument. 16 27 M195a Where is the upper end of the stick? A character sends a long object that either looks the same at both ends or is inside a small object, and asks which end of the object is the top and which is the bottom. The guesser gives the correct answer. 16 27 M198a4 Who is nobler? ATU 976. Those who listened to the story must answer who they liked more: the husband who let his wife go to another man after the wedding, the robber who did not harm her, or the man who immediately sent her back to her husband. 18 27 M47 The head is attached to the rear When punishing a person or animal or restoring a dismembered body, a character intentionally or accidentally puts his head to his ass. 9 27 M72 Hand in the back of the tapir The character puts his hand into the anus of a tapir or other large herbivore and is unable to pull it out. The animal rushes to run and drags a person with it for a long time. 16 27 M74 Regurgitated food A weak character regurgitates previously swallowed unusual food, or replaces his belching with a strong character's belching, or interprets his secretions as remains strong animals he ate. The strong believe that the weak are strong or have unusual abilities. 12 27 I92b Treasures under the rainbow. Where the ends of the rainbow reach the ground, there is treasure. 16 27 I93 The Milky Way – the backbone of the sky. The Milky Way – the backbone, support, pillar of the sky or world. 15 27 J63 The son saves, the daughter betrays. Enemies arrive and tie up the husband. The wife agrees to live with the new man, while the former lies bound. One character (usually the daughter) refuses to free him, while another (usually the son) frees him. The husband kills the enemies and usually brutally executes (the daughter and) his wife. 16 27 K146 The hero is revived by the remedy he was sent to fetch. The hero is sent to fetch a remedy that can cure the sick or revive the dead. On the way back, a woman who is friendly to the hero keeps part of the remedy (or all of it, replacing it with a fake) and, when the hero is treacherously killed, revives him. 18 27 K27k Dive long or deep. Test: to dive underwater for a long time or deeply. See motif K27. 15 27 K27z7 To learn what the rose of the heart is. The character promises to fulfil a request if the other person reveals the secret behind someone's strange behaviour. 18 27 K57a The Beauty from the Land of Soap, (ATU 510B). A noble young man, who treated a lowly servant girl rudely and contemptuously, does not recognise her in the guise of a magnificent beauty and does not understand her hints about the relevant episodes. Or the younger brother responds to the hints of his older brothers after they first beat him and then fail to recognise him in the guise of a handsome hero. 18 27 K9 The wife of a deity is thrown down from heaven. The heavenly leader (deity), accusing or suspecting a woman of infidelity, relations with an animal, incest, or a desire to rule over him, throws her down. She becomes the mistress of the lower or middle world or part of it, or the mother of the master of the lower world, and gives birth to humans. Cf. motif J18. 17 27 A23d Who is first in the calendar? Animals argue about which of them should start the cycle of 12 months or years. The mouse wins the primacy. 15 27 B116d The "book" as part of the stomach. Part of the stomach of ruminants is called a "book". 17 27 B2f1 Buried in the head. (While the earth does not yet exist or has not yet hardened), birds bury the dead in their bodies – usually in their beaks or heads, which explains the unpleasant smell or the origin of the crest, swelling on the beak, etc. 8 27 B53 Creatures and objects made from severed genitals. The character's enormous genitals are cut off (usually cut into pieces), thrown away, and transformed into snakes or other creatures or objects. 17 27 B7a Spit-out water. Someone possesses water or a drink. Another character swallows what is hidden, runs away and spits out what is hidden, making the water or drink available to everyone. 16 27 B85 Calming the Wind. The wind blows too strongly, it is forced to calm down. 16 27 D4c1 A floating elk distracts attention. Animal-people come to steal summer from its owners. One of them, in the guise of an elk or caribou, distracts the owners' attention or floats a log or stump down the river, which the owners of summer mistake for an elk and rush after. 9 27 E30a The ersatz spouse is replaced by the real one. 19.20.35.37.40.42.43. A man without a wife or a woman without a husband uses a substitute spouse made of wood or other material until a real spouse appears. 11 27 E9e A puppy received as a reward. An animal or object received by a young man from supernatural beings as a reward for his kindness, upon the young man's return home (to earth), turns into a girl. 16 27 F3 The husband gives birth after eating what was intended for his wife (ATU 705A). A man accidentally eats a magical remedy intended for a woman to become pregnant and gives birth to a child. The child comes out of a tumour on the man's leg, or in some other way, but the man remains alive. 21 27 F43a Women kill men. In the community of the first ancestors, women kill, attempt to kill, or transform men. 16 27 F73b The bear believes that the vulva is a wound (ATU 153). The bear (wolf, lion, dragon) believes that the vulva is a wound inflicted on a human being. 23 27 F96 Becoming handsome. A girl or wife rejects an unattractive man. He becomes handsome (usually after encountering a supernatural being), and those who treated him badly are punished. 11 27 G9a The field turns into virgin soil. The field that was cultivated the day before turns back into virgin soil by morning. 6 27 H8 Those who did not pass the test. Unable to bring themselves to touch something unclean, poisonous, dangerous or hot, people lost their immortality (var.: did not receive the blessings that came to Europeans). 14 27 I25D Lubricate the gate with grease. On the way to a dangerous character, a person greases the gate (door hinges) with grease or oil. On the way back, the grateful gate refuses to hold him back. 14 27 I26 Dangers on the path of souls. On its way to the other world, the soul must distract its guardians with gifts or defend itself from attack. 21 27 A25 Getting used to light. When coming out onto the earth (for the first time or after a global catastrophe) or witnessing the first sunrise, people should not look directly at the light. 7 28 A38d The sun damages the cloak. Because the Sun has harmed the character (ruined or burned his cloak, the fur on his skin, etc.), he catches it in a trap or kills it. 17 28 A40 The Sun or Moon is married to a Toad/Frog. The Toad or Frog is the wife (or one of the wives) of the Sun or Moon. Traditions in which the frog jumps onto the face (chest, back) of the Moon and remains there are highlighted in italics; those in which the frog is visible on the lunar disc are marked with an asterisk; traditions in which the frog or toad is the wife of the Sun are marked with a hash (#). 21 28 B46a1 The Big Dipper – robbers. The stars of the Big Dipper – thieves or robbers. 15 28 B89 The eagle owl – king of birds. The eagle owl (owl) was the chief among birds, claimed this position or behaved badly when choosing the head of the birds; now he avoids other birds and/or other birds chase him. 20 28 C26 Guardian at the edge of a foreign world. Monsters are ready to invade our world from another, but a powerful character protects people from the invasion. 16 28 E9j The magical wife – monkey. Before meeting the hero, his beloved (wife) has the image of a monkey, or the man hides the woman and pretends that the mistress is a monkey. 20 28 F30a Child-worm. A woman nurses a worm (caterpillar, reptile, fish) instead of a child; people kill the monster. 13 28 H27a1 Diseases and reptiles from holes in the ground. Reptiles and insects crawl out of holes in the ground, bringing disease. 19 28 H44 The bloody division of offspring (ATU 485). A human enters into a relationship with a non-human being. When they part, the being tears apart (or intends to tear apart) their child. (Most of the data was collected by S.Y. Neklyudov). 4 28 H7g Life as a candle. A person sees many burning candles or lamps. When one of them burns out, someone dies. 19 28 I105 Hand in the sky. One of the constellations is associated with the hand (with five marked fingers). 21 28 I22d Living water behind the tumultuous rocks. To obtain a miraculous life-giving (healing) remedy, one must penetrate the space behind the shifting rocks. 13 28 I23 Slamming door, K736. The door of the house opens and slams shut by itself, crushing those entering or leaving. See motif I22. 20 28 I82d Morning and Evening Stars – Man and Woman. The Morning and Evening Stars are contrasted as man and woman. See motifs I82a, I82b. 15 28 I82g Venus – Shepherd's Star. Venus or another star (Arcturus, Sirius, etc.) is called the Shepherd's Star (the star of the Shepherd, Sheepherder, Cowherd, Swineherd, etc.). 21 28 I85a Animals around the North Star. Animals walk around the North Star, or the movement of the stars is compared to the movement of animals around a pole. See motif I85. 17 28 J33 Scarecrow. A boy, a young man, or two children live in the house of an older character. In order to elicit a certain reaction from him, they kill a person or a large animal, stuff the scarecrow with insects, worms, ashes, grass, or inflate it. 12 28 J38 Stuck claws. A mighty bird sinks its claws into a huge aquatic creature. The claws get stuck in its body. The bird is dragged underwater or struggles to free itself. 16 28 J52b Heroes – female hares or baby hares. A girl, young woman or children associated with hares (rabbits) are heroes-victors or successful tricksters. 17 28 K10a Battle with a bird: hiding. Heroes kill a dangerous bird; during or before the battle, they hide in a shelter (hut, cage, vessel, sack, well) or cover themselves with an object that protects the body. 12 28 K116b A dog instead of a beauty in the chest. In order to take possession of the girl, the antagonist creates a situation in which her relatives are forced to put her in a chest (barrel, sack, etc.) and leave her there. The girl is secretly replaced by a ferocious dog or other animal. When the antagonist opens the chest, the animal usually kills or mauls him. 17 28 K14b Accusation of knife theft. A man is advised not to do anything until he is expressly asked to do so. He unwisely offers to let someone use his knife and is subsequently accused of a crime. 22 28 K155 The prince grew up in seclusion. A person (usually a king) raises a son (daughter) in isolation. One day (usually by chance), the young man (woman) sees the outside world and leaves his (her) confinement. 17 28 K159 Peas underfoot. When two characters are fighting, someone nearby wants one of them to slip (while the other remains firmly on their feet) and throws something under their feet for this purpose. 18 28 K32j The brother of the changeling is accused of deception (ATU 403). Upon learning from a young man that he has a beautiful sister, the ruler wants to marry her. The bride is replaced by an ugly woman. Usually, the ruler accuses her brother of deception and throws him into prison. The deception is revealed. 16 28 K33d1 Hidden in a lantern, ATU 510B*. The young man does not know that a beautiful girl is hiding inside the object brought to his house. 18 28 K56a5d Conversation with Moroz. A person responds kindly to a question from a character embodying cold, praises him, and is rewarded. Another expresses dissatisfaction and is punished. 10 28 K57b The stuck-on shoe. To stop a beautiful woman from running away, a man in love with her smears resin or glue on the threshold (porch). The shoe sticks, and all the girls try it on to find its owner. 16 28 K62a1 A man nurses a wounded eagle. A man saves (spares) and nurses a wounded bird. Having regained its strength, the bird puts him on its back and carries him to a distant land or to the sky. 23 28 K72a Prohibition on lighting fires. The king notices that his prohibition on lighting fires at night has been violated. 16 28 L1b The Bear and Her Sister. A young woman turns into a monstrous bear and kills most people except her younger sister (Ojibwa: the younger sister of her former husband). Their brothers (or one brother) return from hunting and kill the bear, or she dies while chasing them. Cf. motif L65D. 19 28 L81b The hero's severed legs. The hero's rivals abandon him, cutting off his legs (usually leaving a sword at the entrance to his tent, and when the hero rushes out, the blade wounds him). 18 28 M182a Animals stick to a horse (ATU 159). A person smears resin on a bull, a horse (usually making a figure that comes to life), or some object; wild animals or demons stick to it. Cf. motif K133. 19 28 M27 Returning from Heaven The tree or staircase that people took to heaven collapses; on the way back, people fall down. Usually some stay in the sky forever or longer than others. 8 28 M73a Substitution of feces Two (animal) persons compare their feces (with different purpose). One of them gets to exchange them 15 28 N27c The bird does not have milk It is claimed that the bird has no milk and/or breasts 13 28 M99a Bird bone house, ATU 984 The character is going to build a house (tower, etc.) from the bones or feathers of birds. 20 29 I4b Thunder in trouble: fighting the enemy. A person helps thunder defeat the enemy. 15 29 I87a1 Small or large – dialogue. Two people engage in a dialogue, contradicting each other in their descriptions of the sizes of creatures and objects. 19 29 I98b The Pleiades – a duck's nest. The Pleiades – ducks, nest or wild duck egg. 9 29 J51a1 The helper girl: dismembered and reassembled. To retrieve an object from a hard-to-reach place, the girl orders it to be dismembered (or just have its fingers cut off) and then reassembled, after which it comes back to life. 13 29 J61 Descends on a feather. The character has the ability to move or hover in the air like a feather or a fluff. 18 29 K154a Men in the harem. By solving a riddle, a boy or young man (rarely a girl) exposes the daughter, wife or assistants of an authoritative character: the daughter or wife has a lover; the assistant is plotting a conspiracy. 17 29 K21a Woman returns from heaven. A celestial being marries an earthly woman. She longs to return to earth and secretly descends from her husband. 15 29 K27x3a Recognise by the scarf. When a husband sets off on a difficult mission, his magical wife gives him her towel or scarf, instructing him to use only those items (usually so that her relatives will recognise him as their son-in-law). 18 29 K38e4 Palace made of gold and silver bricks, F771.1.1.2. The narratives (in various contexts) mention a palace (castle, crypt, church, bridge, causeway) built of gold and silver modules – usually bricks, less often planks. 9 29 K40 One will be eaten today, another tomorrow. Two (rarely more) characters consider themselves doomed to death, but the one whose death will come later rejoices, while the one whose death will come earlier grieves. Cf. motif N30. 18 29 K56a2 Asks to do worse. A character (usually a girl) comes to another (usually an old woman). The latter asks the visitor to perform absurd and harmful actions (to mess up the house, bring dirty water, etc.). The visitor does the opposite of what is asked (cleans the house, brings clean water) and is rewarded. The other character does everything literally and is punished. 21 29 K56a5 The Old Woman Becomes Beautiful, ATU 877. An old or ugly woman unexpectedly becomes a young beauty or acquires wealth. Usually, another woman tries to repeat her actions and either dies or suffers damage. 20 29 K66b Princesses given to companions. Travelling from one place to another, the hero leaves one of his companions in each place (usually marrying them to the princesses he has received as a reward), and continues on his way. When he gets into trouble, his companions come to his aid. 16 29 K82a Pregnancy from snake eggs. A malevolent woman forces a woman to swallow a snake egg (snake, something else) so that a man will think that the woman is pregnant out of wedlock (rarely: so that snakes will suck the juices out of her). Cf. motif L89. 18 29 B22 The offended person knocks down the tree. The character left under the tree is offended by those who climbed up the tree (usually they do not share their food with him or her). In retaliation, he or she knocks down the tree. The events described are of cosmic proportions. 12 29 B38b Two animals adorn each other. Two quadrupeds (or a quadruped and another creature) adorn each other themselves or are adorned by someone else. 14 29 B42m2 The boastful and hasty. The stars of the Big Dipper's handle are three hunters chasing a beast. Each has a distinct character (one is boastful, another is hasty, etc.). In Siberia, the hunters are identified with people of different nationalities, and in the North American Northeast, with birds of different species. 15 29 E1c Man made of excrement. Man made from human excrement or (Inupiat) from carrion. 13 29 E37 People made of sticks. The creator collects many sticks, feathers, reeds, etc., and turns them into people (either people of both sexes and all ages, or no mention is made of gender or age). 9 29 F49B In a distant land, they do not know how to give birth. The hero comes to a people whose women do not know how to give birth. See motif F49. 28 29 F61 A woman carries a trickster. A male character pretends to be sick, weak, unconscious; a woman carries him on her back, he copulates or tries to copulate with her on the go. 16 29 F9a1 The pike's mouth, ATU 1686A*. A girl or young woman says (pretends) that she has a predatory mouth in her vagina. {Unlike variants characteristic of the circum-Pacific region, the corresponding texts do not suggest that the female womb is actually dangerous}. 17 29 F9b Piranha in the vagina. A biting piranha in a woman's genitals. 15 29 G13 People ate rotten wood. Before the advent of cultivated plants, people ate rotten or soft wood (ceiba – Ceiba L., balsa – Ochroma (Bombax) Sw.); some people eat rotten wood. 13 29 G16 Ants find cultivated plants. Ants are the first to find cultivated plants that are unknown to others and concentrated in one place. 13 29 H17 Ring of defenders around the leader. The first ancestors surround the deceased or sick person in a ring, seeking to protect him. The antagonist manages to find a loophole and causes irreparable harm to people. 9 29 H43a Broken figures. Having created the human body, the creator leaves. At this time, another character tries to break the figure, which has not yet come to life. 14 29 H7d Death and a bundle of firewood, ATU 845. A man calls Death, and when it comes, asks it to help him lift a bundle of firewood or pull a cart with firewood. 23 29 I126 The constellation of funeral bier. The Great Bear or other constellation – a bier on which the dead or sick are carried, a body prepared for burial, a grave. 16 29 I133 Constellation across the sky. Star objects in different parts of the sky are associated with separate parts (as well as items of clothing, jewellery, etc.) of a single anthropomorphic or zoomorphic figure. 20 29 L106a Cut belly. The antagonist makes formally justified but essentially unfair demands on the hero. The hero either fulfils them or is punished by the antagonist. Then the antagonist takes an object or animal belonging to the hero, but cannot return it and is punished equally or more severely. 18 29 L112 Attaining physical completeness. A physically defective boy is born (tiny, with one head, half a body, etc.). After a series of adventures, he gains physical completeness. 12 29 L42i Sister sets out to rescue her brother (geese-swans), ATU 480A*. Creatures from another world carry off a little boy. His sister takes him and safely escapes from their pursuers. Usually the boy has two or three sisters, and only the youngest succeeds. 15 29 L57b The demon comes for a part of his body, ATU 161A. A person tears off or cuts off a part of the body of a predatory animal or demonic creature and uses it. The creature comes for the lost part, usually killing or maiming the person. 19 29 L72g Cast salt. Fleeing for his life, the character throws salt behind him, preventing his pursuer from continuing the chase. 17 29 L78 Toad-jaguar. In the images, the character has the features of a jaguar and a toad; the toad/frog turns into a jaguar; the toad/frog is the mother or wife of the jaguar. 21 29 L81a The cat extinguishes the fire. A girl offends a cat (rarely: a dog, a rooster) and the cat takes revenge by causing misfortune to befall the girl (usually by extinguishing the fire, after which the girl falls into the hands of a demon). 19 29 L95 Returning for toys. A person (usually a child or teenager) returns to a previous location for a forgotten item (often a toy) and finds a demon there, from which they struggle to escape. 17 29 L9c Sharp breast. The character kills others with a sharp protrusion on his chest. 13 29 M13a Turned into stone. A deity and a human meet so that the former can fulfil the latter's request. As a result, the human is turned to stone. Usually (except for the Squamish), one of the supplicants wants eternal life and is turned to stone. See motif M13. 12 29 M140b The wolf adorns the bird. The fox cunningly ties up the wolf. The bird unties him, and the grateful wolf adorns her plumage. See motifs b97, b97a. 9 29 M29f Wolverine is a loser and a loser As a result of its stupidity or antisocial behavior, the wolverine dies or suffers damage. See the motives in square brackets. 17 29 M59 An insidious passenger kills a carrier, K952.1. A small animal asks a large one to transport it across the river; consistently rejects all the seats on the carrier's body that he offers; climbs to where the carrier is You can kill when the crossing is over. 22 29 M80 The partridge scares the offender, K932 The character insults a partridge bird, kills or offends its chickens; the partridge suddenly takes off in front of the offender, he falls (usually into a lake or river). 12 29 M81e1 A young man returns sight to old people, ATU 321 A young man lives with an old man whose eyes or eyes were carried away by a giant. The young man goes to the giant, kills him, brings his eyes, the old man sees the light. 19 29 L100c The chaste sorceress and seducers, D2006.1.1. When a man comes to a beautiful woman who lives alone, she asks him to perform a trivial task (close the door, etc.) and uses magic to leave him in an awkward and uncomfortable position (holding the door handle, etc.) for the whole night. The next night, the same thing happens to another (rarely: the same) admirer. Each, ashamed, tells the others that he enjoyed it. 20 30 L37a1 Let the wolf eat the fool, ATU 461A. A man sets out to discover the reason for his misfortunes. Others also convey their questions to him. God (fate) replies that a predator (wolf, lion, bear) must eat the fool, and in order to help the others, one must dig up treasure, marry the queen, etc. The man refuses to marry, take the gold, etc., because he has not received direct instructions to do so. The predator decides that he will not find anyone more foolish. 25 30 L55 Boiling water in the mouth. To neutralise a dangerous enemy, a caustic or boiling liquid is poured into one of the openings of its body. 28 30 L96b The demon is thrown into a cauldron. A person encounters an ascetic, demon, etc. The latter intends to kill him by pushing him into a boiling cauldron or cutting off his head when he bows before the deity. The person asks the ascetic to do everything first, then pushes him into the cauldron or cuts off his head himself. 22 30 M102 Without a head and a leg. The character believes that another has temporarily separated his head or leg from himself, asks to do the same to him, and dies or is maimed. 14 30 M14a Roasted alive. To take revenge on his wife or her relatives for (allegedly) causing him offence, the husband roasts his wife alive. See motif M14. 11 30 M172 The Hare Riding the Lion, ATU 72. To show that a strong character is his slave, a riding animal, the weak one adjusts so that the strong one takes him along. Those around them are convinced of the truthfulness of the weak one. 17 30 M30d Holds to a stick carried by birds, ATU 225A To get into the air, a character without wings (usually a turtle or a frog) grabs a stick with the ends held in their beaks by two birds. 17 30 M38d2 Coal, straw, bob by the river, ATU 295 Several characters (usually three), which are small objects, go traveling and must cross the river. This fails. 22 30 I86a Down turns into snow. Snow arises from bird down when a bird shakes itself in the sky or when a character shakes out down or fur clothing, plucks birds, etc. 21 30 I87ac A bone in the eye. Something huge gets into a person's eye, which he mistakes for a speck of dust. Usually, a bird carries away an animal or fish and drops a bone into the man's eye. It is difficult to find and remove (to do this, they get into a boat and float it inside the eye, throw a net into the eye, pull it out with oxen, etc.). 17 30 J32a1 Nocturnal pests – horses. But at night someone tramples the field, steals hay, etc. The hero learns that it is horses doing this. 22 30 K10f The chicks turn into ordinary eagles. The character turns the children of a flying monster into ordinary eagles or owls. 22 30 K133 The exhausted horse. A man notices that his horse (donkey) looks tired and learns that an animal or demonic creature is riding it. Cf. motif M182a. 16 30 K25a4 Escape from the siren, ATU 316. A man (rarely a woman) finds himself in the power of an aquatic-chthonic creature (usually a siren, fish, sea monster, sometimes a sorcerer). The captive is lifted above the water (above the ground; usually after the antagonist lifts him) several times. After that, the captive escapes (most often by flying away as a bird). 23 30 K27yy1 Obtain the feather of a dangerous bird. The hero brings the feather (feathers) of a dangerous bird. 16 30 K27z5 Agreement to marry children, (926C*). Two men agree to marry their children if one has a son and the other has a daughter. The girl's parents do not fulfil the agreement. The boy grows up and finds his betrothed. 23 30 K33a6 Knives are sharpened, cauldrons are boiling. A kid (lamb, gazelle, etc.) runs up to a pond into which its owner has pushed it and says that knives are being sharpened and water is being boiled to slaughter and cook it. 17 30 A28 The Sun and the Moon: smart and dumb. The clever sun-man involves the foolish moon in various tricks that the latter is incapable of devising himself. Trying to repeat the sun's actions, the moon suffers a fiasco. Cf. motif B1F. 17 30 B117 Dog rights, ATU 200. A document issued to animals (usually dogs) is lost through the fault of a cat (swallowed by a cat, burned, gnawed by mice). Since then, dogs and cats (usually also cats and mice) have been at enmity. 24 30 B52b Concealing the earth. The character regurgitates the earth hidden (usually in his mouth), thereby creating mountains, swamps, and other inconveniences. See motif B52. 20 30 B74 Red-eyed capercaillie. The eyes of the capercaillie or black grouse turned red from tears. 7 30 B8 The frog hides the water. The frog hides the water (usually drinks up a lake or river). Thanks to another character, the water returns to the body of water(s). (Among the Khan, Upper Tanana, and Varikho, the motif is not cosmogonic). 10 30 B97 The character rewards the bird. The character rewards (rarely punishes) a bird living by the water, determining its current appearance (crest, beak, feather colouring). 15 30 C23 The tree blocks the sun. The growth or fall of a giant tree determines the state of the sky and the celestial bodies in it (the tree blocks the light of the sun or threatens to destroy the sky, pulls the sun from the sky when it falls, etc.). 17 30 F62 Incognito at a festival. A (supposedly) sick (weak, unattractive, poorly dressed) character is left alone when others leave for the festival; he (she) arrives there later in the guise of a handsome man or beautiful woman; those who arrived earlier do not recognise him (her) and take an interest in him (her). (This motif is also found in texts containing the motif k57, Cinderella). 12 30 F9c Snake in the vagina. Snake (in Oceania – moray eel) in the vagina; vagina – snake's mouth; snake crawls out of a woman's mouth and bites off a man's penis during intercourse; woman with a toothy womb is associated with a snake. 19 30 G12b Cultivated plants – a gift from the stars. Cultivated plants – a gift from a male star or female star. 15 30 H30 Wrong choice. When meeting two women (together or one after the other), the hero must or may choose one. Usually, he chooses either the less beautiful or the dangerous one, bringing trouble or misfortune upon himself or upon people in general. 22 30 H49c The Innocently Slain Falcon, Th B221.2.2; ATU 178C. A tame bird (rarely: a domestic animal) shows visible aggression towards its owner (usually a falcon knocks a bowl out of the hands of a thirsty man). The man kills the bird (animal) and then discovers that they saved him from death. 22 30 I20c2 Dwarves in the land on the horizon. The inhabitants of the land on the horizon (where the sky meets the earth) are dwarves. 20 30 A12H Woman covers the sun. Eclipses of the sun or moon are caused by a woman's attack. 18 31 A7a Torches in the hands of celestial bodies. The light of the sun (moon, Venus) is a burning torch in the hand of a celestial body. 16 31 B115B The slain person turns into a viburnum. One brother kills another, or one sister kills another, or a brother kills a sister. A viburnum or other shrub with red berries grows in this place. 7 31 B28d Unrecognised transformer. Not understanding who they are dealing with, the characters respond to the wandering Transformer that they are preparing weapons to kill so-and-so or a hiding place to escape from so-and-so. The Transformer kills them himself or turns them into animals. 16 31 B2b The earth devours the dead. The earth feeds on the people buried in it. See motif B2A. 8 31 B87a Alcor – dog. A dim star next to the second star of the handle of the Big Dipper (Tibetans: Little Dipper) Ursa Major – dog. 17 31 B92 Flint turns into flints. A character whose body is hard and has broken into small pieces, or (rarely) a small object, turns into flint or other hard stones (the origin of flint). 18 31 D4e1 Dog and fire. The thief or giver of fire, light or sun is the dog. See motif 4A. 21 31 E15 Ducks and boats. People learn how to build boats and row from birds; a bird or part of its body serves as a model for building a boat. 15 31 E25 Arachne (spider weaver). People learn the art of weaving from a spider or from a person who later becomes a spider; the spider makes fabrics for humans. 22 31 E9m The magical wife – the bear. A man marries a bear (white or grizzly) that takes the form of a woman, or a woman who takes the form of a bear. 16 31 F46 One for all. At the beginning of time, two or more men (human-animals) had only one woman. 18 31 F51b Finds by the thread. To find out the nature or location of a character's locus, another person secretly attaches a long thread to it and follows it. 15 31 F5a Woman from a tail, ATU 798. God was going to make Eve from Adam's rib. The rib was stolen by a dog (cat, fox, monkey, devil). God (or an angel sent by him) chased after the thief, grabbed him by the tail and tore it off. God made Eve from this tail. Either God first made a woman from edible material and the dog ate this figure. He had to make a new one from Adam's rib. Or God cut off Adam's tail and made Eve from it. 23 31 F80 First humans without genitals. The first men and/or women have no genitals, then they acquire them. 25 31 H16 Rivers of tears. In another world, there are rivers of tears. Tears shed on earth fill large containers there. Cf. motifs K33F, N34, N35. 17 31 H21a Do not touch the big fish. The fish are concentrated in a small container, from which the owner takes as many as he needs. Another character opens the container, breaking the rules, and the fish escape. 9 31 H6bb Lost objects. A character is sent to deliver a certain object or substance to people, the possession of which is essential to them. The messenger loses these objects or brings others. Usually, this refers to the ability to be reborn after death. Traditions not related to the explanation of human mortality are marked with an asterisk*. 20 31 I127 Ursa Major – bed. Ursa Major – bed, couch. 14 31 I39a The souls of the dead walk on the rainbow. The souls of the dead walk across the rainbow to another world; a rainbow bridge spans the river separating the world of the dead from the world of the living. 23 31 L2 Dried mask. The mask or costume becomes part of the person wearing it; the character is transformed in accordance with the painting on their body, which reproduces the pattern on the animal's skin. See motif L1A. 31 31 L28a Eating a snake causes a flood. People (or a certain person) eat the meat of a snake (dragon, unusual fish). This results in a flood, landslide, or the appearance of a river or lake. 12 31 L65a1 The horse's legs eaten away. A demonic character successively devours parts of the horse on which the hero arrived, each time returning to the hero and then leaving to devour another part. (Often asks whether the hero arrived on a three-legged, two-legged or one-legged horse). 20 31 L90E Heads on stakes. Human heads are impaled on stakes outside the house of a dangerous character, and one head is missing (or there is a wall of heads, with one missing). It is assumed that the head of the hero of the story should be there. 15 31 M106h Bird under a cap, ATU 1528. A man puts his hat on the ground and pretends that there is something valuable under it. In reality, there is only shit. Those who believe the deceiver lose their property. 28 31 M114a Stone coat. The character is offered to sew clothes or shoes from stone or iron, or to remove the skin from the stone. 18 31 M123 The raven marries the goose. A bird of prey or scavenger (raven, owl, hawk, coyote) marries (or attempts to marry) a partner who (or whose brothers) are geese or other waterfowl. The marriage is disrupted or proves unsuccessful. 15 31 M158a Harvest sharing, ATU 9. Two animal characters work together on a plot of land. During field work, one of them is lazy (imposing his imaginary services on the other) and then demands (most of) the harvest for himself. 27 31 M17 A woman lies, pretending that a man has missed his target. A wife, mother or grandmother directs the arrow of a blind man or boy at game, lies that he missed, cooks and eats the meat herself. See motif M16 (man is blind, K333.1). 28 31 M39a5b Fish in the furrow, ATU 1381A The wife throws fish into the furrows or into the beds. My husband believes that the fish ended up there on its own, he is mistaken for a madman. 25 31 M39a6c The Tsar Craftsman The poor girl agrees to marry the prince only if he learns a craft. The prince fulfills the condition, then falls into the hands of enemies. He promises to make them an expensive item, let them sell it. His wife or (father, vizier) learns the job, the prisoner is released, the attackers are executed. 20 31 M42a Berry eyes The character (usually after losing his own eyes) inserts seeds or berries into his eye sockets and sees again. 15 31 M42b Resin eyes After losing his eyes, the character makes new ones out of resin or wax, sees again (often this is an episode on the way to finding good eyes, while tar eyes do not see well). 17 31 M57d2 The tree makes wishes come true The man was about to cut down a tree. It himself, or the creature living on it or in it, asks not to do so and fulfills the person's wishes. 18 31 M5a The passengers of the sinking boat Small animal characters sail in the boat, it sinks, everyone escapes as best they can. 17 31 I87d People in the time of giants, ATU 701. In the past, giants inhabited the earth. One of them finds a tiny human being and brings him to his father or mother. They usually say that such people will replace the current giants. 21 31 J53a Inviting to play, kills. A character invites another to play. The latter follows the rules, but the initiator of the game does not and kills the other. 18 31 K11a1 Birds arise from a monster bird. Pieces of flesh or feathers from a monstrous/unusual bird turn into present-day birds (or their plumage). 18 31 K120a4 Fill the vessel with tears. The character must fill a vessel with tears (pour them on the floor). 25 31 K14e Sons think their father is rich, ATU 982. The sons do not care for their elderly father (rarely: the daughter-in-law does not care for her mother-in-law). He pretends to be hiding something. The sons believe that these are valuables that their father will leave them, and they begin to care for him. 29 31 K24b Dancing in magical clothes. A magical wife deceives her naive mother-in-law into giving her wonderful clothes or some other item that enables her to leave the human world. 22 31 K89 The girl and the witch: gifts from relatives. After getting married, the heroine and her rival (witch, frog) must bring gifts from their relatives. The heroine finds her brother, brothers or sister who went missing at the beginning of the story and receives rich gifts from them, while the gifts brought by her rival are worthless. 12 31 I66 Ashes on the Milky Way. The Milky Way is ash or smouldering embers. 17 32 I87 Skull cave. The characters use an object belonging to the world of giants (a skull, an animal shoulder blade, a mitten) as a shelter. Cf. I87C: animals use an object belonging to the world of humans (a skull, a mitten, a sieve, etc.) as a shelter. 15 32 J5 Brothers as victims. The role of the victim is played by two or more brothers (friends). See motif J4. 22 32 K103b The spinning cow. A cow (goat) miraculously spins or weaves: it chews tow, turning it into thread, orders the yarn to be wound onto its horns, put into its ear, etc. 18 32 K126 The wolf pays for the horse it ate. A predatory beast or demon eats the hero's horse, but in return is forced or voluntarily helps him. 20 32 K19c Mistress in a handbag. A man brings home a small creature with which he makes love at night. The man's mother, sister or wife finds the creature in his bed or purse. 9 32 K27c Knives and spikes. Test: to remain alive when coming into contact with piercing, cutting, or crushing instruments. See motif K27. 31 32 K38f6 Fire creature. A creature consisting of fire is mentioned. 17 32 K52c Flooding in the home. Demonstrating his power, a shaman, sorcerer or other character with magical abilities causes the dwelling in which he and other people are located to begin to fill with water. Sometimes it is said that this water is an illusion and that those present also see animals (waterfowl, fish or marine mammals). 16 32 A12d Birds eclipse the sun. Birds attack the sun or moon during an eclipse (covering them with their wings) or (*) cover the sun during sunrise or sunset. See motif A12. 21 32 A32k First to the sun, then to the moon. A character, discernible in the silhouette of the moon's spots, first headed for the sun and only then reached the moon, or the Sun and the Moon argued over who he should belong to. 14 32 B33d1 Days of the week – (demonic) characters. In narrative folklore, the days of the week (most often Friday and Wednesday) are special (female) characters with a more or less pronounced demonic nature. 11 32 B44f1 The bear wants night. In the dispute over whether the world should be light (warm), the bear is on the side of darkness (and cold); or the world is plunged into darkness because the bear hides the sun in his house. 22 32 B64a Small bones: the war between fish and birds. Fish and birds fight (usually by shooting arrows at each other). Since then, fish have had many small bones in their bodies and/or birds' legs have taken on their current form. 15 32 C31b The wise owl. The owl is wiser and more intelligent than other living creatures. 19 32 G8a Cutting down a tree to make a boat. A man cuts down a tree to make a boat or something else from the trunk (Yap: a board for building a house; one of the texts from Ulithi: a wooden bird), goes away to rest, and upon returning finds the tree intact again. Usually, the character who restored the tree in the man's absence then cuts down the tree himself and makes what the hero needs. 18 32 H35 Decaying teeth. Human teeth are made of fragile material. Usually, the motif explains the aetiology of toothache. 20 32 H36hh The frog betrays the man. The frog or toad is to blame for the fact that humans are mortal. 16 32 H55b The Repentant Robber, ATU 756B. From a man who visited hell (and met a deity), the robber learns of his future fate, humbly accepts the inevitability of retribution in the afterlife, and is ultimately saved. The robber is usually contrasted with a self-confident righteous man who is punished for his pride. 30 32 I112 Monster boat. The boat is a living creature with a mouth, a fish. 15 32 I22b Birds on their way to another world. Migratory birds (or shamans in the form of birds) fly from our world to another; the path lies through a narrow opening between jutting rocks, or the sky strikes the earth, crushing those who fly through; and/or at the passage to the other world there is a character who feeds on birds; and/or in the world on the other side of the pulsating barrier there is the mistress of the birds. 21 32 I25C Calling blood wine. On the way to their goal, the character expresses imaginary pleasure when encountering repulsive and dangerous objects and creatures, thereby ensuring their loyalty (on the way back). 17 32 I29 To the underworld through an animal's burrow. A character climbs into an animal's burrow and finds himself in the underworld, or digs a deep hole and finds himself in a world inhabited by burrowing animals. 15 32 L101 Discarded clothing distracts the pursuer. While running away, a person gradually undresses and throws items of clothing behind them. The pursuer wastes time picking them up or destroying them. 17 32 L59 The stingy woman: metamorphosis. A woman eats the best food or eats fruit before it is ripe; as punishment, she undergoes metamorphosis. 20 32 L6a Asks to be carried. An unremarkable, weak-looking character asks a person to carry him or her on their back, and then refuses to get off. 22 32 L81c The legless, the blind, and the armless. The legless man lives together with the blind and armless man (or with one of the two). By working together, they are healed. 19 32 M120b A nurse with a pleasant voice. The character is looking for a nanny (nurse, wet nurse, shepherd, husband) and consistently rejects those whose voice he does not like. He settles on the one with the most beautiful voice, but the choice turns out to be unsuccessful (usually the nurse eats the child, the sick person, the sheep, etc.). 20 32 M195 Two horses: which one is older? The character must guess which of the two horses or cows is older. He does this by knowing the behavioural characteristics of these animals. 19 32 M200 The old donkey carries the young one, ATU 1215. An old man and a boy set off on a journey, taking a donkey with them. They try all the options: only the old man rides the donkey, only the boy rides the donkey, both ride together, both walk alongside the donkey, they drag the donkey behind them. Each time, people make unflattering comments. 26 32 M39a6b The Crooked Tower and the Master's Daughter-in-law The ruler, to whom the master builder went to work, is going to kill or maim him. The master asks to send a person to his house asking him to bring a forgotten instrument or something else. The daughter-in-law understands the true meaning of the request, captivates the messenger and saves her father-in-law. 10 32 M39a6i The servant hid part of the gift, ATU 875A A person sends food or things to another and tells the messenger to give the recipient some words that the messenger does not understand. On the way, he stole or ate some of what he was supposed to bring. From the messenger's words, the recipient understands what exactly was transferred and accuses him of stealing. 23 32 M39aa Misunderstood instructions: a play on words 18 32 M66 The root eaten, J2154 After eating certain foods frivolously or rubbing his body with his spine, the character suffers from itching, diarrhea, or an irrepressible eruption of intestinal gases. 21 32 L126 Bird-demon, ATU 2041. An anthropomorphic character cooks and eats a bird, but the bird cries out from inside his stomach and escapes. The character dies or suffers harm. Cf. motif K132. 16 33 L17a Eyes on the back of the head. A character or creature has an eye or a second pair of eyes on the back of the head or on the back. Cf. motif L17b, "mouth on the back of the head". 20 33 L60 The foundling demon. Several sisters pick up a baby. In their absence, it turns into an adult man, and when they approach, it turns back into a child. Taking on its true form, the demon pursues the sisters. See motif M46a. 10 33 L85c Polukurochka, B171.1, ATU 715. A character with half a body – a hen, a chick. Sometimes it is only a name, and the character's appearance is more anthropomorphic. 17 33 L99 Bring the skewer! Having captured the character, the ogre orders him to bring wood or a spit to roast him. The character deliberately procrastinates, brings the wrong thing, or is helped to escape by some animal. 20 33 M114b1 What is the fattest, sweetest, fastest? When answering the question of what is the sweetest (fattest, fastest, etc.), a clever person names abstract concepts and entities (while a foolish person names specific objects or creatures). 24 33 M127b Jug on a tail, ATU 68A. A character attaches a vessel or part of a vessel to their body, lowers it into the water, and the vessel pulls them along. 25 33 M179 Bark and ice huts, ATU 43. Two zoomorphic characters live nearby, one's house is destroyed, he asks the other to shelter him. Usually he breaks in and drives out the owner, strong animals fear the invader, while weak or small ones drive him away. 16 33 M182b Animals in a sleigh, ATU 158. Animals ask to be taken for a ride in a sleigh. The sleigh breaks down, and the animals bring unsuitable materials from the forest to repair it. While the owner of the sleigh goes into the forest to look for a replacement for the broken shaft (or leaves to chop wood), the animals eat the horse (bull) and leave a stuffed animal in its place. 22 33 M39a8 Drops a door from a tree, (ATU 1653) A fool drags the door from the house with him (usually raises it to a tree and drops it, scaring the crowd under the tree). 26 33 M39e Under which tree? ATU 1543D* When reviewing the dispute, the judge asks about the secondary circumstances of the case. The offender is exposed by showing that he knows (or, on the contrary, does not know) about them. 23 33 M39g1 Jump into pants, ATU 1286 fool does not pull pants or boots over his feet, but jumps in them from above. 26 33 I54 Water creature filled with fish. Inside a snake or other aquatic creature are aquatic animals or live fish; an aquatic monster gives birth to fish, is the master of fish; turns into many fish. 12 33 J25a Son of the grave. The mother dies or is killed. The child in her womb or the newborn baby is buried with her. He comes out of the grave, meets people, returns to the grave, or is found in the entrails of his dead mother. In the end, the child stays with the people. See motif J25. 17 33 K134 Found treasures. A guest is planted with treasure in order to accuse him of theft. 21 33 K27m Obtain an animal of unusual colour. Task: to kill and bring an animal of a certain (often unusual) colour or shape. See motif K27. 24 33 K27x7 The lord of the animals summons them and questions them. On the way to their destination, people meet characters who have power over animals (birds, fish) or demons. They summon the animals (demons) and ask if anyone knows the way to a certain place. Only one person knows, usually the last to appear. 22 33 K29d Drunken elephants. To catch an animal or supernatural character, the water in a reservoir is replaced with wine, honey, etc., or containers with alcohol are left in plain sight. The creature, having lost control of itself, is captured. 18 33 K33f Stream of honey and stream of oil. Sources of at least two valuable liquid edible products (honey, oil, etc.) are available or imagined. Cf. motif N34. 15 33 K33h1 Replace the old ring with a new one. The hero's wife (mother, servant) is unaware of the magical properties of an object kept in the house and exchanges it for something more attractive, but in reality incomparable in value. 23 33 K42 Bird woman kills men. A young bird woman energetically searches among a group of men for one she likes, takes him by force and makes him her husband; she turns into a monster, pursues and kills men, but is ultimately killed herself. 12 33 A12b The frog swallows the sun. During an eclipse or at sunset (marked *), the luminaries are swallowed by a toad or frog. 15 33 A29b The Broken Moon. A character associated with the upper world and a character associated with the earth or the lower world each seek to possess the hero or heroine who is associated with the Moon. 12 33 A47 The sun is born from an egg. The sun is born or emerges from an egg. 11 33 B23 Fire and smoke in defiance of the ban. The deity forbids the use of fire for cooking and punishes those who violate the prohibition. 13 33 B2f Difficult funerals. The character cannot bury the deceased, not knowing how to do it or not finding a place for burial. 11 33 B42g The Great Bear – a hunted animal. The Big Dipper (as a whole or only the dipper) is identified with an animal (animals) pursued by hunters / attacked by other characters. 24 33 B47 The Pleiades and cold. The Pleiades or another group of stars once appeared or regularly cause severe cold. (The heliacal setting of the Pleiades occurs in May-June; in the Northern Hemisphere, they are best seen in winter). 17 33 B56A Crocodile without a tongue. The reptile's tongue is cut off or mutilated (no association with fire). See motif B56. 20 33 E17 The origin of ornamentation. People get the idea of ornamentation of vessels, baskets, bodies, etc., or of a sign system after someone manages to see a pattern on the body of a zoomorphic or supernatural creature or make an imprint of it. 17 33 E33 People from grains. People arise from grains, seeds, dough. 16 33 F54e Unintentional killing of a father. Not knowing who is in front of him, a young man kills his father. 26 33 F64b Incestuous woman. A woman pretends to be someone else in order to seduce her son, brother, daughter or grandson. See motif F64. 21 33 F90 Tragic incest. A brother and sister marry. When the children born of this union learn of their origins, the marriage breaks down (the children kill their parents, the father kills or attempts to kill the children, the parents commit suicide, the wife/sister commits suicide after the death of her husband/brother, the wife/sister leaves her husband/brother). 14 33 G7 Blunt axes. The first ancestors need to cut down a giant tree or (rarely) a rock. Their axes become blunt or break, and/or they obtain a special axe suitable for such work. If not otherwise: a tree with cultivated plants at the top, see motif G5A. 13 33 H27a A hole in the ground where a stake was driven. When creating the earth, a negative character asks a positive character for as much earth as is necessary to prop up a staff, stake. 21 33 H52 The Land of Immortality, ATU 470B. A man finds a land where there is no death. Having decided to visit his native places, he never returns to it. 22 33 I100a Pleiades – family. The Pleiades – a woman or man with children, members of the same family. 25 33 I128 Ursa Major – a ladle. The Big Dipper – a ladle, a scoop. 15 33 I33 The Tree of the Dead. The soul on its journey to the afterlife stops at a certain tree. 24 33 I37A Mushrooms - an inferior object. A mushroom is a substitute for a real object: 1) inferior, imaginary food (people ate mushrooms before the advent of hunting and agriculture; a character offers mushrooms instead of real food; real food appears as a result of the metamorphosis of mushrooms); 2) a preparation for creating or imitating a complete object (fish, birds, animals arise as a result of the metamorphosis of mushrooms; a copy of a lost or non-existent object is made from mushrooms); 3) characters of low status (lice, turtles) are engaged in mushroom picking; 4) the appearance of mushrooms is associated with a violation of the rules of interpersonal relations. See motif I37. 14 33 A22c Sacrifice to the Sun. In order for the sun to rise, move to the right distance from the earth, or follow its heavenly path, a human being must be sacrificed. 14 34 A34 The fox and the moon. The jackal, coyote or fox are associated with the moon (usually with the appearance of lunar spots). 18 34 C6a Diver – turtle/frog. A turtle or toad (frog) brings a desired object from the bottom or from the underworld. 24 34 E20 The origin of fish poison. When a certain person enters the water, the fish die. A plant grows from parts of his body or on his grave, from which fish poison (timbó) is made. 17 34 F18c Girls across the river, K1391. The character sees a girl on the other side of the river and copulates with her in an unusual way (sends his penis across the river; turns it into a bridge for the girl to cross the river; into a dam that blocks the river in front of her; dives, swimming up to the girl underwater; sends an object into the girl's vagina). See motif F18B. 21 34 F42 Men leave. Feeling wronged, men leave their wives or sisters. 17 34 F53 The ugly husband. An unattractive man marries, but hides his face. When he is seen, the marriage is dissolved. 21 34 G8d The fall or growth of a tree threatens the world. A tree (pillar, mountain) is cut down (gnawed, ground down) or prevented from being cut down in order to save the world (or the gods, the king, etc.) from danger. 19 34 I106 The Great Bear is a single character. The Great Bear is one anthropomorphic character, not a group of people. 26 34 I24 Snake bridge. A snake (or fish) forms a bridge across a river. 22 34 L103b Animals carry away from the demon, (ATU 314A*). A girl (boy, children) falls into the hands of a demonic creature. An animal or bird offers to carry her away and runs off. Usually, animals of different species do this, but only the last one manages to escape pursuit. 15 34 L19b2 Nine-headed monster. A creature with nine heads is mentioned – either singly or at the end of a series of creatures with fewer heads. 20 34 L63 Eats with the anus or vagina. The character eats food with the womb or anus. See motif F9A. 21 34 M164 Traces in one direction, ATU 50A. The character refuses to enter the predator's lair when he sees that all the tracks lead inside, but not outside. 25 34 M199e Horse between the legs, ATU 1082. A man and his opponent compete to see who can carry a horse. The opponent struggles to lift the horse, while the man rides it, saying that he easily carried it between his legs. 29 34 M199i Whoever whistles louder, ATU 1084. A man and a giant (devil, bear, etc.) compete to see who can make the loudest sound (whistle, shout, sneeze, etc.). The man blindfolds his opponent and hits him with a heavy object; blows a trumpet; wraps his head so that it does not burst; etc. The opponent admits defeat or refuses to compete. 28 34 M24 The turtle is going to war turtle goes to war and/or is captured. See M23 motif. Cf. motif K77 “Verlioka”. 18 34 M32 Indigestion The character swallows food or water, or his own entrails, pieces of flesh flow out and fall out of his ass. 18 34 M38d6 Bursts with laughter Several characters embody small objects and die one at a time. The last one left laughs and rejoices so much that he bursts with laughter (breaks his head, etc.). 24 34 N11 Like snow and blood, (ATU 709) The character wants to have a child or spouse who is as white and blush as snow (milk) and blood. 17 34 I67 Emu and nandu in the Milky Way. The giant figure of an emu (in Australia) or a rhea (in South America) is visible in the Milky Way. 11 34 I74 Stars – stones. Stars – (bright) stones, sequins, beads. 24 34 I85b The North Star – Man. The North Star – one person. 24 34 I85c Vessels with weather. The character goes up to the sky and finds vessels containing various (two or more) types of precipitation, weather phenomena, seasons and/or celestial bodies. 11 34 I90 Behind the rolling ball. The character goes towards their goal, following a rolling ball of thread (less often an apple or a ball). 25 34 I97 Rainbow horse. Rainbow – hoofed animal (horse, bull, goat, sheep). 25 34 K102a5 Fill the vessel with tears. A woman must fill one or two vessels with tears (less often with blood). Usually, after this, her punishment must end, or the punishment depends on which of the vessels contains more tears. 22 34 K175 The wind blew away the flour, ATU 759C. A man was carrying flour, but the wind blew it away. The man complains to an authoritative figure and usually receives compensation. Cf. motif M57d3 ("The Wind-Giver"). 20 34 K19d A man freezes in the sky. Once in the sky, the husband of the star suffers from the cold. He freezes to death or perishes after touching forbidden fire. 6 34 K32i Two nurses beside a sleeping man, ATU 894. A girl finds the body of a young man who shows no signs of life and must sit next to him for a certain amount of time so that he comes back to life and takes her as his wife. Usually, she leaves at the last moment and an impostor becomes the wife of the revived man. 28 34 K67 Burnt moccasins, K1615. At night, one person intends to throw another person's shoes or clothes into the fire, but ends up burning his own shoes or clothes. Usually, the father-in-law throws his son-in-law's shoes into the fire at night in order to freeze him out, but the son-in-law has already switched shoes, so the father-in-law burns his own. 14 34 K89d Hides, turning into a needle. Left alone in the house or finding herself in a stranger's house, a girl (less often a male character) hides by turning into a needle (a pin) or another tool for sewing or spinning. 16 34 I85c1 Heavenly vessel for rain, A1131.4, A1131.4.1. In the sky there is a vessel, a box or an indescribable container for storing rain (rain clouds). 22 35 J12d Kills a rival. After a girl marries a worthy suitor, the rejected suitor or his relatives kill the rival. See motif J12. 32 35 J48 The parrot cuts the rope. A character climbs up to the sky or descends from the sky to the ground on a rope. A parrot cuts the rope, and the character falls. 7 35 K12b The sorceress's husband breaks the ban, ATU 400(1). The hero enters a world beyond the human world and marries there. His wife allows him to visit his former world, but on certain conditions. The hero breaks these conditions, which leads to (irreparable) misfortune. Cf. motif F94 (the hero betrays his fairy wife in her world); K25a6 (the hero visits his world together with his fairy wife). 22 35 K27zz The Cannibal and the Blinded Wives, ATU 462. A man does not suspect that his (new) wife (less often his mother) is a cannibal/witch/treacherous woman; she persecutes (former) wives (his wife) and/or blinds them or throws them into a pit, or her husband does so at her instigation. Contrary to the cannibal's plans, the son of one of the wives survives, kills the cannibal, and rescues his mother and sisters. 25 35 K32g1 Forty horses or forty knives? The guilty party is offered a choice of items of utilitarian value (often forty, seven, three, etc. horses or the same number of knives). The person usually does not understand that these are methods of execution. 23 35 L120a Dragon tongue and blacksmith's tongs. The hero hides in a smithy from the dragon chasing him. When the monster breaks through and rubs the door (with its tongue), the blacksmith (or the hero himself) burns it (usually clamping its tongue with red-hot tongs or throwing a red-hot club into its mouth). 20 35 L72i Discarded soap. Fleeing for his life, the character throws soap behind him, which turns into an obstacle for his pursuer (a slippery mountain, river, etc.). 22 35 M128 Colourful animals, ATU 1036. Having agreed with his opponent that he would get animals with certain external characteristics or behaving in a certain way, the hero takes all or almost all of them when the livestock is divided. 22 35 M138 The lifespan of humans and animals, ATU 173. At first, everyone was given 20 or 30 years. For animals, this is a long time, but for humans, it is short. Humans received part of the lifespan of animals. 31 35 M176 Test: jumping over an obstacle. The characters agree to jump over a ditch, stream, fire, etc., or walk across a log, rope, etc. One or all of them {specified in brackets} fall. 24 35 M177 And he had no heart, ATU 52. A weak predator eats part of its victim's body and explains to the strong one that this part did not exist at all (otherwise he would not have come to a place where he knew he would be eaten). 24 35 M17b Wife deceives blind man. The wife directs the blind man's arrow at game, lies that he has missed, and eats the meat herself. 22 35 M184 The slow overtakes the sleeping, ATU 275A. The swift-footed and slow characters agree to race each other. The swift-footed is confident of victory and takes his time, while the slow one stubbornly moves towards the goal and arrives first. 25 35 M187c Race: crab/crayfish – participant. Participating in a race, the crab defeats its faster opponent. 25 35 M193a Kolobok, ATU 2025. A woman baked a flatbread (pancake, pie, dough figure). It rolled away (ran away). On its way, it encounters various people and/or animals who want to eat it. It rolls away from each of them, but a fox (rarely another animal) eats it. 28 35 M199g1 Hold on to the handle, ATU 1052. A human (a weaker animal) deceives a strong giant (a demon, a stronger animal). One of the episodes: both carry a tree, the strong man takes hold of the top (by the crown), the man supposedly takes hold of the crown (by the top), but instead sits on the tree carried by the strong man or walks along pretending to support the branches. 30 35 M199n Fill a holey cap with gold, ATU 1130. A man offers a demon to fill his hat, bag, etc. with money. The demon does not notice that there is a hole in the hat and gives the man much more than he intended to give. 26 35 M65b Lost loot Having resorted to deception, the character kills the game, but the thieves take the loot. See M53 motif. 23 35 M84b The dice are thrown into the water An animal, bird or fish that is killed and eaten comes to life after its bones are thrown into the water. See M84 motif. 14 35 B28b Taming of things. The inhabitants of the area where the hero finds himself are afraid of creatures that are tools, utensils, and plants that are now harmless. The hero easily defeats these creatures and usually transforms them into what they are now. 16 35 B43a Created from many objects. The character is created from many materials or objects, or from materials brought from different places. 32 35 C27 Monster under the ice. The monster breaks the ice on a river or lake. Usually people walk on the ice, see a protruding horn (fin), and try to saw it off. The monster breaks the ice, and many people die. 21 35 D11 Food was heated on the body. Before fire was known, food was prepared by warming it with the body (usually under the armpit); fire is kept under the character's armpit. 15 35 E9i2 The magical wife – the duck. Before meeting the hero, his beloved (wife, helper, adopted daughter) takes the form of a duck. 20 35 F14A Birth from stone. An anthropomorphic character emerges from stone. 12 35 F4 Child in a vessel, T561. In the days of the first ancestors, children were conceived not through sexual intercourse, but in vessels, piles of earth, lumps of clay, etc. 21 35 F56 Temptation and incest. Upon seeing the vagina of his mother, daughter, daughter-in-law, sister, niece, or mother-in-law, a man or boy thinks about incest or commits it. 14 35 F6 Hollowed-out vagina. (The first) woman does not have a vagina at first. Usually, it is made for her by a bird, animal, fish, etc. 18 35 G13a People ate earth. Before the advent of cultivated plants (fire, hunting skills), people ate earth, clay, and stones. 12 35 G28 Tree with fish. The tree contains a fish in its trunk. 19 35 H34b The river flows in both directions. Somewhere there is or was a river that flowed or, according to the plan, was supposed to flow in two directions at once. 25 35 H56 The forbidden fruit: people become mortal, C621. After eating certain food, the first humans become mortal or lose their human nature. Cf. motif F97 (humans become sexually mature). 19 35 I131 The thread of life. Every person's life corresponds to a thread; when the thread breaks, the person dies. 23 35 I22b1 Birds perish at the border of our world. Some migratory birds (shamans in the form of birds) die on the border of our world. 25 35 I27c Four-eyed dog. Dogs with two spots above their eyes stand out and are usually called two- or four-eyed. 26 35 A46 The sun and moon arise from the eyes of a creature. The sun and moon (Rigveda: only the sun) emerge from the eyes of an anthropomorphic creature. 20 36 B103 Cornelian cherry. The character thinks that since the cornel blooms earlier than other fruit trees, its fruits will ripen earlier than others. The character is mistaken and is left without fruit. 19 36 B62 Man and vulture. Man believes that vultures live better than humans, changes his appearance to that of a vulture. The former vulture lives with the man's wife, and the man usually does not like his new life. 15 36 C6j Obtaining land in connection with the creation of man. In the same narrative, the story of the creation of man and the attempt to prevent it follows immediately after the story of obtaining earth from the bottom of the sea or from the underworld. 22 36 E29 The lizard makes hands for humans, A1311.1. Two characters (usually a coyote and a lizard) argue about whether human hands should be shaped like paws or end in fingers. 15 36 E30 Wooden substitute spouse. A man has no wife or a woman has no husband, and uses a wooden substitute as a spouse. 16 36 F70e1 Daughter in the role of son, AT 884B. An old man needs a son to do men's work. (Only the youngest) daughter takes on this task (successfully passing the test set by her father), pretending to be a man. 21 36 F74 The naked man pretends to be dead. Upon seeing a dangerous character, a man or woman undresses and pretends to be dead (or the character undresses the woman). Examining and sniffing the supposed corpse, the character finds what he takes to be a wound or signs of decay and leaves. 24 36 F82 Incest with mother-in-law, T417. The son-in-law resorts to trickery to sleep with his mother-in-law, or the mother-in-law with her son-in-law. Usually, the son-in-law insists that his mother-in-law, rather than his wife, accompany him on a hunt. 25 36 H46a The dog and the ear of corn. The possibility of using cereals for food is determined by the behaviour of the dog in the era of creation. See motif H46. 20 36 I113 The piglet – the golden bristle, (ATU 530A). A pig or boar made of gold or with golden bristles is a precious object. (In ATU, "a pig with golden bristles" is one of the possible miraculous objects; the presence of a corresponding number in regional indexes does not necessarily mean the presence of an image; only cases where the image is directly named are taken into account). 15 36 I125 Hyades – animal jaw. Hyades (sometimes, possibly, Pleiades or Orion) – jaw or severed head of a large animal or anthropomorphic creature. 14 36 L100f Guest fleeing from his host, ATU 1741. While the host is away, the guest is told that the host is going to kill or maim him, and imaginary evidence is presented. The returning host tries to stop the fleeing guest, who is convinced that he was warned for good reason. 32 36 L100f1 Lover fleeing from her husband, ATU 1725. A worker (the young son of the master) arranges things so that the food prepared by the mistress for her lover, who is working in the field, goes to the master, and when the master goes to the man, not knowing that he is his wife's lover, the man thinks that the husband is coming to kill him and flees. 34 36 L100g The One-Legged Goose, ATU 785A. A servant serves his master a roasted bird, one of whose legs has already been eaten. He tells him to look at the chickens, geese, etc., which are standing on one leg. When they run away, it becomes clear that they all have two legs. Usually, the servant says that if the master had scared the roasted goose, it would have shown its second leg too. 29 36 L108c White Hand. To prevent the victim from recognising him and opening the door, the predator, the cannibal, shows part of his clothing, his hand, his paw, making the victim believe that his mother, teacher, etc. has come. 19 36 L116a Doe with golden horns. While chasing a roe deer (fallow deer, deer), the hero finds himself in the lair of a demon or wizard; the roe deer is an enchanted person or demon. 25 36 L15c Who is afraid of what (hero and adversary). A dangerous character asks the hero how he can be killed, what he is afraid of. The hero lies, saying that the named object does not harm him. 20 36 L15c1 The righteous adversary suffers damage. A dangerous character naively reveals what he fears or what his life consists of, and the hero takes advantage of this. 22 36 L1b1 The female demon and her brothers. A woman comes into conflict with her brothers and turns into a dangerous demon. 24 36 L20a The parrot devourer. A man climbs a tree, takes chicks (usually parrots) from a nest and throws them to a woman. She eats them raw, then kills or tries to kill the man. 12 36 L37b1 Toad under a stone. To cure a sick person or rid a house of other misfortunes, one must kill (catch, expel) a toad, frog or snake hiding in the house (in the garden, under the roots). 23 36 L39d Give an apple to someone. A boy climbs a tree to pick fruit. A demonic character asks him to share, but not to throw the fruit on the ground, but to pass it from hand to hand. He grabs the boy and carries him away. 17 36 M120a Weeping corpse eater, ATU 37, Th. K931. The character pretends to be a mourner and eats (treats the body disrespectfully) the deceased. 15 36 M137 A weak predator imitates a strong one, ATU 47D. A weaker predator tries to imitate a stronger one, but cannot perform the actions that the strong one performs easily. 27 36 M181 Two people are going to a festival. Two characters are invited to a festival. (On the way and) upon arriving at the destination, one deceives the other. 18 36 M199a Squeezing brains out of the ground. A man buried something soft and liquid in the ground, and when he stamped on it (shot an arrow into it) and the buried object splashed onto the surface, he said that he had squeezed the brain (innards) out of the earth. 15 36 M38b Silly wives imitate a sorceress, ATU 898 The first wife, rejected or taken later than others, performs certain actions with the help of magic. Other wives try to imitate her but are killed, maimed, or disgraced. 28 36 M39a6a Clever daughter-in-law and captive khan After a long search, the ruler finds an intelligent wife for his son. At the mercy of his enemies, he sends a message with one of them, the true content of which is understood only by his daughter-in-law. She destroys enemies and frees her father-in-law. (The boys have a younger wife instead of an intelligent daughter-in-law). 16 36 M3a Count the inhabitants of the waters The character invites aquatic creatures to count them, and to do this, form a chain; crosses it to the other side or climbs to land. See M3 motif. 17 36 M84a A revived goat After supernatural characters put the bones of a dead and eaten deer, cow, ram, or goat in its skin, the animal is whole (and usually comes to life). See M84 motif. 29 36 I48a Those who fell through the earth. The hero's adversary descends into the underworld. 24 36 I85a1 The North Star – a hole in the sky. The North Star – a hole leading to the upper world. 14 36 K100f2 The thirst-quenched breaks his chains. A captured supernatural character breaks his chains and escapes to freedom after being given water (or wine, etc.) to drink. 22 36 K107b Prohibition on lighting candles. One spouse forbids the other from seeing them. When the other willingly or unwillingly breaks the prohibition, the first disappears (gets into trouble). (In the Tuscan version, the prohibition is broken by the woman's mother). 20 36 K27x1 The invisible servant ("Bring me that, I don't know what"), (ATU 465A). Having received a difficult task (usually: to bring an object or creature that has no specific characteristics, such as "something, I don't know what," "a strange wonder," etc.), the hero meets an invisible man who serves others; he is kind to him, and the man becomes his assistant. (This motif is certainly present in some texts of the ATU 465A plot, but it is not specifically highlighted in the definition). (Cf. motif K131B). 21 36 K27x6 The stars and the wind guide the hero. Setting out in search of a marriage partner, the hero or heroine successively encounters the embodiments (masters) of celestial bodies and atmospheric phenomena (the sun, moon, stars, wind). 18 36 K58 Canal builder. To win the hand of his beloved, the character builds a canal or aqueduct or digs a well. Usually, the woman does not end up marrying the person who completed the work, and either she herself or the suitor perishes. 7 36 K6 Rope made from bodily secretions. A vine or rope emerges from tears, snot, urine, saliva, and chewed substance. See motif K1A. 14 36 K61c1 Overheard secret of a demon, (ATU 500, ATU 1091A). A person will die if they cannot find the answer to the demon's question. A person or their acquaintance accidentally learns the answer by overhearing the demon talking to himself or to another demon. See motif C29. 29 36 K64b Sticky object. The hero's opponent provokes him to touch an object that turns out to be sticky. The hero sticks to the object (see Miller 1890: 41). See motif K64. 22 36 K75a3 Groom. Appearing incognito to an authoritative character, the hero works for him as a groom. 23 36 K77b2 Weapons of the goat. The goat (goat, ram, etc.) responds to the predator's questions in the sense that parts of its body are weapons and other objects designed to kill the questioner, or that the goat is actually armed. 20 36 K80a3 To the forest for berries. Members of the same family (girls, young women or children) go to the forest to pick berries and kill (bewitch) the one who is the object of their envy. 8 36 K8c1 Swallowed by a herbivore, then by a wolf. A tiny man is first accidentally swallowed by a large herbivore, then carried off by a wolf that began to eat the carcass of this animal. 24 36 K91 The invisible battle. Dogs, the hero's horse, or the hero himself fight the enemy in the underworld. Those watching from a distance judge the course of the battle by the colour of the water or foam rising to the surface, the colour of the first animal to emerge, etc. 23 36 N22 Alive if they didn't die fairy-tale text ends with a formula that says that if the characters are not dead, they are still alive. {Motive at work, more data}. 17 36 N3 Hungry fingers One finger says he's hungry and/or offers to steal something. The rest of the fingers express their opinion on this matter. 19 36 K97 Tested fear, ATU 537. A man prepares to kill a large bird, but does not kill it. When the bird later carries him, it pretends to leave him on a rock or throw him down. In doing so, it makes it clear how frightened it was. Either the bird first drops and catches the man, and later he makes her experience fear herself (the Volyn variant is slightly different). 30 37 L37a2 Who will become a ferryman. A man comes to ask God (fate, the sun, etc.) questions that he was asked to ask by those he met along the way. Someone asks when he will be freed from his duties. Answer: let him leave another person in his place. 23 37 L42c Inside the house, outside the house. The character hides from someone stronger, sometimes inside the house, sometimes outside, and the stronger character cannot catch him. 18 37 L44a Give me your liver! The demon demands that the man hiding in the shelter give him parts of his body. The man gives the demon parts of the body of a dead animal. The demon does not understand the deception and dies, giving parts of his own body in return. 14 37 L58 The stingy man. A man refuses to give food to his closest relatives or spouse; as punishment, he or his food changes its nature. 17 37 L5f The good skull. Head, face or skull – a woman's husband, fiancé or son; not dangerous to her, brings wealth, saves from hunger, etc. 21 37 M13 God does as he is asked, ATU 750A, 775. A person appeals to higher powers with a request, without considering that his words may have a different meaning than he intended. Either a person accidentally utters the wrong word or accidentally and hastily expresses an empty or absurd desire. As a result, something happens that he did not want at all. Cf. motifs I58B and M13A.Most of the references in ATU 775 (Midas' short-sighted wish) are either incorrect or impossible to verify. In connection with this plot, the reference to Uther 2000 is taken into account only for the Lithuanian variant, since there is a summary of the Latvian one, and for the Greek one, since the motif exists in Ancient Greece and among the neighbouring South Slavs. For ATU 750A, the reference to Bäcker 1988 in connection with the "Chinese" is incorrect; these are Manchus, not Chinese, and the stated motif is not present in the text. 19 37 M173a Returning for the second boot (ATU 1525D). A character throws one of a pair of objects onto the path of another. The traveller passes by, but when the deceiver throws the second object, he leaves his belongings and returns for the first. At this time, the deceiver steals the belongings. 29 37 M187 Race: snail – participant. Participating in a race, a snail (mollusc, sea cucumber, etc.) defeats a faster opponent. 18 37 M198a3 Who stole the ruby? One of the brothers secretly takes valuables belonging to all of them or is illegitimate. The brothers come to an authoritative figure to determine who is the thief or illegitimate child. Usually, the figure tells a story and determines the culprit based on the reaction of those who have come. 18 37 M81c Blind people in the sky A person goes to heaven or (rarely) to the lower world, where he meets blind people (one or two), usually makes them sighted, and returns to earth himself. 18 37 A32 Figure on the lunar disc, A751. A figure or imprint of some creature or object is visible on the lunar disc. Statistical calculations also include motifs A32A – A32J (a rabbit, frog, predatory animal, human, tree, etc. are visible on the moon). 18 37 B85b Wind in a bag. The wind was or is in a small container, released from it or flying out of it from time to time. 24 37 F20 Lovers stuck together. After copulation, the man and woman are unable to break their embrace. 22 37 F65c The imaginary dead man: the boy reveals the deception. A man pretends to be dead (in order to marry his daughter or to be able to eat the meat of hunted animals alone). One of his younger children recognises their (adoptive) father or notices that the supposed dead man is alive (he runs away from the funeral pyre, laughs, etc.). 22 37 G1 The stolen child. In order to acquire or regain values (land, soil, cultivated plants, sun, fire, shamanic knowledge, luck), people lure or steal the son or daughter of a certain character. 13 37 G3 Rock of plenty. Cultivated plants or fertile soil for their cultivation are hidden inside the rock. Birds or thunder gods pierce a hole in the rock. 12 37 G8c They cut down a tree to get valuables. The first ancestors try to cut down a tree (less often a high rock) to get useful plants hanging on the branches (at the top) or water or fish in the trunk. The damage disappears as soon as the workers are distracted from their work, or periodically. 18 37 H36g False news: how many times to dine. God sends a messenger to the people to tell them to eat infrequently (once a day, once every three days, etc.). The messenger says that one should eat often – at least two or three times a day. 12 37 I130 Heavenly net. One of the constellations – a hunting or fishing net, a seine, a trap, a snare. 22 37 I35a1a Insulting a deity. The character considers himself equal to the deity, imitating him, mocking him or trying to kill him. 17 37 I81 Waters fall into the abyss. Earthly waters fall into the abyss. 26 37 I88 The multi-tailed beast. Describes a creature with several tails. 18 37 J28a The truth about the father. When asking how one of his parents died, the hero receives a series of false answers. He often exposes himself to the same dangers, but remains alive, proving the falsity of the proposed versions. 16 37 K102a3 Dead tooth. Someone (usually a woman) places a poisonous tooth (bone, nail, etc.) in the hero's bed. The young man dies, but is then revived. 18 37 K103a The tree raises its branches. A suddenly grown plant (tree, vine, lotus) bends (raises its branches, etc.), allowing only the hero or heroine to climb it or pick its fruits (flowers). 25 37 K14d Imaginary crime, (ATU 910A). Testing his wife (household member, acquaintance), a man pretends to have committed a crime or performs incomprehensible actions that could be interpreted as a crime. Usually, his wife (friend) betrays him, and he presents evidence of his innocence. 24 37 K160 Getting Satan's Hair, ATU 461. The hero is given the task of bringing back the hair, feathers, scales, etc. of a dangerous character. He does this with the help of the character's wife or mother. 25 37 K1i Tree for descending from a cliff. Near the cliff, at the bottom of the pit, or in the underworld, a tree, reed, or vine grows, which the character uses to descend or climb to the ground. 12 37 K38e1 The Copper Forest, (ATU 511). Characters pass through a forest with metal trees of two or more types (copper, silver, etc.). 23 37 K53 Animal skins – a means of transformation. A character temporarily transforms into an animal or bird of a certain species by putting on its skin, or skins taken along with them come to life and serve the hero. 18 37 I6a Male and female: different types of precipitation. The male and female of a huge bird carry different types of precipitation (for example, the eagle carries snow, and the eagle carries rain). Or (Buryats of Mongolia) the same bird carries different types of precipitation depending on whether it is angry or not. See motif i6. Traditions associated with Na-Dene languages are highlighted in italics in the list. 32 38 J19 The sinister guest: the death of a woman. While her husband or brother is hunting, an evil spirit comes to his wife or sister; he kills her or takes her away. Her sons, who were torn from her womb or born at that time, are saved. 22 38 K100d The helper turns out to be a prince, ATU 314. At the end of the story, the animal helper (horse, lion, etc.) turns into a prince (princess) itself. 18 38 K27z6 The Stone of Patience, ATU 894. Having fallen victim to injustice and endured suffering, a young woman tells her story to certain inanimate objects (often a "stone of patience"), or her husband tells the story after learning of his wife's fate. The woman is saved, justice is restored. 27 38 K27zy The hero between two cannibals. A young man (woman) lives in the house of a cannibal (witch). In order to destroy him or her, the cannibal orders that a certain object be brought from other cannibals (often from his or her mother or sister). The hero or heroine escapes (and destroys all the cannibals). 23 38 K33a8 The heroine is transformed into a dove. A woman transformed into a dove by the machinations of a rival tries to establish contact with her children or husband. 22 38 K59 Osiris's chest. One person places another in a box and closes the lid, or ties the other to a board, a boat, etc., and throws them into the water. The coffin (box, board) is nailed to a distant land, where the captive is freed. Usually, he returns and takes revenge on his enemy. 22 38 K75c The Unwashed Woman, ATU 361. The devil promises a person wealth if he does not wash (cut his hair, etc.) for a certain period of time; both keep their promises. 32 38 L27a One is eaten, the other runs away. Sisters or a brother and sister find themselves in the same house with an antagonist, whose cannibalism they only suspect or do not know about at all. Trying to hide his actions, the cannibal eats one of the children. The other child or children run away, and the antagonist pursues them. Usually the antagonist is female, and if male, he has no sexual interest in his victims. (In the Central Andes, the plot may have been borrowed in the 19th century from Chinese migrants; see motifs J47, M21). 9 38 L40b Absurd actions aimed at luring a character out. To make the character come closer, absurd actions are performed in front of him. The character does not understand the deception and comes closer to explain how to act correctly. 21 38 L43 Dangerous characters devour refuse. Characters dangerous to the hero (demons, robbers, merchants) mistake excrement, insects, snakes and other disgusting things (not intended for food) for something pleasant (edible). 26 38 L49 Parts of the body fall down. Individual parts or pieces of a character's body are successively thrown down. (In American variants, those below usually mistake them for game, honey, or fish). 20 38 L5h A severed head stuck in a hole. Two sisters or two brothers find themselves in the demon's house or in front of an obstacle. One of them crawls through a narrow hole. The other gets stuck. The brother or sister pulls him or her by the head, and the head is torn off. 12 38 L72h The abandoned flint. Fleeing for his life, the character throws behind him a tool for kindling fire (flint, tinder, match, kindling), which becomes an obstacle in the path of his pursuer. (A discarded flint is counted if it serves to strike fire, and is not counted if it is simply a hard stone that turns into a mountain). 14 38 M119 Shown repeatedly, ATU 37. A character repeatedly shows another person the same object or creature; the other person believes that there are as many objects or creatures as the character has shown them. Usually, the character takes care of the other person's young, eats them or they die due to his negligence, or he is hired as a shepherd and eats the other person's livestock. When checked, he shows the parent (the owner of the herd) the same un-eaten young (or the same sheep), and the parent believes that all the young (animals) are safe. In ATU, this is plot 37, but two other plots are included as variants, and the sources are indicated for all three collectively. 25 38 M199f Threat to wrinkle the lake with a rope, ATU 1045(1). The character pretends to want to deprive the devils (water dwellers) of their habitat (pull the shores of the lake together, two mountains, muddy the lake, dry up the sea, build a church on the land of the devils, etc.). To avoid this, the devils (fish) comply with the character's demands. 23 38 N34 Honey and oil Streams (jets) that consist not of water but of honey (honey and butter, butter and milk, milk and blood) are mentioned as signs of generosity and abundance. Cf. H16 motives - H16B, K33F. 19 38 A16 Dangers on the path of the sun. Every night, the sun passes by creatures or objects that try to swallow or destroy it. 25 38 B42h1 The arrow pierced the animal. In the plot of cosmic hunting, one of the astral objects is identified with an arrow or bullet, and it is emphasised that it struck an animal or three animals, which are identified with Orion's Belt. {In the Khoisan variants, it is emphasised that the arrow did not reach its target}. 17 38 D8 Predator and fire. The first fire (or summer) is stolen from a large predator – a lion or leopard in Africa, a tiger in Asia, a bear in northern Asia and North America, and a jaguar in South America. 19 38 F87a The snake wife and her children: transformation into birds. A snake crawls onto the clothes of a girl bathing, climbs down in exchange for a promise to marry him, and takes her to the underwater world. She is happy there and gives birth to children. Together with them, she visits her relatives. They call the snake out of the water and kill it. After that, the wife transforms her children and/or herself into birds. 12 38 G23b Ethnic groups from body parts. People from different ethnic groups arise from parts of the creature's body, or people from different groups receive their names (and characteristics) depending on which parts of the creature's body they have received. 16 38 H36c The lizard betrays man. The lizard is to blame for the fact that man is mortal. See motif H36. 26 38 I120b Taking something out of an animal's ear. The character takes food, clothing, and other valuables from the ear of an animal (most often a horse or cow). 25 38 A11b One-eyed luminaries. The sun or moon has one eye (usually the second eye is knocked out or sucked out, but sometimes the reason is not explained; among the Munduruku, the sun of the rainy season has lost both eyes, while the sun of the dry season has retained both). See motif 11A. 23 39 A2c Extra suns – children of the chief, A736.1.4.1. The extra suns that existed in the past or may appear in the future are the children of the Sun-father. See motif A2A. 16 39 B115 Evergreen trees. Conifers and some other trees and shrubs (small shrubs) became evergreen after the elixir of immortality was accidentally spilled on them. Cf. motif H6b. 20 39 B46a Separated star of the Pleiades. One of the stars of the Pleiades was separated from the others (usually stolen by the stars of the Big Dipper and identified with Alcor). 22 39 B70 Hare ears. A man beats defenseless hares, foxes, and other small animals (one or many) that are usually locked in his house. The story explains the colouring of the tips of the ears and tails of these animals. Cf. motif M45A. 14 39 B73b In search of a family member. Two teenagers or young people are looking for each other, calling out to each other (or one of them is calling the other): a girl is looking for her missing (deceased) brother or brother's wife; a brother is looking for his sister or brother; young parents are looking for their child; one or both of those calling out turn into birds with a characteristic call. 16 39 C10 The Flood: Wet Tails, A2211.1. During the flood, some birds or animals escape to a mountain, a tree, a boat, or by clinging to the sky; their tails or other parts of their bodies remain in the water and as a result acquire their current colour or shape. Cf. A2211.7 ("During the flood, birds cling to the sky; their tails acquire their current colour"). 22 39 C35 The cosmic marriage will not take place. It becomes known that if characters representing natural phenomena and parts of the universe marry, it will lead to disaster. The marriage is broken off. 18 39 E38b People from a pumpkin. After a global catastrophe or at the beginning of time, a pumpkin appears on earth, from which the ancestors of humans emerge. 17 39 E9d The magical wife – the dog. Before meeting the hero, his beloved (wife, helper) has the image of a dog or puppy (wolf cub). 26 39 F14 Son of a man and a stone. The hero is born as a result of the union of a man with a stone or rock. 15 39 F18a Long penis. The penis of a male character is much longer than normal or becomes so. During intercourse, it usually crawls towards the woman like a snake. (Only texts with a focus on authenticity are included, not anecdotes). 23 39 F64a Describes the future spouse. Leaving or pretending to be dying, the character gives instructions to a relative regarding what he or she should do to get married, indicating a partner with certain characteristics, or the character indicates the place of a future meeting with this partner; or (Philippines) describes a person who should be accepted as a guest; comes himself under the guise of the person mentioned. See motif F64. 35 39 F76 Animals teach love. People learn how to make love by watching birds, fish or animals mating; animals teach people how to make love or arouse desire in them. 20 39 F97 Forbidden fruit: people become sexually mature, C621. After eating certain foods, people become sexually mature and/or lose their body hair or skin. Cf. motif H56 (people become mortal). 21 39 H1c Trampled grave. People cease to be reborn (or no longer come to the living) after the deceased is buried in the ground for the first time or someone tramples the earth on a fresh grave, preventing the deceased from rising from the grave. 21 39 H7c Unfinished prayer, ATU 1199. Death promises to take a man after he finishes his prayer or song (formerly ATU 1199B). The man breaks off his prayer (song) in the middle, and Death cannot take him. 33 39 L4b Blood cannot be washed away. The character learns about the violation of the prohibition to enter a certain room, as evidence of this has been preserved on the body of the heroine (hero) or on an object in her (his) hands (often blood on a key or an apple). 24 39 L65d The younger sister of the cannibal. When the older sister becomes a cannibal, the younger sister (temporarily) escapes. Cf. motifs L1B, L65C. 24 39 L86 Children run away from their demon mother. Having turned into a demon, a woman pursues her children. Cf. motif K102a2: A mother seeks to destroy her son (children) because he interferes with her love affair and/or sides with his father in a conflict between his parents. 20 39 M105 The supposedly murdered mother. The character hides his mother (wife, mother-in-law), but tells another that he has killed or sold her, or demonstratively leads her away to be sold, but lets her escape. See motif M104. 38 39 M135 Two Rams and a Wolf, ATU 122K*. Two ungulates – usually after the wolf agrees to share the meadow between them – gore the predator from both sides, killing or maiming it. 35 39 M144 The King's Drum, ATU 49A. One character manages to convince another that dangerous and inedible objects are attractive and delicious (a wasp's nest is a drum, a snake is a flute, dung is a delicacy, etc.). 22 39 M29X2 Trickster other creatures See the motives in square brackets. 27 39 M39i The Hangman's Treasure, ATU 910D After going broke, a person decides to hang himself, but finds gold (specially put by the father where his son hangs). 27 39 M44c Food thieves are a young hero A young hero steals the older character's food. He is usually caught, but not punished, but invited into the house. 18 39 M56b Bring tears and skins A weak character is tasked with bringing the skin (paw, tears, etc.) of animals that are stronger than him or are difficult to catch. He cunningly performs the task. Usually a rabbit or hare completes the task, but does not receive the reward he expected. {In the New World, the motive is from African Americans}. 24 39 I47 The rainbow as a stream of secretions. The rainbow smells disgusting, is associated with foul-smelling animals, is a stream of excretions, is associated with the lower body, causes inflammation or skin diseases, and is associated with death. 15 39 I82i Venus – Zahra/Zura. The name of the object in the night sky (usually Venus) sounds like Zukhra, Zahra, Zura, etc. 20 39 J15a Woman among the Jaguars. Setting off on a journey (usually in search of a fiancé, husband, or relatives), a woman finds herself in the lair or settlement of large dangerous predators - pumas or jaguars. See motif J15. 34 39 j1b Heroic avengers - with a missing or altered plot start: it is unclear whether the characters with whom the heroes live are their real or adoptive parents; the hero's mother herself tries to destroy him in infancy. Heroic avengers - with a missing or altered plot start: it is unclear whether the characters with whom the heroes live are their real or adoptive parents; the hero's mother herself tries to destroy him in infancy. 11 39 K168 Imaginary life in an instant, ATU 664*, 681. A person experiences an eventful long period of life. Everything turns out to be an illusion, and he finds himself back in the same place and at the same moment in time from which the story began. 24 39 K1B Trap: abandoned woman. A woman is lured onto a tree, rock or island and left there. 20 39 K33a1 Born in a well, T581.2.0. A woman is thrown into a well (pond, pit, etc.) or becomes a water bird. In the water, she gives birth to a child (twins, triplets) or is thrown into the water with her baby. She is rescued along with her children. 24 39 K38e2 The collapsed kingdom. Returning from the underworld to earth, the princess places the objects surrounding her (clothes, house, "kingdom") into a small object (egg, ball of yarn, etc.), which she takes with her. 18 39 K67e Before the First Cuckoo, ATU 1029. Someone promises to fulfil their duties until they hear a bird singing at a certain moment in a temporal cycle (annual or daily). Another character imitates the bird. The first recognises the deception. 35 39 K69 Pilgrims to the deity. Several men walk towards the horizon to ascend to the sky and visit the Sun or another supreme deity. Usually, one or more of them perish along the way, while others reach their destination. They return by a shorter route than they came. 20 39 K75a1 The younger brother-in-law's place is in the barn. The ruler orders his youngest daughter (and her chosen husband) to live in conditions that do not correspond to her status. He does not know that her chosen one is not a poor wretch, as he seems, but a mighty warrior and a handsome man. 26 39 M9 Trapped in a hollow The character puts his head or hand in a hollow or (rarely) another hole), gets stuck in it, or falls into a hollow. Usually, as a result, the character dies or undergoes a metamorphosis. 21 39 M91c5 Unprofitable sale, ATU 1551 The person himself or his little son goes to the bazaar to sell a cow (or another large pet). The crook convinces him that it is a sheep (or another animal that is smaller and cheaper). Each of the crook's friends confirms the score or gives an even lower grade. A man at a loss sells a cow for the price of a sheep. 34 39 M100 Dream on the edge of a cliff, ATU 10***. Zoomorphic characters lie down to sleep on the edge of a cliff. At night, one of them suggests moving (turning), and his companion (companions) falls and breaks. 18 40 M154a The ox, the donkey and work, ATU 207A. One of the domestic animals (usually a donkey) persuades another to pretend to be sick. After that, the advisor has to work for both of them. Then he tells the pretend sick animal that the owner is going to slaughter him, and the animal rushes to work. 32 40 M157a3 The demand to milk the bull. A character demands that another provide him with offspring or milk from a male animal. 22 40 M29a1 Raven(s) - main trickster In three or more different episodes related to deception, absurd, obscene or anti-social behavior the protagonist is raven (crow) 22 40 M29o1 A monkey is a loser and a loser As a result of its stupidity or antisocial behavior, the monkey dies or suffers damage. See the motives in square brackets. 32 40 M30b Birds take the feathers they have given Birds give a non-flying or ugly character feathers so that he can fly or become beautiful, but then take them away. 20 40 M38c1 Converting old to young: an unsuccessful imitation, ATU 753 The character (supposedly) forges a person, rejuvenating or reviving him, the other unsuccessfully tries to imitate him. 29 40 M39e1 Iron eaten and boy kidnapped, ATU 1592, 1592A A person appropriates property. The owner or his assistant puts the kidnapper in such a position that he is forced to return everything (usually the victim kidnaps the child of the deceiver). {Apparently, all references in Ting 1978 do not refer to Chinese, but to Tibetans; Uther 2004 refers to the Dagestan text in Levin 1978, No. 52, but it is not clear which group we are talking about; there is also a deaf reference to the “Code of Japanese fairy tales - Tsukan”, it needs to be checked}. 31 40 M57a1 Where it comes, there's gold When a beautiful woman walks on the ground, jewels appear under her feet, flowers bloom, etc. 20 40 M60a The hunter comes to the one he wounded The creature/character runs away or swims away with a hook, harpoon, arrow, or other object thrown by the hero in his body. Local shamans can't heal an existence/character. The hero or his friend comes to the wounded man's village, takes out the object that caused the injury, or drives him even deeper into the body. The patient recovers or dies accordingly. See L105 and M60 motifs. 32 40 D13f Laughter and fire. Laughter causes the appearance or spread of fire or the sun. Usually, the owner of fire or the sun loses it after bursting into laughter. 11 40 D4c Obtaining summer. Characters obtain the warm season from its original owners. 17 40 F25 The reason for menstruation: someone else's blood. Women have been stained with someone else's or their own blood, or with blood-like paint, ever since women began menstruating. 23 40 F29 A girl sits on the ground. A girl (woman) sits on the ground and copulates with a snake, worm or eel that crawls out of the ground towards her. This usually happens when she is busy with housework (cooking, weaving, etc.). 17 40 I13d Wintering with snakes, ATU 672D. A person enters the dwelling of snakes, spends a long time there, is released or escapes. While in the dwelling of snakes, he usually licks a stone that relieves thirst and hunger. 35 40 I35a1 Challenging the thunderer. The character claims the role of the thunder god and imitates him. 21 40 I51b Earth – animal. The earth or sky is perceived as a large mammal or created from parts of its body. 20 40 I8c Suspended Earth. The earth is prevented from falling or swaying because it is tied with ropes. 23 40 J59a Flight after the arrow, D1092, D1526.1. After shooting an arrow (rarely: throwing a ball), a person flies on it, behind it or in front of it, or sends another person on the flying arrow. Cf. motif J59. 20 40 J9 Children from their mother's womb show her the way. Even before they are born, children speak from their mother's womb, showing her the way. 16 40 K102b Ride for the last time, B184.1.6. In order to destroy the hero (heroine), the antagonist must first get rid of his beloved animal (usually a horse). When the animal is about to be slaughtered, the hero (heroine) mounts it, rides away and escapes. 27 40 K147 The horse brings the hero's remains, and he is revived. The enemy dismembers the hero's body. The remains are tied to the horse's saddle, or the horse itself picks them up and brings them to friendly characters. They revive the hero. 20 40 K23 Battle with birds. Birds attack inhabitants of another world or a person who has entered another world. See motif K22. 32 40 K27n3c The one who gives tasks – a zoomorphic creature. A character who gives the hero difficult tasks or subjects him to trials is associated with a land or water animal or a fish. See motif K27. 35 40 K27ss Overtake (an old) woman. A strong man must overtake a woman, often an old woman. This is difficult or impossible to achieve. 24 40 K35a3 The master becomes a servant. In order to obtain the privileges enjoyed by the hero, the deceiver manages to swap status with him. 25 40 K35c1 Better the one you love (ATU 677). The young man is not killed, but rewarded, because he answered correctly (evasively) the question of a powerful character – which of the two women he should marry, which is more beautiful, which object or material is more valuable, etc. 23 40 K38b3 The hero cares for the chicks. A powerful bird or other flying creature helps a person for taking care of its chicks/offspring: feeding them, sheltering them, decorating them, etc. 20 40 K61d From work became a beetle, ATU 501. A young woman accidentally gives her fiancé, husband or mother-in-law the impression that she works a lot. To prevent the deception from being revealed, she or someone else makes others believe that women's work makes them ugly or turns them into animals. The husband forbids his wife to work. 33 40 I8e Four hold up the world. The sky or the earth is supported by four anthropomorphic male characters located at the four cardinal points. 28 41 K114 Brothers leave after the birth of their sister (ATU 451). Several brothers leave home immediately after or shortly before their mother gives birth to a girl (usually they want a brother and wait for news about who their mother has given birth to, but accidentally or maliciously a signal is given that a boy has been born). The girl grows up and goes in search of her brothers. 31 41 K27o3 Competition between two teams. Two groups of characters compete in overcoming trials or play a game, divided into two teams (at least two episodes with different characters on both sides). The participants are either anthropomorphic but possess different unusual abilities, or they are different animals (natural phenomena, elements, etc.). Cf. motif K27xy (Characters with different properties in opposing camps). 25 41 K27xy Characters with different properties in the enemy camp. Several men (animals), each of whom can do something better than the others, work together to accomplish difficult tasks set before them by their opponents. The competition is not intended to find a worthy suitor for a girl or to get rid of an unwanted suitor. Cf. motif K27o3 (Competition between two teams). 19 41 K27y Obtaining material for arrows. The hero is sent or, knowing the danger, goes himself to obtain various (at least two) materials for making a bow and arrows (shafts, feathers, bowstring, flint for arrowheads, paint for colouring arrows, resin and fibres for attaching the arrowhead or feather to the shaft, etc.). See motif K27. 25 41 K47b The dog becomes handsome. A woman marries a man who originally had the appearance of a dog. The birth of children from a dog is not essential to the plot. 22 41 K73a7 Miraculous children: a sister with two brothers. A woman gives birth to three (not two or many) miraculous children – two boys and a girl. They grow up and triumph over their enemies. 22 41 L121 The hunter and his werewolf wife. An animal or cannibal (man-eater) transforms into a woman and marries a hunter with the sole intention of killing him. Usually, the wife takes on her true form when she goes into the forest with the hunter. 15 41 L131 Your children are burning (all versions). To get rid of a demonic creature or make a bird or ladybird fly away, they are told that the place where their home and/or children are located is engulfed in fire. 17 41 L33f The nightjar breaks the rock. A rock or boulder pursues a character. The character calls for help, and the nightjar splits the rock into pieces. 17 41 L95b Together with the demon against the child. Having promised to give the child to the demon, the mother or father does not try to save him or her, but arranges for the child to fall into the demon's hands. Against all odds, the son or daughter is saved.[1] Motif L85 "Half-creatures, F525" (the character has only half a body (vertically) or only one leg, which does not prevent him from moving) [AKB]. See also text No. 35.[2] Voracity is a characteristic feature of šǝʔōl in Is 5:14, Hab 2:5, Pr 1:12, Ps 141:7 (see Gaster 1950:189, O’Callahan 1954:169). 23 41 M165 A coat for a wolf, ATU 102. One zoomorphic character promises another to sew a coat (boots), asks him to bring sheep, eats them, and does not sew anything. 25 41 M178 The Lying Goat, ATU 212. The owner successively sends others to graze the goat (herd of goats). The goat eats grass to its heart's content, but each time replies to the owner that it has been kept on a starvation diet. The owner is outraged and kills or drives away the shepherds. Convinced of the goat's deceitfulness, he decides to kill it. Either the owner begins to skin the live goat, or the goat runs away. In most versions, both motifs are combined. 31 41 M203 The Great Pan is dead, ATU 113A. A supernatural being conveys a message to an unknown recipient through a passer-by. By fulfilling the request, the person provokes an unexpected reaction from another supernatural being (usually living in his house). Most of the material was collected by K.Yu. Rakhno. 20 41 M29p Trickster vs Spider See the motives in square brackets. 21 41 M39a6f Sell and return the sheep The father tells his son to sell the sheep (goat) and return it along with the proceeds. Usually a girl teaches how to sell trimmed wool. 21 41 M39a8a Drops a heavy object from a tree A fool or buffoon climbs a tree taking a heavy objects with him and then drops it frightening those who are under the tree 28 41 M45 The predator pretends to be dead When a zoomorphic character falls asleep or pretends to be dead (seriously ill), the animals he usually hunts gather to meet him. He catches or kills them, or they run away at the last minute. 22 41 M46b A born infant The character turns into a tiny object or creature, swallowing or touching which a woman (usually a virgin) becomes pregnant and gives birth to a boy. He steals valuables or gets along with a woman. See M46 motif. 27 41 M97 A blind man asks trees, D1313.4. Blinded or far from the target, the character walks, bumping into trees of various species and asking everyone a question or request. He eventually achieves his goal. 23 41 N4 Fused ribs Fused ribs are a sign of heroic strength. {The motive was highlighted and the material was collected by Kostyantin Rahno}. 17 41 B44e Dialogue of the first ancestors. First ancestors (usually birds or animals) argue with each other about the length of time periods in the calendar or daily cycle, or about the desirability of the dominance of cold and dark or warm and light times. See motif B44. 38 41 B68 Giant hazel grouse. The giant hazel grouse became small – it was usually torn into pieces, which turned into the current hazel grouse. 19 41 C33a The restored chain. Throughout the year, someone tries to saw through or break the chain or rope that holds him or another character. On a certain day of the year, when the chain has become completely thin, it is restored to its former state, or the pole to which the chain is attached is reinserted into the ground. Cf. motif G8d. 21 41 D13A Obscene dance for the Sun. To amuse the owner of fire or the Sun, others dance indecently, imitate copulation, display their genitals, or publicly relieve themselves. 18 41 D6a Crocodile and fire. The crocodile/caiman is the temporary or original owner of fire or lightning. 18 41 F45a Intentional conception by the wind. A woman or female animal conceives by deliberately exposing her genitals to the wind. 19 41 F70e Girl turns into a man, ATU 514. A girl pretends to be a man, magically acquires male nature and lives with his wife. Cf. motif K137 (in Uther 2004, plot 514 mistakenly includes a Karakalpak text with our motif K137). 33 41 G13c What to eat before the advent of agriculture. Before the advent of cultivated or edible wild plants, people ate what is now considered unfit for consumption: (rotten) wood, bark, earth, stones, mushrooms. 19 41 H19 The raven interferes with hunting. The raven hides game animals in a pen or cave or scares them away from hunters. See motif H18. 22 41 H4a Interrupted renewal. People no longer rejuvenate (usually, they do not change their skin), because they were disturbed at the moment of renewal or were not recognised as the same person after renewal. See motif H4. 22 41 B16 Salt water: bodily secretions, A1115. The water of the sea, rivers, etc. comes from the fluid that flows from the body of a living being, or is contaminated by it; therefore, it is salty or opaque. 23 42 B48a Pieces of foreign flesh. The bodies of animals, birds or fish contain internal organs or muscles that were originally parts of the bodies of other animals, birds, fish or monsters. Cf. motif B36C. 19 42 C30a A pound of flesh, ATU 890. A man borrows money on the condition that if he fails to repay it by a certain date, he will have to give the lender a certain amount of his own flesh. The lender cannot cut off the flesh, because he is unable to fulfil the formally logical but essentially absurd demand made of him. 31 42 F18b Long penis after forbidden sex. After intercourse with a forbidden partner (incest, intercourse with an animal or spirit), a man's penis becomes so long that he is forced to carry it in a basket, etc. 32 42 H18b Cattle return to the water. Having received livestock from supernatural characters, a person (usually due to violating a prohibition on looking, shouting, etc.) immediately loses all or most of the animals (they go into the water, into the sky, scatter, etc.). 23 42 H32a Lost abundance: the wronged wife. A young woman is the embodiment of fertility; she comes to live with people, and food becomes readily available. The woman is wronged, she leaves, and the superabundance ends. 20 42 I22f Talking trees. The character must pass small objects (trees, logs, blades) that constantly collide and diverge, fall and rise. 26 42 K99a3 Happy dream: sun, moon and stars. A person sees the sun, moon and stars (all together or some of them) in a dream. At the end of the story, the meaning of the dream becomes clear: these are people who love or worship him (often two wives and a child). 23 42 L108b1 The blacksmith makes his voice thin. To make his voice thin, the character turns to the blacksmith. 19 42 L41a Stone in a basket. The character runs away from his captor, leaving a stone (or a log, sand) in his place. See motif L41. 33 42 L75 Flint kills his mother at birth. One of two brothers is the embodiment of evil; at birth, he cuts open his mother's body, killing her. 16 42 M114d Boiled eggs: eaten a year ago, ATU 821B. A man eats boiled eggs and leaves without paying. Much later, he returns to repay his debt. The owner demands payment for the chickens that would have hatched from those eggs, become hens, laid eggs themselves, and so on. Someone comes to court and pretends to be boiling seeds for sowing. The judge agrees that chickens cannot hatch from boiled eggs. 38 42 M130c The Lion and the Mouse, ATU 75. When a lion (tiger, bear, elephant, human) is trapped, a mouse or rat frees it (usually by gnawing through the ropes). 34 42 M136a Carrying light in bags, ATU 1245. People try to bring light, darkness, smoke, etc. into or out of a room. 38 42 M141 Animals in a pit, ATU 20A. Several animals of different species find themselves in a pit from which they cannot escape. They devour each other, and the last one manages to escape. 26 42 M150 The deceitful shepherd. Having taken on the task of herding a flock, the character eats the animals entrusted to him. 25 42 M181a Fire at sunset. The character believes that unattainable natural objects are accessible cultural objects. Usually agrees to go after fire upon seeing a red sunset, fireflies, etc. 15 42 M29g2 Cancer is a cunning winner Cancer (crab) defeats or deceives strong opponents by cunning. 25 42 M43 Bait figure To kill or catch a monster, he sees a figure made of wood or clay or a living person. Most often, a monster's claws or sharp leg get stuck when they pierce a tree. 21 42 I61 Milk on the Milky Way, A778.5. The Milky Way is a trail of spilled milk. 23 42 I64 Animal tracks on the Milky Way. The Milky Way – traces of animals that walked or ran. 21 42 I8G1 Giant at the pillar of the world. At the foot of the world pillar is an anthropomorphic character, or a character identified with a tree or pillar on which the world rests, or a character holding ropes on which the world is suspended. 21 42 K100f The young man releases the fish. A man catches an unusual fish (rarely: a bird or some kind of aquatic creature). His son (a worker) releases it. For this, the father (king) drives him away, or the one who released the fish leaves on his own. The rescued fish helps him. 22 42 K157a The tavern where they feed for free, ATU 425D, (ATU 304). In order to find a missing husband (wife, saviour), the character regularly gathers random people to tell stories (usually keeping a shop, bathhouse, etc. for this purpose). From the conversations, it becomes clear that one of the visitors is the person they are looking for, or his story helps to find the missing person. 29 42 K56f The division of the rooster, ATU 1533. A man divides a roasted rooster (goose) according to the social ranks of those present (the head to the host, the wings to the daughters, etc.), usually taking the least prestigious but meatiest part for himself. 26 42 K66a The flying ship as a condition of marriage, ATU 513B. The princess (inheritance) is given to the one who builds (obtains) a ship capable of moving on land (flying through the air). 30 42 N1 Origins: when Altai was the size of a bump The fabulous and epic texts start from the beginning, which states that today's huge objects were tiny at the time. 11 42 N28a The roots of mountain The roots (belt) of mountains or stones are mentioned in myths, riddles, spells, and songs as something that does not really exist. 19 42 L15d1 Imaginary container of the soul. When a character is asked to reveal the location of his soul (death, power), he first gives an incorrect answer, and the questioner usually begins to show signs of attention to the corresponding locus or object. 27 43 L17a1 One-eyed, two-eyed and three-eyed, ATU 511. Characters with a sequentially increasing number of eyes follow the hero or heroine. He or she puts the eyes to sleep one by one, but forgets about the last one. 27 43 L37c1 Misfortune, ATU 735A. The happiness (misfortune, hardship, etc.) of each person is represented by specific characters with whom they interact. 31 43 L92 Imaginary help to a cannibal. A demon, a cannibal, chops down a tree or rock on top of which the hero has climbed. Another character offers the cannibal a rest and takes over the chopping, but only spoils his work or (among the Athapaskans) kills him as soon as the cannibal hands him his axe. (African variants are clearly borrowed from Eurasia). 23 43 M122 Advisors inside. In a difficult situation, the character asks for advice from his tail, penis, or some creatures in his stomach (these are excrement, intestinal parasites, his "sisters," etc.). 22 43 M199k Digging a well, ATU 1049. A giant sends a man to fetch water, giving him a huge wineskin. The man cannot carry so much water, but he gets out of the situation with a trick (he pretends that he wants to bring the whole well at once; that he has already brought the water and drunk it all himself; etc.). 29 43 M206 Half of the reward, ATU 1610. A guard (nobleman) agrees to let a man pass to an authoritative figure on condition that he gives him half of the expected reward. The man asks for a beating as a reward or expected it from the outset. 39 43 M38c Converting old to young, ATU 753 blacksmith (supposedly) forges a person, rejuvenating or revitalizing him. 34 43 A12f The Money Lender. The stars fade because the moneylender demands that they repay their debt. 9 43 A19c The Sun Horse. The sun is associated with a horseman or rides in a carriage drawn by horses (equidae). 24 43 A2a1 The moon shone like the sun. At first, the moon was as bright and hot as the sun. 28 43 A32c1 Predatory beast on the moon. The figure or imprint of a predatory mammal (fox, wolf, dog, coyote, jaguar, lion) is visible on the lunar disc. Either this animal is associated with the moon, belongs to it. See motif A34. 22 43 B42mn A hunter chases the Big Dipper. Only one character (rather than several) chases an animal (elk or bear) across the sky, associated with one of the circumpolar constellations, but not with the Pleiades or Orion. (In the Kalevala tradition, there is no identification with stars). 16 43 C3 The snake plugged the hole in the ark, A1853.1, (ATU 825). The snake (eel, frog) saved the ship (or the whole world) by plugging the hole from which water was pouring with its body. 24 43 C6b Diver – muskrat (beaver, otter). The desired object is brought up from the bottom by a muskrat (rarely a beaver or otter). 26 43 C6c1 Birds: successful and unsuccessful divers. Two or more different birds (in Siberia, often a loon and a duck) successively try to retrieve something from the bottom. Only one succeeds. 19 43 E10 Young animals turn into children. Characters who have shed their animal (plant, object) forms become the children of women or spouses who catch them off guard. 17 43 E9i3 The magical wife – the goose. Before meeting the hero, his beloved (wife, helper) has the image of a goose. 32 43 I11a The earth is supported on the back of a turtle (frog). Describes how, in the process of creation, the earth is placed on the back of a turtle or frog, which becomes its support. 14 43 I48 Locked in the underworld. The character is deprived of the ability to move, after which he acquires cosmic dimensions: he supports the earth (sky) or his movements cause earthquakes (less often - storms). 15 43 I95b Orion – the balance beam. Orion is a yoke. 15 43 J53 Fawns and bear cubs The children of a character associated with a hoofed animal (deer, antelope) come into conflict with an enemy associated with a predator or a larger hoofed animal. They kill his children and/or run away from him. See motif J52. 28 43 K120a3 Dress in a nut. The character receives a nut containing valuables (beautiful clothes, jewellery, animal helpers, etc.), or (Germans, Latvians) hides the valuables in the nut himself to use them later. 24 43 K25d The forbidden tuber in the heavens. After digging up the root, a person pierces the sky or the earth, sees the world below, and descends there. Usually, the hole is made by a woman who has fallen into the sky; her husband, a sky dweller, or his relatives forbid her to dig up a certain root; breaking the ban, the woman sees the earth below and decides to descend. See motif K19B. 26 43 K27r1 The supposed burnt. The antagonist believes that the hero was burned, but returned safely from the afterlife, so he orders himself or his representative to be burned. 30 43 K27x2 Getting an egg from under a bird, ATU 1525H 1 . The character is able to get an egg or chick (and put them back) from under a bird in a nest, or change the bird's feathers (pluck feathers), or get a fruit from an animal's womb so that the bird or animal does not notice. 28 43 K56c The Golden Axe, ATU 729. A man loses his axe. A spirit or chief offers him a golden one, but the man says that the axe is not his and for this he receives axes of gold and silver as a reward. Another man deliberately loses his ordinary axe, seeking to obtain a golden one, but suffers a fiasco. 39 43 K73b1 Mother and child in a barrel. A woman with her newborn son (pregnant with a boy) or a girl with a young man are placed in a barrel (box; rarely: in a boat) and lowered into the sea (river). 20 43 K80c2 Those who find treasure kill each other, ATU 763. Two (or more) people find (steal) valuables. Unwilling to share, one kills the other, but dies himself, poisoned by the poison that the victim manages to slip into his food. 37 43 K85e Sea horses. Magical horses live in water. 25 43 K8c3 Not through the mouth, but through the side. One (zoomorphic) character refuses to use any part of another's body except the one he uses to kill him. 25 43 K101a The girl rising from the coffin, ATU 307. A man spends several nights next to a dead girl who has become a dangerous demonic creature. As a result, the girl is exorcised. 32 44 K11a Feathers turn into birds and people. Plucked feathers of a (huge) bird turn into actual birds (or their plumage) or humans emerge from them. 23 44 K125 One of the subjects is a traitor. The pursuer asks various objects where the hero is hiding or where he has run. Everyone remains silent, but one of the objects betrays the hero. 29 44 K131a The hero divides the carcass, ATU 159*. Several animals (often a lion, a falcon, an ant) argue (usually over prey or habitat). The hero resolves their dispute, and they grant him the ability to take on their form (to possess their qualities). 23 44 K165 Seeking to experience fear, ATU 326. The young man has never experienced fear and wants to know what it is like. Robbers and evil spirits do not frighten him. 35 44 K27z3 The Cat with the Lamp, ATU 217. The character taught the cat (monkey, dog) to hold a candle (lamp) or to extinguish it on command. Seeing a mouse (rat), the cat rushes after it and as a result drops (does not extinguish) the candle. 37 44 K29b Safe in the pit, K959,6. The hero is asked to climb (or is thrown) into a pit, which is immediately filled with earth or into which a pole or stones are lowered, K959,6 (Posthole murder). The hero proves his magical abilities by climbing out of the pit alive. 28 44 K88a Blinded heroine, ATU 404. The stepmother (aunt, rival) blinds a young woman. The latter regains her eyesight (often by exchanging them for some valuable item). 32 44 K8c5 The bear dies after swallowing a mouse. A zoomorphic character no larger than a fox allows itself to be swallowed by a bear and kills it by tearing it apart from the inside. 24 44 K99a Father will serve his son, ATU 517, (725). A young man or woman (often after having a dream) declares that a great future awaits him or her (usually that his or her father, parents, brothers, or sisters will show him or her signs of respect). The young man or woman is expelled, but the prophecy comes true. 32 44 L80 Drop of blood. A demonic creature or animal is killed, but comes back to life or can come back to life if even a small piece of its flesh or blood is left behind, unnoticed. 16 44 L85F One-legged. The character has only one leg (and one arm), which does not prevent him from moving. Unlike motif L85 (half-creatures), the character has a complete body, not divided in half vertically. 29 44 L9b Knife elbows, G341. The sharp elbows or (rarely) knees of the character resemble knives or awls. 28 44 M106a "I Myself" and "No One" in the Demon's House. The character who caused the damage calls himself by a fictitious name such as "Nobody," "I Myself," etc. Usually, others decide that the victim himself is to blame for what happened. 24 44 M142 The Punished Tail, ATU 154. A zoomorphic character accuses his tail of hindering his escape from pursuit (usually punishes it and dies as a result). (ATU data not entered; plot 154 includes several independent motifs; which of them are present in the traditions referred to by ATU cannot be determined without referring to the original sources). 26 44 M151 Hello, house! ATU 66A, 66B A dangerous character pretends to be dead or absent, or pretends to be an inanimate object. The potential victim says aloud that the deceased (object or place – house, burrow, log, etc.) should do or say something. The character does so, revealing himself. 24 44 M160 Offence by word and deed, ATU 159B. A strong wild beast and a man become friends. The man breaks a promise he made to the beast or speaks contemptuously of it. The beast asks to be physically hurt and says that the insult inflicted by words is more painful (the wound on the body has healed, but the wound on the soul has not; or the beast dies of grief). 37 44 M191 Cat and wild animals, ATU 103A, 103A*. The fox (dog, squirrel) lives with the cat and pretends to be a strong beast; forest predators are frightened and bring meat to appease the cat. 34 44 N5 Winter is recognized by frost, summer by rain Long trips, hikes, flights, or battles are described using a formula that indicates that characters learn about winter through snow or frost, and summer through warmth, rain, dew or other similar signs. 12 44 C7 The Flood: The Destroyed Barrier. Initially or after the flood, an earthen or stone barrier, the body of a character or creature prevents the flow of water. Later, this barrier is removed or destroyed. 23 44 E38a People made of pieces. A woman gives birth to a pumpkin, a sack, a sack of eggs, a piece of meat. The newborn is cut open, chopped up, and the pieces turn into new people; numerous people (usually tribal ancestors) emerge from the pumpkin or sack. Cf. motif F47. 16 44 I118 The spider-advisor. A female spider (less commonly, an old spider) protects the hero or heroine, who live with her, and the hero marries her daughter. (Texts in which the spider only lifts the hero up to the sky or lowers him to the ground are not included; see motif I117). 13 44 I35 Thunder - animal skin. Thunder is produced by a (tanned) animal skin or (rarely) a person being dragged, or clothing being dragged behind or shaken out. 26 44 A29 The sun and the demon compete for the hero. A character associated with the upper world and a character associated with the earth or the lower world each strive to possess a human being and pull him towards themselves. One or both rivals are women. The character of the upper world and/or the one for whom the struggle is being waged is associated with the luminaries – the sun, the moon, Venus. 18 45 A8b The sun in the world of the dead. Setting beyond the horizon, the sun shines on the anthropomorphic inhabitants of the underworld – the dead, dwarves, etc. 27 45 B11 The appearance of rivers. A river (rarely: a chain of lakes, a narrow strait) or its current course is created by humans or animals. See motifs B12, B13. This section covers other variants of the motif. 38 45 B44c To be warm and light. The characters argue about whether there should be darkness or light, cold or warmth on earth. See motif B44. 44 45 B81 Dog with a gun. The creator and his opponent consider whether to give the dog the ability to shoot (with a bow or a gun). 20 45 C18a The sun lures out the rooster. The hidden sun is lured out by the rooster, or people believe that without the rooster's crow, the sun will not rise. 21 45 E6 Because of a woman, the connection between worlds is broken. When a woman of childbearing age (she is menstruating, miscarrying, pregnant, with a child, or simply fat) tries to pass from one world to another, the connection between the worlds is severed forever. 22 45 F5b Artificial bride. The character (listed in square brackets in the list of ethnic groups) offers another woman. Not having one or not wanting to give her away, he makes a bride out of wood, snow, etc., turns an animal into a girl, sends a servant instead of his daughter, turns himself into a woman, or confesses to the lie when the trouble is over. See motif E8. 25 45 G15 Corn girls. In another world or in the past, products or materials used by humans look or looked like people. 18 45 I138 Glass Mountain. The glass mountain (tower, bridge) is mentioned as an unusual (inaccessible) locus. 25 45 L37c Two Shares, ATU 735. A person encounters the incarnations of Fortune (and Misfortune) – his own or someone else's. He manages to influence their behaviour and change (for himself) the course of events for the better. 26 45 L66 Underground passage beneath the monster. To help the hero, a small animal digs an underground passage beneath the lying monster, and the hero strikes it from below. 21 45 L94b1 The demon collects the riches back into the box. A man receives a box (bag, horn, etc.) as a gift, which he must open only at home. Driven by curiosity, he opens it on the way, and everything that should make him wealthy (houses, livestock, etc.) spills out. The demon who appears agrees to return everything, but sets a condition, the severity of which the man does not immediately understand. 23 45 M106e For a long winter, ATU 1541. A man says that provisions have been made for the winter, in case of need, etc. In the absence of the owner, a man enters the house and claims that his name is Winter (Ramadan, Necessity, etc.). The woman thinks that her husband meant this man and gives him all the provisions. 36 45 M199b He did not throw a stone, but released a bird, ATU 1062. A man and his opponent agree to test their strength by throwing a stone. The opponent throws the stone, and the man releases a bird he had hidden beforehand. The bird does not return, and the opponent admits defeat. 36 45 M73 Excretion substitution: who is stronger, K1721 Two characters compare their excrement or vomit to learn about each other's diet and decide which of them is the more powerful beast. One of them manages to replace the selections. (Traditions in which vomiting is substituted are greasy). 23 45 J53a1 Method of revenge: lure into smoke and fire. The children of the murdered man kill the murderer's children, luring them to a place where they perish from heat or smoke. 24 45 K100f1 The Wild Man, ATU 502. A man (king) catches a strange (anthropomorphic) creature. His son releases the wondrous captive (after which he flees from his father's wrath or is banished). The freed captive helps him. Cf. motif K161. 31 45 K27r2 Dancing apples. Task: bring objects (fruit, wood, water, etc.) that perform actions characteristic of humans (sing, dance, yawn, laugh, etc.). 28 45 K35c The Dev in the Well, ATU 677, 677*, 986. The dev (ajdaha, sea king) did not kill the man who descended to him, as people assumed, but rewarded him because he greeted him and/or answered his question correctly. 25 45 K43a A kind person leaves the fire. People leave a boy, a girl, a sister and brother, a young woman or young spouses alone and depart. Someone sympathises with those who have been abandoned and secretly hides fire for them. 30 45 K56a6 Food asks her to taste it. On the way to another world, people or objects ask a child (girl) to taste the food they offer or to do some work. The child (girl) does everything (rarely does not do) and therefore achieves the goal. 24 45 M91c4 The pot cooks by itself A person removes the pot from the fire, its contents continue to boil, or the person prepares food in advance, puts it in a pot or pit. Another believes that the pot cooks without fire or incredibly fast (or that a stick, if it hits the ground or the pot, creates food), buys a pot (stick). 21 45 M94a1 Mountain riding: trickster animals By stupidity or negligence, a zoomorphic character rolls down a mountain and as a result dies or suffers damage (attacks the edge, falls into the water, etc.). 20 45 M94 Mountain riding One character invites the other to roll down the mountain to destroy him. Cf. Motive L42C. 20 46 N10a Transparent bones A woman or (rarely) a man with a transparent body is described - bones are visible through the skin, bone marrow is visible through the bones. This transparency is a sign of beauty. 10 46 N2 Origins: when the goat was a commander Fabulous and epic texts start from the beginning, which states that animals were performing human social or economic functions at that time. 11 46 M191b The snake will not forget its severed tail, ATU 285A. A man does good (does no harm) to a snake (fish, lion) and benefits from it. His son (less often someone else or himself) wounds the snake (usually cuts off its tail) and, if it is his son, dies from the bite. The snake refuses to continue its relationship with the man, and neither of them will forget their loss. 35 46 M39f There was a hat, a head - I don't remember, ATU 1225 A fool is left headless (usually trying to get into a bear's den). When asked whether the deceased had a head, wife or someone else, they say that there was a hat (beard), but they definitely do not remember the head. 37 46 M46e The Sun is a Toy They (promise to) give a child the Sun (and or the Moon) to play with 22 46 M7 Waiting for transport The character goes to the lower world, to the sky, to the country on the horizon, etc. and waits for someone to give him a ride to his goal. Usually, some animals/birds or celestial bodies follow by, and the last (often the Sun or Month) delivers. 13 46 M81d Healed blind people A person meets (most often in the sky) one or two blind people and restores their sight. 28 46 M81e Don't herd cattle on giant land, ATU 314A, 321 young man undertakes to herd cattle and is warned not to cross the borders of a giant, dragon, witch, etc. The young man violates the ban and kills a giant. 32 46 B38c The raven and the loon adorn each other. The raven and the loon paint each other. 14 46 C33 Prometheus (the chained strongman). A strongman-god-fighter is chained to a rock or a pillar for centuries. 16 46 E2 People on trial. When creating humans, the creator does not immediately achieve perfection. The first versions of the creation are rejected, then the appropriate form and material are found. See motif E1A. 24 46 F36 Children against the lover. (Adopted) children of a woman or man kill the lover (or spouse of non-human nature) of their father or (adoptive) mother. 32 46 H24d Still gathering what has been released. An animal character who released the contents (darkness, insects, reptiles) from a vessel is still trying to gather everything back (etiology of the behaviour of a certain species of animal). 15 46 H29 Progenitor of foreign tribes. A woman mates with an animal. The people of a hostile tribe originate from or derive their culture from the descendants of this union, from the relatives of the animal or from the children of the woman's brothers. 20 46 I101 The Great Bear – stakes. The Big Dipper or several bright stars of another constellation are stakes, pillars supporting a platform, or some object is stretched, dried, or stored on these stakes. 19 46 I35b Copper sky. The sky is considered to be metallic. The process of its creation resembles metal forging. 15 46 K107d Trying to wake up a wonderful spouse. After overcoming difficulties, a girl (rarely a boy) finds a magical spouse, but at first cannot wake him (her) up. 26 46 K117a Making the silent speak. A girl who is constantly silent is promised to the one who can make her speak; or a husband struggles to make his magical wife speak. 30 46 K61c Find out the name, ATU 500. A demon agrees to help (agrees not to harm) a person on condition that the person guesses his name. At the last moment, the person accidentally learns the demon's name, and the demon disappears or rewards the person. 32 46 K62a The Quarrel of the Mouse and the Bird, ATU 222B. A mouse (rat, mole, etc.) and a bird quarrel after failing to divide their winter supplies. (This episode usually serves as the beginning of a story about a war between birds and animals). 32 46 K123a The broken jug. A boy or young man accidentally, or more often out of mischief, breaks or overturns a vessel belonging to a woman or girl. This episode forms the basis of the rest of the story. 30 47 K27w The monster kills the person giving the tasks. The task giver demands that a dangerous creature be brought to him or that something belonging to a monster or deity be brought to him. The hero fulfils the task, but the beast, monster, deity or the object itself kills the task giver. See motif K27. 36 47 K54 Two giants. When encountering a giant or a snake, a person is afraid of it, but it becomes his friend and asks for help when he is fighting another giant or snake. The person fulfils the request. 28 47 L31 The sticky monster. People are forced against their will to follow an object, person or animal (usually sticking to it) that carries them far away (usually into water or into the sky). 25 47 L64 Removable head. A certain character removes, takes out a part of his body (head, scalp, lungs), takes it in his hands, puts it back. 32 47 L85a The half-child. The character is born as half a person or becomes one as a result of an accident. He or she does not belong to a special category of mythical half-beings and usually regains physical completeness. See motif L85, cf. motif L112. 24 47 M101b Man past, future, present, ATU 157. A large predator wants to see a human being. First, it meets a child and learns that this is a future human being, then an old man – a former human being. The encounter with a present human being (a hunter, a soldier) ends badly for the beast. 37 47 M135a The wolf's misfortunes, ATU 122A. A wolf (or, less commonly, another predator) approaches various (more than one type of) domestic animals (animals and humans) in order to eat them, but, agreeing to fulfil the request, remains hungry and is usually beaten. 32 47 M136c The fool takes the prediction of death seriously, ATU 1313A. Based on indirect signs or someone's words, the fool believes that he has died and lies motionless. 42 47 M146 The wolf was lured into a trap, ATU 35B*. Knowing that the meat is in a trap or poisoned, or that there is a trap ahead, a zoomorphic character provokes another to try the meat first or to go ahead. 27 47 M162 Eats his own entrails, ATU 21. The character pretends to eat his own entrails or flesh. Others believe him and kill themselves (or allow themselves to be killed). 27 47 M38a1 Imitates relatives or wives, ATU 552B, J2411.3. The character imitates the sisters' sons-in-law or husbands, or the wife's brothers (shoshone's) or wives (comox and chalkomel). {ATU combines a motive with another}. 21 47 M39a6 Misunderstood instructions: shorten the road During the journey, a person allegorically asks someone else to say something, sing, etc., so that time on the road passes faster. He understands instructions literally by doing ridiculous actions. 23 47 M52 Mascara fresheners The character (by deception) kills an ungulates. He asks another to refresh the carcass, looks for a knife to do it, or a fire to fry the meat. The other freshens the carcass, gives fire or a knife, but takes or tries to take all the meat for himself. 30 47 M65 The trickster was pinched and the meat was eaten trickster bakes meat obtained by trick, deception; immobilized by sticking to a tree, ground, or stone; at this time, another character (fox, wolf, coyote, birds) eats all the meat. See M53 motif. 20 47 A23b First rays on mountains and trees, (ATU 120). Two characters argue about who will be the first to see the rising sun. The winner is the one who first notices not the sun itself, but its reflection or the trees and mountains illuminated by its first rays. 35 47 A42 Phaeton (imitator of the Sun), A724.I.I. The character comes to the Sun, tries to fulfil its role, but deliberately or through incompetence breaks the rules, usually causing disasters on earth. 24 47 B42k Cosmic hunting – Pleiades. In stories about cosmic hunting, the object of pursuit or the hunters are identified with the Pleiades. See motif B42. 24 47 B60 Offended children leave their parents. Children come into conflict with their parents over food, clothing, attention, which they demand and which their parents deny them, and sexual behaviour. They leave their parents, turning into birds, bats, stars or atmospheric phenomena. See motif B59. 22 47 B7b Water from a vessel. The sea (flood, river) flows out of a small container. 32 47 C31 The wise hedgehog (cosmology). The hedgehog is wiser or more cunning than all the gods and animals; it possesses knowledge that is vital for human existence. 23 47 F17 Genitals out of place, A1313.3. Human genitals were initially located, should have been located, or could have been located under certain circumstances not where they are now; either there were no genitals initially, or people did not know their purpose and copulated using other parts of the body. 27 47 H2 The selfish animal. Animals ask God to make humans (tigers: domestic animals) mortal or otherwise reduce their numbers, as they fear that humans will trample them, deprive them of food or habitat, force them to work, etc. 23 47 I103 Dog Star. Sirius is associated with a dog or a wolf. 29 47 I22c Board from the stern of the Argo. The character safely slips, sails or flies through the opening, which then slams shut, but the edge of the stern of the boat, the tail of an animal or bird, the body of a riding animal, the hero's companion or his own heel is crushed, torn off, etc. 24 47 B68b Attempted to frighten God. A character who, by his appearance, behaviour or unexpected appearance, tried to frighten God (people) and was turned into an animal (with a different appearance than before) for this. 19 48 B79a A bird laid an egg. At the beginning of time, a bird flies, lays an egg or eggs, and various objects or creatures hatch from them. 15 48 F9f Asmodeus. Without the woman's knowledge, the demon regularly kills her suitors on their wedding night. 28 48 H13 The returned dead come back to life. The character comes to the underworld, brings back the dead person or brings back their remains. The dead person comes back to life and (for a while) remains among the living. 26 48 I76a The snake becomes a dragon. After a certain period of time, a snake or fish transforms into another creature, usually a dragon. 25 48 I87c The mitten house, ATU 283B. Animals use a small object belonging to the human world (skull, mitten, jug, etc.) for shelter or transportation. Cf. motif I87: characters use an object (skull, animal shoulder blade, mitten) belonging to the world of giants as a shelter. 13 48 J52a Antagonist – female bear. A she-bear or bear treacherously kills his companion, neighbour, etc., who is associated with a herbivorous animal or a weaker predator. The victim's children take revenge by killing the murderer's children or flee. See motifs J52, J54. 35 48 J7 Substituted signs. A woman or girl sets off to her husband (beloved) or relatives, or a man sets off to find a bride. She or he loses their way after a certain character substitutes the signs indicating the way. See motif J12. 32 48 K130 Who is the sweetest in the world? A woman (rarely: a man) asks who is the most beautiful of all and receives the answer that she (he) is. One day she (he) is told that someone else is more beautiful. 34 48 K174 The thrown ring. To signal their arrival, a person places, or more often discreetly throws, a ring or other small item of personal jewellery or toiletries into the jug of a maid or servant. Upon discovering it, the other person understands that the first is nearby. 30 48 K27n3a The task giver – the Sun, Moon, Thunder or Wind. The character who gives the hero difficult tasks or subjects him to trials is associated with the sun, moon, thunder or wind (cloud, downpour). See motif K27. 29 48 K73a5 The child is replaced by a kitten. Malicious women replace the newborn with a kitten (telling the father that his wife has given birth to a kitten). See motifs K73, K73A. 25 48 M90 The snake guesses the material, ATU 857 Someone asks a riddle about the material from which a particular item is made or originated. It is almost impossible to guess, but the character learns the secret, forcing the hero or heroine to fulfill the conditions set. (Usually requires a girl to marry him). 32 48 L114a The awake child. One (usually the youngest) of a group of young men or women (children) ends up with them in the house of a cannibal or cannibaless. The cannibal intends to kill the newcomers when they fall asleep. The youngest consistently answers the cannibal's questions about why he is not sleeping, forcing him to carry out new tasks instead of attacking the sleepers. The brothers (sisters) run away and escape. 29 48 L20 Raw meat eater. Two characters hunt or fish. One turns out to be or becomes a cannibal, which is revealed when he/she begins to eat the prey raw. 17 48 L93b The hare as helper. The hare or rabbit, resorting to cunning, helps the hero or heroine, saving them. 22 48 M39a6h Pluck a goose, ATU 921F* The king tells the commoner to pluck a goose (geese, shear a ram, etc.). He understands correctly: to rob the vizier. 30 48 L90a A hut on chicken legs. Describes a house that stands on the legs or a single leg of a bird or small animal and/or rotates (is capable of turning). 15 49 M106g Dragging a cow onto the roof, ATU 1210. A man lifts a cow (donkey, ox, wife) onto the roof so that the animal can eat the grass growing there (the wife has gathered turnips, etc.) – usually by throwing a noose around the neck of the wife or animal. 39 49 M12 The unlucky hunter. Unable, unwilling or unable to obtain game (fish), the hunter (fisherman) cuts flesh from his own body, removes his own entrails and collects his blood. He usually offers this to others under the guise of animal meat or fish. Alternatively, a woman cuts flesh from her own leg to feed her husband. 33 49 M136b Cuts the branch he is sitting on, ATU 1240. A man cuts the branch he is sitting on and similar variants (cuts the rope he climbed up on; climbs onto a dry branch that breaks; climbs onto a tree that has been cut down in order to fell it). 43 49 M179a The master is driven out of the house. One character deceives another or, in the absence of the other, occupies his dwelling and refuses to return it. 31 49 M30c He falls, breaking the ban A character flying through the air falls, violating the ban on talking, looking down, flying over villages, etc. (The character is not dropped by the person carrying it and flies above the ground, not descends from the sky or rises to the sky). 23 49 M39a2c Salt is sown ATU 1200, J1932.3. A fool (or a character pretending to be crazy) sows salt (small objects) like a grain. 38 49 M39h Husband pretended to be blind, ATU 1380 The wife wants to get rid of her husband and usually asks the spirit to blind him. The husband hides in a hollow, behind an altar, etc., and answers on behalf of the spirit (usually advises to kill her husband with good food), or the husband tells his wife that delicious food can make you blind. Pretending to be blind, the husband kills his lover (and wife). 38 49 I46a The Old Woman's Rainbow. The rainbow is associated with a woman, usually an elderly one. 23 49 I50a Severed legs of an animal helper. A demon sequentially tears off the legs of an animal that helps the hero (usually the horse on which the hero rides). 28 49 J22a Two of one. Two men or a brother and sister emerge from a single body or embryo cut in half, or the second emerges from a part of the body or from the secretions of the first. Cf. motif M37. 24 49 K120a1 Three dresses, (ATU 510B). To get rid of an unwanted suitor (her own father, brother, monster), a girl demands that he obtain a dress for her (usually three dresses in succession) made of unusual material (gold, fly wings, etc.), and when the condition is fulfilled, she runs away. 26 49 K142 Burying one dead man three times, ATU 1536B. After killing several people, a man asks a gravedigger to bury the dead and each time says that the dead man has returned. The gravedigger buries everyone, but believes that there is only one dead man. 44 49 K35a1 Do not pick up the feather of the firebird. Setting off on a journey, a person (often against the advice of their horse) picks up a precious feather. Upon learning of this, an authoritative character gives them difficult tasks. 32 49 K56a4b The wind carries away the yarn. A girl is told to clean the yarn, or to spin and weave. The wind blows the yarn (cloth, spindle) away, the girl goes in search of it, and comes across a character who rewards her. 15 49 K56a9 The mouse helper rings a bell. When a small animal (usually a mouse) rings a bell, beats a drum, etc., a blind or distant antagonist believes that these sounds are made by the hero (heroine). Thanks to this, the hero (heroine) is saved. 30 49 A2b1 The Last Sun. Two or more suns shine in the sky. When the extra ones are destroyed, there is a danger that the last one will be destroyed along with them and darkness will ensue. 24 49 A41 The sun eats its children. Two characters have children (brothers and sisters, mothers). One suggests killing these children (mothers), giving reasons in favour of such a decision. In fact, he hides his own children, while his interlocutor actually kills his children. One of the characters and/or the surviving child is the sun. 16 49 B11a The mammoth – creator of the landscape. The mammoth, represented as an underground fish-like creature, creates rugged terrain on wet ground and digs river beds. 15 49 C5b Animals sent on reconnaissance. After a global catastrophe or during the creation of the earth, animals run around, making the earth large, reporting on its condition, or are sent to find out how large the earth is. 22 49 C6c3 The loon – a successful diver. The loon dives and brings back a piece of earth (grass, etc.), which turns into land (it is the only or the only successful diver). 23 49 E9c The magical wife – a hoofed animal. Before meeting the hero, his beloved (wife, helper) has the image of a large hoofed mammal (buffalo, antelope, moose, etc.). 28 49 G17 The gift of the reptile. Cultural or important food crops, partially cultivated plant species owe their origin to snakes, moray eels or crocodiles/caimans. 22 49 H10 The sunken stone. People are mortal, as they are likened to a stone thrown into water; they usually miss the opportunity to resemble organic matter that floats in water. 19 49 H6a People and plants. Mortal humans are contrasted with plants, which regularly shed their bark, bloom in spring after winter dormancy, or reproduce vegetatively. See motif H4. 30 49 I15 Creatures without mouths. Creatures without mouths. Usually, their mouths are cut open later. 24 49 A23c Who will fly higher? ATU 221A Birds argue about which of them will fly higher or arrive first. The winner is the one whose victory seemed unlikely (he hides in the feathers of a strong bird and flies away with it). 31 50 F80a Removable genitals. Genitals exist independently of people; they can be left behind, attached to the body, etc. 35 50 F83 News precedes the hero. The character does something forbidden and indecent in a place hidden from prying eyes, and then asks people what's new. They reply that there is no news – except that so-and-so (the character) did such-and-such. 28 50 G21 Coconut head. A coconut palm grows out of the character's head. 26 50 H49 The slain dog sought to save the child, Th B524.1.4.1; B221.2.2; ATU 178A. A dog or other animal kills a creature that threatened a small child. The owner or other people mistake the saviour for an aggressor and kill it. 38 50 I36 Thunder and lightning – relatives or in-laws. Thunder and lightning (two thunders, two lightnings) – characters related by kinship, marriage or property. 25 50 I87b The braggart meets the strongest, ATU 650B. When a character boasts of his strength, his wife or mother says that there is someone stronger than him. He sets off in search and meets a character who is much stronger than him. {ATU gives a definition of the plot (or rather, the first half of it) similar to ours, but some of the references given refer to our motif i87a, not i87b}. 28 50 J18 A woman falls from the sky. A pregnant woman or a woman with a child falls from the sky. She or her newborn daughter dies or undergoes a metamorphosis. Her son or her daughter's son survives and grows up. Cf. motif K9. 24 50 J57 Son of the Sun. Conceived by the Sun, a woman gives birth to sons or a son; when they come of age, they visit their father. See motif J56. 20 50 K15b The replaced barrel of water. By secretly switching the vessels containing living and dead (giving and taking away strength) water (rarely: oil, etc.), from which the combatants drink during a duel, the hero defeats his opponent. 26 50 K173 It is better to suffer when young (Placidas), ATU 938. A powerful and wealthy man loses everything, is separated from his wife and children, and they are separated from each other. The man regains his power and wealth, and the family is reunited. 40 50 K21 Once in heaven, she gets married. A girl ends up in the sky and gets married there. 23 50 K27o Ball game. The confrontation between heroes and antagonists unfolds in the form of a ball game. 27 50 L42e Captured again, ATU 327C. A demon catches the hero, carries him home, but the hero escapes on the way. The demon returns, catches the hero again, and this time brings him to his home. Or the demon catches and carries several children, but they escape on the way, leaving only one, whom the demon brings to his home. 29 50 L44 Show your head! ATU 1152 A demon or powerful beast demands that a person or weak animal show certain parts of their body. The person shows parts of a large animal's body or certain objects. The opponent decides that the hero is more frightening and powerful than them. 35 50 M135b The wolf regrets his own stupidity. The wolf (rarely a bear, jackal, or fox) approaches various domestic animals in order to eat them, but, agreeing to fulfil their request, remains hungry and usually beaten, and in conclusion blames himself ("Am I a mullah to read?" etc.). In the Persian version, the fox tells him this. 32 50 M136 The Unknown Sickle, ATU 1202. Some people do not know what to do with cutting tools; they try to use tools that are not suitable for these purposes instead. 31 50 M39a6g Six loaves (four coins), ATU 921A, Th H585.1. person explains that he lends part of his earnings, and pays the debt in the other part, i.e. raises children and supports parents. 40 50 M89 Melted wax A character is humiliated after an object or creature made of wax, resin, or excrement that he made himself or that he thought was strong melts warmly, the present. 29 50 N7 Three apples fairy-tale text ends with a formula that says that three apples fell from the sky or tree, at least one of which went to the narrator. Or it is said that someone give/should give the narrator one or three apples. 14 50 N10b Transparent neck A girl or (rarely) a young man with a transparent neck is described, through which you can see the drinks and/or food that this girl or boy swallows. This neck is a sign of beauty. 18 51 N23 They stayed there and I came back here fairy-tale text ends with a formula that says that the characters stayed or left where the action took place, and the narrator returned home and/or came to the place fairy tale performances. 8 51 N33 Drives the enemy into the ground hero drives the enemy into the ground, or he and the enemy alternately drive each other into the ground (ankle-deep, waist-deep, etc.). 28 51 K22b Man helps the inhabitants of another world. The inhabitants of another world are attacked by certain enemies. A human helps them to defeat these enemies, because these creatures are not dangerous to humans. See motif K22. 35 51 K27z2b The Murdered Doll, ATU 879. The complicated relationship between a simple girl and a prince leads to the prince intending to kill his bride on their wedding night. The girl substitutes a doll for herself, the prince stabs the doll with his sword, mistakes the spurting juice (syrup, honey) for blood, and repents of the murder. The real girl appears, and the young couple are happy. 26 51 K90 Black and red, (ATU 156B*). A person sees two opposing monsters or animals (usually of contrasting colours: red and black, black and white) and helps one of them, or one of the combatants helps the person. (Cf. ATU 156B, 738). 28 51 B42p Ursa Major – bear. The Big Dipper is identified with a bear. 24 51 B45 The Wedding of Winter and Summer, A1153. The arrival of warm (bright, abundant) or cold (hungry, dark) times is associated with the marriage of a certain character who brings cold, warmth, abundance, etc. 19 51 C13 Rebellion of things. During or before the onset of a global catastrophe (flood, darkness) or (surui) at night, household items and/or stones, trees, domestic animals, and cultivated plants turn into wild birds and animals or come to life. 25 51 C8a Millstones fall on each other. Finding themselves alone and without other marriage partners, a brother and sister make it possible to marry each other by the occurrence of an incredible event. This event takes place, giving them a sign to become spouses. Among such events (alternatively or sequentially): 1) millstones rolling down from two different mountains fall on top of each other; 2) swords thrown from two mountains end up in the same scabbard; 3) objects thrown up join together; 4) smoke from two fires joins together (rising in a column); 5) two planted bamboo stalks join at the tops. See motif C8. 9 51 F43 Disappearance of women. The women of the community of the first ancestors kill or abandon the men. 25 51 G32 Food from the underworld. People obtain cultivated plants from the underwater or underground world. 29 51 I115a Orion and the Pleiades – men and women. In the same narrative or ritual context, Orion and the Pleiades are contrasted with each other as a man or men and a woman or women. (Orion is usually associated with the masculine principle, and the Pleiades with the feminine; among the Mentawai, d'Antracast, and Toba peoples, the opposite is true (due to regional influences? In Indonesia and eastern South America, the Pleiades are usually a group of young men). 25 51 I139 Throwing an axe, F531.3.2.3. Two (rarely three) men or women are at a distance from each other, but regularly throw or pass something to each other. This is a sign of their unusual size, strength, and agility. 20 51 K92b I love you like salt, ATU 923. A daughter tells her father (rarely her brother) that she loves him like salt (or that salt is more important than him, etc.). He sends his daughter away (gets angry with his sister), but then realises she is right. 39 51 L100e The lover, the master and the guest, ATU 1358A, (ATU 1360B). Before entering, the guest notices the mistress with her lover in the house. When the husband arrives, the guest pretends to be clairvoyant and shows the husband where the lover is hiding and where the food prepared for him is. 27 51 L45 The fooled watchman. A strong character traps a weak one and leaves someone to guard the prey. The guard fails to fulfil his duties (usually tricked by the weak one), and the weak one escapes. {African borrowings in America are difficult to distinguish from possible local cases} 35 51 M191a Bell on a cat's neck, ATU 110. Mice decide to hang a bell around a cat's neck or tail so that they will know when it is approaching. Usually, none of the mice are able to do this. 42 51 L96a Oh! A person sighs, after which a character named Oh, Uh, Hey-way, etc. appears. 27 52 M141b Animals flee from the end of the world, ATU 20C. An insignificant event (a falling leaf, acorn, etc.) is taken by an animal as the beginning of a catastrophe (the end of the world, war, the falling of the sky, etc.) and it flees. Other animals join the fleeing animal. 44 52 M29o Trickster - Monkey See the motives in square brackets. 36 52 M39a3 Did he have horns? ATU (1381B), 1600 fool kills a man, throws him into a pond, well, etc. A clever man throws a goat there. A fool searches for a corpse in the pond, asks if the victim had horns, etc. Everyone is obviously crazy, and the murder charge has been denied. {The Buryat and Yakut versions may be recent Russian borrowings. The ATU 1581B definition also includes an episode where a human corpse was replaced with a goat carcass, but most of the texts that have been verified do not contain this motive}. 38 52 I80 The thunderbolt's apprentice. A character who finds himself in the locus of a deity responsible for atmospheric phenomena violates certain prohibitions or instructions, thereby causing excessively strong thunderstorms, rain, snowfall or wind. 25 52 J56 The trial of the sons. A son or sons come to their father. He subjects them to trials in order to find out whether they are really his children. 16 52 K38b3b The hero shelters the chicks. A mighty bird (rarely – another creature) helps a person for sheltering (warming) its chicks (offspring, children). 22 52 K80a1 The bird tells of the crime. A bird (usually arising from the remains of the murdered person or embodying their soul) tells of the crime committed or takes revenge on the murderer itself. 37 52 M87 In a house where you can't see the owners The character comes to a place that is abandoned or seems to have been abandoned by the inhabitants. He tries to take or touch things, but invisible owners prevent him from doing so, or the things themselves hurt him. 18 52 A18 The Sun Boat. The sun and/or moon make their daily and/or nightly (underground, in the land beyond the horizon, behind the mountain) journey in a boat. 33 52 A19 Heliophores. Anthropomorphic or zoomorphic creatures help the luminary move across the sky (and the underworld). See motif A17: zoomorphic creatures are helmsmen or rowers in the sun boat. 32 52 B110 Where the back is – swamps, where the head is – red poppies. A character who is dragged along the ground or who runs, falls apart or hits the ground with different parts of his body. This determines the characteristics of the landscape and flora. 23 52 B33a1 Insulted March. A person (animal, bird) teases or insults March or another calendar month and is punished as a result. 27 52 B51a The snake is the enemy of the swallow. The snake is the enemy of the swallow (usually because the swallow prevents the snake from destroying people – the snake sends a mosquito or other blood-sucking insect to find out whose blood tastes better; the mosquito returns to report that it is human blood; the swallow bites off its tongue, and the snake plucks the feathers from the swallow's tail). 26 52 E31a1 Who will be the husband of the created girl? ATU 653C. Three (rarely four or two) men participate in the creation of the girl: one carves the figure out of wood, another dresses her, and the third brings her to life. To whom should the animated girl belong? 32 52 F10 Teeth knocked out. A woman has a second mouth (usually in her vagina) with sharp teeth. A man inserts or throws a stone, bone, stick, etc. into this mouth, knocking out the teeth or extracting toothy animals from it in this way. 49 52 F32 The snake son gathers fruit. Small children or a single infant, who temporarily transform into adult men and/or emerge from their mother's womb, or a snake living in a woman's womb, climb a tree and help her gather fruit, bark, tree mushrooms, etc.; or a father discovers his daughter's connection with a snake when he climbs a tree to gather fruit for her. 22 52 H6b The elixir of immortality is spilled on plants. The elixir of immortality, intended for humans, is not delivered to its destination, but falls on plants, which become evergreen, capable of regeneration or bearing fruit. (Traditions in which the "elixir of immortality" is linked to the motif of false news are marked with an asterisk. Cf. motif B115). 25 52 I32 The tree of infants. There was or is a tree on which babies grow; the souls of unborn babies; whose leaves have turned into people; whose trunk is covered with many female nipples or flowers from which babies suck milk or juice. 18 52 B57 Bloody sunset. Blood spurting from a killed or wounded person or animal colours the sky (dawn, northern lights) or other natural objects (moon, vegetation) red. 33 53 B64d Arrow bones. Certain bones in the bodies of living creatures (usually birds and fish) are arrows shot into them. 22 53 B77b1 The sky was struck with a pestle. The sky receded and/or the connection between humans and the deity ceased after the sky or the heavenly deity was touched or struck during work with a pestle used to pound in a mortar or with a spoon used to stir porridge (Ewe, Nubians, Nyiman). 16 53 C12b People – descendants of dogs. All people or individual ethnic groups, lineages, families are considered descendants of dogs (with which a man mated). 20 53 H33 Children walk from birth. At first, children walked, had to walk, or could walk immediately after birth. 36 53 I2 Lightning from the eyes or mouth. Lightning bolts fly from the eyes or mouth {specified} of a creature embodying a thunderstorm. See motif I1. 40 53 I4a Thunder in trouble: falls to the ground. Thunder falls to earth and cannot rise. Usually, a person helps it return to the sky. 30 53 I87a2 What are two? Dialogue, ATU (812*), 2010, H602.1.1., †H602.1.1. The antagonist names numbers from one to 7, 12, etc., the hero answers what each number corresponds to, and the antagonist is unable to refute him. 35 53 I87aa The Great Bull, ATU 1960A. Describes a giant bull (rarely: horse): head in one field, body in another; a bathhouse on its tail, a lake on its back; people standing at its head and tail have to walk a long way to meet each other; etc. Usually the bull is killed and eaten (by people in Baltic-Finnish traditions and in Olonets antiquity; by birds in most southern traditions). 28 53 J54 The last female escapes. The heroes of the narrative exterminate animals or demons of a certain species. This species could have disappeared altogether if one or more individuals (often a pregnant female) had not been saved. {This motif does not include aetiological endings, according to which the current creatures of a certain species originate from a dismembered original creature}. 32 53 K122 The queen of the other world finds the hero (ATU 551). Having penetrated the world of a powerful woman, unattainable without the support of supernatural helpers, the man returns. The deceiver tries to take credit for the feat. The woman whom the hero met in her world finds him and punishes (rejects) the deceiver. 30 53 K128b The Hare Shepherd, ATU 570. The ruler will give his daughter to the one who can herd (gather, train) hares (squirrels, sheep, poultry, partridges) without loss. A poor young man accomplishes the task with the help of a magic device. To have an excuse to refuse, the ruler's family members try to buy one hare (a magic pipe, etc.) so that the suitor cannot fulfil his promise, but as a result they find themselves in a humiliating position. 45 53 K20 Mortal desires a star, C15.1, C15.1.1. Looking at the sky at night, a man or woman expresses a desire to marry a star or the Moon (kuchin: to possess a star as an object). See motifs K19a, K19b. 48 53 K92 King Lear, ATU 923, 923B. The father asks his children a question, the answer to which seems obvious (does his daughter love him, who is the eldest in the family, etc.). The youngest daughter (less often – son) gives an unexpected answer, the father drives her away (deprives her of her inheritance), and later becomes convinced of her intelligence and nobility. 33 53 L107 Ears-blankets. People have disproportionately large ears (rarely: lips): they cover themselves with them like a blanket, use them as an umbrella, can step on them, etc. 28 53 L10a A demon approaches a hunter's campfire. A demonic character approaches a man's campfire. The man leaves a log in his place and hides. The character throws himself on the log, mistaking it for a sleeping man; usually, the hunter kills or wounds the demon. 24 53 L114b1 Task: bring the cannibal himself, ATU 328. The character sequentially steals various items from the cannibal's house and finally catches or kills him. 37 53 L42g1 A knock is heard, the father has left. Father (stepfather) takes children into the forest and slips away unnoticed. To make the children think he is nearby chopping wood, father hangs a board, pumpkin, etc. on a tree, which bangs against the trunk in the wind. 29 53 L94a Grabbed by the beard. When a person leans over the water, a demon grabs him by the beard and releases him on the promise that he will fulfil his demand. 24 53 M110 The forgotten liver, ATU 91. Upon learning that it is being transported by water to be eaten, the land animal explains to the transporter that it has forgotten on the shore the organ without which the meat is not tasty, which must be used as medicine, etc. The transporter agrees to return for this organ, and the animal runs away. 32 53 M29w Jaguar (ocelot, puma) is a loser and a loser As a result of their stupidity or antisocial behavior, a jaguar (puma, ocelot) dies or suffers damage. See the motives in square brackets. The character is named if it is a puma or ocelot; otherwise, a jaguar. 39 53 M74b Who ate the fat? The character adjusts so that the sign that identifies the thief who ate supplies or who should be eaten is not on him, but on another character (smears with leftovers or with the secretions of your body of another, replaces secretions, etc.). 42 53 M75b1a Intended wife, ATU 930A A high-ranking person finds out that a (just born) poor or ugly girl is intended for him, or the girl herself finds out that she is destined to become a man's wife of high origin. A betrothed or someone else tries to kill a girl, but only hurts her and the prediction is fulfilled; if the girl is ugly, she becomes beautiful. 42 53 M93 Part of the body as a watchman When falling asleep or going to do something else, the character tells a certain part of his body to wake him up in case of danger. The organ did not give a signal or the character himself did not listen to it, as a result, the misfortune happened. 21 53 I95 The Pleiades – a sieve for grain. The Pleiades are a sieve or riddle for sifting agricultural products. See motif I95. 18 54 J53c One friend kills another. Two women live together, both have children. One of them leaves the house with the other, kills her and (later) eats her. The children of the murdered woman escape. See motif J52. 26 54 K131d Seven-league boots. Mention is made of footwear that allows the character to quickly cover enormous distances. 34 54 K15a Substituted weapon. The hero secretly replaces the weapon or magical tool of a powerful character with a worthless fake. Traditions in which the replaced weapon belongs to Grom are highlighted in bold. 30 54 K38a White and black rams, F67. Upon arriving in the underworld, the hero sees white and black horses, rams, etc. The white ones will take him to the upper world, while the black ones will take him even lower. Usually, the hero accidentally touches the black one. Sometimes a third ram or horse is mentioned, red or grey. Or the hero grabs the left horn of the animal instead of the right, and as a result ends up not where he wants to be. 28 54 K78 Swallowed, extracted from the little finger. The cannibal swallows people. When he is killed, it turns out that they are not in his belly or that they are dead there. They are found alive not in the belly, but in the cannibal's finger, or there is a means of reviving them in the little finger, or the cannibal's finger must be cut or severed to find the people. 27 54 A11a Eyes of the luminaries: coolness and night. The visible sun or moon are their eyes; if the eyes of the luminaries were not damaged, it would be much brighter and hotter. 23 54 B13a Water rushes after a person. A stream of water (with a predator in it) rushes after a character who is trying to escape from it. 32 54 B33d The Old Woman of Winter. An elderly woman embodies winter, is associated with snow, and/or at the border between winter and spring (autumn) there are several very cold days associated with a certain old woman. 26 54 B52c The earth is larger than the sky. When the earth and sky were created, they turned out to be different sizes. The earth was compressed, and mountains appeared. See motif B52. 21 54 E35 Webbing between the fingers. The first humans or creatures created by the Creator's rival were incomplete, not fully anthropomorphic (they resembled larvae, had webbing on their fingers, etc.). 24 54 E9o The magical wife – a frog or a toad. A man marries a woman who has the appearance of a frog or toad. 38 54 F50 Children born multiple times. Children have the ability to leave their mother's womb and return to it again. 28 54 H43aa Spat-upon figures. Having created the human body, the creator leaves. At this time, his opponent spits on the figure, which has not yet come to life, smears it with mud, etc. 24 54 L120 Snakes turn into apple trees, ATU 300A. After overhearing a conversation between demonic characters who are planning to turn themselves into something edible, attractive, and safe, and to destroy anyone who touches them, the hero neutralises the demons. 30 54 L48 Demons devour their own kind. The hero (usually somewhere on high ground - on a tree, rock, at the edge of a precipice or well) kills and/or throws one of his opponents down from there. The other opponents do not recognise their comrade and believe that the slain man is the hero they are pursuing. 32 54 M197 Cooking on a distant fire, ATU 1262. Seriously or demonstrating the absurdity of such actions, the character tries to fry or cook something on a fire (source of light) located far from the object that needs to be heated. 45 54 M22 The crane as saviour. A long-necked bird living near water (crane, heron, bittern, swan) helps a fugitive escape from his pursuer (indicated in brackets). See motifs J44-J46 (a long-legged bird helps cross the river, drowns the pursuer; the pursuer is most often a bear). 29 54 M57d1 Donor Bird bird consistently gives a person magical objects (or gives one, with which he receives the rest) or consistently fulfills his wishes. 29 54 M62c Tug of war, ATU 291 A weak character takes turns negotiating with two strong ones to compete in a tug of war. They don't know they're pulling each other's rope or that they're tied to a tree. 24 54 M156a Answering objects. A dangerous animal is about to kill a human or another animal that helped it. The predator and its prey agree to ask passers-by (people walking or sailing by) which of them is right. Among those who respond are inanimate objects (most often trees). 26 55 M197a The big cauldron gave birth to a small one, ATU 1592B. A man took a cauldron (pot) and returned it with a small cauldron. The owner of the cauldron agreed that the big cauldron gave birth to a small one. The next time, the man did not return the cauldron: he died. The owner had to agree. 46 55 M46a A picked up baby The character turns into a baby, is picked up by the owners of valuables, and then steals valuables or converges with a woman. The baby is not a demonic creature and does not intend to kill those who pick it up (cf. Motive L60). 22 55 M75c Treasures on the mountain, ATU 936 A person is offered to climb a rock or tree to get treasures. A return descent is not possible. Doomed to death, the hero remains alive. 39 55 J40 Enemy from the sky. The sky is inhabited by creatures that descend to kill people. Usually, the creature carries away a person or many people, or a human head. The hero (usually a close relative of the deceased) avenges the killer and/or returns the kidnapped person (persons; the carried-away body part). 23 55 J47a Bob to the sky, ATU 328A, 804A. A plant (usually not a mighty tree, but a legume) grows unusually fast, and a character climbs it to reach the sky. 29 55 K56a4 The messenger dog. When a kind girl returns home, an animal or bird (usually a dog) announces that she is well, but when an unkind girl returns or when her dead body is brought back, the dog (rooster, crow) announces that something is wrong with her. 23 55 A32d2 Man with a pitchfork on the moon. A man with a pitchfork in his hands can be seen in the silhouette of the moon's spots. 14 55 A7 The sun chases the moon. The sun and the moon (month) are two characters, one of which eternally pursues the other across the sky or pursued it when they rose into the sky from the earth. 22 55 C1 Falling sky. In the past, a catastrophic shift in the layers of the universe occurred or will occur in the future. Among the variants (sometimes combined): the sky fell to the earth; the present earth or underground world swapped places with the sky; the earth turned upside down; it fell into the underworld; the layers of the universe successively collapsed onto the earth or will swap places in the future. 28 55 F47 People made of pieces of flesh. Pieces of a creature cut into many parts or a lump of living flesh are scattered or dispersed. After that, people emerge from them. Cf. motifs E38A and K98. 18 55 F70a Scratches his body. Accusing a man or young man of assaulting her (usually sexually), a woman presents fabricated material evidence (tearing her clothes, scratching her body, etc.). See motif F70. 39 55 H36b The chameleon betrays man. The chameleon is to blame for the fact that man is mortal or that he must labour; he loses the trust placed in him by the deity. See motif H36. 28 55 H48 Fever sisters. Illnesses – female sisters (less often male brothers), usually children of an evil spirit. 34 55 I13b Horned snake, B91.3. A small snake, the snake has horns on its head. 29 55 A32g Holding on to a bush. On the lunar disc, a character can be seen holding onto a tree or bush and ending up on the moon with them. See motif A32D. 27 56 B31 Women turn into aquatic mammals. A woman (usually after coming into conflict with a man or being left alone), or a man and a woman (spouses, lovers, brother and sister) turn into aquatic mammals. 28 56 B5b Universal mother. A woman (alone or with her companion) creates or gives birth not only to humans, but also to various creatures, objects, and parts of the universe. 26 56 B72 The cuckoo was not given water. Since the children do not give their mother water, she turns into a bird (usually a cuckoo) and flies away. 27 56 C29 Overheard secret. People (God) learn a secret by overhearing (spying on) a character talking to himself or his relatives (or performing actions that should be remembered). The knowledge gained is related to cosmogony or the acquisition of cultural values. 29 56 E4 Creation from mud on the skin, A1263.3. From mud on the skin (rarely: from under the fingernails), the character creates the earth, people or other creatures. 27 56 G18 A person wishes to be sacrificed. A boy, woman, or, less commonly, a man asks others to leave him/her in the forest, burn him/her, scatter his/her remains, or drag his/her body to the site of a future vegetable garden. Cultivated plants grow in this place. 25 56 H34g Porridge from a grain. One grain was enough to prepare a meal. 27 56 K99a1 The condemned riddle-solver is freed. A man thrown into prison is released and exalted because he alone manages to solve the riddles set by the king or save the princess (king, prince, etc.). 38 56 L135 The Wanderer. A person leaves home and finds himself in unfamiliar places. His journey is marked by encounters with various strange creatures. In the end, he either returns home or leaves the earth for another world. (With an abundance of episodes, the story often either breaks off or does not contain the initial episodes explaining the reason for the hero's departure from home). 40 56 L27 The eaten maiden. Sisters or friends encounter a demon. One or both do not understand the danger. One is eaten or maimed, the other escapes. 27 56 L50 Cannibal by the trail, G321. The character kills travellers passing by. Usually, he does not attack them unexpectedly, but distracts their attention first. Often, he pushes his victims down somewhere. 21 56 M154b Husband performs his wife's work, ATU 1408. The husband (rarely: son) stays at home instead of his wife (mother), but does everything poorly and ineptly. 43 56 M166 The world among animals, ATU 62. A predator suggests that its potential prey, which is sitting in a tree, come down (usually telling a bird that there is peace among the animals and there is no need to be afraid). The prey is in no hurry to come down and usually advises the approaching dogs to spread the word about the peace among the animals. The predator runs away. 47 56 M75b The animal in the carcass was carried away by a bird A person hides in the skin or carcass of a large animal. A bird brings a skin or carcass to the nest without knowing what it brought the person. 39 56 I69 Heavenly excrement. Luminous celestial objects or atmospheric phenomena are bodily secretions of celestial beings. 24 56 K102a2 Conflict between son and mother. The mother seeks to destroy her son (children) because he interferes with her love affair. Cf. motif L86: Children flee from their demon mother. 37 56 K107a1 The head of the household brings the promised gifts, (ATU 425C). When the head of the household leaves on business, those left behind ask him to bring them gifts. The elders ask for something of obvious value (usually clothing and jewellery), while the youngest ask for something unusual and, at first glance, of little value (a flower, a bird, etc.). As a result, it is the youngest who, having overcome trials, achieves success in life. 36 56 K107c Knives on the Window (Finist the Bright Falcon), ATU 432. A magical spouse who arrives in the form of a bird or appears in some other way meets a woman. Jealous sisters (stepmother, brother, etc.) wound him (usually by placing razors, glass shards, etc. in his path). The wounded young man disappears, and the woman goes in search of him. 39 56 K14a Thrown into the furnace, ATU 910K. The antagonist orders the killing of the first person to arrive at the agreed place in the morning. The hero is accidentally delayed, and the antagonist himself or his wife or son are killed. 35 56 K18d At the pike's command, ATU 675. A young man releases or saves a fish (frog, snake, supernatural creature), it grants his wishes, and he marries a princess. {References to ATU are not entirely reliable. In particular, Uther 2004 includes a Corsican variant (Massignon 1984, No. 66), in which the main part of the plot is missing. References to Balkan variants probably correspond to the definition of the plot, since it does exist among the Bulgarians}. 38 56 K1h Walled up in a hollow. The character finds himself inside a tree trunk or inside a rock; someone frees him by making a hole from the outside. 33 56 K61a Learn the secret, ATU 500*. In order to find out the exact number, a specific object in a certain set, the name of a specific character, or the reason for a certain phenomenon, the character tries to surprise (or unintentionally surprises) the owner of such knowledge. The latter begins to talk to himself, involuntarily revealing the necessary information to the hero standing nearby. 23 56 K65e Midwife in the demonic world, ATU 476**, (ATU 156B*). A woman is invited into the non-human world, where she delivers a child for one of the creatures (or serves as a nanny for a certain period of time, baptises the child). Then she returns to the human world. 30 56 K157 Robbers killed one by one, ATU 304. The character lures his opponents out one by one and cuts off each one's head as soon as they appear. Less commonly, a multi-headed opponent sticks out its heads one by one, and the hero cuts them off. 39 57 K24a A supernatural man hides a woman's clothes. A man, usually of non-human nature, hides the clothes or sits on the clothes of an ordinary earthly girl. To get her clothes back, she is forced to enter into a romantic relationship with him. Traditions in which the character is a snake or dragon (ATU 425M) are marked with an asterisk*. 31 57 K56e Two Hunchbacks, ATU 503. Two people have the same physical defect (a bump, a hump). The first one finds himself in a place where spirits gather, and they rid him of his defect. The second comes to the spirits, and they double his defect, giving him what they took from the first person. (Uther 2004 mentions Kasevich, Osipov 1976, No. 171; the Karen text is published there and does not correspond to the definition of the motif). 43 57 K67d Escape from the worker, ATU 1132. The worker (rarely – the husband) annoys the master (wife) so much that he or she decides to run away, taking his or her property with him or her. The worker hides in a sack (chest) with his or her property and ends up back where he or she started. 42 57 K75a2 Gardener. Appearing incognito to an authoritative figure, the hero works for him as a gardener. 28 57 A35a Mud thrown in the face. Moon spots - mud (manure, clay, ash, dough, dirty rag) thrown in the face of the Moon/Moon as a result of a family or love conflict - often by a brother/sister or mother. 33 57 B27 Variants of metamorphosis. The characters ponder what object or creature they should transform into, and once they have made their choice, they undergo metamorphosis. 26 57 B64 Bony fish. Bones in the bodies of fish are the result of fights, battles, military expeditions; they are arrows stuck in them (gill openings – from stuck arrows), or small bones – fragments of the original large bones. 27 57 B71 Dancing flashes. The northern lights are people who play, dance, sit by the fire, fight or run with torches. 34 57 F65b The imaginary dead man: eats alone, K1867. The character fakes death in order to eat greedily alone. 21 57 F9g Brünnhilde, ATU 519. A powerful woman defeats and kills her suitors. The hero or his assistant defeats her (usually on their wedding night, subduing her with rods or a whip). The hero marries the heroine. 39 57 H36ff The raven betrays man. The raven (crow) or other large bird of prey tries to kill people and/or is responsible for the fact that humans (tigres: domestic animals) are mortal or susceptible to disease. 27 57 I16 Physical abnormalities of the first humans. Early humans have no mouth, anus, or genitals, and their women are unable to give birth. 36 57 M90a Marry a guesser The girl will marry the person who guessed her name, or someone who will fit the ring, or someone who says what material a particular object is made of or originated, etc. The deceiver fulfills the condition. 40 57 M109b The beaten one carries the unbeaten one, ATU 4. A weaker character convinces a stronger one that he feels even worse than he does. Usually, the stronger one agrees to carry him on his back. 39 57 M157a6 You think you are looking at an abbot, ATU 922. To help a person answer the ruler's questions, a servant or friend impersonates him and gives witty answers. Most often, the ruler asks, among other things, what he is thinking at the moment. Answer: you think you are looking at one person, but in fact it is another. 46 57 M199d Competition with the devil in wrestling and running, ATU 1071, 1072. A man and his opponent agree to compete in wrestling and running. The man sends his "relatives" – a bear and a hare – to compete in his place. (ATU numbers 1071 and 1072 are combined, as they are almost always paired.) 29 57 M61 Incitement to quarrel (by words), K1084, ATU 1577 The character provokes a quarrel by telling each of his opponents how one of them allegedly used hostile or offensive language towards the other. 41 57 L23 Proteus. Trying to free himself, the captured character successively transforms into various substances, materials or animals, or (Urarina, Setebo) orders various dangerous animals to successively attack the person who captured him. (In some cases, only one variant of transformation is mentioned, but in the same context as in typical variants with a series of transformations). 25 58 M114i What do your relatives do? ATU 875(4), 921. When asked where her father, mother, brother, etc. are, the girl or boy answers in such a way that only an intelligent person can guess what is meant (father went to make an enemy out of a friend, mother went to make one out of two, etc.); or the girl explains the meaning of similar phrases uttered by others. 38 58 M143 The fox in the well, ATU 31, 32. Finding himself in a pit or well, one character persuades another to climb down to him, thanks to which he gets out, leaving the other at the bottom. 43 58 M197e Unknown beast, ATU 1091. A man smears himself with resin, rolls around in feathers, crawls backwards on all fours, lets his hair down, etc. The demon thinks he is facing an unknown beast. The man escapes. 36 58 M29v The dwarf deer is a cunning winner The character defeats or deceives strong opponents using cunning. The protagonists are dwarf ungulates, usually duker or deer - taxonomically distant from each other, but similar in appearance. In some publications on African traditions, it is difficult to determine which animal we are talking about, but it is certain that these are small cloven-hoofed animals, usually (always?) dukers. See the motives in square brackets. 24 58 A17 Midday rest of the sun. Having travelled halfway across the sky or the underworld, the Sun stops to rest. 36 58 C9 Warning of the flood. God, an animal, or a certain character warns one of the people about an impending catastrophe (usually a flood) in which most people will perish. 22 58 F65a The Imaginary Dead Man: Meeting with a Lover, ATU 885A. The spouse leaves the character at the burial site; the (pretend) dead person comes back to life and leaves to be with their lover. 28 58 I19 They feed on the smell of food. Anthropomorphic creatures satisfy their hunger with the vapours of food being prepared. See motifs I14 (people without anuses), I15 (people without mouths). 34 58 I45a Do not look at the moon or stars. Pointing at or staring at the moon or stars will cause illness (death) or the pointing finger to rot or wither. 22 58 J31 Father's weapon. Heroes receive weapons or other items that belonged to their deceased father and are necessary for fighting their antagonists. 34 58 K117c Dancing against their will, ATU 592. When a character plays a pipe (violin, horn, etc.), people and animals begin to dance against their will. 43 58 K163 Aladdin's Lamp, ATU 561. A sorcerer orders a young man to retrieve a magical object (often a lamp) from a hard-to-reach place. The young man finds the object (but refuses to give it up), and the sorcerer grants his wishes. 44 58 K27n3b The one who gives tasks dwells in the sky. The character who gives the hero or heroine difficult tasks or subjects them to trials lives in the sky, but is not associated with the sun, moon, thunder or wind. See motif K27. 39 58 K38f7 Wild animals serve the hero. The character acquires wild animals (at least two different species) that serve him like dogs. 24 58 K85 Horse brothers. The antagonist owns the fastest horse. The hero obtains an even faster horse (usually the brother or sister of this horse), which is the only one that surpasses the antagonist's horse and usually orders the antagonist to throw off his rider. 20 58 M91c3 The postman hare A person releases an animal or a bird - supposedly with his wife instructing his wife to cook food, etc. Another does not understand deception and buys an animal. 38 58 A27 Crowns of the sun and moon. The light and/or heat of the sun and/or moon is contained in their crowns, necklaces or clothing (made of feathers or animal teeth). 32 59 A32d1 Cain and Abel on the moon. Cain and Abel are associated with the moon, usually distinguishable (both or only Cain) in the silhouette of lunar spots. 21 59 G10 The tree is suspended from the sky. A tree whose trunk has been cut down remains hanging because it is held up from above. 23 59 H43 One creates the body, and another the soul. One character creates people's bodies, while another brings them to life. 21 59 L19b3 Twelve-headed monster. A creature with 12 heads is mentioned – either singly or at the end of a series of creatures with fewer heads. 26 59 L52 The hero flies away from the top of the tree. A person escapes from a pursuer by climbing a tree and then flying away from it himself or on the back of a bird, or a bird helps the hero escape in some other way. 32 59 M134c Having eaten his fill in the storeroom, he cannot get out, ATU 41. A zoomorphic character climbs into a cellar (pantry, garden, etc.) and eats so much that he cannot get out. 37 59 M167a The tiger frightened by Twilight. A strong predator mistakes an unfamiliar word for the name of a creature that is stronger than him and flees. 17 59 M29gg The hedgehog is a cunning winner hedgehog defeats or deceives strong opponents by cunning. 34 59 M39d Shemyakin Court, ATU 1534 A person consistently and unintentionally harms others. The victims take him to a judge. He saves a person from punishment by making a formally logical but clearly unacceptable decision in each case. 42 59 K108 The revived wife cheats on her husband, ATU 612. Wife dies, husband revives her, she leaves him for another man, punished. 49 59 K25a5 Two brothers and bird maidens. The older brother is a hunter, the younger brother (rarely a sister) is a housekeeper. Learning that bird maidens come down to the younger brother, the older brother teaches the younger brother what he must do so that the older brother can catch one of them and make her his wife. The wife finds feather clothing and flies away (often the younger brother, out of simplicity, gives it to her), and the husband sets off in search of her. 12 59 K2b Gorynya and Dubyna. The occupations or names of the hero's companions are unusual and different for each one, but their specific abilities, which can be inferred from these names, are insignificant for the development of the plot. Cf. motif K66, "Heroes with different abilities". 36 59 K65a Spirits fall from the sky. After being thrown from a height or expelled, various creatures end up in different locations, acquiring corresponding functions and names. 21 59 K8c4 The elk dies after swallowing a mouse. A small animal (bird, mouse, porcupine, fox) or (rarely) a tiny human being allows itself to be swallowed by a large ungulate (elk, deer, bison, tapir) in order to rip open its belly (and eat it). 28 59 K116 Choosing a companion (ATU 516C). To choose an assistant, a young man asks the candidates to perform simple tasks (eat bread, set off on a journey). The behaviour of the chosen candidate shows that he will take care of the hero, while the behaviour of the others shows that they will only think of themselves. 10 60 K14c Son mistaken for lover, ATU 910B. Returning after a long absence and seeing signs that there is another man in the house, a man thinks that his wife has a lover, but does not rush to act and convinces himself that it is his own son or his wife's relative. 43 60 K76b Son-snake and husband-snake. The son or foster son of snake spouses. He turns into a human. The snake is the princess's magical spouse, lost and returned. 38 60 K8e Penetrates inside through the anus. The character penetrates inside the creature through the anus. 39 60 B16c The mill grinds salt, ATU 565. The magic mill is ordered to grind salt, but is not given the command to stop. The mill sinks into the sea, usually grinding salt to this day. 47 60 B3d Worm excrement. The earth is obtained by a worm; it arises from worm excrement, extracted from the worm. 13 60 D4e Coyote or fox obtains fire. The thief or giver of fire, light or sun is a coyote or fox (indicated in square brackets). See motif 4A. 24 60 I25a Bones for cows. The character gives herbivorous animals food intended for carnivores, and carnivores food intended for herbivores; the character sees that the animals have food that is inedible for them and corrects the situation. 34 60 K93a Sword on the marriage bed, T351. When lying down with a woman, a man places a sharp or pointed object between her and himself as a sign that he will abstain from sex during the night (sometimes the woman places the sword herself). 35 60 M168 Who is more cowardly than a hare? ATU 70. Hares are desperate because they are more cowardly than everyone else, but they rejoice when they learn that there are animals (frogs, sheep) that are afraid of them. 45 60 M29k1 Turtle, Toad, Frog are a loser trickster A turtle (toad, frog) gets into unpleasant situations due to its own stupidity or carelessness. See the motives in square brackets. The character is named if it is a toad or frog; otherwise, a turtle. 37 60 K93b3 Boys, foals, puppies: born together. To have a child, a woman eats fish, an apple or something else. Part of it (often the peel, broth, skin, etc.) is eaten by a mare, dog or other animals. The woman gives birth to a son (twins), the mare to a foal (foals), the dog to a puppy (puppies). 37 61 L38a Sticky trap – resin stump. The character sticks to an object, usually by successively sticking individual parts of their body to it. The object is either a trap for a demonic creature or is itself a creature of a non-human nature. Cf. motif M182 (tar doll), probably brought to the New World after Columbus from Africa. 21 61 L57 The character returns his organ. The character loses an internal organ or part of the body, which is taken away by others; he approaches unnoticed and takes back what was lost. 27 61 L5c Head-chaser, D1641.7, D992, D1602.12, R261.1. The monster head pursues celestial bodies, people, or attaches itself to someone else's body. See motif L5. 54 61 M118a Forty Robbers and Jugs of Oil, ATU 954(2). The chieftain (demon) brings robbers (other demons) to the courtyard of someone else's house, hiding them in empty jugs, barrels, etc. At night, they are supposed to attack the owners. A girl or young woman (less often, the owner of the house) learns of the danger and destroys the robbers (usually by pouring boiling water into each jug or barrel). 54 61 M127 The tailless fox, ATU 2A. The character is saved, but is left without a tail (without an ear), after which he tries to make other members of his species (social group) lose their tails (ears) as well. 37 61 M202 Pulling a splinter out of a lion's paw, ATU 156. A man pulls a thorn out of the paw (a bone out of the throat) of a strong and dangerous animal or demon, who is grateful. 51 61 M44b Food thieves are women The character discovers that someone is stealing game or fish from his trap, mountain, etc. or ravages his garden, vegetable garden, field; he or his messengers wait and catch the thief. The kidnappers are women, or the aquatic animal is the kidnapper, but when caught, it gives the hero a woman. 29 61 K131b Magical objects exchanged and returned, ATU 569. Having received and then lost a magical object, the hero returns it with the help of a new one (a club, a box with an army, etc.), received in exchange for the first or obtained by the hero's brother. The episode may be repeated several times. 43 61 K27g4 Sow, reap and bake bread in one day. The character must complete all field work in an unimaginably short time and present the products of the new harvest. 37 61 B10 Drunk water, A1013. The character drinks a lake or all the water in the world, or the only water is in his stomach. They pierce his stomach or remove the plug, forcing him to burp up the water - the water pours out. See motif B7. 29 61 B54 Splinters turn into fish. D441.10+. Wood chips, branches or pieces of bark that have fallen or been thrown into the water turn into fish and aquatic animals. 37 61 C32c Nails must be preserved. Nails (and hair) have special significance for a person's fate, their soul or the world as a whole. (Compound motif). 32 61 F1 Transformed man. The first woman, female deity, or female animals were originally men (males) who then changed their gender. 35 61 F58 The trickster and women. The character spends the night with a group of women, concealing his nature and/or intentions. In the end, he is either identified and punished, or he slips away to continue his mischief. 34 61 F73 Imaginary wound. The character mistakes the vulva or anus for a wound. See motifs F73A, F73B. (In the traditions of South and Central America, it is impossible to distinguish local variants from European borrowings). 38 61 A32b Moon toad, A751.3. The figure or imprint of a toad or frog is visible on the lunar disc; the moon is associated with this animal. 33 62 B33h Mother of the Sun. The sun has a mother who lives with him (less often with her) in the same house. Cf. motif K27x6b ("The character goes to the mother of the sun") 41 62 B41 The talking dog. Because the dog spread certain information, argued with its owners, and spoke at inappropriate times, it lost the gift of speech. 40 62 F40a The common husband of the first women. A male character, androgynous, with a monstrous penis, single-handedly possesses all women, rules over them or leads away the first women. 30 62 H6c1 Values in exchange for a child. To obtain the desired object, the character grabs the young or the female bird (snake, crab) and promises to release them if the father (mother, male) bird delivers the desired object. 34 62 I20c1 Dwarves – inhabitants of rocks and hills. Dwarves do not live deep underground, but inside hills, in rocks, in mines, etc., and usually come out from there onto the ground. 22 62 I35c Craftsman god. One of the mythological characters who, using his craft skills, first makes (usually forges) tools and natural objects; he is the patron of craftsmen (usually blacksmiths). 21 62 L56 Fire in the belly of a monster. A large animal or monster perishes from a fire kindled in its belly. See motif K8A. 35 62 L72c The abandoned mirror. Fleeing for his life, the character throws a mirror behind him, which turns into an obstacle for his pursuer (ice, lake, etc.) or attracts his attention and causes him to lose time. (In the Udmurt version, objects destroy obstacles in the character's path). 33 62 M14 Brutal murder of wife or son. A man brutally murders his wife (rarely: children, fiancée, sister) and/or eats her flesh himself, or brings her flesh to her relatives (if he kills children, he brings the flesh to his wife). 26 62 J64 Into the sky on a pillar of smoke. Without touching the fire or burning, the character rises into the sky or crosses the river on clouds of smoke. 27 62 K107a3 Beauty and the Beast, ATU 425C. When her father leaves, the daughter asks him to bring her a flower (leaf, etc.). The father picks it in the garden of an enchanted prince who has a monstrous appearance. The monster demands the daughter from her father and, thanks to the girl, regains his princely appearance. 28 62 K117 Nesmeyana (bride, young man), ATU 559, (571). A woman will marry the man who makes her laugh; a man promises a reward to anyone who makes his daughter, mother or son laugh. 42 62 K152a The Devil and His Wife in the Pit, ATU 1164. A man saves a devil (snake, predator) suffering from the proximity of a certain character or object. To reward his saviour, the devil promises to possess a princess and leave her when the man comes to treat her. The devil either breaks his promise or warns the man not to try to cure those whom the devil will later possess. The man informs the devil that the character or object he fears so much is approaching again. The devil flees and never returns. 45 62 K27z8 Riddles that cannot be solved, ATU 851, 927. A person poses a riddle that can only be solved by knowing the circumstances in which he found himself. 43 62 K33e Chosen and returned children (Griselda), ATU 887. Newborn children disappear (die) one after another, but are returned to their wife or husband grown up and in good health. 40 62 K37a Recognising a man. The character must identify his son or husband among many identical people or animals. See motif K37. 44 62 K27x9 Retrieving an object from the bottom of the sea. The hero must retrieve a small object (often a ring or signet ring) thrown into deep water (often the sea). Cf. motif C6 ("The Diver"). 36 63 K80c Ivico's cranes, ATU 960, 960A. Before dying, the murderer's victim turns to birds (stars, animals, plants, etc.). Later, seeing these birds (the moon, the sun, this plant, etc.), the murderer recalls his deed aloud or otherwise gives himself away. Or the birds, being the only witnesses to the crime, lead the investigators to the murderers. 36 63 B38a Two birds adorn each other. Two birds agree to paint each other. One of them does not become more beautiful as a result and often becomes uglier. See motif B36A. 29 63 B40 The rabbit as a substitute for the deer. The hare/rabbit is a false deer, a former deer, a brother of the deer, a former or failed owner of antlers, its ears are false antlers. 44 63 B69 Striped chipmunk, A2217.2. Wishing to reward or punish a small rodent (chipmunk, marmot, squirrel), the character makes it striped, usually by running a paw or hand down its back. 25 63 B77a The giant pushed back the sky. One or more anthropomorphic characters push the sky away from the earth. See motif B77. 34 63 C4 The Flood: Falling Fruit. During the flood or at the beginning of time, fruits, seeds, or other objects fall into the water one after another. As this happens, the water begins to recede, exposing the earth. 27 63 H26 Mosquitoes had to be drowned. A vessel containing stinging insects or reptiles should be thrown into a river or the sea, or buried in a remote place. See motif H24B. 26 63 I20c Dwarves – inhabitants of the underworld. Dwarves live in an underground world that partly resembles the earthly world. If dwarves and humans meet, it happens underground. 38 63 L105 The invisible hook, B5482.3. A wounded animal, fish or anthropomorphic character runs or swims away – usually with a hook, harpoon, arrow or other hunting or fishing implement stuck in its body; local healers cannot cure the wounded creature (usually because they cannot see the object that caused the wound); a person comes to the wounded person's village and successfully treats them (usually by removing the object that caused the wound). Cf. motif M60A. 32 63 M3 Human chain The character crosses a water or air barrier on the backs of chained animals, birds, or fish. 21 63 M63 An enumeration of body members Before reaching the part of the body that is most suitable for certain purposes, others are named or tried. (Cf. Motive F22: The enumeration is related to finding the partner's genitals). 31 63 M83b Whose sleep better? ATU 1626 Two (or more) characters agree to give food to whoever has the best dream. One talks about a feast he went to in a dream (or says he was in a different world), the second admits that he ate everything alone - he was sure that after the feast, the first one would not qualify for food (which someone who finds himself in a different world does not need food). 39 63 L8 Left behind feet and heads. A character temporarily leaves parts of his body behind. Usually, a marriage partner makes it impossible to reunite the departed part with the remaining one. See motif L5. (For the Greater Southwest, Mesoamerica, and the Central Andes, borrowing from the Spanish or the superimposition of a borrowed motif on a pre-Columbian one cannot be ruled out. Stories of witches leaving parts of their bodies behind, which are of European origin, are widespread among the Spanish-speaking population of the Caribbean). 20 64 M101a Predators learn to fear humans, ATU 157A. Learning that humans are supposedly stronger than him, a large predator finds a human and challenges him to a contest of strength. This ends badly for him. Cf. motif M101. 48 64 M198a The Clever Brothers (The Lost Camel), (ATU 655A). Brothers (rarely: one person) determine the characteristics of a domestic animal they have not seen, or of the person who stole the animal, based on subtle clues. {In ATU, plots 655 and 655A are combined; in Aarne, Thompson 1961 and in regional indexes, our motif M198A corresponds to plot 655A} (Type 655A only in Aarne, Thompson 1984. In ATU mixed with 655). 39 64 M77 Soiled bed The character stains another's clothes or bed with sewage or something that looks like sewage, threatens to ruin the air and accuse the other, etc.; taking advantage of the victim's confusion, achieves the goal. 44 64 J50 Attempt to resurrect the dead. The father or mother of twin heroes dies or is killed. An attempt to revive the deceased fails. 17 64 K103d Enter the horse's ear and take it out of the cow's ear. An animal (rarely a demonic creature) orders the hero or heroine to retrieve necessary items from its ear or to enter its ear in order to transform, fall asleep, etc. 25 64 K161 The Released Dragon, (ATU 302C*). A character who has deprived a dragon (demon, thunder) of its freedom orders others not to unlock the dungeon (not to enter a certain room, not to give the chained creature anything to drink, etc.). The prohibition is violated, the chained creature is freed, which leads to disaster. Cf. motif K100f1. 29 64 K65 Spirits of loci. Having been cast out, discarded, or born of the first ancestors, creatures of a certain category acquire individuality, transforming into spirits who are the masters of various loci. 25 64 K66d Bear fosterling. A boy who grew up (was conceived) in a bear's den (lion's cave) becomes a bogatyr. 40 64 M90a1 Lice skin, H522.I.I,ATU857. It is required to sew clothes from the skin of lice (fleas) or guess the origin of a large animal, a large skin, the contents of the box; the animal (skin) arose from lice (fleas), in the box - louse. 49 64 M99 The threat to exterminate birds, AA 981.1. The character is going to abuse all birds or (less commonly) animals, but after hearing wise advice, he abandons his intention. 36 64 F22 Studying the partner's body. The character asks a person of the opposite sex about the purpose of the part of the body used for sexual intercourse (usually after asking questions about other parts). Alternatively, the character tries out different parts of the body for sexual intercourse or for placing the genitals. Cf. motif M63. 33 64 I104 Stars - fragments. Stars are formed from particles of the body, fragments of a larger celestial body (usually the moon); stars (usually also the sun and moon) are formed from the body of a single being. 34 64 B1f Two brothers: the winner and the loser. In the era of creation, two men have a common origin, are not antagonists, and display their characteristics in a series of episodes. One is intelligent and successful, the other is simple-minded and irresponsible. 31 65 B48 Predators become herbivores. Harmless and herbivorous animals were or could become dangerous predators. 39 65 G8b They cut down a tree to get the one who climbed it. A person hides in a tree or (Kazakhs) hides behind walls. Another tries to cut down the tree (break down the walls) to get the person, but the cut tree grows back (or the already felled tree rises, the wall is restored). 36 65 I43b The Milky Way – snake, fish. The Milky Way is a reptile, fish or chain of fish. 24 65 J55 The unrecognised hero encounters enemies. The hero encounters characters who, not recognising him, say that they are waiting for so-and-so (naming him) to kill him. He easily kills them or turns them into animals. 27 65 K153 Grateful animals and an evil man, ATU 160. A man does a favour for several (potentially dangerous) animals and another man. The grateful animals help him, but the man betrays and harms him. 49 65 K27p1 The enemy father-in-law takes the form of an animal. The father-in-law (less often the mother-in-law) orders the hero to kill or tame a dangerous animal or not to kill a certain animal while hunting. This animal is himself or his daughter (wife). 43 65 K33c Girl found inside a foetus, (ATU 408). A young man obtains a girl who is inside a fruit or (rarely) a flower, stem, leaf, or egg. 48 65 K65f Which eye do you see with? (ATU 476**) Once in the locus of demons, a person sees them in their true form. Upon returning, the person sees the demon again, which ordinary people are incapable of doing. The demon blinds him. 22 65 M198b2 A fortune teller named Grasshopper. An authoritative character asks a person whose name (or his wife's name) is the name of an insect (most often Grasshopper) to guess what is in his fist (in a box, etc.). The corresponding insect is there. The person says that now he, so-and-so, has been caught, while others think that he has guessed correctly. 30 65 M38d Item characters die one after another, ATU 85, 295 Two or more characters, which are small objects or small animals, live or travel together and die one by one while committing protozoa actions. 38 65 M39g Crying for an unborn child, ATU 1450 The girl weeps, imagining the dangers that threaten her future child; remembering an incident that could end badly; jealous of the fiancé she does not have; distracted from urgent matters, considering the name of the future child instead of meeting the groom. 47 65 L73c The scarf opens and closes the way. By waving a piece of cloth (towel, scarf, item of clothing) or throwing it, placing it on water, etc., the character creates obstacles (in the path of the pursuer) or a means of overcoming them (bridge, etc.). 27 66 M29w1 The leopard is a loser and a loser As a result of their stupidity or antisocial behavior, the leopard (panther, leopard) dies or suffers damage. See the motives in square brackets. 42 66 M60 Imaginary physician: finished off enemy, K824, K1955 After injuring a demon (robber), the hero goes to his locus. There he, or (rarely) his assistant, pretends to be a doctor and finishes off an opponent. 29 66 J37 A bird carries away the antagonist. Transforming into a powerful bird or creating one, the hero lifts his opponent into the air and carries him away. 32 66 K113a The bride where the arrow fell. A young man throws an object, shoots an arrow, etc. Where the arrow lands (where the object falls), the young man finds a wife or a means of obtaining one. 36 66 K117b Stuck Together, ATU 571, 571B. The hero causes various people (and animals) to stick to each other (or to objects). 53 66 K44 The false mother is rejected. The character kidnaps the boy or hides him from his mother or father, pretending to be his mother or father. The kidnapped boy learns the truth and leaves the kidnapper. 22 66 K80b Mother killed, father ate, ATU 720. The mother or stepmother kills the boy (rarely a girl) and usually feeds her husband, i.e. the child's father, his flesh. The boy is reborn, usually (at first) in the form of a bird that tells the story of what happened. Cf. motif K80A. Traditions in which the boy is killed by his own mother are highlighted in bold. 40 66 A23 Who will become the sun? The first ancestors come together to choose who will become the sun, to raise the sun to the sky, to see the sun rise for the first time, and to name the sun correctly. See motif A22. 29 66 A6A Two-faced moon/month. In the same ethnic group, the gender of the moon/month varies in different texts; it changes depending on the phases; the moon is a married couple; the moon is a woman who used to be a man. See motifs A3 - A5. {The material is incomplete. For Western European traditions, data contained in fairy tales is not included}. 50 66 A13a1 The raven obtains the sun. The raven rescues or obtains the hidden or stolen sun (daylight). 31 67 B2e Earth-man. The Earth or the world as a whole is a male character (alone or alongside a female character). 29 67 B40a The one who lost his horns. Nowadays, hornless animals lose their horns or are deprived of the opportunity to grow them. See motif B40. 38 67 B42h Orion's Belt – game, hunter – another star. Orion's Belt – game, another star or group of stars within or outside Orion – hunter. 31 67 F9 Dangerous woman. For various reasons, sexual intercourse with a woman is deadly dangerous for a man, or so it seems to him: Teeth, blades or sharp stones in the vagina or on the inside of the thighs; the vagina is a toothy mouth. See motif F9A. 46 67 H3A Violated sexual taboo. People die (fall ill) and cannot come back to life because a taboo related to sexual contact or pregnancy was once violated. {The motif may be composite, including historically unrelated variants}. 42 67 h54d Lord of the spirits. A character whose eyelids (eyelashes, eyebrows) are so heavy that he cannot open his eyes without help, possesses enormous power and is dangerous to heroes and people in general. He is often associated with the underworld or with a bygone era. 25 67 H7a Death and the healer, ATU 332. Having received knowledge from Death (rarely: Happiness or a certain spirit) about whether the sick person will be healed or not, whether she is going to take his soul, the person will know whether he will recover. U.nyak praises him for his impartiality; U.t himself; the poor man scolds the doctor, becomes rich. Usually he sees where exactly Death (spirit, etc.) is near the bed, whether it is going to take his soul, whether the person will recover. U. praises him for his impartiality; U. himself; the poor man scolds the sick man, and on this basis knows what will happen to him. 49 67 I94 Pleiades – holes. The Pleiades are something holey. 25 67 J28b Hot flatbread. Upon learning that a woman (usually the hero's mother) is hiding the truth about his father, mother, brothers, or bride, a young man (rarely a young woman) causes her pain, forcing her to tell the truth (usually by pressing hot bread into her palm or sticking her fingers into hot food). 25 67 J6 The children of the murdered woman grew up in the house of their antagonists. A pregnant woman is killed (and eaten). Twins are taken from her womb, who are usually also destined to be eaten, but they escape, live (secretly) in the house of their antagonists, and take revenge on them. 32 67 K152 The devil runs away in terror, ATU 1164. A man saves a devil who is suffering from the proximity of a certain character or object. To reward his saviour, the devil promises to possess a princess and leave her when the man comes to treat her. The devil either breaks his promise or warns the man not to try to cure those whom the devil will possess later. The man informs the devil that the character or object he fears so much is approaching again. The devil flees and never returns. 50 67 K3 A tree or rock grows. The hero climbs a tree or rock to get bird eggs, chicks, fruit, honey, etc. He cannot climb down because another character makes the tree (rock) very tall or makes the tree trunk thick. See motif K1A. 48 67 L23d Transformations of the captured woman. A man captures a desirable woman. Trying to free herself, she transforms into various substances, materials, animals or (urarina, setebo) orders various dangerous animals to attack the man who captured her. 25 67 M161 Dog in a bag. A character gives another a sack that is supposed to contain food, but in fact contains a dog; or frees a girl (boy) from a sack or chest and replaces her with a dog or other dangerous animal. The animal attacks the person who opened the sack. 36 67 M25 A holiday in heaven, K1041 To take part in a festival in heaven or visit a deity, a flightless character manages to climb high into the sky. He usually cannot go down the same way, falls and as a result dies, maims or metamorphoses. 29 67 L9a Ostronog, G341.1. The character's leg is crippled (intentionally or accidentally) or originally pointed. He uses the pointed bone for hunting, fishing or killing people. 34 68 M39a4a Sells a lizard a cow, ATU 1643 fool sells or gives an animal (plant, statue) meat, pet, cloth, etc., believing that the buyer will pay; or the fool works where no one asked him to, and takes the animal for its owner. When he comes for money, he beats an animal (a tree, a statue, follows an animal) and as a result finds a treasure. 51 68 M45a The old man and the beasts A person is sleeping or pretending to be asleep or dead. Animals take him for a dead man - they mourn him, carry him to bury him, they are going to eat it, etc. A person beats the crowd and/or obtains benefits. 29 68 M74aa An imaginary visit The character (several times) pretends to be his name (that he is going to visit), and eats up supplies himself. See M74A motif. 55 68 K118a Portrait of an unknown beauty. Upon seeing the portrait of a beauty, a man strives to meet her. 40 68 K1e Abandoned on an island, K1616. The character is abandoned on an island or on the other side of a river or sea. See motif K1A. 50 68 K77b1 Wolf's Head, ATU 125. When they see predators, domestic animals consciously or accidentally behave in such a way that the predators flee in fear. 43 68 K80d The stuck pin. A young woman or man is enchanted (turned into a bird, animal, immobilised) when a pin or other sharp object is stuck into their body. 44 68 B18 Light in a vessel, A1411.1. Daylight, warmth, sun or moon are stored in a vessel, under a vessel, under a cover, in a bag, etc. 32 68 C25b The Moon Spinner. In the sky, on the moon (rarely – on the sun), somewhere outside our world, a certain character spins, weaves, knits, embroiders or makes bast fabric. 35 68 G9 The felled forest is reborn, D1602.1+. The forest cut down during clearing is reborn by morning. 21 68 B77b They touched the sky with a long object. The sky moved away and/or the connection between people and the deity ceased after the sky or the heavenly deity was touched or struck with a long object (a pestle, a broom, etc.) during work. Cf. motifs B77b1 and B77b2. 24 69 D4o Dry by the fire. In order to steal fire from its owner, the character pretends to be wet and cold, and after receiving permission to dry off, runs away, bringing fire to the people. 31 69 H37 The spirit's superweapon falls into the hands of the hunter. A magical item that makes hunting or fishing easy and reliable falls into the hands of a character who is unable to control it or abuses it. 32 69 H47 Offended sky/earth. The sky (celestial deity) or Earth is offended by people's behaviour towards them and reacts accordingly. 26 69 K127 Animal brothers, ATU 451. A girl has many brothers, who are turned into birds or animals (rarely: into plants; killed by witchcraft), then usually disenchanted (brought back to life; usually all of them, in the Georgian version – one). See motif K127A. 51 69 K27f1 Building a bridge. A character builds a bridge (usually from precious materials) in an implausibly short time. 39 69 K65c Eve's Unwashed Children, ATU 758. A woman (rarely a man) hides some of her children (less often, all of them) or some of her domestic animals from God. According to God, the hidden children become either poor people or creatures of a non-human nature, and the hidden domestic animals become wild. 40 69 K74a Only the hero defeats the demon and follows in his footsteps. A demonic character arrives and mocks one of the men remaining in the house. When the hero remains, he defeats the demon and follows in his footsteps to where he dwells. Cf. motif K74 (an unassuming and weak-looking man approaches a warrior preparing dinner; he eats everything, ties up, beats or kills the cook. When the hero remains to cook, he defeats the demon). 54 69 M39c Horse egg, ATU 1319 A fool is told that a round fruit is a mare's egg (donkeys, elephants, etc.). A fool buys fruit for a lot of money. When he throws it or drops it, a small animal (usually a hare) jumps out of the thickets. A person believes that this is a foal (donkey, etc.) that has hatched. 51 69 M90a5 Golden apples The story mentions the golden fruits (rarely leaves) of a tree, usually golden apples. 45 69 I89 The lost caravan. There is a star that brings death and misfortune; it is usually told how people mistake a star or constellation rising at night for the Morning Star, set off on a journey and lose their way. 17 70 K100c The snake bites the girl's suitors, ATU 507 (main part, variant 2). A woman (rarely a young man) does not know that inside her (him) there is something dangerous for her (his) marriage partner (usually a snake), or that on her wedding night she will turn into a snake, or that a snake will crawl in on her wedding night. The hero or his companion eliminates the danger. {Motif K100C is similar to F9f1, but the latter belongs to the cosmological-etiological category and is associated with the idea of a dangerous woman, while K100C is adventurous}. 37 70 K17 Ornithomorphic groom. A male character in the form of a winged creature approaches a girl and either magically or unnoticed by her impregnates her. See motif K16: taking the form of an animal or bird, he enters the girl's house. 47 70 K67a The Drowned Wife, ATU 1120. A character of low status annoys characters of high status. Learning of the intention of the characters of high status to drown him or his property (rarely: to strangle him), he arranges for one of them or their property to be drowned instead. 50 70 A22 Into the sky from the bonfire. One or two people fall into fire or boiling water and ascend to the sky, turning into the sun and/or the moon. 34 70 B43 Purusha, D287.5. Elements of the landscape or parts of the universe are created from the body of the original being. 28 70 B90 Master of wolves. There is an anthropomorphic patron, master or mistress of wolves; he usually gives instructions to the wolves on a certain day of the year. 32 70 F54 Oedipus, ATU 931, 933. Unaware of this, the son and mother (Konkani: daughter and father) engage in sexual relations and later learn of the incest they have committed. Cf. motifs c8c, f54e. 50 70 F8 Meeting of men and women. In the beginning (.55.60.67.73.) women and men lived separately from each other, then came together. Cf. motif F45 (Amazons). 30 70 I110a Star Plough. Orion (rarely - another constellation) - plough. 31 70 B4 The elongated land. Islands or mainland pulled out of the ocean, pulled by a rope. 28 71 C19a The child is playing with the sun The character (except Quileut: Raven) turns into a child, asks for and receives heavenly bodies to play, or (Chukchi) comes to play with the little daughter of the owner of the stars. 23 71 F87 Children transformed by a snake woman, ATU 425M. The snake forces the girl to promise to marry him and takes her to the underwater world. She is happy there and gives birth to a son (or two sons) and a daughter. Together with her children, she returns to visit her relatives. They learn what words she must use to summon her husband from the water, summon him, and kill him. Seeing the bloody water, the snake's wife (rarely the snake himself) turns the children and herself into birds or trees. 28 71 F9e1 Dangerous animal in the vagina. A woman's womb is dangerous because it contains a toothy or stinging animal (not just its mouth) or many such creatures. 42 71 H36gg The coyote betrays man. The coyote is to blame for the fact that humans are mortal. 27 71 I68b The night of fulfilled wishes. On a certain night of the year, any wish that is expressed or conceived will come true. Cf. motif M13. 28 71 I75 Previous worlds. Before the emergence of the present world or present humans, there were others (at least two worlds or races). 20 71 I92 The rainbow changes gender. A person who has come into contact with a rainbow in a certain way (walked under it, drunk water where the rainbow drinks, etc.) changes their gender. 41 71 J59 Following the arrow to the sky. To reach the sky, one must shoot an arrow that will pierce the vault of heaven. See motif J58; see motif J59A: a man flies after or on an arrow (without the motif of an arrow piercing the vault of heaven). 58 71 K101 Night dances of girls, ATU 306. A girl or boy disappears at night. Usually, the girl's clothes or shoes are worn out overnight, or the boy looks sick and tired in the morning. The girl or boy is followed and seen spending the night in another world. 44 71 K115 Spider web at the entrance, B523.1, ATU 967. When a character hides in a shelter, a spider immediately weaves a web at the entrance. Enemies decide that no one has entered the cave or room for a long time and leave. 50 71 K27z Gambling for life and death. A character gains power over another by winning a game of chance or an intellectual game (not a sporting competition). The motif includes all texts with motif K27z4. 43 71 K37b Recognising a woman by her missing little finger. A man must identify his chosen one blindfolded. He does this by touch, knowing that one of her fingers is damaged or missing. 54 71 K38c A bird carries a hero. After the hero helps the bird (usually by doing good to its chicks), it takes him to the place he desires, or instructs its chicks to do so. (This does not involve movement between levels of the universe; in the Sumerian version, the bird gives the hero the ability to move with lightning speed and directs him to his goal). 39 71 K95 Together and after death, ATU 970. Two people who love each other (usually a man and a woman) die prematurely and are buried in the same grave or nearby. After or during the burial, something unusual happens that is connected with the story (special plants grow in that place, the smoke from the two funeral pyres joins together, the dead turn into two birds, two stars, etc.). 45 71 L15e The life of a hero in a sword, ATU 302B. The hero's life is in a certain object, usually his weapon. An enemy steals or discards this object, the hero weakens or dies, his friends or brothers return the object, and the hero comes back to life. {In ATU, this is motif 302B; at least some of the references cited by Uther do not contain the motif in our formulation (not found in Japan or Burma); original publications are required}. 36 71 M149 Say that I am a stump, ATU 154. A strong enemy is ready to kill the hero (a human or a weak animal). Someone, seemingly unaware of this, loudly announces that the hero's enemy is being sought in order to kill him. The hero is saved. Usually, the enemy asks not to be betrayed, saying that he is a stump, a log, etc. This allows him to be treated as such – thrown, chopped, etc. (ATU data not entered; plot 154 includes several independent motifs; which of them are present in the traditions referred to by ATU cannot be determined without referring to the original sources). 38 71 M169 Medicine from a wolf's skin, ATU 50. In the presence of an authoritative figure, one of the subordinates plots against another. The latter says that the problem can be solved by maiming the former (usually using a part of his body as medicine). The schemer is killed or maimed. 50 71 M60b Imaginary doctor: finishing off the victim The deceiver, promising to cure a wounded or sick person, finishes him off and eats him or offers a remedy that is only worse for him. 28 71 K98 The slain man turns into a camp. An animal or (less commonly) a woman who gave birth to a hero or helped him turns into a house and property. 31 72 K99b Midnight escape: change of partner, (ATU 856). A girl and a young man agree that he will take her away at night. The young man is late or falls asleep, and the girl is taken away by someone else who happens to be at the appointed place. 28 72 L33 Rolling Stone, R261. The stone rolls after the character, trying to crush him. 28 72 M62a Incitement to quarrel (action) The hero quietly damages each of the two characters; they accuse each other, quarrel, fight. 50 72 A20 Childhood and youth of the Sun and Moon. The Sun and the Moon (less often the Sun and a star, the Moon and a star) are brothers (sisters, brother and sister) who initially live on earth, but at the end of the story, as teenagers or young adults, ascend to the sky and become celestial bodies. 27 72 A23a Who will be the first to see the sun? ATU 120, Arguing about superiority or seniority, the characters agree to decide in favour of the one who first sees the rising sun (the beginning of the year). The winner is the one whose victory seemed unlikely. (In Uther 2004(1), No. 120: 87, the definition of the motif includes the detail that the winner looks not to the east but to the west and sees the tops of trees illuminated by rays of light. In Europe, in most cases (except for the Scots) that have been verified, this detail is indeed present. However, it is absent in American and some Asian traditions). 48 72 B26 Gone to the animals. A person who follows wild animals (temporarily) turns into one of them or their master, or lives with animals that look like humans to him. 36 72 C30 Impossible condition. In order to free himself from an obligation, the character sets a condition that is formally logical and uncomplicated, but in reality impossible to fulfil. 46 72 I38 Dog-headed creatures. There are creatures that combine the characteristics of dogs and humans (usually people with dog faces or heads). 32 72 M91b Ash sold, (ATU 1535) A person manages to fraudulently sell or exchange ash for gold and money. Others are unsuccessfully offering ash for sale. 45 72 K27g To bathe in boiling water. The character is ordered to bathe in (hot) milk, in boiling water, to jump into the fire; he remains unharmed, while his opponent usually perishes. 45 72 J17 Frogs in the hair. Instead of lice in the character's hair, there are other creatures, or he pretends that such creatures live in his hair. 45 73 K67c Skin torn from the back. The character agrees that under certain conditions another person may tear the skin from his back or cause him some other bodily harm. 49 73 I22a The sky beats against the earth, F791. The sky constantly beats against the earth like the lid of a boiling cauldron. 36 73 M113 Birds are forbidden to drink. In summer, during the height of the heat, or constantly, birds of a certain species are not allowed to drink from ponds and springs. It is generally believed that they drink only rainwater and cry out, begging for rain. See motif M112. 37 73 M95 Take the gift home, ATU 311 weaker character asks a stronger character to take the gift to his family and climbs into a basket, bag, etc. A strong character brings and leaves a gift without knowing that brought whoever sent this gift. Usually a girl hides her sisters in a bag (chest), and next time she sits there herself, and the cannibal believes that there are gifts for the girls' parents in the bag and carries the bag. 42 73 F65 The imaginary dead man. To satisfy their secret desire, which involves breaking social norms (forbidden sex, refusing to share food with relatives), the character pretends to be dying, abandoned at the burial site. 69 74 I41b The rainbow drinks water. The rainbow drinks (draws into itself) water (and living creatures). 41 74 K120a Prevented incest (sister and brother), (ATU 313E). A man is going to marry his sister (often it turns out that she is the only one who meets the requirements for a bride). Usually, the girl manages to avoid such a marriage. 46 74 K60a Are the bonds strong? Unaware of the danger, the character allows himself to be tightly bound. 46 74 M196 Who will speak first? ATU 1351. A husband and wife agree to award a small prize to the one who remains silent the longest. Both or one of the spouses continue to remain silent even when others mistake them for dead or commit violence against them. 51 74 L61 Samoyed, F1035. The character eats himself, guts himself, or kills himself in order to be eaten. 36 75 M136d Shattered dreams, ATU 1430. A person dreams of gradually becoming rich and forgets that this has not yet happened. As a result, he loses the initial source of future prosperity (breaks a jug, scares away a hare he was about to shoot, etc.) or senselessly causes harm to himself or others. 56 75 H28a The ashes of the burned turn into gnus. When a character is burned, the smoke and sparks turn into mosquitoes and other blood-sucking insects that scatter throughout the world. 22 75 I55 Stars – holes. Stars – holes in the sky; or holes in the canopy, in the roof of a dwelling, appear to be stars. 45 75 I59b1 The Milky Way – the road to a distant city. The Milky Way – the road to a distant city, usually with religious significance (Rome, Jerusalem, etc.). 29 75 K32h3 The antagonist is burned. The antagonist is executed by being burned alive. (Episodes in which the burning of the character is not a punishment but a means of getting rid of him are not taken into account). 37 75 K32M The heroine is transformed into an animal (not drowned). To take the heroine's place, her rival turns her into an animal or bird without pushing her into the water. Cf. motif k33. 59 75 K48 The hero's singing bird, ATU 550. The antagonist orders the wonderful bird captured by the hero to sing or talk, but it remains silent or cries out inappropriately. The bird begins to sing (talk) after the hero has triumphed over his opponents. 45 75 K49 Dead mother nursing a baby, E323.1. A woman who has been transformed into an animal or found herself outside the human world returns to her child to feed and care for it. Cf. motif K33. 48 75 K80c4 Silent witnesses to crime, ATU 960, 960A. In a deserted place, one person kills another. After some time, he is exposed thanks to facts and circumstances that do not seem important and do not directly tell about the crime (the victim's last words; objects or living beings that were or appeared at the scene of the murder). (All texts containing motifs K80c3 and K80c4 also contain the more general motif K80c). 45 75 I78 Square Earth. The earth is thought of as rectangular (usually square). 36 76 K123 The old woman's curse. A boy, a young man, or, less commonly, a girl deliberately or accidentally offends an elderly woman (or a cripple). She utters words that cause him or her to want to do something dangerous (most often to find a marriage partner). 39 76 K136a The girl's floating hair. Seeing the girl's hair carried away by the water, the man decides to marry the girl to whom the hair belongs. 45 76 L14 The cultivated snake. People bring a small creature (usually a worm or reptile) into their home and raise it, or it settles into a man-made dwelling on its own. The creature turns into something terrifying or magnificent. See motif L13 (raised monster attacks people). 51 76 M157b Take the most precious thing (ATU 875). The husband drives his wife away, allowing her to take what is most precious to her. She takes her sleeping or intoxicated husband. He returns with her. {Traditions mentioned in El-Shamy 2004 are highlighted in bold; it is highly likely that this motif is indeed present in them; some traditions mentioned in ATU 875 are given in brackets; they are not included in the correlation table, the original publications are required}. 47 76 M163 Dear Cat, ATU 1281, 1651. A man arrives in a country where there are many mice (rats, snakes) but no cats. He sells a cat there and receives a reward. 56 76 C20 The drunken cannibal. A dangerous character is killed, neutralised, and deprived of his (her) values after being cheered up at a party, lured into a trap with music, promises of alcohol, women, etc.; the same method is used to enlist the favour of a powerful helper. 41 76 H16a Rivers of blood, A671.2.2. The narratives (in various contexts) mention rivers (lakes) of blood (as well as water used to wash the dead, pus, bones, sweat). Cf. motifs H16, K33F, N34. 36 76 B33 Woman-wind. There is a female character who embodies the wind or is considered the mother or mistress of the winds. 38 77 B79 Cosmic egg. In the world ocean or in the world abyss, from an egg (eggs) or egg-like sphere, shell, etc., the earth, sky, luminaries, and creator gods arise. 28 77 C6c The Diver – Bird. The bird dives and brings up the desired object from the bottom. See motif C6. 56 77 E31c Rescuers of the Abducted Maiden, ATU 513A, ATU 653. Several men, each possessing a unique skill, bring a (kidnapped) girl from a distant country. 53 77 F39 Women's time. In the past or in distant lands, women dominated men, were the active party in marital relations, and engaged in male activities. Men engaged in female activities. Later, the situation changed. Either women missed the opportunity to gain superiority. See motif F38. 48 77 I43a Cosmic serpent. A giant reptile, serpent, fish, or chain of fish stretches across the earth and/or supports the sky. Usually associated with the Milky Way, sometimes with a rainbow. 27 77 J32a At night by his father's grave, ATU 530. When dying, a person orders that someone spend the night at his grave or bring something to the grave. 42 77 M98 Who's more? AA 981.1. The character counts the number of members in two huge and alternative sets (dead and alive, men and women, etc.). Usually numbers are distributed equally, and one term (or some) is endowed with the properties of both. By referring it to one of the sets, the character proves a thesis. 40 77 M159 The Lion's Share, ATU 51. The strongest character (usually a lion) offers to divide the spoils (harvest). The more cunning character refuses his share, but remains unharmed. Usually a wolf (hyena, jackal) divides the spoils, giving the lion the larger share, but the lion beats him. The third character gives the lion everything. The lion asks who taught him to divide so well and receives the answer: the one whom the lion mauled. 45 77 M18 Stolen tackle, D657.1. The character turns into an object of fishing or hunting and presents himself as a target. The fisherman or hunter does not harm them, but they take away what they use: arrows, darts, harpoons, hooks, bait; or they catch fish, having turned themselves into hooks; or they are caught but escape death by taking on human form again. 41 77 M46d The child asks for a toy A small child cries and calms down only after being given a valuable item hidden in the house to play with. After receiving an item, a child or an associated character takes it away. 31 77 L108b The Thin Voice, (ATU 327F). To prevent his victim from recognising him, the predator, the cannibal, makes his voice thinner by mechanical means - he smears his throat (tongue) with fat, cauterises it with a hot stone or iron, exposes it to ant bites, consults a blacksmith, etc. 41 78 M116a I also rested here, ATU 980. A man drags his father, intending to leave him to die in a deserted place, give him to an almshouse, throw him into a precipice, etc. He stops on the way. The father says that he also stopped at this place when he was dragging his father. Or the boy asks to keep the sledge, the skin, etc., on which his father is dragging his grandfather (or takes half of the cloak with which his father covered the old man): it will come in handy when he drags his father himself. Or the old man is given a wooden (broken, etc.) plate to eat from, and the boy says that he will give his father the same one when he grows old. The man brings his father home (begins to take care of him). 49 78 M157a4 Fishing on a mountain. The character proves the absurdity of another's statements by claiming that he (or someone else) fished on a mountain, extinguished a fire with straw, sowed wheat in the sea, watched flying fish, etc. (or he himself imitates such actions). The absurdity of the statements stems from the incorrectly chosen locus or means for performing certain actions. 49 78 M198 The Clever Brothers (the illegitimate khan), ATU 655. In the house of the khan (judge, king, etc.), three brothers (rarely one person) determine that the food and drink served to them smell of dead flesh, dog, goat, etc., and (or that) the host who receives them is illegitimate or of low birth. After questioning the servants and his mother, the host is convinced that the brothers are right. 50 78 I5 Thunder – animal. Thunder (lightning, rain) has the appearance of a four-legged mammal - a pig, buffalo, camel, anteater, tapir, dog, cat, leopard, monkey, etc. 41 78 K27z2a1 An innocent woman is accused of promiscuity. Noticing that a woman is pregnant, her relatives or in-laws accuse her of promiscuity, because, according to their calculations, she could not have conceived by her husband or fiancé. After severe trials, the woman meets again the father of the boy she gave birth to. 33 78 K38d1 Girl sacrificed to the dragon. Fearing a monster living in the water or wishing to end a flood or drought, a girl is sacrificed or voluntarily hides in the waters. 41 78 B38 Unsuccessful colouring. The character decorates birds or animals, or they decorate each other. Some are dissatisfied with the result. 58 78 B42b Hunting hoofed animals. In the cosmic hunting plot, the objects of pursuit are hoofed animals (elk, deer, mountain sheep). See motif B42. 39 78 B42t The seven stars of the Big Dipper – animal. All seven stars of the Big Dipper (and not just the stars of the dipper) are considered to be the figure of an animal - a bear, moose, deer, ram, camel, or dog. 33 78 D4l Fire from the sky. The first fire is brought down to earth from the sky; the first ancestors go to the sky and bring back fire or warmth. See motif D4A. 43 78 D7 Toad and fire. The frog or toad possesses the first fire, steals it from its original owner, and tries to extinguish it or save it from dying out. See motif D4. 30 78 F44 Quarrel between men and women. In the community of the first ancestors, women and men quarrel, leave, kill, maim each other, etc. 39 78 H11 The call of God. People are mortal or defective because they respond to the call (or pronounce the name) of a creature that brings death, or do not hear the call (do not pronounce the name; do not respond to the call, do not notice) of a creature that promises immortality (power). 35 78 H7b Death sticks to a tree or a bench, ATU 330. A person asks Death (a spirit) to climb a tree or sit on a bench, to which they stick and can only be freed with his permission. 52 78 I115 Orion and the Pleiades. Orion and the Pleiades appear in the same story. 39 78 H16b Milk pond. The narratives (in various contexts) mention a milk pond (river, lake, wave in the sea) existing on earth (but not among the stars). Cf. motifs H16, K33F, N34. 38 79 H42 The creator leaves. Having created human bodies or conceived creation, the creator or his representative leaves for a time. Another character, out of malice or incompetence, spoils or tries to spoil the results of the work, creating something that the creator would have done better. Most often, this leads to humans being mortal or susceptible to disease. See motif H40. 33 79 I82h Venus – Cholpan/Cholbon. The name of Venus sounds like Cholpan, Cholbon, Tsolmon, etc. (čol- 'to sparkle, to shine' [Vámbéri 1879: 155]). 35 79 J66 The straps are bitten through. The character cuts or bites through bowstrings and other straps in advance, punctures boats, preventing opponents from fighting or pursuing him. 38 79 K13a Severed leg: a person ascends to the sky. The character's leg (rarely: both legs) is cut off, bitten off, torn off, or damaged. The character ascends to the sky: to the moon; becomes the moon; turns into a star or constellation; becomes the sun; blood flowing from the leg colours the sky. 29 79 K27z1 Don't take the cage, don't take the bridle! ATU 550. The assistant teaches how to steal the desired object, but not to take anything else (take the bird, but not the cage, the horse, but not the bridle, etc.). The character takes what he should not, is caught, released on the promise to deliver another object, then the girl. In the end, the hero keeps both the girl and everything he stole. {ATU 550 includes a much wider range of texts; in particular, the Indian, Burmese and Persian variants mentioned in Uther 2004 do not correspond to our definition}. 50 79 K88b Food in exchange for eyes. The character suffers from thirst or hunger. His companion promises to share water or food with him (to make him rich) if he allows himself to be blinded. 50 79 L46 Head down. The character walks, climbs or descends upside down, or sees the world turned upside down. 46 79 L72b The whetstone mountain. Fleeing for his life, the character throws small objects behind him, which turn into powerful obstacles in the path of his pursuer. One of the objects thrown is a whetstone. (In one of the Udmurt variants, the objects thrown destroy the obstacles in the character's path). See motif L72. 37 79 L81a2 The demon comes to drink the girl's blood (ATU 709A). While the men are away, a demonic character comes to a girl or woman to drink her blood or otherwise torment her. The men notice that the girl is wasting away, but at first they do not know the reason. 27 80 M29a Trickster - Raven (a) See the motives in square brackets. 57 80 K27r Passing away. The person giving the task requires an item or message to be brought from the world. 49 80 K34 Dangerous swings, K855. The character puts others on the swing and, after swinging them, throws them (or threatens to throw them) into the water, onto rocks, etc. 36 80 K38b The serpent threatens the chicks, B364.4. A snake or monster of aquatic-chthonic or indeterminate nature eats or maims the young of a bird or other flying creature – in most cases, the chicks of a huge bird. A man kills the snake (monster). See motif K38. 62 80 K56a The unworthy fail, the worthy succeed, ATU 431. Two or three sisters successively go to a powerful character. The first or the first two act incorrectly, perish or fail to achieve their goal. The last one acts correctly, is saved or rewarded. 37 80 K73b Punishment of the innocent. A woman falsely accused of murdering her newborn child, or of giving birth to a puppy instead of a child, etc., is subjected to cruel and humiliating punishment or execution. See motif K73. 50 80 K86 The Crying Child. A small (usually capricious) child is ignored, sent away from home, abandoned on the road, or given to another person for a time. As a result, the child is carried away by an animal or a spirit. 44 80 A2b The extra suns are extinguished. In addition to the current sun and/or moon, other suns and moons shone in the sky, which were then destroyed. See motif A2A. 50 80 I44 Chthonic serpent. A huge serpent encircles, embodies or supports the earth. 37 80 B17 Night in a vessel. Darkness is a special object that can be carried and transferred (usually brought from the original owner in a vessel or bag). 40 81 I42 Rainbow – a pair of creatures. The rainbow is a pair of creatures, usually a man and a woman, male and female. 27 81 K92a A woman builds a house, ATU 923B. A girl who has been driven from her home or has become the wife of an insignificant pauper becomes rich and respected. 48 81 L108a The goat kills the antagonist. A predator or cannibal swallows people and animals. A goat (rarely a sheep) punishes it and usually rescues those who have been swallowed (most often by cutting open its belly, allowing those who have been swallowed to escape alive). 46 81 L114b Task: to bring the property of the cannibal, ATU 328. After receiving the task or on his own initiative, the trickster enters the character's house (usually that of the cannibal) several times, each time taking one of his belongings or one of his family members. 55 81 M114 The rope of sand, ATU 1174. The character is asked to make (or actually makes) a rope or other object out of sand, ash, smoke, etc. 53 81 M180 The Fox and the Crane, ATU 60. A zoomorphic character invites another to visit, but serves food in such a way that the other cannot take it in his mouth. The other, inviting the first to visit, puts him in a similar position. 52 81 M40 Distorted instructions The character is sent to get something relatively low in value. He asks for something else and shouts to whoever sent him to confirm the assignment. Usually, a weaker character comes to a stronger wife or son and tells her (him) that her husband (his father) told him to surrender to him, feed him, marry him, etc. {It is highly likely that American versions are borrowed after Columbus}. 48 81 L11 The turtle bench. Everyday objects take the form of fish, invertebrates, reptiles, dangerous predators, or objects that transform into these animals under special circumstances. 41 82 L113 Married to a werewolf (ATU 363). A girl who has long rejected suitors falls in love with a handsome man who turns out to be a demon, a werewolf, or a dangerous animal. The girl barely escapes or perishes. 51 82 L3 A husband turns into a demon. The demon takes on human form and comes to his wife (less often to another woman). Usually, the woman (alone or with a child) runs away and/or kills the monster, either by herself or with someone's help. 42 82 M109a1 Head in the dough, ATU 3. A zoomorphic character smears his head with dough (sour milk, butter, etc.) to make it look as if his brains are spilling out from the beatings. 35 82 M145 The lion in the well, ATU 92. One character (usually zoomorphic) shows another his reflection in a body of water. The latter believes that a beast resembling him is challenging his seniority, invites him to visit, etc.; usually throws himself into the water and perishes. 43 82 M16 The healed cripple. The wife or relatives (often the mother) of the sick person do not care for him. He recovers, and those who treated him badly are punished. Cf. motifs F62 and F96. 33 82 M170 Animals at repentance, ATU 20D*, 61A. Pretending to be concerned only with performing religious rituals or following rules (confessing sins, going on pilgrimages, giving up meat, etc.), a zoomorphic character kills those who trust him. 53 82 M29x The hyena is a loser and a loser As a result of its stupidity or antisocial behavior, the hyena dies or suffers damage. See the motives in square brackets. 48 82 B12 Snake rivers. The riverbed follows the path of a snake, fish, dragon, or crab; the river arises from parts of the snake's body; the river is a snake. 45 82 B42f Ursa Major – hoofed animal. The Big Dipper (as a whole or only the dipper) is identified with a large hoofed animal (elk, deer, mountain sheep). Unless otherwise specified, see motif B42 in the description of cosmic hunting. 29 82 B9 Water in a tree. A huge amount of water is contained in the trunk of a tree, or the tree turns into water. 34 82 D13i Broken tooth. The character amuses the audience in order to identify the deceiver and thief by his broken tooth. The latter laughs and gives himself away. 17 82 F40b A man in a village of women. A single man finds himself in a village of women. Usually, he is forced to satisfy a woman against his will, or each woman demands to have sex with him. 50 82 I72a Stars – children of the moon, A764.1.3. Stars – children of the moon and/or sun. 41 82 K106 Thrown to the cows. The hero (a miraculous infant, a magical rooster) is thrown at the feet of animals, but they do not trample him. 45 82 K27u Hide, ATU 329. Task: to hide (the hero finds the antagonist, and/or the antagonist cannot find the hero). See motif K27. 49 82 I6 Birds that bring storms. A person encounters a huge bird carrying clouds, rain, snow, thunderstorms, etc. 38 83 I79A Kirtimukha/Sisiutl. The creature has a head or bulge in the middle of its body and snake-like protrusions extending on both sides (from the head, cheeks, mouth) or across the head in profile symmetrically at both ends. In the art of the Nanai, Ulch, Orochi, Udegei, Nivkh, and Ainu peoples (less obviously, the Negidal and Uilto peoples), it is curvilinear. The Orochi, Udegei, and Nivkh peoples draw from a well, then thin out. The goat finds him asleep, the kids jump out, the goat puts a vmnament with central symmetry based on a similar image. 19 83 J32d The Princess in the Tower, ATU 530. The girl will be won by the one who, on horseback or by some other means, quickly reaches a hard-to-reach place (the top of a tower, a mountain, the upper floor of a palace, the top steps of a staircase, a bridge, the bottom of a chasm, jumps over a moat, etc.). Usually, the girl herself is located where the suitor must climb or (rarely) descend. In Italian versions, the hero wins tournaments. 46 83 A44 The protector moon. A character fleeing from pursuit, wronged or suffering on earth, asks the Moon to take him to her, or climbs up to the moon himself using a ladder or rope that has descended from there. 42 83 C18 Luring the sun. A character embodying or controlling the sun hides or is hidden. In order to restore or obtain light and warmth for the first time, the character's attention is attracted or distracted by songs, music, dances, unusual gifts, indecent or strange behaviour, offers of sex, food and/or alcohol. 35 83 I4 Thunder rides across the sky. When a vehicle moves across the sky, thunder rumbles. 43 83 L106 Demand to return the harpoon. A person takes an object belonging to another and loses it; the owner demands that the object be returned; the hero goes after it (to another world), usually finds it and brings back what was lost. See motifs K56a3 and L105. 33 83 L42b The gullible children of the cannibal. After capturing the hero, the antagonist brings him home and leaves him in the care of a family member. The latter believes the hero's words and follows his instructions. See motif L42. 35 83 M120 The Cannibal Nanny, ATU 37, Th. K931. A zoomorphic character takes on the responsibility of caring for other people's children (raising them, teaching them, healing them), but in reality has no intention of doing so, and usually eats the children. 55 83 M49a A substituted shaman hero needs to penetrate unnoticed into the locus of dangerous creatures; he meets an old woman (usually a shaman, a doctor) going there, puts on her skin, and penetrates into dangerous ones in her guise creatures. 32 83 L65a The Cannibal Sister, ATU 315A. A daughter is born, or people find a girl; she is a monster or turns into a monster and devours everyone. Her brother escapes (usually leaves, marries, returns), and she pursues him unsuccessfully. 44 84 M167 The tiger mistaken for a bull, ATU 177. In the dark, a person mistakes a tiger (lion, demon) for another person or a domestic animal (bull, ox). 19 84 M41 Eye juggling, J2423 The character throws his eyes (an inhaler has a tooth) up or into the distance. At first they return to the eye sockets, but then they disappear. 35 84 M51 The meat is on the tree One of the two characters gets meat. The weaker deceives the stronger one, hiding the meat in his absence to eat alone later. 40 84 K76a The frog son and the frog husband. A frog or toad marries a beautiful woman, or a handsome young man marries a frog. 48 84 M91b1 Leather sold, (ATU 1535) A man is going to sell a pet skin. On the way, he gets big money by deception or by chance. Usually, upon return, a person says that he received money for the skin, after which others slaughter their livestock and try unsuccessfully to sell the skins for money they are not worth. (In India, the hero sometimes supposedly sells not skin, but beef, which is forbidden to brahmanas). 49 84 M8a Birds are hammering the rock: release from the trap Animals, and more often birds, find it difficult to break through a rock from the outside or inside, make a hole in the tree, in the body of an absorber creature, tear fetters, etc., to help a character or get out of the confined space by yourself. The list includes groups whose texts deal with the exit of the first ancestors to earth from a confined space. 35 85 M185a On the tail of the winner (all versions). Birds, animals and fish compete to see which of them can run or swim fastest or climb highest. A weak character secretly clings to the winner and wins. There are 3 key versions: A. Birds argue about which of them will fly higher or arrive first. The winner is the one whose victory seemed unlikely, ATU 221A. See motif A23C.B. A fast and a slow animal (insect) agree to compete in speed or long jump. The slow one secretly clings to the fast one, ATU 275B. See motif M185.C. Two fish (fish and whale, dolphin, squid and dolphin, etc.) agree to race each other. The weaker one secretly clings to the tail (fin) of the stronger one and wins, ATU 250. See motif M186A. 60 85 B44a Units of time. Characters argue about the number of discrete units of time that determine the duration of a certain period of time (most often winter or night). See motif B44. 56 85 E13B Knowledge from the sky. Sacred knowledge, objects and rituals received from the celestials. 37 85 H55 Sinners in the Other World, ATU 471, (ATU 470). A person going to the other world sees people who are punished or rewarded for their actions in life. 53 85 I8f Pillars of the world: one object. The sky, the world rests on a single object (a pillar or tree). 44 85 K160a The demon's answers to his wife's questions, ATU 461. A woman living in the house of a supernatural character hides a man who has come to her and asks the character questions, the answers to which the man must find out. 52 85 K25e The magical wife – ancestor of humans. Humans in general or a specific ethnic, tribal or social group are considered descendants of an earthly man and woman of supernatural origin. 42 85 K33b Friends abandon a beautiful woman. A girl goes with her friends to the forest, to the river; everyone returns home, but she is forced to stay or return. She escapes from a dangerous creature, becomes the wife of a supernatural character, a leader, etc., or dies, but is avenged. 30 85 K77b Bremen Town Musicians, ATU 130. Having left their owners, domestic animals find an empty house or build a house. Robbers or predatory animals come there. Domestic animals attack or simply scare them away. Predators do not understand who they are facing and flee. 55 85 L22 Deep sleep. Having broken some taboo, seen an unusual object or a strange character, people fall into a deep sleep; at night, while asleep, they are killed or maimed. 38 86 M29w2 The tiger is a loser and a loser As a result of its stupidity or antisocial behavior, the tiger dies or suffers damage. See the motives in square brackets. 52 86 A45 The insulted moon. A man teases and insults the moon and is punished as a result. 47 86 B45A Winter versus summer. The alternation of seasons and/or differences between the climates of different localities are explained by the struggle between characters associated with warmth and those associated with cold. See motif B45. 47 86 F71 Susanna and the Elders, ATU 883A. After being rejected, the man falsely accuses the woman of promiscuity; others believe him and try to punish her severely. 55 86 I12 World axis. A tree, a pole with branches, rarely a smooth pole connects the tiers of the universe. The most distinct variants, according to which the tiers of the universe are strung on a tree, are marked in italics. 37 86 G20 A woman turns into plants. Edible (cultivated or wild) plants emerge from the body of an old woman, a young woman or a girl. 40 87 I120 Cornucopia. Food and clothing can be obtained from the horns of domestic animals (oxen, cows, goats). 30 87 K128 Graze without loss. A character orders the hero to graze animals (or birds) and promises to execute him (deprive him of his reward) if even one animal is lost. Cf. K128B (ATU 570). 43 87 L114 The younger brother saves from the werewolf. A group of young men or women arrives at the demon's lair. The younger brother or sister, or a character who is considered sick, unpleasant, unfit, and often goes with others against their will, saves them all. See motif L113. 50 87 L90 Mouth to the sky. One lip (one fang, horn, etc.) of the creature reaches the sky, while the other drags along the ground. 45 88 F27 Girls and water spirits. It is dangerous for girls or women to approach water (water creatures drag them away or swallow them; a girl who approaches water dies; she becomes pregnant by a snake; through her fault, a flood or other disaster occurs; water spirits themselves come to a girl who has her first period). 32 88 K65b People and spirits. Spirits (deities) or unpleasant animals (snakes, frogs, worms, etc.) are generated by the same first anthropomorphic pair or the same pair of first ancestors as humans (deities). 39 88 J62c A sister asks her brother to obtain the impossible. In order to destroy the young man, the antagonist arouses in his sister (rarely: in him himself) a desire to possess wonderful objects, the attempt to obtain which is deadly dangerous. The young man sets off to obtain the objects. 45 89 K132 The Invincible Rooster, ATU 715, 715A. A small character (usually a rooster) comes to a powerful enemy. Thanks to creatures and objects that he encounters along the way and hides in his body or bag, the character remains unharmed after all attempts to destroy him. Cf. motif L126. 48 89 K16 The bird becomes a young man. Taking the form of a bird, bat, insect, small animal, or fish, the man enters the young woman's home (her father's house). 43 89 K75a Throwing an apple at a suitor, H316. The character chooses one of many suitors (a woman chooses a husband, a boy chooses a father, a young man chooses a bride) by throwing an object (often an apple) at him. Cf. motif K113A (throwing an object at random, not at a person who is nearby). 46 89 L100b The forgotten bride. Having escaped from his pursuers, the young man parts with the girl, intending to return for her soon, but forgets her. When he is about to take another wife, the girl manages to restore his memory with the help of magic, and she marries him. Alternatively, the girl, who has briefly parted from her magical spouse, herself forgets him after an embrace or a kiss in her parents' house. 43 89 L125 The Werewolf Wife, ATU 411. After meeting a beautiful woman, a man finds her in a situation where her inhuman nature is revealed. After that, the marriage falls apart. 37 89 L19a Creature with an even number of heads. Creatures (any except ornithomorphs) with an even number (but not more than ten) of heads at one end of the body are described or depicted, except when such creatures are mentioned among others and the series ends with an odd number or a number greater than ten. 46 89 B14A Tears turn into water. Rivers, springs, the sea, floodwaters, and rain arise from tears (for rivers of tears in the world of the dead, see motif H16). 47 89 E36 Hard covering of the body. The human body was or could have been covered with a protective layer (bone, rarely wool), but it has only been preserved on the nails (head). 43 89 A32dd Man with brushwood on the moon. The lunar disc shows the figure or imprint of an anthropomorphic character carrying a bundle of wood or brushwood. 23 91 B109 Man became a bear. A man grows fur and becomes a bear (the origin of bears). 37 91 C34 The Flood: the wounded creature. The flood begins after people kill (harm, maim) some kind of creature (usually aquatic). 45 91 H41 The dog betrays man. Because of the dog, man is weak, mortal, and wicked. Usually, the antagonist bribes the dog with warm wool, and it betrays human figures to him for desecration. 32 91 K151 The Golden Fish, ATU 555. A magical helper grants a poor man's simple wish. The poor man or his wife ask for more and more. In the end, the helper punishes the beggar (usually by taking away everything that was given). {Many references to texts outside Europe in Uther 2004 are not related to the plot of ATU 555 and do not contain the K151 motif. This applies in particular to the Arabic and Ossetian variants}. 55 91 K27x5 Helpers of different ages. When setting out in search of a woman or miraculous objects, a person consistently encounters characters of a non-human (often demonic) nature who help him. The characters are similar, but usually each subsequent one is older (younger) than the other. 49 91 K73a8 Miraculous children: brother and sister. A woman gives birth to a miraculous boy and girl. They are replaced by animals or objects and thrown away, but they escape and triumph over their enemies. 38 91 L38 The demon trap. The demon sets a trap, and people fall into it. Cf. motif K64A. 36 91 L42g Hansel and Gretel, ATU 327A. The stepmother, and more often the father (usually at the insistence of his new wife), leaves the children in a deserted place or sends them into the forest. They end up in the house of a cannibal or cannibals, all (or at least one of them) survive and achieve success. 56 91 L98 The man-eating owl. The demon that carries off children and threatens heroes, people, etc., is the eagle owl; there is a race of owls that is hostile to humans. 42 91 M29b3 The fox (jackal, coyote) is a loser and a loser As a result of its stupidity or antisocial behavior, the fox (jackal) dies or suffers damage. See the motives in square brackets. If it is not specified that a “jackal”, then the protagonist is a fox. 77 91 M29z1 Anthropomorphic trickster (miscellaneous). purely anthropomorphic character, or a character who bears the name of an animal or plant but does not act zoomorphic in the course of his adventures. See the motives in square brackets. {Data not fully entered} 62 91 M29z4 Anthropomorphic trickster (miscellaneous) 63 91 M39a6d Encrypted message One of the relatives or spouses transfers a text or object to the other through third parties. Only the recipient understands the meaning of the words or the item handed over, saves the sender and/or destroys his enemies. 38 91 I108 The Pleiades – a single character. The Pleiades are a single character, not a group of people. 56 92 I87a One creature is larger than another. A character of gigantic size turns out to be small in comparison with a character of even greater size, or the same character turns out to be small in some episodes and gigantic in others. 35 92 K113 Animal princess, ATU 402. Young men (usually three brothers) find wives (usually by shooting arrows or other objects at random, see motif K113A). The wife of the youngest brother is initially ugly or appears in the form of an animal (often a frog or snake), but turns out to be a beauty and a sorceress. Alternatively, the girls choose their husbands, and the wife of the youngest brother is a sorceress. 54 92 K38f1 Severed tongues. After killing a monster or animal, the hero cuts off and hides a part of its body, usually the tongue. (In most cases, the deceiver takes credit for the feat, after which the hero presents the hidden item, thus exposing the deceiver). 37 92 J45 The leg serves as a bridge, R246. The character extends his leg (dafla: arm; upper tanana: tail) or neck as a bridge across a water barrier. Usually, those being pursued or walking ahead cross such a bridge to the other side, while the pursuer or those walking behind fall into the water because the character removes his bridge. See motif J44. 49 93 J52 Children kill children in revenge for their parents. A character (usually zoomorphic and female) treacherously kills another. The victim's children take revenge by killing the murderer's children. 49 93 L28 Snake meat. A person who eats unusual or forbidden meat or fish, or touches something forbidden, turns into a reptile or a fish. 47 93 L68 Two in the night. Left alone (usually at night in a deserted place) with his companion, a man undergoes a monstrous metamorphosis. 41 93 M131 It's not a tail, it's a root, ATU 5, ThR5. The character does not show that he has been caught by the tail or by the leg. The other thinks he has grabbed the root and lets go of the first one. (The variant is similar in meaning, although formally different. The American variants are most likely of African origin, but the turtle as a trickster is local, while in African variants the hare acts as the trickster). 64 93 G6a Tree of the year. The year is described as a tree, the number of branches, twigs, and leaves of which corresponds to the number of seasons, months, days, etc. (or the year is a column with a certain number of objects on it; a building with a certain number of rooms). 33 93 H1a He who wished death upon another is himself in mourning. The character decides that people should die. His or her child, mother, or some other being whose life is dear to him or her dies. Now the decision-maker agrees to make people immortal, but it is impossible to change the decision that has been made. 33 93 I141 Magic wand. The wand is an instrument for performing actions whose results cannot be explained rationally. 49 93 A1 The ancient sun. Another sun — less powerful or less favourable to humans — existed before the appearance of the current one. 36 94 B29 Eschatological festival. People turn into animals, birds or stones, living beings acquire their current characteristics at a general meeting, festival, after a festival, after performing a ritual or after defeating a common enemy. 39 94 C6j1 The earth is brought by the antagonist of the deity. An anthropomorphic deity sends someone to fetch earth from the bottom of his enemy. At first, the enemy or both characters sometimes have the appearance of birds. After the enemy brings the earth, a confrontation begins between the two characters, who now always have anthropomorphic appearances. 34 94 E8 Wooden people. The first humans or the wife of the first ancestor were made of wood. 47 94 K82 The evil sister-in-law. A man's wife or another woman tries to destroy his sister. 51 94 N27 Bird's milk Bird milk (variant: chicken, pigeon, hawkish, etc.) milk is mentioned in fairy tales, riddles, paroemias and conspiracies as something very rare and difficult to obtain or non-existent actually. 37 94 M106f Guest from the Other World, ATU 1540. A stranger tells a woman that he has come from the other world. The woman gives him money and belongings with a request to pass them on to her deceased son, husband, etc. Usually, the woman's (new) husband (or son), upon learning of the deception, rides after him, and as a result, the deceiver steals his horse. 58 94 M127a The bird tricks the fox, ATU 223. In response to a character's request to make him laugh or feed him, a bird sits on a person's or animal's head or on a fragile object. Another person tries to knock the bird down, kills or maims the person on whom the bird has landed, or breaks the object. Alternatively, the bird distracts the person's attention, and during this time the character eats the food that the person was carrying. 45 95 J27 Cast out and at home, Z210.1. A little boy (several babies) was abandoned, born to a mother who had already died, lives in a river, in a forest, etc. Another boy lives with his father or mother, but in the end the first one moves to live in the locus of the second. Often (see motif J25, "Infants hide and return"), the brother living in the river, in the forest, etc., first secretly meets with his "home" brother (with his brothers; with other children from his clan; with a puppy nursed by his mother). 48 95 K121 The knight at the crossroads. At the crossroads, it is indicated that one road is safe, another is neutral, and the third is deadly dangerous. There can only be two roads – dangerous and safe. The hero travels along the dangerous road. 34 95 A12c Reptiles or fish eclipse the sun. Eclipses of the sun, moon or their setting (marked*) are caused by a snake, lizard, dragon, fish or crocodile; these creatures attack the luminaries now or attacked them at the beginning of time. See motif A12. 56 95 A6 The sun and moon – women. The sun and moon are considered female characters (including cases – Tuscarora, Oneida, when the gender is not directly specified, but both arise from the body of a female character). 45 95 F16 Men and women: exchange of characteristics. Men possessed biological characteristics that are now characteristic of women, or vice versa (beards, menstruation, breasts, childbearing). 44 95 L114c Exchanging clothes with the cannibal's daughters, ATU 327B. Children or young men (usually brothers) exchange clothes (headgear, jewellery, blankets, sleeping places) with the children of a hostile character, who then kills his own children instead of them at night. Usually, the brothers end up with a cannibal, and the younger brother orders them to swap places (clothes, etc.) with his daughters for the night. Outside Europe, the protagonists are animals. 73 96 L65 The scary baby. An infant or small child turns out to be a demon and kills people. 48 97 G8 Overgrown clearing, D1565.1+, E30.1. People or animals cut or gnaw at a tree, mountain, or pillar of the sky. The damage disappears as soon as the workers are distracted from their task (usually when they take a break) or periodically (at certain times). 82 97 I82c Wife of the Moon. Venus or an unidentified star in the eastern and/or western sky – the wife of the Moon. See motif I82b. 46 97 K100a Tobiah, (ATU 505). Setting off on a journey, a young man releases a caught fish or animal, or he or his father does someone a favour. As a reward for their help, a person or creature in the guise of a stranger or animal comes to the young man, becomes his companion and protector. 45 97 K35 The replaced man. The deceiver pretends to be a hero in order to take his place (to possess his woman). (This motif includes all texts with motif K35a3). 54 97 K66c Bear marriage. A bear (lion) takes a woman away, or a she-bear takes a man away. They have children who are either human or bear-like in appearance. Less commonly, a woman gives birth to a son in a den because she was pregnant at the time of her abduction by the bear. 60 97 K32d The replaced one grazes cattle. As a result of the antagonist's intrigues, a noble girl (young woman) or boy (young man) is turned into a servant or servant, sent to graze cattle or chase birds in the field. Everything is revealed – usually after people hear a song in which the hero or heroine tells about the substitution. Most often, the hero or heroine goes to relatives or (less often) to the groom. The deceiver accompanies her or him and is accepted as a relative or bride. The deceiver is executed. Comoros: the deceiver becomes the mistress, turning the girl's parents into peacocks. 35 98 K4 Nest destroyer. The character climbs a tree or rock to get a bird, bird eggs, or chicks, climbs into a bird's nest, comes into conflict with another character, and/or cannot climb down. See motifs K1, K2A. Traditions in which the nest destroyer is a woman are highlighted in italics; bold italics indicate those in which the character falls into the trap not through the fault of another person, but by accident, or, having climbed up to destroy the nest, does not fall into the trap at all, although he quarrels with his companion; an asterisk* marks those in which the character remains in the trap (undergoes a metamorphosis). 73 98 K99 The Untold Dream, ATU 725. A person dreams about an upcoming celebration for himself or a member of his family (rarely: he daydreams about it). Either another person buys the dream and becomes the protagonist of the story, or the person who saw it hides its content from everyone, or he is persecuted for excessive conceit, as evidenced by the content of the dream. The meaning of the dream is revealed at the end of the story. Often, the young man ascends to the throne and marries the heiresses of two kingdoms (in the dream, these were two suns or the sun and the moon). 60 98 M171a Mena: gets a girl, ATU 1655. A character (often zoomorphic) gets a girl (boy) by successively exchanging smaller values for larger ones. 63 98 N15 It flowed down the mustache, but did not get into the mouth fairy-tale text ends with a formula that says that the narrator ate food and/or drinks, but they did not get into his mouth. 17 98 L13 The raised monster. People feed a dangerous creature, or it grows on its own in a man-made enclosure. Once it becomes big and strong, it starts to destroy people. 49 99 M134 Tower of Wolves, ATU 121. Animals, demons or people stand on top of each other to reach something. The one at the bottom jumps off (leans, jerks), and everyone falls after him. 43 99 B33c Borrowed days. The month on the border between winter and spring (usually March) takes (rarely: buys, steals) a few days from its neighbour. 24 100 B42n Orion – one person. The constellation Orion is identified with a man, usually a giant, warrior, or hunter. 41 100 F33 Connection with a water creature. A woman or group of women take a water animal or water monster as their lover. The husband(s), brother(s) or (adopted) children of the woman(s) kill or maim the lover and (in some cases) the woman(s). 47 100 G29 Demon from artefacts. The character consists of various artefacts of domestic and industrial use or transforms into them. 40 100 G2 The Return of Persephone. A character embodying fertility and life, who first disappears and then (periodically) returns. 36 101 I110b Orion – reapers. Orion – people or agricultural tools associated with harvesting or haymaking. 26 101 I117 The spider carries from world to world. A spider or spider woman lifts a hero or heroine up to the sky, helps them descend to earth, or otherwise helps them cross the path leading to another world. 38 101 M157a1 Father gives birth. The character proves the absurdity of another's statements by responding that his or her father (or another male or male animal) has given birth or is about to give birth, or that he or she is menstruating. 44 101 M29w3 Leo is a loser and a loser As a result of its stupidity or antisocial behavior, the lion dies or suffers damage. See the motives in square brackets. 83 101 I68 Opening of the sky. At a certain moment, a crack or window opens in the sky (rain pours through it, it is possible to see what is happening in heaven, perhaps communication with the celestials). 49 101 K22 Cranes and pygmies, F535.5.1. The inhabitants of a distant land, who differ from (ordinary) people, occasionally fight off enemies of a non-human nature who attack them. 39 101 K87 Marriage to an animal ends badly. A woman becomes the wife of an animal (rarely another non-human creature). The husband takes care of her, but the marriage ends with the murder of the husband, the woman, their offspring, the woman's relatives, the transformation of the woman herself into an animal, leading to hostility between humans and animals, etc. 41 101 I8g Atlas, A842. A single giant holds up the earth or the sky. 48 102 K107a Wear out iron shoes, Q502.2. Before reaching their goal, the character must wear out iron shoes or an iron staff. 38 102 K2 The discarded ladder. The hero climbs or descends a ladder, rope, pole, etc. The rope, etc. breaks or is cut. Usually, another character deliberately throws away the ladder, cuts the rope, or breaks off the lower branches of the tree, making return impossible. See motif K1A. {Statistical calculations for this motif also include all texts from motif K2A, except for Koreans}. 73 102 K8d Jonah: swallowed by an anthropomorphic creature. The character enters the body of an anthropomorphic creature, kills it from within (K952) and/or returns to the outside without outside help. 48 102 M74a Strange newborn names, ATU 15 The character pretends to be invited to visit several times in connection with the birth of a child, or gives names to various tracts that the boat passes by. The names and titles sound strange, but they become clear when it turns out that the character ate supplies. 59 102 C14 Monsters destroy people. During or on the eve of a global catastrophe (flood, darkness), animals or monsters attack people. (See motif C13A (rebellion of things: animated objects and/or domestic animals threaten people, attack them).) 44 102 H9 Strong and fragile. People are mortal (they get sick and grow old) because they are compared to something weak, fragile, easily subject to destruction or decay (upper Tanana: people have not died out because they are made of durable material rather than ephemeral material). 49 102 H6c The immortal raven. The raven (crow, vulture) is associated with death or contrasted with humans as immortal among mortals (sent to bring the elixir of immortality or water that revives the dead; drinks this water himself; teaches people funeral rites; etc.). 54 103 I20 Underground dwarves, F451. The inhabitants of the underworld or the land on the horizon where the sky meets the earth are dwarves. See motif I14A. 51 103 L15h External soul: sequential investments. The object in which the character's life is concentrated is enclosed in another, which is enclosed in a third, and so on (like an egg in a duck, a duck in a hare, a hare in a chest). Or the animal in which the character's soul is enclosed transforms into other animals as it flees. There are three or more enclosures or transformations. 61 103 L24 Suffocating demons with smoke. Demons (or one of them) attack people and then hide. People destroy the demons' lair and kill all or most of them by spreading a smoky fire around the demons' refuge. 36 103 M158 Tops and roots, ATU 1030. A human and an animal (devil) or two animals decide to cultivate a field and divide the harvest so that one gets the above-ground part and the other gets the underground part. One of the characters (always) loses out. 70 103 M116 The undead father helps with advice, ATU 981. People must kill their fathers (or mothers; Nyoro: deprive them of power and property; Baluchi: do not take them with you on a journey). One young man hides his father, and his wise advice helps to avoid trouble. 53 104 F70b Revenge of the rejected. A woman takes revenge on a man who rejected her love (but does not necessarily pretend that the man tried to force himself on her). 55 104 H46 The dog's share. A character (usually God) is about to deprive people of their food (most often grain), but does not do so for the sake of the dog (and/or cat; rarely for the sake of birds). Either God gave the ear of corn to the dog, and the man took it for himself. 43 104 J51 A piece is missing, E33. The character is dismembered or eaten; he is revived from his remains, but since one of his bones was broken, swallowed or carried away (or a drop of blood or a piece of flesh was lost), the revival fails, or the character remains defective in some way. 51 104 K27q Milk of a wild animal. Task: to obtain the milk of a wild animal or milk possessed by a dangerous creature. See motif K27. 67 105 L73 Drink the river! G522 Trying to drink a river, lake, or sea, the antagonist bursts. 37 105 N10 Transparent body A woman or (rarely) a man with a transparent body is described. This transparency is a sign of beauty. 29 105 I59a Thief in the sky. Astral objects or lunar spots are associated with stories about the theft of various items, the value of which is insignificant (straw, firewood, cabbage, etc.). 37 106 I8i At first, the earth swayed. Initially, the earth rocks, unstable, and must be specially secured. 33 106 K51 The deceived wife. The husband feigns death, disappears or leaves home for a long time. The wife learns that he has married another woman, finds and, as a rule, kills her husband and/or rival, who often turns out to be a creature of non-human nature. 24 106 K62 War of animals, Th B260-B263. Animals, birds, etc. fight or play with each other, divided into two hostile camps. The stakes are high, often life itself. {Data incomplete}. ATU 222. B261, war between birds and animals. ATU 222A. B261.1, the bat joins first one side, then the other. K2323.1, the raised tail of a fox serves as a signal. 64 106 D12 Food was heated in the sun. People in the past or inhabitants of distant lands cooked food in the sun; or the owner of the fire lies, saying that the food was cooked in this way. 43 106 D3 The invention of fire. The first fire was obtained by friction or striking; a certain character gives fire or shows how to obtain it, teaches how to cook food on fire; fire was obtained from lightning. {The section is incomplete, there is much more data. A specific plot of the invention of fire hardly exists. Variants involving abduction and invention are often intertwined in the same narrative}. 54 106 L34 Burning hair. The character kills or maims the enemy by setting fire to their clothes, mask, headdress, hair, or an object behind their back. 30 106 L7 Mistakenly chases after an animal. While chasing a person, spirit, monster or beast, mistakenly chases after a large two-legged object passing by, usually an animal. 25 106 L17b Mouth on the back of the head. A character or creature has a second face or a second mouth on the back of its head. 48 107 M152a Bound together, ATU 78 A strong predator (a giant cannibal) and a weak predator are tied together with a rope to feel more confident. The strong one flees and drags the weak one behind him. 49 107 M42 Eyes taken out and lost, E781 The character takes his eyes out of his orbits and loses them. He usually regains his eyes later, makes new ones, takes away from another character, etc. See the M41 motif. 58 107 M53 Game dances around the hunter, K826 The character invites others to gather around him, focusing on an activity (usually dancing with their eyes closed or lowered), and then kills the crowd (usually one at a time). 42 107 M75 Taken from vultures The character attracts and catches corpse eaters (usually birds) and as a result obtains valuables or returns something valuable (fire, woman, animals, etc.). 53 107 I83 The sky of birds. Birds (especially vultures and eagles) lived or live in the sky, usually on one of several tiers of the upper world. 44 107 J30 Remains of parents. Before the heroes defeat their antagonists or flee from them, they find or receive the remains or property of the victim. 57 107 K119a The Ungrateful Master. An animal saves a human, does him a favour, and he humiliates or kills it. See motifs K119, M161. 58 107 K33a Brother Goat, ATU 450. Young siblings (most often a brother and sister) leave home. One of them (rarely: several brothers) accidentally breaks a taboo and is transformed into an animal (usually a hoofed animal) or (rarely) a bird; later, the spell is usually broken. 61 107 A39a Twelve months, ATU 294. Each of the calendar segments (usually months) that make up the year is represented by a special object or creature. 54 107 B50 Whose blood is sweeter? A dangerous character wants to find out from a blood-sucking insect where it drank blood or whose blood (flesh) tastes better. Usually, the insect deliberately lies, or another character prevents it from telling the truth (by pulling out its tongue). As a result, the dangerous character chooses animals or plants as the object of its aggression, rather than people. (The motif is related to the story of Noah's flood (see motif C3); †: There are versions in which the motif is presented separately, as well as those in which it is included in the story of Noah's flood.) 50 107 E9h The magical wife - the dove. Before meeting the hero, his beloved (wife, helper) has the image of a dove. 60 108 H40 The dog guards the man. The dog guards and protects (successfully or unsuccessfully) a human figure that has not been completely finished by the creator, or the entrance to paradise. 37 108 I17 Physical abnormalities of inhabitants of the other world. Creatures without mouths, anuses, or genitals, unable to give birth, live underground, in the sky, across the sea, or in certain areas. (Traditions describing women unable to give birth are marked with an asterisk*). 68 108 K93 Twins and a woman, ATU 303. After a series of adventures and victories, the hero finds himself in trouble. His twin or brother follows in his footsteps, meets the same characters, but when he encounters the final enemy, he defeats him and revives (frees) the hero. 66 108 K96 Fifty Sons, ATU 303A. Several (more than three) brothers marry or must marry in such a way that their wives are sisters. 59 108 M199 Squeezing water from a stone, ATU 1060. A man and a giant (devil, predator, robber) agree to test their strength by crushing a stone. The man squeezes a piece of cheese, an egg, etc., and the giant believes that he is facing a strong man. {ATU 1060 includes variants in which the character squeezes brains (guts, etc.) out of the ground, without specifying this in the definition; where we were able to verify this, we did not include such traditions}. 60 108 M8 A destroyed obstacle Some characters (not humans) are struggling to break a strong barrier that prevents access to the desired location or to a high-value object. See also M8A - M8D motifs; they are included in the M8 motif in the correlation tables. 41 108 M91a Imaginary murder (blood bubble) The character pierces a container of animal blood or other red liquid, simulating murder or suicide. Cf. motifs K10C (wrapped in giblets) and M199H (Giant's ripped belly). 62 108 M112 Animals at the well, ATU 55. A zoomorphic character refuses to dig, clean or fill a source of drinking water and is forbidden to use the water. {List of African variants in Paulme 1977. In cases where the protagonist is a kite, hawk, buzzard, saker (and possibly also an eagle), it is most likely the same bird - Buteo buteo from the hawk family}. 54 109 M140 The fox on the sled, ATU 1. The character pretends to be dead, sick or infirm, is picked up, and eats the food that others are carrying – usually after first throwing it out of the cart, sleigh, sack, etc. 66 109 K19b Star-man. The star man takes an earthly woman as his wife. 41 109 I98a The Pleiades – a hen with chicks. The Pleiades (in Tajikistan – Giady) – hen, brooding hen with chicks, chicks, rarely – rooster. 49 110 A32a Moon Rabbit, A751.2. The figure or imprint of a rabbit or hare is visible on the lunar disc. 43 110 F49 Caesarean section, T584. Women had their stomachs cut open to remove the baby. Someone explains how to give birth or makes childbirth possible. 56 110 I11 Cosmic turtle/toad. The turtle (toad, frog) serves as a support (embodiment) of the earth (sky), or the supports of the sky are made from its body. 40 110 H54 Veki Vija, F571.1. In order for a character's eyes to be (wide) open, their eyelids (eyelashes, eyebrows) must be raised, propped up, spread apart (rarely: cut off). 38 111 L19b1 Seven-headed monster. Describes or depicts a monster (usually a reptile) with seven heads (except in cases where snakes with an increasing number of heads are described sequentially and "seven" is not the largest number). 50 112 L94b Give back what you don't know at home! A person promises to give to a supernatural character the first thing that comes their way (either something they have not yet seen in their own home, or something that is behind the door, etc.). The person thinks that they will have to give something of little value, but it turns out to be their own child. 44 112 A21 Luminaries thrown into the sky, A700.I, A714, A741. The sun and/or moon were objects that were thrown or placed into the sky. 53 113 A38 The Sun in a Trap, A728. The sun falls into a snare, a trap, and finds itself tied by a rope. 49 113 I121 Paired constellations. Constellations (usually Ursa Major and Ursa Minor) are considered as two similar, paired objects. (For Africa, Eurasia and Alaska – paired names; for most of America – semantic association, but the names are not paired). 70 113 N29 Until the boiler boils time required to perform an action or elapsed since the event described is estimated by comparing it with the time it takes for water to boil and/ or food has been prepared. 30 114 L109 The man-eating pumpkin. The pumpkin turns out to be a monster-devourer and/or grows from the remains of a monster. 19 114 M28 Icarus(failed flight on artificial wings), K1041.1. When able to take off, the character takes off but falls or stays in a remote place from where he can no longer take off. 49 114 M39a1 Misunderstood instructions: one step behind, ATU 1696 character misunderstands the first instruction, promises to do the right thing next time; literally follows a memorized rule that does not correspond to the new situation; so multiple times. 68 114 M5 Provoked insult Once in a situation where his life depends on the will of a demon or animal, the hero feels like insulting or hitting him. See M1 motif. 17 114 M114b Come neither naked nor clothed (ATU 875). When a character is asked to do and not do something at the same time, or not to do it in any of the possible ways (to come dressed and not naked, with a gift and without a gift, etc.), they figure out a solution. 58 115 M185 On the tail of the fastest (animals), ATU 275B. A fast-footed animal (a flightless bird) and a slow character agree to compete in running or jumping. The slow character secretly clings to the fast-footed one (or to a vehicle) and at the finish line pretends that he has run at the same time as him (jumped just as far) or before him. 54 115 M199c Whoever throws the club higher, ATU 1063. A person pretends to throw or is about to throw an object somewhere from which it cannot be retrieved (often into the sky, the clouds, or the sea). The opponent asks them not to do so and to stop the contest. 37 115 K19a Star Wife, T111.2.1. A man marries a star woman. 35 115 J13 Two sisters. Not one woman or girl, but two sisters (or more than two, but only two play an important role in the narrative) wander and meet an unwanted deceiver instead of a desired husband or fiancé, or encounter dangerous creatures. See motif J12. 70 116 K84 Sisters married to animals, ATU 552.1. A young man gives his sisters to the first ones who come to woo them (less often, unknown creatures kidnap the sisters one by one, demanding a ransom for them). These are animals or demons, which then usually help him. 61 116 M104 Allegedly murdered relatives. A character suggests that another kill their close relatives (children, brothers, mother), hides their own, and assures them that they have killed them. When the other actually kills their children, mother or brothers, it turns out that the first character's relatives are unharmed. See motif A41 (The Moon hides her star children to provoke the Sun into killing his children). 61 116 M118 The source of values is senselessly destroyed, ATU 954. The character obtains valuables or finds refuge inside an animal, tree, or building. Later, he himself, or more often someone else following his example, destroys the source of the valuables or makes access to it impossible or too dangerous. 74 116 A32h Moon tree, A751.6. A tree, bush, branch, snag, etc. are visible on the lunar disc. See motif A32G. 52 116 B3e The earth fell into the waters. At first, below the sky there is only air and water or (rarely) swamp, an indefinite abyss. A character descends from the sky, creates or has a support created for him, and the earth grows out of it; the earth is lowered, dropped from the sky; the earth is thrown, placed on the surface of the sea, and grows into land; the earth is brought from somewhere else (not from the underworld) and placed on the waters. (This is a more general motif compared to motif b79a1, "The bird dropped the firmament onto the waters"). 52 118 L57a The hero's companion returns his organ. The enemy takes possession of part of the character's body (remains). Another (usually resorting to trickery) returns what is missing, and the character comes back to life or recovers. 70 118 L6 The clingy demon. The creature demands that the person carry it constantly, not allowing itself to be thrown off. 65 118 I85 The Polar Star – a stake or a nail. Polar Star – stake, nail, hitching post, etc. 44 118 K30 The flying enemy carries off the woman. A flying creature carries a woman away. The kidnapper is killed and/or the woman escapes from him. See also motif L102A (Escape from a seagull husband). 52 118 K35a The hero brands his rivals, ATU 530A. In exchange for improving his current situation, the character agrees to have his body injured or branded. 61 118 K27f To obtain a woman. An authoritative character demands that the hero obtain a woman. 75 119 M153 Inscription on a hoof, ATU 47B. A hoofed animal asks a predator to examine its hoof under various pretexts, and then kills or maims it with a kick. 70 119 E5b First ancestors from the underworld. The first human (a group of brothers) or the first human couple emerge from underground (from a cave) or from a small object on the surface (a mound, a reed, a tree, a stone, a pumpkin). Cf. motif E5A: people from the underworld. 49 119 F63 Man marries, K1321.1, ATU 1538*. A male trickster transforms into a woman and gets married. In the end, he is exposed or runs away from his husband. 64 119 E1b Man made of unsuitable material. A character made of unsuitable material and turns out to be short-lived or poorly suited to performing his functions. 59 120 I13c The snake's crown, ATU 672, B101.7. Reptiles possess a treasure that humans take or try to take. Usually it is a crown, a precious stone, or horns on a snake's head. 67 120 I45b Do not point at a rainbow, C843.1. If you point your finger or stare intently at a rainbow, you will fall ill, or the finger you pointed with will rot or wither away. 58 120 K124 It's not a miracle! An animal killed by a hunter runs away. The animal itself or someone else explains that this is not a miracle (or that it is not a tragedy), but that the real miracle (tragedy) happened somewhere else. A story about what happened follows. 8 120 K33d Donkey Skin, ATU 510B. A man discovers that a beautiful girl is hiding under the guise of an ugly hag or under the skin of an animal. 68 120 K26 The earth seen from the sky. Approaching an opening or making one, the character sees the world below (usually seeing the earth from the sky). See motif K25. 61 121 K38f4 Fire-breathing monster, B11.2.11, B19.1, B742.3, B742.4. Flames burst from the mouth and/or nostrils of a monstrous character hostile to the hero; his breath is fire. 48 121 D5 Woman controls fire. The original owner or inventor (but not the embodiment) of fire is a female character. 51 121 K93b2 Conception from an eaten fruit. A childless woman conceives a child after eating a fruit (usually an apple; in northern traditions also cabbage, eggs, peas, etc., in India – mangoes). 63 121 L40 Reflection and shadow, R351. The character discovers (rarely: cannot discover) another person on a tree or rock, noticing their reflection or shadow. See motif L39. 75 121 M57a2 The male character exudes values Instead of common body discharges a a man urinates, spits, etc. beads, flowers, gold and other valuables; valuables are produced by the very presence of particular male person. See motif m57a 64 121 M46 An imaginary baby Some creatures steal or own valuables. To return (get) them, the character turns into a small object, from contact with which a woman becomes pregnant, or into a baby. A picked up or born baby takes on its true appearance and steals valuables (including making the girl who picked it up pregnant, if that was his goal). 45 122 C16 Products of labour become animals, E161, E168. Contrary to human desire, processed skins, tools, and (meat) food (again) turn into (those) animals (from whose body parts they were made). Cf. motif M84. 40 122 K130a The Girl in the Brothers' House, (ATU 709A). Several young men (brothers) live far away from other people. A girl comes to them, or she is miraculously born in their house, and they treat her like a sister. After some time, the girl finds herself in danger, but is ultimately saved. 64 122 K41 Thunder against the snake. A character representing a thunderstorm or a giant bird fights a snake or other large creature living in water or underground. 57 122 K64a The Blinded Cyclops, ATU 1137, K521.1, K603. A man blinds a sleeping or immobile giant-cannibal and escapes from him. 59 122 I8A Pillars of the world: anthropomorphic characters. The world, earth or sky are supported by anthropomorphic beings. 56 123 J25 Infants hide and return. Heroes (one, two or one of two), while still infants or embryos, disappear or are thrown away (often into water). To bring them back to the world of humans, they are lured, persuaded or (with difficulty) caught. 64 123 J32f Stolen apples. While standing guard, the hero discovers who is stealing fruit (usually apples) from the garden. 48 123 K60b Invitation to the Coffin, ATU 330B, G514.1. The character is invited to find out whether the box or pit is the right size for him, whether he can crawl through the opening, climb into the bag, etc., after which he is locked in a coffin, box, barrel, buried, etc. Cf. motif M56D. 61 123 A36 The moon and immortality. The moon (month) is contrasted with humans as immortal to mortals; it decides whether humans will be mortal; those who live on the moon are immortal. (Cf. Latvians, Dolgans). 53 123 H45 The Stained Flatbread, ATU 779G. A woman or child treats food disrespectfully by smearing it with excrement. For this, people (rarely: only the culprit) are punished. 61 123 M154 The language of animals and the stubborn wife, ATU 670. A man who has learned the language of animals laughs when he hears them talking. His wife or mother-in-law (rarely someone else) demands that he explain what is going on. The man is ready to comply with his wife's demand, even though he knows he will die if he reveals the secret. Usually, he hears the domestic animals condemning their master's stupidity and decides not to say anything. 81 123 M50 Next to the stars The character tries to join a group of stars (usually the Pleiades) or catch up with characters who run away from him and turn into stars; the goal of the persecution is sexual contact or the desire to be reunited with family. 32 123 M1 Dangerous crossing. The character crosses a body of water on the back of a monster or animal that agrees to be a carrier but may or intends to drown or eat its passenger. 42 124 M151A Supports a rock, ATU 1530, J2273.1. The character pretends to hold a rock, tree, etc., which is supposedly about to fall. See Dixon 1916: 189. (It is possible that in America the motif is of late African origin). 39 124 I50 Many-legged beast (hoofed animal), B15.6.3. Describes or depicts a hoofed animal with six or more legs. 53 124 K129 Enchanted and brought to life, ATU 709, 709A. (Due to the intrigues of an antagonist) a girl falls into a deep swoon, but is not dead. A male character of high status (either the girl's spouse or blood relative) revives her. {In sub-Saharan Africa, except for Swahili, borrowing from Europeans is more likely than from Arabs}. 64 125 K33g Two kinds of fruit, ATU 566. The person who eats the fruit (leaf, etc.) grows horns (long nose, etc.) or turns into an animal, while the other fruit (leaf, etc.) returns to its normal appearance. 63 125 H27 Released mosquitoes. Before spreading throughout the world, stinging or blood-sucking insects or reptiles, diseases or evil spirits were kept in a vessel, bag or other small container. See motif H24. 67 125 H51 The Devil's Horse. The horse is a predator or is associated with God's enemy. 36 125 D1 Woman-fire. A woman (usually elderly) is the embodiment of fire – alone or together with her husband, the master of fire. Cf. motif D5 (woman possesses fire). 52 126 D1b Man-fire. The man is the master or embodiment of fire (alone or alongside the woman-fire). 58 126 F64 Incestuous parent, T411.1.1. The character is presented as another person in order to mate with a close relative in the descending or (less commonly) ascending line. 57 126 M182 Smolyan doll, ATU 175, Th K741. A character threatens to hit another character and, as a result, gets stuck with all his limbs. Usually, it is a doll covered with something sticky, which the character mistakes for a living creature. 59 126 M157a2 The bull and the cart give birth, ATU 875E. The character claims that the calf (kid, etc.) was not born (brought) by a cow (goat, etc.) belonging to another owner, but by his own animal of a different species or male sex, or by an inanimate object (usually a cart). 65 127 B33a Frozen in spring. Deciding that it has become (or will soon become) warm, the character believes that winter is over (most often an old woman goes to graze cattle), but dies from the cold or the cattle driven out to pasture perish. Cf. motif I84A ("The frozen son of God"). 30 127 B36 Living beings acquire their appearance. Birds, fish, and four-legged animals deliberately or accidentally smear themselves with colouring substances or divide parts of another's body among themselves, thereby acquiring their current appearance. 57 127 C6c4 Duck – a successful diver. A duck or similar waterfowl dives and brings back a piece of earth, which turns into land (it is the only or the only successful diver). 37 128 H20 Released fish. All the fish or (rarely) molluscs were concentrated in one place. A certain character allows them to escape or deliberately releases them into rivers or the sea. {In some cases, the theme of the spread of fish concentrated in a small container is difficult to separate from the theme of the spread of water. In any case, neither of these exist in Africa}. 43 128 M39 Misunderstood instructions After receiving instructions, the character understands (or pretends to understand) them incorrectly or too literally, committing absurdly ridiculous or violent acts. 71 128 K80a2 The pipe tells of a crime, ATU 780. A part of the victim's body or a plant that grew at the site of the murder tells people about the crime that was committed, usually after it has been made into a musical instrument. 41 128 K81 Bezruchka, ATU 706. For a minor offence or on false charges, a young woman is maimed and expelled from her home (rarely: she is killed or maims herself). The cripple miraculously recovers (the dead woman is resurrected). 79 128 I8B Pillars of the world: zoomorphic creatures. The earth or sky is supported by zoomorphic creatures. 66 129 K79 The snake shows how to recover. Finding himself in a helpless situation, a man sees how a small animal finds a cure for itself or another animal. The man uses the same cure, saves himself or saves another. 60 129 A2 Several suns. There was a time when several, i.e. more than two, suns shone in the sky at the same time. 48 129 I8e1 Four pillars of the world. The sky or earth is supported by four objects or beings located at the four cardinal points (either four groups of beings, or four at the corners and a fifth in the centre). Th A841. See motifs 8A, 8D. 79 130 J21 Birth from eggs. Gods, ancestors of humans, and founders of dynasties are born from eggs. 46 130 L118 Hand caught in a log, H1532, ATU 38. One character provokes another to stick a part of their body into a split log (between two boards, etc.) and knocks out the wedge. 62 130 M124 Ox Tail, ATU 1004. The character buries the tail (head, ears) of a domestic animal, claiming that it has fallen into the ground. Usually, he asks others to pull on the tail (head), and when it "breaks off," he accuses others of stealing the animal. 76 131 B28 The travelling transformer. Travelling from one locality to another, the character successively transforms people into birds and animals, into stones, sanctuaries (or transforms monstrous animals into ordinary ones), establishes cultural norms, determines the biological characteristics of creatures, the appearance of the locality, etc. 69 131 I37 Mushrooms. Mushrooms are mentioned in a mythological context. 30 131 B116 The eaten book. The first book (writing, important document) is eaten by an animal or a person. (In some European traditions, the eating of the book is not described, but is implied from the context). Cf. ATU 200. Cf. Thompson 1955-1958. †A2219.2. Cow swallows book; cause of maniplies in stomach. 45 132 M11c Removes fat from the body. Without harming himself, a male character cuts off, pierces, roasts, holds over a fire, etc. a part of his body (or his wife's body). The character cooks the meat, fat, etc. obtained in this way and treats his guest to it. This food is not perceived as unclean (cf. motifs M11B and M38). 64 132 K67b Agreement not to be angry, ATU 1000. A character of low social status (without supernatural abilities) takes a job with a character of high social status (with supernatural abilities) on the condition that the employer will not get angry with the employee. By repeatedly annoying the employer, the employee causes him to become angry and, as a result, be severely punished or pay a large sum of money. 78 132 I84 The Milky Way – a ski trail. The Milky Way – ski tracks. 31 133 F51 Secret lover, H58. Someone under cover of night/incognito approaches a person of the opposite sex. The marriage partner deliberately (to determine who it is) or accidentally (thereby exposing the visitor) makes a mark on his/her body (clothing). See motif A31. 79 133 I7 Cloud serpent. The reptile produces rain and thunderstorms. 57 134 K39 Feeding the Simurgh bird, B322.1. The character must feed a powerful creature by regularly throwing it pieces of meat. When the prepared meat runs out, he cuts off the last piece from his own flesh. See motif K38 (the bird carries the hero where he needs to go; on the way, he throws pieces of prepared meat into its beak; when the supplies run out, he gives the bird a piece of his own flesh). 73 135 M84 Revived from bones, E32, E33 A person, animal, fish, or (rarely) a large fruit is killed and eaten. After a meal, what is eaten revives, usually after the bones (seeds) are put together. Cf. motive C16. 59 135 K94 The bird of happiness (eaten head), ATU 567, 567A. Those who eat a miraculous bird, fish, animal or fruit gain wealth and power. 89 136 L96 The changed appearance is sold and returns (ATU 325). The character has the ability to transform into animals or objects. Sold in this form, he achieves his goal and becomes human again. 65 136 M83 Who's older? ATU 80A* Each character claims that he is older and appeared before this world or (Ingush) that his father was cosmic in size. 49 136 I46 Rainbow belt. Rainbow – an ornamented part of clothing, bright fabric, decoration, belt. 62 136 I56 Spirits cannot see the living. Moving between worlds, the same living person is visible to some and invisible to others. 42 136 H34a The dispute over the fate of people. The character believes that people should live easily (without labour and suffering) and makes appropriate suggestions. The interlocutor rejects them. This dialogue forever determines the conditions of people's lives. Those traditions in which the dialogue is conducted by two anthropomorphic brothers or companions are highlighted in bold in the list. 59 136 D9 Vultures and fire. The raven or other large dark-coloured bird of prey is the owner, embodiment, spouse, provider or thief of fire, the sun or daylight. 49 137 K100g Sacrifice a son, (ATU 516C). In order to revive or heal a friend (to heal oneself, to fulfil a vow), the character agrees to sacrifice his son (children). The slain person usually comes back to life, or the person's willingness to make the sacrifice is sufficient to satisfy supernatural forces. 52 137 K64 Escape from the cave of the herd owner, ATU 1137, K521.1, K603. Finding himself in the dwelling of the master of the herds or the owner of wild animals, the character fears that the master will kill him. To escape to freedom, he clings to the underside of one of the animals leaving the pen or cave. 62 137 I99 The Pleiades – boys or men. The Pleiades – a group of boys, young men, men or people of different genders, but predominantly male. 68 138 A37 The sun is subjected to armed attack. The character deliberately and by resorting to special means (usually shooting with a bow) strikes the sun or several suns or attempts to do so. 51 138 F35 Feeding meat from a lover. A character offers another person the meat of his sexual partner, and the other person, unaware, eats or cooks it. 68 139 F9f1 Snake inside a woman. Inside the woman there is a snake (snakes, scorpions, just poison) that comes out of her mouth. {Motifs F9f1 and K100C are almost identical, but the first can be included in the cosmological-etiological category and is associated with the idea of a dangerous woman, while the second belongs to the adventure category}. 31 139 K1f Conflict over a woman. One man traps another, driven by jealousy or the desire to possess his rival's wife. See motifs K1A, K1E, K2A. 115 139 K77a Verlioka, ATU 210. Various objects and animals (rarely: only animals, but including those that are safe in reality) defeat a strong enemy (usually joining the hero who is going to take revenge on the strong enemy for an insult and hiding in the house where the enemy is supposed to appear), attacking him in turn; he dies or flees. Either someone or the attacked character himself places objects in his dwelling that then harm that character. 75 139 I51a Four-legged animals – the pillars of the earth. The earth is supported by or has a large mammal at its centre. See motif I8B. 60 140 A14 Eclipses: the relationship between the sun and the moon, A737.7. The meeting of the sun and the moon is the cause of eclipses or lunar phases. 63 140 L39 The hero is forced to climb down from the tree. By force or deception, the character forces another to climb down from the tree in order to harm him. 66 140 M198b The Imaginary Diviner, ATU 1641. A man who is unable to find lost items and expose thieves successfully does so thanks to a fortunate coincidence. 72 140 M81 Blind people Wandering, the hero finds himself in a place where blind or blind (two or more) live. 80 141 I65 Souls of the dead on the Milky Way. The Milky Way is a path to another world, followed by the souls of the dead and/or shamans, or it is the path of a funeral procession. 74 141 L4 The Unmasked Murderer, ATU 311, 312. The character consistently (almost) kills girls (rarely: his nephews or his wife's younger brothers) whom he brings to his home (usually a male character kills wives). The heroine or hero (the youngest of all) avoids the common fate, usually after discovering the captives or their remains. 83 143 B86 The Tower of Babel. To reach the sky (the moon, stars, sun), people build a ladder or tower consisting of separate modules (logs, poles, bricks, etc.), but the structure collapses. 57 143 D4a Theft of fire, A1415. Fire is stolen from its original owner, returned to people by the thief, or (the motif of theft is not expressed) brought with difficulty from a distant place. 59 144 F38 Women and secret knowledge. Women were the keepers of secret knowledge, shrines, or ritual objects that are now forbidden to them; they attempted to regain this knowledge or these objects. 52 145 J15 The road to the home of dangerous creatures. Having set out in search of their husband, relatives, etc., a woman, girl or children accidentally take the wrong road and encounter creatures that kill or harm them. 64 145 K80 The indestructible woman. The character transforms into objects or creatures, which another character systematically destroys. However, the character (usually a young woman) is reborn each time in a new form and eventually in her original form. 73 145 B116c The Lost Book. In the past, the people possessed writing and knowledge, but these were lost, or the people missed the opportunity to acquire them. 40 146 H12c Orpheus: bringing back his dead wife. The husband follows his dead wife into the afterlife, but cannot bring her back, or brings her back but loses her again. 51 146 L100 The Unrecognised Fugitive, D671. A young man and woman fleeing from their pursuers take on the appearance of different but associatively related creatures or objects (a pond and a duck, a minaret and a muezzin, etc.). Usually, their pursuers do not recognise them. 65 149 M78 Tiny boy, ATU 700 A tiny little man performs a series of tricks, mocks people he meets and opponents. 85 149 M39a5a Pancakes on trees, ATU 1381, 1381B Realizing that a stupid son, wife or (rarely) husband, after telling the truth, will cause trouble for the family, the mother or husband (wife) adjusts that the son, wife or husband describes events that They obviously couldn't have happened. They're mistaken for crazy, the message is ignored. 67 150 A24 First sunrise. The first ancestors live in twilight. When they first find themselves in the rays of the sun, they (spontaneously or by someone's will) perish, turning into animals, spirits, or stones. 34 150 K120 Prevented incest (daughter and father), (ATU 510B, 510B*), 706C. The girl's father (rarely: stepfather) intends to marry her (since she is the only one who meets the requirements for a bride). Usually, the girl manages to avoid the marriage. 54 150 K27x3 The king and the hero's wife, ATU 465. The ruler seeks to take possession of the wife or bride of a man of lower social status and, in order to get rid of him, gives him impossible tasks or secretly kills him. {Both ATU and some regional indexes (e.g., Cardigos 2006: 110) list texts that do not meet the definition of plot 465: the king's desire to take possession of the hero's wife is not explicitly stated as the reason why the king seeks to get rid of the hero}. 73 150 K38e Copper, silver, gold. Locations or objects made of three (rarely four) materials of varying degrees of value, but all valued positively (copper, silver, gold; silver, gold, diamonds, etc.) are mentioned. 55 150 I58 The Milky Way – the path of birds. The Milky Way is called the bird path and is associated with migratory birds. 26 152 I52 Fish – the support of the earth. The world rests on a fish or fish-like creature, or the earth itself is such a creature or originated from a fish. See motif I8B. 68 153 K131 Three Wonderful Objects, ATU 518. Certain characters argue over the possession of magical objects, but the objects go to the hero. Usually, he suggests that the disputants race each other or asks them to let him try out the objects, after which he hides, taking the objects with him. 69 153 K27nn The Envious Vizier. Someone from the entourage of a powerful figure seeks to destroy the hero and persuades others to give him difficult tasks. 69 153 A12a A predatory beast eclipses the luminaries. During an eclipse or under other circumstances, predators attack the luminaries: wolves, bears, jaguars, pumas, dogs, foxes, raccoons. See motif A12. 67 153 B125 Animals exchange characteristics. The absence or presence of certain organs in animals (less often in plants) and the peculiarities of these organs are caused by the fact that during the era of creation, one species exchanged with another or, having borrowed a foreign organ, refused to return it. In some cases, a reverse exchange and return to the original state is described, as well as the transfer of part of one's body to another animal without compensation. Instead of one of the animals, there may be a human or a deity. 76 153 G24 Food from the sky. The first seeds (shoots, tubers) of cultivated or important wild food plants and/or agronomic knowledge were brought from the sky (received from the gods). 61 153 L18 Multi-headed bird. A bird with two or more heads in descriptions or images. 50 153 L1a The woman became a bear. A young woman turns into a bear (in Asia, a tigress) and attacks her close relatives or husband. 79 153 K18 Recognition of father or mother, H481, ATU 675. A boy is born whose father (rarely mother) is unknown. He chooses his true father (mother), who usually occupies the lowest social position. Usually, a group of men or women gather together, each of whom wants the boy to choose him or her. 82 154 I110 Heavenly farmers. Constellations are associated with agricultural tools or with people engaged in agricultural work (most often ploughing and haymaking). See motifs I110A (plough), I110B (haymaking). 43 155 B42q Ursa Major – cart. Ursa Major – chariot, cart. 49 156 L103 Magical flight: Atalanta, R231. The fugitive throws or creates objects behind him, which the pursuer, wasting time, collects, eats or destroys, even though they do not hinder his progress. 84 156 I39 Rainbow bridge, F152. The rainbow is a bridge, a road, a staircase. 46 158 E9i1 The magical wife – the swan. Before meeting the hero, his beloved (wife, helper) takes the form of a swan. 58 159 M152 Why only one wolf? ATU 1149. Seeing a predator (a giant, etc.) approaching, the weak character pretends to thank the one who is leading the predator for his promise to bring prey, or his wife and children (rarely: he himself) begin to talk aloud about how they are going to eat the predator or how they have eaten his companions before. 75 159 M85 Fox is bluffing, ATU 56A character unable to climb a tree threatens to knock it down or climb a trunk if a bird or squirrel does not drop a cub or egg. The third character explains that the threat is untenable. 67 159 I25 Bribed guards, B325.1, B567.1. The path to the house or the entrance to the character's house is guarded by dangerous creatures. The hero appeases them with gifts or words, they let him pass back and forth, sometimes punished for this by the owner. 71 160 K100 The Faithful Servant, ATU 516. A person learns about the dangers threatening another (and usually that by warning his friend/master, he will turn to stone). The person eliminates the dangers, despite the fact that his behaviour upsets the person he has saved. 63 160 J44 The collapsed bridge. The hero lures the enemy onto a rickety bridge. The enemy falls into the water, into the abyss (see motif J46). See motif J52. 76 161 K83 Sick Father, ATU 550, 551. To heal, rejuvenate or save one's father, father-in-law or sister, one must bring medicine (bring a doctor) from a distant country. The medicine is brought and the sick person recovers. 90 161 K38d The serpent covers the water. A powerful and dangerous character prevents others from using water (or causes floods), but in most cases allows them to take water (promises not to cause floods) in exchange for people or valuables {italicised in the list of traditions}. 65 162 B52 Before the flood, there were no mountains. The floodwaters formed a rugged landscape. 77 163 M106 Significant name, ATU 1135, 1137, 1138, 1541. The character calls himself by a fictitious name, which others understand not as a proper name, but as a common noun with a specific meaning. 89 163 M29k The turtle (toad, frog) is a cunning winner A turtle (toad, frog) defeats strong opponents by cunning or perseverance. See the motives in square brackets. The character is named if it is a toad or frog; otherwise, a turtle. 121 163 M49 A hero in someone else's skin The hero meets a character from the enemy camp and, taking on his form, penetrates enemies. Usually, the hero kills the person he meets and puts on his skin. 68 164 K27s Running, racing. Competition: running, racing. See motif K27. 88 164 K33h Cat, dog and magical object, ATU 560. A person finds a magical object that grants any wish. This object is stolen. It is returned by animals (which the hero had previously saved). 99 164 H34 In the past, there was no need to work. Work did not require effort. Some people do not believe that this is possible, or do not consider it to be right, or do not fulfil the necessary conditions, which is why people have to work. See motifs H34A – H34H; H34 contains only texts that are not classified in more detail. 69 164 G23a Plants from body parts. Parts of the body and organs of living beings are transformed into various plants (teeth into corn, testicles into yams, etc.). 55 165 K93b1 Conception from eaten fish. After eating fish, a childless woman gives birth to a boy or twins. 37 165 K103 The cow as helper, ATU 511. A domestic animal (horse, cow, bull, goat, ram, sheep) helps an orphan, a lonely child, or an unfortunate young woman. 94 165 K27hh Sorting grain, Th H1091. The character is tasked with quickly separating small particles of different types (usually seeds of different plant species) mixed together in a single vessel, or counting the number of grains, or gathering scattered or already sown grain. 92 165 F2 Birth from the leg T541; V52. The child is born from a tumour on the character's body, either placed there temporarily or emerging from blood that has flowed from a cut. 82 166 G5 Tree of abundance. The fruits and shoots of various cultivated plants or the fruits of various wild plants grow on the branches of a single tree or on a single vine; the cultivated plant has a tree-like form that is not characteristic of it in nature. 46 166 B37 Living beings are given their appearance. The character decorates various birds (less often fish) and distributes fat to animals. Since then, the corresponding species have possessed their current characteristics. 90 167 I40 Rainbow bow. The rainbow is a bow. 56 167 J58 Chain of arrows, F53. Characters shoot arrows (darts) that stick into each other and form a chain. They usually climb up the chain to the upper world. 53 167 J62 Petrified people. The character turns those who come to him into inanimate objects (usually stones). (In variants of the ATU 303 plot, the motif is often absent; original texts are needed). 80 167 K14 Dear advice, ATU 677, 910A, 910B. A person receives or buys simple advice, the meaning of which is initially unclear (travel with a companion, do not skip breakfast, etc.) and either follows it, achieving success, or violates it, getting into trouble. 96 167 K27e Eat or drink a lot, ATU 1088). The character is offered to eat or drink an unusually large amount or poison. 100 167 J23 Late children defeat the monster, ATU 312D. People in general or older brothers (siblings, older sister) disappear one after another. A woman raises a boy or twins from infancy. Sometimes, left alone, she miraculously conceives a son or finds a baby. He defeats the antagonists, usually reviving or freeing the missing ones. 89 168 K100b The Grateful Dead Man, ATU 505. A person helps to bury a dead man (pays his remaining debt, honours a saint). The revived dead man (saint) helps him overcome difficulties. See motif K100A. 47 169 I28 Animals underground, F127. Wild or domestic animals live inside a mountain, in a cave or in the underground world, or once came out of there into our world; often animals take on human form underground and have an owner. See motif H18. 25 169 I14 Creatures without an anus, F529.2. Creatures without an anal opening are described. 76 170 M29g1 Trickster - Hare, Rabbit (main trickster) In episodes involving deception, ridiculous, obscene, or antisocial behavior, the hare or rabbit is the main trickster. Traditions in which 1) a hare or rabbit occurs only once as a trickster, and another trickster (usually a fox/jackal/coyote) is typical; 2) Mesoamerican traditions in which a small rabbit is associated with a small a set of episodes and a high probability of recent African influences. See the motives in square brackets. 90 171 M171 Mena: from a pea to a horse, ATU 170, 1655, 2034F. The character stops at a house and in the morning claims that the worthless object or animal he brought has disappeared; either he or other characters use or spoil what the deceiver gives them. Each time, the character receives something more valuable in return and, repeating his trick several times, obtains a truly valuable object, an expensive animal, or a person. (All texts of motifs M171A and M171C are also included in motif M171). 99 172 M183 Running race: one against many, ATU 275C, 1074. Numerous relatives of the character, who all look the same, work together to accomplish a task that is impossible for one person to do alone, while their competitors believe that the task was accomplished by only one person. Usually, the fast and slow characters agree to race (jump over an obstacle). The slow one places others who look like him at the finish line or along the entire distance, and they respond to the fast one on his behalf. The fast one does not notice the substitution and admits defeat. 92 172 K88 Two Travellers (Truth and Falsehood), ATU 613. Two people set off on a journey or argue about which is stronger: truth or falsehood (stinginess or generosity, etc.). The evil one abandons the good one, crippling or robbing him, but the good one regains his health and achieves success. The villain usually perishes. 93 172 A31 The Moon in Love. As a result of intimate contact or romantic conflict, the night light takes on its current appearance – rising from the earth to the sky and/or spots appearing on it, which are now visible. 72 172 H18 Released animals, A1421. Hunted animals were concentrated in one place. A certain character creates them there or allows them to scatter. 92 172 M23 Feigned fear of imaginary danger, ATU 1310–1310C; K581. The character pretends to be afraid of only one method of killing, which in reality is not dangerous for him (K581: turtle: If you throw me into the water, I will drown! ). {All American variants with a rabbit are most likely of African origin and are not included in the correlation table}. 100 174 F86 Conditional signal. A character calls another character of non-human nature (a mate or ward) with a conventional signal; the other character sees this, makes the same signal or utters the same words, takes on the appearance of the character they have come to replace, kills those who come out to meet them, or makes use of their sexual services. 85 175 J47 The pursuer falls from a height. A character climbs up to the sky using a rope, ladder, etc., or climbs a tree or rock, or descends from the sky to the ground, or rises to the ground from the underworld. Another character climbs after them, but the rope or ladder breaks or is cut, and the character falls. 72 175 L106b For disappearance into another world. A girl, a young girl or (rarely) a boy loses an everyday object, usually carried away by water or wind. In search of the lost object, she (he) encounters powerful characters, returns the object and/or receives valuables. Traditions recorded only in Roberts 1994: 103-110 are highlighted in italics. 50 176 I27 The dog of the land of the dead. The dog and/or (rarely) the domestic cat is the master, guardian of the land of the dead, guide on the way there; dogs live on the way to the land of the dead. (For indirect evidence and similar beliefs, see also Benson 1991). 33 176 K135 Seven with one blow, ATU 1640. By accidentally defeating powerful opponents, a physically weak and timid person gains honour. 78 177 N14 A storyteller at a wedding fairy-tale text ends with a formula stating that the narrator attended a feast and/or wedding arranged by the characters of the fairy tale. 41 177 K47a Woman and dog: the origin of humans. A woman mates with a dog. Her children grow up to be humans and usually become the ancestors of certain ethnic groups. 74 178 E31a Creators and saviours of girls, ATU 653, 653A, 653B. Several men (women) participate in the rescue, creation or revival of a girl (man), or mourn her (his) death. The question arises as to whom the revived person should belong to or who contributed more to the revival. Alternatively, three men create something valuable, each contributing their part. The question arises as to whose contribution is more important. 92 178 F34 Connection with terrestrial quadrupeds. A woman takes a large land animal as her lover. Her husband, brother or (adopted) children kill or maim the lover and (sometimes) the woman herself. Sometimes there is mention of a group of women and their husbands. (Unlike motif K102, "The Demon's Mistress," the lover is not dangerous to the hero and plays a passive role, and the woman, if she becomes hostile and dangerous, does so only after the lover's death. Unlike motif K76, the woman and her husband/lover of non-human nature are clearly evaluated negatively). 64 178 M57a3 The female character exudes values Instead of common body discharges a a woman urinates, spits, etc. beads, flowers, gold and other valuables; valuables are produced by the very presence of particular female person. See motif m57a 80 178 L9 Cutting and stabbing body parts. The character's body parts resemble cutting or stabbing weapons. 79 179 L15a Vulnerable spot on the body, The character's vulnerable spot is located on the surface of the body, but not in vital internal organs. 88 180 M57c The animal defecates with gold An animal (donkey, bull, horse, goat, bear, leopard) or inanimate object makes gold or food stand out, or a character makes others believe that this is the case. 94 180 B1 Two creators, A50. Two anthropomorphic creators compete in the creation of the earth and/or humans. One is or becomes the master of the underworld or is associated with the spirit world, in contrast to the first, who is associated with the human world. 68 180 B44 Dispute about time, A1150, A1172. The first ancestors (usually human-animals) argue about how long the year, winter, night, or other periods of time should last, and whether cold and darkness should be replaced by warmth and light. 65 181 C6d Obtaining land from the underworld. Land (earth) is formed from a small amount of solid substance (silt, sand, clay, mud) that characters retrieve from the underworld (usually from the bottom of the ocean). 93 181 I100 Pleiades – girls, young women, women. Pleiades – a group of girls or women (with children). 68 181 L41 The hero runs away. After catching a person, the cannibal carries his prey home, but the captive escapes on the road or at the cannibal's house. See motif L38 (a person falls into a demon's trap). 97 182 M29b1 The wolf is a loser and a loser As a result of his stupidity or antisocial behavior, the wolf dies or suffers damage. See the motives in square brackets. 120 183 B2d Marriage of heaven and earth, A625. The sky (the Sun, Thunder, the Wind living in the sky) is considered male and marries the Earth, who is female; The sky is combined with the female Water; with the daughter of the Earth; the creator (master) of the sky and the creator (mistress) of the earth are husband and wife; rarely: the female Sky (or Sun) is combined with the male Earth. 81 184 M29b2 The bear is a loser and a loser As a result of its stupidity or antisocial behavior, the bear dies or suffers damage. See the motives in square brackets. 134 185 M109 Tail in the ice hole, K1021, ATU 2. A zoomorphic character sits down, lowering his tail (penis) so that something edible will stick to it, but as a result he is left without a tail (penis) or dies. Cf. motifs M109A, M109C. 84 186 I8D Pillars of the world: pillars, mountains. The earth or sky is supported by mountains, pillars, nails, trees. 92 186 K72 Three maidens. A character of high status meets or marries three (less often two or four) women. One (promises to bear and) bears him a son (children) with unusual qualities, the other two (promise to engage in and) engage in crafts or housekeeping, or intend to marry men of lower status. 77 186 B36a Two adorn each other. Two zoomorphic characters adorn each other, after which one is satisfied with the result and the other is not. 43 186 I37f Mushrooms - ears. Mushrooms are called "ears". 35 187 E32 Progenitor plants. The first humans or the first woman (progenitor, goddess) are born from trees, emerge from a tree, stump, flower, or reed. 64 188 K80a A bird or object tells of a crime, ATU 720, 780, 780B. An object or creature that has emerged from the remains, jewellery, etc. of the murdered person tells about the murder, exposing the criminal. The East Slavic texts in this section were mainly provided by K.Y. Rakhno. 69 188 I62 Milky Way - river, A778.3. The Milky Way is a heavenly river, a body of water, a chain of creatures floating in the water. 69 189 M57d Bay, baton, ATU 563, 564 A person consistently receives magical items that bring wealth. Others replace them or take them away. A person returns what has been taken - usually by receiving another wonderful object (baton, whip) that hits the kidnappers. 93 189 F70 Potiphar's Wife, K2111, T418, ATU 318. A woman falsely accuses a man of assaulting her. 71 189 L70 Aborted fruit. The character is killed or maimed by an object dropped from above, the fall of which he expects, but has a false idea of its nature or weight (fruit, piece of bark, turtle, log, etc.). 92 191 M11 Unclean food. The character gives others food extracted from his or someone else's body or contaminated with bodily secretions, without revealing the source of the food. 90 191 I22g Colliding rocks. Mountains (rocks) are mentioned that constantly collide and diverge, or a crevice or gap in a vertical rock that opens and closes. Cf. motif I22g1, Colliding rocks. 74 192 A14a Conflict of two luminaries. The sun and moon (month) are or have been in hostile relations either constantly or from time to time. 92 193 I57 Thunder pursues the enemy. Thunder's enemies are animals, reptiles, and spirits that live in burrows. They usually hide from him in various objects and items, and Thunder (a god, angel, etc.) strikes his enemies or these objects with lightning. 88 194 K57 Cinderella, ATU 510A. A girl hides her beauty and/or lives in poverty, a man of high status sees her in her true form/in luxurious attire and takes her as his wife, recognising her by an item he gave her or she lost, usually a slipper or shoe, or by seeing her change her clothes. {All texts with this motif are also considered to contain the f62 motif}. 81 196 L53 Stones in the mouth, K951. The terrifying creature is killed or neutralised by throwing (red-hot) stones, pieces of iron, etc. into its mouth or anus, or the creature retreats when threatened with a stone being thrown into its mouth. 95 197 C5a Scout birds. A bird, various birds, or people who then turn into birds are sent to explore the earth (whether it exists, whether it has dried up, whether there are any survivors, why smoke is rising from the earth, etc.) or with the task of bringing back a piece of solid substance to create dry land. 90 198 G23 Multiple objects from a single creature. The origin of various (more than two) creatures or objects is explained by the metamorphosis of a living creature or part of its body. {Only texts of an aetiological nature are taken into account. For statistical purposes, all texts with motifs G23A and G23B are also included in motif G23}. 73 199 K102 The hero's woman helps his enemy, ATU 315 (sister), 590 (mother). A woman who is initially friendly to the hero (his sister, mother, less often his wife or lover) then tries to destroy him by acting in concert with his enemy. To this end, she persuades the hero to take actions that are fatal to him. 94 199 K73a4 The child is replaced by a puppy. Malicious women replace the newborn with a puppy (telling the father that his wife has given birth to a puppy). See motifs K73, K73A. 85 199 L100d Deceived admirers, ATU 1358C, 1730. A man or several men pursue the love of a beautiful woman. Having agreed in advance with her husband, she pretends to agree, arranging a date (with each) for a specific time. Before the first suitor's desires are satisfied, the second arrives. The woman hides the first, then the second, and so on. The husband enters and the couple mocks the admirers who find themselves in a humiliating position. 74 201 A32f Moon water carrier. On the lunar disc, a character is visible who has gone to fetch water and/or is holding a vessel for liquid in his hands. See motif A32D. 60 202 B46c The Great Bear – seven characters. Each of the stars of the Big Dipper is a separate character (people or animals). 70 206 K118 The forbidden room, C611. Upon leaving, the character allows another to take charge of the house, but not to look into a certain room or container. The other violates the prohibition. 80 206 K107 The Returned Husband, ATU 425A, 425B, 425D, 425E, 432. A magical husband leaves his wife. She finds and returns him. 87 207 D13 Laughter. A character loses their values (gives them away) and/or suffers damage/is healed/is transformed if they laugh or hear laughter. 98 211 J12 Girls in search of a husband. A girl or two sisters wander, usually in search of a suitable groom or husband who has left or lives far away. Along the way or upon reaching their destination, they encounter false suitors. (Traditions in which two heroines travel rather than one are highlighted in bold (motif j13). 86 212 K74 Brothers and the dwarf. Of two or more characters, each one stays at home or goes to fetch fire for cooking or brings food to the house. Each time, a certain character appears who eats the food and/or defeats the one who stayed behind or came to fetch fire. 94 213 N20 We have achieved our wishes fairy tale text ends with a formula that says that the characters have achieved their desires, goals and/or happiness, or that God has fulfilled their wishes. 23 213 K43 The abandoned survives and triumphs, S300. People leave a boy, a girl, a sister and brother, a young woman or young spouses alone and leave, or drive them away. Those who are abandoned or expelled discover unusual abilities or helpers, obtaining blood and food. [Materials on European fairy tales are mostly not yet included] 89 215 L37a To learn the causes of misfortune, Th H1291, ATU 460A. On the way to a powerful being, a person meets characters who ask him to ask questions on their behalf (usually to find out the cause of their misfortunes). 93 215 K10 Battle with a bird. A monstrous bird (bat) attacks people, heroes engage in battle with it. See motifs K10A – K10G. 106 216 I82a Male Venus. The Morning and/or Evening Star – a male character. 111 218 E5c People from the sky. The first humans or deities-ancestors descend to earth from the sky. 88 218 F30 The snake lover. A girl or woman takes a snake, eel, moray eel, lizard or worm as a lover or spouse. People kill or maim the lover, the woman and/or their offspring, or she herself turns into a snake. Cf. motif K76B (the snake-husband becomes and remains a handsome man). See motif F29. 101 218 C25 Eschatological expectations. If a certain event occurs, the world will be destroyed. 68 219 B46 Seven Star Brothers. Each of the seven stars of the Big Dipper is an adult male. 62 220 F9a Toothy womb. There are teeth, blades or sharp stones in a woman's vagina or on the inside of her thighs; the vagina is a toothy mouth. (Only texts with a focus on authenticity are taken into account, not anecdotes). 79 222 L104 The fugitive and the pursuer change their appearance (ATU 325). The fleeing character successively takes on the appearance of various creatures or objects; the pursuer also changes his appearance, each time transforming into someone who is dangerous to the pursued in his current form. 103 223 M57a Beads are like body secretions Instead of the usual secretions from the human body, beads, flowers, gold and other valuables pour in. 97 225 K27n2 The task giver – a mythical character. The character who gives the hero difficult tasks or subjects him to trials is a mythical creature or animal. See motif K27. 164 228 F7 Woman from the underwater world. A man catches, grabs, meets, or receives a woman associated with the aquatic-chthonic world (a fish, mermaid, snake, crab, seal, etc.) and takes her as his wife. Cf. motifs E26 and K25. 104 228 J32 Brothers guard the night thief, ATU 530. Someone regularly steals livestock (horses, sheep, etc.) or crops (apples, hay, peas, flowers, etc.). Those who undertake to guard them (usually the older brothers) fail to catch the thief, and only the hero (usually the younger brother) discovers him. 83 231 K8c Jonah: swallowed by a land animal. The character enters the belly of an ordinary land animal, kills it from within (K952) and/or returns to the outside without outside help. Cf. motif M118. 121 231 J46 The enemy drowns. Antagonists perish by falling into water or attempting to cross a water barrier. See motifs J42, J44. 120 235 F35a Feeding meat from a relative. The character, unaware of this, eats or prepares meat (slowly kills) a member of his household (a relative, rarely a servant or spouse) or feeds it to his acquaintances, or uses its bones for household needs. 121 241 H5 People and snakes. Reptiles or invertebrates possess a life-giving agent; they are contrasted with humans as immortal mortals and/or responsible for the fact that humans die and are not reborn; the dead turn into snakes. See motif H4. (The first death comes from a snake bite (centipede), but snakes are not opposed to humans as immortals to mortals.) 101 242 A2a The sun emits destructive heat. The world was or will be (almost) burned when several suns lit up or will light up simultaneously; or destructive heat (or light) once emanated from one sun. 66 244 J42 Parting waters. The character creates a dry passage across the bottom of the water body, and after passing through, the waters close again. 81 245 M29g Trickster - Hare, Rabbit See the motives in square brackets. They include traditions in which the hare/rabbit appears only as a trickster, and another trickster (usually a fox or jackal) often occurs. 134 246 M156 The Ungrateful One is Punished, ATU 155. A dangerous animal (rarely: a spirit) is about to kill a human or another animal – usually the one who freed it from a trap. A third character acts as a judge and saves the human – most often by luring the ungrateful back into the trap. 116 247 M38a Inept imitation: visiting, Th J2425 On a visit, the character sees how the owner acts with magic or techniques that suit his nature (in Africa, too, deception). He imitates their actions but fails. Actions are not tests or competitions and are not related to performing feats. This is mainly getting or preparing food. 86 250 J26 Infants from the river. The character or that from which he arises is found in a river, lake, sea, or on the riverbank. The future hero emerges from the body of water into which he was thrown. 134 253 K27n1 The one who gives tasks – a king or a chief. A character who gives the hero tasks that are impossible for an ordinary person (subjecting the hero to difficult trials), or a character who requires the suitors of his daughter to fulfil certain conditions, is the head of a community or supra-community collective and is neither a member of the same family collective as the hero nor a mythical creature. See motif K27. 166 253 H4 Skin change as a condition for immortality, D1889.6. Those who change their skin (bark, clothing) are immortal (forever young). (Cf. motif K56a5a: Skinning oneself to become young: To become a young beauty, an old or ugly woman asks to have her skin skinned off). 95 254 K25a1 Found clothing. A magical wife leaves her earthly husband when she finds her clothes, which he has hidden (often feathers, if she is a bird woman), persuades him to give them back, makes new ones or receives them from her relatives. (The variant in which the wife leaves her husband because she is offended is not entirely alternative, but in most texts it does not fit with the motif of found clothing). 81 255 M21 The fugitive hides with his protector. The character runs away from his pursuer. The person, animal or object that the character asks for help hides him (and kills the pursuer). 118 256 K38f The dragon slayer, ATU 300. A reptilian monster demands human sacrifices (devours people; kidnaps a girl; blocks water sources). The hero kills it. The monster's victims do not play an active role in the action. 103 257 B82 White Raven, A2411.1.1.6. The raven (less often another bird of prey, or another black bird the size of a raven) was first white, and then turned black. 106 260 F45 Amazons. There are or were settlements where only women lived or live (cf. motifs F8, F45C). 123 266 F34b Lover of non-human nature. A girl, woman or group of women voluntarily take as their lover a penis that exists as a special creature, snake, moray eel, lizard, worm, crab, large aquatic animal or aquatic monster, or large terrestrial mammal. People kill or maim the lover, the woman and/or her offspring, or she herself loses her human nature. The woman's behaviour is condemned. 120 267 A35 Spots on the lunar disc, A751.5. Dark spots on the lunar disc – dirt, blood, paint, marks from blows, burns on the body or face of a character; they do not form a specific image. See motif A31. 138 271 M91 Dead twice, ATU 1537 Pretending that the deceased has just been alive for a relatively long time, the character accuses others of his death, receives a ransom and gifts. 99 271 M91c1 The herd from the bottom The character (pretends to) take possession of someone's property (usually setting the owner to be killed instead of him), says that he got everything at the bottom of the river, in the abyss, etc., to him they believe. 118 271 L72a Comb-thicket. Fleeing for his life, the character throws behind him a comb (brush), which turns into an obstacle (almost always thickets) in the path of his pursuer. (In South America, this motif is most likely of European origin). See Andreev 1929, No. 313.I. 85 272 L65b3 Rescue on a tree. A character who climbs a tree manages to escape from a demon (who usually tries to knock the tree down). 114 274 K37 Recognising one's own among similar ones, H62.1, H161, H324. In order to return or obtain a wife, son or husband (in Africa also a domestic animal or object), a person must identify her or him among several identical people or animals (objects). 118 277 K73a Child substitution. Malicious women replace the newborn with an animal or an inanimate object (they tell the baby's father that his wife gave birth to an animal or an object). See motif K73. 114 281 L85 Half-creatures, F525. The character has only half a body (vertically). See also L85C, "Half-chicken". 103 281 H28 Creature turns into reptiles, A2034. A creature that has been killed and destroyed (often burned) (usually a cannibal, a ferocious animal, or a powerful shaman) turns into stinging insects or other harmful, unpleasant, or dangerous creatures. 111 284 H36a False news: the origin of death, A1335.1. The character distorts the message conveyed to him, deliberately lies, brings the wrong thing, loses what he is carrying, delays (and is overtaken by another messenger). As a result, people become mortal (they do not revive after death). 60 284 M75b1 Marco Rich, ATU 930 A person (usually of high status) learns that a poor boy who is born will inherit his property or become king. He tries to stop it, but what he predicted comes true. 71 285 L5 Rolling head. Describes or depicts a creature in the form of a skull or head without a body. 111 287 K76 The Strange Son, ATU 425A, 441. A boy who is born or found has a strange or ugly appearance (ball, nut, sack, half-human, dwarf, animal), but then demonstrates magical powers and turns out to be handsome (usually getting a bride of high status). The princess's magical spouse initially has a non-human or ugly appearance. 114 287 K32g Torn apart by horses. The antagonist is executed by being tied to a horse (camel, bull), which drags him along the ground or tears him to pieces. 79 291 C19 Finding the sun. The missing, hidden, concealed or stolen sun (daylight) reappears. See motif C18 134 291 C8 Blood relatives give birth to people. At the beginning of time or as a result of a catastrophe, the only human couple is a brother and sister (less often a mother and son, father and daughters). They marry and give birth to people. 61 292 I13a Horned serpent, B91.3. A huge aquatic or celestial serpent, dragon, or snake-like creature with horns on its head. 85 292 E1 The creation of man. The first human being was created, made by a certain character, and did not exist initially (on earth, underground, in the sky, in a small container) and did not arise spontaneously. Only variants that specify the material from which humans were created, or that refer separately to the creation of the human figure and its ensoulment, rather than simply to the fact of "creation" itself, are taken into account. 109 293 M91c2 Seated in a bag character is placed in a bag or chest, locked in a cage, tied, etc., to drown, burn, etc. When left for a while, the character pretends to be in the bag voluntarily or because he does not want to become a chief, marry, etc.; the other agrees to take his place. See M91c1 motif. 121 293 K119 Animal marries a princess, ATU 545B. An animal promises to make a poor man rich (usually by marrying him to a rich bride; or by marrying a poor girl to a prince) and, resorting to deception, fulfils its promise. 78 294 L110 The Devourer, (ATU 2028), Th F911.6. A character swallows many people and/or animals. In the end, his stomach is cut open, and those who were swallowed unharmed come out or are extracted and revived. Cf. motif K8a. 113 296 K28 Father or uncle – enemy and rival. The uncle on the mother's side or the father of the young hero (or grandfather, if he replaces the father, who is not mentioned) is his enemy and rival, giving him difficult tasks with the aim of destroying him. 132 297 L65b Dogs as saviours. A demonic woman, less often her lover or another monster, is ready to kill or kills the hero. Dogs (or animals and birds that replace them – lions, bears, eagles, etc.) come running (flying), rescue the hero and kill the demon. 107 300 A32e Character with an object in their hands. On the lunar (rarely: solar) disc, a character holding an object or animal is visible. See motif A32D. 104 302 M39a Deer don't want to wet their shoes fool lives with his brother (and mother), is sent on business, does ridiculous things (all or part of the above): releases animals from the trap, kills (trapped) mother ; cuts off the pet's legs or skins; takes the fontanel on the baby's skull for a boil and squeezes it out; tears a large piece of cloth and ties the pieces to swaying reeds; hearing the murmur of water, throws food into the water; puts the plague in the water; wants to salt the water and pours all the salt into the river. (There are other common episodes as well). 21 304 I9 Colours of the cardinal points. Each (or at least three) of the four cardinal directions (as well as the zenith and nadir) and/or the objects located there have their own colour. Abbreviations: E: east, S: south, W: west, N: north. (Cf. Podosinov 2000: 143-147). 59 308 K29a Unharmed by fire. The hero demonstrates his magical abilities or cunning by remaining alive in a hot bath, oven, fire, or among burning vegetation. 131 310 B3b The grown earth. Initially, the earth or the world as a whole was small in size, then it grew; fertile soil grew from a small amount of initial substance. See motif B3A (the earth grows from a piece of solid substance thrown onto the surface of the water). 177 310 G6 The first tree. One of the trees is the main, original tree, which is very different from the others (it was the first to appear; the progenitor of trees; the progenitor of wild or cultivated plants; the sea and rivers within it; the world axis; higher than the others; obscuring the sky). 117 310 L37b Overheard conversation, ATU 613, N451.1. By accidentally overhearing a conversation between animals or spirits, a person learns how to help themselves and others. 126 313 K2a The hero is sent down to the underworld. The character is sent down to the underworld (into an abyss, a well, etc.). After he sends the treasures (women) he has obtained back up, his envious companions cut the rope, but he manages to return to earth. See motifs K38, K39, K74. 92 315 C2 Flood and fire. The inhabitants of the middle world (in part) are destroyed (or will be destroyed) once by fire or drought, another time by a flood, or the world is flooded with a stream of fire and boiling water. 107 319 I1 Thunderbirds, A284.2. Creatures that cause or embody rain and/or thunderstorms are birds or winged anthropomorphic characters. {Traditions in which birds are associated with thunderstorms and rain, but Thunder itself is not a bird, are marked with an asterisk (*). 123 325 L108 The Wolf and the Kids, ATU 123. Each time the departed character returns, he or she sings a song or gives a signal to a relative (usually a child) or friend who remained at home, who then lets him or her in. The antagonist pretends to be the departed person, imitating his or her voice, showing his or her hand, etc. Cf. motif L27a. 119 326 K33 The Living Drowned Woman, Th D688, E323.1; ATU 450. When a malevolent woman pushes another woman into a body of water (a well), the latter drowns or loses her human form, but manages to return to the world of humans. Cf. motif k32m 135 329 K66 Bogatyrs with different abilities, ATU 513, 653, F601. Each of several companions or brothers excels others in some way (sees, hears, runs, etc. better than anyone else). Cf. motif K2B, "Gorynya and Dubyna". 135 329 H24 A vessel opened too early. A vessel or other small container with valuables or living beings (creatures) is opened (prematurely). Its contents get out of control or disappear. 138 333 L93a The fox as helper. The fox, jackal or coyote, resorting to cunning, helps the hero, heroine or people in general, saving them. 104 335 M38 Inept imitation 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 132 335 E11 Burnt skin. The future family member reveals himself or remains with the person after the object that defines the character's non-human appearance is destroyed. After the person destroys (usually burns) the discarded animal skin, the character retains his human appearance. See motif E9. 138 349 L94 Promised to the demon. A demon or animal helps a person or agrees to let them go, but in return takes a promise to give them a daughter or son. 111 352 J4 Revenge for the death of male relatives. The heroes avenge the death (enslavement) of their father, uncle, grandfather, or mother and father, or in general their descendants, with the loss of men being the most painful. 101 353 E5a People from the underworld, A1234. The first humans (or only the first men or first women) were not created by a demiurge, but emerged from under the ground (from a cave) or from a small object on its surface (a tree, stone, pumpkin, etc.). There are many emerging humans (or humans and animals). Cf. motif E5B: first ancestors from the underworld. 116 357 L19b Creature with an odd number of heads. Creatures (any, except ornithomorphic ones) with more than 10 heads or an odd (but more than one) number of heads are described or depicted (in the case of listing creatures in order of increasing number of heads, the series ends with an odd number). 138 360 B42 Cosmic hunting, F59.2. Hunters, their dogs, fleeing or killed animals are visible in the sky in the form of stars and constellations. 110 363 I82b Venus-woman. The Morning and/or Evening Star – a female character. 114 364 I3 Weapons of Thunder. Lightning (and thunder) is produced by an object (sword, arrow, whip, mirror, etc.) in the hands of a character; lightning is an object. 131 375 I22 Moving objects, D931.3, D1553. There are objects that, while remaining in place, move constantly or periodically (collide and diverge, fall and rise, open and close, rotate). 126 383 K73 Children of the younger wife, ATU 707. A young wife (promises to give birth and) gives birth to wonderful children (or one son). In the absence of her husband, attempts are made to kill the wife or her child (usually by slandering them to the husband), but they remain alive. (For medieval European variants, see Newell 1906). 139 383 M157 Impossible births, (ATU 875E). The character claims that a man, male animal or object gave birth (or had a period), or that an animal of one species gave birth to a young of another species, or that a woman gave birth to an animal or inanimate object. 116 389 L42 The cannibal brings the hero to his home, ATU 327C. After capturing the character, the enemy brings the prey home or to the place where he intends to eat it. The character runs away and escapes. 144 390 K27n Tasks of relatives, H310, H331. A young man must complete difficult tasks or win a competition in order to obtain permission to marry. The person giving the tasks is indicated in square brackets. See motif K27. 260 391 K8a Jonah: swallowed by an aquatic or chthonic creature. The character enters the belly of an aquatic creature or a giant creature whose appearance and habitat are not precisely described. He kills the creature from within (K952) and/or returns to the outside without outside help. Upon emerging from the belly, he often finds himself bald (K921). Cf. motifs I81B (Charybdis) and L110 (Devourer). 182 391 H7 Personification of death. Death (as well as illness and old age) is a special character, distinct from the lord of the underworld. It takes away a person's soul or otherwise causes their death. 139 394 I72 Stars – people. Stars – anthropomorphic beings. See motif K19 (marriage to a star). Cases where the Star is a unique object, e.g. Venus, rather than one of many Star-people, are not included. 184 403 K56b The worthy are rewarded, the unworthy are punished. Two men take turns meeting a character who can reward and punish. One behaves correctly and is rewarded, the other (or two others) behave incorrectly and are punished (rarely: not rewarded). 160 409 H36 False news (all variants). A character is sent to deliver instructions or certain items. The messenger distorts the message, brings the wrong items, loses what he is carrying, delays (and is overtaken by another messenger). This has important consequences for him and for the future lives of the people. 90 413 K75 The younger daughter agrees, ATU 433B. The girl (usually the youngest of the sisters) does not reject the hero, who temporarily takes the form of an animal, a freak, an old man, a poor man, or a loser, or she picks up the hero's remains and he comes back to life. After some time, the hero reveals his true nature. 177 424 L81 Demon's fire. A man who goes in search of fire finds it with a demon. The demon pursues the man, harms him, and kills him. Traditions in which there is only a story about men who are promised fire for a fairy tale (a tall tale) are marked with an asterisk*. 92 425 E9 The Unknown Mistress, N831.1. The character notices that someone is running the house in his absence and catches the person doing so by surprise. 155 428 K36 Turned into an animal, (ATU 449). The hero (heroine) is temporarily transformed into an animal (usually a dog/coyote or a donkey, with the face of the former]: 151-152t to the ground; and the strength of 99 men; if she had taken the hundredth, she would have remained a woman; if the young man had ground, a horse). When he or she is helped to regain their former appearance, the antagonist is transformed into an animal. In some texts, either only the hero or only the antagonist undergoes metamorphosis. Cf. motifs K62B, J62b1 (the character transforms many people into animals). 75 431 M30 The trickster falls, (ATU 225, 225A) character who has no natural wings or can't fly long distances rises into the air, but falls or, having lost its wings, stays where he can't return from. (The motive includes several options, but even when taken together, they don't cover the whole world. Texts with M25 and M28 motifs are counted as including the M30 motif). 158 436 K177 The wandering heroine. A girl or woman sets off on a journey to find or return her fiancé or husband, or flees from danger, and her journey ends in a successful marriage. 177 438 L15d Life is stored outside the body, E700, (ATU 302). The object in which the character's life is concentrated is separate from him. The character dies when this external form is destroyed. 153 444 J1A The myth of the avengers with a full plot 153 451 M29b Trickster - Fox, Jackal, Coyote Fox (a), Jackal, Coyote (or Wolf when, apparently, we mean a steppenwolf, i.e. the same coyote). See the motives in square brackets. 270 453 C6 Obtaining valuables from the underworld. In texts with an emphasis on authenticity, characters dive or otherwise descend into the underworld to bring back to earth something desirable that is located at the bottom (deep below) (aka "The Earth Diver" motifs) (cf. fairy tale motif k27x9). 126 456 A4 Sun-woman, A736.2. The Sun is a woman (the Moon is usually a man, sometimes also a woman, see motif A6; highlighted in bold italics in the list of ethnic groups below). 158 470 K12 Kidnapped and returned. The hero returns the woman whom his enemy or rival tried to take away from him. 195 470 B98 The bat between beasts and birds, ATU 222A. The bat (rarely: ostrich) tries to join either the beasts or the birds, or finds itself excluded from both. 51 478 I41 Rainbow serpent, A791.2. A rainbow is a reptile (usually a snake), less often a fish or snake-like, usually dangerous, object (snake tongue, scorpion tail). 72 478 B98a The bat becomes an outcast, ATU 222A. The bat becomes an outcast among other creatures (usually after trying to join either the animals or the birds). 48 490 K1A Trap: a young man or man is abandoned. A young man or man finds himself in a place where he is unable to move, but which is isolated from the ground: the top of a tree, a rock, a cave, a burrow, an island. This happens through someone else's fault: the antagonist lures or traps the hero, or (less often) leaves him no other option but isolation. After some time, the hero either finds a way to salvation himself, or is saved by someone else (often a bird or animal), or (rarely) undergoes a metamorphosis and no longer returns to his normal life. For texts with a fairy-tale episode in which the hero is sent down to the underworld and abandoned there, see motif K2A. 202 514 K56 The worthy are rewarded, the unworthy are punished, ATU 480, 480D*. One of the girls, young women or young girls (wives of one man) meets a character who is able to reward and punish. She behaves correctly and receives a reward. Another (others) tries to repeat everything, but behaves incorrectly and is punished (rarely: not rewarded). 142 530 K24 Hidden clothes of a supernatural woman, F202.4.2. Women (rarely men) possessing magical powers and usually coming from another world (from the sky, from under water, they are winged creatures, bird-people, animal-people; rarely: a girl of higher social status than the hero) take off their clothes (feather coverings, etc.) or part of them. The character hides the clothes (one of them), forcing him (rarely her) to fulfil his (rarely her) desire. 190 565 B3a Primary waters, A810. The waters are primary. The earth is lowered onto the water, appears above the water, grows from a piece of solid substance placed on the surface of the water or liquid mud, from an island in the ocean, is exposed when the waters recede, etc. 214 589 K38 The hero helps the chicks, B364.4. For doing good to chicks (rarely: young of non-ornithomorphic flying creatures), their mother or father does a favour for the person. 85 591 L72 Magical flight, D672, D673. While fleeing, the character throws small objects behind him, which turn into powerful obstacles in the path of the pursuer, or (rarely) the pursuer creates such obstacles in the path of the fugitives. (Cf. SUS 1979, No. 313H = AA 313I, p. 114: escape by throwing magical objects, an episode in various types of fairy tales). 191 596 K176 Man in search of a woman, ATU 400. A man sets out on a journey to find or bring back a bride or wife. 243 601 A5 The Sun and the Moon are male, A711.1, A736.3. The Moon is male, the Sun is also male or (rarely) has no gender. 230 626 B2a The earth is a female being, A401. The earth is a female character (alone or alongside a male character) and is considered to be female or associated with women. 188 641 B77 Low sky, A625.2; A660. The sky was close to the ground, then rose. 144 691 A32d Man on the moon, A751. The figure or imprint of an anthropomorphic creature is visible on the lunar disc. 189 697 K25 The magical wife. A man consciously marries a woman who belongs to the non-human world. 226 753 H12 The living go to the dead after someone's death, F81. The living visit the afterlife to bring back the dead (except for texts about a shaman bringing back the soul of a sick person), or, without a specific goal, go there accompanied by or following in the footsteps of the recently deceased. 131 800 A12 Eclipses: attacks by monsters, A737.1. A creature or creatures regularly (sunrise and sunset, winter and summer, night and day, phases of the moon) or occasionally (eclipses, eschatological catastrophes) attack the luminaries or block their light. 219 883 K32 The Substituted Woman, K1911; ATU 403, 404. The man does not (immediately) notice that another woman, an evil spirit or (in Chaco) a male trickster has replaced his wife or bride, who is banished, imprisoned in the underworld, killed, etc. 203 892 A3 The Sun-Man and the Moon-Woman, A716.1. The Moon is female or hermaphroditic, the Sun is male or, possibly, male. 244 1191 K27 Tasks and competitions. The character receives tasks that are deadly dangerous or can only be accomplished with supernatural abilities or helpers; the hero completes the tasks and/or miraculously survives. The confrontation between the characters unfolds as a game or competition in which the loser loses their life or status. 472 1698
Quick Navigation for Motif Categories
- A – The Sun and Moon
- B – The Origins of the Characteristics of the environment
- C – Disasters
- D – Fire and Laughter
- E – The origins of people and culture
- F – Gender and sex
- G – Fertility and Agriculture
- H – Paradise Lost
- I – Supernatural objects, objects and creatures
- J – Avenger heroes: The amerinday cycle
- K – Adventures: Acts of heroes
- L – Adventures: Monsters and evil spirits
- M – Adventures: Tricks and episodes
| Ref | Title | Summary | Traditions | Narratives |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| k93b6 | A sword grown in the garden. | The fish eaten by the woman gives birth to sons, and what is buried in the garden are objects or items that are further associated with these young men. These are either weapons (swords, sabres, rapiers) or objects whose appearance allows one to judge what is happening to the young men. | 0 | 0 |
| L100b1 | Dialogue between the male and the female pigeons | The young man forgets his magic bride and meets another woman. At the last moment a bird tells the story about his real bride and he recalls everything. Usually two birds, a male and a female, have a dialogue in which the female can tell the male that he will be as cruel with her as this youth who has forgotten his bride. | 0 | 0 |
| l15h2 | The soul of a character in a bird. | The object in which the character's life is contained is enclosed in another, which is enclosed in a third (and so on). The final repository of the soul is a bird (a chick, several birds or chicks). | 0 | 0 |
| l15h3 | The soul of a character in an insect (worm). | The object in which the character's life is concentrated is enclosed in another, which is enclosed in a third (and so on). The final vessel of the soul is an insect or worm. | 0 | 0 |
| L31a | Children carried away to the sky. | An object descends from the sky. Children playing climb into it or stick to it, and it carries them away to the sky. See motif L31. | 0 | 0 |
| L39b | The pie tree. | The tree grows from a flatbread (pie, etc.) and usually bears flatbreads instead of fruit. | 0 | 0 |
| l44a1 | Louse- turtle. | A human and a demonic character agree to compare their lice. When the human shows a turtle or a frog, the demon believes that it is scarier and stronger than him. | 0 | 0 |
| l73a1 | The fugitive creates fog. | Throwing some object behind him, the fleeing character creates fog or darkness in the path of his pursuer. | 0 | 0 |
| m105a1 | Allegedly killed children: two birds. | One of two birds, both of which (rarely: only one) are flightless, suggests that the other break its eggs. The other agrees, but then sees that the first has kept its eggs. | 0 | 0 |
| m187d | Race: turtle (toad) - participant. | Participating in a race, the turtle or frog (toad) defeats its faster opponent. See motif M183. | 0 | 0 |
| m195c | The clever or lucky person solves riddles. | People of high status cannot determine the hidden difference between two or more outwardly similar objects or beings, or between two sides of the same object or being. Thanks to their own intelligence or chance, a person of low status does so. | 0 | 0 |
| M29 | Trickster: identification with birds and animals | trickster is defined as a protagonist in the following characteristic episodes. | 0 | 0 |
| M38b3b | Hero warms and covers the nestlings | Mighty bird (more rare other creature/mythological person) helps a man (rare: a woman) because he (she) warms/covers from bad weather its/hers nestlings (children) | 0 | 0 |
| a35b1 | The moon hinders the thief. | The criminal tries to make the moon dim because its light annoys him or prevents him from committing crimes. | 0 | 0 |
| A4e | Rider of the clouds | An anthropomorphic person associated with the thunder and rain rides on the clouds (uses them as a vehicle) | 0 | 0 |
| B42hh | Cosmic hunting and Orion. | Orion is associated with the theme of cosmic hunting. (Including motifs b42h, b42h1, b42m, b42r). | 0 | 0 |
| b87d | Alcor - infant. | Alcor (a faint star next to the second star of the Big Dipper's handle) – infant. | 0 | 0 |
| c4a | The Flood: Salvation on a Tree. | During the flood, those who climbed trees were saved. | 0 | 0 |
| c6h1 | Earth was taken from the belly of an invertebrate. | The earth brought from the underworld was found in the belly of a worm or insect, from where it was taken. | 0 | 0 |
| c8aa | Brother and sister give birth to humans. | At the beginning of time, or as a result of a catastrophe, the only human couple are a brother and sister. They marry and give birth to people. | 0 | 0 |
| c8e | Salvation in a pumpkin during the flood. | During the flood or at the beginning of time, people (usually a brother and sister) float in a large gourd. | 0 | 0 |
| e8b | Woman hides in a fruit. | A woman hides inside a fruit brought into the house and comes out when no one is around or when the fruit is cut open. | 0 | 0 |
| e8c | Woman hides in a splinter. | A woman hides inside a splinter or branch brought into the house and comes out when no one is around. | 0 | 0 |
| f2a | Improper birth. | The child deliberately leaves its mother's womb in an unusual way, making a hole in her body and often killing her. This is a sign of its malice and/or supernatural power. | 0 | 0 |
| F97a5 | Snake is deprived of its limbs | Being responsible for breaking food tabou by humans, snake lost its limbs as a punishment | 0 | 0 |
| H18a | The puppy releases the animals. | The owner of the hunting animals hides them underground; one of the first ancestors turns into a puppy, which is picked up by the owner's children, and releases the animals. See motif H18. | 0 | 0 |
| H32C | Lost abundance: the wronged spouse. | The woman's husband has a non-human nature and possesses magical knowledge and values. He is wronged, he leaves, and his knowledge and abilities can no longer be used by humans. | 0 | 0 |
| I37g | Mushrooms - a step, a platform, an obstacle. | A tree mushroom is a step, a platform; an object that helps or hinders movement; provides shelter or refuge. See motif I37. | 0 | 0 |
| i41b2 | Rainbow from the mouth of an animal. | A rainbow emerges from the mouth of a reptile, amphibian or invertebrate animal. | 0 | 0 |
| I42g3 | Edible house | In the forest person comes across a house that is made, completely or partly, of edible matter | 0 | 0 |
| I63 | The Milky Way – the tapir's path. | The Milky Way is the tapir's trail; the tapir can be seen on the Milky Way. | 0 | 0 |
| I79 | Kirtimukha. | The monster is beheaded or deprived of its body. Its head is depicted on temples and vessels (narrative texts and/or iconography). | 0 | 0 |
| J1 | Avenging heroes (all variants). | The characters avenge the death of their father, mother or other relatives who are older than them by a generation (less often by two generations). | 0 | 0 |
| J12E | Skunk. | The false bridegroom - skunk. See motif J12. | 0 | 0 |
| j23e | Flies through the body of a cannibal. | Wanting to make sure that the enemy is really dead, an insect or bird penetrates its body from one end and exits from the other. | 0 | 0 |
| j23f | Temporarily incarnated in a human being. | Something inanimate incarnates in a human being to solve people's problems and then returns to its original state. | 0 | 0 |
| j25c | Raised by a wolf. | A she-wolf nurses an abandoned infant. He becomes an outstanding leader. | 0 | 0 |
| J40b | Avenged prisoners | After the hero comes back after a long absence and finds his parents enslaved, he tells them to demonstrate openly a lack of respect to their masters and punishes those who were cruel with them | 0 | 0 |
| j4b | Revenge within the family. | The children (son, sons, son and daughter) of the murdered person take revenge on characters who are related to the victim by marriage or close kinship. | 0 | 0 |
| jia | The myth of the avengers with a full plot. | The myth of the avengers with a full plot. | 0 | 0 |
| k102c1 | A splinter turns into a duck. | The enemy systematically destroys the objects and creatures into which the hero is reincarnated. The hero wins after turning from a splinter into a waterfowl (duck, goose). | 0 | 0 |
| k135a | The coward put out the door. | The coward or lazybones has become so tiresome to his family that they leave him outside. He sets off on a journey and defeats powerful enemies, thanks to chance or cunning. | 0 | 0 |
| K184 | When the forest comes to life. | The character links the onset of an event that is impossible, in his view, with the time when the trees of the forest will start moving, as if they were people. | 0 | 0 |
| k185 | Father fights son. | Not recognising his son, the father fights him and kills him. {In this formulation, the motif is rare, and in more general ones it has no clear boundaries}. | 0 | 0 |
| k18aa | Pregnancy from touch. | A girl becomes pregnant without her knowledge through contact with the bodily secretions of a male character or with objects that he has touched (i.e. not as a result of sexual intercourse, not as a result of the simple desire of the father of her future child, and not through mystical contact with a deity). The story ends with the happy union of the girl and the father of her child. | 0 | 0 |
| K19 | Marriage to a star. | A man or woman marries a star. See motifs K19A, K19B. | 0 | 0 |
| K27b | Smoking a pipe. | Test: smoke a huge or poisonous pipe or breathe in clouds of poisonous smoke. See motif K27. | 0 | 0 |
| K27i | Drain a body of water. | Task: to drain a large body of water. | 0 | 0 |
| k27q2 | Gusli-samogudy. | The hero is sent to obtain a musical instrument, usually a gusli-samogudy. | 0 | 0 |
| k27z2a2 | The unrecognised wife visits her husband, ATU 891. | The husband leaves his wife without agreeing with her. The wife visits her husband incognito, and in the end he realises who is with him. Usually, the wife spends the night with her husband, gives birth to a son (three children), and the husband is convinced that the son is his. | 0 | 0 |
| k32g2 | The daughter's meat is sent to her mother. | An authoritative character marries, and an evil woman replaces her with her daughter. After the false wife is exposed and executed, the woman receives cooked meat as a gift, not immediately realising that it is her daughter's body parts. | 0 | 0 |
| k32g3 | What does the perpetrator deserve? . | The villain is asked what punishment he deserves for committing the crime in question. Not knowing that they are talking about him, he decides for himself how he should be executed. | 0 | 0 |
| k32n | The false wife - a supernatural character. | The false wife, who replaces the real one, is a supernatural character - a zoomorphic creature, a deceased woman, a female spirit, etc. See motif K32. | 0 | 0 |
| k33c2 | Girl in a pomegranate. | A young man obtains a girl who is inside a pomegranate. | 0 | 0 |
| k33c3 | The girl in the orange. | A young man obtains a girl who is inside an orange or other citrus fruit. | 0 | 0 |
| k33c4 | Girl in a pumpkin. | A young man obtains a girl who is inside a pumpkin, eggplant or cucumber. | 0 | 0 |
| k33c6 | Only one girl survived. | A young man receives several fruits (eggs, reeds). When he opens the first one, the girl who comes out of it disappears, either because the necessary provisions (usually drinking water) have not been prepared for her, or because the fruit has been cut incorrectly. Only the one who comes out of the last fruit (egg, reed) remains. Cf. motif k33c7. | 0 | 0 |
| k33c7 | One fruit and a girl inside it. | A young man obtains a fruit from which a girl emerges (rarely: two girls from two fruits, both remain with the young man). There is no episode of the loss of the girls who were in the other fruits. Cf. motif k33c6. | 0 | 0 |
| k33c8 | Girl in a walnut. | A young man obtains a girl who is inside a nut (walnut or hazelnut, but not coconut). | 0 | 0 |
| k33f1 | Source of oil according to a vow. | A person promises to create a source from which a valuable product (most often oil) flows and honestly fulfils their promise (rarely: promises to distribute a large amount of such a product). | 0 | 0 |
| k34a | A rival lures a woman onto a swing. | A rival puts a woman on a swing to get rid of her by throwing her into the water. She (almost) drowns or temporarily loses her human form, but manages to return to the world of humans. | 0 | 0 |
| K52a | The slave pours water into the hearth. | The hero goes to the bottom of the sea for a woman. The slave pours water into the hearth in the house of the water dwellers. Hiding behind clouds of steam, the hero takes the woman away. See motif K52. | 0 | 0 |
| K561 | The wise carving of the fowl | A poor man brings his master a chicken (goose, etc.) as a present. The master asks him to divide the bird appropriately among the members of his household. The poor man does it considering the symbolic meaning of particular parts (gives the master the head, his daughters the wings, etc.) and receives rich compensation. A neighbor brings the master five chickens but is unable to divide them approppriately. The first man does it again. | 0 | 0 |
| K56a1 | Mother-in-law performs the work of her daughter-in-law. | The groom, the bringer of prosperity, orders the girl who has come to perform work that she herself is unable to do. The groom's mother performs the work, and the girl is accepted by the groom. See motif K56A. Except for the Ket people: the work is performed by tiny women sitting in or behind the mother-in-law's ear. | 0 | 0 |
| k56a4f | The evil girl becomes ugly. | After meeting a supernatural character, the unkind girl becomes ugly. | 0 | 0 |
| k56a4g | Ugly girl: growths on the face. | After meeting a supernatural character, growths (tail, horns, warts, etc.) appear on the face (back of the head) of an unkind girl. | 0 | 0 |
| k56a8d | Eaten by a boa constrictor. | A girl agrees to become the wife of a snake, which turns into a handsome man. Another girl (or her mother or father) brings the snake to her or offers it to become her husband, but it does not turn into a man and kills her. | 0 | 0 |
| k67i | Cows carried in pieces. | The worker is instructed to follow a straight line or overcome the obstacle without breaking it. He kills and cuts up the animals entrusted to him, throws the pieces over the fence or breaks the fence, even though there is a passage nearby. | 0 | 0 |
| k76c1 | A woman gave birth to a pumpkin. | A woman gives birth to a pumpkin, inside which there is a person (many people) or which turns into a person. | 0 | 0 |
| K77c | Those hiding in the house frighten the enemy. | Various objects and/or animals hide in the house where a strong enemy is expected to appear. They take turns attacking or frightening him, and he either dies or flees. See motifs K77a and K77b. | 0 | 0 |
| k80a6 | Talking pipe made from a plant that grew there. | A musical instrument is made from a plant that grew where the character was killed (fell, touched the ground). When played, it produces a text with a specific meaning. | 0 | 0 |
| k84a | Give to the first person who asks. | On his deathbed, a father instructs his son, without specifying any conditions, to give his sister (sisters) to whoever comes for her. | 0 | 0 |
| K8f | Deer in the belly of a monster. | The swallowed one discovers a living deer in the belly of the monster. See motif K8A. | 0 | 0 |
| N39 | Three-fold twisted rope | The image of a three-ply rope is used to describe the invincibility of two close-knit friends | 1 | 1 |
| G3A | Burnt grains. | The first cereal grains were exposed to fire, burning to varying degrees. This resulted in different varieties of corn or rice with different colours. | 1 | 1 |
| I100b | Pleiades - people. | The Pleiades - a group of people of any gender and age. See motifs i99 - i100A, aggregate data. | 1 | 1 |
| A1a | Before the sun, a parrot shone. | Before the sun appeared, the world was lit by a large bird with bright colours (a parrot or toucan). | 2 | 2 |
| A2G | Several suns in one day. | At different times throughout the day, different suns shine in the sky. | 2 | 2 |
| A39B | Full moon and crescent moon. | The full moon and the crescent moon are different characters. | 2 | 2 |
| B124a | Dent on the back. | Ever since a piece of flesh was torn from a person's back, a dent has remained along the length of the spine. | 2 | 2 |
| B69b | Striped frog. | Wanting to reward or punish the frog, the character runs his hand or paw along its back, and since then, stripes have been visible on the frog's back. | 2 | 2 |
| C8c1 | Father and daughter give birth to humans. | At the beginning of time or after the destruction of the rest of humanity, a father and daughter (daughters) remain. They marry and give rise to humans or certain ethnic groups. | 2 | 2 |
| F34a | The common husband of the first women. | All women of the community of the first ancestors or all Amazons have a common lover of non-human nature or simultaneously mate with animals of a certain species, summoning them with a conventional signal. | 2 | 2 |
| F80C | The dead with genitals in their hands. | In the afterlife, women carry the penises of their lovers, and men carry the vulvas of their lovers. See motif F80. | 2 | 2 |
| F80D | Genitals flew like geese. | Female genitals flew like geese. | 2 | 2 |
| h36k | Trees try to destroy people. | Trees try to prevent humans from appearing on earth, fearing that they will cut them down. | 2 | 2 |
| H49A | Husband, wife and innocently killed dog. | A man does not understand that a dog or cat wanted to save his wife or preserve her honour and kills the animal. | 1 | 2 |
| I15a1 | Vertical slit eyes. | The demonic character has vertical slits for eyes. | 2 | 2 |
| I93A | The Milky Way – the heavenly tail. | The Milky Way is the tail of a creature that is being pulled by its tail. | 2 | 2 |
| J25b | Dead mother brings food to her child. | A pregnant woman dies and is buried. Her spirit leaves the grave to bring food to the child. The child is found and grows up. | 2 | 2 |
| K131c | The kidnapped woman runs away while the archers compete. | A woman offers her captors to shoot arrows – she will marry the winner. While they are figuring out whose arrow flew farther, the kidnapped woman runs away. | 2 | 2 |
| K32c | The real wife becomes an owl. | The deceiver takes the place of the real wife, and the real wife becomes an owl. See motif K32. | 2 | 2 |
| K56b3 | Stench instead of fragrance. | A man's intestinal gases become fragrant. An envious person tries to achieve the same result, but the outcome is the opposite. | 2 | 2 |
| L21A | Live and dead mice. | A character sitting in a tree throws small animals (snakes, mice) down, distracting the attention of a cannibal who is trying to catch them. When he throws dead animals instead of live ones, the cannibal grabs him. | 2 | 2 |
| M61a4 | He tells everyone that the other is dying | character lies to each of the spouses as if the other had a misfortune. They run to each other in panic. | 1 | 2 |
| M65a | A squeaky tree | The trees are creaking in the wind. Hearing a creak, the character climbs a tree and gets stuck. See M65 motif. | 2 | 2 |
| M97B | A woman asks the trees | 2 | 2 | |
| N33A | Trampled into the ground | The character's opponents trample him into the ground. | 1 | 3 |
| I4F | Thunder – two combatants. | The hero and his opponent engage in single combat and are still fighting in the sky. This is thunder. | 2 | 3 |
| i50a1 | The dog's severed legs. | The character sequentially tears off the dog's legs, but the dog continues to do what it considers necessary. | 3 | 3 |
| I55b | The Sun Deer. | The hero chases a deer or elk carrying the sun. | 2 | 3 |
| I82j | Venus – husband of the Moon. | Venus-man or another star is the husband of the Moon-woman. See motif I82a. | 3 | 3 |
| J23D | Late twins defeat the monster. | People in general or older brothers (siblings, older sister) disappear one after another. A woman raises two twins (or several children) from infancy. They defeat their antagonists, usually reviving or freeing those who have disappeared. | 3 | 3 |
| K167b | What is a lamb in the womb of a sheep? | A boy is able to determine the sex and colour of a young animal in the womb. | 3 | 3 |
| K73b7 | The hero kills the enemy of his enchanted wife. | The hero saves the magical wife from her enemy at a time when both the future wife and the enemy have zoomorphic appearances. Later, the rescued woman becomes a woman. | 3 | 3 |
| A19E | Summer and winter suns. | The summer and winter suns are two different characters. | 2 | 3 |
| A23E | The first to rise has the best voice. | Two birds argue about who will get up first, or agree to consider the one who gets up first to be the better singer. The bird that sings the most melodious trills wins, and the one with a shrill or hoarse voice loses. | 3 | 3 |
| B107 | Black oyster. | During the (world) fire, the oyster burns, which is why oyster shells are black. | 2 | 3 |
| B28c | Lice drag a person into the water. | Lice grab a person and drag him into the sea. | 3 | 3 |
| B32a | Pursuers turn into aquatic mammals. | The enemies of a hero sailing the sea turn into seals or dolphins. | 2 | 3 |
| B44d | Black and white beast - night and day. | Night and day alternate because the slain beast was black and white, spotted. | 3 | 3 |
| C32 | A ship made of nails. | Demonic characters will make a ship out of nail clippings. | 3 | 3 |
| D13B | Menstruation passes to women. | Menstruation passes from men to women after women laugh at an old man. | 3 | 3 |
| D13e | Hunters laugh at the carcass of an animal. | Hunters perish because they laughed at the killed (and revived) animal. | 3 | 3 |
| E1e | Son-stalk. | The son of the first human couple initially takes the form of a small plant that has grown from the ground, a stalk. | 2 | 3 |
| E36a | Growing nails. | Nails grow constantly, or the human body is covered with a hard crust only on the nails, because only they were washed with living water. | 2 | 3 |
| E42 | The appearance of female breasts. | Women have two breasts because the original breast was cut in half. | 2 | 3 |
| F100b | A minor transgression by a chaste woman. | Thanks to her virtue, a woman is capable of doing what others cannot, but she succeeds only after she remembers a minor transgression she committed in her youth. | 3 | 3 |
| F54b | Stuck feathers. | A young man or boy copulates with his mother or sister. This becomes known from the remains of paint or feathers with which he was covered during sexual intercourse. | 3 | 3 |
| F54c | Recognised by nail marks. | A husband sees someone's fingernail marks on his wife's body and gathers the men to find out who left the marks. | 3 | 3 |
| F72 | Imitation of rape. | A woman asks a man to tie her up before intercourse so that it looks like she is being raped. | 2 | 3 |
| F77C | Penis-rope. | The character climbs a tree or descends a huge penis, which turns into a rope or vine. | 3 | 3 |
| F9f2 | The cobra's hood in the wife's handbag. | A woman places a piece of flesh from her slain snake lover in her handbag and poses a corresponding riddle. If her husband fails to guess the answer, she has the right to kill him. The husband accidentally learns the secret and kills his wife. | 3 | 3 |
| I13F | Wintering with a bear. | In autumn, a man falls asleep in a bear's den. When he wakes up, he thinks that the night has passed, but it is already spring. Usually, the bear gives him advice before parting. | 2 | 3 |
| I140 | Moses' rod. | The staff thrown to the ground turns into a living snake. | 3 | 3 |
| I27d | The mouth of a black dog. | There is a certain black or red dog that (is associated with objects in the night sky and) negatively affects people's lives. | 3 | 3 |
| I28a | Animals cause earthquakes. | Large animals that are hunted go underground and cause earthquakes. | 3 | 3 |
| L85e | Temporarily splits in two. | The character is temporarily split vertically into two halves and then rejoined. | 2 | 3 |
| L94d | The tale with a tail. | A demonic character accuses a man of stepping on (tearing off) the tail of a fairy tale. Cf. motif K100E, "Dangerous Fairy Tales". | 3 | 3 |
| M109d | Seized by the tail by a sea creature. | A zoomorphic character dips his tongue or tail into the water. An octopus or shell grabs it and holds it tight, so that the character drowns during high tide. | 3 | 3 |
| M136e | Should the bride be shortened? | Instead of asking a person to bend down in front of a low lintel, others suggest cutting off his head or legs. | 3 | 3 |
| M157a7 | Stolen children. | A zoomorphic character took the children of a character of another animal species and claims that they are his own children. | 3 | 3 |
| M162C | The removed skin is eaten. | The fox persuades the bear to remove his skin, eats it, and the bear dies. | 2 | 3 |
| M29S | Trickster - Crane | See the motives in square brackets. | 3 | 3 |
| M29T | Trickster - Armadillo | See the motives in square brackets. | 3 | 3 |
| M39a2e | Forgotten name | Forgetting his name, a fool remembers it when he accidentally hears a word. | 3 | 3 |
| M45b | Animals at the trough, ATU 179B* | The old man carries a trough and lies down to rest, covered with it. The animals take the trough to the table and bring food. The old man gets up, the animals run away, the old man gets the food. | 3 | 3 |
| M53f | Pretending to be a monster, it eats supplies | The character is involved in preparing food supplies. After leaving under some pretext, he returns in the form of a monster or predator. Everyone runs away, the deceiver eats supplies, and then returns as usual. As a result, it was exposed. | 3 | 3 |
| M5d | Squirrel and fish | The squirrel and the creeping fish are smart and get medicines for each other | 3 | 3 |
| M74e | Divides by biting off piece by piece | Two characters ask the third to share something edible between them. He bites off a little bit from each of the halves, because one or the other is slightly larger. As a result, it eats everything. | 3 | 3 |
| L40c | He who buys the bridle leads away the camel. | Relying on the ambiguity of the statement, the buyer of a cheap item claims rights to a much more valuable one. | 3 | 4 |
| L7b | Mistakenly chasing a calabash. | While chasing a person, spirit, monster or beast, he mistakenly throws himself after a calabash floating down the river. | 4 | 4 |
| L90d | Lips nailed to the sky and the earth. | The hero attaches the upper lip (jaw) of the monster to the sky, and the lower lip to the earth. | 4 | 4 |
| M105B | Carries his mother on his back. | The character replies that the load, hump or bulge on his back or head is his deceased mother or grandmother. Another kills his mother or wife and places her on his back or head. | 3 | 4 |
| M116b | The monstrous pursuer and the old man's advice. | A monster chases people. An old man gives advice on how to kill it from ambush. | 3 | 4 |
| M143A | Cheese mistaken for the moon, ATU 34. | A character mistakes the reflection of the moon in a body of water for cheese. | 3 | 4 |
| M163b | Inheritance brings good luck. | A father leaves his son (each of his sons) something of little value as an inheritance. The son goes to a country where such objects or animals are unknown and sells what he has received for a large sum of money. | 4 | 4 |
| M163C | Money thrown into the sea. | A person is advised to throw money into the water and take only what floats up. This brings him happiness. | 4 | 4 |
| M168b | The crooked stick. | A bird or a person who becomes a bird is given the task of bringing a stick that is neither straight nor crooked. This bird is still searching for it. | 3 | 4 |
| M183a | Who will eat more: one against many. | Two people argue about who will eat or drink more. One of them is constantly replaced by his relatives, his opponent does not notice the substitution and loses. | 4 | 4 |
| M199g2 | The thorny pole. | The trickster arranges things so that the tiger, with whom they are carrying meat on a pole, holds the end of the pole with the thorns and suffers from pain. | 3 | 4 |
| M23a | The turtle asks to be soaked, ATU 122G(2). | The turtle says that before eating it, it must be properly soaked in water, but once in the water, it swims away. | 4 | 4 |
| M38a2 | The hen boils eggs | The hen (other bird) cooks her own eggs and serves them to other animal persons (who imitated her with disastrous consequences) | 4 | 4 |
| M39a4d | A fool sells property to a lizard | Fool sells property a lizard and believes it will pay him. Trying to get his money, he finds treasure | 4 | 4 |
| M60a3 | The Imaginary Physician: Punishing a Scoundrel | Avenging the seized property (a pet or a bird), the hero repeatedly comes to the offender in different guises (girl, doctor, etc.) and brutally mocks him. | 4 | 4 |
| I4d1 | The stolen tendons of Grom, ATU 1148B. | An enemy steals the tendons (heart and eyes) of a thunder god, who returns them and prevails over his enemy. Cf. motif L57A, "The hero's companion returns his organ." | 2 | 4 |
| I50c | Sharabha (animal with legs on its back). | Describes a hoofed animal with a second set of legs on its back that runs either normally or upside down. This makes it tireless. | 4 | 4 |
| I5b | Thunder Jaguar. | The flying jaguar causes storms, rain, and thunderstorms. | 3 | 4 |
| J23c | The younger brother defeats the monster, ATU 312D. | People in general or older brothers (siblings, older sister) disappear one after another. A woman raises a boy from infancy or, left alone, miraculously conceives a son or finds a baby. He defeats the antagonists, usually reviving or freeing the missing ones. | 3 | 4 |
| J33a | An old woman beats a scarecrow. | A boy, a young man, or two children live in an old woman's house. They kill her husband—a man or a large animal—and make a scarecrow out of him. Angry that her husband is not responding to her, the old woman beats the scarecrow and then discovers that her husband has been killed. See motif J33. | 4 | 4 |
| J58b | Door to the sky. | With the help of a chain of arrows, the sky or the sun is pulled down or pushed up, or a hole is made in the sky. | 4 | 4 |
| J62b1 | The mistress of the island turns men into animals. | A sorceress living on an island turns men into animals. | 4 | 4 |
| J6a | Mother eaten, daughter saved. | A pregnant woman with a young daughter fall into the hands of cannibals. The cannibals find and eat the woman, but her daughter and the baby in her womb are saved. | 2 | 4 |
| J6B | Blinding of the victim. | The mother of the heroes is not killed, but loses her sight. | 4 | 4 |
| K108a | He who kills his wife loses everything. | A man acquires a magical wife. Another woman orders him to kill her or divorce her, then she will become his wife. Having fulfilled the request, he loses everything. | 3 | 4 |
| K115A | Dove at the entrance. | When a character hides in a shelter, a dove builds a nest there. The enemies decide that no one has entered the cave or room for a long time and leave. | 2 | 4 |
| K155c | The girl on the scales. | The father regularly weighs his daughter and learns of her pregnancy when she becomes heavier. | 4 | 4 |
| K180 | The time of the wolf and the time of the fox. | The ruler demands an explanation of his dream. The snake tells the man that this dream signifies the coming of a time when people tend to behave in a certain way. This happens several times. Each time, the man's behaviour towards the snake confirms her words. | 3 | 4 |
| K27x6a | The character encounters the mother of the sun. | The character comes to the mother of the Sun when the Sun itself is not there. Cf. motif b33h ("Mother of the Sun"). | 4 | 4 |
| K32h2 | Left to be eaten by ants. | A man executes his wife by leaving her to be eaten by ants. | 3 | 4 |
| K35a2 | Beast with a glowing skin. | A man kills an animal with glowing fur. Upon learning of this, an authoritative figure gives him difficult tasks. | 4 | 4 |
| K38f3 | Sword strike from a pit. | To kill the dragon, the hero digs a pit and hides in it. When the dragon crawls nearby or over the pit, the hero strikes it with a fatal blow of his sword. | 1 | 4 |
| K56a8b | A girl's hand in a cobra's hole. | A virtuous girl (usually the daughter of a dog) wants to kill herself and puts her hand in a snake's hole. The snake does not bite her, but rewards her. | 3 | 4 |
| k73a5a | A baby is replaced by a monkey. | Malicious women replace a newborn baby with a monkey (telling the father that his wife has given birth to a monkey). | 3 | 4 |
| k80bb | Grown from the remains of the slain. | A boy is killed and eaten. His sister gathers his remains, from which a tree grows, and on it – the dead boy, often in the form of a bird. | 3 | 4 |
| N31 | The departure of birds | Late autumn and then winter sets in line with the departure of two or three species of birds flying in a wedge (Zugvogel). | 4 | 4 |
| A11D | The Eye of the Moon and the Phases of the Moon. | The moon opens and closes its eyes (phases of the moon). | 4 | 4 |
| A22d | The burned person turns into a constellation. | The burned character turns into a constellation or a dark spot on the Milky Way. | 4 | 4 |
| A2c3 | Octagonal moon. | In extraordinary circumstances, the moon or sun are not round, but have corners and edges. | 4 | 4 |
| B119 | The husband of a magical wife turns into a rooster. | A woman of non-human nature agrees to live with a man, but leaves him upon learning of his real or imagined infidelity. | 3 | 4 |
| B48d | Pike swallows people. | People or objects swallowed by a pike become part of its body (bones in its head, liver). | 3 | 4 |
| B4a | Fish break off islands. | Fish beat against the ground, breaking off islands from the mainland. | 4 | 4 |
| B6a | Discarded egg. | The first woman gives birth to several eggs. One or two of them remain unchanged for a long time and are thrown into the river, believing them to be spoiled. However, it is precisely from these eggs that characters of high status emerge (or should have emerged). | 4 | 4 |
| B77b2 | The sky was touched with a broom. | The sky moved away and/or the connection between people and the deity ceased after the sky or the heavenly deity was touched or struck with a broom. | 4 | 4 |
| C22 | The Toad in Search of Thunder. | During a severe drought or global fire, birds and animals are sent to the thunder gods living at the edge of the world to bring rain. The last of those sent achieves the goal. The toad plays an important role in the action. | 4 | 4 |
| C30b | Remove traces from the field. | In response to the claims of an animal or spirit, a person offers to remove their traces from the field or to walk without leaving any traces. The spirit is unable to do so. | 4 | 4 |
| C30d | Not to spill a drop of urine. | The character agrees that his locus will be contaminated with excrement, but only on condition that not a drop of urine is spilled. It turns out to be impossible to fulfil this condition. | 4 | 4 |
| C40 | Stones fall from the sky. | At first, stones fell from the sky and crushed people. | 3 | 4 |
| C6i1 | A mound of earth rises above the water. | There is water everywhere. Earth is raked up from the bottom into a mound, its top rises above the water and turns into dry land. | 3 | 4 |
| C8a2 | Stone lion. | The lion (often stone) helps to survive the flood. | 2 | 4 |
| D1a3 | The fire wife. | A man marries a woman who is fire. She is mistreated, or her husband does not like her, and the marriage breaks down. | 4 | 4 |
| E13 | Tambourine – lake. | The shamanic tambourine is compared or associated with a lake. | 2 | 4 |
| e9j1 | Monkeys - ancestors of humans. | Humans are considered descendants of monkeys. | 4 | 4 |
| F101 | Rival prevents childbirth. | With the help of magic, a rival or the spouse's mother tries to prevent a woman from giving birth. | 4 | 4 |
| F77B | Hanging on the penis. | A man cannot free himself for a long time after copulating with his partner, as a result of which his penis ends up high above the ground. See motif F19, motif F21. | 4 | 4 |
| F80B | Left unattended. | The vaginas were left unattended and became damaged. See motif F80. | 4 | 4 |
| F82a | What the owl cries about. | In order to lure a forbidden marriage partner into their hammock, the character cries out in the voices of birds and animals or interprets their voices in their own way. | 4 | 4 |
| H28c | Mosquitoes bring back wives. | The character creates blood-sucking insects to influence the behaviour of a mating partner. | 3 | 4 |
| H36g2 | The beetle distorts the message. | When a character, who later became a dung beetle, was ordered to convey certain instructions to people, he distorted them. | 3 | 4 |
| I100c | The Pleiades and the Cuckoo. | God turned the husband into a cuckoo, and the wife and children into the Pleiades. | 3 | 4 |
| I109 | The Milky Way – the road of the heavenly bodies. | The Milky Way – the road along which the Sun and Moon travel. | 4 | 4 |
| A12e | The spider – enemy of the sun and moon. | The spider attacks the sun or moon (usually causing lunar eclipses). | 5 | 5 |
| A12g | Revenge on the moon for informing. | The character tries to eclipse the moon for telling on him. | 5 | 5 |
| A19D | One carries the Sun, the other the Moon. | Two characters carry the luminaries across the sky – one carries the sun, the other the moon. | 4 | 5 |
| A48 | The moon obtained and lost. | A character brings the moon from another world and uses it as a lamp. Another character drops the moon, and it rises into the sky and remains there. | 5 | 5 |
| A8 | The sun, moon and stars – three siblings. | The sun, moon and stars – three brothers or three sisters. | 3 | 5 |
| B121 | A little bird wants to fill the sea with stones. | A small bird carries pebbles and sticks, trying to fill the sea. | 2 | 5 |
| B125a | The nightingale and the copperhead. | The nightingale (or, less commonly, someone else) takes the copper's eyes and does not return them, leaving her blind. | 4 | 5 |
| b125c | The beaver and the muskrat swapped tails. | Previously, the beaver had the same tail as the muskrat now has, and the muskrat had the same tail as the beaver. | 5 | 5 |
| B24a | Transformation into wild pigs: a circle of feathers. | After a character surrounds a group of people with a circle of feathers or throws feathers into their dwellings, the people turn into wild pigs or peccaries. | 5 | 5 |
| B42d | Hunting the tapir. | In the cosmic hunting plot, the object of pursuit is a bear. See motif B42. | 4 | 5 |
| B75c | Sounds of the era of creation: the sound of water. | The sound of the surf or water on the rapids has been heard since the time of creation. | 4 | 5 |
| B7d | Water pours from a bone. | Water pours from a broken bone, flooding the earth. | 5 | 5 |
| B95 | Burnt sphincter. | The appearance of the sphincter or buttocks is explained by the fact that a certain character burned his backside. | 5 | 5 |
| B95A | The trickster punishes his own backside. | To punish his own backside for misbehaviour, the trickster burns it. | 5 | 5 |
| D13i1 | The one who showed his teeth was exposed. | The characteristics of a character can be determined by his teeth. By laughing and showing his teeth, the character reveals himself. | 3 | 5 |
| E34 | Sacred flutes made from the ashes of a cannibal. | The cannibal is killed. From his ashes arise musical instruments taboo for women, used in male rituals. | 3 | 5 |
| E38c | The first humans are mute. | The first humans were mute and began to speak after being struck by something, made to laugh, etc. | 4 | 5 |
| E39a | A female animal conceives from human urine. | An animal (snake, pig) conceives from a man's urine and gives birth to a human child (or twins). | 4 | 5 |
| F100a | A chaste woman revives a man. | In order to revive a man or remove an arrowhead (bullet) from his body, a chaste girl or woman must touch (step over) the dead or wounded man. | 4 | 5 |
| F12 | A husband kills his wife with his lover's penis. | A husband kills his wife by inserting her lover's severed penis into her body. | 4 | 5 |
| F21 | Penis stuck in a tree. | While the character copulates with a woman, she turns into a tree or a rock. His penis gets stuck in her. | 3 | 5 |
| F28a2 | Penises grow in the field. | The owner of the field, either intentionally or having misheard the question, replies that he grows penises. After that, penises grow in the field instead of crops. | 5 | 5 |
| F48 | Why women are different. | Individual women differ physically because the pieces of flesh divided from the first woman were not identical, or because the males who copulated with the first woman were animals of different species. | 4 | 5 |
| F54d | Conceives after drinking urine. | A woman gives birth to a boy after accidentally drinking animal urine, or a female animal gives birth to a boy after drinking a man's urine. | 4 | 5 |
| F68 | The supposed dead woman dresses up as a man. | A woman pretends to be dead or actually dies. Her (former) lover comes to her grave. She goes with him, trying to avoid exposure, puts on men's clothes, but is eventually recognised. | 4 | 5 |
| F84 | Imitation of chastity. | A guest or younger brother has sexual intercourse with the wife of the host or older brother. Wanting to demonstrate long abstinence, the character sprinkles ash on the head of his penis or smears it with fruit juice. | 4 | 5 |
| G14 | The swallowed one brings plants. | A man swallowed by a water monster is carried away to an underwater or overseas world, obtains plants, and returns to people. | 5 | 5 |
| H1bb | They did not spare the dog. | One character refuses to resurrect another's beloved dog, and this conflict is linked to the loss of the ability to resurrect people. | 5 | 5 |
| H28b | Mosquitoes made from animal wool. | Shorn hairs on animal skins or ash and smoke from burnt skins covered with wool turn into blood-sucking insects. | 4 | 5 |
| h7g2 | Escape from death from land to water. | Knowing that Death is approaching, a person hopes that it will seek him on land, so he settles on the surface of the water or under the water. But Death finds him. | 3 | 5 |
| I129 | The Heron Constellation. | The rainy season is associated with the appearance of the Heron constellation in the sky. | 2 | 5 |
| I132a | Girl on the swings of the sun. | A girl sits on a swing and it lifts her up to the sky. | 5 | 5 |
| I137 | The Lapti Constellation. | One of the constellations is associated with footwear, usually with (worn-out) bast shoes. | 4 | 5 |
| I15a | Vertical incision of the mouth. | Due to ignorance or haste, the mouth of anthropomorphic creatures is first cut vertically. | 3 | 5 |
| I27b | The dog-ferryman. | A dog carries a person across a river to another world. See motif I27. | 1 | 5 |
| I35b1 | Icy sky. | The sky is made of ice. | 5 | 5 |
| I37e | Mushrooms cry out. | Tree mushrooms cry out like people. | 3 | 5 |
| J12m | A woman turns into a duck. | A woman or two sisters come to two men and become wives of one of them. The other kills or tries to kill his rival or the women. As a result, the women turn into waterfowl. | 4 | 5 |
| J51b | A piece is missing: the reborn moon. | The moon has been eaten or has died and its body has decomposed. It is revived, but a small part (the bone) is missing. This determines the characteristics of the moon or the characteristics of human anatomy. | 4 | 5 |
| J56a | Transformation into frying pans. | Heroic brothers are transformed into pots or frying pans, but only the elder is able to sit in the fire long enough. | 3 | 5 |
| K113b | The Frog Princess – Mistress of the Storm. | The younger prince marries a frog. She must first arrive at his parents' house. A thunderstorm begins. Rain, lightning, and thunder signify that the prince's wife is washing, dressing, travelling, etc. | 5 | 5 |
| K14F | Material evidence of the father's righteousness. | After his father's death, the son consistently violates his father's instructions. Having preserved material evidence of what happened, he presents it to those gathered, proving his father's rightness and/or his wife's wrongness. | 5 | 5 |
| K172 | The deaf bride without arms and legs. | A man describes his daughter to a potential groom as ugly and crippled. The groom agrees to the marriage, and the bride turns out to be beautiful. | 5 | 5 |
| K27n3a1 | The hero in battle with the elements. | In the course of his courtship, the hero enters into a struggle with characters (more than two) who embody the elements, celestial bodies, and parts of the universe. | 2 | 5 |
| K27v2 | To hit a copper object with an arrow. | The character must hit an object or creature made of copper with an arrow. | 5 | 5 |
| k27x6b | Greeting addressed to the wind, ATU 298A*. | Upon encountering the sun, moon (frost) and wind, a person greets only the latter. (In progress) | 5 | 5 |
| K27z2 | Separated from her son, she avoided incest, ATU 674. | A noble woman is forced to leave her home, gives birth to a son, and is separated from him. The young man grows up and almost marries his mother, but at the last moment everything is explained. {The Sudanese text, attributed to this plot in el-Shamy 2004 and subsequently in Uther 2004, does not fit the definition; it is quite possible that the Latvians, Romanians and Ukrainians are also mentioned incorrectly in Uther 2004}. | 4 | 5 |
| K27zz2 | Blind in one eye. | Several wives of one man (several sisters) go blind – the older ones in both eyes, and the younger one in one eye. | 5 | 5 |
| K56ac | A row of stones and a row of logs. | A girl finds herself in a forest hut, where a bear arrives. He orders her to make him a bed out of stones and logs. | 4 | 5 |
| K61f | The Living Doll, ATU 459. | Fearing her husband's wrath, a childless woman pretends to have given birth. Her husband believes that he has a daughter or son, and after some time marries her off (marries him off). During the wedding ceremony, a doll or animal is placed under the veil (in the palanquin), but at the last moment, a supernatural character transforms the supposed bride (groom) into a girl or boy. | 5 | 5 |
| K67g | Smiling sheep. | Pretending to carry out his master's orders, the worker cuts off the animals' lips (to make them look like they are smiling). | 5 | 5 |
| K73b2 | Boil the kettle with a story. | It is necessary to boil the pot by telling an incredible but nevertheless true story. | 5 | 5 |
| K73b6 | The hero flies to his mother's enemies to eavesdrop on their conversation. | The wife of a powerful character gives birth to wonderful children. Her jealous sisters conspire to make her husband order her to be disposed of (usually by locking her and the child in a barrel and throwing it into the water). The boy immediately grows up and rescues his mother and himself. He himself (in the form of a bird, animal, insect, or flying in on a miraculous object) or his puppy brother enters his father's lair and, eavesdropping on the conversation, learns of the existence of miraculous objects. Upon returning, he obtains them or already possesses them and demonstrates them to his father when they meet (the objects may include the young man's brothers). | 5 | 5 |
| L108f | Luring from the bottom. | A character (girl, boy) finds themselves in water, and the antagonist lures them to shore by imitating the voice of their father, brother or sister. | 4 | 5 |
| L108g | Wash away the black. | The character is black and must sit in water until he turns white. The antagonist carries him away. | 3 | 5 |
| l118a1 | Man deceives monkey. | A man deliberately performs certain actions in front of a monkey. The monkey imitates him, causing harm to itself. | 5 | 5 |
| L15b1 | Deer antlers – a weapon against evil. | In the battle between positive and negative creators, the positive one chooses the deer horn as a weapon – usually because this is the only weapon that the enemy fears. | 3 | 5 |
| L39a | Demon from the underworld. | A supernatural character emerges from the underworld and attacks a man who has climbed a tree. | 5 | 5 |
| L5i | A multitude of skulls. | A multitude of rolling heads or skulls try to take a woman away. | 5 | 5 |
| L81a1 | Red bead in the hearth. | Noticing a red bead (pebble) that has fallen into the hearth, the character thinks it is a coal and does not understand that the fire in the hearth has gone out. | 5 | 5 |
| l93d | The hedgehog as helper. | The hedgehog, resorting to cunning, helps the hero and saves him. | 4 | 5 |
| L94c | Son or daughter sacrificed. | If a deity grants victory, a person promises to sacrifice to it the first person who comes out to meet them at home. A son or daughter comes out. | 4 | 5 |
| M152f | Whose voice is quieter, we will eat. | Animals agree to eat the one among them who has the quietest voice. | 2 | 5 |
| M198b5 | The imaginary fortune teller: an overheard conversation. | The fake fortune teller accidentally overhears someone's conversation, otherwise he would not have been able to give the correct answer. | 4 | 5 |
| M204 | Money will go to those who are destined to receive it, ATU 841, 947A. | When a deity (an authoritative figure) tries to convey values to a person, they either get them or they don't, despite the unlikely circumstances (such is their fate, such is the will of God). | 5 | 5 |
| M38d4 | The Hunting Needle, ATU 90 | Several characters that embody small objects (and a squirrel with them) travel together. The needle penetrates the body of a large animal and kills it. (In the Baltic-Finnish texts, the needle first finds items that others find useless, but after the animal was caught, everything found turned out to be in demand for cooking meat). | 4 | 5 |
| M39a2d | Meat is planted | Fools plant meat, horns, or bones in the hope of raising animals. | 4 | 5 |
| M3b | A severed rabbit tail | Trying to grab a hare, another animal tears off (bites) its tail. It's been short ever since. | 2 | 5 |
| M5c | Hairy octopus | The octopus or star-fish was covered with hair but the rat had eaten it up | 2 | 5 |
| M60b1 | The crow eats fish | The crow promises to cure the fish, and eats it herself. | 3 | 5 |
| M61a2 | The character quarrels stones | The character provokes a quarrel between two stones of different breeds. To do this, he told everyone how the other supposedly spoke hostile or offensive towards the former. | 4 | 5 |
| M61a3 | The character fights fish | The character tells each of two different species of fish how the other allegedly used to be hostile or offensive towards the former. Fish kill each other and the character prepares them to eat. | 4 | 5 |
| M74c | Handsome as a woodpecker | Having noticed the woodpecker's beautiful plumage, the wolf or bear believes that the fox painted it and asks the fox to make him just as beautiful. The fox burns it alive. | 2 | 5 |
| M75b4 | The Trojan horse: getting a woman | To master a woman, the hero hides inside the hollow figure of a horse (bull, deer) or in an animal carcass. The character guarding the woman takes her to her. The hero gets outside and becomes a woman's lover. Or a woman hides inside the figure of a horse, which is taken to the man's chambers. | 4 | 5 |
| M7a | Thrown in the water | Birds or animals take the character into their boat, but take on a zoomorphic appearance and leave their passenger in the water (after he breaks a ban). (It is significant that the boat or raft only appears to be artifacts, but is actually the bodies of the corresponding birds or animals, or it is an ice floe; cf. Motive M31). | 3 | 5 |
| M81e2 | It attracts people and animals | By playing an instrument or otherwise, a character is able to attract an animal or person far away from him. | 4 | 5 |
| M82a | Tail bells: tied unnoticed | One animal person inconspicuously ties rattles to the tail of another. The latter thinks that he is pursued and runs in panic | 3 | 5 |
| M84b3 | Eaten and revived goose (Wondrous wondrous). | 2 | 5 | |
| M89a | Horned hyena | Only horned animals are allowed to attend the festival. The hyena makes fake horns for itself, exposed. | 5 | 5 |
| N19 | It's still lame | fairy-tale text ends with a formula stating that one or two people who met the narrator after the fabulous feast or were present directly at it at the festival, became bald/lame as a result of hot food and/or a bone or bowl thrown on the head. | 4 | 5 |
| N28h | A horse doesn't have horns | In a list of things that do not exist in the world, horns of the horse are mentioned | 5 | 5 |
| N40 | The liver drowned and the lungs swam away | The fabulous or epic text ends with a formula stating that the liver has drowned and the lungs have swam away (surfaced, stayed, etc.). | 1 | 5 |
| M90c | Stepladder instead of wife | man agreed with another that he could take the first thing he touched from his house. The visitor is going to take his wife, but when he takes up the stepladder to go up to the woman, he is told to pick up the stepladder and leave. | 5 | 6 |
| N21a | Pea-bogatyr | After swallowing a pea, a woman gives birth to a mighty hero. | 4 | 6 |
| N28f | The water has no knots | It is said that water has no boughs or twigs | 4 | 6 |
| I60a | Milky Way – a stripe on the belly. | The Milky Way – a stripe associated with a longitudinal stripe on an animal's body. | 4 | 6 |
| I81a1 | Crab and snake. | The struggle between the crab and the snake (eel) determines the features of the relief of a particular area or has cosmic proportions. | 4 | 6 |
| J22c | Conjoined women. | There is a demonic character in the form of Siamese twins – two semi-fused women. | 6 | 6 |
| j4c | The young man from the egg. | An egg remains from the deceased water character. The young hero who emerges from it avenges his father. | 5 | 6 |
| J59d | Reviving the dead by stepping over their bones. | The character steps or jumps over the remains of the slain, and the latter comes back to life. | 5 | 6 |
| K11b | Reed made from bird bones. | The bones of a huge bird are turned into reeds or bamboo for making arrows or sarbacanes. | 5 | 6 |
| K11D | A disintegrated monster turns into ordinary animals. | Pieces of flesh from a huge creature that has fallen apart or been cut into pieces turn into ordinary animals, birds or fish. | 6 | 6 |
| K13d | Leg hanging in the sky. | A group of boys reaches the sky, the last one's leg is cut off or torn off. | 4 | 6 |
| k14c1 | Treasures in a pomegranate. | A man who has gone away to work sends his wife a pomegranate, unaware of its value. His wife finds treasures in the pomegranate. | 6 | 6 |
| K169 | Pregnant doe. | The hunter spares the hunted animal, noticing that it is a pregnant female and remembering his own pregnant wife. | 6 | 6 |
| K170 | Water without frogs, land without flies. | The character sets off in search of a place where there are no ordinary creatures that live everywhere (water without frogs, air without flies). | 4 | 6 |
| K27q1 | Lioness's milk in a lion cub's skin. | The hero is sent to bring lioness milk in a wineskin made from a lion skin (usually from a lion cub's skin). | 5 | 6 |
| K27v3 | Shooting an arrow through a ring. | The character must hit a small ring with an arrow or shoot it through several rings. (The main materials were identified by Y.V. Vasilkov and presented in Vasilkov 2018). | 5 | 6 |
| K27yy3 | Obtaining the fruits of a dangerous tree. | The hero must bring the fruits growing on a tree that is dangerous to approach. | 4 | 6 |
| K27z2c | Marries to lock up his wife. | After marrying a poor girl, the prince locks her up. She turns out to be more cunning than him. | 6 | 6 |
| K2a2 | The kidnapped princess drops her shoe. | A monster rushes past a young man, carrying off the princess. The young man picks up the princess's lost shoe or, after shooting, finds a lock of the princess's hair. He sets off in search of her, descends underground and rescues the kidnapped princess. | 4 | 6 |
| K32b | Mother-in-law replaces daughter-in-law. | The man's mother takes on the appearance of his wife in order to take her place. | 5 | 6 |
| K37e | Three-legged cast-iron bird. | The clairvoyant cannot identify the person who revealed the secret, because that person does so while hiding among objects that are never found together in everyday life. | 5 | 6 |
| K38b1 | A bird steals foals, a hero kills a snake. | Every time a mare gives birth to a wonderful foal, a bird carries it away. Setting out in search of the foals, the hero kills the snake that was devouring the bird's chicks. The bird returns the foals. | 5 | 6 |
| K38b3c | The hero shields the sleepers from the sun. | Seeing sleeping fairies or their children, the hero covers them from the scorching rays of the sun. For this, they do him a favour. | 3 | 6 |
| K47c | The origin of dogs. | The marriage of a woman and a dog gave rise to dogs – friends and helpers of humans. | 3 | 6 |
| K52b | Broken axe. | The hero comes to capture the daughter of a supernatural creature. He sees a slave breaking an axe (adze, wedge). The hero repairs the axe, and the slave helps him in return. See motif K52. | 6 | 6 |
| K56a8c | Married to a dog. | A young man brings an animal to his home, and it turns into a girl. Imitating him, another man marries a dog (pig), but it remains an animal. | 6 | 6 |
| K56b2 | Clenched jaws. | A supernatural creature (object) bestows wealth upon a modest person. A greedy person, trying to take more than their fair share, is caught and cannot free themselves (for a long time). Usually, the creature pinches the outstretched hand. | 5 | 6 |
| K73a2a | The child is replaced with a log. | After hiding or discarding a newborn baby, ill-wishers replace it with a piece of wood and/or inform the father that his wife has given birth to a piece of wood. | 6 | 6 |
| B108 | The remains of the deceased turn into snow. | An anthropomorphic character that has fallen apart into pieces turns into snow. | 3 | 6 |
| B110a | The falling one turns into snow and wind. | A character who is dragged along the ground or who falls from the sky turns into atmospheric phenomena. | 4 | 6 |
| B118 | Those who remain on earth become owls. | A character who was unable to reach the sky or returned from the sky to earth becomes an owl. | 4 | 6 |
| b33e2 | March breaks the bull's horns. | The severity of the cold in early spring is said to break the horns of large hoofed animals. | 6 | 6 |
| B49b | Cow teats. | In the past, cows had more teats on their udders than they do now. | 5 | 6 |
| B74b | The wedding of the owl and the moon. | The owl is forced to part with the moon and now cries out when it sees the moon. Usually, the story tells how the marriage of the owl and the moon fell apart or did not take place. | 5 | 6 |
| B98c | The bat is deceived by a deity. | The heavenly deity could have healed the bat's mother or child, but did not do so, and they died. | 5 | 6 |
| C41 | Why the sky is blue. | At first, the sky has no specific colour. After a character hangs a cloth on it or performs other actions, the sky acquires its characteristic colour. | 2 | 6 |
| D12a | At sunrise, the sun's heat is sufficient to cook food. | People living in the east or west prepare food using the heat of the passing sun. | 4 | 6 |
| D1a | Mother-in-law-fire. | A girl marries a man whose mother is fire. | 4 | 6 |
| E9aa | The fox wife in the burrow of all animals. | A man searches for a missing woman, who is a fox by nature, and comes to the burrow where she has hidden. Various bird or animal women come out of the burrow and offer themselves in place of the fox. Then they let him inside. | 4 | 6 |
| F100 | Test of chastity (queen and maid). | A magic potion reveals that the only chaste woman is the maid, an orphan, etc. The king chooses the maid. | 6 | 6 |
| F45C | Men without wives. | There were men who lived separately from women. See also motif F8. | 1 | 6 |
| F51a | Aggressive sister. | After incest is discovered, the sister openly demands her brother as her husband, turns into a monster, and kills people. | 6 | 6 |
| F73a | The vulva as a wound (first humans). | The vulva is an unhealed wound on the body of the first women, or the first humans did not copulate because they thought that the vulva was a wound. | 6 | 6 |
| F93a | The talking penis and the mother-in-law. | A man's penis begins to talk incessantly, falling silent only after his mother-in-law takes it in her hand. | 6 | 6 |
| H38 | The owner of the valuables comes to retrieve them. | A supernatural character changes appearance and comes to the hero's children (less often to the hero himself). Unaware of the trick, they hand over the magical object they have obtained to its former owner, and the character disappears with it. | 6 | 6 |
| I132b | Metamorphosis of the Sun's bride. | A girl comes to the Sun to become his wife, but at the last moment undergoes a metamorphosis (usually turning into a bird). | 6 | 6 |
| I22g1 | Colliding stones. | In another world, the hero sees many strange things, including colliding stones (but they do not block his path). | 5 | 6 |
| I25b1 | Hair instead of rope. | This refers to women who pull buckets of water out of a well using their own hair instead of a rope. | 3 | 6 |
| K9a | The punished person is suspended between heaven and earth. | The punished character is suspended on a chain or metal thread between heaven and earth. | 3 | 6 |
| L102a | Escape from the seagull husband. | A seagull kidnaps a girl or woman, but she manages to return to people. | 6 | 6 |
| L127 | Dancing ears. | Having entered another world, the character sees dancing body parts and other strange creatures. He must not be surprised, laugh, or mention God. | 5 | 6 |
| L132 | Food theft: family conflict. | When one member of a small (family) group, left alone, secretly eats food, this leads to serious conflict, often resulting in the murder of the guilty party. | 5 | 6 |
| L15g1 | One family member kills another, knowing his secret. | A person knows a secret on which the life of a loved one (husband, son, wife) depends and, after a quarrel, commits an act that is insignificant to an outside observer but leads to the immediate death of the other. | 4 | 6 |
| l15h4 | The character's soul in a needle. | The object in which the character's life is concentrated is enclosed in another, which is enclosed in a third (and so on). The final container of the soul is a needle, which the hero breaks. | 5 | 6 |
| L17a2 | Rival with an eye on her forehead. | Instead of a beautiful woman, a man takes a devil with an odd number of eyes. | 6 | 6 |
| L23a | Transformation into flame. | In an attempt to free himself, the captured character sequentially changes his appearance, in particular turning into fire (and water). | 5 | 6 |
| L5d | The head wants to drink. | The rolling head suffers from thirst. See motif L5. | 6 | 6 |
| L72f | Discarded entrails. | Fleeing for his life, the character throws behind him the entrails or stomach contents of an animal, which become an obstacle in the path of his pursuer. | 6 | 6 |
| M132a | Ears, not horns. | Another animal thinks that a hornless herbivore has horns and is afraid of it, but these are just ears. | 6 | 6 |
| M147 | The fox runs ahead of the tiger. | A weak animal tells a strong animal that everyone is afraid of him, the weak one, and suggests testing this. He walks in front of the strong animal, everyone runs away, and the strong animal believes that they are running away from the weak one. | 6 | 6 |
| M170b | The rim of a vessel on the neck. | A zoomorphic character stuck its head into a vessel, which broke, leaving the rim on its neck. The character uses this as proof of its high status. | 6 | 6 |
| M173 | Pretends to be dead several times. | A zoomorphic character pretends to be dead where a traveller carrying luggage is supposed to pass. The traveller passes by, but the deceiver quietly runs ahead and repeats his trick. The traveller puts his luggage on the ground and returns to pick up the first dead person (for the skin or meat), and the deceiver takes the luggage away. | 6 | 6 |
| M173B | Running ahead. | The character repeatedly runs ahead of another person on the road to obtain food from them, each time pretending to be a different person. | 5 | 6 |
| M175 | A lion carcass behind a hyena. | The hyena sees the carcass of a larger predator behind it, does not realise that it is dead, and runs away in terror. | 5 | 6 |
| M195b | Three dolls. | A person sticks a needle (thread, stick) into the ear of two or three dolls (skulls). In different dolls or skulls, the object comes out of different holes (or does not go inside at all, remains inside, etc.). This refers to people who react differently to what they hear (inattentive, talkative, wise). | 6 | 6 |
| M203a | Tell them that I have died. | A supernatural being conveys a message to an unknown recipient via a passer-by, who dies or suffers harm after delivering the message. | 6 | 6 |
| M39a4b | Frog strands | foolish woman thinks that frogs will make yarn or cloth for her, or buy yarn and throw the material into the water. | 5 | 6 |
| M39a5a2 | The screaming judge | My husband found a treasure. He knows his wife will talk about it. In order not to believe her, her husband says, and the wife then repeats, that the judge suffered from the hail that fell at that time (soup spilled from the sky) (lost an eye, ulcers on his face). The judge furiously drives the woman away, the treasure remains with her husband. | 6 | 6 |
| M45c | Plant boiled tubers | The character advises the other person to plant or sow boiled or roasted seeds or tubers, who follows the advice. | 6 | 6 |
| M53a | Crows and seals | raven gathers seals or other marine mammals around and deceives them into killing them. | 5 | 6 |
| M76 | A person climbing a tree has his leg cut off | A woman cuts off a man's leg when he climbs a tree; a man cuts off a woman's leg when she climbs a tree. See K13A motif. | 3 | 6 |
| M84b2 | Birds eaten and animated | The character carefully preserves the bones of migratory birds eaten (not fish or animals) and the birds come to life again. (Episodes of reviving a domestic goose or rooster are not taken into account in everyday tales). | 3 | 6 |
| L108b2 | Ants make the voice thin. | To acquire a thin voice, the character allows ants to bite his tongue. | 5 | 7 |
| L110b | The stomach eats the oak tree. | The stomach (spleen) removed from the body of a domestic animal or bird turns out to be a voracious monster. | 7 | 7 |
| L33g | Stone with a beard. | A tree, a creature on a tree, a stone kills (seriously injures) anyone who calls it a certain way, climbs on it, etc. The character provokes others to do this and eats the dead, the last of the invited guests deceives the provocateur himself. | 5 | 7 |
| L5B | The head turns into lightning/thunder. | A rolling head turns into lightning/thunder. See motif L83. | 7 | 7 |
| L5j | The rolling head laughs. | The rolling head laughs for no reason. See motif L5. | 6 | 7 |
| L76 | Severed testicles. | When a female cannibal attacks a man, she devours or tears off his testicles. | 2 | 7 |
| L91 | The Long Serpent. | Two or four young men go on a journey or return from one. Their path is blocked by a long creature that cannot be bypassed. They burn a passage through it. One eats roasted meat, turns into a snake himself, or dies. See motif L28. | 7 | 7 |
| M100a | Fire on the edge of a cliff. | One of the characters leads another to the edge of a cliff with the aim of lighting a fire, or lights a fire at the edge of the cliff. As a result, the other falls and is killed. | 5 | 7 |
| M114f | Crooked pipe. | The girl has a minor physical defect. Man: The house is nice, but the pipe is crooked. Girl: But the smoke comes out well. | 6 | 7 |
| M130b | The traitor is killed instead of the victim. | A herbivorous animal falls into a hunter's trap. The predator does not want to release it, as it hopes to eat its entrails, but the bird helps it to escape. The hunter tries to kill the bird, but instead kills the predator. | 5 | 7 |
| M132 | Ears instead of sandals. | The enemy is ready to seize the character. The character asks the enemy to first take and throw away his clothes or shoes, and then offers his ears. The enemy grabs him by the ears and throws him away, and the character runs away. | 5 | 7 |
| M144a | Burning straw on the back of a tiger. | The character asks a large and dangerous animal (a tiger or an elephant) to carry a load of straw and sets it on fire. Then he or someone else advises the victim to run not to the river, but to the mountain. | 4 | 7 |
| M162b | Cranberry juice in the bear's eyes. | The character pretends to rub sour berry juice into his eyes. Another (always a bear) wants the same thing, goes blind, and the character kills him. | 4 | 7 |
| M198b1 | A fortune teller named Rak. | An authoritative character asks a man named Cancer to guess what is in a box (under a lid on a plate, etc.). There are crabs or crayfish inside. The man says that now he, Cancer, has been caught, while others think that he has guessed correctly. | 7 | 7 |
| m198b6 | A fortune teller named Zhaba (Frog). | An authoritative character asks a person to guess what is in his box. The person says that now he, so-and-so, has been caught, or utters an exclamation. This exclamation or name sounds like "toad" or "frog," and the character believes that the person has a special gift. | 6 | 7 |
| M1b | A caiman/crocodile carries a monkey. | A caiman/crocodile carries a monkey across a river. She manages to jump ashore and runs away from the caiman. | 5 | 7 |
| M39a3a | Oiled soil | fool sees cracked objects (stumps, earth, ice), sympathizes with them and oils them. | 7 | 7 |
| M39a3b | A fool takes care of stumps | fool decides that stumps need hats, puts pots on the stumps. | 5 | 7 |
| M39a5 | Kills goats that have eaten pears | fool led the goats to the fruit tree and killed them because they ate the fruit he had thrown. | 5 | 7 |
| M62e | One field and two employees | A weak character alternately negotiates with two strong ones to cultivate the site. Each of the strong works in due time and does not know about the existence of the other. As a result, a weak character takes the entire crop. | 6 | 7 |
| I46d | Rainbow loop. | Rainbow – a hunting loop, a trap. | 7 | 7 |
| J12a | Penis in a vessel. | A girl or two sisters come to an old woman who invites them to marry her son. In reality, he is a worm, a snake or a penis, which his mother hides in a vessel during the day. The girl (sisters) do not allow him to approach them and run away. See motif J12. | 7 | 7 |
| J19b | Burnt belly. | An evil spirit kills a woman by burning through her body. | 3 | 7 |
| J19c | Torn out tongue. | A demonic character comes to a woman and tears out her tongue. She dies (and comes back to life when her tongue is found and returned). | 4 | 7 |
| J4a | Revenge for the death of a mother. | A woman is killed. Her son or sons (rarely: grandsons, nephews) avenge her. | 4 | 7 |
| K101c | By day in the palace, by night in the sky. | The bride stipulates that she will only be with her husband during the day. The husband discovers that at night she meets with heavenly maidens (and usually flies away to dance in the sky). He follows her and in the end she stays with him on earth. | 6 | 7 |
| K107e1 | Blood on the shirt. | When a magical husband leaves his earthly wife, his shirt is stained with blood. Only his new wife manages to wash it clean. | 6 | 7 |
| K117d | Two in bed with the princess, ATU 850. | The princess, lying between two suitors, must choose blindly the one she likes best. The suitor of low birth arranges things so that his noble rival emits a foul odour (while he himself emits a pleasant fragrance). The princess turns to him. | 6 | 7 |
| K129a | Half-living in the tomb. | A young woman (lying in a tomb) comes back to life, then appears dead again, but is ultimately freed from the spell. | 6 | 7 |
| K13c | The cannibal's daughter avenges her mother on her husband. | The cannibal's daughter takes revenge on her husband for her mother's death and manages to cut off his leg. See motif K13A. | 7 | 7 |
| K15 | No one but this beggar. | A woman swears that she has not been with anyone except (her husband and) a dirty beggar. Others do not know that her lover has taken on the appearance of a beggar. | 6 | 7 |
| K16a | Slipping, he drops the stuffed animal. | In an effort to show that he is a good hunter, a man regularly walks in front of a girl, pretending to carry prey. Once he slips, and the imaginary prey turns out to be a scarecrow stuffed with ashes or a bundle of termites. | 3 | 7 |
| K181a | Placing a hand on a horse's back. | When a person puts their hand on a horse's back, it bends over and falls. This is a sign of heroic strength. | 4 | 7 |
| K18b | The boy stops crying. | Men or women approach the little boy one after another or take him in their arms. The person who makes the boy stop crying is recognised as his parent. See motif K18. | 7 | 7 |
| K1g | The deer gores its enemy. | The hero turns into a deer or creates a deer to gore the relative who sent him into a trap. | 7 | 7 |
| K27f3 | Fill the feather bed with feathers. | The character must quickly obtain enough feathers to fill a feather bed or pillow. | 4 | 7 |
| K27z2a | Meeting for one night. | Noticing the woman's pregnancy, her relatives or in-laws accuse her of promiscuity, because, according to their calculations, she could not have conceived by her husband or fiancé. After severe trials, the woman meets again the father of the boy she gave birth to. | 5 | 7 |
| K27z7a | He who learns the family secret will die. | A man is going to kill the person who found out why he severely punished his ex-wife. | 5 | 7 |
| K27zz4 | The wife who cannot be beaten (ATU 888A). | A conceited prince (the son of a merchant) beats his wife every day (he marries on the condition that he will beat his wife every day). She saves him by demonstrating her superiority. | 5 | 7 |
| K32f | The bird son saves his mother. | A woman or girl raises a bird of prey chick, which brings her food and fire. This usually happens after an evil spirit leaves the girl or young woman in a tree or on an island. | 5 | 7 |
| K48a | Birds on a cap. | The hero's costume and/or headdress are decorated with live birds or animals. Usually, the antagonist steals the clothes and pretends to be the hero, but the birds and animals on his headdress remain silent or cry out differently. See motif K48. | 7 | 7 |
| K65c2 | Man and tiger. | A woman or female animal gives birth to several sons, including a human and a tiger. | 4 | 7 |
| K77b3 | The goat with three bellies. | Goats encounter a wolf. One goat has one stomach, the second has two, the third has three, and so on. The goat with the most stomachs kills or scares away the wolf. | 5 | 7 |
| N26 | When wheat grew on ice | said that the action took place when cultivated plants (wheat, cotton) grew on ice or salt. | 3 | 7 |
| A39 | Every day a new sun. | Suns are born and die, and every day a new one rises in the sky. | 4 | 7 |
| A47A | The lizard finds the sun. | The lizard or iguana is associated with the appearance of the sun. | 3 | 7 |
| A9 | The Moon as protector of humans. | The moon-woman does not allow her son or husband, the Sun, to destroy people. | 5 | 7 |
| B109a | Bear from the sky. | Originally, the (human) bear lived in the sky, then descended to earth (and became a bear). | 3 | 7 |
| B120 | Winter hibernation of snotty creatures. | There are creatures that sleep in winter, and frozen snot hangs from their noses. (Motif identified by Evgenia Korovina). | 6 | 7 |
| B2f2 | Carries an unburied corpse. | The character carries the body of the deceased for a long time, unable to bury it or not knowing how to do so, but eventually buries the body in the ground. | 6 | 7 |
| B33e | If February were like January. | The last cold month regrets that it did not come earlier or that it is too short. In that case, it would have frozen everyone. | 7 | 7 |
| B38e | The gull's rump. | The character kicks a loon or other waterfowl. Since then, it has had a flattened tail and finds it difficult to walk on land. | 5 | 7 |
| B42a | Blood or fat sprinkled on the ground. | Hunters chase a bear across the sky and kill it in August-October. The bear's blood or fat falls to the ground in the form of dew or colours the foliage red. See motif B42. | 6 | 7 |
| B42o | The Hunchback Constellation. | A certain constellation is represented by a person who has been struck or wounded in the back. | 7 | 7 |
| B49a | How many offspring per year. | Powerful animals could have many cubs, but now they give birth to only one every few years. | 6 | 7 |
| B57a | Red sunset – an indication of what has happened. | Seeing the reddened sky, the character understands that another's blood has been spilled, or that another has spilled red liquid. See motif B57. | 4 | 7 |
| B86B | Remove the bottom brick. | When building a tower, there are not enough prepared modules (bricks, logs). The character removes the bottom one to put it on top, and the structure collapses. | 3 | 7 |
| B88 | Job. | A man's children all die. He turns to God with a request to explain why he is suffering so much. | 6 | 7 |
| C34a | Buried in the sand. | A supernatural character goes with people to catch fish or lives on the sand by the river; he is buried in the sand or thrown into the river, into a swamp, or otherwise persecuted. Usually, he himself or his father sends a flood. | 6 | 7 |
| C6g | The diver – the boar. | The boar brings earth from the bottom and/or scatters it on the water. | 4 | 7 |
| D4k | The deer obtains fire. | The deer obtains fire for humans. See motif D4A. | 7 | 7 |
| E14a | Masks reproduce slain demons. | People kill demons, examine their bodies, make ritual costumes and masks, reproducing the appearance of the slain. | 6 | 7 |
| E40 | Nostrils facing upwards. | The first humans had nostrils facing upwards, into which rain poured. | 4 | 7 |
| E9b | The magical wife – the elephant. | Before meeting the hero, his beloved (wife, helper) has the image of an elephant (elephant tusk). | 6 | 7 |
| F28a4 | Penises on plants. | The fruits or stems of plants are penises. | 7 | 7 |
| F45b | Conception by the sun. | A woman gives birth to a son conceived by (the rays or light of) the sun. | 2 | 7 |
| F97a | The snake loses its legs. | The snake is to blame for others eating food forbidden by the deity. For this, it is deprived of the limbs it once had. {The Efik variant may not be related to the biblical one, but the South Asian ones are most likely related. | 5 | 7 |
| G19 | Burnt men bring plants. | After a conflict in the community of the first ancestors, a group of men or young people (pareisi: boy and girl) burn in a bonfire (jump over it, etc.). As a result, people acquire cultivated plants, mainly corn. | 6 | 7 |
| G25 | Grains scattered over the world. | Cereal seeds are scattered across the world, fell to the ground, now people grow bread. | 6 | 7 |
| H34d | A piece bitten off the sky. | A zoomorphic character climbs or attempts to climb up to the sky or the moon to bite off a piece of them. | 4 | 7 |
| H6c2 | Living water in the land of darkness. | At the edge of the world lies the land of darkness. Those who want to obtain living water or gold strive to get there. | 6 | 7 |
| I100d | Stars – kids. | Stars are associated with kids. | 5 | 7 |
| I30 | The lord of the dead meets women. | In the world of the dead, its master or mistress copulates with all new arrivals. | 4 | 7 |
| A22b | Hot fire and cold embers. | The sun and its companion burn up. The companion burns in a less intense fire (is thrown into the ashes, etc.); therefore, the moon (or star) is cold. See motif A22. | 6 | 8 |
| B104b | A woman turns into a woodpecker. | A woman refuses to share bread with Jesus, who has come to her, and he turns her into a woodpecker. | 7 | 8 |
| B111 | Bees from the body of an animal. | Bees or wasps fly out of the carcass or body of a large animal (lion, bull) (usually the episode explains the origin of bees). | 7 | 8 |
| B1d | Two workers. | Two characters are building the world, one works poorly, the other well, so different parts of the universe (or a specific island) have different appearances. | 8 | 8 |
| B24 | Transformation into wild boars. | People who have entered into conflict or violated a prohibition are transformed into wild boars or peccaries. | 8 | 8 |
| B2g | The chameleon walks on soft ground. | The chameleon walked on the ground when it had not yet hardened. | 5 | 8 |
| B3F | An object dropped from the sky. | A character in the sky accidentally drops an object. The search for this object in the world below the sky leads to the creation of the earth or a change in its appearance. | 4 | 8 |
| B42o1 | The Great Bear – the fisher. | The Big Dipper is identified with the fisher (Mustela pennati). | 7 | 8 |
| B63 | The transformation of lazy children. | Children lie to their mother, pretending to work in the fields. When the deception is revealed, they are left without a harvest and are transformed into atmospheric phenomena or celestial objects. | 3 | 8 |
| B63A | Brothers of the elements. | Several brothers turn into Thunder, Storm and other elements. | 4 | 8 |
| B75b | Sounds of the era of creation: the creaking of trees. | The creaking or crackling of trees is the voice of a transformed character. | 6 | 8 |
| B75d | Sounds of the creation era: the rustling of leaves. | The sound of leaves or grass rustling in the wind has been heard since the time of creation. | 7 | 8 |
| B77c | The serpent pushed back the sky. | A snake-like creature pushes the sky away from the earth. See motif B77. | 7 | 8 |
| C21 | Drought. | During a severe drought, birds (and animals) go in search of the rainmakers and bring them back. | 6 | 8 |
| C25a | Cooking soup on the moon. | In the sky, on the moon, somewhere outside our world, a character (usually an old woman) cooks soup. The fate of the universe depends on his (her) behaviour. | 7 | 8 |
| C33b | Ancient windlessness. | The demise of the first race is associated with the appearance of wind. | 3 | 8 |
| C37 | The sloth's catastrophe. | The sloth causes a global catastrophe or saves people from it. | 8 | 8 |
| C39a | The sky was patched up with ice. | A hole in the sky or a crack in the ground was plugged with a piece of ice, which is why it is cold in the north (north-west, north-east). | 1 | 8 |
| D4q1 | The bat and fire. | The bat participates in obtaining fire. | 5 | 8 |
| D5a | Fire in a woman's genitals. | The first fire is hidden in a woman's genitals or anus. | 8 | 8 |
| D6b | The burned one becomes a caiman. | The one who is burned turns into a crocodile/caiman. | 7 | 8 |
| e9i5 | The magical wife - the snail. | Before meeting the hero, his wife takes the form of a snail. | 4 | 8 |
| F28A5 | The penis and vulva as separate beings. | The penis and vulva (in the singular or plural) are separate beings and characters. | 8 | 8 |
| F51d | Ginseng child. | Ginseng roots – boys or girls who help the hero. | 6 | 8 |
| F56a | Shavings in the fire. | To see a woman's genitals, a man throws something that flashes brightly into the hearth. The woman recoils, exposing her genitals. | 6 | 8 |
| F85 | The Moon: women against men. | The moon/moon leads women in their confrontation with men or takes women away from men. | 6 | 8 |
| F93 | Talking penis, D1610.6.2. | After a person performs a certain action, his penis begins to speak (often repeating what the person has said). | 8 | 8 |
| G30 | The penis turns into plants. | A long penis is cut into pieces, which turn into many edible plants or different types of trees. Cf. motif B53. | 6 | 8 |
| H12a | Dead wife haunts her husband. | The wife dies, the husband comes for her, or he kills her himself for adultery; she turns into a monster and haunts him. | 3 | 8 |
| H1f | People learn to bury the dead. | People learn how to treat the dead by observing the behaviour of crows. | 7 | 8 |
| H24g | Woman in a vessel. | A woman returned from the other world or obtained there disappears when a man opens the vessel in which she is kept prematurely. | 4 | 8 |
| I20b | Girding under the armpits. | People in the upper world are different from those on earth and gird themselves below or above the waist. | 6 | 8 |
| I37C | Mushrooms: erotic associations. | Mushrooms have erotic associations. See motif I37. | 3 | 8 |
| I37d | Mushrooms - excrement. | Mushrooms are the excrement of a mythological character. See motif I37. | 8 | 8 |
| I55a | Stars – lakes. | Stars – lakes on one of the heavenly tiers. | 5 | 8 |
| I82c1 | The Moon's two wives. | The Moon has two wives (usually the Morning Star and the Evening Star). With the caring one, he grows fat, with the other, he starves and grows thin. | 8 | 8 |
| I82e | The star that sold its mother. | It is said that Venus or another star sold her mother or father in order to adorn herself luxuriously and dress up. | 4 | 8 |
| I8h | Man and woman hold up the earth. | The earth is supported by a man and a woman in the underworld. | 3 | 8 |
| J12c | Acquaintance at a festival. | A girl meets her fiancé at a dance and then follows in his footsteps. See motif J12. | 8 | 8 |
| J12I | Spitting beads. | A desirable marriage partner secretes beads instead of saliva or excrement. See motifs J12 and M57. | 8 | 8 |
| J23b | Spears are placed along the path. | To defeat the monster, the young man (twins) prepares spears in advance and leaves them along the supposed retreat route. Fleeing from the monster, the young man throws spears at it one after another and eventually kills it. | 6 | 8 |
| J25a1 | A child born in a grave saves his mother. | A woman dies, but remains incorrupt and gives birth to a child in the grave. He is found and brings his mother back to life. | 5 | 8 |
| J51a2 | A severed finger instead of a chicken bone. | A girl must penetrate an inaccessible place with the help of chicken bones. She loses one or there are not enough bones. By cutting off her finger and using it as she would use the bones, the girl achieves her goal. | 5 | 8 |
| J65 | The children of the Sun destroy their enemies. | After the attack by enemies, a woman and her daughter remain. She rejects the marriage proposals of animal suitors and agrees to give her daughter to the heavenly deity (the Sun). The children from this marriage take revenge on their enemies. | 6 | 8 |
| K107a2 | Shepherdess instead of princess. | A nobleman (king) is forced to promise his daughter or son to a demon (monster, predatory beast). He tries to replace her or him with other girls or boys, but this does not work. | 7 | 8 |
| K109 | Wife – puppy or object. | The hero is advised to ask supernatural characters for something insignificant (a puppy, a cup) in return for his service. What he receives turns out to be the daughter of a deity. Another character unsuccessfully tries to take the hero's wife away from him. | 6 | 8 |
| K127b | Brothers turned into oxen. | A group of brothers are turned into bulls (oxen) and then enchanted. | 8 | 8 |
| K22aa | Birds in the north – people in the south. | There is a country whose inhabitants are migratory birds that live with us in the summer and turn into people when they fly away to their own country. | 6 | 8 |
| K25a3 | Collected feathers. | The magical bird-wife flies away when she makes herself new feather clothing from feathers collected on the ground. | 6 | 8 |
| K25a4a | Rescue from the underwater world (broken chain). | A young woman finds herself in the power of a water creature, and when she comes ashore, she is chained. To free the woman, the chain must be broken. | 6 | 8 |
| K27o1 | Ball – human head. | Severed human heads are compared to balls. Either a character plays with a severed human head or skull as a ball. | 7 | 8 |
| K27u2 | News from the tumbleweed. | An authoritative character orders to find out where the tumbleweed is rolling or what news it brings. | 7 | 8 |
| K27yy2 | Catching the chick of a dangerous bird. | The hero is sent to bring the chick of a dangerous bird. | 7 | 8 |
| K37d | Recognised by teeth marks. | The character recognises the presence of another by noticing traces of their teeth or nails on fruit or leaves. | 6 | 8 |
| K46 | A woman throws herself into the sea. | In a fit of fear or shame, a woman or girl runs to the sea, throws herself into the water or hides on the shore. The suitor tries in vain to catch up with her. | 7 | 8 |
| L110a | Cut ear. | A character swallows a person or (usually) many people and animals, the hero kills the monster, and while cutting it open, accidentally wounds one of those who were swallowed. Usually, the wounded person is offended and when those who were swallowed come out, they harm or destroy the hero. | 5 | 8 |
| L119 | Battle in the air. | The hero and antagonist fight in the air, tearing off each other's limbs. Usually, their allies on the ground try to preserve the limbs of their leader and destroy those of their enemy. | 4 | 8 |
| L133 | Without arms and legs. | The character keeps his limbs separately, connecting them to his body when necessary. | 8 | 8 |
| L26 | Death of initiates. | During the (first) initiation, supernatural beings teach boys rituals and kill them for violating rules related to the consumption and distribution of food. | 5 | 8 |
| L37b2 | Overheard conversation: a snake inside a person. | From the conversation of snakes or crows, a person learns the cause of another's illness: a snake has crawled inside him. The person expels the snake and the sick person recovers. | 8 | 8 |
| L67 | Gnawed wool. | Having dug an underground passage to a lying monstrous hoofed animal, a small animal gnaws the wool from the place on the skin where the heart beats; the hero thrusts a spear or arrow into this place. See motif L66. | 8 | 8 |
| L83 | An incomplete body turns into lightning/thunder. | A character who has only a head left (motif L5) or who has burned his leg (motif L82) turns into lightning/thunder (or emits lightning/thunderclaps). | 7 | 8 |
| L90c | Horns reaching the sky and the earth. | One horn of an animal (deer, ram, bull, goat, wolverine) touches the ground, while the other is raised to the sky or reaches the sky. | 8 | 8 |
| M113a | A bird sees blood instead of water. | A certain type of bird cannot drink water from rivers and lakes because instead of water it sees blood, fire, etc. | 6 | 8 |
| m11d | Salt from bodily secretions. | The character makes food taste good by adding salt to it. Another character learns that the cook extracts this salt from his own body (it is contained in his bodily secretions). | 8 | 8 |
| M138a | One hundred and twenty years of life. | At the beginning of time, the supreme deity or his messengers decided that the maximum lifespan of a human being would be 120 years. | 7 | 8 |
| M141a | And who is the mouse to us? | In a gathering of various animals, one of the participants refers to the weakest as insignificant to the others and bearing an ugly name. That one is eaten. This is repeated several times, each time the weakest of the remaining animals is eaten. | 7 | 8 |
| M155 | Covered nakedness of the father. | The father or mother (pretends to) fall asleep naked. One of the children covers him or her, which is a sign of respect. | 8 | 8 |
| M198b3 | The collapsed mosque. | A supposed fortune teller accidentally finds the missing items, is rewarded and brought close to the ruler. One day, for some reason, he rudely pushes him (or people in general) out of the room. Immediately afterwards, the roof of the building collapses. Since then, no one has doubted the fortune teller's abilities. | 8 | 8 |
| m203b | The cat is associated with spirits. | A person learns that a cat familiar to him and living in the human world also belongs to the world of spirits. | 5 | 8 |
| M204a | Did not notice the money, closing his eyes. | Gold is placed in a person's path so that they can take advantage of it. At that moment, the person accidentally closes their eyes and walks past. | 8 | 8 |
| M29n | Trickster - Mouse | See the motives in square brackets. | 7 | 8 |
| M29q | Trickster - Raccoon | See the motives in square brackets. | 6 | 8 |
| M29x1 | Trickster - Badger | See the motives in square brackets. | 5 | 8 |
| M30a | They relieve the need for a fallen person | The character flying over the village falls, is tied up, and defecated on him. | 6 | 8 |
| M39a4b1 | A foolish woman throws away her yarn | Foolish woman throws her yarn ways (into the water, into the bush) and believes that somebody with weave it | 7 | 8 |
| M39e2 | Oracle tree, ATU 1543E* | Two people hid their valuables together, and one of them secretly took them. He suggests asking the tree that grew in this place for clarification and hides his father in a hollow to broadcast from there. The tree is set on fire and the deception comes out. | 7 | 8 |
| M57c1 | Gold-producing bear | A man fights a bear or (Malayali) leopard and makes another person believe that this animal is defecating with gold. | 8 | 8 |
| M83c | Who gets drunk faster | Animals argue who of them gets drunk easier. The last one falls down because he becomes drunk as soon as somebody talks about alcohol | 6 | 8 |
| M84d | A sick tree | A person hears trees talking, one of which is (fatally) ill and suffers. | 5 | 8 |
| M88 | Involved in a dance | The character follows the dancing girls and dies. | 7 | 8 |
| M8b | Birds are hammering the rock: extracting water | Animals, and often birds, struggle to break through the rock to get water or honey hidden inside it. | 7 | 8 |
| M9a | Turning into a tree frog | A character who eagerly sucks honey from a hollow and/or gets stuck in a hollow turns into a tree frog. See M9 motif. | 6 | 8 |
| N28c | Sky support | In a list of things that do not exist in the world, a pillar of the sky is mentioned | 6 | 8 |
| N28d | Sea cover | In a list of things that do not exist in the world, a lid or covering for the sea, ocean or river are mentioned | 4 | 8 |
| N28e | The bridge across the sea | In a list of things that do not exist in the world, a bridge across the sea, ocean or lake is mentioned | 4 | 8 |
| N17 | Paper suit, X1853 | fairy-tale text ends with a formula stating that the narrator met with the characters described and that he wore clothes made of paper, glass, oil, etc. | 7 | 9 |
| N28g | A horse has no bile | In a list of things that do not exist in the world, a gall of horse or ass is mentioned | 7 | 9 |
| N37 | Sheltered in the sky | The character is said to sleep under the sky (like a blanket). | 6 | 9 |
| I70 | Reptile with trees on its back. | Trees or reeds grow on the back or head of a reptile. | 6 | 9 |
| I7b | Lightning – a crack in the sky. | Lightning – a crack in the sky through which the heavens are visible for a moment. | 6 | 9 |
| J12F | Owl. | False groom - eagle owl/owl. See motif J12. | 9 | 9 |
| J12j | The false suitor turns out to be a jester. | A girl or sisters end up with a false groom who plays the role of a jester in the chief's house. See motif J12. | 9 | 9 |
| J58a | Three wizards by the river. | To cross the river, each of the three men uses his own magical method. | 8 | 9 |
| J59c | Reviving the dead with a whip. | A character strikes the remains of the deceased with a whip or a lash, and the deceased comes back to life. | 7 | 9 |
| J67 | Stones on the eyes. | At night, the character places light-coloured stones or shells over his eyes. Thinking that the character's eyes are open, the antagonist either does not dare to attack him or takes the stones away instead of gouging out his eyes. | 8 | 9 |
| K105 | The wonderful son and the rat children. | A despised wife gives birth to miraculous children, while other wives give birth to animals. | 8 | 9 |
| K111 | Animal suitors rejected, Sun accepted. | The girl's mother consistently rejects birds and animals that propose to her daughter, but accepts the proposal of a heavenly anthropomorphic character. | 7 | 9 |
| K136d | Two flutes. | A young man receives two flutes (pipes, horns) from a cow (buffalo), which produce different effects when played (joy and sorrow, prosperity and a call for help, etc.). | 8 | 9 |
| K145b | The newlywed eats her groom. | After a man and a woman are left alone (usually on their wedding night), the woman turns into a predator or monster and eats the man. | 9 | 9 |
| K156b | A dog helps a girl remain unrecognised. | People suspect that the young man is a girl in disguise. She manages to avoid exposure thanks to a dog (rarely a cat) who learns how to determine his mistress's true gender and tells her about it. | 9 | 9 |
| K19f | Working stars. | A star or many stars descend from the sky to work in the fields. See motif K19B. | 5 | 9 |
| K27g3 | One falls – all fall. | To fell all the trees in the forest, a man fells one (lightly touching it with an axe), after which all the trees fall. | 5 | 9 |
| K27g5 | Wooden axe. | A person tries or must try to chop or dig with a wooden (lead, felt) tool instead of a steel one. Cf. motif L84. | 7 | 9 |
| K27l | The water body is covered with ice. | After the hero dives in, the antagonist freezes the water body or covers the surface with a net. | 7 | 9 |
| K27z2e | Lost objects and meeting at the end, ATU 434. | During a meeting (sometimes not in their true form), a young man or woman takes certain objects (jewelry) from the other. One of those who met falls ill. A new meeting leads to the healing of the sick person, the identification of the objects, and a wedding. | 7 | 9 |
| K27z2f | The Biting Doll, ATU 571C. | A poor girl buys a doll (goose) that defecates gold. When the neighbours take the doll, it only dirties their house. They throw it away, and the prince uses it to wipe himself, and it sticks to his backside. No one can help, but the poor girl easily solves the problem. The prince marries her. | 8 | 9 |
| K33a2 | The witch distorts what is said. | A brother takes his sister to her fiancé. She cannot hear her brother's words, and the witch distorts them (as if the brother is telling his sister to throw herself into the water, to blind her, etc.). Having got rid of the heroine, the witch replaces her with her own daughter. | 4 | 9 |
| k33c9 | The girl in the apple. | A young man obtains a girl who is inside an apple. | 7 | 9 |
| K37c | Identifying an animal or object. | The character must identify an animal or object among several identical ones. See motif K37. | 4 | 9 |
| K56aa | The dog-groom tests the bride. | Two or three sisters successively become the dog's brides. The first or the first two act incorrectly, perish or fail to achieve their goal. The last one acts correctly and succeeds. | 7 | 9 |
| K7 | "Like your wife's pubic area." | A man compares a certain object to the genitals of another man's wife. The offended man takes revenge. Usually, a man who climbs a tree to get chicks from a nest compares them to the genitals of the wife or sister of the man waiting below; the latter throws away the ladder. | 8 | 9 |
| K73a3 | The child is replaced with a doll. | The midwife's ill-wishers replace the baby with a statue or doll (telling the father that his wife has given birth to a doll). | 7 | 9 |
| K76f | The calf-boy. | A young man with the appearance of a calf marries and then turns into a handsome man. | 9 | 9 |
| K80c3 | A name helps solve a murder. | Before his death, a man asks his murderer to tell his pregnant wife to give their newborn a certain name. Upon hearing the unusual name of the child, a powerful figure begins to investigate the case, and the murderer confesses to his crime. (All texts containing motifs K80c3 and K80c4 also contain the more general motif K80c) | 9 | 9 |
| K87a | The stolen boy. | A forest woman receives or kidnaps a little boy and raises him to be her lover. | 8 | 9 |
| K8aa | Jonah: swallowed by a bird. | A huge bird swallows people. The hero kills it, freeing those who have been swallowed, or, if he himself has been swallowed, he manages to get out alive. | 9 | 9 |
| A19b | In summer on a snail, in winter on a bird. | Moving across the sky, the sun changes its mounts depending on the season – in summer it rides on a slow animal, in winter – on a fast one. Or in winter the sun is carried by a young man, and in summer – by an old man. | 8 | 9 |
| A21a | The released moon. | The moon is an object that was accidentally released by its owners or stolen from them and ended up in the sky. | 6 | 9 |
| A37c | The arrow hits the barrier. | The character shoots an arrow into the sky, aiming to hit a celestial body or deity, but the arrow hits an obstacle blocking the target. | 5 | 9 |
| B113 | Women's backsides and men's knees. | Due to certain events during the time of creation, women have cold backsides (and men have cold knees, or vice versa). | 9 | 9 |
| B16b | The wolverine makes the sea salty. | The sea is salty because a wolverine or a fox bathed in it or urinated in it. | 6 | 9 |
| B36b | Birds acquire voices. | Birds find their voices by pecking at a large reptile and smearing themselves with the fluids that flow out of its body. | 6 | 9 |
| B66 | The rope turns into vines. | Characters climb to the sky using a rope or chain of arrows; when it falls to the ground, it turns into forest vines. See motif J47. | 6 | 9 |
| B75b1 | Sounds of the era of creation: the voice of a wife or mother-in-law. | The character pushes his mother-in-law or wife into a hollow, and she turns into the creaking of trees or an echo. | 7 | 9 |
| B93a | Bird bridge over the heavenly river. | Once a year, birds form a bridge across the heavenly river with their bodies. Usually, the feathers on their heads are worn away as a result. | 5 | 9 |
| C16a | The offended mistress of animals. | The offended mistress of animals or fish takes them and food supplies away. See motif H32A. | 9 | 9 |
| C36 | The Last Battle. | The gods and their powerful adversaries clash in a decisive battle that changes the fate of the world. See Bray 2000, especially pp. 360-361. | 6 | 9 |
| C8c | Son and mother give birth to people. | After a global catastrophe, at the beginning of time or when settling a new land, a woman and her son give birth to humans. | 5 | 9 |
| C8D | Having had smallpox, they did not recognise each other. | A brother and sister survived the flood. They married after having had smallpox and therefore did not recognise each other. | 6 | 9 |
| D13c | The trickster makes his brother's wife laugh. | Two companions or brothers live together. The older one has a wife, whom he hides. To discover her, the younger one, left alone in the house, makes her laugh. | 6 | 9 |
| D13hh | Those who visit another world should not laugh. | A person visiting another world should not laugh or show surprise when seeing strange things. Those who break this rule will perish or suffer harm. | 6 | 9 |
| E15b | Birds sew a boat. | Bird women sew the birch bark covering of the hero's boat. See motif E15. | 5 | 9 |
| E16 | Oars with edges. | When rowing, the character first tries to push off with the edge rather than the flat side of the oar. | 8 | 9 |
| E1a1 | Soaked by rain (why there are cripples). | A deity or ancestor moulds people from clay. Some of the figures got wet, which is why there are cripples among people. | 3 | 9 |
| E28 | The blood of the Moon pours onto the earth. | People shoot at the Moon, its blood spills onto the earth. | 4 | 9 |
| E41 | The blacksmith kneads iron with his hands. | A skilled blacksmith, as a special gift, can take iron heated in a furnace with his bare hands, knead it like dough, and shape it as desired. Usually, he breaks a certain taboo and loses his gift. (The motif was identified and the material collected by Ruslan Doutalieyev). | 7 | 9 |
| E5 | The half-finished man tries to stand up. | God makes man out of clay. He must wait until it dries, but tries to stand up earlier. | 9 | 9 |
| E5e | The two-headed creature does not come out onto the ground. | People or animals come out from under the ground or descend from the sky. The two-headed creature following them gets stuck in the opening or is not allowed to come out. | 8 | 9 |
| F28a1 | Jumping penis. | The living penis is a dangerous creature that attacks people. | 6 | 9 |
| F75 | Siren and tapir. | A hunter sees a tapir summoning a woman who lives in the water with a secret signal; she emerges from the lake or river, and the tapir mates with her. The hunter himself summons the woman and becomes her lover. | 5 | 9 |
| F77a | Penis bridge. | A huge penis serves as a bridge. | 8 | 9 |
| F78 | Toothy anus. | The character has teeth in the anus or a second head in place of the anus. | 7 | 9 |
| F99 | An infant copulates with its mother. | An infant turns into an adult man, copulates with his mother, then returns to his former appearance. | 5 | 9 |
| G8e | Cutting down a tree on the moon. | A character unsuccessfully cuts down a tree growing on the moon. | 6 | 9 |
| G8g | The Great Oak and Its Inhabitants. | There is a unique tree that must be bent or felled. Different creatures inhabit its separate parts and/or objects of special importance are made from its wood. | 6 | 9 |
| H14 | The woman flies back. | A woman who has returned from the world of the dead flies back, becoming a bird or a fly. | 7 | 9 |
| H36h | Unsuccessful jump (frog and death). | Creatures, including a frog or toad, must cross an obstacle. This does not go as planned and results in humans becoming mortal. | 6 | 9 |
| H37a | Jumping over firewood, lighting a fire. | A character gives another the ability to easily light a fire. The latter uses it unnecessarily and loses it. | 8 | 9 |
| H40A | A dog appears in times of danger. | At the moment of attack by a dangerous creature, a randomly thrown substance or object turns into a dog, which drives away the attacker. | 8 | 9 |
| H54a | The shaven old man. | A man meets an old man whose face is completely covered with hair or snot. He cuts (wipes) it off and receives a reward for doing so. | 9 | 9 |
| H7f | Death asks who is there, ATU 332C*(1). | God gives instructions that certain categories of people must die and suffer. The character who receives the instructions, caring for the people, passes on other orders to the executors. | 6 | 9 |
| H7i | Old Age, Hunger, Illness. | Old Age, Illness, or Hunger are special characters, but Death is not mentioned. | 5 | 9 |
| I11b | Sky supports made from animal legs. | The pillars of the sky are made from the legs of a four-legged animal (usually a turtle). | 2 | 9 |
| I31 | The master and mistress of the dead. | In the afterlife, the souls of the dead are met by a pair of mythological characters – a man and a woman, or the master of the dead appears to women in female form and to men in male form. | 3 | 9 |
| L103c | The protective dog and the cannibal. | A dog, cat or other animal tries to drive away a demon (usually an old cannibal). The demon (or its victims, who do not understand the danger) kills the animal – usually by cutting off (breaking) its body parts one by one, after which the demon gains power over its victims. | 4 | 9 |
| L125a | The werewolf wife suffers from thirst. | The woman with whom the man has come together is a creature of a non-human nature. This becomes clear after she suffers from thirst at night and, finding no water in the house, takes on her true form, turning into a snake, separating her limbs from her torso, etc. | 8 | 9 |
| L15a1 | Achilles' heel. | The character's vulnerable spot is located at the bottom of the foot (heel, toe, sole, ankle). | 3 | 9 |
| L15e1 | Discarded weapon. | An ageing character and/or one who senses his death approaching instructs his son, a warrior, or his subjects to throw his cold weapon (sword, sabre or axe) into the sea, a lake or a river. Cf. motifs L15E and L15e2. | 8 | 9 |
| L16A | Eyes on the feet. | The creature's eyes are located on its feet. | 7 | 9 |
| L1d | Woman kills a jaguar. | The jaguar-werewolf kills most people and is killed by the woman who survives. | 6 | 9 |
| L42j | The tree bends (children in the ogre's bag). | The ogre catches children (usually mice), puts them in a bag, orders a tree (pole, crossbar in the house) to bend over, hangs the bag, orders the tree to straighten up again, and leaves. Another character (usually a fox) orders the tree (pole, etc.) to bend over and frees the children. | 3 | 9 |
| L5e | A decapitated wife pursues her husband. | The decapitated body of a woman pursues her husband, while her head pursues their children. | 8 | 9 |
| L65c1 | Sisters fly away from a cannibal. | Three or more sisters have the ability to fly and fly away from the cannibal – their older sister or mother. Only the youngest is saved. | 4 | 9 |
| M106d | My name is "Son-in-law". | By saying that his name is "Son-in-law" ("Husband," "Uncle," etc.), the character deceives others. The victims find no sympathy, since as a relative he has the right to behave in this manner. | 8 | 9 |
| M114g | The long-bearded goat and the tall camel. | Only the boy, the young man, answers the questions of the authoritative character wisely. When he asks why someone older and taller was not sent to him, the boy says that the goat has the longest beard and the camel is taller than everyone else. | 9 | 9 |
| M11b | Meat extracted from the body. | A woman feeds a man with good-quality meat or fat, which she cuts from her own flesh or extracts from her body, and stops doing so when he learns about the source of the food. | 4 | 9 |
| M121 | Insects as spies. | A louse or other similar creature (flea, tick, firefly) is sent to follow a certain character. | 7 | 9 |
| M144B | A burnt tiger becomes striped. | The stripes on the tiger's skin appeared after it was burned. | 3 | 9 |
| M170a | The sinful camel. | The predator accuses the herbivore of sin and eats it. | 7 | 9 |
| M192a | Dried belts. | The character agrees to have a freshly removed skin put on him or to be wrapped in wet belts. The skin or belts cause suffering or death (usually because they dry out and shrink). | 9 | 9 |
| M197d | Shortened stick, ATU 926C.2. | To find the thief, a man gives sticks to the assembled crowd and says that the thief's stick will become longer overnight. The thief cuts off the end of his stick and is thus discovered. | 9 | 9 |
| M24a | Kills a woman, captured | turtle man goes to war, kills people (usually a woman). He gets caught or killed. In his animal form, he continues to live on. See M24 motif. | 8 | 9 |
| M29y | Trickster - Wren | See the motives in square brackets. | 6 | 9 |
| M38d5 | Cereals talking to each other, ATU 293E* | Two or three types of cereals talk to each other, act together, etc. | 6 | 9 |
| M39a2 | Misunderstood instructions: a sharp object | The character does ridiculous things, understanding the instructions too literally or one episode late (i.e., doing what was relevant to the previous episode). One episode involves improper handling of a needle and other sharp objects. | 6 | 9 |
| M44a | Food thieves are the first humans | The character discovers that someone is stealing game or fish from his trap, mountain, etc. or ravages his garden, field; he or his messengers wait and catch the thief [magical tales clearly of European origin (e.g. Chamacoco, Wilbert, Simoneau 1987a, No. 121) are not included]. The kidnappers are the first people to get out of the ground, the first men. | 8 | 9 |
| M53b | A bag with songs | Trickster claims he's carrying songs in his bag. See M53 motif. | 9 | 9 |
| M56d | Fill the vessel with flies | The character promises to fill the vessel with small flying living creatures. He bets with them that they will not be able to fill the vessel. Creatures climb inside, the character closes the lid. Cf. K60B motif. | 8 | 9 |
| M60b2 | To make the bear beautiful, ATU 8 | A large predator asks (agrees with the proposal) to make his skin beautiful (variegated). The deceiver burns it (scalds it, burns his eyes, etc.). | 6 | 9 |
| M61a1 | The character quarrels birds | The character (always a raven) provokes a seagull to quarrel with another bird, telling each one that the other was hostile or offensive towards her. | 4 | 9 |
| M62f | One assistant eats another | The character asks others to come to him (to help him with his work or get a debt). Those called come, each next one is stronger than the previous one and eats it (or the previous one runs away when they see him), the last two die when they fight each other. | 7 | 9 |
| M70a | A pierced old woman | A character on whom an old woman defecates or whose face blows the winds pierces her from below with a sharp object. See M70 motif. | 8 | 9 |
| M78e | Baby ear | A tiny boy comes from an animal's ear, compared in size to an ear, his name is “ear”. | 4 | 9 |
| M7b | The fox asks for help from people passing by | zoomorphic character (usually a fox) finds himself in a place he can't get out of, and consistently asks for help from animals (fish) passing by or approaching him. The latter helps. | 6 | 9 |
| L103b1 | A stream of excrement in the face of the pursuer. 28.30.-.32. | The hero or heroine flees from a demon on the back of a domestic animal (often a bull). When the demon approaches, the animal releases a stream of manure or intestinal gas into its face, and it stops the chase. | 5 | 10 |
| L120b | The fighting hero wakes his brothers. | The hero fights the serpent and calls for help, but no one hears him. Then he throws an item of his footwear or clothing, and his awakened brothers or his horse come to his aid. | 6 | 10 |
| L122a | Sewing up cracks in the earth. | The character is busy sewing up cracks in the earth, just as one would sew up torn fabric. (Motif identified by Ruslan Doutalieyev). | 6 | 10 |
| L39c | Grown from a seed. | A boy (less often a girl) climbs a fruit tree that has just grown (usually from a discarded seed). A cannibal tries to force the boy (girl) to come down to the ground. | 9 | 10 |
| L40a | A woman mistakes a young man's reflection for her own. | An unattractive woman sees the reflection of a young man sitting in a tree in the water and thinks that she has become beautiful. | 5 | 10 |
| L42b1 | Frying pans are placed on top of each other. | A character kidnapped by a demon advises him to stack pots, pans and other kitchen items on top of each other and climb up them. He does so, falls and breaks. | 6 | 10 |
| L65b5 | The hero's dogs at the princess's wedding. | Despite obstacles, the young man's dogs or other animals serving him get to the princess just as she is about to be given away to a deceiver. | 8 | 10 |
| L9g | Bluebeard. | A man's hair or beard of an unusual colour is a sign of his demonic nature. | 8 | 10 |
| M109c | Invisibly tied tail. | A character is invisibly tied by the tail and tries to break free (successfully or unsuccessfully). Cf. motif M109. | 7 | 10 |
| M114b2 | How many steps did your horse take? | A man (an authoritative character) asks a girl (a subordinate) a question about the number of routine actions she has performed (or small items she has), which no one counts. She asks a counter-question about the number of similar actions performed by the questioner. | 6 | 10 |
| M114h | Building a house in the air. | An authoritative character orders a house to be built in the air. A man finds a clever way out of the situation. | 9 | 10 |
| M114i1 | He throws away the dead ones and brings the unkilled ones. | A man replies that his father (brother, etc.) hunts: he kills (discards) those he sees, and leaves (brings back) those he does not see (those not killed). This refers to lice or fleas. | 9 | 10 |
| M120c | Shared children. | Two animals agree to raise children together. One of them eats the other's children, continuing to pretend that the children are shared and that it does not matter which ones are missing. | 9 | 10 |
| M123a | Three-toed paw. | A raven marries or tries to marry, pretending to be a chief and a handsome man. One day, someone notices that he is eating carrion. Usually, everyone is forced to take off their moccasins, and they see that the raven has a three-toed paw. The raven is banished in disgrace or hastens to leave on his own. | 6 | 10 |
| M123b | A girl ties her kidnapper to a boat. | The trickster deceives the girl into marrying him and takes her away in a boat. The woman asks to be allowed to go ashore to relieve herself, secretly ties the kidnapper's clothes to the boat and runs away. | 7 | 10 |
| M152c | The lion and the donkey at the ford. | The weak companion of a large predator pretends to be strong and brave. When he is carried away by the river or drowns in a swamp, and the predator pulls him out, the companion pretends to be angry (for preventing him from catching fish, etc.). | 9 | 10 |
| M177a | The one who looks away eats. | One zoomorphic character teaches another to remain silent, to look at him or away when a third character asks who ate the best piece. It is a trap: the third character decides that the second is guilty. | 10 | 10 |
| M188a | Jackal on the throne. | The character demands to be addressed as a ruler (usually sits on a pile of rubbish and demands to be recognised as king). One of the animals exposes him. | 8 | 10 |
| M197f | Black beard, grey head, ATU 921C. | The dialogue plays on the fact that in youth the beard is black, and in old age it is white. Usually a person explains why his head has turned grey but his beard has not: the beard is 20 years younger. | 10 | 10 |
| M199d1 | The devil and the squirrel climb a tree, ATU 1073. | The devil (cannibal) challenges a man to a competition: who can climb a tree faster. The man puts his child, a squirrel, in his place. | 9 | 10 |
| M199m | My grandmother's distaff. | A man explains to a demon that the heavy objects lying by the roadside, such as a harrow or a millstone, are just things used by his grandmother or mother, such as a spindle or a comb. | 7 | 10 |
| M201 | Oak and mushroom. | A rapidly growing mushroom (melon) believes that it will soon outgrow the oak tree. The mushroom (pumpkin vine) soon rots, while the oak tree remains standing. | 7 | 10 |
| M21b | Every deception is the beginning of the next. | The character consistently harms others in such a way that each person who has been deceived is used as a tool to harm the next. | 7 | 10 |
| M29d | Trickster - Mink | See the motives in square brackets. | 7 | 10 |
| M29nn | Trickster - Earth Squirrel (Xerus inauris) | See the motives in square brackets. | 8 | 10 |
| M29qq | Trickster - Anteater | See the motives in square brackets. | 9 | 10 |
| M37 | Shattered with an axe | Although the character's head or entire body is cut in two with an ax or split with a stick, the character remains unharmed. Cf. motive J22. | 4 | 10 |
| M38e | Mushroom and oak, ATU 293B* | mushroom (pumpkin) thinks that it is as durable as a tree. | 10 | 10 |
| M39a2b | A fool salts the river | After buying salt or sugar, a fool pours them into a pond to salt or sweeten the water. | 6 | 10 |
| M39b | He attacks his own plague | A person does not notice that he turned and swam back on the way, so he takes his home for enemies, kills his own relatives. | 7 | 10 |
| I4e | Thunder riding on a cloud. | An anthropomorphic deity (associated with thunder and rain) rides on a cloud or a cloud. | 7 | 10 |
| I59b4 | The Milky Way – snow, hoarfrost. | The Milky Way is associated with snow, hoarfrost, and cold. | 6 | 10 |
| I87c1 | Mouse in a boat. | A mouse makes itself a boat out of a small object. | 3 | 10 |
| I87f | Suicide of the Narts. | Before modern humans, there lived others who differed in strength, height, nobility, or other qualities. They disappeared after committing suicide. | 9 | 10 |
| I92a | Jumping over the rainbow. | A person who jumps or steps over a rainbow changes their gender. | 9 | 10 |
| I98C | Pleiades – a flock of birds. | The Pleiades - a flock of (flying) birds. | 5 | 10 |
| J26a | Boys and puppies. | Among children of a woman or two women living together, there is a boy and a puppy, or a puppy was placed with a woman, and her son was thrown out. The puppy lives with the woman and helps her. | 7 | 10 |
| J3 | Conception from under the earth. | A woman conceives a son or twins in a way that is incomprehensible to her; the reason is that when she sits on the ground, a male character (animal) creeps under the ground and fertilises her from below. | 7 | 10 |
| J36 | Antagonist - turtle. | The turtle drags the hero's parents under water. | 6 | 10 |
| J41a | Son turns mother into a bird. | The son returns and finds his mother, who has been humiliated and tortured in his absence. The son turns his mother (and usually himself as well) into a bird of a certain species. | 10 | 10 |
| J47a1 | Goats – owners of food. | The character enters a house where goats live. He secretly eats the food he finds there, but is eventually discovered. | 7 | 10 |
| J50a | Sons embrace their mother. | The mother dies when her sons push or embrace her. | 4 | 10 |
| J58c | Bridge of arrows. | A chain of arrows forms a bridge across a water barrier. | 10 | 10 |
| J62b | Those transformed into animals are disenchanted. | The character turns those who come to him into animals. Thanks to the hero, they are disenchanted. | 9 | 10 |
| K100i | Intoxication and immobilisation of a strongman. | A powerful character loses his strength (self-control) after being intoxicated and then admits that the hop is stronger than him. (See Neklyudov 2025a; 2025b). | 6 | 10 |
| K102a6 | The enemy and a woman blind the hero. | The hero's wife, sister or mother participates in a conspiracy against him and helps to blind him. | 9 | 10 |
| K103c | The bull-helper fights in the copper forest. | Sitting on a bull or a cow, a young man or woman runs away from their stepmother's house. Along the way, the bull fights other bulls (monsters), the last of which usually kills it. | 8 | 10 |
| K104 | The red swan. | The youngest of the brothers stays at home, wounds a red swan or duck, and follows its trail. | 8 | 10 |
| K10h | The bird feeds, but does not let go. | A bird carries a woman or boy to its nest, feeds them, but does not let them go. The captive runs away. | 7 | 10 |
| K155b | A girl's hair serves as a rope to climb up (ATU 310). | A girl lets down her hair, which another character uses to climb up to her. | 8 | 10 |
| K15c | Substituted clothing. | The owner of stone (ice) clothing kills people. By hiding or replacing his clothing, the hero kills him. | 5 | 10 |
| K179 | As much gold as the bride weighs. | For an object (usually a girl), as much (or more) gold (silver) is given or promised as it weighs, or a pile of valuables as tall as the person being bought. | 6 | 10 |
| K27y1 | Coal arrowheads. | The character believes or pretends that arrowheads should be made of bark, coal, grass, and similar materials. | 7 | 10 |
| K33a3 | The heroine is turned into a turtle. | A woman, turned into a turtle because of her rival's intrigues, tries to establish contact with her children or husband. | 10 | 10 |
| K33c1 | Transformation into a lotus. | A character thrown into the water is transformed into a flower (usually a lotus). | 10 | 10 |
| K35a5 | A sign by which the patron recognises the visitor. | An authoritative character leaves an object (a letter) for a little boy, by which he will be able to recognise him when he grows up and comes to him. | 7 | 10 |
| K38f5 | Fire-breathing horse, B15.5.1. | Flames burst from the horse's mouth and/or nostrils, or the entire horse is engulfed in fire. | 9 | 10 |
| K47d | The dog fulfils the condition of marriage. | A girl gives herself to a dog because it fulfils the condition of marriage set by her or her father for her future husband. See motif K47A. | 8 | 10 |
| K56a8a | The good girl returns with her fiancé. | A girl goes to another world, behaves correctly, returns with an animal or an object, inside which her groom is found. Usually, another girl behaves incorrectly and suffers damage. | 7 | 10 |
| K56b1 | The Old Man with Golden Coals, ATU 751B*. | A poor man goes in search of fire. An old man by the fire gives him coals. At home, they turn into gold. An envious neighbour (brother) deliberately extinguishes the fire in his house and asks the old man for coals. His house burns down. | 9 | 10 |
| K58b | Turn of the watercourse: failure. | The character builds a canal, bridge, or dam. For some reason, the work cannot be completed as planned. | 7 | 10 |
| K73b3 | Throw a nut for good luck. | A person who is asked to count the nuts in a barrel (taking them out one by one) accompanies his actions with a revealing story. | 8 | 10 |
| K87a1 | The child is handed over. | A demonic woman asks the baby's mother to let her hold him or secretly replaces another person who was supposed to take the child. Once she has the baby, the demon takes him away. | 5 | 10 |
| M90a3 | The tree grew out of a snake | plant grows from a killed snake or part of a snake's body. | 8 | 10 |
| M90b | The sun is rising from the west | The character was wrong when he claimed that the sun would never rise in the west or go down after midnight. | 9 | 10 |
| M92 | Glued lashes | Something red is glued to the character's eyelashes, he thinks it's a fire. | 4 | 10 |
| A2F | Suns – fruits. | Suns grow on tree branches. | 5 | 10 |
| A32de | Headless man on the moon. | A headless man is visible on the lunar disc. | 10 | 10 |
| B104a | Meat turns into a toad, ATU 980D. | The son was about to eat some meat (chicken). At that moment, his father came in, and the son hid the meat so as not to share it with him. When his father left and the son took out what he had hidden, the meat turned into a toad (snake) and jumped on his face. | 9 | 10 |
| B1b | Two creators. | Two female progenitors participate in the process of creation. The actions of one bring good, the other evil. | 6 | 10 |
| B1c | One creator deceives another. | Two creators agree that the older of them (the main creator) will be the one whose object is in a certain state (usually: whose tree or flower grows or blooms earlier). While one was asleep or absent, the other switched the objects and deceitfully achieved primacy. | 10 | 10 |
| B27a | Transformation into thunder and lightning. | The characters ponder what they should transform into and decide to become thunder and/or lightning. | 10 | 10 |
| B32 | Women turn into fish. | As a result of conflict with their husbands, women turn into fish. | 6 | 10 |
| B42h2 | Reddish star – arrow. | A large reddish star (Betelgeuse or Aldebaran) is identified with an arrow. | 4 | 10 |
| B61 | The mole's paw. | The mole had to hold up the fallen sky and sun. Since then, its paw (hand) has remained dislocated backwards. | 6 | 10 |
| B76 | Frozen waves. | The sea waves instantly petrified, forming land with mountains on it. | 9 | 10 |
| B7c | Sprinkled water. | Fresh water, which its sole owner hides in a vessel or pond, is scattered throughout the world. | 5 | 10 |
| B87 | Alcor. | Alcor (a faint star next to the second star of the Big Dipper's handle) stands out as a separate celestial object. | 1 | 10 |
| D4i | The beaver obtains fire. | The beaver obtains fire for humans. See motif D4A. | 7 | 10 |
| D4p | The parrot obtains fire. | The parrot obtains fire for humans. See motif D4A. Australian data is not taken into account, as the common origin of the motif in America and Australia is excluded. | 9 | 10 |
| E15a | The boat as a bird's breastbone. | The bow of the boat is modelled on a bird's breastbone. | 6 | 10 |
| E23 | Revival by fleas. | A handful of fleas or lice must be thrown at the character; only this will make him or her move, which is necessary for revival or for the existence of people. | 5 | 10 |
| E41a | How ticks were invented. | The first ticks were made as a result of observing animals (a dog's crossed paws, two snakes, snake jaws, etc.). | 8 | 10 |
| F20a | People and dogs. | At first, people mated as dogs do now, but then it became as it is now. | 5 | 10 |
| F47a | Parts of the female body. | Men use each part of the body of a single woman for copulation, or each man takes a part of her body cut into pieces. | 6 | 10 |
| F47b | New people in the same place. | In order to create new people (new women) to replace those who have been destroyed, the character leaves something (feathers or pieces of flesh) in each empty hut (in the hearth, in the hammock, in the village), from which new people (new women) appear. | 9 | 10 |
| F70f | Accidental change of gender. | Finding themselves in a deserted place, people accidentally change their gender. | 7 | 10 |
| G31 | Trees tied with rope. | A character ties trees with rope and effortlessly knocks them all down at once or pretends to do so. | 6 | 10 |
| H12b | The dead feed on excrement. | In the afterlife, the dead or demons feed on excrement. | 7 | 10 |
| H32b | Lost abundance: the offended child. | A girl and/or boy, who are the children of a deity, come to live with humans, leading to an abundance of food/resources. Due to the hurt they have caused, the children return to their own world, and human life becomes difficult or meagre. | 8 | 10 |
| H9a | Who will give birth first. | Of two women, one of whom is associated with a stone and the other with a plant, only the plant woman leaves offspring, which is why people are what they are (mortal, capable of speech, etc.). Alternatively, children born to two women have opposite characteristics (skilled and unskilled, etc.). | 5 | 10 |
| I119a | Earthquake – are there any survivors? | Creatures shake the earth, either upon learning that there are no longer any inhabitants on it, or to check whether they are still alive, or to show that they themselves are still there. | 5 | 10 |
| I20a | Heavenly giants. | Anthropomorphic inhabitants of the upper world – giants. | 7 | 10 |
| I41c | Celestial object – reflection of a snake. | Rainbow or Milky Way – reflection of a snake (fish) on land or in the sea. | 5 | 10 |
| A5a | The Sun from the swaddling clothes of the infant Moon. | The younger brother (usually the Sun) is made from the urine and swaddling clothes of his older brother (usually the Moon), who was kidnapped as a baby. See motif A5. | 8 | 11 |
| A8a | Liberation of the sun, moon and stars, ATU 328A*. | The sun, moon and star (stars) appear as three consecutive and comparable objects/characters in narratives about the abduction and subsequent liberation of celestial bodies. | 11 | 11 |
| B106 | The heavenly rooster. | First, the heavenly rooster crows (or the underground roosters crow), and only then do the earthly roosters crow. | 11 | 11 |
| B124 | Indentation on the foot. | Ever since a piece of flesh was torn from a person's foot, a hollow has formed between the toe and the heel. | 10 | 11 |
| B1a | Three worlds: division of the universe. | Anthropomorphic characters agree to divide the tiers of the universe among themselves – heaven, earth and the underworld. | 6 | 11 |
| B1H | The hero and his ten brothers | 4 | 11 | |
| B33e1 | Freezing in the womb. | It is said that the cold, which is stronger than anything else, can freeze boiling water, a foetus in the womb, etc. | 11 | 11 |
| B33g | Three horsemen (sun, moon, night). | Horsemen or horses represent celestial bodies or different periods of the day. | 8 | 11 |
| B35 | The club-footed bear. | The bear hastily puts his left moccasin on his right foot and vice versa, which is why he is club-footed. | 8 | 11 |
| B44f | The fox wants daylight. | In the dispute over whether the world should be bright, the fox is on the side of light (almost always against the bear). | 11 | 11 |
| B51 | The Mosquito and Thunder. | Thanks to a deliberate lie, Thunder did not learn from the bloodsucking insect that it had drunk human blood. | 11 | 11 |
| B64c | Small bones: fish fall from the sky. | Fish, together with other earthly creatures, wage war on the inhabitants of the sky. Falling to the ground, they break their bones, which is why fish have many small bones in their bodies. See motif B64. | 4 | 11 |
| C2b | The Burnt Moon. | The Sun and the Moon are caught in a fire. The strong and intelligent Sun escapes, while the weak and foolish Moon is burned or consumed, but the Sun revives it. | 5 | 11 |
| C6h | An insect brings soil. | The insect brings soil (from the bottom of the sea or from somewhere far away). | 5 | 11 |
| C8a1 | Let the thread enter the eye. | Finding themselves alone and without other marriage partners, a brother and sister make their marriage possible by the occurrence of an incredible event: a thread far from the needle must enter the eye of the needle. | 5 | 11 |
| D1a2 | A borrowed object does not burn. | The house of the person who insulted the fire burns down, but the property inside it or the child of another person (or that person himself) who treated the fire with respect is not harmed. | 10 | 11 |
| D4d | The opossum obtains fire. | The opossum obtains fire for humans. See motif D4A. | 7 | 11 |
| D4m | The owners of fire dance. | The thief comes to the owners of fire or light. They feast or dance. He joins them and steals their valuables when the moment is right. See motif D4A. | 11 | 11 |
| D4n | The weeping one demands summer. | A boy or (among the Kutené) a woman cries, demanding the absent elements - summer, fire, rain. See motif D4A (demand for summer). | 10 | 11 |
| E19 | The origin of drugs. | Narcotic plants arise from the body of a human being torn to pieces by others. | 5 | 11 |
| E21 | The victim of aquatic creatures finds revenge. | A child catches fish (with poison), or fish poison is secreted from his body. Fish or water snakes kill him. Death is avenged. | 7 | 11 |
| E24 | Knees and elbows. | Joints appeared in humans after the first ancestor (or several first ancestors) fell from a height, breaking their arms and legs. | 6 | 11 |
| E31b | Female saviours of men. | Several women participate in reviving a dead man and argue about who did more to revive him. | 7 | 11 |
| F43b | Women hide underground. | Leaving the men, the women of the community of the first ancestors hide in a hole underground. | 5 | 11 |
| F43c | Husbands of women - animals. | The husbands of the first women, Amazons or single women are small animals - usually flying foxes. | 8 | 11 |
| F57 | Persephone picks a flower. | A girl or her father (rarely: mother) picks a plant (usually a flower) and as a result encounters a character with a non-human appearance and/or inhabiting the underworld. The girl becomes the character's wife. In some cases, the picked plant is the character's hair, but more often there is no direct association of this kind. | 5 | 11 |
| F94 | Betrayal in the sky. | A man ascends to the upper world, where he can choose a wife associated with either life or death. | 7 | 11 |
| G27 | Harvest from urine. | Cultivated plants appear together with urine or in the place where the hero urinated. | 6 | 11 |
| H34f | Baskets carried heavy loads themselves. | Baskets or clay vessels carried heavy loads themselves. | 7 | 11 |
| H54c | Crucified eyelids. | The character's eyelids are crucified so that he cannot close them, or he does so himself on the advice of another. | 5 | 11 |
| H55a | Two under one blanket. | Finding himself in another world, a man sees a husband and wife trying to cover themselves with a single blanket, which is not big enough for them, or they do not have enough room for two on the bed. See motif H55A. | 7 | 11 |
| I122 | The Pleiades – a beehive. | The Pleiades – a beehive, a nest, a cluster of bees or wasps. | 9 | 11 |
| I123 | Altair – herald of the sun. | Altair with a small neighbouring star from the constellation Aquila or Vega with a similarly faint star are considered to appear during or immediately after the winter solstice, although they are actually visible before that. | 7 | 11 |
| I133a | The constellation of the great bird. | There is a constellation that represents a bird and corresponds to several large constellations in European traditions (mainly equatorial, rather than circumpolar). | 7 | 11 |
| I34 | Dangerous tree. | It is necessary to approach a tree that is surrounded by fire, spews fire, throws sharp splinters, etc. | 2 | 11 |
| I37d1 | St. Peter spits out mushrooms, ATU 774L. | St. Peter secretly eats bread, and when Christ asks him what he is doing, he chokes, spits out the crumbs, and they turn into mushrooms. | 10 | 11 |
| I46c | Rainbow rope. | The rainbow is a rope to which cattle are tied. | 6 | 11 |
| I46e | Rainbow sword. | Rainbow - sword, cutting weapon. | 8 | 11 |
| I74a | Stars – fireflies. | Stars – fireflies. | 3 | 11 |
| J12G | Waterfowl or marsh bird. | The false bridegroom is a bird that lives on or near water. See motif J12. | 10 | 11 |
| J12k | The groom and the deceiver live in the same house. | Desirable and undesirable marriage partners live in the same house. The undesirable partner is a servant or junior partner, usually pretending to be the master. | 11 | 11 |
| J27a | The rejected child kills his father. | One of the babies is abandoned and lives in a river, forest, etc.; the other remains at home; after the abandoned brother returns home, the brothers kill their father or his men. See motifs J19, J25. | 6 | 11 |
| J50b | The father remains half-dead. | The father (alone or with his brother) is only partially resurrected and is unable to live among people (he cannot be a warrior). The hero leaves him (in another world) or allows him to die completely. | 10 | 11 |
| K103a1 | The tree follows its mistress. | A tree that suddenly grows allows only the heroine to enjoy its fruits and follows her when she moves to a new place. | 6 | 11 |
| K128a | The best apples for the princess, ATU 610. | Each of the three brothers brings the princess (prince) a gift of fruit (less often fish, etc.) and encounters a character who punishes rudeness and rewards politeness. As a result (after additional trials), the youngest brother enters into the desired marriage. | 8 | 11 |
| K171 | The weaver creates an army. | The heroes fight, but the number of enemies does not decrease, because someone is constantly weaving (forging) new warriors. | 8 | 11 |
| K176a | The wind dries the laundry. | The hero searches for his magical wife who has left him. It turns out that one of the winds is flying to her to perform a certain task. The hero follows him. | 7 | 11 |
| K23a | Feathers – birds' weapons. | Birds use their feathers as arrows, or falling feathers cover the mouths of their victims. | 8 | 11 |
| K27f2 | Get the same shoes. | A girl demands that her fiancé get her the same pair of shoes (or other items) as hers. These items either exist in a single copy, or it is not known what they look like. Having become invisible, the hero either steals the items (and the owner has to make new ones herself), or finds out what they look like. | 7 | 11 |
| K27f4 | Build a house. | Task: to erect a building. See motif K27. | 11 | 11 |
| K27n3c2 | The enemy – the father-in-law bear. | The hero's father-in-law, the bear, sets him difficult tasks and trials. | 7 | 11 |
| K2a3 | The hero is left on the mountain. | The hero's companions leave him on the mountain, destroying the rope (chain) by which he climbed up or which he lowered down. | 8 | 11 |
| K32e | Gold, silver, wood. | A negative character, object or locus is contrasted with one or two positive ones, such as wood with gold and silver. | 7 | 11 |
| K32l | Horses are given for fattening. | The ruler distributes horses (cows) to his subjects for fattening. Only the heroine returns hers well-fed. | 6 | 11 |
| k33c5 | Girl in an egg. | A young man obtains a girl who is inside an egg. | 5 | 11 |
| K35a6 | Glowing feather. | The character illuminates the room with a light-emitting object (usually a feather) that he has found. | 9 | 11 |
| K38b2 | A bird carries away the hero, the hero kills the snake. | A character (almost always a giant bird) brings the hero to its nest, after which the hero accidentally or at the bird's request kills the monster that was devouring the character's children (usually chicks). | 8 | 11 |
| K44a | The frog pretends to be a mother. | A frog or toad (coastal Koryaks: triton) kidnaps or finds a boy and lies that she is his real mother. See motif K44. | 6 | 11 |
| K56a4c | Wash black until white. | A person is tasked with washing something black until it is white or something white until it is black (yarn, clothing, a board, etc.). | 10 | 11 |
| K73a1 | The child is replaced by an inanimate object. | After hiding or discarding a newborn baby, the woman's rivals replace it with an inanimate object and/or inform the father that his wife has given birth to a stone, a broom, etc. See motifs k73a2, k73a2a, k73a3. | 6 | 11 |
| K85c | Four legs are faster than three. | A three-legged horse is strong and fast, but its four-legged brother is faster. | 8 | 11 |
| K89c | Brother-helper is married to a bear. | A girl parts with her brother or sister. He or she becomes the wife or husband of a bear and helps the girl. | 9 | 11 |
| L12 | Vultures and incomplete bodies. | Vultures lift into the sky a creature that has lost some of its limbs or has only one head left. | 6 | 11 |
| L123 | Traces lead in all directions. | In order to confuse the pursuer, the character leaves traces leading in all directions before running away. | 8 | 11 |
| L125b | Eats carrion. | After following his wife (husband), the husband (wife) discovers that she or he goes around devouring dead bodies. | 10 | 11 |
| L1e | The character creates monstrous birds. | A monstrous bird is created from a small amount of human or animal flesh (usually from the heart) or from lumps of manioc starch. | 9 | 11 |
| L37b4 | Dog meat has miraculous properties. | From a conversation between spirits or animals, a man learns that the meat (brain, blood) of a neighbouring shepherd's dog has miraculous properties. | 8 | 11 |
| L3a | She asked for help – a demon came. | Left alone, a woman carelessly calls for someone to help her with the housework; a demon comes and kills the woman or her child. | 8 | 11 |
| L42f | The prey escaped, the wife was killed. | The character intended for consumption slips away unnoticed. The master of the house thinks that his wife has eaten him alone and cuts open her stomach. | 4 | 11 |
| L42h | Those gathered for the feast eat the host. | A cannibal catches the hero and invites other cannibals to a feast. The hero escapes, and the cannibals eat the one who invited them. | 10 | 11 |
| L73b | A line drawn. | The fugitive draws a line on the ground (ice), creating an obstacle in the path of the pursuer. | 7 | 11 |
| M117 | Head under the wing, ATU 56D. | A fox or other predator asks a bird what it does when the wind blows. The bird shows how it puts its head under its wing, and the fox catches it. | 6 | 11 |
| M15 | Tied to a tree. | A man ties a girl or young woman to the top of a tree or places her on the treetop as if on a stake. People try to rescue her. | 7 | 11 |
| M152d | Elephant saved from tiger's claws. | The elephant and the tiger (lion) engage in combat (usually competing to see who can roar louder). The tiger wins and is about to eat the elephant, but a small animal saves it. | 7 | 11 |
| M152e | Whose voice is louder. | A tiger (lion) and another animal compete to see whose roar is louder. The tiger roars louder, but ultimately loses. | 7 | 11 |
| M179b | The guest ruined the house, ATU 80. | One zoomorphic character asks another (or a human) to let him in to dry off, warm up, etc. Once inside, he wreaks such havoc on the dwelling that it becomes difficult for the owner to stay there. Usually, in response to reproaches, he says that if the owner doesn't like it, there's the door. | 11 | 11 |
| M191c | The wolf's song, ATU 163. | Through singing (threats, pleasantries), the wolf (less often, the bear) gradually forces the old man to give him his domestic animals (and family members). | 11 | 11 |
| M198a2 | Stone with a wormhole. | A person determines, based on characteristics invisible to others, that a valuable item (a gemstone, an expensive sword) has a flaw and is of little value. | 11 | 11 |
| M29i | Trickster - Hawk | See the motives in square brackets. | 10 | 11 |
| M38c2 | He cuts off a horse's leg to shove it | To shove a horse or donkey, Jesus (the saint) cuts off his leg, nails a horseshoe to his hoof, and attaches his leg back. The other character tries to imitate in vain. | 10 | 11 |
| M39a4g | A fool sells property to dogs | Fool sells property to the dogs and believes that they will pay him. Trying to get his money, he finds treasure | 10 | 11 |
| M39a8b | Tongueless Robber | Using a stratagem, someone who hides in a tree cuts (bits) off the tongue of a dangerous person and the latter is unable to describe situation to his partners | 11 | 11 |
| M42c | When it falls off a cliff, it eats its bone marrow | Falling off a cliff and breaking his leg, the character eats his bone marrow. | 3 | 11 |
| M59a | Porcupine at the crossing | After asking a large animal to transport it across the river, a porcupine kills or damages it. See M59 motif. | 10 | 11 |
| M66a | A mountain of excrement | After eating a certain food, the trickster leaves a mountain of excrement that is larger than himself. | 9 | 11 |
| M67 | The trickster was blown away by the wind | By stupidity or carelessness, the character causes a wind that blows him away. See the M66 motif (The Trickster emits a stream of intestinal gases). | 10 | 11 |
| M68 | When the winds blow, it scares the game | Because of his own stubbornness, the character suffers from an irrepressible gas eruption and scares away the game with a loud sound. Almost starves to death. | 7 | 11 |
| M75d | Vulture knife | A man bereaves vultures of their hunting weapons or amulets | 8 | 11 |
| M78g | Sleep-related | When the inhabitants of the house fall asleep, a joker (usually a tiny boy) ties them together in pairs so that when they wake up, they quarrel. | 10 | 11 |
| M7a1 | The luminaries float above the hero | Person gets to a place from which he is unable to come out. Several (more than two) different celestial bodies rise and move near him or above him. He puts attention to them (and asks their help) | 4 | 11 |
| M90a6 | Rejuvenating apples | Owning some apples ensures eternal youth. | 9 | 11 |
| M99a1 | Leaky beaks of birds | The character is going to pierce all the birds with their beaks (to string them on a rope) or cut them off altogether. | 7 | 11 |
| N25 | The path is a needle long | said that characters spend a long time (days, weeks, months, years) on the road, but end up walking a journey as long as a grain, needle, or other small object. | 3 | 11 |
| M94b | The wolf under the mill wheel | The character is lured to look under the mill wheel, he dies or is maimed. | 7 | 12 |
| M94b1 | The wolf under the mill wheel | The character is lured to look under the mill wheel, he dies or is maimed. | 7 | 12 |
| N13 | Girl with scissors | A girl, a girl is associated with scissors (and a boy, a boy with a knife or an ax). | 8 | 12 |
| N32 | Sitting on three oaks | The ornithomorphic character is said to be sitting on several trees. | 5 | 12 |
| N35 | Jelly shores | Somewhere milk rivers flow with banks made of jelly (porridge) - a sign of abundance (impossible in reality). Cf. H16B motive. | 8 | 12 |
| N38 | Which key is better | The character asks others which key is better - lost and found or new. This refers to a forgotten and newfound marriage partner (less often a direct question is asked about this). | 8 | 12 |
| I7a | Lightning snake. | Lightning is associated with a snake. | 7 | 12 |
| J32b | Extended night. | In order to accomplish what he wants, the hero prolongs the night by changing the behaviour of the character on whom the alternation of day and night depends. | 10 | 12 |
| J59b | The arrow falls, the dead person comes back to life. | To revive the dead, the character shoots an arrow into the sky or throws an object. It is assumed that the dead, fearing the falling object, will come back to life and run away. | 9 | 12 |
| J68 | First old, then fresh droppings on the trail. | Characters who have been chasing an animal for a long time see increasingly fresh droppings on the trail and finally catch up with their prey (usually the droppings correspond to how long they have been lying there); or the pursuers see areas where less time has passed since sowing. | 6 | 12 |
| K11 | The eyes of a monstrous bird: metamorphosis. | Brothers (brother and sister) kill a monstrous bird. Its eyes turn into heavenly bodies (among the Oaxacan Indians) or something else (among the present-day Condors of the Yokuts). | 8 | 12 |
| K11C | Plants grow from feathers. | The plucked feathers of a huge bird turn into plants. | 5 | 12 |
| K123b | Broken spinning wheel. | A boy or young man damages an elderly woman's spinning wheel or yarn. This episode forms the basis of the rest of the story. | 10 | 12 |
| K140 | Demonstratively ungrateful. | Travelling with his sister or brother, the young man regularly kills his saviours and helpers, exposing himself to ever new dangers. | 9 | 12 |
| K143 | The bird catcher hero. | The protagonist of the narrative is a bird catcher or bird hunter, or the son of a bird catcher (hunter). | 6 | 12 |
| K145a | The image kills. | A person is predicted to die at the hands of an animal. He is killed (or attempted to be killed) by a living image of an animal or a statue in the form of an animal that falls on him. | 12 | 12 |
| K149 | Three knots. | The character has a rope or reins with three knots, allowing him to move faster or slower. Usually, untying the first and second knots causes the character's ship to sail faster (thanks to the rising wind) or his horse to gallop faster; however, contrary to the warning, the character (when almost reaching the goal) also unties the third knot and as a result loses the ship, the horse, ends up not where he wanted to be, etc. | 7 | 12 |
| K156 | Will the flowers under the pillow wilt? | A girl pretends to be a man. To determine who it really is, flowers are placed under the pillow or mattress. If a man is sleeping, they will remain fresh, but if a woman is sleeping, they will wilt by morning (or if a woman is sleeping, the milk left under the bed will sour). | 11 | 12 |
| K156a | Trials: girl or boy? | People suspect that the young man is a girl in disguise. Tests are proposed to determine this, but the girl manages to avoid exposure (for a long time). | 11 | 12 |
| K167 | The Child King. | A boy plays, pretending to be a king and demonstrating wisdom and/or magical abilities. | 12 | 12 |
| K18a | The boy takes a bow and arrows. | The boy's father is recognised as the man whose bow or arrows he chooses. See motif K18. | 11 | 12 |
| K25a2 | Discarded feathers. | An anthropomorphic character flies away or tries to fly away, attaching feathers shed by birds flying in the sky to his body. | 6 | 12 |
| K26a | A stone covers the opening. | The hole in the sky is covered by a flat stone. Moving it aside, the character sees the earth. See motif K26. | 11 | 12 |
| K27g2 | Roof made of feathers. | The character must build a house out of bird feathers or cover the roof, bridge, etc. with feathers. | 7 | 12 |
| K27z2d | The sparrow's quarrel with her husband. | A conflict arises between a pair of birds (sparrows, pigeons, etc.), in which the male is more likely (and more often clearly) to be at fault. This episode serves as the starting point for a story about the relationships between people of noble origin. | 12 | 12 |
| K27z4a | The cripple demands the return of his leg, ATU 978. | The cripple claims that the father of the visitor is to blame for his physical disability. The man's wife or the man himself, on someone's advice, promises to return the leg (eye) if the cripple gives him the other one as a sample or brings him a part of a dead person's body and demands money. | 11 | 12 |
| K30a | The chief's wife and the vultures. | The wife of the first ancestor flies away with the vultures (usually voluntarily, after she has already cheated on her husband), and the chief (Uito: her brother) brings her back. See motif K30. | 9 | 12 |
| K35a7 | The magical feather. | A character finds a feather, the touch of which brings health and beauty. | 9 | 12 |
| K52c1 | Penis instead of fish. | Demonstrating his power, a shaman, sorcerer or other character with magical abilities causes the dwelling in which he and other people are located to begin to fill with water. Sometimes it is said that this water is an illusion. One episode: the magical specialist orders those present to catch the birds or fish that have appeared with the water, or they begin to catch them on their own initiative; when the water disappears, people see that they are holding not caught animals, but their penises or something else. | 7 | 12 |
| K56a5a | Skinning oneself to rejuvenate (ATU 877). | To become a young beauty, an old or unattractive woman asks to have her skin stripped off. Cf. motif H4. | 10 | 12 |
| k57e | Daughter is persuaded to kill her mother. | Due to her naivety or by accident, a young girl causes her mother's death. | 11 | 12 |
| K61a1 | Two heads in a sack. | A dangerous character mistakes two people sleeping (hiding) in a sack or two people lying with their feet towards each other for a single creature. | 10 | 12 |
| K73a2 | The child is replaced with a broom. | The ill-wishers of the new mother replace the baby with a broom (they tell the father that his wife has given birth to a broom). | 8 | 12 |
| K85a | The horse-thought and the horse-wind. | When assessing the speed of a horse, the speed of thought (lightning, or something else) and wind are compared. | 7 | 12 |
| K90a | Aimed at the black one, hit the white one. | Seeing two snakes of contrasting colours fighting, a man tries to strike one, but accidentally hits the other. The relatives of this snake gather to punish him, but upon learning what happened, they reward him. | 11 | 12 |
| A24a | First day or night: transformation into spirits. | At the moment of the first day or the first night, people transform into supernatural characters. | 8 | 12 |
| A32l | Silhouette in the sun. | The silhouette of a certain character is visible on the solar disc. Or it is said that the character fell into the sun and remained there. | 10 | 12 |
| A32m | Gypsy sun. | The moon is called the "Gypsy sun". | 8 | 12 |
| B122 | Infants and birds. | Birds (cranes/storks, geese or crows) carry children away to another world or bring them back from there. See motif H6c3, "The Immortal Stork". | 5 | 12 |
| B22a | Boys and the tapir. | Boys climb a tree to eat fruit and refuse to throw the fruit down to the tapir, who tries to kill the boys. | 8 | 12 |
| B33f2 | Following the fire, the hero ties up an old woman. | At night, the fire goes out. The young man goes to look for fire and on the way ties up an old woman or an old man (usually a character responsible for the length of night and day). | 11 | 12 |
| B68a | The bird is punished: let it carry another. | Birds quarrel, and the one who claimed high status cripples the weak one. For this, the others order her to carry the crippled one on her back. | 6 | 12 |
| B78 | Shaking off, produces a blizzard. | When a character dusts himself off (or shakes out his clothes, plucks birds, etc.), snow falls from his hair, feathers, wool, bedding, clothes, etc. onto the ground. | 12 | 12 |
| B98b | The Bat and funerals. | The Bat comes into conflict with other creatures in connection with someone's death or funeral. | 11 | 12 |
| C35a | The good advisor is punished. | A zoomorphic character gives wise advice concerning the state of the Sun. The advice is accepted, but the advisor is punished by the Sun or is henceforth pursued by the Sun. | 8 | 12 |
| C35b | Frogs – enemies of the sun. | The frog (toad) prevents more than one sun from shining in the sky. | 6 | 12 |
| C6i | Stuck mud turns into earth. | A zoomorphic character returns from the underworld covered in mud. He shakes himself off, or the mud is scraped off him, and earth emerges from it. | 8 | 12 |
| D4f | Beavers or fish allow themselves to be roasted. | Once in the fire, the beaver (in North America) or fish (in South America) scatters and/or carries the fire away from its original owners. See motif D4A. | 8 | 12 |
| D7a | Spider and fire. | The spider possesses the first fire or steals it from its original owner (texts in which the spider acts together with other animals and does not play the main role are not included). | 9 | 12 |
| E22 | The swallowed gains knowledge. | Once inside a certain creature, the swallowed character learns rituals, songs, ornamental motifs, obtains drugs or poison, and, once outside again, passes this knowledge on to people. | 9 | 12 |
| E26 | Those who have become fish are turned back into humans. | People, or only women, go underwater and turn into fish. Men catch them with fishing gear. Those who are caught become human (women) again. (Narratives about the transformation of only one caught fish into the hero's wife are not included; see motif F7). | 9 | 12 |
| E6a | The path through water. | People walk across a (frozen) body of water to reach their current place of residence, while some remain on the other side or drown. | 6 | 12 |
| F24 | Cause of menstruation: bite. | Women lose blood when they are bitten by fish, snakes, etc. | 10 | 12 |
| F67 | An old woman pretends to be a man. | An old woman lives with her (adopted) daughter, niece or daughter-in-law. She (supposedly) turns into a man, marries a girl or tries to do so. | 11 | 12 |
| F95 | The wife of one of the brothers. | Two companions or brothers live together. One has a wife, whom he hides. The other suspects her existence, destroys her, or tries to get a wife for himself. | 10 | 12 |
| G12 | Tree – human. | A huge tree bearing various fruits and/or containing water in its trunk grows out of a human body or is a transformed human being. | 5 | 12 |
| I132 | To the sky on deer antlers. | A deer props its antlers against the sky, and a person climbs them to reach the upper world. Alternatively, a person finds themselves in the sky when they touch the deer's antlers. | 6 | 12 |
| I13e | The devoted snake. | The snake agrees to let the man go on condition that he does not tell anyone about their meeting. Under threat of death, the man breaks his promise. The snake teaches him to drink a broth made from its flesh and takes revenge not on the man, but on those who forced him to break his word. | 10 | 12 |
| I22h | Pulsating Abyss. | The character must jump over a gap (abyss) beneath his feet, which alternately widens and narrows, or a river whose banks converge and diverge. | 9 | 12 |
| I35a2 | Thunder – rolling stones, vessels. | Thunder is heard when stones or large vessels are rolled, dragged or overturned in the sky. | 10 | 12 |
| L15e2 | What happened when you threw the sword into the lake? | One character instructs another to throw a certain object (usually a sword or sabre) into the water. The messenger claims to have carried out the task, but cannot say what happened as a result, so it becomes clear that he has lied. | 9 | 12 |
| L15f | Life in a necklace, ATU 412. | A young woman or man dies as soon as her or his jewellery (rarely: organ) is stolen, and comes back to life when the jewellery is returned or when the antagonist removes it. | 11 | 12 |
| L42g3 | Gingerbread house. | In the forest or in the sky, the character sees a house that is made entirely or partially of edible materials. | 10 | 12 |
| L59a | Stuck to the whale. | People who mocked the hero or his son were dragged into the sea and turned into sea animals or parts of its body or parasites on its skin. | 7 | 12 |
| L72k | A discarded bottle of oil. | Fleeing for his life, the character throws a jar of oil behind him. Spilling out, it turns into a lake or river. (Only North American materials are taken into account. In the Old World, the motif is rare and unsystematic. In North America, it most likely refers to hair oil in all cases). | 7 | 12 |
| L73a | Darkness behind, light ahead. | The fugitives make sure that darkness spreads behind them, hindering their pursuers (while light pours in front of them). | 11 | 12 |
| L77 | The girl seems like a pineapple. | The character devours people because he sees them as a delicacy. | 9 | 12 |
| L81d | After fighting, the cripples recovered. | Two cripples with different physical disabilities quarrel and fight, and as a result become whole and healthy. | 11 | 12 |
| L85b | A woman who has offended a god gives birth to a freak. | A pregnant woman curses the Sun, Rain or another powerful character. Because of this, the child is born physically disabled. He possesses magical powers and usually acquires a normal body. | 5 | 12 |
| L88 | The demon comes to life from touch. | A man kills a demon, but when he touches its remains some time later, it comes to life. | 8 | 12 |
| L9f | Golden nose or teeth. | A person with a nose or teeth made of gold or silver is a sign of their demonic nature. | 11 | 12 |
| M13B | Sausage sticks to the nose. | People are promised the fulfilment of two (three, four) wishes. Without thinking, they wish for something they do not want at all. The last wish is spent on returning to the original state. | 7 | 12 |
| M149b | Dogs in the stomach. | A person says that in his stomach (in a box) there are dangerous creatures that he has swallowed (put in a box) and that they may come out. A predator that is about to eat (bite) a person believes this and runs away. | 9 | 12 |
| M154a1 | Pregnant wife on a pregnant mare. | A man who understands the language of animals hears the mare say that she is carrying four (three): she has a foal in her belly, and the woman in the saddle is also pregnant. | 11 | 12 |
| M18a | Obtaining arrows. | The character becomes the object of fishing or hunting, presenting himself as a target for enemies. Numerous arrows, darts, and harpoons stick into his body without causing harm, and he carries them away. See motif M18. | 12 | 12 |
| M1a | The caiman carries the Pleiades brothers. | The caiman transports one of the brothers or a group of brothers, who then turn into the Pleiades. It usually bites off the leg of the youngest. Cf. motif K13B. | 6 | 12 |
| M22a | The crane as a watchman. | In a foreign house, in a foreign country, where the hero finds himself, the crane or heron is a watchman who must raise the alarm in case of strangers appearing. | 8 | 12 |
| M29c | Trickster - Jay | See the motives in square brackets. | 8 | 12 |
| M29j | A trickster is a waterfowl or marsh bird | See the motives in square brackets. | 10 | 12 |
| M31 | Discharged into water | A character who can't swim asks another to take him by water. He agrees, but throws the rider into the water. | 6 | 12 |
| M32a | Eats what falls out | character's insides or pieces of flesh fall out of his back. He eats them, mistaking them for regular meat and fat. | 7 | 12 |
| M35 | Who won't freeze? | Two zoomorphic characters compete to see which of them will spend the whole night in the cold and stay alive. By morning, one of them dies. Cf. K27A motif (the cold test does not involve a two-animal competition). | 4 | 12 |
| M38d3 | A blurred lump of earth | The character, who is a lump of earth (oatmeal, salt), blurred in the rain or after going to get water. | 8 | 12 |
| M38d7 | Sausage makes soup, (ATU 85) | Person who represents something fat (a sausage, a piece of fat, etc.) prepares a rich soup adding to it its own fat. Another person tries to repeat the trick and dies | 8 | 12 |
| M39a5a1 | Chicken Army | Realizing that a son or wife, by telling the truth, will cause trouble for the family, the mother or husband makes them believe in the invasion of chickens (geese, crows), in the rain of stones, in the rain, from which they go blind, etc. In all cases, gullible people are planted in a hole covered with skin, in a barrel, etc., and let in the skin of poultry pecking grain (in Kyurins, chickens bite grain in the yard). See M39a5a motif. | 10 | 12 |
| M39g2 | To rake nuts with a pitchfork, ATU 1229* | Numskulls try to shovel nuts with a pitchfork. F stranger shows them how to do this work more easily with a shovel (a basket) | 8 | 12 |
| M53e | Allegedly inedible whale | A character (always a raven) kills a whale and points others to imaginary signs that whale meat is not suitable for food. People believe and all the meat goes to the deceiver. | 6 | 12 |
| M56c | Try on a snake | The character promises to bring a snake. The snake agrees to have the character measure its length. He ties the snake to a stick or, while measuring, finds out where to hit it to kill it. | 9 | 12 |
| M62d | A hare in rotten skin | trickster wears rotten skin, pretends to be another animal, and says that the name (i.e. himself) has caused him to get sick. The animals are frightened, they do not dare to take revenge on the trickster for his tricks. See M62C motif. | 6 | 12 |
| M6A | Journey to the end of the night | 5 | 12 | |
| M82 | Tail bells: tied voluntarily, J2155 | The character sees that something is tied to the other's tail. He also wants such a tail for himself, and as a result he suffers damage. | 8 | 12 |
| L100d1 | Mullah in the cradle. | A person endowed with (spiritual) power comes to a woman in the evening. When there is a knock at the door, the woman, having agreed in advance with her husband, tells the guest to lie down in the cradle and replies to her husband who has entered that their son is in the cradle. The man begins to turn the adult into a baby or threatens to do so: he shaves off his beard, knocks out his teeth, and grabs an axe to chop off his legs. The disgraced and exhausted guest runs away. | 10 | 13 |
| L103a | They did not unlock the door for their daughter. | A girl, a young woman, runs away from a demonic character; she manages to run home, but her relatives do not open the door. The pursuer finds and eats her. (A musical instrument is made from her hair or intestines). (Overview of variants in Rakhno 2016: 475-484). | 7 | 13 |
| L134 | The Third Wave. | The hero's adversary (usually a demonic woman) is inside a sea wave (the third or ninth) or embodies the wave. | 10 | 13 |
| L1c2 | Hiding under the hearth. | Fleeing from a demonic creature, the characters hide their children (younger brother or sister) in a camouflaged pit, usually under the hearth. See motif L1C. | 11 | 13 |
| L22B | Metamorphosis of the blind. | People who wake up blind in the morning turn into fish, birds or animals. See motif L22. | 9 | 13 |
| L26a | Extermination of spirits. | During the (first) initiation, men kill supernatural characters (reproducing their appearance and/or voices during rituals from that moment on). | 7 | 13 |
| L44b | The blind man saw, the lame man ran. | The blind and deaf (lame) began to live together, helping each other. After being mortally frightened or fighting, both (less often, one of them) got rid of their disabilities. | 8 | 13 |
| L72e1 | The pursuer hides the axe. | In order to destroy the obstacles created by the hero, the pursuer uses tools. Before continuing the chase, he is forced to spend time taking them home or hiding them, otherwise animals and birds will steal them. | 9 | 13 |
| L81a3 | Demon with a golden spoon. | A girl sees a demon in a frightening and repulsive form. When he asks her what she said about him (what she saw), the girl replies that she praised his beauty and manners (she saw him in an attractive form). Usually, the girl eventually tells the truth, and the men hiding in ambush kill the enraged demon. | 5 | 13 |
| L94e | White wolf. | A supernatural character who helps the hero or heroine under certain conditions – the white wolf. | 10 | 13 |
| M109a | Sitting on the ice, waiting for food from the sky. | One zoomorphic character advises another to sit on the ice for a long time – usually until food falls from the sky. The one who sits on the ice freezes to it. | 5 | 13 |
| M114k | Water that is neither earthly nor heavenly. | A liquid that is not normally used for drinking, washing or cooking is used once. It is necessary to guess what is meant, knowing that this water is neither from the earth nor from the sky (most often it is horse sweat). | 11 | 13 |
| M11a | Fish extracted from the body. | The character gives others the fish extracted from his body. | 9 | 13 |
| M133 | The wind as saviour. | Cumulative tale: a bird is injured by a thorny plant and asks for it to be punished, but everyone refuses because someone else has failed to do something; the last to be asked is the wind, which blows and causes all the characters to perform the necessary actions one after another. | 13 | 13 |
| M181b | How the spider came to live under the roof. | The story of the trickster Spider ends with his transformation into a spider that lives under the roof, in dark corners, etc. | 8 | 13 |
| M194 | Division of a traveller's property. | Several animals take possession of items that belonged to a human. When distributing the spoils, one keeps the food for himself and gives the others items that are more valuable than food but are only useful to humans. The animals that receive these items perish or suffer damage. | 7 | 13 |
| M29z2 | Gypsy - a cunning winner | Being smart and witty, the Gipsy overcomes strong adversaries | 10 | 13 |
| M38c3 | An old woman was turned into a monkey | A conceited smith attempts to rejuvenate an old woman (man). His magic helper tries to save the victim but all that he do is to transform the woman into an animal, usually a monkey | 10 | 13 |
| M38d1 | Hair neck | bubble-head, the straw leg, the hair-neck are successively dying, trying to act like ordinary people. | 8 | 13 |
| M39a2a | A fool buys spoons and a table | fool buys spoons and/or a table, tells the table to go on its own feet, throws away spoons because they rattle. The two episodes are usually combined. | 6 | 13 |
| M55 | Dangerous overnight stay | A human or weaker animal character takes a stronger character to sleep in a supposedly dangerous place where hot coals, sticks, etc. can fall on those lying at night; when A strong character falls asleep, his companion burns or hits him, pretending that both of them have suffered equally. | 5 | 13 |
| M57d4 | Frost donor | A person receives a reward from a character who is associated with frost. | 9 | 13 |
| M78b | Too many kids | Wishing a baby, a childless woman gives birth to many tiny boys. She or her husband kill them or throw them away, but she stays alone and helps their parents. | 7 | 13 |
| M7c | Fish help: offered and rejected | zoomorphic character is waiting to be transported across the water. Animals or fish consistently offer help. The character only accepts the latter's help - he was waiting for him to eat. | 5 | 13 |
| I4c | Thunder in captivity. | The enemy of the thunderer temporarily defeats and captures him. | 6 | 13 |
| I59b3 | The Milky Way – the road of salt traders. | The Milky Way – the road of salt traders, "Chumak Way". | 8 | 13 |
| I61a | The Milky Way – belt. | The Milky Way – the heavenly belt. | 11 | 13 |
| I87ad | Hidden in a tooth cavity. | A giant hides a persecuted person in his mouth – usually (perhaps always) in a tooth cavity; or the person remains alive in the giant's mouth, hiding in a tooth cavity. Cf. motif M21a. | 11 | 13 |
| I87e | Dwarves after humans. | After the present humans, dwarves will live on earth. | 7 | 13 |
| J12H | Opossum. | The false groom - the opossum. | 13 | 13 |
| J12l | The hypocritical murderer. | The murderer pretends to mourn the victim along with everyone else. The deception is revealed, and the murderer is pursued. See motif J12. | 10 | 13 |
| J14 | The flute player. | To find the man of her dreams, a woman follows the sounds of music or singing; she usually distinguishes imposters by listening to their clumsy performance. See motif J12. | 9 | 13 |
| J35 | The frog kills its pursuer. | A tree frog kills or neutralises a demon or beast pursuing the heroes. | 10 | 13 |
| J69 | Murders in jest and in earnest. | A person is killed (with a cold weapon, dead water) and then revived. Another person asks for the same thing to be done to him, but is not revived. | 10 | 13 |
| K138 | Body swap (king and vizier), ATU 678. | A person gains the ability to revive the dead by incarnating in their body. While they remain in it, their own body is dead. Another person takes the body of the first, leaving them with the body of an animal. | 12 | 13 |
| K168a | Food turns into severed body parts, ATU 664*. | A person thinks that they are holding something intended for food (a calf's head, a melon, bread, etc.), but these objects turn into human heads or limbs. Cf. motif K80c1. | 13 | 13 |
| K182 | The deceived protector. | A supernatural defender comes to the rescue upon hearing the alarm, but stops doing so after the alarm has been raised in vain. | 5 | 13 |
| K25c | The boy under the onion. | While digging roots, gathering shellfish, etc., a woman finds a baby. He grows up and enters into a struggle with dangerous characters. | 10 | 13 |
| K27d | House with dangerous creatures. | The test: to stay alive in a room full of predatory, poisonous and other dangerous creatures. See motif K27. | 13 | 13 |
| K27x8 | The guiding frog. | Only the frog (toad) knows the way to the object that is unattainable for ordinary people, which the hero is looking for (and helps him get there). | 9 | 13 |
| K43c | The dog unties the children. | The bound children (a young man and his sister) are left alone in an empty camp, and the animal frees them. | 9 | 13 |
| K56a4d | Ashes turn into flour. | A stepmother sends her stepdaughter to a house in the forest, giving her ashes, sand, etc. instead of food. The stepdaughter turns them into flour, groats, etc. | 5 | 13 |
| K56f2 | Woman, two men, five eggs, ATU 1663. | In order to divide a certain number (often five) of eggs equally among people of different sexes, a cunning woman takes into account that each of the men already has two eggs. | 13 | 13 |
| K65c3 | Eve is ashamed of her large family. | A woman (alone or with her husband) hides some of her children from God because she is ashamed of having given birth to so many offspring. | 11 | 13 |
| K73b5 | And so the mother could not eat her child. | A woman is accused of actions that she could not have committed by her very nature. To refute the accusation, an example of something equally absurd and impossible is given, or it is pointed out that the interlocutor accepts the impossible but does not believe in the possible. | 10 | 13 |
| K80a4 | Hair turns into grass, (ATU 780A). | The hair on a character's head turns into grass (thorns, bamboo, bushes). | 11 | 13 |
| N12 | Beard cloak | A powerful character makes or tells you to make a cloak or fur coat from human beards and/or mustaches. | 6 | 13 |
| N28b | Stairway to Heaven | In a list of things that do not exist in the world, a ladder or stairway to the sky (variant: a ladder in the sky) is mentioned | 5 | 13 |
| A13b | Ants eclipse the sun. | During an eclipse or at the first appearance of night, ants eclipse the sun. | 5 | 13 |
| A19a | In the morning on an ox, in the evening on a horse. | Moving daily across the sky, the sun changes its riding animals (usually in the morning it rides on an animal that moves slowly, and in the evening on another that runs faster). | 10 | 13 |
| A29a | Torn apart by two women. | Heavenly and earthly women (demons) pull a man in different directions. As a result, he (or his half) turns into a heavenly object. | 10 | 13 |
| A4b | The sun is afraid of the night. | The sun decided to walk across the sky during the day because it is afraid of the night. | 9 | 13 |
| B105 | The transformation of a shy daughter-in-law. | The father-in-law or mother-in-law catches the daughter-in-law in a situation she is ashamed of (with her hair down, bathing, etc.). Out of shame, she turns into a bird (usually a hoopoe) or a turtle. | 9 | 13 |
| B15 | River from a woman's body. | The river flows from the organs of a woman's body. | 8 | 13 |
| B16a | Sea of urine. | The sea is formed from urine or blood. | 6 | 13 |
| B1g | Four brothers-transformers. | Four brothers change the world, freeing it from monsters, transforming its inhabitants and obtaining valuable resources (water, fire, cultivated plants, etc.). Usually one of the brothers is the leader, and the others help him. All four often have a common name. | 7 | 13 |
| B30b | The slain turn into animals. | Animals arise from the remains of a killed person. | 9 | 13 |
| B42i | Cassiopeia – deer. | Cassiopeia is associated with a deer or elk. | 6 | 13 |
| B5c | Mother and daughter at the beginning of time. | At the beginning of time, there are an old woman and a young woman. One or both of them conceive in a miraculous way. A son or twins are born, who settle the world. | 6 | 13 |
| B64b | Small bones: war between different fish. | Two types of fish shoot arrows at each other. Since then, the fish have had many small bones in their bodies, or some of their bones have split in two. | 11 | 13 |
| B67 | The tree turns into stones. | A fallen tree and/or its stump turns into a mountain (mountain range) or rocks. (Usually, the branches of this tree bear the fruits and shoots of various cultivated plants, see motif G5). | 9 | 13 |
| B85a | Regulating the wind. | The wind stops blowing (after blowing too strongly). A character approaches it and establishes the necessary balance. Since then, the wind blows, but usually not too strongly. | 13 | 13 |
| C2a | The Woodpecker's Fire. | Two characters meet a woodpecker and receive an object from it, which causes the ground to catch fire upon contact. The stronger and smarter of the two characters escapes, while the weaker and stupider one is burned or burned to death. | 6 | 13 |
| C39 | Repairing the sky. | When the sky split or partially collapsed, it was repaired. | 4 | 13 |
| C6f | Retrieving a drowned person. | The characters attempt to retrieve a living creature or part of its body that has sunk to the bottom of the water. See motif C6. | 12 | 13 |
| c8f | Salvation in a drum during the flood. | During the flood, a brother and sister float in a drum. | 6 | 13 |
| D1a1 | The old woman-fire takes the child away. | Because a woman offended the fire, its mistress takes her child away. | 8 | 13 |
| D4h1 | The robin obtains fire. | A small songbird (redstart, robin, wren) obtains fire for humans. | 4 | 13 |
| E1b1 | Prohibited work for a daughter-in-law. | A man who has married an unusual girl is warned that she must not perform certain tasks or eat certain foods. Other members of his household ensure that the young woman breaks the prohibition, and as a result she dies or disappears. | 10 | 13 |
| E30b | Pygmalion. | A man makes a figure or receives a woman. She comes to life and becomes his wife. | 12 | 13 |
| F26 | Cause of menstruation: loss of sacred objects. | The transfer of sacred musical instruments (horns, trumpets) from women to men is associated with the onset of menstruation in women. | 6 | 13 |
| G12c | The fox brings plants from the sky. | The fox or coyote ascends to the sky and, upon returning, spreads plants across the earth that previously only existed in the sky. | 4 | 13 |
| G4 | Mountain of abundance. | Cultivated plants found on or inside a mountain. | 10 | 13 |
| H24a | Bag of stars. | Opening the bag, the character releases stars that rush chaotically into the sky. | 8 | 13 |
| H36e | The rat betrays man. | The rat is to blame for the fact that man is mortal. | 11 | 13 |
| H36j | The lark betrays man. | The lark is to blame for the fact that man is mortal. | 7 | 13 |
| H7h | Death follows man. | Despite the warning, man goes to where Death is at that moment. Death enters his body or follows him, and since then, people have been mortal. | 3 | 13 |
| I135 | Heavenly skin or cloth. | The sky (Milky Way, clouds) is an animal skin or a piece of cloth. | 8 | 13 |
| A2e | The sun and moon – severed heads. | The sun and/or moon – severed heads of anthropomorphic beings. | 11 | 14 |
| A43a | The moon in one moccasin. | The moon or character currently visible on the moon hastily ascends to the sky. He is missing one trouser leg or shoe on one foot. Cf. motifs A43 and K13A. | 8 | 14 |
| B104 | The chicken turns into a turtle. | A guest arrived, the host hid the chicken, and when he wanted to eat it, it turned out that it had turned into a turtle. | 10 | 14 |
| B112 | The one who returned the stolen goods decorated. | The character is called upon to help perform a task (usually to transport property or provisions across a river) and takes away what has been entrusted to him. A woodpecker or titmouse returns the stolen goods. The owner of the property paints or dresses the bird, hence the colour of its plumage | 11 | 14 |
| B115a | Knots in wood, ATU 774H. | Angry at the carpenters, the character (St. Peter) asks another (Christ) to make the knots in the wood or branches iron. The latter only makes them very hard. | 8 | 14 |
| B11B | The drowned mammoth. | At the beginning of time or during the flood, the mammoth drowned or sank into the ground, and since then it has not been seen on earth. | 9 | 14 |
| B20 | Expedition to the upper world. | People ascend to the sky to hunt, fish, or gather honey; they do not give honey, fish, or good meat to the person who remained below; that person makes sure that they remain in the sky forever. | 5 | 14 |
| B38d | Raven and owl. | The Raven and the Owl paint each other. | 8 | 14 |
| B40b | The horse changes with the cow. | The horse changes with the cow, gives up its horns and/or gets teeth. | 10 | 14 |
| B42s | Wounded by a spear. | The Big Dipper or Polar Star – a small animal (ermine, marten, forest marmot) or anthropomorphic character with animal features, struck by a spear or arrow. | 11 | 14 |
| B47a | The cow's split hoof. 33.34. | A cow steps on the Pleiades stars lying on the ground, which were demonic creatures. Some of the stars slipped through her split hoof. | 7 | 14 |
| B58 | The red neck of the turkey. | After the first ancestors steal the original fire, a forest bird the size of a partridge (Penelope sp.; Anhima cornuta; etc.; jacu, paujil) swallows a hot coal. As a result (except for the Andoc), its neck turns red. | 9 | 14 |
| B65 | Intestines turn into vines. | A mischievous character imitates other animal-people. As a result, his belly is torn open and his spilled intestines turn into vines. | 9 | 14 |
| C12a | The Flood and the Dog. | The dog warns of an impending global flood or fire and advises what to do. | 7 | 14 |
| C30c | Drinking the sea. | A man promises to drink the sea (to count how many drops of water there are in the sea), but asks his opponent to first separate the sea water from the water of the rivers flowing into the sea. | 13 | 14 |
| C31a | Lights or fire promised to the devil. | The master (mistress) of the underworld receives (should receive) heavenly lights or fire. Due to a trick or accident, they are not given to him or are returned. | 9 | 14 |
| D10 | The fire drill is a pair of people. | A couple of people serve as the embodiment of a tool for obtaining fire. | 11 | 14 |
| D13h | He who goes to the dead must not laugh. | Those who have entered the world of the dead should not laugh. | 9 | 14 |
| D2a | Mother dies giving birth to fire or the sun. | A woman gives birth to a son who is the embodiment of fire or the sun and dies from burns. | 4 | 14 |
| E9k | Husband-honey (bee). | The husband or wife is the embodiment of honey or a human bee. | 9 | 14 |
| F22A | Names of body parts. | The character repeatedly asks the woman about the names and/or functions of her body parts until he reaches the genitals. | 8 | 14 |
| F49a | An animal teaches how to give birth. | A small animal (mouse, rat, rabbit, two-wombed animal, bird) explains how to give birth. See motif F49. | 12 | 14 |
| F70d | The disgraced informer. | A girl pretends to be a man or a eunuch, or a girl hides a disability, or a man pretends to be a girl. Someone reveals a secret. At the last moment, the hero or heroine magically gets rid of the disability (acquires male or female nature), the informer is disgraced (executed). | 7 | 14 |
| F89 | The sister's cunning. | A sister and brother live alone. The brother refuses to commit incest. The sister resorts to cunning, as a result of which the brother mistakes her for a stranger and marries her. | 9 | 14 |
| F9e | Mice in the vagina. | Small mammals with sharp teeth are found in a woman's vagina. | 9 | 14 |
| F9g1 | The heavy hand of the bride. | On her wedding night, the bride-heroine throws herself on her groom to crush him. | 10 | 14 |
| H43ab | The spat upon is mortal. | Man is mortal because he was spat upon at creation. | 10 | 14 |
| H7f2 | Death becomes invisible. | The character embodying death had a body visible to humans. Then death became invisible. | 14 | 14 |
| I102 | The Milky Way – a tree. | The Milky Way – a tree, the trace of a tree. | 11 | 14 |
| I25b | Wiping the stove with hair. | This refers to women who work without the simplest tools, using parts of their bodies instead. | 10 | 14 |
| I47a | Rainbow – fox wedding. | The rainbow is associated with the wedding of a fox or jackal. | 6 | 14 |
| I5a | Thunder tapir. | The tapir is associated with the upper world (thunder, sky, moon). | 6 | 14 |
| I64a | Race on the Milky Way. | Two different hoofed animals race across the sky. Usually, the Milky Way is the dusty trail they leave behind. | 11 | 14 |
| I68a | The night of magical water. | Once a year, water briefly acquires unusual properties. | 9 | 14 |
| I81b | Charybdis (ebb and flow). | During high tide, a certain creature spews seawater or displaces it with its body, and during low tide, it swallows the water or makes room for it (or it is simply reported that the water is either spewed or recedes). | 11 | 14 |
| J15b | Woman at the toad's house. | While travelling, a woman finds herself in the house of a frog or toad. See motif J15. | 6 | 14 |
| J41 | Foxes mock the abandoned. | The hero leaves for a long time. When he returns, his relative does not immediately believe that it is really him. All this time, someone has been mocking him or her, imitating the voice of the departed, saying that he has returned and/or throwing ashes in his or her face. | 9 | 14 |
| K107e | Delayed childbirth. | A woman remains pregnant for many years and gives birth only after her wonderful husband, who has left her, or someone else allows her to do so. | 10 | 14 |
| k117c1 | To play before death. | A man sentenced to death asks to be given something from his possessions, usually a musical instrument. Once he has it, he gains power over those gathered and is saved. | 12 | 14 |
| K168b | The bewildered man became a bear. | A person makes another person believe that he has turned into a bear (wolf), found himself in the forest, etc. When he wakes up, the bewitched person finds himself where he was before. | 10 | 14 |
| K182a | The sleeping defender. | A mighty warrior residing in a cave (or crypt, etc.) will eventually emerge into the light (to assist his people), or he could emerge but chooses not to. | 10 | 14 |
| K24c | An old man helps to obtain a bird wife, ATU 413. | A young man comes to an old man (less often – to an old woman), who teaches him how to get a magical wife by hiding her bird clothes. Usually, the young man gives away the clothes for the first time and lives with the old man until the girls fly back. | 11 | 14 |
| K25b | A woman follows a porcupine. | A woman climbs a tree trying to catch a porcupine and ends up in the sky. | 7 | 14 |
| K27o2 | Playing with a dangerous ball. | To destroy the hero, his opponents play ball with him, throwing a heavy dangerous object (a ball made of ice, bone, stone, iron, a walrus head, a biting skull, etc.). | 7 | 14 |
| K29c | Brings a tree. | They hope to kill the hero by knocking a tree down on him or tying him to a tree. He comes back alive, dragging the tree behind him. | 10 | 14 |
| K32k | False wife – beetle or larva. | The false wife, replacing the real one – a foul-smelling beetle or larva. | 7 | 14 |
| K51a | Pushes a rival into boiling water. | One woman comes to another in the absence of a man and kills her by pushing her rival's head into boiling liquid or pouring boiling water or hot fat into her ear. See motif K51. | 10 | 14 |
| K56ab | The girl takes off her shirts, the snake takes off its skin (ATU 433B). | A girl marries a monster. On their wedding night, he orders her to take off her shirt, and she orders him to take off his skin. The girl survives, and the monster becomes handsome – usually because she has more shirts (or skins worn in advance) than he does. | 12 | 14 |
| K56d1 | Treasures in a pumpkin. | A pumpkin or watermelon (grown from gifted seeds) given to a person turns out to contain treasures. | 12 | 14 |
| K61e | The one who laughs rewards. | Seeing an absurd situation, a powerful (supernatural) character laughs and is thereby usually cured of his ailment. For this, the people involved in the situation are rewarded and saved from danger. | 8 | 14 |
| K76h | The magical groom threatens disaster. | A young man, temporarily having a strange or monstrous appearance (freak, animal, etc.), woos a princess, but is rejected. Then he causes natural disasters or creates personal troubles for the king, who is forced to give up his daughter. | 10 | 14 |
| K88c | The blood of a dog will cure the princess. | The character learns that the blood (brain, etc.) of the dog guarding the neighbouring herd will cure the princess (prince). He uses this medicine and is rewarded. | 7 | 14 |
| K89a | Where to leave the sister? | Having escaped danger, the girl or boy goes with their sister or brother. The sister or brother is crippled, rejects a number of places where they are to be left, and remains in the last place offered. See motif K89. | 6 | 14 |
| K8b | Woman – the soul of the whale. | A raven finds itself in the belly of a whale; the woman inside asks it not to touch a certain organ of the whale (usually the heart) or a burning lamp. The raven breaks the prohibition, the woman disappears, and the whale dies. | 8 | 14 |
| L128 | You are Lyuta, and I am Pra-Lyuta. | When a demonic character or predator reveals who he is, the hero or herbivorous animal responds by calling himself a name that implies his superiority over his opponent. | 11 | 14 |
| L129a | Man asks, wolf explains. | The wolf or demon is asked why its body parts and organs are the way they are. It explains sequentially. | 12 | 14 |
| L33d | The hero defeats the stone monster. | A rolling stone-monster kills people. The hero destroys it. See motif L33. | 8 | 14 |
| L41b | Tar basket. | A basket in which a cannibal puts people is smeared or filled with tar. See motifs L41, L42. | 10 | 14 |
| L42a | Cannibal steals corpses. | The cannibal steals fresh corpses from graves. | 12 | 14 |
| L42g2 | The bird erases the trace. | A person leaves traces behind by dropping seeds, pebbles, etc., or leaving drops of blood. These traces are unintentionally destroyed by birds, animals, wind, etc. | 10 | 14 |
| L65b1 | Exchanging sheep for dogs. | A man exchanges sheep (goats) for dogs. The exchange seems unequal, but the dogs help him achieve success. | 6 | 14 |
| L69 | The puma defeats the monster. | A monster attacks a person; a puma, jaguar or dog fights the monster, kills or drives it away; the person returns home. | 11 | 14 |
| L90b | Fangs reaching the sky and the earth. | One tooth (fang) of the creature touches the sky, the other reaches the earth or the underworld. | 6 | 14 |
| L93c | The monkey helper. | The monkey, resorting to cunning, helps the hero or heroine, saves them. | 14 | 14 |
| M100b | Jumping off a cliff. | One of the characters persuades another to jump from a high cliff or tree, because, allegedly, the other's ancestor did so. The other jumps, crashes or falls into the clutches of the first. | 9 | 14 |
| M130 | The fox and the bird in one burrow. | The fox and the bird hide from the hunter in the same burrow or hollow. The bird pretends to be dead and as a result is saved – either alone or together with the fox. Cf. motif M130A. | 13 | 14 |
| M147a | Foxes meet at the market. | When the foxes (wolves) meet and one of them (one of the wolves) asks when they will see each other again, the other replies that it will be at the fur market (at the furrier's, etc.). | 14 | 14 |
| M163a | What do cats eat? | A man sells a cat (rooster) to people who do not know about cats (or chickens). Having received a cat or rooster, people do not know what to feed them and fear that they will eat people. | 10 | 14 |
| M171c1 | In exchange for a bast shoe. | The character has only a bast shoe with him (or he pretends that he had a bast shoe). He asks for a place to stay for the night, and in the morning he claims that he had something more valuable with him. At each new place to stay, he continues to exchange something less valuable for something more valuable. | 8 | 14 |
| M190 | Beaver and porcupine. | The beaver carries the porcupine across a water barrier. Usually, he throws it into the water or leaves it on an island. | 9 | 14 |
| M29h | Trickster - Owl | See the motives in square brackets. | 11 | 14 |
| M39a4c | The fool sells his property to the birds | Fool sells property to birds and believes that they will pay him. Trying to get his money, he finds treasure | 10 | 14 |
| M39a6e | Basket Maker, ATU 888A* | A person learns a craft (weaving, painting) in order to earn a living for the family. His wife is kidnapped (separated if he is with him). The wife finds out that her husband is there when she sees baskets or other items he has made. | 13 | 14 |
| M4 | Careless step | When crossing a pond or descending from a tree, the character (usually despite a warning) steps at a specific animal or part of the animal's body . As a result, it falls into the water and often sinks. | 4 | 14 |
| M61a | Owners quarrel to get valuables | To get valuables, the character provokes a quarrel between their owners. When they start fighting each other, valuables fall out of their bodies and end up at the character's disposal. | 7 | 14 |
| M79 | Reed Dancer, J1883 | A person joins the dancers; it turns out that the dancers are reeds or trees in the wind. | 5 | 14 |
| M81b | Don't go after a stuck arrow | The character is warned not to try to reach an arrow if it gets stuck in a tree. He breaks the ban and gets into trouble. | 8 | 14 |
| M96 | Imaginary guests | In order not to share with family members, the character pretends to have guests and eats everything himself. | 11 | 14 |
| N21 | Hero dough | The warrior-hero was made of dough and then became alive (his name is “The Dough”) | 8 | 14 |
| M8c | Cleaned eyes | Birds pierce through a layer of clay, wax, resin, etc., that covers the character's eyes or anus. | 7 | 15 |
| M8d | Extend the hole in the body | Birds break through the hard cover on the character's body to reach his entrails. | 8 | 15 |
| M90a2 | What did the tree grow from? | It should be guessed that the plant grew from a part of the body of a man or a snake or from dirt scraped off from the body | 12 | 15 |
| M94a | Mountain riding: antagonist victims | The demonic character kills his victims, provoking them to slide down the mountain. | 9 | 15 |
| I4d | The stolen weapon of Grom, ATU 1148B. | An enemy steals a weapon (usually a musical instrument) used by the thunder god to summon a storm. The thunder god or his assistant comes unrecognised to the thief, takes possession of his weapon and kills his enemies. | 13 | 15 |
| I50b | Many-legged beast (predator). | Describes or depicts a predatory animal with six or more legs. | 7 | 15 |
| I80a | Junior Thunder. | Upon meeting the Thunders, a person becomes one of them. | 10 | 15 |
| J22e | Man from the afterbirth, T541.12. | The second character emerges from the afterbirth of the first. | 10 | 15 |
| J24 | Ground into flour. | The hero, ground into powder, is reborn. | 6 | 15 |
| J29 | The shadow of the father. | Murdered parents themselves inform their children about the circumstances of their death. | 13 | 15 |
| J49 | The Moon's wife falls down. | The wife and/or sister of the Moon unsuccessfully tries to climb up to him in the sky or reaches him but returns to earth. | 10 | 15 |
| K102a4 | The wolf across the river. | A hostile young character is located behind a water barrier. The young man's sister or mother helps him cross and becomes his lover. | 6 | 15 |
| K136 | The young man and the cows. | The young man turns out to be the owner and leader of a herd of cattle, and with his herd of cows or buffaloes he is summoned to the king (usually after his hair is found by the princess). | 11 | 15 |
| K137a | A girl disguised as a young man finds a wife for her brother. | The brother is killed. The sister, dressed in his clothes, finds a woman. The brother comes back to life, the sister puts on women's clothes again, and the woman believes that the girl's brother was the one who married her. | 9 | 15 |
| K181 | The horse from the dungeon. | The hero finds a suitable horse in the dungeon (in the basement, in an empty castle, in deep mud, etc.), where it has stood for many years. | 10 | 15 |
| K27a | Night in the cold. | Test: spend the night in the cold (the antagonist tries to destroy the hero in this way). See motif K27. Compare motif M35: two zoomorphic characters compete to see which of them will sit out the night in the cold. | 13 | 15 |
| K27v1 | To hit a needle with an arrow. | The character must hit the eye of a needle with an arrow (the eye of a needle). | 10 | 15 |
| K27zz3 | The pit by the apple tree. | The father or stepmother (werewolf) pushes/locks the sisters (the girl and her servants) into a pit. The heroine manages to escape and triumphs over her antagonists. | 10 | 15 |
| K38f2 | A mark made with dragon's blood. | The girl saved by the hero smears him with the blood of the monster he has slain. When the deceiver claims that he killed the dragon, the hero shows the bloodstain on his body, thus proving that he is the victor. | 10 | 15 |
| K55 | Rewarded chastity. | A powerful character finds out whether his guest has made love to his daughter or wife (if the character is a woman: whether he has attempted to have sexual contact with her). A man who is impotent or (successfully pretends to be) chaste is rewarded (at least not punished). In most cases, the other character engages in sexual contact or is unable to hide what he has done and is punished as a result. | 12 | 15 |
| k73a9 | The talking bed. | Lying on the marital bed, the deceiver, who has taken the place of the real wife, hears the conversation of her rival or her children, and in the morning orders the bed to be destroyed. | 11 | 15 |
| K76d | The Hedgehog Son, ATU 441. | The son or foster child of a married couple is a hedgehog. He marries a princess and turns into a handsome man. | 13 | 15 |
| K90b | Deer antlers in the dragon's mouth. | The antlers of a deer or the tusks of an elephant, which a snake or dragon is trying to swallow, get stuck in its mouth. | 14 | 15 |
| A19c1 | The Sun Chariot. | The sun or moon travels across the sky in a chariot or sleigh. | 6 | 15 |
| A32b1 | Jumps on the face of the Moon. | A woman sits (jumps) on the face (back) of the Moon Man and is now visible in the silhouette of the moon spots. | 13 | 15 |
| B123 | A fly instead of a nail, ATU 772*. | A fly lands on the chest of the crucified Jesus. His persecutors, who intended to drive a nail into his heart, do not do so, believing that the nail has already been driven in. | 8 | 15 |
| B42e | Hunting the rhea. | In the cosmic hunting plot, the object of pursuit is the rhea (Rhea americana, a large flightless bird). See motif B42. | 7 | 15 |
| B72b | An offended child becomes a bird. | A girl or, less commonly, a boy turns into a bird after his mother (father, guardian) refuses to give him water or food or otherwise mistreats him. | 10 | 15 |
| B74a | Red cloths over the eyes. | Red cloths are sewn over the character's eyes (threads, eyelids are painted red) or he does it himself. He sees everything in red or his eyes have turned red forever. | 9 | 15 |
| B87b | Harnessed wolf. | The Great Bear – a cart harnessed by a wolf or bear. Usually, the shape of the handle of the dipper is explained by the fact that a wolf or bear attacked an ox harnessed to the cart and took its place. In this case, it is associated with Alcor or the last star of the handle of the dipper – η. | 10 | 15 |
| B91 | The sharp-eyed snail. | The snail had (the most keen-eyed) eyes. Another character borrows them and does not return them. | 9 | 15 |
| D4b | Retribution for fire. | Those who stole or asked for fire and/or those who received fire are punished by the deity. | 6 | 15 |
| D4j | The rabbit obtains fire. | The thief, the thief's assistant, or the owner of fire is a rabbit, a hare, or (ofaye) a guinea pig. See motif D4A. | 15 | 15 |
| E1d | Clay boats. | (The first) boat is made of obviously unsuitable material. | 9 | 15 |
| E3 | New people from the bones of the old. | After the destruction of the previous world, new people (rarely: new earth) are made from the remains of the dead. | 11 | 15 |
| E8a | People in fruits. | Women or people in general emerge from fruits (often coconuts), or fruits or, less commonly, leaves turn into people or only women. Cf. motif k33c. | 6 | 15 |
| E9i4 | The magical wife – the crane. | Before meeting the hero, his beloved (wife, helper) takes the form of a crane. | 10 | 15 |
| E9l | The magical wife – mouse. | Before meeting the hero, his beloved (wife) has the image of a mouse (rarely: a rat). | 14 | 15 |
| F13 | The red penis of primates. | The genitals of humans or monkeys acquire their current shape and colour as a result of copulation with a girl who had a toothy womb or no vagina. | 8 | 15 |
| F18d | Long clitoris. | Female genitals were enormous in size. | 11 | 15 |
| F28a3 | Pleasant for girls, dangerous for others. | A girl (woman) possesses an object that is pleasant (useful). Once in the hands of others, it becomes harmful (dangerous). | 14 | 15 |
| F51c | Provocative behaviour after incest. | Upon learning that her unknown lover is her own brother, the girl shows him her genitals or bare breasts, offering him what he so desired. After that, she runs away, and he rushes after her. | 9 | 15 |
| F55a | Placing on the naked body (demon and woman). | A demonic character persuades a woman to expose a certain part of her body, because that is the only place where a certain object should be placed. The demon kills the woman, tearing off that part of her body. Usually, the woman uses or names various locations, and the character rejects each one in turn until he finds the right one. | 8 | 15 |
| F86a | The pet is eaten. | The character cares for a fish, crab or other creature. Others watch the character, kill and eat his pet, or try to do so. | 12 | 15 |
| G12a | Plants from drops of blood. | Cultivated plants arise from drops of blood or flow like blood from cuts on the body of a human or animal. | 7 | 15 |
| G13b | Mushrooms as inferior food. | Before the advent of cultivated plants, people ate mushrooms. Creatures of a non-human nature feed on mushrooms. Mushrooms are imaginary, inferior food. | 9 | 15 |
| G22 | Frog/toad and cultivated plants. | The frog/toad is associated with humans acquiring cultivated plants. | 6 | 15 |
| G24a | Seeds hidden on the body. | The character steals cultivated plants for people, hiding the seeds on/in his own body. | 13 | 15 |
| G8f | Burnt wood chips. | Characters cut down a tree, but the trunk grows back. They manage to finish the job after the splinters are carried away or burned. | 13 | 15 |
| H34c | Flying rice. | Rice flew (came) from the field to the house. | 9 | 15 |
| H43ac | The antagonist brings people to life instead of the creator. | The creator made human figures and left. By sneaking up on the figures, the antagonist brings them to life himself. That's why people are mortal and imperfect. | 8 | 15 |
| H7f1 | Death as a devourer. | Death devours the dead and thus satisfies its hunger. | 12 | 15 |
| I107 | Stars – nails. | Stars are nails or stakes driven into the sky, or stars are nailed down. | 12 | 15 |
| I14a | Ejecting food through the mouth. | People without anuses regurgitate what they have eaten through their mouths or other (marked) orifices. See motif I14. | 14 | 15 |
| I17a | Dwarfs without bodily orifices. | Creatures without an anal opening or mouth - dwarves. | 9 | 15 |
| I41a | Rainbow from an anthill. | A rainbow rises from an anthill or termite mound. | 9 | 15 |
| L108d | Stones sewn into the belly. | A character who swallowed his prey alive falls asleep. When his belly was cut open, the swallowed prey was removed and replaced with stones, but he did not notice anything. | 12 | 15 |
| L108e | Children of the fox, ATU 123A. | A fox has a child, usually adopted (she cares for a lamb, a foal, etc.), a wolf or a bear kills it, and the fox takes revenge. | 15 | 15 |
| L35 | Severed hand. | A shaman or spirit comes at night and, reaching his hand into the hut, steals food or disturbs a woman. A man in the hut cuts off or tears off the hand. | 11 | 15 |
| L37b3 | The body of a bird has miraculous powers. | From the birds' conversation, humans learn that their bodies or secretions have miraculous properties. | 8 | 15 |
| L5g | The head of the older sister rolls after the younger one. | Only the head remains of one of the sisters. It rolls after the other sister or sisters, or they take it with them; in the end, the head finds a place where it wants to settle. | 13 | 15 |
| L65a2 | Shot finger. | A man shoots off (damages) the finger of a demonic creature, and then sees that his sister, lying in her cradle, has lost her finger. | 11 | 15 |
| L72d | Abandoned scissors. | Fleeing for his life, the character throws behind him a pair of scissors, which turn into some kind of obstacle in the path of his pursuer. | 13 | 15 |
| M107 | The turtle bites off the penis. | A small character kills or maims a large four-legged animal by clinging to its genitals. | 12 | 15 |
| M140a | The fox ties up its companion. | The fox cunningly ties up the wolf or man and runs away. | 8 | 15 |
| M157c | You are hens, and I am a rooster. | To put a character in an awkward position, others present him with chicken eggs that they have prepared in advance, which the character does not have. (Usually, he crows and says that there are hens around him and only he is a rooster). | 12 | 15 |
| M186 | Competition in speed: fish and animal. | An animal (fox, wolf, leopard) runs along the shore, while a fish (burbot, goby, catfish) swims in the water. The animal calls out to the fish, which is always ahead (usually keeping other fish at a distance, but in the Negidal variant, the motif of competition is omitted). | 11 | 15 |
| M197b | Rusted stallions and foaled mares. | The owner claims that other mares foaled or aborted because his stallions, which were far away from the mares, whinnied, that any foal born was from his mare, etc. The young man begins to kill the owner's dogs: they did not chase away the wolves (they scared away the game, etc.), although they were far from the scene. The owner acknowledges the absurdity of his claim. | 11 | 15 |
| M29E | Trickster - Skunk | See the motives in square brackets. | 11 | 15 |
| M36 | Disassembled into pieces fits into the hole | The character finds himself inside wood, stone, ice, etc. He or someone else makes a hole, but it's too small. Then he disassembles himself (or turns into fog), pushes these parts into the hole and reassembles it. | 11 | 15 |
| M39a4f | Fool sells property to statue | Fool sells property to the statue and believes that it will pay him. Trying to get his money, he finds treasure | 10 | 15 |
| M39a5a3 | The master's devils were beaten | Realizing that a wife telling the truth will cause trouble for the family, the husband says that the sounds she hears are the screams of her master (official, etc.) who is beaten, dragged to hell, etc. She repeats this to the master (official), who declares her insane. | 11 | 15 |
| M75b2 | Predetermined marriage: a bird tries to prevent | bird tries in vain to prevent the marriage, which she learned was inevitable when the future spouses were still children. | 13 | 15 |
| M84c | Spirit Guest | Sleeping in a deserted place, a person finds himself among spirits. One of them explains that he has a guest, that is the same person. | 8 | 15 |
| K93b5 | Disguised as a puppy. | The character infiltrates the enemy camp disguised as a kitten or puppy. Usually, one of the enemies suspects deception, but the others believe that the cute animal is harmless. | 8 | 16 |
| L117 | Imposed companions. | A man is going to get married. An evil spirit, animal, etc. imposes itself on him as a companion (usually helping, feeding, or simply saying that it will then demand half of the wife). After the wedding, it takes or tries to take the bride or demands to share her. In the Gola text, a man obtains a wife for the spirit and demands to share her. | 12 | 16 |
| L121a | The hunter's secret. | The hunter has the ability to avoid danger by transforming himself into various objects. His shapeshifting wife tries to recognise them in order to destroy the hunter. | 7 | 16 |
| L124 | The demon's treacherous gift. | A person extracts a vein, spinal cord, or intestine from the demon's body, cuts out a strip of skin, or receives a belt as a gift, but does not gird himself or another, instead placing the belt on a tree. The belt cuts or burns the tree. | 9 | 16 |
| L4a | Meat answers to the master. | To test the loyalty of the heroine (hero), the demon demands that she eat food that humans should not eat. Usually, when the heroine reports that the food has been eaten, the demon asks where the food is, and the food answers him. | 12 | 16 |
| L5e1 | A female demon pursues her children. | A woman who has become a monster pursues her own children. | 15 | 16 |
| L65c | The elder sister-cannibal. | The eldest of three or more sisters turns out to be a cannibal, devouring her younger sisters and other people. | 10 | 16 |
| L74a | Hanged over the hearth. | The enemy carries the hero away or tears off and carries away part of his body, after which he hangs his victim or part of his body (usually over a fire) in order to cause the victim torment. Another character rescues the hero himself or returns the stolen part of his body to him. | 13 | 16 |
| L95a | Light on water. | A person sees lungs or a liver lying on the ground or floating in the water. As soon as he touches them, a demonic character appears before him. | 12 | 16 |
| M108 | The trickster takes away property. | The character is called upon to help perform a task (usually to transport property or provisions across a river) and takes away what has been entrusted to him. | 9 | 16 |
| M127c | Foolishly frightened. | Seeing an object that has been deliberately left behind or accidentally dropped, or hearing a sound it makes, the character sees it as a sign of danger and reacts inappropriately. | 14 | 16 |
| M171d | Mena: receives a drum. | The character exchanges one thing for another and ultimately receives a musical instrument (usually a drum). | 14 | 16 |
| M174 | Eats from behind. | The weaker character manipulates the stronger one so that he loses the ability to move, although he is still alive. The weak one begins to eat the strong one from behind, refusing, under one pretext or another, to approach from the front, or refrains from eating while the victim is still alive. | 8 | 16 |
| M2 | Descending a tree. | The hero descends from a tree or rock on the back of an animal or on the backs of animals. | 11 | 16 |
| M29m | The Trickster is the Rat | See the motives in square brackets. | 15 | 16 |
| M39a7 | Misunderstood instructions: washing with boiling water, ATU 1013 | When instructed to wash the old man with warm water, the fool steams him with boiling water. | 13 | 16 |
| M5b | An Ungrateful Rat | rat drowns, has difficulty getting to the shore (usually an aquatic animal takes it), and mocks other animals (usually its savior). | 11 | 16 |
| M70 | The elder poisons the younger ones with intestinal gases | The oldest character poisons the youngest with his intestinal gases. | 11 | 16 |
| M78a | The tail boy | A tiny little man emerges from the severed tail of a goat or sheep. | 13 | 16 |
| M81a | Vivid female ducks | The hero meets two blind women and makes them sighted. These women are birds (geese, ducks, hazel grouses, partridges). | 7 | 16 |
| I49 | Runner-earthquake. | Earthquake – an anthropomorphic character (or category of characters) that moves around, shaking the earth. | 14 | 16 |
| I77 | The lame thunderer. | A powerful character associated with thunderstorms and rain, lame. | 14 | 16 |
| J20 | The sinister guest: the broken taboo. | While the husband or brother is hunting, an evil spirit comes to his wife or sister; he kills or maims her or her brother after she breaks the taboo of opening the door to the guest, looking at him or talking to him. See motif J19. | 14 | 16 |
| J22d | Animals cut in half. | Foreigners or animals of two different species emerge from a single person or animal cut in half. | 11 | 16 |
| J23a | Snot turns into a boy. | A woman cries, and the discharge from her nose (her tears) turns into a boy, who grows up and defeats strong opponents. | 10 | 16 |
| J27b | Water Father. | An infant is thrown into a lake or river and occasionally comes ashore. In addition to his earthly parents, he has a father (and mother) in the underwater world. He does not want to part with them, nor do they want to let him go. | 8 | 16 |
| J34 | Grandchildren scare their grandmother. | After killing a dangerous enemy, the heroes make a scarecrow out of him to frighten the household. | 11 | 16 |
| J51a | Ladder made of bones. | To climb a rock or tower, one must stick bones into it and climb them like a ladder. | 10 | 16 |
| K137 | Sister brings women to revive her brother. | The brother is killed, the sister, dressed in her brother's clothes and disguised as a young man, finds women who are able to revive the dead, puts her brother's clothes back on his body, and the women who have come revive him. Or the sister is killed, the brother lures women capable of reviving the dead, puts his clothes on his dead sister, the women think it is their husband, and revive the girl. | 11 | 16 |
| K27p2 | The enemy father-in-law takes the form of a bear. | Demanding that the hero kill the bear, the father-in-law (rarely: mother-in-law) himself takes on the form of a bear or turns his daughter or wife (husband) into a bear (bear). | 14 | 16 |
| K27v | Shooting a bird. | The character must hit the bird with an arrow or a stone. (Cf. motif K27M, where it is not the accuracy of the archer that is important, but the unusual appearance of the creature that needs to be caught). | 12 | 16 |
| K27yy | Approach a dangerous tree. | The hero is sent to a tree that is supposed to fall on him. | 11 | 16 |
| K45a | Fingers turn into aquatic animals. | A man sails away from a woman or girl in a boat or on a raft. When she tries to grab the edge of the boat (raft), he cuts off her fingers. The fingers turn into aquatic animals. | 9 | 16 |
| K64c | The blacksmith blinds the cyclops. | The person who gouges out or burns out the cyclops's only (sighted) eye is a blacksmith. | 6 | 16 |
| K65d | Incorrect marriage rites and the birth of spirits. | The first human couple initially only have miscarriages, or their children are spirits or unpleasant and dangerous animals. After performing a formal marriage ceremony or repeating it according to new rules, the woman gives birth to real people or gods. | 7 | 16 |
| K67f | Slaughter the sheep that looks at you. | A fool or a rogue is instructed to slaughter the sheep (cow, bull) that looks at him, i.e. any one. He slaughters them all, because they all looked at him. | 14 | 16 |
| K67h | Bear in the barn | When a worker is sent to a place where he is to be torn apart by a predator, he tames it and lets it into the barn (stable) at home. As a result, the predator destroys the owner's livestock. | 10 | 16 |
| K73a6 | A child turns into a tree. | Malicious women kill (throw away) her wonderful children. Trees (flowers) grow from their remains, later reincarnating into humans. | 14 | 16 |
| M91E | The Tsar orders himself to be burned | The ruler, the leader, believes that a man who escaped death by cunning returned from the world where he received benefits. It tells you to burn, drown, etc. yourself or your close associates. | 13 | 16 |
| N10c | The insides are visible | A girl is described, through whose body you can see her internal organs or the food she has swallowed. This is a sign of beauty. | 7 | 16 |
| N27a | There is even bird milk | It is said that somewhere there is (or was) even bird’s milk | 16 | 16 |
| A10 | The sun finds its eyes. | The sun gets its sparkling eyes (eye) from an animal. | 8 | 16 |
| A22a | The Hot Sun and its Companion. | Two characters burn; one turns into the present sun, and the other into a less significant celestial object. See motif A22. | 14 | 16 |
| A4a | The sun hurts the eyes. | So that people do not look at it, the Sun blinds their immodest eyes (usually with needles, which are its rays). | 10 | 16 |
| B33f1 | Mistress of night and day. | By performing certain actions, the (old) woman determines the daily cycle. | 15 | 16 |
| B34 | Caught by the first night. | After the vessel of night is opened, a person caught by the onset of darkness turns into a bird or animal. | 9 | 16 |
| B42m1 | Ket, Selkup and Evenk. | The three main stars of the Big Dipper's handle are associated with people of three different nationalities. | 9 | 16 |
| B44b | Fingers, claws, hair, feathers. | The number and/or nature of the alternation of fingers, claws, feathers, hairs, and stripes on animal skins determines the number of time intervals in the calendar or daily cycle. See motif B44. | 15 | 16 |
| B45b | The bull of cold. | The bull or cow is the embodiment of cold, the reason why winter is cold. | 8 | 16 |
| B48b | Piece of human flesh. | The bodies of animals that are now hunted contain a piece of human flesh that has remained since these animals had an anthropomorphic appearance. | 10 | 16 |
| B69a | Dispute about time, Chipmunk participant. | A chipmunk or a similar small animal (weasel, shrew) argues with another animal character (bear, moose, puma, snake) about whether there should be light and warmth or darkness and cold. | 13 | 16 |
| B72c | The blood of those who run stains objects. | Children run after their mother, injure themselves, and their blood stains plants, the ground, and the evening sky. | 9 | 16 |
| B93 | Meeting in the sky once a year. | Once a year or once every few years, celestial beings or messengers of the gods meet among the stars. | 11 | 16 |
| C31c | The wise bat. | The bat turns out to be smarter and wiser than other living creatures. | 12 | 16 |
| C32B | Nails – material for the devil. | Demonic characters will make something useful for themselves (and harmful to humans) out of nail clippings. | 11 | 16 |
| C33a1 | Bird pecking at the liver. | A bird of prey flies to the chained character every day and pecks at his internal organs. The character recovers overnight, and the cycle repeats itself. | 4 | 16 |
| E31a2 | One is her father, another is her brother, and this one is her husband. | The girl must be given to one of several men. She herself or someone else explains that one of the suitors can be called her father, another her brother (etc.), and only one can be her husband. | 14 | 16 |
| E9g | The magical wife - the vulture. | Before meeting the hero, his beloved (wife, helper) has the image of a vulture. | 15 | 16 |
| F46a | Woman in a tree. | Men (human-animals) discover a woman at the top of a tree and copulate with her there. | 8 | 16 |
| F54a | The invisible scar (the husband turns out to be the son). | In her husband's appearance, the woman discovers signs that are not immediately noticeable, indicating that he has hidden his true nature from her and is not the right marriage partner (he is an animal, or her son, brother or father); or the husband discovers in the same way that his wife is his sister. | 11 | 16 |
| F66 | False house. | In order to commit incest with his daughter, grandmother, sister (brother), father, grandson, brother (sister), the man pretends to be a stranger, or the husband takes on the appearance of his wife's brother so that she treats him as a blood relative. To do this, the character secretly moves to another house for a while, where the object of his desire mistakes him for someone else. | 13 | 16 |
| H34h | Firewood came home. | Firewood and brushwood came by themselves, flying into the house; there was no need to specially harvest and deliver them. | 14 | 16 |
| H36aa | False news: incorrect instructions. | The messenger must tell people what they should do if they want to avoid death, but he distorts the instructions and people become mortal. In Mesoamerican variants, it is not about people in general, but about a specific character. | 6 | 16 |
| H36i | The goat betrays man. | The goat or sheep is to blame for the fact that man is mortal. See motif H36. | 12 | 16 |
| H37b | Skunk's volley wasted. | One character gives another his power (usually a skunk gives his volley). The other wastes the resource unnecessarily to test its effect. Usually, when the need arises, the resource no longer works. | 9 | 16 |
| H52b | The search for immortality, ATU 470B. | Setting out in search of a land where there is no death, a man encounters characters engaged in tasks that can only be completed in an impossibly long time. However, the man needs eternal life, and so he continues on his way. | 8 | 16 |
| H7b2 | Immortal poverty. | A man named Poverty makes Death swear that it will never come to him. Therefore, poverty is inevitable in the world. | 10 | 16 |
| I111 | Reptilian Earth. | The earth as a whole or a mountain range is the body of a crocodile, dragon, or snake (eel). | 9 | 16 |
| A33 | Sun Ram. | The sun has the appearance of a large, non-predatory mammal (bull, ram, pig, antelope, rhinoceros, etc.) or rides on it. | 11 | 17 |
| A38b | A mouse gnaws through a snare. | The sun gets caught in a trap. Only a mouse or other small animal manages to gnaw through the trap and free the sun. | 13 | 17 |
| A6B | The dual-sex sun. | In the same ethnic group, the sun is described as both male and female. See motifs A3 – A5. | 14 | 17 |
| B30a | The slain person turns into a fish. | A fish emerges from the remains of a killed person or creature. At first, it is concentrated in one place, then spreads throughout the water. | 8 | 17 |
| B33b | March bird. | At the border between winter and spring, a bird (usually a thrush) flies away prematurely into the cold and dies, or raises chicks and they die or suffer from the cold. | 9 | 17 |
| B35a | The tree turns into a bear. | The tree asks not to be cut down and fulfils the man's wishes. When they go beyond what is reasonable, the tree turns the man into a bear. | 12 | 17 |
| B46b | Seven Star Sisters. | Each of the seven main stars of the Big Dipper is a separate female character. {Included in the online database, but not in the correlation table in *sav)}. | 15 | 17 |
| B72a | Mother, child and swans. | Mother (stepmother, adoptive father) does not give food to a girl or (less often) a boy. The child asks migratory birds to take him with them, they give him bird clothing, he flies away with them, becoming a bird. | 11 | 17 |
| B73a | In search of a horse. | A girl (a young man, a girl with her brother; two little brothers) searches for a lost horse, cow, sheep and, as a result (alone or with her brother; both brothers), turns into a bird (usually a cuckoo) with a characteristic call. | 9 | 17 |
| B83 | Unliftable weight. | A character attempts to lift a small object or creature, which turns out to be gigantic and unliftable. Cf. motif I87ab. | 12 | 17 |
| C11 | Revenge of the insulted father. | A father with magical powers destroys people (all or many) who have insulted or harmed his son. | 13 | 17 |
| C24 | The world is in danger of falling. | Someone is gnawing or chopping at the pillar supporting the sky or the earth; certain creatures are trying to destroy the barrier separating their world from the world of humans; if the work is completed, humans will perish. | 9 | 17 |
| C6c2 | The punished loon. | Birds must dive to retrieve soil from the bottom, from which land will emerge. The loon cannot reach the bottom, refuses to dive, or tries to hide the soil it has retrieved (usually punished for this). | 9 | 17 |
| E12 | The living drawing. | A character draws an object or creature on sand, ash, a wall or the surface of water, and it comes to life. | 13 | 17 |
| E27 | People from drops of blood. | People arise from drops of blood from a wounded anthropomorphic creature. | 9 | 17 |
| F19 | Dangerous relationship with a frog. | After copulating with a frog, a man's penis is crippled (unless otherwise stated: it becomes long, see motif F18A). | 11 | 17 |
| F3a | Pregnant man. | A man carries a child like a woman. | 11 | 17 |
| F70c | The castrated becomes a man (ATU 318). | A young man loses his male organ, but restores it with magic (and marries happily). Cf. ATU 750K. In ATU 318, this episode is described as one of many possible ones related to the theme of the unfaithful wife. | 12 | 17 |
| F87b | The snake wife and her children: transformation into trees. | A snake crawls onto the clothes of a bathing girl, climbs down in exchange for a promise to marry him, and takes her to the underwater world. She is happy there and gives birth to children. Together with them, she visits her relatives. They call the snake out of the water and kill it. After that, the wife transforms her children and/or herself into plants. | 12 | 17 |
| H24c | Death in a vessel. | People open a vessel (a bundle, a basket, etc.) containing death (or old age, illness), and therefore they are mortal. | 11 | 17 |
| H24e | Scattered seeds. | Having brought the seeds of humanity into our world, the character drops or prematurely opens what he has brought. (Sometimes this explains the inequality of people and disorder in society). | 6 | 17 |
| H3 | Funeral games end in death. | Death is sent to people as punishment for excessive sympathy for a dead animal or for funeral games, during which they bury an animal, tree, etc. | 14 | 17 |
| H36g1 | The bull distorts the message. | When a bull (ox, cow) is ordered to convey certain instructions to people, he confuses them or deliberately distorts them. | 10 | 17 |
| I38a | Dogs – husbands of women. | The husbands of human women are dogs or dog-headed creatures. | 11 | 17 |
| I95a | Orion – scales. | Orion (probably always Orion's Belt) is Libra. | 10 | 17 |
| J19a | Placing food on the stomach. | When a woman is left alone, a demonic character comes to her. He says that in order to perform certain actions, she must give him a certain part of her body, even though this contradicts logic and custom. After that, the character kills her (cuts open her stomach; tears out her tongue). | 10 | 17 |
| J53c1 | Grizzly bear and black bear. | Two women live together, both have children. One of them kills and (then) eats the other. The killer is associated with a grizzly bear, and the victim with a smaller species of bear. | 11 | 17 |
| J62a | Turned into trees. | The character turns those who come to him into plants (trees, flowers). The hero (heroine) remains alive and breaks the spell on those who have been transformed. | 17 | 17 |
| K100e | Dangerous tales. | Fairy tales act as separate characters: they usually try to harm people, believing that a certain person does not treat them with due respect. Cf. motif L94d, "The Tale with a Tail". | 12 | 17 |
| k136a1 | The young man's hair carried away by the water. | Seeing the young man's hair carried away by the water, a woman decides to marry the owner of the hair. | 14 | 17 |
| K139 | The burnt pheasant. | A servant is so struck by the beauty of a girl (rarely: a boy) that he lets the meat or bread intended for his master burn. | 14 | 17 |
| K162 | The villain enters the bedroom (ATU 956B). | The antagonist (robber, sorcerer, witch) sneaks into the house of a girl or young woman, hiding inside a statue, in a wardrobe, etc., and/or putting her husband (guard, etc.) to sleep, but is destroyed at the last moment. | 10 | 17 |
| K19e | Wolverine under a tree. | Returning from the sky to earth, a woman or two sisters encounter a male wolverine who tries to capture them. Usually, the women who have descended first find themselves in a tree. Some animals cannot or will not help them descend to the ground. The wolverine descends to take the sisters as wives; they run away from him. See motif K19B. | 14 | 17 |
| K1d | The hero's wife's brothers abandon him. | The hero's wife's brothers try to kill him by leaving him on an island. | 8 | 17 |
| K27h | Depict a head that is not shown. | The hero must carve an image of the character's head, which he never shows. It usually adorns a wooden bench. | 8 | 17 |
| K27zz1 | Preserving her child. | Several wives are thrown into a dungeon (banished), each gives birth to a child, but only one manages to save hers. The boy grows up and rescues the women. | 14 | 17 |
| K30b | Went out for a walk and disappeared. | A woman or girl is forbidden to go outside. As soon as she does, a flying creature kidnaps her. | 10 | 17 |
| K5 | False chicks. | To lure the hero into a trap and send him far away, the enemy makes fake birds from worthless materials (bodily secretions, etc.). See motif K4. | 13 | 17 |
| K76g | The crab son. | The son or foster son of a married couple – a crab. He marries a princess and turns into a handsome man. | 8 | 17 |
| K80a5 | The boar and the fratricides. | Brothers, competing as suitors or heirs, must hunt a boar. The younger brother succeeds. The older brothers kill him and take the boar for themselves. The truth comes out. | 4 | 17 |
| L10 | Sharp tail. | The character has a sharp (biting) tail or a protrusion on its back. See motif L9, cf. motif L9C. | 16 | 17 |
| L124a | Cutting belt. | The belt (wire, intestine, strip of leather, etc.) cuts or burns whatever it is applied to (a tree or a person). | 9 | 17 |
| L15a2 | Not fully hardened. | The human body is tempered (in a furnace, etc.) to make it invulnerable, but one place remains unprotected. | 7 | 17 |
| L15h1 | The soul of a character in an egg. | The object in which the character's life is contained is enclosed in another, which is enclosed in a third (and so on). The final container of the soul is an egg (to kill the character, the egg must be broken over his head). | 9 | 17 |
| L15i | Life in hair. | A man dies or loses his strength (or pretends to) if his hair is cut or pulled out. | 13 | 17 |
| L23e | Transformations of the captured man. | A man captures a male character. Trying to free himself, the latter transforms into various substances or animals. | 14 | 17 |
| L31b | The reptile crawls into the water. | Upon discovering a reptile on land, people touch it or sit on it, stick to it, and it crawls away with them into the water. See motif L31. | 17 | 17 |
| L33c | The boulder crushes the trickster. | The trickster and the boulder agree to race down the slope. The boulder rolls faster and faster and crushes the trickster. See motif L33. | 14 | 17 |
| L41a1 | The cauldron split. | When the demon tries to shake the meat out of the bag over the cauldron, stones fall from the bag into the cauldron and it splits, or the boiling water spills out and scalds the demon. | 10 | 17 |
| L51 | The victim is thrown to aquatic animals. | A cannibal, spirit, or predatory beast regularly throws its victims down, where they are devoured by aquatic or chthonic creatures. | 9 | 17 |
| L72j | A needle (awl) turns into many needles (awls). | Fleeing for his life, the character throws behind him an awl or needle, which turns into many awls or needles. | 11 | 17 |
| L74 | The Returned Hand. | A bear or other powerful character tears off and carries away another character's hand. A third character steals the hand and returns it to the one from whom it was torn off. | 9 | 17 |
| M112b | Animals build a road, ATU 55. | Animals that do not see the sun (moles, shrews, earthworms) refuse to build the road with everyone else and are punished for it. | 13 | 17 |
| M123d | The raven – devourer of carrion. | A bird from the corvid family is rejected after its mate or relatives discover that it eats carrion or filth. | 15 | 17 |
| M129 | Loss of birthright, K1988. | A parent intends to transfer primogeniture (royalty, other privileges) to a chosen son. Another son or brother comes under the guise of the chosen one and receives primogeniture. | 14 | 17 |
| M147b | The fox gets rid of fleas, ATU 63. | To get rid of fleas, the fox (jackal) takes a bunch of moss (hay, grass) in its mouth and dives into the water. The fleas, in order not to drown, move closer and closer to its head and then fall onto the moss or hay. The fox leaves the bunch in the water and comes ashore. | 17 | 17 |
| M153b | Wolf riding. | The wolf is killed or maimed after agreeing to a domestic animal's offer to ride it. | 15 | 17 |
| M162a | Cuts off his genitals. | The character pretends to eat his own genitals. Another believes him and castrates himself. | 13 | 17 |
| M198a1 | Elder: round, middle: hard, younger: nut! | Three characters sequentially and without apparent reason determine the characteristics of an object or person they have not seen. | 13 | 17 |
| M199j | The awl in the giant's shoulder. | A giant puts a man on his shoulders to carry him across a river. Believing that the man is strong, he asks why he is so light. The man replies that if he puts all his weight on the giant, the giant will not be able to carry him. The giant pricks him with an awl (knife, nail) and asks him not to put all his weight on him again. | 10 | 17 |
| M29z | Beardless (Aldarkose) | hero of the story is a character named “Beardless” or Aldar-Kose (Aldar is a “deceiver”, a braid is “beardless”). | 16 | 17 |
| M34 | An attached tail | An object is thrown at the character, which turns into a tail, and the character himself into a corresponding animal. | 7 | 17 |
| M39b1 | They row in both directions, ATU 1276 | Once in the boat, some people row in one direction and others in the opposite direction, the boat remains in place. | 15 | 17 |
| M81f | A blind liar is robbed, ATU 1577 | blind beggar robs an honest man. He watches him and, when he enters the house, takes everything the blind man has accumulated. He often takes money accumulated by other blind people as well. | 17 | 17 |
| N24 | Like the second moon | You can see a light that resembles a second moon or a second sun. It comes from a pretty girl. | 12 | 17 |
| M91d | The drowned shaman | The character deceives others by passing off the dead as alive, directing suspicions of murder to innocent people, etc. When a shaman (less often a shaman) is ready to discover the truth, he succeeds in it kill and avoid being charged with murder. | 15 | 18 |
| N9 | Who's coming closer? | Two characters discuss the rider's approach. A person with a higher social status explains that what seems like crows are actually clods of earth flying from under the horse's hooves, and what seems like snow, cloud or fog is falling from his foam or his breath. | 3 | 18 |
| I84a | The frozen son of a god. | Contrary to the warning of his father or mother, a young man or woman sets off on a journey in winter and freezes to death. Cf. motif B33A ("Frozen in Spring"). | 10 | 18 |
| I91 | A body of water at the foot of a tree. | At the foot or around the base of a tree connecting the tiers of the universe or of gigantic size and considered the main tree of the world, there is a spring or water body, the water of which usually has unusual properties. | 14 | 18 |
| J32e | Stolen Foals. | Every time a mare foals, the foal is stolen. The hero finds out who is doing this. | 10 | 18 |
| K10b | The Carried Away Cage. | A huge bird carries away to its nest a cage, bag or other container in which people are located. See motif 10A. | 7 | 18 |
| K22c | Birds are attacked. | Inhabitants of another world who are birds (bird-people) are afraid of birds or animals that are not dangerous to ordinary people, but which regularly attack them. | 10 | 18 |
| K2a1 | A commoner witnesses the abduction of a princess. | A demon carries off a girl of noble birth. A commoner accidentally witnesses the abduction or accidentally finds evidence of it. The girl's father sends him to search for his daughter. | 6 | 18 |
| K32b1 | Mother replaces daughter. | The man's mother-in-law takes on the appearance of her daughter to take her place. See motif K32. | 17 | 18 |
| K38b3a | The hero feeds the chicks. | A mighty bird helps a man for feeding its chicks. | 12 | 18 |
| K38b4 | The serpent emerges from the water. | The nest of a mighty bird is located on a tree in the middle (at the edge) of a pond, from where a snake (monster) emerges, threatening the chicks. | 9 | 18 |
| K56a3 | Do not tie shoelaces. | A wandering girl or young girl should not tie her shoelaces or the laces on her shoes or clothing. If she does so, she will get into trouble. | 12 | 18 |
| K56d | Broken leg. | One man treats a bird, which brings a seed, and something valuable grows. Another deliberately cripples a bird, then treats it, and it brings a seed, and something harmful and terrible grows. | 17 | 18 |
| K76c | Pumpkin child. | The son (rarely – daughter) or foster child of a married couple emerges from a pumpkin (rarely: watermelon, nut) or is found inside it. | 17 | 18 |
| K80c1 | Melon and severed head, ATU 780C. | Someone brings meat or fruit to another person or keeps it for themselves. At the decisive moment, the food turns into the remains of a (supposedly) murdered person. The owner is executed or is about to be executed. Cf. motif K168A. | 15 | 18 |
| K83a | Where the father did not go. | To fulfil the task, the character's sons must travel to a place where he has never been (or once was). | 12 | 18 |
| A11c | The Sun, the Moon, and the Eyes of the Monster. | The Sun and Moon kill a monster whose eyes shine differently. At first, the Moon takes the brighter eye, but then swaps with the Sun. | 7 | 18 |
| A26 | The sun bird. | The bird embodies the sun, daylight; it can be caught, released, killed. | 3 | 18 |
| A32j | Shaman on the moon. | A shaman with a tambourine ascends to the moon and remains there, visible in the silhouette of the lunar spots. | 5 | 18 |
| B100 | Obtaining sleep. | In the past or in a distant land, sleep was unknown; a certain character embodies sleep, possesses it or teaches how to sleep; sleep is a special substance. | 13 | 18 |
| B14 | The character creates river rapids. | In order to regulate the flow of the river in a certain way, the character creates rapids and waterfalls. | 16 | 18 |
| B1e | The hero and his ten brothers. | The protagonist of the narrative is one of many (seven or more) brothers with whom he is in conflict, but who are not his irreconcilable enemies. | 7 | 18 |
| B21 | Destruction of the world tree. | People climb trees to hunt, fish or gather honey. The tree is felled, people fall down and undergo a metamorphosis, or remain in the upper world. | 9 | 18 |
| B28a | Nailed to the ground. | A character pinned to the ground by a rod, transported somewhere to the edge of the world and associated with an object that continues to influence people. | 7 | 18 |
| B36c | Fat animals. | Animals receive meat and fat rendered from a certain creature or obtained in some other way. Some received a lot, others remained thin. | 13 | 18 |
| B42m | The second hunter's pot. | The three stars of the Big Dipper's handle are three men (hunters, thieves). The stars of the dipper are the object they seek to obtain (the hunted animal; the bed). Alcor (a faint star near Mizar) is a container, a vessel carried by the second of the three characters. | 10 | 18 |
| B42r | Orion's Belt: running after each other. | The three stars of Orion's Belt are three characters chasing each other. | 16 | 18 |
| B56 | The crocodile's fiery tongue. | The crocodile/caiman is left without a tongue after swallowing or losing the fire (which it previously possessed); something associated with heavenly fire (lightning, sunbeams, etc.) emerges from the crocodile's severed tongue. | 15 | 18 |
| B80 | Measurement of the world. | The process of creation includes measuring the dimensions of the earth or the world as a whole. | 10 | 18 |
| C15 | The walled-up jaguar. | A monstrous jaguar (puma) is locked in a cave or tree trunk. | 8 | 18 |
| C17 | Fire pit for people. | The men of the community of the first ancestors destroy most of the people and/or themselves on a pyre or in a fire pit. | 11 | 18 |
| C6e | Diver – crab, shrimp. | A crustacean retrieves earth from under water or from the underworld. | 9 | 18 |
| D2 | Birth of the sun/fire. | A woman gives birth to a son who is very hot. | 11 | 18 |
| D4aa | The butterfly tries to steal fire. | Moths try to steal the fire that humans possess. | 16 | 18 |
| E9f | The magical wife – the parrot. | Before meeting the hero, his beloved (wife, helper) has the image of a parrot. | 12 | 18 |
| E9n | The magical wife – an aquatic mammal. | A man marries a female seal, seal or dolphin that has taken the form of a woman and lives with her among people. | 10 | 18 |
| F69 | Indecent invitation. | A woman's husband (male relative) invites her through her children to come and make love to him; the invitation is made in a veiled form; the woman comes. | 9 | 18 |
| H24f | Meat in a bag. | The character has the ability to put a large amount of meat or fish into a bag or container that is easy to carry. | 9 | 18 |
| H39 | Snakes become poisonous (spilled poison). | Creatures that are now dangerous (snakes, insects) swallow an uncontrolled substance and as a result become poisonous or immortal; creatures acquire their nature (usually becoming poisonous) by drinking or licking a special potion. | 13 | 18 |
| H49d | The Innocently Slain Parrot, ATU 916(4). | A character (usually a bird) brings a healing (rejuvenating) fruit (seed, branch). Accidentally or maliciously, poison gets into the fruit. The person whom the fruit-bearer wanted to help kills or is about to kill his benefactor, and then learns of his mistake. | 15 | 18 |
| H7e | People knew when they would die, ATU 934H(4). | In the past, people knew when they would die, so before their death they stopped doing their work or performed their duties half-heartedly. | 14 | 18 |
| I24A | The snake bridge to another world. | The body of water over which the snake bridge is thrown separates our world from another. | 11 | 18 |
| K93b4 | A woman, a mare, and a dog give birth to boys. | When a woman gives birth to a son, at the same time a mare (dog, and/or other domestic animals) give birth to a boy. These boys grow up together and then set off on a journey. | 10 | 18 |
| L1c | Fugitives turn into stars. | Those fleeing from the monstrous bear ascend to the sky and turn into stars. | 12 | 18 |
| L22a | People go blind. | Having broken some taboo, seen an unusual object or strange character, people fall into a deep sleep and wake up in the morning blind. See motif L22. Among the Watut, Khmou and Trumai, a spirit eats out a person's eyes and they die immediately without waking up). | 16 | 18 |
| L65b4 | Tooth-axe. | The character pulls out his tooth to use it as a weapon or tool (often an axe). | 9 | 18 |
| L84 | Unsuitable axes. | The character attempts to chop down a tree with an axe made of obviously unsuitable material. Cf. motif K27g5. | 16 | 18 |
| L9e | Copper nose. | The anthropomorphic character has a nose resembling a copper or iron beak. | 11 | 18 |
| M114e | Tie to winter or summer. | A girl offers a visitor to tie his horse to winter or summer, which means to a sleigh or a cart. | 11 | 18 |
| M115 | The eaten wolf. | The character kills an animal that is dangerous to him by cunning. Relatives or friends of the killed animal find out about this and come to take revenge. The character escapes. | 8 | 18 |
| M157d | Grandfather and the Turnip, ATU 2044. | Animals (mainly domestic) and/or people join forces to achieve a goal (usually to pull a root vegetable out of the ground). They succeed after the last participant (usually the weakest) joins in. | 16 | 18 |
| M180a | The unwashed monkey. | A zoomorphic character invites another to visit, but demands that they wash their hands or feet before eating. This proves impossible, and the guest leaves hungry. | 10 | 18 |
| M187a | Fish race, ATU 250. | Two fish (a fish and a whale, a dolphin, a squid and a dolphin, etc.) agree to race each other. | 15 | 18 |
| M19 | Bait man. | The character ties another person (usually a child) to the end of a line, using them as bait or forcing them to catch fish with their hands. | 12 | 18 |
| M197c | Remedy against fleas, ATU 1862A. | A man sells sand, dust, etc. as a remedy against fleas, mice, etc. He explains that you need to catch a flea and pour sand into its eyes. The buyer replies that you can crush a caught flea. The seller: that's even easier. | 16 | 18 |
| M26 | Ducks carry the catcher (grabbed by the legs) | The character dives under waterfowl and ties a rope to their legs to catch them. Birds soar into the air, lifting the catcher with them. It later falls. | 10 | 18 |
| M29r | Trickster - Porcupine | See the motives in square brackets. | 11 | 18 |
| M38b1 | The young woman is waiting for her husband to guess | After the wedding, the wife is silent until her husband says certain words that indicate her origin. {In North Africa, the Pyrenees and the Arabs of Western Asia, the motive is very popular, which suggests that the list of traditions in which it is known may include some records that have so far been supported only with links to pointers, but not by the texts themselves}. | 14 | 18 |
| M6 | Night with a partridge | A young man or girl spends night in the forest. The forest partridge (Tinamus sp.) provides him or her a fire, a shelter and/or a hammock but takes them away and flies away itself when the person does something wrong | 3 | 18 |
| M78c | The boy is a severed finger | A tiny little man emerges from a severed finger. | 12 | 18 |
| K95a | Burdock among rose bushes. | The lovers are buried in the same grave or nearby. Two plants grow in this place, reaching towards each other, and between them is a thorny bush, embodying the character who separated the lovers. | 11 | 19 |
| L100a | The pursuer abandons the transformed fugitive. | The fugitive transforms into a small object (stick, stone) or hides in a similar object. The pursuer, in anger, throws the object far ahead, unwittingly helping the fugitive to escape. | 13 | 19 |
| L17 | Face on the chest. | Mouth and eyes of an anthropomorphic creature on the chest, no head. | 12 | 19 |
| L89 | One secretly feeds another. | One person, wishing to harm another, secretly gives him certain food to eat or a certain object to use. As a result, the other person dies (usually undergoing a metamorphosis). Cf. motif K82a. | 18 | 19 |
| L93 | The discarded axe. | A demon, a man-eater, chops down a tree or a rock on top of which the hero is hiding. While he is resting, the animal throws his axe into the water, carries it away or damages it. See motif L92. | 17 | 19 |
| L97 | Those rooted in the earth. | Seeing a character who is unable to move (nailed to the ground, his lower body rooted to the ground, petrified, completely absent), the hero himself manages to avoid a similar fate. | 8 | 19 |
| M130a | Bird saves deer, ATU 239. | A trickster lures an animal into a hunter's trap. Another animal advises the victim to pretend to be dead and helps it escape. | 14 | 19 |
| M148 | Agreeing to be eaten. | One zoomorphic character asks another to agree to be eaten – usually saying that he will be resurrected and compensated for the inconvenience caused. The animal agrees. | 10 | 19 |
| M164a | The smell from the lion's mouth, ATU 51A. | Asking animals whether his mouth really smells bad (or his lair is dirty), the predator (lion, wolf) kills both those who answer honestly and those who flatter him. The cunning one says he cannot answer because he has a cold (he forgot his glasses). | 19 | 19 |
| M189 | Threading a string through a shell, H506.4. | To thread a string through a spiral-shaped shell (a stone with a hole, a horn), the character ties the string to an ant and sends it into the hole. | 13 | 19 |
| M196a | Talking dead people. | Arguing over a trivial matter, a husband and wife (or one of them) lie down and do not move, and people gather to bury them. At the last moment, the supposed dead person opens their mouth, and people think that the dead have come back to life; or the supposed dead person is actually buried in the ground. | 15 | 19 |
| M199l | Convinces the enemy that he can fly (ATU 1098*). | When the giant blew, sneezed, etc., or let go of the bent tree on which the man was sitting, the man was thrown far away. The man says that he did it of his own free will (to show how he can fly, to repair the roof, etc.). | 11 | 19 |
| M57b | The sweat of the Sun and the tears of the Moon | Beads or metals are the bodily secretions of a deity. | 12 | 19 |
| M75b3 | Trojan horse: victory over enemies | Enemies are shown a life-size or larger image of a horse or bull. Not realizing that this is a ruse, they bring the figure to their own territory and are defeated as a result. | 5 | 19 |
| I59 | The Milky Way – scattered straw. | The Milky Way is associated with agriculture and scattered objects – straw, chaff, less commonly flour, hay, peas. | 8 | 19 |
| I76b | A mouse becomes a bat. | After a certain amount of time or after performing certain actions, an ordinary mouse turns into a bat. | 13 | 19 |
| j1d | Heroic avengers - Like J1D, but the role of potential heroes is reduced to a minimum: a woman with a baby is saved from the antagonist and receives help from <i>the patron </i>. | Heroic avengers - Like J1D, but the role of potential heroes is reduced to a minimum: a woman with a baby is saved from the antagonist and receives help from the patron . | 13 | 19 |
| J2 | Tree husband. | Husband or lover – tree (temporarily transformed into a human). | 7 | 19 |
| J41b | The returned son burns his tormentors with magic. | The son returns, finds his mother, who was humiliated and tortured in his absence, and burns his tormentor and his men, summoning fire and heat with magic. | 10 | 19 |
| K101b1 | Black becomes white. | The enchanted character (the castle where the action takes place) gradually changes its appearance over several days as the spell wears off: it acquires human features, turning from black to white, from ugly to beautiful. | 12 | 19 |
| K10g | The chick descends to the ground. | Finding himself in the nest of a giant bird on a tree or rock, a man descends to the ground with the help of an adult bird (attaching its feathers or wings to himself), and more often - a chick (grabbing its legs, sitting on the chick, attaching its feathers or wings). | 14 | 19 |
| K13b | A caiman bites off a leg. | A man crosses a body of water on the back of a caiman. The caiman bites off his leg. The cripple undergoes a metamorphosis, turning into a constellation or an animal. | 9 | 19 |
| K155a | Bone in meat. | A man (usually a king) raises his daughter (less often his son) in a closed room, ordering her to be fed boneless meat. One day, a bone is found in the meat, and the girl (boy) uses it to make a hole in the wall and sees the outside world for the first time. | 13 | 19 |
| K27g1 | Task: clean out the stable. | The character must quickly clean the stable or barn of the manure that has accumulated there over a long period of time. | 13 | 19 |
| K27h1 | Bringing fruit. | The character is tasked with bringing the fruits of a tree that is difficult to reach. | 16 | 19 |
| K27u1 | From conception to birth day. | Some people demand that the child be born the morning after conception or speak immediately after birth. | 16 | 19 |
| K27x | The former husband of a magical wife. | A man marries a woman from another world; the wife leaves for her world, the man follows her; there, the woman has another fiancé(e) or husband, or the woman's brothers want to destroy the man; he undergoes trials and brings his wife back. See motif K27. | 17 | 19 |
| K27x4 | Not spilling water, climbing a tree. | The character is told to climb a tree (pole, mountain, etc.) while holding a full open vessel in his hand and not spilling a drop from it. | 10 | 19 |
| K27z4b | Dressed as a man, the wife rescues her husband. | The husband leaves, meets a swindler and loses everything he has to him. The wife comes disguised as a man, punishes the swindler and rescues her husband. | 18 | 19 |
| K27z9 | Why the fish smiled (ATU 875D). | (Dried) fish (water, satyr, etc.) laughs, smiles or spits. The reason is that there is a man dressed as a woman in the house. | 12 | 19 |
| K35a4 | Thrown into the sea. | In order to get rid of the hero and take his place, the deceiver pushes him into the sea or leaves him on a distant island. The hero survives and returns. | 14 | 19 |
| K56a4e | The stepmother's daughter burned to death. | After meeting a supernatural character, a kind person receives valuables, while a greedy person burns to death upon returning home. | 14 | 19 |
| K56a5c | Conversation with the months. | A man who kindly answers the questions of characters representing the weather in certain months of the year is rewarded. Another man scolds them and is punished. | 14 | 19 |
| K65e1 | Midwife to a toad. | A woman delivers a baby (baptises a child) for a creature that in the human world has the appearance of a toad or frog. | 14 | 19 |
| K76e | Son (daughter) as a piglet. | The son (daughter) or foster child of a married couple is a pig. He marries a princess and turns into a handsome man (she marries a handsome man). | 12 | 19 |
| M97a1 | The blind man questions the trees to get new eyes. | 8 | 19 | |
| M97a2 | The blind man asks the trees to get to the water. | 14 | 19 | |
| N16 | Ice horse | fairy-tale text ends with a formula stating that the narrator had a horse and/or harness made of wax, ice, linen, vegetables, etc. In most cases, the narrator loses them (they melt, they are taken away, eaten, etc.). | 9 | 19 |
| A2c2 | Extra moons. | The catastrophe threatening the earth is associated with the appearance of not only several suns, but also several moons. | 8 | 19 |
| A38a | Loop made of pubic hair. | The sun is caught in a loop made of a woman's pubic hair. | 11 | 19 |
| A42a | The sun imitator falls from the sky. | Having risen into the sky, the character unsuccessfully performs the role of the sun and as a result falls or is thrown down to earth. | 8 | 19 |
| B102 | Clouds – smoke. | Clouds are formed from smoke rising from the ground. | 15 | 19 |
| B5a | The pair of creators: dialogue. | At the beginning of time, female and male characters meet and engage in dialogue. | 13 | 19 |
| B96 | The enemy turns into a sturgeon. | The heroes' enemy turns into a large commercial fish (usually a sturgeon) or (rarely) a commercial aquatic mammal. | 13 | 19 |
| C28 | Rash promise. | A demonic character takes possession of a valuable item without which another character (and people) will perish. The demon is tricked into returning the valuable item. | 12 | 19 |
| E14 | Knowledge from the dead. | Rituals received from the spirits of the dead. | 16 | 19 |
| E1a | The first humans made of fragile materials. | The first humans are made of fragile materials (clay, wax, fire, honey, etc.) and prove to be unviable. | 13 | 19 |
| E9a | The magical wife - the fox. | Before meeting the hero, his beloved (wife, helper) has the image of a fox. | 13 | 19 |
| F15 | Character sticks his penis out of the ground, K1315.2.1. | The character sticks his plant-like penis out of the ground (provoking a woman to sit on it). | 14 | 19 |
| F28 | Monstrous penis. | There is a separate penis character with whom the first women, Amazons, or simply some woman copulate. | 15 | 19 |
| F28b | Penis made of wax. | A woman uses a penis made of wax, wood, fruit or root. Usually her husband or male relative smears it with pepper, and the woman is maimed or killed. | 14 | 19 |
| F31 | Snake egg. | A girl or woman becomes pregnant, without knowing it, by a reptile when she unknowingly touches a dead reptile or when a liquid that has leaked from the reptile gets inside her (usually when the contents of a snake egg accidentally flow between her legs). | 15 | 19 |
| F79 | Animal wives, B600.1. | The character successively marries various women of non-human nature, but each time (usually, except for the last) he is disappointed. | 12 | 19 |
| F91 | The worm grower. | A man finds or breeds monstrous worms to eat his wife. | 7 | 19 |
| H1e | The first to die opens the way for the rest. | A certain character is the first to enter the world of the dead, after which all people follow the same path; he paves the way to the world of the dead; the first to die becomes the master or guardian of the afterlife. | 15 | 19 |
| H22a | Animals were struck on the nose. | Large game animals were concentrated in one place and were not afraid of people. They scattered after someone touched them, hit them lightly (often on the nose), or smeared them with something. Cf. motif H22. | 15 | 19 |
| H34d1 | Edible sky. | The sky or celestial objects were edible, but then this source of food became inaccessible or is now only used by inhabitants of a country beyond the human world. | 8 | 19 |
| H36f | The raven – an unsuccessful messenger. | The raven is sent to deliver an important item or message. He distorts the message or loses what has been entrusted to him. | 13 | 19 |
| H44a | Heaven and Earth divide children. | Two characters, one associated with the sky or water, and the other with the earth or the world of spirits and humans, divide the child they have given birth to or the people they have created. Usually, the sky (water, spirit) takes the imperishable part, and the earth (human) takes the perishable part. | 5 | 19 |
| H50 | The sky god and the mistress of the dead. | A pair of deities or first ancestors diverge. The man remains on earth or goes to heaven (remains in heaven), the woman becomes the mistress of the world of the dead, the earth, the underworld, usually associated with disease and poisonous animals. | 10 | 19 |
| H9b | Children as plant shoots. | People have become like plants, which, although mortal, live on in their descendants (shoots). | 11 | 19 |
| I114 | The Golden Fleece. | Describes a ram or sheep with golden wool or the skin of such a ram. | 11 | 19 |
| I116 | The Milky Way – the boundary between seasons. | The Milky Way separates the seasons of the year or worlds (dry from wet, sky from earth, etc.). | 8 | 19 |
| I117a | The bat helps to descend. | The bat helps the hero descend to the ground from a high cliff. | 11 | 19 |
| I18 | Wife or husband without a mouth or anus. | Visiting the world of people without an anus or mouth (the underworld, if not otherwise), the hero or heroine enters or attempts to enter into sexual relations with the local inhabitants. See motif I14. | 14 | 19 |
| I41b1 | The rainbow swallows fish. | The rainbow drinks, swallowing fish, people, etc. along with the water. Sometimes this fish falls from the sky to the ground. | 11 | 19 |
| A2c1 | The Sun refuses to marry. | The Sun is going to have children. One of the animals warns that if the Sun has children, the world will burn. The Sun has to (refuse marriage and) remain childless. | 11 | 20 |
| A30 | The corpse-eating moon. | The moon descends to earth to eat children, corpses or the bones of the dead. | 7 | 20 |
| A37b | The archer's severed finger. | A small animal (marmot, rabbit, mole, frog) or a person who turns into such an animal tries to hit a target in the sky (a celestial body or a bird) with arrows and as a result loses their thumbs. | 9 | 20 |
| B19 | Night and married life. | Before nightfall, people could not make love in peace. | 11 | 20 |
| B25 | Pigs fall from trees. | Characters who climb trees or vines and then fall turn into wild pigs or other game animals. | 7 | 20 |
| B28d1 | Knives turn into deer antlers. | Not understanding who he is facing, the man promises to kill the Transformer. The Transformer turns his weapon into deer antlers and him into a deer. | 10 | 20 |
| B28e | The Moon as the Creator of the World. | The Moon (alone or together with the Sun) transforms the original "incorrect" world into the one in which people now live. | 9 | 20 |
| B42l | Ladle – beast, handle – hunters. | The stars of the handle of the Big Dipper are hunters, the dipper itself is a bear, an elk or a meat storehouse where the bear climbs. | 15 | 20 |
| B99 | Termite nest. | A person or their head left on a tree turns into an insect nest. | 14 | 20 |
| C10a | Birds clinging to the sky, A2211.1. | During the flood, some birds save themselves by clinging to the sky with their beaks. Cf. A2211.7 ("During the flood, birds cling to the sky; their tails acquire their current colour"). | 10 | 20 |
| C38 | People will appear soon. | Characters from the time of creation say that real people will appear soon, so we must do this and that. | 10 | 20 |
| D13d | Making the hidden one laugh. | One character tries to make another character, who is hiding somewhere in the house, laugh in order to find them. | 12 | 20 |
| E39 | Pig ancestor. | The child of a pig or boar is a woman or man – the ancestor of a certain group of people. | 12 | 20 |
| F28c | Bear penis in the hands of an old woman. | A woman masturbates with the penis of a large animal that one of the men killed while hunting. | 11 | 20 |
| F42a | Men turn into birds. | In the community of the first ancestors, young men or boys turn into birds or bats and fly away. | 5 | 20 |
| F49C | The first humans do not know how to give birth. | In the beginning of time, women do not know how to give birth. See motif F49. | 18 | 20 |
| F52 | Bird's crest made of pubic hair. | The first ancestor bird puts pubic hair or part of a woman's genitals on its head; since then, birds of this species have had a crest. | 12 | 20 |
| G11 | The squirrel-woodcutter. | The squirrel plays an important role in cutting down a giant tree (usually chopping or trying to chop the vine that holds it, see motif G10). | 19 | 20 |
| H23 | Fatty horns. | This hard and now inedible object originally consisted of fat. | 13 | 20 |
| H24b | Souls fly out of the vessel. | The character must open the vessel containing the soul of the deceased when he reaches the place or after a certain time has passed; if he opens it before the time is up, the soul flies away. See motif H24. | 17 | 20 |
| H49b | The debtor gives his dog as collateral, Th B221.2.2; ATU 178B. | A man gives his dog to another man. The dog is of great use to him (it finds stolen goods and drives away thieves). The man who received the dog sends it back with a letter of thanks. The owner thinks that the dog has run away, kills it, and only then finds the letter. | 14 | 20 |
| H7b1 | Get into the bag. | Having received a magic bag, into which any creature can be forced against its will at the owner's discretion, a person gains power over Death or devils. | 16 | 20 |
| H7c1 | The trickster enters paradise. | The trickster first deceives Death (the devil), and then, also by deception, enters paradise. | 16 | 20 |
| I22e | Moving objects on the path of the dead. | The deceased, travelling to the afterlife, must pass by colliding rocks or other moving obstacles. | 13 | 20 |
| I37B | Mushrooms are associated with the world of the dead. | Mushrooms are associated with the dead, the afterlife, evil spirits, and disease. See motif I37. | 5 | 20 |
| I59b2 | The Milky Way – St. James' Way. | The Milky Way – St. James' Way. | 13 | 20 |
| I7c | Rain or dew – urine. | When a character in the upper world urinates, it rains (dew falls) on earth. | 9 | 20 |
| I96 | The bloody rainbow. | A rainbow consisting of blood either heralds war and death. | 12 | 20 |
| J54b | Mother's enemy and brother's ally. | The antagonist's son and the hero are half-brothers or full brothers (uncle and nephew; sworn brothers). When the antagonist tries to destroy the hero, the antagonist's son takes the hero's side. | 17 | 20 |
| J7a | Bringing lunch to father. | A girl (less often a boy) brings lunch to her father or brothers who are working in the field (in the forest), but encounters a demonic character. | 11 | 20 |
| K102c | Having changed his appearance, the hero recovers the magical object (ATU 318). | The enemy seizes the object that makes the hero invulnerable and kills him. The hero is revived. Changing his appearance, he provokes the enemy to put the magical object on the ground, seizes it again and kills the enemy. | 15 | 20 |
| K119c | Tsar-Thunder and Tsarina-Lightning. | The antagonist believes that he has been attacked by the lord of thunder (the father of the bride, whom a zoomorphic assistant has tricked into marrying a poor young man, motif K119). | 12 | 20 |
| K119d | Puss in Boots. | A cat helps a poor young man marry a princess (a girl marry a prince). | 15 | 20 |
| K127a | The silent heroine. | The heroine must remain silent for a long time and therefore cannot respond to the accusations. They want to execute her, but at that moment the restrictions expire and she is saved. | 17 | 20 |
| K18c | A boy urinates on his father's hands. | The man in whose arms the boy urinates will be recognised as his father. See motif K18. | 12 | 20 |
| K27l1 | Frozen in ice. | Voluntarily subjecting himself to trials, the character allows himself to be frozen in ice and cannot free himself. | 10 | 20 |
| K27n3c1 | The hero's adversaries – polar bears. | The inhabitants of the polar bear village – relatives of his wife – set the hero difficult tasks and trials. | 11 | 20 |
| K27yy4 | Obtaining tree bark. | The hero must obtain tree bark, which is fraught with danger. | 11 | 20 |
| K33a1a | Heroine in the belly of a whale. | A woman thrown into the water finds herself in the belly of a fish (whale), but is then rescued. | 13 | 20 |
| K35b | The most delicious dish. | The hero gives his rivals the food that the king sent them all to get, but what the rivals got turns out to be poisonous, useless, or tasteless, while what the hero brought, regardless of how it looks, gets praised. | 14 | 20 |
| K65c1 | Division into servants and masters, (ATU 758). | A woman gives birth to many children, but hides some of them from God. Those who are hidden become the progenitors of people of low social status, and those who are shown become the progenitors of people of high status. {The definition of plot 758 in Uther 2004 largely coincides with ours, but the references also include traditions in which children hidden from God become spirits rather than people of low status}. | 17 | 20 |
| K78a | Swallows and heals. | A demonic character swallows cripples and regurgitates them healthy and beautiful. | 13 | 20 |
| L118a | Imitation: knife to the throat. | In order to get rid of a dangerous but foolish character, a person performs certain actions, which the character imitates, not realising that he is harming himself. | 20 | 20 |
| L129 | Why such big teeth? (Little Red Riding Hood), (ATU 333) | The character is asked why his body parts, organs, and tools are the way they are. He answers (or the questioner gives explanations for him). In the end, one kills or maims the other. | 17 | 20 |
| L15J | Only with fire. | The character can only be killed by fire. | 17 | 20 |
| L1c1 | Flight to the heavens. | Fleeing from demonic characters, a group of men – relatives of a girl – ascend to the sky and remain there. See motif L1C. | 15 | 20 |
| L25 | The devil sucks out brains. | By killing demons, people save the life of a child, girl or woman. Remaining among people, she or he kills people (usually children) left in her or his care. | 13 | 20 |
| L32 | The voracious stone. | The stone swallows, bites, beats or transforms people. | 11 | 20 |
| L36 | A woman attacks when a man is in a tree. | At the moment when the husband climbs or descends from a tree, his wife (or her brother) kills or maims him or turns into a demon that pursues him. | 14 | 20 |
| L42d | The cannibal's frozen tongue. | A man runs away from a cannibal across the ice, the cannibal pursues him, licks the blood spilled on the ice, his tongue freezes, he dies, or falls to his death after slipping on the ice. | 11 | 20 |
| L5A | The head turns into a celestial object. | A rolling head turns into a celestial object that emits or eclipses light (sun, moon, stars, fireball; it is the cause of eclipses). See motif L5. | 15 | 20 |
| L71 | The end of a thin branch. | The character kills an animal; the trickster tries to take the meat; the character lifts the meat onto a tree; helps the trickster or his cub to climb up too; after eating, the climber wants to relieve himself or (less often) drink; the character points out that this can be done at the end of a thin branch; the trickster or the trickster's cub climbs up, falls, and is killed. See motif L70. | 19 | 20 |
| L96c | He hasn't learned anything! | A young man is learning magic. In order for the sorcerer to let him go, he must pretend that he is incapable of learning. | 14 | 20 |
| M106b | "Last Year" in the demon's house. | The character who caused harm to the antagonist calls himself by a fictitious name such as "Last Year," and the other antagonists understand this to mean that everything happened a long time ago and there is no point in looking for the culprit. | 13 | 20 |
| M114b3 | Clothing made from a bundle of flax and a loom made from three sticks. | When a girl is asked to weave clothes, given a negligible amount of yarn, she asks in return to make her weaving tools from sticks, twigs, straw, etc. | 15 | 20 |
| M118b | The bull-hiding place. | Climbing inside the animal, the character obtains food there without harming the animal. | 12 | 20 |
| M126 | The talking skull. | A man sees a talking skull (turtle) and reports this to the chief, the king. In the presence of the king, the skull (turtle) remains silent, and the man who found it is accused of lying and punished. | 16 | 20 |
| M171b | A shoulder blade without meat. | The character pretends to have brought meat on a shoulder blade and gives it to the hosts to cook. Taking a bare bone without meat out of the pot, he accuses the hosts of stealing the meat. | 14 | 20 |
| M17a | Mother or grandmother deceives a blind man. | The mother or grandmother of a blind man or boy secretly eats (the meat or fish he has caught), pretending that there is no food in the house. | 9 | 20 |
| M192 | Dried carcass, ATU 68. | A scavenger who has climbed into an animal carcass or put on a fresh animal skin cannot get out of it (usually because the skin has dried out in the heat). He gets out when the skin becomes soft again or someone helps him. | 13 | 20 |
| M197e1 | The demon claims the harvest. | The demon claims that the harvest in a field belonging to a human belongs to him. But if the human brings him an animal unknown to him, he will renounce his claims. The man brings his wife, smeared with something sticky and covered in feathers, standing on all fours, with her hair loose, etc. The demon admits defeat. | 13 | 20 |
| M21a | Under the pretext of illness. | The character is pursued by an enemy. An animal hides the fugitive in its mouth or on its body, and when the pursuer appears, it refuses to open its mouth or expose part of its body. (Usually simulates illness – toothache, etc.). Cf. motif i87ad. | 8 | 20 |
| M46c | Swallowed needle | The character turns into a needle, a garbage, a small insect. A woman swallows it and becomes pregnant. See M46B motif. | 18 | 20 |
| M48 | The trickster turns into a bison | Trickster asks another zoomorphic character to turn him into a creature of his kind, but if he breaks the condition for transformation, he becomes himself again. Usually, a trickster asks a bison or elk to turn it into a bison or elk. The bison (elk) rushes to the trickster, which bounces off in fear. The next time the trickster stays in place, metamorphoses, but regains its former appearance after trying to turn another trickster into a bison, etc. | 13 | 20 |
| M53d | Imaginary enemies | The character pretends to be enemies coming; when people run away in fear, the character takes what the deceived people owned. | 10 | 20 |
| M54 | The runaway wakes up in the same place | The character lives or stays at someone else's house; then goes far away, falls asleep, but wakes up again in the same house. | 12 | 20 |
| M56a | The crocodile's secret | A weak character hits a crocodile, but the crocodile is safe. He says he would be killed if the attack hit a specific location. Next time, the same character hits this place and kills a crocodile. | 12 | 20 |
| M57d3 | Wind donor | A person receives a reward from a character who is associated with the wind. Cf. Motive K175 (“The wind carried away the flour”). | 15 | 20 |
| M60a1 | The shepherd explains how to cross | The hero meets a servant (usually a shepherd) and takes his form, after asking how he acts, how he talks to the hostess (usually finds out what to say in order transport the herd across the river). | 11 | 20 |
| M60a2 | The imaginary servant licks his heels | The servant must lick the master or mistress's feet or wound. The hero comes disguised as a servant and instead of licking his heels, touches them with the animal's cut off tongue. | 12 | 20 |
| M75a | Revenge for falling from heaven | The character lures a veteran to avenge his fall from the sky. Either the (potauatomi) shovel drops the character or leaves him on top to avenge being lured and caught. | 12 | 20 |
| M90a4 | The jewel tree | A tree is described on which jewelry or ornaments hang instead of fruits; individual parts of the tree are made of different metals or (semi) precious stones. | 14 | 20 |
| M86 | The boulder punishes the offender | A rock stalks or otherwise punishes a character when he unfairly insults her (usually takes away her property, see motive L33). | 14 | 21 |
| M91c6 | The hat pays the bills, (ATU 1539) | A person sells a hat to others, convincing them that it pays the bill, you just have to lift it up (throw it on the floor, etc.). He actually paid the innkeeper in advance. | 13 | 21 |
| N18 | Selected gifts | fairy-tale text ends with a formula stating that the narrator received food, drinks, money or other real world items from the characters described, but lost them against their own free will because of meeting dogs or people (robbers, boys, children or a neighbor). | 9 | 21 |
| N6 | Whip a horse | horse tells the rider to whip it so hard that his blood splashes, his skin peels off, the meat is cut to the bone, etc. The rider follows these instructions. | 12 | 21 |
| I60 | The Milky Way – the heavenly seam. | The Milky Way - a seam, a crack between the two halves of the sky. | 13 | 21 |
| J10 | Wasp sting. | A woman loses her way after being stung by a wasp (or bee, ant, snake). She slaps her stomach (either to kill the insect or to punish her unborn sons, because of whom she went to pick a flower and was stung; see motif J11). The offended sons fall silent, ceasing to show the way. See motif J9. | 10 | 21 |
| j1c | Avenging heroes - with a missing or distorted final part of the plot (revenge is not described). | Avenging heroes - with a missing or distorted final part of the plot (revenge is not described). | 13 | 21 |
| K102a1 | Imaginary grave. | To hide the truth, a person buries an animal or an inanimate object and says that the grave supposedly contains the remains of another person's wife (bride, mother, daughter, sister, children). | 17 | 21 |
| K10c | Wrapped in entrails. | The hero (twins) is weighed down with the blood-filled intestines of an animal. A bird pierces them with its claw, blood flows, the bird thinks its prey is dead, and brings the man to its nest. He kills the adult bird and either kills or transforms the chicks. Cf. motif M91A. | 9 | 21 |
| K112 | The worker takes revenge on the Sun. | A man accuses the Sun and other characters responsible for the weather, wild animals, etc. of causing him to lose his property; he punishes his offenders. | 13 | 21 |
| K116c | The father was persuaded to leave his daughter in a chest, ATU 896. | In order to take possession of the girl, the priest arranges for her father to agree to place her in a chest (barrel) and lower it into the river (leave it in a deserted area). | 15 | 21 |
| K132a | The husband's rooster and the wife's hen, ATU 219E*, 715A. | The husband (rarely: the wife) sends the rooster out to earn money, and it brings back money. The wife (husband) sends the hen (cat, her half of the rooster, etc.) and receives only mice, filth, etc. Or, instead of money, the rooster brings the wife something bad or nothing at all. | 20 | 21 |
| K136b | Rubies from the river, (ATU 467). | A character finds precious stones or unusual flowers (usually in a river) and learns where they come from. | 13 | 21 |
| K158 | Recognising the woman in the portrait, (ATU 881A). | In order to find her missing husband (and other men who helped her or caused her harm), a woman displays her image and calls to her those who, by their behaviour, show that they are familiar with the features in the portrait. | 13 | 21 |
| K166 | Forty girls. | A group of girls forms a community or troop and acts independently of men. Cf. motif F39. | 13 | 21 |
| K178 | The enchanted husband drives away and finds his wife again, ATU 425E, 425L. | A girl descends into the underworld to her magical husband, and when she breaks the ban, he drives her away (sends her away with a task). She comes to live with other people, she has a child from her magical husband. Her husband finds her, the spouses are reunited, the spell is broken. {Motif in the work} | 15 | 21 |
| K183 | Which fish swallowed it? | The character cuts open the bellies of aquatic creatures (birds of prey) or looks into their throats to find the swallowed person or part of their body. | 17 | 21 |
| K1j | The abandoned returns faster than the abandoner. | The abandoned one turns into a bird and returns home faster than the one who abandoned him. | 9 | 21 |
| K25a6 | The magical wife does not forgive infidelity. | A woman from another world agrees to live with a man in his earthly world, but leaves him when she learns that he has broken a taboo (often his infidelity). Cf. motif F94 (the hero betrays his magical wife in her world); motif K12B (the hero visits his world alone, contrary to the warning of his magical wife). | 12 | 21 |
| K25a7 | Two brothers and a winged maiden. | The older brother hunts, the younger brother takes care of the household. After catching the winged maiden, the older brother takes her as his wife, while the younger brother, out of naivety, returns her wings to her. The older brother sets off in search of his wife. | 8 | 21 |
| K33a5 | The heroine is turned into a duck. | A woman who has been turned into a duck (goose) by her rival's scheming tries to establish contact with her children or husband. | 12 | 21 |
| K45b | A woman becomes an aquatic animal. | A man and a woman belonging to different generations (father – daughter, son – mother) come into conflict, as a result of which the woman turns into a marine mammal, the mistress of marine mammals, or a frog. | 12 | 21 |
| K54a | Blow to the legs. | A man and a friendly giant live together. The friendly giant fights another giant and asks the man for help. The help consists of the man damaging the enemy's legs. | 16 | 21 |
| K81a | Bezrucha in the prince's garden. | A girl with severed hands comes to a fruit tree (garden) to find food. Seeing her there, the prince takes her as his wife. | 14 | 21 |
| K8c2 | The swallowed mouse. | The mouse is swallowed by a large land animal and comes out by cutting it open from the inside. | 10 | 21 |
| A13a | The raven hides the sun. | The raven steals or hides the sun, or attempts to do so. | 12 | 21 |
| A15 | Crossing paths. | An eclipse or the appearance of spots on the lunar disc is explained by the fact that the moon or sun turns onto the wrong path or the paths of the luminaries intersect. See motif A14. | 16 | 21 |
| A2d | Suns of different worlds. | Other suns illuminate other levels of the universe or will shine sequentially in the future. | 15 | 21 |
| A31a | Severed breast. | Upon learning that her husband or lover has committed an act incompatible with accepted norms, a woman cuts off her breast and shows it to him. | 11 | 21 |
| A32i | Shepherd on the moon. | A shepherd (shepherd and girl, shepherd and his flock, dogs) can be seen on the lunar disc. | 14 | 21 |
| B101 | Stripes on a birch tree. | Angry at the birch tree, the character beats or cuts it, leaving stripes on the bark that remain to this day. | 11 | 21 |
| B125b | A person going to a festival borrows someone else's organ. | A zoomorphic character goes to a festival and asks another to lend him a part of his body, which will make him look more attractive. | 19 | 21 |
| B13 | The crossed riverbed. | A character deliberately or accidentally makes a riverbed by digging it out, drawing it on the ground or spilling water as he walks (cf. motif B13A: water rushes in the footsteps of a person against his will, he tries to run away from it). | 19 | 21 |
| B33f | The old woman-night unravels the yarn. | A certain character performs actions that determine the change from dark to light times of day. It always involves yarn, thread, rope, or fabric, which the character unravels or winds up, or with which the hero binds the entity responsible for the daily cycle. | 14 | 21 |
| B42U | The stars of the ladle handle – three people. | The stars of the handle of the Big Dipper – three people, and the four stars of the dipper – animals or objects (one or more). | 10 | 21 |
| B55 | Leaf fish. | Fish grow on tree branches or tree leaves turn into fish. | 15 | 21 |
| B59 | Dancers turn into the Pleiades, A773. | A group of people (usually children, brothers or sisters) play, dance, rise to the sky and turn into the Pleiades or another small constellation. | 15 | 21 |
| B86A | Reaching for the moon in the sky. | People try to climb up to the sky to get the moon. (In brackets are traditions in which the goal of building a tower to the sky is the moon, but the task of getting it is not mentioned). | 8 | 21 |
| D13g | Meat on the teeth. | When the character starts laughing, people see his or her scary mouth (lots of teeth, human flesh on the teeth); they kill the monster or run away. | 14 | 21 |
| D4a1 | Luring fire. | A certain character possesses fire or steals it. His attention is attracted or distracted by singing, music, dancing, unusual gifts, indecent or strange behaviour, offers of sex, food and/or alcohol. | 13 | 21 |
| D4h | The swallow obtains fire. | The swallow obtains fire for people. See motif D4A. | 11 | 21 |
| E31 | Imaginary Pygmalion. | A man makes a wooden doll and behaves as if it were alive. It does not come to life, or comes to life only partially or temporarily. A real woman replaces the figure and marries the carver. | 14 | 21 |
| F29a | The worm is scalded with boiling water. | To kill a woman's lover, who has the appearance of a worm or snake and crawls into her vagina from under the ground, boiling water, resin or hot coals are poured on him. | 10 | 21 |
| F37 | Calabash on the water. | To summon her lover, the character taps on a calabash placed on the water. | 13 | 21 |
| F45a1 | Accidental conception by the wind. | A woman, against her will, conceives from the wind. | 7 | 21 |
| H1d | The one who returned to the people was rejected. | The deceased returns, but people send him back, dissatisfied with his appearance, refusing to accept him or burying him again. From then on, death is final. | 14 | 21 |
| H31 | Death: man and the heavenly bodies. | God summons several characters, including man and the heavenly bodies, and makes man mortal and the heavenly bodies immortal. | 7 | 21 |
| H52a | Death provokes touching the ground. | Returning from the land of immortality, a person must not touch the ground. However, he dismounts from his horse to help an old man (old woman). Death, who has taken the form of an old man, immediately kills him. Rarely: at the last moment, the hero decides not to perform actions that are fatal for him. | 11 | 21 |
| I10a | Coloured layers of the sky. | Individual layers or categories of the sky or clouds differ in colour. | 17 | 21 |
| I134 | Long neck on the Milky Way. | Along the axis of the Milky Way, a creature with a long neck (llama, emu, rhea) can be seen. | 9 | 21 |
| I35a | Thunder – an old woman. | Thunder is produced by an old woman in the sky. | 13 | 21 |
| K92C | The wife weaves, the husband sells. | A princess or sorceress turns out to be the wife of a poor man. She weaves or embroiders a scarf (or other item) and sends her husband to sell it. This marks the beginning of their path to success. | 14 | 21 |
| L130 | One eye for three, ATU 328*. | Two or more characters have only one eye between them. | 14 | 21 |
| L131a | Your children are burning: appeal to the demon. | To get rid of a demonic character (usually a woman), they inform her that the place where her home and/or children are located is engulfed in flames. | 11 | 21 |
| L15g | The burnt log (death of Meleager), ATU 1187. | A person's life is connected to an object that can be burned. As soon as the object is burned, the person dies. | 19 | 21 |
| L23b | Transformation into a spindle. | Trying to free himself, the captured character sequentially changes his appearance. The last transformation is into a spindle. | 7 | 21 |
| L30 | He who eats a snake wants to drink. | The one who broke the food taboo experiences terrible thirst and drinks a huge amount of water. | 15 | 21 |
| L65b2 | Dogs with talking names. | The hero's dogs have names that speak of their strength and agility (Wind, Ironbreaker, etc.). | 14 | 21 |
| L85b1 | Ascending to heaven, he regains his physical wholeness. | After ascending to the sky (meeting God, returning from the sky to earth), a physically disabled young man (usually with only half a body) becomes whole. | 8 | 21 |
| L85d | Without arms and legs: the crippled ploughman. | The hero encounters a giant and a strongman (usually a ploughman) with one arm, one leg, or one eye. He was crippled by a character who turned out to be much bigger and stronger than him. | 10 | 21 |
| M10 | The girl and the honey. | A girl or woman gets stuck in a hollow while extracting honey, or greedily sucks honey in some other way and as a result dies or undergoes a metamorphosis; a woman stuck in a narrow passage turns into honey, into a honey bee. | 12 | 21 |
| M105a | Allegedly murdered children. | A character hides his children, but tells another that he has killed them. The other believes him and kills his own children. See motif M104. | 20 | 21 |
| M106c | My name is "Guest". | Telling his companions that his name is "Guest," "For Guests," etc., the character appropriates the food intended for all who have come. | 15 | 21 |
| M108b | The woodpecker helper. | The deceiver takes away someone else's property in a boat or carries it away. A bird (usually a woodpecker) deceives him and returns the property to its owners. | 11 | 21 |
| M134a | Three Little Pigs, ATU 124. | A predator/cannibal destroys a flimsy house but cannot destroy a sturdy one. Usually, two or three weak characters build three houses to protect themselves from the predator, only one of which is sturdy. | 14 | 21 |
| M157a5 | Golden mortar. | A person finds a golden (rarely marble, etc.) mortar (bell) and brings it to an authoritative figure. Instead of gratitude, the latter demands that the pestle (the tongue of the bell, etc.) also be brought. | 16 | 21 |
| M168a | The master is taken seriously, ATU 93. | An animal or bird that regularly feeds on the fruits of a farmer's harvest or lives in his field continues to do so until the very last moment, when the threat to its life becomes obvious. Usually, a bird with chicks (a fox with fox cubs) does not leave the field (vineyard) where the harvest has ripened until the owner's children (workers) and he himself take up the sickle or begin to cut the vines. | 21 | 21 |
| M187b | Harvest to the fastest runner. | Two animal characters agree to give the harvest from the field they have cultivated together to the one who runs faster than the other. | 13 | 21 |
| M188 | Jackal in the dyeing workshop. | The character is honoured after accidentally acquiring an unusual appearance – getting paint on himself or attaching an object to himself that he cannot remove. | 17 | 21 |
| M193 | Rolling home. | To avoid predators (suitors) on the way back, the character climbs inside a pumpkin, a round cauldron, etc. and rolls down the road or walks, disguised beyond recognition. | 16 | 21 |
| M198b4 | The imaginary fortune teller: names of thieves. | The fake fortune teller, expecting to be exposed, utters words that reflect his state of mind. The thieves standing nearby perceive some of the words as their names, believe that the fortune teller has found out about them, and ask him not to reveal them. | 16 | 21 |
| M199c1 | Whoever throws a stone farther, ATU 1063A. | A man and his opponent agree to test their strength by throwing a heavy object as far as possible. The man pretends that he is going to throw the object so far that those who are across the sea, behind the mountain, in a distant city, etc. (including the opponent's relatives) may be harmed. The opponent refuses to take part in the test. | 17 | 21 |
| M29l | Trickster - Possum | See the motives in square brackets. | 19 | 21 |
| M84b1 | A trip to the land of fish | A person enters a country from where fish come to people (and comes back). | 10 | 21 |
| L1f | Sister avenges her lover. | The sister, using magic or transforming herself into a monster, kills her brothers in revenge for the death of her lover or husband. | 12 | 22 |
| M16a | Gains sight by diving. | A character (usually a loon) restores a person's sight and/or health by diving into the water with them. See motif M16. | 19 | 22 |
| M171c | In exchange for a thorn, ATU 2034F. | At the request of a character, another character removes a thorn from his body (cuts off the tip of his tail, etc.). The thorn (tip of the tail) disappears, or when it is removed, the character is wounded. As a result, he receives something more valuable than what he has lost. | 14 | 22 |
| M18b | Obtaining a hook, spear. | The character turns into a fishing object in order to carry away the hook with which he is caught or the spear with which they try to harpoon him, or he turns into a hook to catch fish. See motif M18. | 21 | 22 |
| M26a | Ducks carry the catcher (strung on a rope), ATU 1881 | The character catches birds by feeding them bait tied to a rope, which they swallow one by one, or by shooting several birds with one bullet, or by soldering birds drunk and tying up. Birds usually take off and carry away a catcher holding a rope. | 20 | 22 |
| M64 | He pretends to own valuables | The character comes to the owner of valuables (food, fire) and pretends that he already owns them. As a result, valuables are made available (littoral is exposed at low tide, salmon spreads in waters, etc.). | 11 | 22 |
| I81a | Chthonic crab. | The giant crab causes earthquakes or floods, closes or can close the water outlet. | 12 | 22 |
| J39 | Who killed the rabbit? | The antagonist makes the woman his slave. Other characters secretly come to her and kill a small animal or bird for her. The antagonist suspects that the woman could not have caught the game herself, but she insists that she did. | 20 | 22 |
| J41c | Trials before meeting the antagonist. | The character goes to fight a dangerous enemy. Along the way, he is given tasks to complete. This is a sign that he will defeat his enemy. Usually, the same tasks were previously given to another character who was unable to complete them and was defeated by the enemy. | 16 | 22 |
| J43 | Bait for enemies. | To destroy his antagonists, the hero creates edible bait for them, usually a fruit tree on the other side of the river. | 13 | 22 |
| J54a | The Calf and the Tiger Cub, ATU 131. | Two women, both or one of whom are animal characters, live together and have children. One of them kills and eats the other or is about to do so. The son of the murderer kills his mother for this, remains the sworn brother of the son of the murdered woman, or the children of the murderer and the victim run away together. Cf. motif J54B. | 12 | 22 |
| K120a2 | Not by her mother, but by her mother-in-law. | Family members want to marry their daughter off to a man who is unacceptable to her (usually they want to marry her off to her own brother). The girl refuses to address her father, mother, etc. as close relatives, but calls them in-laws (mother-in-law, sister-in-law, etc.) or enemies; or the relatives themselves demand that the girl address them as in-laws. | 17 | 22 |
| K145 | Predicted death by a wolf, ATU 934B*. | A person is predicted to be torn apart by a wolf or to die during a wedding. The prediction turns out to be true. In the case of a wedding, the bride turns into a wolf and kills the groom. | 19 | 22 |
| K22a | Dwarves are attacked. | Birds or other creatures that are harmless to ordinary people attack dwarves living in another world. See motif K22. | 18 | 22 |
| K27t | Competition: climbing a pole. | Competition: climbing a pole. See motif K27. | 17 | 22 |
| K44b | Upon returning, throws food. | The hero or heroine returns after a long absence. Seeing (usually from the roof of the house) his or her parents (mother, husband) languishing in poverty, he or she throws food at them, extinguishes the fire, pushes them, etc. At first, they usually do not understand what is going on. | 12 | 22 |
| K51b | Smiles on the faces of the dead. | The bodies of the slain are left in such a position that it seems as if they are rejoicing – smiling, laughing, dancing. | 13 | 22 |
| K56a2a | Washing in red water. | A girl becomes beautiful or ugly after washing herself with water of a certain colour. | 15 | 22 |
| K56a8 | An animal mistakenly taken for a groom. | A girl marries an animal (brings it with her), and it turns into a handsome man. Another girl tries to do the same, but dies or suffers harm. | 13 | 22 |
| K63 | Fish babies and deer people. | A man comes to people who hunt humans or catch fish-people. For them, these are wild animals or fish. | 14 | 22 |
| K73b4 | Fill the bag with truth. | A person is asked to fill a bag (cauldron) with truth (lies, fairy tales). He fulfils the request by telling a revealing story. | 19 | 22 |
| K85d | A horse whose skin cannot be bitten through. | Covered with skins (coated with resin and sprinkled with sand, etc.), the mighty horse becomes invulnerable to the bites of other horses. | 12 | 22 |
| N27b | But there's no bird's milk | It is said that someone is only lacking bird’s milk or that somewhere the only thing missing is bird’s milk | 14 | 22 |
| A35c | Scratches and wounds on the face of the moon. | Moon spots are scratches and wounds on the face of a character. | 15 | 22 |
| A37a | The hidden archer. | A small animal (marmot, rabbit, mole, toad, frog, earthworm) or a person who turns into such an animal tries to hit the heavenly body with arrows or helps the archer. Since then, this animal has been hiding in burrows and in water. | 14 | 22 |
| B116b | The wet book. | A book containing sacred knowledge falls into the water at a crossing or gets wet in some other way. After that, the book disappears or the text becomes unreadable. Either the book is ruined (damaged) when it is dried. Or it is ruined while left unattended on the shore while the people who kept it are swimming; or it burns, although traces remain. | 18 | 22 |
| B39 | The narrow waist of an insect. | An insect or character, which later turns into an insect, knows where food (cultivated plants) or water is located, but refuses to share this knowledge. To find the valuables (usually to force the insect to reveal its secret), the first ancestors pull on a rope tied around the character's waist (the origin of the bridge between the abdominal and thoracic sections of insects). | 10 | 22 |
| B42c | Bear hunting. | In the cosmic hunting plot, the object of pursuit is a bear. See motifs B42 and B42P. | 22 | 22 |
| B52a | The vulture creates dry land. | Flying over the world, a bird (usually a vulture) dries the earth after a flood with its wings or otherwise gives it its present appearance. | 18 | 22 |
| B77b3 | Placing a pancake on the sky. | In the past, either in a distant country, the sky was or is so low that various objects are placed on it as needed. | 14 | 22 |
| B91a | Eyes: took and did not return. | A blind character asks another to lend him his eyes or to swap eyes, keeping his own eyes. | 9 | 22 |
| H1b | Death of someone else's child. | The character performs actions that lead to death, because he is indifferent to or desires the death of the child or woman loved by another character. See motif H1A. | 19 | 22 |
| H20a | The mistress of the fish loses it. | A woman or several women keep fish or water in some kind of container; a man releases all the fish into rivers or the sea, releases the water. See motif H20. | 17 | 22 |
| H22 | Sense of smell in animals. | Large game animals did not have a sense of smell. They acquired it and began to flee from hunters after someone created olfactory organs for them or gave them a strong smell to smell. Cf. motif H22A. | 10 | 22 |
| H25 | Choose life or death. | People are offered a choice between two objects, one of which represents death and the other life, or they are asked whether they want to be reborn or die forever. Death is chosen. | 10 | 22 |
| H6c3 | The stork and the otherworld. | Large birds that fly in wedge formations (storks, cranes, swans, geese – German: Zugvögel) are associated with the otherworld (they bring children from there, carry children away to the non-human world, control living and dead water, etc.). | 11 | 22 |
| H6d | Stolen immortality. | Having obtained a means of ensuring immortality, the character falls asleep or leaves the means unattended. At this time, another character steals the means. | 13 | 22 |
| I3a | Lightning – whip. | During a thunderstorm, the character strikes with a whip – these are flashes of lightning. | 19 | 22 |
| A46a | The sun and moon – the eyes of the deity. | The sun and moon (Rigveda: only the sun) are associated with the eyes of an anthropomorphic being (the motif of their emergence from the eyes of this being may be absent). | 12 | 23 |
| B102a | Clouds – cows. | Clouds are associated with horned cattle, especially cows (and rain is their milk). | 17 | 23 |
| B116a | Knowledge is stored in the stomach. | A person or animal eats a sacred book or its remains. During the ritual, this knowledge is actualised in oral speech, in the sounds of a musical instrument made from part of an animal's body, or in parts of an animal's body used for divination. | 14 | 23 |
| B27b | Transformation into stars. | The characters ponder what they should transform into and decide to become a celestial object. | 13 | 23 |
| B48c | Artefacts in the pike's head. | In the head of the pike there are (visible) tools used by people. | 18 | 23 |
| B87c | Rider. | Alcor (the faint star next to the second star of the Big Dipper's handle) – rider, driver, coachman. | 13 | 23 |
| C32A | Nails (hair) will be needed by the soul in the afterlife. | Nails will be needed in the afterlife to save oneself (to climb a steep mountain, climb into the sky, build a bridge, etc.). | 9 | 23 |
| D1a4 | Conversation between two fires. | Two fires from different dwellings meet and converse. | 13 | 23 |
| E5aa | People grew like grass. | The first people grew out of the ground like trees, grass, and mushrooms. | 17 | 23 |
| E5d | The predator watches over those who leave. | The first people to arrive on earth and settle within a limited space are threatened by a predator or monster. | 13 | 23 |
| F40c | The patriarch kills the boys. | An authoritative man systematically kills the boys born to his wives or his sister. | 12 | 23 |
| F53a | The Bat or Owl hides its face. | The husband hides his face from his wife because she does not know that he is a bat or an owl. | 14 | 23 |
| F81 | The bride in the river. | The character does not recognise his reflection in the water, thinks that a person (usually a woman, with whom he immediately falls in love) is looking at him, and jumps into the water. (Cf. J1793, "Diving for a woman's reflection"; among the Kwinolts, diving for a real reflection of a woman; among the Menominee, diving for a woman in the water). | 9 | 23 |
| F9d | Scorpions in the genitals. | Small stinging creatures dangerous to the partner are found in the genitals of women or men. | 17 | 23 |
| G26 | Swallowed food: obtained for people. | After swallowing or hiding food in their mouth, the character brings it to earth (passes it on to people). | 14 | 23 |
| H15 | Yawning and whispering. | The dead or spirits cannot hear cries when the living call them, but they can hear whispers, yawns, gurgles, etc. See motif H12. | 8 | 23 |
| H21 | Game or fish kills a boy. | The character controls animals or fish; a boy, young man or girl knows his secret or serves as bait themselves; another character forces the boy (girl) to reveal the secret and/or help him in the same way that he or she helped the first character, or leads the boy to go fishing but kills him, or the boy himself starts hunting, breaking the rules; as a result, the boy or girl is killed or carried away by animals or fish. See motif H18. | 9 | 23 |
| H54b | Deadly gaze. | The character's gaze brings death (and destruction). | 8 | 23 |
| I82f | Venus – Wolf Star. | (Evening) Venus is associated with a predatory beast, usually a she-wolf. | 13 | 23 |
| J11 | Asks to pick flowers. | The son in his mother's womb asks her to pick flowers or fruit for him (usually when a woman picks flowers, she is bitten by an insect). See motif J9. | 15 | 23 |
| J22b | Two women from one. | A woman is cut or torn in half, and two new ones appear. | 6 | 23 |
| J60 | Sons of two fathers. | A woman conceives twins from two different fathers. | 13 | 23 |
| J8 | Feathers at the crossroads. | A woman or girl sets out in search of a husband (fiancé, etc.). Bird feathers left on the trail, at a crossroads or near a dwelling mark the right or wrong path. See motif J7. | 17 | 23 |
| K102a | Father knew what he was doing. | A man orders the killing of a young man's sister, wife or mother. The young man does not allow such an order to be carried out, and then repents of this. | 16 | 23 |
| K107a4 | The daughter asks for a magical groom to be brought to her. | When her father leaves, the daughter asks him to bring her an object or creature that embodies a magical groom. The father does not understand the meaning of her request. | 12 | 23 |
| K119e | The Miller: A Success Story. | The poor young man who was helped by an animal assistant, who presented him to the king as a rich man, is a miller or a miller's son. | 13 | 23 |
| K141 | Tamed mischievous sisters. | Supernatural women harm people. The hero tames them and usually takes them as wives. | 14 | 23 |
| K144 | Predicted death by an animal, ATU 934A, 934B. | When the animal, object, or person that was supposed to cause the character's death has already died or is far away, the character's remains or images become the cause of death. | 15 | 23 |
| K148 | Missing foals. | Every night or every year, a mare gives birth to a foal, and every time someone steals it. | 13 | 23 |
| K154 | Inscription on a skull. | A person finds a skull on which a mysterious and gloomy prophecy is written or which utters it. Then it becomes clear what it means. | 12 | 23 |
| K32a | A man leaves on a journey. | A man is carrying his wife or daughter. Another woman or demonic character replaces her when the man leaves on a journey (rarely: falls asleep). | 14 | 23 |
| K32h1 | Placed in a barrel with nails. | The antagonist is executed by being placed in a barrel (with nails) and rolled down a hill or tied to a horse. | 10 | 23 |
| K33a4 | Heroine transformed into a forest animal (ATU 409). | A woman, transformed into a medium-sized forest animal (lynx, wolf, vixen) by the machinations of a rival, tries to establish contact with her children or husband. | 11 | 23 |
| K57c | The ring in the pie. | The prince puts a ring on the finger of a beautiful girl, not knowing that she is the very girl who works in his kitchen. The girl slips the ring into the prince's food, and he recognises it. | 15 | 23 |
| K68 | A clot of blood protects the father. T541.41.1. | A strong man takes food from a weak man and forces him to work for him (usually a son-in-law mistreats his father-in-law). A boy appears in the house of the wronged man from a clot of animal blood that has been collected. He kills the offender. | 12 | 23 |
| L110c | Clay child. | An elderly couple makes a child out of clay (wood, straw, dough). The doll comes to life and eats everyone it sees. Usually a goat (ram) breaks it, and those who have been swallowed come out alive. | 15 | 23 |
| L131b | Your children are burning: appeal to a bird or ladybird. | To make a bird or ladybird fly away, they are told that the place where their home and/or children are located is engulfed in fire. | 11 | 23 |
| L33b | The trickster provokes a stone. | The character challenges someone who, at first glance, is unable to move (a stump, a boulder, fire) to race or roll over it. The challenged party sets off, crushes or burns the character, or runs away with their property. | 12 | 23 |
| M153a | The Washed Pig, ATU 122G(1). | A predator is about to eat a human or herbivorous animal. The intended victim asks to be allowed to wash first, and as a result is saved. (Among the Transylvanian Saxons, this involves being baptised with water). | 18 | 23 |
| M205 | Birds set fire to the city. | Soldiers besieging a city or palace capture or obtain as ransom the birds living there. They smear them with an oily liquid or tie objects to them (shells with resin, shavings, tinder, etc.), which are then set on fire. The released birds fly back to the city or palace. Thanks to the fire that has started, the warriors capture it. | 14 | 23 |
| M207 | The Mouse in the Bowl, ATU 1416. | The poor blame Adam and Eve for their misfortunes. An authoritative character gives them the opportunity to live comfortably on the condition that they do not violate a certain prohibition (usually not to open a certain vessel). They are unable to resist the temptation and are then returned to their previous state. | 16 | 23 |
| M38b2 | Three daughters-in-law at the king's feast | Each of the three brothers comes to his father with his wife (fiancée). The younger brother or his fiancée is considered worthless, but the girl turns out to be a sorceress and surpasses the brides of her older brothers in everything. | 12 | 23 |
| M39a4e | A fool sells property to a tree | Fool sells property to a tree (stump, pole, a cross in the countryside) and believes that it will pay him. Trying to get his money, he finds treasure | 17 | 23 |
| M53c | Reddened eyes | trickster, inviting birds to dance around him with their eyes closed, kills them one at a time and threatens to turn red at the one that opens their eyes; this is an empty threat, or for a bird that opens eyes and eyes have really turned red ever since. | 14 | 23 |
| M71 | Selected piece of wood | A character (usually carried away by a river or fallen from a height) turns into a piece of wood. Someone is picking it up. The character then takes on his true form, usually in the absence of the hosts. | 12 | 23 |
| M74ab | The fox is in the boat | Travelling in a boat or on a sledge, animal person (always the fox) steals food supplies or ruins objects and accordingly to his deeds, names different places. These names seem strange to the person’s companions (“River of broken arrows” and the like) | 8 | 23 |
| M93a | The guard was punished | The character punishes a part of his body (burns his ass, breaks his eyes) for not sounding the alarm. See Motive M93; cf. Motive M142. | 15 | 23 |
| N30 | He looks one way, cries, looks the other way, laughs | formula that describes the confusion of feelings: when a character looks in one direction, he cries, and when he laughs or smiles in the other direction. | 8 | 24 |
| N8 | A storyteller instead of a core | fairy-tale text ends with a formula that says that the characters placed the narrator in a gun or gun and fired a shot, or he jumped onto the core himself and thus arrived at the place where the fairy tale was performed | 13 | 24 |
| I53 | An insect annoys the support of the earth. | An insect or other small creature bothers the animal that supports the earth, so the animal moves and the earth shakes (or, conversely, the animal is afraid to move because of the insect). | 14 | 24 |
| I71 | Stars – roots. | Stars – roots of plants growing in the upper world. | 14 | 24 |
| I73 | Stars – sparks. | Stars (rarely suns and moons) – sparks, hot coals. | 17 | 24 |
| I80b | The forgotten wind, ATU 752B. | Man is allowed to control the weather in his own interests. He sends rain at the right time, but cannot take all factors into account (he usually forgets about the wind). The bread will not grow or will be unpalatable. | 23 | 24 |
| J16 | Refuses to eat insects. | The character perishes because, being forced to look for insects in the head of another, he refuses to chew insects, spits them out in disgust, or is suspected of doing so. | 15 | 24 |
| J40A | Avenged captives. | Returning after a long absence, the hero finds his parents or other close relatives in humiliating slavery, orders them to demonstratively show disobedience, and punishes those who humiliated them. | 22 | 24 |
| J41d | Throwing a stick, he exposes his forehead. | The strongman orders an iron club (sword, etc.) of monstrous size to be made, but breaks it and demands a new one, even heavier (often throwing it into the air and exposing his forehead, etc. – the club breaks). | 15 | 24 |
| J47b | Two ropes. | When a character runs away from a pursuer, a strong rope (chain, etc.) is lowered (thrown) to him. A rotten rope is lowered to the pursuer, it breaks, and the pursuer crashes (drowns). | 6 | 24 |
| K107d1 | The magical wife cannot wake the young man. | Waiting for his magical wife, the young man falls asleep. The wife cannot wake him up and leaves (this episode is often repeated). | 14 | 24 |
| K10e | Rescued people. | In the bird's habitat, the hero finds the people it has kidnapped and helps them return home. | 12 | 24 |
| K110 | Reflection of the golden sword. | The character is asked to retrieve treasure from the bottom of a pond. He does not understand that he is only seeing a reflection and that the treasure is located above. | 15 | 24 |
| K116a | Nesmeyana (the disguised tsar perishes). | The king takes or is about to take the poor man's wife. She suggests that the king put on clothes that are not his own (usually those that belonged to her husband). After that, the king is killed by his own soldiers (dogs), who believe him to be a poor man (jester, devil). | 15 | 24 |
| K150 | The horse eats coals. | A magical horse (rarely: dog) eats (hot) coals, nails, etc., or attempts are made to feed these to the horse. | 14 | 24 |
| K19g | Stars differ in brightness and colour. | One star is an old man, the other is a young man; both stars differ in brightness or colour, but it is impossible to determine the age of the star-man by these characteristics (a dim star may be young and vice versa); usually two girls want to marry stars of different types (one bright, the other dim, one red, the other blue, etc.). See motif K19B. | 24 | 24 |
| K27z4 | The dice player's trained animal. | The character always wins bets or outplays others thanks to a trained cat (mouse, rat) that holds (or extinguishes in time) a lamp, turns dice, etc. The hero releases the mouse (or cat, mongoose, respectively), the cat rushes after it (or the mouse is afraid to come out), and the character loses. | 19 | 24 |
| K35c2 | The hero in the underwater kingdom, (ATU 677). | When the ship unexpectedly stops, the hero descends to the bottom of the sea, behaves correctly with the local inhabitants, and returns to the ship. | 12 | 24 |
| K45 | Sedna (severed fingers). | A man and a woman belonging to different generations (father – daughter, son – mother) come into conflict. The man sails away from the woman in a boat or on a raft, or leaves her on a sledge. When she tries to grab the edge of the boat (raft, sled), he cuts off her fingers. (The common motif among the Warrau and Eskimos was first noted by O. Zerries [Zerries 1954: 346, 376]). | 13 | 24 |
| K56a2b | Wash lizards and beetles. | A supernatural character asks a girl to redeem (feed) his (her) children. These are snakes, beetles or wild animals. The girl does everything she is asked and is rewarded. | 14 | 24 |
| K56a4a | While the demon brings clothes, ATU 480A. | Left alone with the demon in the bathhouse (mill, etc.), the girl demands that he bring her new clothes, jewellery, etc., and while the demon is fetching them, morning comes. | 12 | 24 |
| K61b | Learning names. | In order to learn the names of strangers, the character finds or creates a situation in which they call each other by name aloud. | 12 | 24 |
| K89b | The brother left on the tree. | At the beginning of the story, the sister parts with her brothers (or one brother), who die, remain on trees, on a hill, ascend to the sky, etc. Usually, after a successful marriage, the sister meets her brothers again, who have acquired superhuman nature. | 12 | 24 |
| B114 | Old men-anteaters. | A woman or a man (usually old people) turn into anteaters (the origin of anteaters). | 10 | 24 |
| B41a | Animals tell about the lives of their owners. | A dog or other domestic animal reveals details about its owners' lives that they would prefer to keep private; it is punished for this by losing its ability to speak. | 15 | 24 |
| B49 | The animals did not understand the instructions. | Animals of a certain species (in Toraja – humans) hear poorly or misunderstand instructions or questions about their future, or get confused when making requests to deities. This is how they acquire their current characteristics and habits. | 24 | 24 |
| B75a | Sounds of the Age of Creation: The Human Voice. | The voice of a character who once lived can still be heard (most often it is an echo; A1195, The origin of Echo). | 18 | 24 |
| C25c | The Big Dipper and the end of the world. | A change in the configuration of a certain constellation (usually the Big Dipper) or its disappearance from the sky will signal a global catastrophe. | 11 | 24 |
| C8b | Brother and sister did not recognise each other. | A brother and sister (or mother and son) find themselves alone, without marriage partners. Both of them (or only the brother, son) refuse to marry, but do so after accepting each other (or the brother accepts the sister, the son accepts the mother) as strangers. They give birth to new people. | 7 | 24 |
| F28d | Children are born from a wooden penis. | By masturbating with an artificial penis, a woman conceives children. | 17 | 24 |
| F5 | Brides for the first humans. | The character does not want to or cannot give all the suitors his daughters in marriage and turns them into girls of various animals. (Usually after the flood or at the beginning of time, men want to marry the only daughter of a deity or patriarch). | 23 | 24 |
| F70e2 | Father tests his daughters or sons. | The father sends his daughters or sons on a difficult task one by one. At the very beginning of the journey, their courage is put to the test. Only the youngest son or daughter passes the test. Usually, the father stands in their way, taking the form of an enemy or a predator, but only the youngest son or daughter bravely enters the fight. | 17 | 24 |
| F83a | Insult conveyed through children, ATU 36. | One character asks the children of another to convey an insult to their mother or father – usually announcing his intention to make love to their mother. {ATU data is included in the correlation table, but not in the text}. | 17 | 24 |
| F88 | The scent of women. | Female genitals are initially fragrant or odourless, but then acquire an unpleasant odour (they do not acquire a fragrant odour). | 12 | 24 |
| F98 | God and the cow. | A heavenly anthropomorphic deity descends to earth and mates with a cow. | 11 | 24 |
| H33a | Throwing children over the roof. | God wanted to throw a newborn baby (over a fence, house, etc.) so that it would immediately stand up and start walking, but the woman was frightened and did not allow it. Therefore, children do not walk from birth. See motif H33. | 14 | 24 |
| H34e | Edible snow. | The snow was edible. | 16 | 24 |
| H53 | The wolf – lord of the dead. | The wolf participates in the creation of the earth or is the brother of the creator and/or conqueror of the demons of the underworld. He dies and/or is considered the first to die and/or becomes the lord of the land of the dead. | 11 | 24 |
| I10b | Coloured tiers of the earth. | Individual layers or categories of earth differ in colour (and other characteristics). | 10 | 24 |
| I124 | Ursa Major – a boat. | The Big Dipper is considered a boat. | 16 | 24 |
| L29 | Fish from a puddle. | A person catches fish where it should not be, usually in a small forest pond isolated from running water; those who eat this fish die, undergo metamorphosis and/or are attacked by monsters. See motif L28. | 12 | 24 |
| L42i1 | The boy fisherman is carried away by a witch (ATU 327F). | A boy is rowing a boat. A witch lures him out and carries him away. The boy escapes. | 7 | 24 |
| L42k | The ogre regurgitates the axe. | A demonic character regurgitates an axe (adze) to cut down a tree. | 8 | 24 |
| L47 | Backwards – the slain enemy. | The hero's enemy approaches him upside down or backwards, giving the hero the opportunity to kill him or escape. See motif L46. | 15 | 24 |
| L54 | The boiling lake. | To overcome the disaster, hot stones or ashes are thrown into the water. | 13 | 24 |
| L82 | Burns his leg in a fire. | A person deliberately or accidentally burns his foot in a fire or burns himself completely; he turns into a demonic creature. See motif L9 (man with a sharp foot). | 11 | 24 |
| L9d | Sharp hands. | The character has sharp nails or knife-like hands, which he uses to kill people. | 17 | 24 |
| M111 | Monkey on a banana. | Two animals (usually a monkey and a turtle) agree to gather fruit. The one who can climb trees eats the good fruit and throws one peel or rotten fruit to its companion. The companion takes revenge. | 13 | 24 |
| M114d1 | Boiled eggs: by morning there should be chicks. | The character demands that chicks be hatched (from boiled eggs), a chicken be raised, and it be cooked within a day. Another character responds with equally absurd demands. | 17 | 24 |
| M123c | Unsuccessful flight south. | A non-migratory bird sets off south with migratory birds, but is unable to reach its destination. | 14 | 24 |
| M139 | Released birds. | The fox caught the birds and put them in a bag. Another character secretly replaced them with thorns. | 3 | 24 |
| M152b | The brave donkey and the cowardly lion, ATU 103C*. | When seeing a herbivorous ungulate (usually a donkey) for the first time, a large predator thinks that it is strong and dangerous. The herbivore's subsequent behaviour usually convinces the predator that its first impression was correct. | 17 | 24 |
| M199o | Who will pierce the tree, ATU 1085. | A man and his opponent agree to pierce a hole in a tree trunk (stump) with their head (finger, penis) or to knock down a tree with a blow to the head. The man has made a hole in advance (sawed the tree). | 22 | 24 |
| M29z3 | Gypsy - opponent and loser | The Gipsy (more often a female than a male) is an enemy overcome by the hero (heroine) or (rare) a weak failure | 22 | 24 |
| M39a4 | A fool turns to the shadow, (ATU 1681A) | fool takes his own shadow for a character chasing him and gives her his property. | 18 | 24 |
| M39e1a | Mice ate iron, ATU 1592, 1592A | The character claims that the mice ate iron (gold). | 20 | 24 |
| M78f | Substituted embryo | When a woman falls asleep, a joker (usually a tiny boy) places an embryo or the entrails of an animal or something similar next to her to make the woman herself or others think she has a miscarriage or that her viscera has fallen out. | 16 | 24 |
| M83a | He cries for dead children | The characters are arguing which one is older. After some people tell us how long they were born, the latter says that this and that happened in his memory at that time. | 13 | 24 |
| K99a2 | The sold dream. 26.29.30.32.33. | One person has a dream, and another buys it and obtains what was predicted in the dream. | 13 | 25 |
| L111 | Hook from the sky. | The inhabitants of the sky or shamans catch or want to catch earthly people with a hook, net, noose, etc., dragging them up into the sky (somewhere above) like fishermen pull fish out of the water; the inhabitants of the earth fish with hooks for fish, which in their own world are people or domestic animals. | 15 | 25 |
| L115 | The Perfect Gentleman. | A girl who rejected suitors finally finds someone she likes. The groom turns out to be a werewolf: on the way to his home, he gives away borrowed items of clothing and parts of his body. | 14 | 25 |
| L15b | To kill with a cane. | The character can only be killed with a specific plant, which is not usually used for making weapons. | 22 | 25 |
| L21 | The ogre runs away to pick up his prey. | A cannibal or demon under a tree intends to grab a person who has climbed a tree; the person throws his prey or some object far away, and while the cannibal is looking for, picking up or eating what has been thrown, he runs away. | 17 | 25 |
| M108a | Trickster-adopted child. | A lonely elderly couple adopts a trickster. He steals from them (and runs away). | 17 | 25 |
| M199h | The giant's torn belly, (ATU 1088). | The character hides a bag under his clothes, secretly putting food in it. After cutting open the bag, he pretends to have cut open his own belly. His opponent decides to do the same and, after cutting open his own belly, dies. Cf. motif M91A, "The Blood Blister." In the definition of plot 1088 in ATU, the motif of the giant's torn belly is optional. | 18 | 25 |
| M39a9 | Misunderstood instructions: a play on words | The character asks a member of his family to bring vegetable products, cook food, and feed someone. He understands words as if he must kill a child (dog, etc.) and serve his meat. [section incomplete] | 18 | 25 |
| M69 | The head gets stuck in the skull | character is attracted by the inside of a large animal's skull (small animals or insects are dancing or feasting inside, or eating some meat); he sticks his head inside , it gets stuck. | 15 | 25 |
| M78d | Pea child | A tiny boy (rarely a girl) comes from a pea (bean, seed) or from a spool of goat droppings, he is almost as tall as a pea. Or he was born after his mother ate a pea. | 17 | 25 |
| I46b | The rainbow predicts the harvest. | The colour of the rainbow can be used to predict the harvest of individual crops. | 9 | 25 |
| I56a | Man is an evil spirit in the world of spirits. | When a person who has entered another world touches the local inhabitants, they become ill or die. | 11 | 25 |
| I86 | Down in birds, scales in fish. | The inhabitants of the upper world produce down, wool, and scales, which turn into birds, animals, and fish. | 18 | 25 |
| I95c | Orion – staff. | Orion's belt – staff, stick, three sticks, rod, crutch, etc. | 17 | 25 |
| J12b | Honey groom. | A honey groom or a skilled honey gatherer is attractive to a girl. | 7 | 25 |
| J32c | The demon comes to harm the deceased. | At night, a demonic character comes to the grave of the deceased, intending to harm him. | 14 | 25 |
| K100h | The test of gratitude, ATU 750D, 751C*. | A supernatural character fulfils the wishes of one or more people and later visits them again. The beneficiary or most of them turn out to be ungrateful and chase him away. In response, the character deprives them of what they have gained. | 22 | 25 |
| K10d | A bird carries the hero away to an island. | A flying monster carries the hero away to a distant island. The hero kills the monster and uses a boat, bridge or rope made from part of the monster's body to return. | 10 | 25 |
| K120a5 | Luring a woman onto a ship. | To obtain a woman, a man lures her onto a ship (boat, flying machine, etc.) and takes her away. | 18 | 25 |
| K12a | The stretched bow. | An unrecognised hero arrives at a place where his bride or wife is to be given to another man or turned into a servant. Contrary to expectations, he manages to draw a tight bow (raise a spear), with which he kills his rivals. | 14 | 25 |
| K164 | A wife is not a best friend, ATU 921B. | The person himself or someone else creates a situation in which he becomes convinced that his wife is not his best friend. Usually, the treacherous wife is contrasted with a loyal dog. | 23 | 25 |
| K27p | The antagonist mourns his assistants. | The antagonist sends the hero to places where he is attacked by dangerous creatures; the hero kills them and brings them to the antagonist. The creatures turn out to be relatives, pupils or helpers of the antagonist, whom he (or his close relatives) mourns or revives. See motif K27. | 25 | 25 |
| K31 | Wooden seal. | The character makes a marine mammal or fish out of wood. It kills his enemies or drags them out to the open sea. | 16 | 25 |
| K32h | Buried alive. | The antagonist is executed by being buried alive. | 17 | 25 |
| K56a5b | Any weather is good. | A person who responds kindly to the questions of characters representing the weather during certain periods of the calendar cycle is rewarded. Another person who scolds these characters is punished. | 15 | 25 |
| K56f1 | The division of roosters, (ATU 1533.2). | Five chickens (geese, etc.) must be divided among six eaters (other numbers are possible). The solution is to give each pair of participants one chicken and take two for oneself (two chickens and one person – three, two people and one chicken – also three). | 19 | 25 |
| K57d | Tight shoe, cut-off toes. | The prince marries the girl who fits the shoe. The girl cuts off her toes or heel so that the shoe will fit. | 18 | 25 |
| K58a | Water in exchange for love. | The character brings water for irrigation or a fish river to the place where the girl agrees to meet him, and does not bring water if she refuses. (The parallel between the myths of Peru and Oregon was first noted in Lehmann-Nitsche 1935a; 1936). | 9 | 25 |
| K60c | Stropiva with the king, patient with the groom. | The stubborn wife of a worthy man goes on a date with a demon or a servant. He beats her, but she patiently endures her lover's beatings. | 17 | 25 |
| M91c7 | Tell them I'm dead | When enemies come to kill a person, he pretends to be dead. | 19 | 25 |
| N36 | Above the forest, below the clouds | is said about the horse that it jumps above trees (grass, the surface of the earth) and below the sky (clouds, clouds). | 7 | 25 |
| A35b | Covering the moon with resin. | The character tries to cover the moon with resin (so that it shines less brightly). | 11 | 25 |
| A38c | The Sun's Cloak. | The Sun exchanges a cape made of animal or bird skins with a boy or girl, or spoils it. As a result, the boy or girl raises their status or takes revenge on the Sun. | 14 | 25 |
| A43 | One foot is shod, the other is not. | The character runs away in a hurry and undergoes a metamorphosis, turning into a bird or rising into the sky. He is missing one trouser leg, or a shoe on one foot, or one mitten. | 12 | 25 |
| B3c | Attempt to drown God. | When the creator, having created the land, lies down to rest, the antagonist tries to drown him, dragging him to the edge of the earth. As a result, the earth expands, and the antagonist is unable to reach its edge. | 15 | 25 |
| B46d | Star brothers with different properties. | Men, each of whom excels others in a particular art, turn into stars. | 12 | 25 |
| B6 | Walking towards each other, they get married. | The first or only remaining man and woman move towards each other, going around a mountain, a pole or otherwise following a circle from opposite sides, and when they meet, they get married. | 12 | 25 |
| B73 | The cuckoo has different legs. | The character turns into a cuckoo. This happens so quickly that one foot remains unshod or one braid remains unbraided. Therefore, it is believed that the cuckoo's legs or wings are different. See motif A43A. | 11 | 25 |
| B94 | Trees lose the gift of speech. | Trees (and animals) used to talk, asking people not to cut them down or kill them. | 15 | 25 |
| B97a | Bird or animal necklace. | A strip of light or dark feathers (rarely: wool) on the neck of a bird (animal) is its necklace (scarf). | 15 | 25 |
| C9a | The Flood: people turn into aquatic animals. | During the flood or when crossing a river, those who drowned or were saved turn into aquatic or amphibious animals. | 8 | 25 |
| D4q | The fly obtains fire. | The fly rubs its legs together and produces fire. | 9 | 25 |
| E13a | Knowledge from the underwater world. | Sacred knowledge, objects and rituals were first obtained by humans from the inhabitants of the underwater world. | 12 | 25 |
| E7 | Stuck in a hole in the sky. | The path from one part of the world to another passes through a narrow opening. The character gets stuck in the opening, permanently severing the connection between the worlds. | 16 | 25 |
| F11 | Biting penis. | The penis burns, bites, eats food. | 21 | 25 |
| F23 | Cause of menstruation: sexual intercourse. | Blood spilled during sexual intercourse or artificial defloration at the time of creation is the reason why menstruation occurs to this day. | 14 | 25 |
| F41 | Husbands kill wives. | Ancestral men kill women who behave contrary to social norms. | 10 | 25 |
| F55 | What do you want? | Not understanding what her interlocutor of the opposite sex wants, a woman or girl names or shows various objects and body parts. The interlocutor is satisfied when she names or exposes her genitals. Cf. motif f55a. | 15 | 25 |
| F65d | The fake dead man: the wife doesn't believe it. | The character pretends to be dying and is left at the burial site. However, his wife (mother, aunt) finds out about the deception and provokes the supposed dead man, forcing him to reveal himself. | 10 | 25 |
| F92 | A pair of pederasts. | A male character allows himself to be used as a sexual object. | 18 | 25 |
| H36d | The hare betrays man. | The hare distorts God's command and/or is responsible for the fact that humans are mortal. See motif H36. | 9 | 25 |
| I120a | Entering the ear of an animal. | Entering the ear of an animal (usually a horse or a cow) and coming back out, the character becomes beautiful (well-fed, well-dressed). | 11 | 25 |
| I136 | The demonic wheel. | The rolling wheel (and the character riding on it) is a creature or weapon hostile to the hero (people) that he uses. | 13 | 25 |
| I21 | Sunburnt. | The inhabitants of the underworld or the land of the rising sun have red (yellow) hair and/or red or black skin and/or suffer from the heat of the sun, which passes them by at a short distance. See motif I20. | 18 | 25 |
| I27a | Settlements and dog trails. | The souls of dead dogs go to a special place in the afterlife and/or go to the afterlife along a special path. | 8 | 25 |
| I32a | The tree of destiny. | When a leaf or fruit from a certain tree falls, one of the people on earth dies. | 18 | 25 |
| A32c | Dog and man on the moon. | The figures of a man and a dog are visible (or should have been visible) on the lunar disc. | 16 | 26 |
| A36a | Sun and immortality. | The sun is contrasted with humans as immortal to mortals; responsible for the mortal nature of humans. | 9 | 26 |
| B2c | The earth as an anthropomorphic body. | The earth as a whole, elements of the landscape or fertile soil arise from the human body and (or) the earth (islands) are born of a woman. | 18 | 26 |
| B3 | Primary swamp. | At first, the earth is soft, resembling a swamp. | 13 | 26 |
| B72d | Wings from a cutting board. | A woman makes herself wings (beak, tail) from clothing accessories and turns into a bird or a flying creature. | 10 | 26 |
| B79a1 | The bird dropped the firmament onto the waters. | At the beginning of time, a bird flies and drops pieces of solid ground onto the water, from which land or an island emerges. Sometimes the substrate onto which the piece of solid ground falls is not precisely defined. | 20 | 26 |
| B84 | Mushrooms and growths (transformation of a cannibal). | After a demonic character (usually a woman who pursues the hero) dies, her flesh turns into objects found on trees - mushrooms, resin, fruits, cones. | 12 | 26 |
| D4g | The hummingbird obtains fire. | Hummingbird steals, finds or spreads fire. See motif D4A. | 19 | 26 |
| E18 | Vessels and snakes. | People learn to make or decorate ceramics or baskets (usually learning to apply patterns) thanks to a water creature. | 10 | 26 |
| F28a | A monstrous penis grows out of the ground. | A penis grows out of the ground or out of the water in a lake. Women summon it as needed. | 18 | 26 |
| F59 | Man in woman: modelling the figure. | Pretending to be a woman, the trickster transforms part of his body, another character, or some object into a swaddled baby, female genitalia, or a female household item, or disguises an animal or object as a baby born to a new husband. | 18 | 26 |
| F60 | The trickster heals the girl. | A girl or woman falls ill. A character comes to heal her. The treatment consists of him copulating with her or attempting to do so. | 17 | 26 |
| F83b | Rape of a woman in distress, ATU 36. | A strong female animal chases a weak male, but gets stuck between trees, rocks, etc. The fugitive mocks his pursuer, usually raping her. {In ATU, motifs f83a and f83b are described as one plot type, ATU 36. The degree of their plot connection can only be determined by having the original texts}. | 19 | 26 |
| G9B | Stop working – there will be a flood. | A man clears a plot of land of vegetation, but by morning it has grown back. At night, a certain character orders the trees and grass to rise up, turning the cultivated field back into virgin soil. He explains that there will be a flood, that there is no point in working, and advises people to prepare a means of transportation. | 6 | 26 |
| H7g1 | Death is more just and richer than God. | A man (usually looking for a godfather for his newborn son) rejects God (the saints) and the devil, but praises Death: it treats everyone without prejudice (or is richer than everyone else). | 21 | 26 |
| I119 | The dead shake the earth. | Earthquakes are caused by inhabitants of the underworld; during earthquakes, they try to get to the surface of the earth to check whether people are still alive. | 12 | 26 |
| I45c | Prohibition on counting stars. | Those who count stars are destined for misfortune and illness. | 15 | 26 |
| I87ab | Only a child can move it. | Strong men or a crowd of people cannot move the body of a dead animal or the leg of a motionless person, but a child or a woman can do it easily. Cf. motif B83. | 15 | 26 |
| I9a | Zenith and nadir. | Zenith and/or nadir are considered together with the four cardinal directions as one (or two) more main directions. | 18 | 26 |
| J18a | Mother eaten, children flee. | A cannibal eats a woman and enters her house. The woman's children (daughter and son, or daughter only) run away, climb a tree or climb a rope to the sky. The cannibal pursues them and perishes. | 10 | 26 |
| J53b | The breasts of a murdered mother. | Two women live together, both have children. One of them leaves the house with the other, kills her, brings her meat home and starts cooking it. The children of the deceased notice their mother's breasts (in California – eyes or liver), or the mother's breasts themselves turn to her children. | 17 | 26 |
| K101b | Three Nights of Trials, (ATU 400). | A girl or young man is freed from a spell after the hero endures three nights of torment or fear inflicted by demons. The girl or young man themselves are not dangerous to the hero; they help him. | 12 | 26 |
| K10i | The tree that opened up. | The tree opens its trunk and hides the hero fleeing from a man-eating bird. The monster that flies in after him is held tightly by the tree, which squeezes its trunk again. | 5 | 26 |
| K119b | Animals as gifts to the king. | After tricking wild animals, the fox brings them to the king as a gift from her rich master. | 14 | 26 |
| K136c | Sometimes alive, sometimes dead. | Upon leaving, the demon temporarily kills or puts the girl to sleep, and upon returning, revives her. | 18 | 26 |
| K167a | The Tsarevich and the Blacksmith's Son, ATU 920. | The queen hates the son she is pregnant with and replaces him with the son (rarely – daughter) of a commoner, who raises the prince. The prince shows wisdom and becomes king. | 17 | 26 |
| K1c | He who comes to look at the bones perishes himself. | A man is abandoned on an island but survives. After some time, the person who abandoned him comes to look at his bones. The abandoned man sails away in his boat, leaving him to die. | 14 | 26 |
| K33a7 | The widower, his daughter (son) and the teacher. | After the death of a woman, her daughter or son advises her father to marry a neighbour, teacher, etc., who usually persuades the teenager to give such advice. After marrying the widower, the new wife begins to tyrannise her stepdaughter or stepson. | 18 | 26 |
| K35c3 | The ship stopped. | For reasons that are not immediately clear, the ship stops in the middle of the sea (rarely: a horse stops in the middle of the road). | 18 | 26 |
| K38e3 | The Diamond Kingdom. | Among three (less often two or four) loci or objects associated with materials of high but varying degrees of value, the highest belongs to precious stones (usually diamonds, but also glass and crystal). | 17 | 26 |
| K43b | The bird brings meat. | People leave a boy, a girl, a sister and brother, a young woman or young spouses alone and leave, or drive them away. Those who are left behind or driven away discover unusual abilities or helpers, obtaining blood and food. Those who are abandoned eat their fill, while those who abandon them go hungry. A character (often a bird - a crow, magpie, seagull, etc.) visits the abandoned and brings a piece of fat or meat to the camp of the starving. | 16 | 26 |
| K50 | An imaginary wife cuts off the head of an enemy. | A man approaches the enemy disguised as a woman and kills him at night (usually cutting off his head and taking it with him). | 23 | 26 |
| K52 | In pursuit of the kidnapped to the bottom of the sea. | A woman or young man who approaches the shore is carried away by predatory sea creatures to the bottom of the sea; a character descends to rescue the kidnapped person and brings him or her back with the help of cunning and shamanic powers. | 17 | 26 |
| K56a7 | Greenery in winter. | In winter, a girl (rarely a boy) is sent to bring something that is normally only available in summer. She brings it. | 18 | 26 |
| K56e1 | Song mentioning the days of the week. | A man sees dwarves (spirits, witches) having fun. Their song mentions the names of the days of the week. The man sings along, naming the days that the dwarves like. He is rewarded. (Usually, someone else tries to get the same reward, but names the wrong days of the week and is punished). | 17 | 26 |
| K70 | Two daughters-in-law: a girl and a frog. | One man marries a girl, another (usually the brother of the first) marries a frog or a toad, or the girl and the frog are the wives of one man. Usually, the wives are given certain tests, and the girl is recognised as a worthy wife, while the frog is recognised as worthless. | 15 | 26 |
| K71 | Coyote betrays and saves his brother. | The coyote's brother successfully defends himself against enemies until the coyote breaks a certain taboo. The enemies kill the brother; the coyote comes to the enemy camp, retrieves his brother's remains and either flees from the enemies or kills them. The brother comes back to life. | 13 | 26 |
| K73c | The girl in the bird's nest, (ATU 705A, 709A). | A girl finds herself in a bird's nest (usually the bird carries the baby girl away). The bird takes care of the girl, who grows up to be a beauty. | 22 | 26 |
| K75b | Three melons from three daughters. | Wanting to show that it is time for them to marry, daughters of different ages send their father fruits of varying degrees of ripeness (bread baked in different ways). | 16 | 26 |
| K85b | Three-legged horse. | The three-legged horse is distinguished by its strength and speed, and is ridden by a rider of non-human nature. | 14 | 26 |
| K87b | A woman steps in bear droppings. | A woman is picking berries, steps in bear droppings, and scolds the bears. The offended bear takes her away and marries her. | 10 | 26 |
| L122 | Riding a rooster. | The character rides on a rooster. | 13 | 26 |
| L16b | Eyes on the knees. | The eyes or mouths of creatures are located on joints (knees, etc.). | 10 | 26 |
| L23c | Breaking an object in half. | Trying to free himself, the captured character sequentially changes his appearance. The last transformation is a small wooden object (usually a spindle). When this object is broken in half, the character permanently regains his human form. | 11 | 26 |
| L33a | The boulder pursues the thief. | The trickster takes an object lying on or near a rock or other inanimate object, which he has given to that object. The object pursues or otherwise punishes the offender. See motif L33. | 25 | 26 |
| L33e | The gifted cloak. | The trickster demands back or takes the cloak belonging to the skale or another character (usually he himself had previously given this cloak as a gift). | 15 | 26 |
| L79 | Two wives: a girl and a monster. | The girl marries a powerful, benevolent character; his first wife is a monster; he kills her or is satisfied that she has been killed by his new wife. | 16 | 26 |
| L87 | He who has tasted blood becomes a cannibal. | A character accidentally tastes blood or human flesh, after which he devours himself and/or others. | 16 | 26 |
| M101 | Who is afraid of what (the fox and the bear). | The bear tells the fox (rarely the sable or the wolf) that he is not afraid of people (usually saying that he is afraid of flying partridges). After trying to attack people, he is killed or wounded. Cf. motif M101A. | 11 | 26 |
| M103 | Children with beautiful spots. | One character asks another how her (his) children acquired valuable qualities (became beautiful, obedient, etc.). The other replies that children must be baked in ashes, kept in fire, burned, etc. The first character does so, and her or his children die or are maimed. | 14 | 26 |
| M114j | All women are the same, ATU 983. | A woman does not refuse those who harass her, but calmly explains that there is no point in trying to possess many, since they are all the same (they differ no more than eggs painted in different colours). | 22 | 26 |
| M149a | Contract with a tiger. | The character, either recklessly or against his own will, finds himself bound by a contract with a predator, which he cannot or does not want to fulfil, or which he breaks. The predator intends to eat him, but the character remains alive. | 12 | 26 |
| M182a1 | Animals redeem themselves, ATU 159. | A man catches several wild animals and releases them on the promise that they will bring gifts or prove useful. The animals fulfil their promise. | 17 | 26 |
| M20 | Severed beak, J2138. | The character does something unacceptable, is caught, and his beak or jaw is damaged. Usually (except for the Koryaks), people keep the torn-off beak (jaw) in their homes, and the character comes and takes it back. | 15 | 26 |
| M33 | Sealed anus | The character plugs or seals his anus tightly (with wax, clay, grass, etc.), or someone else does it. See M32 motif. | 19 | 26 |
| M58 | A trail or bush saves you from the heat | The earth is burning, the fire is chasing the character. A number of elements and objects refuse to cover him, saying they will burn or heat up; the last in the row shelters him. The earth cools down, the character leaves the shelter. | 11 | 26 |
| M62b | When aiming at a hero, they hit each other | Two or more characters aim their weapons at the hero in between, but they hit each other. | 18 | 26 |
| M74d | Who ate the kidneys? ATU 785 | God (the saint) travels with his companion. When he leaves, he eats the kidneys (heart, etc.) and says that the animal did not have kidneys. He continues to persist (even in the face of death), but confesses when he is promised wealth. | 21 | 26 |
| L102 | Escape from an animal husband. | A girl or woman (for various reasons, jokingly or seriously) calls an animal or animal remains her husband, or steps on bones and addresses them. The animal (comes to life and) carries her away. Her human husband, parents or brother come for her, and they flee; usually the animal husband pursues them, but stops the chase or dies. | 18 | 27 |
| L116 | The Singer in the Sack, ATU 311B. | A cannibal (old man, gypsy) grabs a girl, carries her away, and forces her to sing (beg). People recognise the girl's voice and free her. | 20 | 27 |
| L41c | Children sledding down a hill. | A cannibal grabs children as they slide down a hill. | 9 | 27 |
| L62 | Stone Man. | The Stone Man kills people, but is then killed himself. | 19 | 27 |
| L72e | The pursuer returns for the axe. | In order to overcome the obstacles created by the fleeing hero, the pursuer is forced to return home for the necessary tools. | 14 | 27 |
| L7a | Sticky: first to humans, then to animals. | A character who sticks to another creature and refuses to let go, first sticking to a human, then to an animal, or first sticking to an animal, then to a bird. | 12 | 27 |
| M112a | The turtle catches the thief. | Animals take turns guarding water or food or using water. The deceiver takes what he needs or prevents others from doing so. The turtle, toad or frog proves to be more cunning than the deceiver and catches him. See motif M112. | 24 | 27 |
| M114c | Shielding from the rain with one's body. | The character is puzzled as to how the other person's clothes (firewood, etc.) remained dry after the rain – the other person covered them with their body (hid them in a vessel, waited out the rain in a shelter). | 14 | 27 |
| M125 | Eats one's own eyes. | One character lies to another, pretending to eat his own eyes. The other agrees to eat his own. The first character gouges out one of his eyes and gives him something tasty in its place. The character believes that this is the same eye that was gouged out and agrees to give up the second. | 14 | 27 |
| M134b | Measuring the wolf. | When a predator is about to eat a person, the person asks to be measured first and strikes the predator with an (imaginary) measuring instrument. | 16 | 27 |
| M195a | Where is the upper end of the stick? | A character sends a long object that either looks the same at both ends or is inside a small object, and asks which end of the object is the top and which is the bottom. The guesser gives the correct answer. | 16 | 27 |
| M198a4 | Who is nobler? ATU 976. | Those who listened to the story must answer who they liked more: the husband who let his wife go to another man after the wedding, the robber who did not harm her, or the man who immediately sent her back to her husband. | 18 | 27 |
| M47 | The head is attached to the rear | When punishing a person or animal or restoring a dismembered body, a character intentionally or accidentally puts his head to his ass. | 9 | 27 |
| M72 | Hand in the back of the tapir | The character puts his hand into the anus of a tapir or other large herbivore and is unable to pull it out. The animal rushes to run and drags a person with it for a long time. | 16 | 27 |
| M74 | Regurgitated food | A weak character regurgitates previously swallowed unusual food, or replaces his belching with a strong character's belching, or interprets his secretions as remains strong animals he ate. The strong believe that the weak are strong or have unusual abilities. | 12 | 27 |
| I92b | Treasures under the rainbow. | Where the ends of the rainbow reach the ground, there is treasure. | 16 | 27 |
| I93 | The Milky Way – the backbone of the sky. | The Milky Way – the backbone, support, pillar of the sky or world. | 15 | 27 |
| J63 | The son saves, the daughter betrays. | Enemies arrive and tie up the husband. The wife agrees to live with the new man, while the former lies bound. One character (usually the daughter) refuses to free him, while another (usually the son) frees him. The husband kills the enemies and usually brutally executes (the daughter and) his wife. | 16 | 27 |
| K146 | The hero is revived by the remedy he was sent to fetch. | The hero is sent to fetch a remedy that can cure the sick or revive the dead. On the way back, a woman who is friendly to the hero keeps part of the remedy (or all of it, replacing it with a fake) and, when the hero is treacherously killed, revives him. | 18 | 27 |
| K27k | Dive long or deep. | Test: to dive underwater for a long time or deeply. See motif K27. | 15 | 27 |
| K27z7 | To learn what the rose of the heart is. | The character promises to fulfil a request if the other person reveals the secret behind someone's strange behaviour. | 18 | 27 |
| K57a | The Beauty from the Land of Soap, (ATU 510B). | A noble young man, who treated a lowly servant girl rudely and contemptuously, does not recognise her in the guise of a magnificent beauty and does not understand her hints about the relevant episodes. Or the younger brother responds to the hints of his older brothers after they first beat him and then fail to recognise him in the guise of a handsome hero. | 18 | 27 |
| K9 | The wife of a deity is thrown down from heaven. | The heavenly leader (deity), accusing or suspecting a woman of infidelity, relations with an animal, incest, or a desire to rule over him, throws her down. She becomes the mistress of the lower or middle world or part of it, or the mother of the master of the lower world, and gives birth to humans. Cf. motif J18. | 17 | 27 |
| A23d | Who is first in the calendar? | Animals argue about which of them should start the cycle of 12 months or years. The mouse wins the primacy. | 15 | 27 |
| B116d | The "book" as part of the stomach. | Part of the stomach of ruminants is called a "book". | 17 | 27 |
| B2f1 | Buried in the head. | (While the earth does not yet exist or has not yet hardened), birds bury the dead in their bodies – usually in their beaks or heads, which explains the unpleasant smell or the origin of the crest, swelling on the beak, etc. | 8 | 27 |
| B53 | Creatures and objects made from severed genitals. | The character's enormous genitals are cut off (usually cut into pieces), thrown away, and transformed into snakes or other creatures or objects. | 17 | 27 |
| B7a | Spit-out water. | Someone possesses water or a drink. Another character swallows what is hidden, runs away and spits out what is hidden, making the water or drink available to everyone. | 16 | 27 |
| B85 | Calming the Wind. | The wind blows too strongly, it is forced to calm down. | 16 | 27 |
| D4c1 | A floating elk distracts attention. | Animal-people come to steal summer from its owners. One of them, in the guise of an elk or caribou, distracts the owners' attention or floats a log or stump down the river, which the owners of summer mistake for an elk and rush after. | 9 | 27 |
| E30a | The ersatz spouse is replaced by the real one. 19.20.35.37.40.42.43. | A man without a wife or a woman without a husband uses a substitute spouse made of wood or other material until a real spouse appears. | 11 | 27 |
| E9e | A puppy received as a reward. | An animal or object received by a young man from supernatural beings as a reward for his kindness, upon the young man's return home (to earth), turns into a girl. | 16 | 27 |
| F3 | The husband gives birth after eating what was intended for his wife (ATU 705A). | A man accidentally eats a magical remedy intended for a woman to become pregnant and gives birth to a child. The child comes out of a tumour on the man's leg, or in some other way, but the man remains alive. | 21 | 27 |
| F43a | Women kill men. | In the community of the first ancestors, women kill, attempt to kill, or transform men. | 16 | 27 |
| F73b | The bear believes that the vulva is a wound (ATU 153). | The bear (wolf, lion, dragon) believes that the vulva is a wound inflicted on a human being. | 23 | 27 |
| F96 | Becoming handsome. | A girl or wife rejects an unattractive man. He becomes handsome (usually after encountering a supernatural being), and those who treated him badly are punished. | 11 | 27 |
| G9a | The field turns into virgin soil. | The field that was cultivated the day before turns back into virgin soil by morning. | 6 | 27 |
| H8 | Those who did not pass the test. | Unable to bring themselves to touch something unclean, poisonous, dangerous or hot, people lost their immortality (var.: did not receive the blessings that came to Europeans). | 14 | 27 |
| I25D | Lubricate the gate with grease. | On the way to a dangerous character, a person greases the gate (door hinges) with grease or oil. On the way back, the grateful gate refuses to hold him back. | 14 | 27 |
| I26 | Dangers on the path of souls. | On its way to the other world, the soul must distract its guardians with gifts or defend itself from attack. | 21 | 27 |
| A25 | Getting used to light. | When coming out onto the earth (for the first time or after a global catastrophe) or witnessing the first sunrise, people should not look directly at the light. | 7 | 28 |
| A38d | The sun damages the cloak. | Because the Sun has harmed the character (ruined or burned his cloak, the fur on his skin, etc.), he catches it in a trap or kills it. | 17 | 28 |
| A40 | The Sun or Moon is married to a Toad/Frog. | The Toad or Frog is the wife (or one of the wives) of the Sun or Moon. Traditions in which the frog jumps onto the face (chest, back) of the Moon and remains there are highlighted in italics; those in which the frog is visible on the lunar disc are marked with an asterisk; traditions in which the frog or toad is the wife of the Sun are marked with a hash (#). | 21 | 28 |
| B46a1 | The Big Dipper – robbers. | The stars of the Big Dipper – thieves or robbers. | 15 | 28 |
| B89 | The eagle owl – king of birds. | The eagle owl (owl) was the chief among birds, claimed this position or behaved badly when choosing the head of the birds; now he avoids other birds and/or other birds chase him. | 20 | 28 |
| C26 | Guardian at the edge of a foreign world. | Monsters are ready to invade our world from another, but a powerful character protects people from the invasion. | 16 | 28 |
| E9j | The magical wife – monkey. | Before meeting the hero, his beloved (wife) has the image of a monkey, or the man hides the woman and pretends that the mistress is a monkey. | 20 | 28 |
| F30a | Child-worm. | A woman nurses a worm (caterpillar, reptile, fish) instead of a child; people kill the monster. | 13 | 28 |
| H27a1 | Diseases and reptiles from holes in the ground. | Reptiles and insects crawl out of holes in the ground, bringing disease. | 19 | 28 |
| H44 | The bloody division of offspring (ATU 485). | A human enters into a relationship with a non-human being. When they part, the being tears apart (or intends to tear apart) their child. (Most of the data was collected by S.Y. Neklyudov). | 4 | 28 |
| H7g | Life as a candle. | A person sees many burning candles or lamps. When one of them burns out, someone dies. | 19 | 28 |
| I105 | Hand in the sky. | One of the constellations is associated with the hand (with five marked fingers). | 21 | 28 |
| I22d | Living water behind the tumultuous rocks. | To obtain a miraculous life-giving (healing) remedy, one must penetrate the space behind the shifting rocks. | 13 | 28 |
| I23 | Slamming door, K736. | The door of the house opens and slams shut by itself, crushing those entering or leaving. See motif I22. | 20 | 28 |
| I82d | Morning and Evening Stars – Man and Woman. | The Morning and Evening Stars are contrasted as man and woman. See motifs I82a, I82b. | 15 | 28 |
| I82g | Venus – Shepherd's Star. | Venus or another star (Arcturus, Sirius, etc.) is called the Shepherd's Star (the star of the Shepherd, Sheepherder, Cowherd, Swineherd, etc.). | 21 | 28 |
| I85a | Animals around the North Star. | Animals walk around the North Star, or the movement of the stars is compared to the movement of animals around a pole. See motif I85. | 17 | 28 |
| J33 | Scarecrow. | A boy, a young man, or two children live in the house of an older character. In order to elicit a certain reaction from him, they kill a person or a large animal, stuff the scarecrow with insects, worms, ashes, grass, or inflate it. | 12 | 28 |
| J38 | Stuck claws. | A mighty bird sinks its claws into a huge aquatic creature. The claws get stuck in its body. The bird is dragged underwater or struggles to free itself. | 16 | 28 |
| J52b | Heroes – female hares or baby hares. | A girl, young woman or children associated with hares (rabbits) are heroes-victors or successful tricksters. | 17 | 28 |
| K10a | Battle with a bird: hiding. | Heroes kill a dangerous bird; during or before the battle, they hide in a shelter (hut, cage, vessel, sack, well) or cover themselves with an object that protects the body. | 12 | 28 |
| K116b | A dog instead of a beauty in the chest. | In order to take possession of the girl, the antagonist creates a situation in which her relatives are forced to put her in a chest (barrel, sack, etc.) and leave her there. The girl is secretly replaced by a ferocious dog or other animal. When the antagonist opens the chest, the animal usually kills or mauls him. | 17 | 28 |
| K14b | Accusation of knife theft. | A man is advised not to do anything until he is expressly asked to do so. He unwisely offers to let someone use his knife and is subsequently accused of a crime. | 22 | 28 |
| K155 | The prince grew up in seclusion. | A person (usually a king) raises a son (daughter) in isolation. One day (usually by chance), the young man (woman) sees the outside world and leaves his (her) confinement. | 17 | 28 |
| K159 | Peas underfoot. | When two characters are fighting, someone nearby wants one of them to slip (while the other remains firmly on their feet) and throws something under their feet for this purpose. | 18 | 28 |
| K32j | The brother of the changeling is accused of deception (ATU 403). | Upon learning from a young man that he has a beautiful sister, the ruler wants to marry her. The bride is replaced by an ugly woman. Usually, the ruler accuses her brother of deception and throws him into prison. The deception is revealed. | 16 | 28 |
| K33d1 | Hidden in a lantern, ATU 510B*. | The young man does not know that a beautiful girl is hiding inside the object brought to his house. | 18 | 28 |
| K56a5d | Conversation with Moroz. | A person responds kindly to a question from a character embodying cold, praises him, and is rewarded. Another expresses dissatisfaction and is punished. | 10 | 28 |
| K57b | The stuck-on shoe. | To stop a beautiful woman from running away, a man in love with her smears resin or glue on the threshold (porch). The shoe sticks, and all the girls try it on to find its owner. | 16 | 28 |
| K62a1 | A man nurses a wounded eagle. | A man saves (spares) and nurses a wounded bird. Having regained its strength, the bird puts him on its back and carries him to a distant land or to the sky. | 23 | 28 |
| K72a | Prohibition on lighting fires. | The king notices that his prohibition on lighting fires at night has been violated. | 16 | 28 |
| L1b | The Bear and Her Sister. | A young woman turns into a monstrous bear and kills most people except her younger sister (Ojibwa: the younger sister of her former husband). Their brothers (or one brother) return from hunting and kill the bear, or she dies while chasing them. Cf. motif L65D. | 19 | 28 |
| L81b | The hero's severed legs. | The hero's rivals abandon him, cutting off his legs (usually leaving a sword at the entrance to his tent, and when the hero rushes out, the blade wounds him). | 18 | 28 |
| M182a | Animals stick to a horse (ATU 159). | A person smears resin on a bull, a horse (usually making a figure that comes to life), or some object; wild animals or demons stick to it. Cf. motif K133. | 19 | 28 |
| M27 | Returning from Heaven | The tree or staircase that people took to heaven collapses; on the way back, people fall down. Usually some stay in the sky forever or longer than others. | 8 | 28 |
| M73a | Substitution of feces | Two (animal) persons compare their feces (with different purpose). One of them gets to exchange them | 15 | 28 |
| N27c | The bird does not have milk | It is claimed that the bird has no milk and/or breasts | 13 | 28 |
| M99a | Bird bone house, ATU 984 | The character is going to build a house (tower, etc.) from the bones or feathers of birds. | 20 | 29 |
| I4b | Thunder in trouble: fighting the enemy. | A person helps thunder defeat the enemy. | 15 | 29 |
| I87a1 | Small or large – dialogue. | Two people engage in a dialogue, contradicting each other in their descriptions of the sizes of creatures and objects. | 19 | 29 |
| I98b | The Pleiades – a duck's nest. | The Pleiades – ducks, nest or wild duck egg. | 9 | 29 |
| J51a1 | The helper girl: dismembered and reassembled. | To retrieve an object from a hard-to-reach place, the girl orders it to be dismembered (or just have its fingers cut off) and then reassembled, after which it comes back to life. | 13 | 29 |
| J61 | Descends on a feather. | The character has the ability to move or hover in the air like a feather or a fluff. | 18 | 29 |
| K154a | Men in the harem. | By solving a riddle, a boy or young man (rarely a girl) exposes the daughter, wife or assistants of an authoritative character: the daughter or wife has a lover; the assistant is plotting a conspiracy. | 17 | 29 |
| K21a | Woman returns from heaven. | A celestial being marries an earthly woman. She longs to return to earth and secretly descends from her husband. | 15 | 29 |
| K27x3a | Recognise by the scarf. | When a husband sets off on a difficult mission, his magical wife gives him her towel or scarf, instructing him to use only those items (usually so that her relatives will recognise him as their son-in-law). | 18 | 29 |
| K38e4 | Palace made of gold and silver bricks, F771.1.1.2. | The narratives (in various contexts) mention a palace (castle, crypt, church, bridge, causeway) built of gold and silver modules – usually bricks, less often planks. | 9 | 29 |
| K40 | One will be eaten today, another tomorrow. | Two (rarely more) characters consider themselves doomed to death, but the one whose death will come later rejoices, while the one whose death will come earlier grieves. Cf. motif N30. | 18 | 29 |
| K56a2 | Asks to do worse. | A character (usually a girl) comes to another (usually an old woman). The latter asks the visitor to perform absurd and harmful actions (to mess up the house, bring dirty water, etc.). The visitor does the opposite of what is asked (cleans the house, brings clean water) and is rewarded. The other character does everything literally and is punished. | 21 | 29 |
| K56a5 | The Old Woman Becomes Beautiful, ATU 877. | An old or ugly woman unexpectedly becomes a young beauty or acquires wealth. Usually, another woman tries to repeat her actions and either dies or suffers damage. | 20 | 29 |
| K66b | Princesses given to companions. | Travelling from one place to another, the hero leaves one of his companions in each place (usually marrying them to the princesses he has received as a reward), and continues on his way. When he gets into trouble, his companions come to his aid. | 16 | 29 |
| K82a | Pregnancy from snake eggs. | A malevolent woman forces a woman to swallow a snake egg (snake, something else) so that a man will think that the woman is pregnant out of wedlock (rarely: so that snakes will suck the juices out of her). Cf. motif L89. | 18 | 29 |
| B22 | The offended person knocks down the tree. | The character left under the tree is offended by those who climbed up the tree (usually they do not share their food with him or her). In retaliation, he or she knocks down the tree. The events described are of cosmic proportions. | 12 | 29 |
| B38b | Two animals adorn each other. | Two quadrupeds (or a quadruped and another creature) adorn each other themselves or are adorned by someone else. | 14 | 29 |
| B42m2 | The boastful and hasty. | The stars of the Big Dipper's handle are three hunters chasing a beast. Each has a distinct character (one is boastful, another is hasty, etc.). In Siberia, the hunters are identified with people of different nationalities, and in the North American Northeast, with birds of different species. | 15 | 29 |
| E1c | Man made of excrement. | Man made from human excrement or (Inupiat) from carrion. | 13 | 29 |
| E37 | People made of sticks. | The creator collects many sticks, feathers, reeds, etc., and turns them into people (either people of both sexes and all ages, or no mention is made of gender or age). | 9 | 29 |
| F49B | In a distant land, they do not know how to give birth. | The hero comes to a people whose women do not know how to give birth. See motif F49. | 28 | 29 |
| F61 | A woman carries a trickster. | A male character pretends to be sick, weak, unconscious; a woman carries him on her back, he copulates or tries to copulate with her on the go. | 16 | 29 |
| F9a1 | The pike's mouth, ATU 1686A*. | A girl or young woman says (pretends) that she has a predatory mouth in her vagina. {Unlike variants characteristic of the circum-Pacific region, the corresponding texts do not suggest that the female womb is actually dangerous}. | 17 | 29 |
| F9b | Piranha in the vagina. | A biting piranha in a woman's genitals. | 15 | 29 |
| G13 | People ate rotten wood. | Before the advent of cultivated plants, people ate rotten or soft wood (ceiba – Ceiba L., balsa – Ochroma (Bombax) Sw.); some people eat rotten wood. | 13 | 29 |
| G16 | Ants find cultivated plants. | Ants are the first to find cultivated plants that are unknown to others and concentrated in one place. | 13 | 29 |
| H17 | Ring of defenders around the leader. | The first ancestors surround the deceased or sick person in a ring, seeking to protect him. The antagonist manages to find a loophole and causes irreparable harm to people. | 9 | 29 |
| H43a | Broken figures. | Having created the human body, the creator leaves. At this time, another character tries to break the figure, which has not yet come to life. | 14 | 29 |
| H7d | Death and a bundle of firewood, ATU 845. | A man calls Death, and when it comes, asks it to help him lift a bundle of firewood or pull a cart with firewood. | 23 | 29 |
| I126 | The constellation of funeral bier. | The Great Bear or other constellation – a bier on which the dead or sick are carried, a body prepared for burial, a grave. | 16 | 29 |
| I133 | Constellation across the sky. | Star objects in different parts of the sky are associated with separate parts (as well as items of clothing, jewellery, etc.) of a single anthropomorphic or zoomorphic figure. | 20 | 29 |
| L106a | Cut belly. | The antagonist makes formally justified but essentially unfair demands on the hero. The hero either fulfils them or is punished by the antagonist. Then the antagonist takes an object or animal belonging to the hero, but cannot return it and is punished equally or more severely. | 18 | 29 |
| L112 | Attaining physical completeness. | A physically defective boy is born (tiny, with one head, half a body, etc.). After a series of adventures, he gains physical completeness. | 12 | 29 |
| L42i | Sister sets out to rescue her brother (geese-swans), ATU 480A*. | Creatures from another world carry off a little boy. His sister takes him and safely escapes from their pursuers. Usually the boy has two or three sisters, and only the youngest succeeds. | 15 | 29 |
| L57b | The demon comes for a part of his body, ATU 161A. | A person tears off or cuts off a part of the body of a predatory animal or demonic creature and uses it. The creature comes for the lost part, usually killing or maiming the person. | 19 | 29 |
| L72g | Cast salt. | Fleeing for his life, the character throws salt behind him, preventing his pursuer from continuing the chase. | 17 | 29 |
| L78 | Toad-jaguar. | In the images, the character has the features of a jaguar and a toad; the toad/frog turns into a jaguar; the toad/frog is the mother or wife of the jaguar. | 21 | 29 |
| L81a | The cat extinguishes the fire. | A girl offends a cat (rarely: a dog, a rooster) and the cat takes revenge by causing misfortune to befall the girl (usually by extinguishing the fire, after which the girl falls into the hands of a demon). | 19 | 29 |
| L95 | Returning for toys. | A person (usually a child or teenager) returns to a previous location for a forgotten item (often a toy) and finds a demon there, from which they struggle to escape. | 17 | 29 |
| L9c | Sharp breast. | The character kills others with a sharp protrusion on his chest. | 13 | 29 |
| M13a | Turned into stone. | A deity and a human meet so that the former can fulfil the latter's request. As a result, the human is turned to stone. Usually (except for the Squamish), one of the supplicants wants eternal life and is turned to stone. See motif M13. | 12 | 29 |
| M140b | The wolf adorns the bird. | The fox cunningly ties up the wolf. The bird unties him, and the grateful wolf adorns her plumage. See motifs b97, b97a. | 9 | 29 |
| M29f | Wolverine is a loser and a loser | As a result of its stupidity or antisocial behavior, the wolverine dies or suffers damage. See the motives in square brackets. | 17 | 29 |
| M59 | An insidious passenger kills a carrier, K952.1. | A small animal asks a large one to transport it across the river; consistently rejects all the seats on the carrier's body that he offers; climbs to where the carrier is You can kill when the crossing is over. | 22 | 29 |
| M80 | The partridge scares the offender, K932 | The character insults a partridge bird, kills or offends its chickens; the partridge suddenly takes off in front of the offender, he falls (usually into a lake or river). | 12 | 29 |
| M81e1 | A young man returns sight to old people, ATU 321 | A young man lives with an old man whose eyes or eyes were carried away by a giant. The young man goes to the giant, kills him, brings his eyes, the old man sees the light. | 19 | 29 |
| L100c | The chaste sorceress and seducers, D2006.1.1. | When a man comes to a beautiful woman who lives alone, she asks him to perform a trivial task (close the door, etc.) and uses magic to leave him in an awkward and uncomfortable position (holding the door handle, etc.) for the whole night. The next night, the same thing happens to another (rarely: the same) admirer. Each, ashamed, tells the others that he enjoyed it. | 20 | 30 |
| L37a1 | Let the wolf eat the fool, ATU 461A. | A man sets out to discover the reason for his misfortunes. Others also convey their questions to him. God (fate) replies that a predator (wolf, lion, bear) must eat the fool, and in order to help the others, one must dig up treasure, marry the queen, etc. The man refuses to marry, take the gold, etc., because he has not received direct instructions to do so. The predator decides that he will not find anyone more foolish. | 25 | 30 |
| L55 | Boiling water in the mouth. | To neutralise a dangerous enemy, a caustic or boiling liquid is poured into one of the openings of its body. | 28 | 30 |
| L96b | The demon is thrown into a cauldron. | A person encounters an ascetic, demon, etc. The latter intends to kill him by pushing him into a boiling cauldron or cutting off his head when he bows before the deity. The person asks the ascetic to do everything first, then pushes him into the cauldron or cuts off his head himself. | 22 | 30 |
| M102 | Without a head and a leg. | The character believes that another has temporarily separated his head or leg from himself, asks to do the same to him, and dies or is maimed. | 14 | 30 |
| M14a | Roasted alive. | To take revenge on his wife or her relatives for (allegedly) causing him offence, the husband roasts his wife alive. See motif M14. | 11 | 30 |
| M172 | The Hare Riding the Lion, ATU 72. | To show that a strong character is his slave, a riding animal, the weak one adjusts so that the strong one takes him along. Those around them are convinced of the truthfulness of the weak one. | 17 | 30 |
| M30d | Holds to a stick carried by birds, ATU 225A | To get into the air, a character without wings (usually a turtle or a frog) grabs a stick with the ends held in their beaks by two birds. | 17 | 30 |
| M38d2 | Coal, straw, bob by the river, ATU 295 | Several characters (usually three), which are small objects, go traveling and must cross the river. This fails. | 22 | 30 |
| I86a | Down turns into snow. | Snow arises from bird down when a bird shakes itself in the sky or when a character shakes out down or fur clothing, plucks birds, etc. | 21 | 30 |
| I87ac | A bone in the eye. | Something huge gets into a person's eye, which he mistakes for a speck of dust. Usually, a bird carries away an animal or fish and drops a bone into the man's eye. It is difficult to find and remove (to do this, they get into a boat and float it inside the eye, throw a net into the eye, pull it out with oxen, etc.). | 17 | 30 |
| J32a1 | Nocturnal pests – horses. | But at night someone tramples the field, steals hay, etc. The hero learns that it is horses doing this. | 22 | 30 |
| K10f | The chicks turn into ordinary eagles. | The character turns the children of a flying monster into ordinary eagles or owls. | 22 | 30 |
| K133 | The exhausted horse. | A man notices that his horse (donkey) looks tired and learns that an animal or demonic creature is riding it. Cf. motif M182a. | 16 | 30 |
| K25a4 | Escape from the siren, ATU 316. | A man (rarely a woman) finds himself in the power of an aquatic-chthonic creature (usually a siren, fish, sea monster, sometimes a sorcerer). The captive is lifted above the water (above the ground; usually after the antagonist lifts him) several times. After that, the captive escapes (most often by flying away as a bird). | 23 | 30 |
| K27yy1 | Obtain the feather of a dangerous bird. | The hero brings the feather (feathers) of a dangerous bird. | 16 | 30 |
| K27z5 | Agreement to marry children, (926C*). | Two men agree to marry their children if one has a son and the other has a daughter. The girl's parents do not fulfil the agreement. The boy grows up and finds his betrothed. | 23 | 30 |
| K33a6 | Knives are sharpened, cauldrons are boiling. | A kid (lamb, gazelle, etc.) runs up to a pond into which its owner has pushed it and says that knives are being sharpened and water is being boiled to slaughter and cook it. | 17 | 30 |
| A28 | The Sun and the Moon: smart and dumb. | The clever sun-man involves the foolish moon in various tricks that the latter is incapable of devising himself. Trying to repeat the sun's actions, the moon suffers a fiasco. Cf. motif B1F. | 17 | 30 |
| B117 | Dog rights, ATU 200. | A document issued to animals (usually dogs) is lost through the fault of a cat (swallowed by a cat, burned, gnawed by mice). Since then, dogs and cats (usually also cats and mice) have been at enmity. | 24 | 30 |
| B52b | Concealing the earth. | The character regurgitates the earth hidden (usually in his mouth), thereby creating mountains, swamps, and other inconveniences. See motif B52. | 20 | 30 |
| B74 | Red-eyed capercaillie. | The eyes of the capercaillie or black grouse turned red from tears. | 7 | 30 |
| B8 | The frog hides the water. | The frog hides the water (usually drinks up a lake or river). Thanks to another character, the water returns to the body of water(s). (Among the Khan, Upper Tanana, and Varikho, the motif is not cosmogonic). | 10 | 30 |
| B97 | The character rewards the bird. | The character rewards (rarely punishes) a bird living by the water, determining its current appearance (crest, beak, feather colouring). | 15 | 30 |
| C23 | The tree blocks the sun. | The growth or fall of a giant tree determines the state of the sky and the celestial bodies in it (the tree blocks the light of the sun or threatens to destroy the sky, pulls the sun from the sky when it falls, etc.). | 17 | 30 |
| F62 | Incognito at a festival. | A (supposedly) sick (weak, unattractive, poorly dressed) character is left alone when others leave for the festival; he (she) arrives there later in the guise of a handsome man or beautiful woman; those who arrived earlier do not recognise him (her) and take an interest in him (her). (This motif is also found in texts containing the motif k57, Cinderella). | 12 | 30 |
| F9c | Snake in the vagina. | Snake (in Oceania – moray eel) in the vagina; vagina – snake's mouth; snake crawls out of a woman's mouth and bites off a man's penis during intercourse; woman with a toothy womb is associated with a snake. | 19 | 30 |
| G12b | Cultivated plants – a gift from the stars. | Cultivated plants – a gift from a male star or female star. | 15 | 30 |
| H30 | Wrong choice. | When meeting two women (together or one after the other), the hero must or may choose one. Usually, he chooses either the less beautiful or the dangerous one, bringing trouble or misfortune upon himself or upon people in general. | 22 | 30 |
| H49c | The Innocently Slain Falcon, Th B221.2.2; ATU 178C. | A tame bird (rarely: a domestic animal) shows visible aggression towards its owner (usually a falcon knocks a bowl out of the hands of a thirsty man). The man kills the bird (animal) and then discovers that they saved him from death. | 22 | 30 |
| I20c2 | Dwarves in the land on the horizon. | The inhabitants of the land on the horizon (where the sky meets the earth) are dwarves. | 20 | 30 |
| A12H | Woman covers the sun. | Eclipses of the sun or moon are caused by a woman's attack. | 18 | 31 |
| A7a | Torches in the hands of celestial bodies. | The light of the sun (moon, Venus) is a burning torch in the hand of a celestial body. | 16 | 31 |
| B115B | The slain person turns into a viburnum. | One brother kills another, or one sister kills another, or a brother kills a sister. A viburnum or other shrub with red berries grows in this place. | 7 | 31 |
| B28d | Unrecognised transformer. | Not understanding who they are dealing with, the characters respond to the wandering Transformer that they are preparing weapons to kill so-and-so or a hiding place to escape from so-and-so. The Transformer kills them himself or turns them into animals. | 16 | 31 |
| B2b | The earth devours the dead. | The earth feeds on the people buried in it. See motif B2A. | 8 | 31 |
| B87a | Alcor – dog. | A dim star next to the second star of the handle of the Big Dipper (Tibetans: Little Dipper) Ursa Major – dog. | 17 | 31 |
| B92 | Flint turns into flints. | A character whose body is hard and has broken into small pieces, or (rarely) a small object, turns into flint or other hard stones (the origin of flint). | 18 | 31 |
| D4e1 | Dog and fire. | The thief or giver of fire, light or sun is the dog. See motif 4A. | 21 | 31 |
| E15 | Ducks and boats. | People learn how to build boats and row from birds; a bird or part of its body serves as a model for building a boat. | 15 | 31 |
| E25 | Arachne (spider weaver). | People learn the art of weaving from a spider or from a person who later becomes a spider; the spider makes fabrics for humans. | 22 | 31 |
| E9m | The magical wife – the bear. | A man marries a bear (white or grizzly) that takes the form of a woman, or a woman who takes the form of a bear. | 16 | 31 |
| F46 | One for all. | At the beginning of time, two or more men (human-animals) had only one woman. | 18 | 31 |
| F51b | Finds by the thread. | To find out the nature or location of a character's locus, another person secretly attaches a long thread to it and follows it. | 15 | 31 |
| F5a | Woman from a tail, ATU 798. | God was going to make Eve from Adam's rib. The rib was stolen by a dog (cat, fox, monkey, devil). God (or an angel sent by him) chased after the thief, grabbed him by the tail and tore it off. God made Eve from this tail. Either God first made a woman from edible material and the dog ate this figure. He had to make a new one from Adam's rib. Or God cut off Adam's tail and made Eve from it. | 23 | 31 |
| F80 | First humans without genitals. | The first men and/or women have no genitals, then they acquire them. | 25 | 31 |
| H16 | Rivers of tears. | In another world, there are rivers of tears. Tears shed on earth fill large containers there. Cf. motifs K33F, N34, N35. | 17 | 31 |
| H21a | Do not touch the big fish. | The fish are concentrated in a small container, from which the owner takes as many as he needs. Another character opens the container, breaking the rules, and the fish escape. | 9 | 31 |
| H6bb | Lost objects. | A character is sent to deliver a certain object or substance to people, the possession of which is essential to them. The messenger loses these objects or brings others. Usually, this refers to the ability to be reborn after death. Traditions not related to the explanation of human mortality are marked with an asterisk*. | 20 | 31 |
| I127 | Ursa Major – bed. | Ursa Major – bed, couch. | 14 | 31 |
| I39a | The souls of the dead walk on the rainbow. | The souls of the dead walk across the rainbow to another world; a rainbow bridge spans the river separating the world of the dead from the world of the living. | 23 | 31 |
| L2 | Dried mask. | The mask or costume becomes part of the person wearing it; the character is transformed in accordance with the painting on their body, which reproduces the pattern on the animal's skin. See motif L1A. | 31 | 31 |
| L28a | Eating a snake causes a flood. | People (or a certain person) eat the meat of a snake (dragon, unusual fish). This results in a flood, landslide, or the appearance of a river or lake. | 12 | 31 |
| L65a1 | The horse's legs eaten away. | A demonic character successively devours parts of the horse on which the hero arrived, each time returning to the hero and then leaving to devour another part. (Often asks whether the hero arrived on a three-legged, two-legged or one-legged horse). | 20 | 31 |
| L90E | Heads on stakes. | Human heads are impaled on stakes outside the house of a dangerous character, and one head is missing (or there is a wall of heads, with one missing). It is assumed that the head of the hero of the story should be there. | 15 | 31 |
| M106h | Bird under a cap, ATU 1528. | A man puts his hat on the ground and pretends that there is something valuable under it. In reality, there is only shit. Those who believe the deceiver lose their property. | 28 | 31 |
| M114a | Stone coat. | The character is offered to sew clothes or shoes from stone or iron, or to remove the skin from the stone. | 18 | 31 |
| M123 | The raven marries the goose. | A bird of prey or scavenger (raven, owl, hawk, coyote) marries (or attempts to marry) a partner who (or whose brothers) are geese or other waterfowl. The marriage is disrupted or proves unsuccessful. | 15 | 31 |
| M158a | Harvest sharing, ATU 9. | Two animal characters work together on a plot of land. During field work, one of them is lazy (imposing his imaginary services on the other) and then demands (most of) the harvest for himself. | 27 | 31 |
| M17 | A woman lies, pretending that a man has missed his target. | A wife, mother or grandmother directs the arrow of a blind man or boy at game, lies that he missed, cooks and eats the meat herself. See motif M16 (man is blind, K333.1). | 28 | 31 |
| M39a5b | Fish in the furrow, ATU 1381A | The wife throws fish into the furrows or into the beds. My husband believes that the fish ended up there on its own, he is mistaken for a madman. | 25 | 31 |
| M39a6c | The Tsar Craftsman | The poor girl agrees to marry the prince only if he learns a craft. The prince fulfills the condition, then falls into the hands of enemies. He promises to make them an expensive item, let them sell it. His wife or (father, vizier) learns the job, the prisoner is released, the attackers are executed. | 20 | 31 |
| M42a | Berry eyes | The character (usually after losing his own eyes) inserts seeds or berries into his eye sockets and sees again. | 15 | 31 |
| M42b | Resin eyes | After losing his eyes, the character makes new ones out of resin or wax, sees again (often this is an episode on the way to finding good eyes, while tar eyes do not see well). | 17 | 31 |
| M57d2 | The tree makes wishes come true | The man was about to cut down a tree. It himself, or the creature living on it or in it, asks not to do so and fulfills the person's wishes. | 18 | 31 |
| M5a | The passengers of the sinking boat | Small animal characters sail in the boat, it sinks, everyone escapes as best they can. | 17 | 31 |
| I87d | People in the time of giants, ATU 701. | In the past, giants inhabited the earth. One of them finds a tiny human being and brings him to his father or mother. They usually say that such people will replace the current giants. | 21 | 31 |
| J53a | Inviting to play, kills. | A character invites another to play. The latter follows the rules, but the initiator of the game does not and kills the other. | 18 | 31 |
| K11a1 | Birds arise from a monster bird. | Pieces of flesh or feathers from a monstrous/unusual bird turn into present-day birds (or their plumage). | 18 | 31 |
| K120a4 | Fill the vessel with tears. | The character must fill a vessel with tears (pour them on the floor). | 25 | 31 |
| K14e | Sons think their father is rich, ATU 982. | The sons do not care for their elderly father (rarely: the daughter-in-law does not care for her mother-in-law). He pretends to be hiding something. The sons believe that these are valuables that their father will leave them, and they begin to care for him. | 29 | 31 |
| K24b | Dancing in magical clothes. | A magical wife deceives her naive mother-in-law into giving her wonderful clothes or some other item that enables her to leave the human world. | 22 | 31 |
| K89 | The girl and the witch: gifts from relatives. | After getting married, the heroine and her rival (witch, frog) must bring gifts from their relatives. The heroine finds her brother, brothers or sister who went missing at the beginning of the story and receives rich gifts from them, while the gifts brought by her rival are worthless. | 12 | 31 |
| I66 | Ashes on the Milky Way. | The Milky Way is ash or smouldering embers. | 17 | 32 |
| I87 | Skull cave. | The characters use an object belonging to the world of giants (a skull, an animal shoulder blade, a mitten) as a shelter. Cf. I87C: animals use an object belonging to the world of humans (a skull, a mitten, a sieve, etc.) as a shelter. | 15 | 32 |
| J5 | Brothers as victims. | The role of the victim is played by two or more brothers (friends). See motif J4. | 22 | 32 |
| K103b | The spinning cow. | A cow (goat) miraculously spins or weaves: it chews tow, turning it into thread, orders the yarn to be wound onto its horns, put into its ear, etc. | 18 | 32 |
| K126 | The wolf pays for the horse it ate. | A predatory beast or demon eats the hero's horse, but in return is forced or voluntarily helps him. | 20 | 32 |
| K19c | Mistress in a handbag. | A man brings home a small creature with which he makes love at night. The man's mother, sister or wife finds the creature in his bed or purse. | 9 | 32 |
| K27c | Knives and spikes. | Test: to remain alive when coming into contact with piercing, cutting, or crushing instruments. See motif K27. | 31 | 32 |
| K38f6 | Fire creature. | A creature consisting of fire is mentioned. | 17 | 32 |
| K52c | Flooding in the home. | Demonstrating his power, a shaman, sorcerer or other character with magical abilities causes the dwelling in which he and other people are located to begin to fill with water. Sometimes it is said that this water is an illusion and that those present also see animals (waterfowl, fish or marine mammals). | 16 | 32 |
| A12d | Birds eclipse the sun. | Birds attack the sun or moon during an eclipse (covering them with their wings) or (*) cover the sun during sunrise or sunset. See motif A12. | 21 | 32 |
| A32k | First to the sun, then to the moon. | A character, discernible in the silhouette of the moon's spots, first headed for the sun and only then reached the moon, or the Sun and the Moon argued over who he should belong to. | 14 | 32 |
| B33d1 | Days of the week – (demonic) characters. | In narrative folklore, the days of the week (most often Friday and Wednesday) are special (female) characters with a more or less pronounced demonic nature. | 11 | 32 |
| B44f1 | The bear wants night. | In the dispute over whether the world should be light (warm), the bear is on the side of darkness (and cold); or the world is plunged into darkness because the bear hides the sun in his house. | 22 | 32 |
| B64a | Small bones: the war between fish and birds. | Fish and birds fight (usually by shooting arrows at each other). Since then, fish have had many small bones in their bodies and/or birds' legs have taken on their current form. | 15 | 32 |
| C31b | The wise owl. | The owl is wiser and more intelligent than other living creatures. | 19 | 32 |
| G8a | Cutting down a tree to make a boat. | A man cuts down a tree to make a boat or something else from the trunk (Yap: a board for building a house; one of the texts from Ulithi: a wooden bird), goes away to rest, and upon returning finds the tree intact again. Usually, the character who restored the tree in the man's absence then cuts down the tree himself and makes what the hero needs. | 18 | 32 |
| H35 | Decaying teeth. | Human teeth are made of fragile material. Usually, the motif explains the aetiology of toothache. | 20 | 32 |
| H36hh | The frog betrays the man. | The frog or toad is to blame for the fact that humans are mortal. | 16 | 32 |
| H55b | The Repentant Robber, ATU 756B. | From a man who visited hell (and met a deity), the robber learns of his future fate, humbly accepts the inevitability of retribution in the afterlife, and is ultimately saved. The robber is usually contrasted with a self-confident righteous man who is punished for his pride. | 30 | 32 |
| I112 | Monster boat. | The boat is a living creature with a mouth, a fish. | 15 | 32 |
| I22b | Birds on their way to another world. | Migratory birds (or shamans in the form of birds) fly from our world to another; the path lies through a narrow opening between jutting rocks, or the sky strikes the earth, crushing those who fly through; and/or at the passage to the other world there is a character who feeds on birds; and/or in the world on the other side of the pulsating barrier there is the mistress of the birds. | 21 | 32 |
| I25C | Calling blood wine. | On the way to their goal, the character expresses imaginary pleasure when encountering repulsive and dangerous objects and creatures, thereby ensuring their loyalty (on the way back). | 17 | 32 |
| I29 | To the underworld through an animal's burrow. | A character climbs into an animal's burrow and finds himself in the underworld, or digs a deep hole and finds himself in a world inhabited by burrowing animals. | 15 | 32 |
| L101 | Discarded clothing distracts the pursuer. | While running away, a person gradually undresses and throws items of clothing behind them. The pursuer wastes time picking them up or destroying them. | 17 | 32 |
| L59 | The stingy woman: metamorphosis. | A woman eats the best food or eats fruit before it is ripe; as punishment, she undergoes metamorphosis. | 20 | 32 |
| L6a | Asks to be carried. | An unremarkable, weak-looking character asks a person to carry him or her on their back, and then refuses to get off. | 22 | 32 |
| L81c | The legless, the blind, and the armless. | The legless man lives together with the blind and armless man (or with one of the two). By working together, they are healed. | 19 | 32 |
| M120b | A nurse with a pleasant voice. | The character is looking for a nanny (nurse, wet nurse, shepherd, husband) and consistently rejects those whose voice he does not like. He settles on the one with the most beautiful voice, but the choice turns out to be unsuccessful (usually the nurse eats the child, the sick person, the sheep, etc.). | 20 | 32 |
| M195 | Two horses: which one is older? | The character must guess which of the two horses or cows is older. He does this by knowing the behavioural characteristics of these animals. | 19 | 32 |
| M200 | The old donkey carries the young one, ATU 1215. | An old man and a boy set off on a journey, taking a donkey with them. They try all the options: only the old man rides the donkey, only the boy rides the donkey, both ride together, both walk alongside the donkey, they drag the donkey behind them. Each time, people make unflattering comments. | 26 | 32 |
| M39a6b | The Crooked Tower and the Master's Daughter-in-law | The ruler, to whom the master builder went to work, is going to kill or maim him. The master asks to send a person to his house asking him to bring a forgotten instrument or something else. The daughter-in-law understands the true meaning of the request, captivates the messenger and saves her father-in-law. | 10 | 32 |
| M39a6i | The servant hid part of the gift, ATU 875A | A person sends food or things to another and tells the messenger to give the recipient some words that the messenger does not understand. On the way, he stole or ate some of what he was supposed to bring. From the messenger's words, the recipient understands what exactly was transferred and accuses him of stealing. | 23 | 32 |
| M39aa | Misunderstood instructions: a play on words | 18 | 32 | |
| M66 | The root eaten, J2154 | After eating certain foods frivolously or rubbing his body with his spine, the character suffers from itching, diarrhea, or an irrepressible eruption of intestinal gases. | 21 | 32 |
| L126 | Bird-demon, ATU 2041. | An anthropomorphic character cooks and eats a bird, but the bird cries out from inside his stomach and escapes. The character dies or suffers harm. Cf. motif K132. | 16 | 33 |
| L17a | Eyes on the back of the head. | A character or creature has an eye or a second pair of eyes on the back of the head or on the back. Cf. motif L17b, "mouth on the back of the head". | 20 | 33 |
| L60 | The foundling demon. | Several sisters pick up a baby. In their absence, it turns into an adult man, and when they approach, it turns back into a child. Taking on its true form, the demon pursues the sisters. See motif M46a. | 10 | 33 |
| L85c | Polukurochka, B171.1, ATU 715. | A character with half a body – a hen, a chick. Sometimes it is only a name, and the character's appearance is more anthropomorphic. | 17 | 33 |
| L99 | Bring the skewer! | Having captured the character, the ogre orders him to bring wood or a spit to roast him. The character deliberately procrastinates, brings the wrong thing, or is helped to escape by some animal. | 20 | 33 |
| M114b1 | What is the fattest, sweetest, fastest? | When answering the question of what is the sweetest (fattest, fastest, etc.), a clever person names abstract concepts and entities (while a foolish person names specific objects or creatures). | 24 | 33 |
| M127b | Jug on a tail, ATU 68A. | A character attaches a vessel or part of a vessel to their body, lowers it into the water, and the vessel pulls them along. | 25 | 33 |
| M179 | Bark and ice huts, ATU 43. | Two zoomorphic characters live nearby, one's house is destroyed, he asks the other to shelter him. Usually he breaks in and drives out the owner, strong animals fear the invader, while weak or small ones drive him away. | 16 | 33 |
| M182b | Animals in a sleigh, ATU 158. | Animals ask to be taken for a ride in a sleigh. The sleigh breaks down, and the animals bring unsuitable materials from the forest to repair it. While the owner of the sleigh goes into the forest to look for a replacement for the broken shaft (or leaves to chop wood), the animals eat the horse (bull) and leave a stuffed animal in its place. | 22 | 33 |
| M39a8 | Drops a door from a tree, (ATU 1653) | A fool drags the door from the house with him (usually raises it to a tree and drops it, scaring the crowd under the tree). | 26 | 33 |
| M39e | Under which tree? ATU 1543D* | When reviewing the dispute, the judge asks about the secondary circumstances of the case. The offender is exposed by showing that he knows (or, on the contrary, does not know) about them. | 23 | 33 |
| M39g1 | Jump into pants, ATU 1286 | fool does not pull pants or boots over his feet, but jumps in them from above. | 26 | 33 |
| I54 | Water creature filled with fish. | Inside a snake or other aquatic creature are aquatic animals or live fish; an aquatic monster gives birth to fish, is the master of fish; turns into many fish. | 12 | 33 |
| J25a | Son of the grave. | The mother dies or is killed. The child in her womb or the newborn baby is buried with her. He comes out of the grave, meets people, returns to the grave, or is found in the entrails of his dead mother. In the end, the child stays with the people. See motif J25. | 17 | 33 |
| K134 | Found treasures. | A guest is planted with treasure in order to accuse him of theft. | 21 | 33 |
| K27m | Obtain an animal of unusual colour. | Task: to kill and bring an animal of a certain (often unusual) colour or shape. See motif K27. | 24 | 33 |
| K27x7 | The lord of the animals summons them and questions them. | On the way to their destination, people meet characters who have power over animals (birds, fish) or demons. They summon the animals (demons) and ask if anyone knows the way to a certain place. Only one person knows, usually the last to appear. | 22 | 33 |
| K29d | Drunken elephants. | To catch an animal or supernatural character, the water in a reservoir is replaced with wine, honey, etc., or containers with alcohol are left in plain sight. The creature, having lost control of itself, is captured. | 18 | 33 |
| K33f | Stream of honey and stream of oil. | Sources of at least two valuable liquid edible products (honey, oil, etc.) are available or imagined. Cf. motif N34. | 15 | 33 |
| K33h1 | Replace the old ring with a new one. | The hero's wife (mother, servant) is unaware of the magical properties of an object kept in the house and exchanges it for something more attractive, but in reality incomparable in value. | 23 | 33 |
| K42 | Bird woman kills men. | A young bird woman energetically searches among a group of men for one she likes, takes him by force and makes him her husband; she turns into a monster, pursues and kills men, but is ultimately killed herself. | 12 | 33 |
| A12b | The frog swallows the sun. | During an eclipse or at sunset (marked *), the luminaries are swallowed by a toad or frog. | 15 | 33 |
| A29b | The Broken Moon. | A character associated with the upper world and a character associated with the earth or the lower world each seek to possess the hero or heroine who is associated with the Moon. | 12 | 33 |
| A47 | The sun is born from an egg. | The sun is born or emerges from an egg. | 11 | 33 |
| B23 | Fire and smoke in defiance of the ban. | The deity forbids the use of fire for cooking and punishes those who violate the prohibition. | 13 | 33 |
| B2f | Difficult funerals. | The character cannot bury the deceased, not knowing how to do it or not finding a place for burial. | 11 | 33 |
| B42g | The Great Bear – a hunted animal. | The Big Dipper (as a whole or only the dipper) is identified with an animal (animals) pursued by hunters / attacked by other characters. | 24 | 33 |
| B47 | The Pleiades and cold. | The Pleiades or another group of stars once appeared or regularly cause severe cold. (The heliacal setting of the Pleiades occurs in May-June; in the Northern Hemisphere, they are best seen in winter). | 17 | 33 |
| B56A | Crocodile without a tongue. | The reptile's tongue is cut off or mutilated (no association with fire). See motif B56. | 20 | 33 |
| E17 | The origin of ornamentation. | People get the idea of ornamentation of vessels, baskets, bodies, etc., or of a sign system after someone manages to see a pattern on the body of a zoomorphic or supernatural creature or make an imprint of it. | 17 | 33 |
| E33 | People from grains. | People arise from grains, seeds, dough. | 16 | 33 |
| F54e | Unintentional killing of a father. | Not knowing who is in front of him, a young man kills his father. | 26 | 33 |
| F64b | Incestuous woman. | A woman pretends to be someone else in order to seduce her son, brother, daughter or grandson. See motif F64. | 21 | 33 |
| F90 | Tragic incest. | A brother and sister marry. When the children born of this union learn of their origins, the marriage breaks down (the children kill their parents, the father kills or attempts to kill the children, the parents commit suicide, the wife/sister commits suicide after the death of her husband/brother, the wife/sister leaves her husband/brother). | 14 | 33 |
| G7 | Blunt axes. | The first ancestors need to cut down a giant tree or (rarely) a rock. Their axes become blunt or break, and/or they obtain a special axe suitable for such work. If not otherwise: a tree with cultivated plants at the top, see motif G5A. | 13 | 33 |
| H27a | A hole in the ground where a stake was driven. | When creating the earth, a negative character asks a positive character for as much earth as is necessary to prop up a staff, stake. | 21 | 33 |
| H52 | The Land of Immortality, ATU 470B. | A man finds a land where there is no death. Having decided to visit his native places, he never returns to it. | 22 | 33 |
| I100a | Pleiades – family. | The Pleiades – a woman or man with children, members of the same family. | 25 | 33 |
| I128 | Ursa Major – a ladle. | The Big Dipper – a ladle, a scoop. | 15 | 33 |
| I33 | The Tree of the Dead. | The soul on its journey to the afterlife stops at a certain tree. | 24 | 33 |
| I37A | Mushrooms - an inferior object. | A mushroom is a substitute for a real object: 1) inferior, imaginary food (people ate mushrooms before the advent of hunting and agriculture; a character offers mushrooms instead of real food; real food appears as a result of the metamorphosis of mushrooms); 2) a preparation for creating or imitating a complete object (fish, birds, animals arise as a result of the metamorphosis of mushrooms; a copy of a lost or non-existent object is made from mushrooms); 3) characters of low status (lice, turtles) are engaged in mushroom picking; 4) the appearance of mushrooms is associated with a violation of the rules of interpersonal relations. See motif I37. | 14 | 33 |
| A22c | Sacrifice to the Sun. | In order for the sun to rise, move to the right distance from the earth, or follow its heavenly path, a human being must be sacrificed. | 14 | 34 |
| A34 | The fox and the moon. | The jackal, coyote or fox are associated with the moon (usually with the appearance of lunar spots). | 18 | 34 |
| C6a | Diver – turtle/frog. | A turtle or toad (frog) brings a desired object from the bottom or from the underworld. | 24 | 34 |
| E20 | The origin of fish poison. | When a certain person enters the water, the fish die. A plant grows from parts of his body or on his grave, from which fish poison (timbó) is made. | 17 | 34 |
| F18c | Girls across the river, K1391. | The character sees a girl on the other side of the river and copulates with her in an unusual way (sends his penis across the river; turns it into a bridge for the girl to cross the river; into a dam that blocks the river in front of her; dives, swimming up to the girl underwater; sends an object into the girl's vagina). See motif F18B. | 21 | 34 |
| F42 | Men leave. | Feeling wronged, men leave their wives or sisters. | 17 | 34 |
| F53 | The ugly husband. | An unattractive man marries, but hides his face. When he is seen, the marriage is dissolved. | 21 | 34 |
| G8d | The fall or growth of a tree threatens the world. | A tree (pillar, mountain) is cut down (gnawed, ground down) or prevented from being cut down in order to save the world (or the gods, the king, etc.) from danger. | 19 | 34 |
| I106 | The Great Bear is a single character. | The Great Bear is one anthropomorphic character, not a group of people. | 26 | 34 |
| I24 | Snake bridge. | A snake (or fish) forms a bridge across a river. | 22 | 34 |
| L103b | Animals carry away from the demon, (ATU 314A*). | A girl (boy, children) falls into the hands of a demonic creature. An animal or bird offers to carry her away and runs off. Usually, animals of different species do this, but only the last one manages to escape pursuit. | 15 | 34 |
| L19b2 | Nine-headed monster. | A creature with nine heads is mentioned – either singly or at the end of a series of creatures with fewer heads. | 20 | 34 |
| L63 | Eats with the anus or vagina. | The character eats food with the womb or anus. See motif F9A. | 21 | 34 |
| M164 | Traces in one direction, ATU 50A. | The character refuses to enter the predator's lair when he sees that all the tracks lead inside, but not outside. | 25 | 34 |
| M199e | Horse between the legs, ATU 1082. | A man and his opponent compete to see who can carry a horse. The opponent struggles to lift the horse, while the man rides it, saying that he easily carried it between his legs. | 29 | 34 |
| M199i | Whoever whistles louder, ATU 1084. | A man and a giant (devil, bear, etc.) compete to see who can make the loudest sound (whistle, shout, sneeze, etc.). The man blindfolds his opponent and hits him with a heavy object; blows a trumpet; wraps his head so that it does not burst; etc. The opponent admits defeat or refuses to compete. | 28 | 34 |
| M24 | The turtle is going to war | turtle goes to war and/or is captured. See M23 motif. Cf. motif K77 “Verlioka”. | 18 | 34 |
| M32 | Indigestion | The character swallows food or water, or his own entrails, pieces of flesh flow out and fall out of his ass. | 18 | 34 |
| M38d6 | Bursts with laughter | Several characters embody small objects and die one at a time. The last one left laughs and rejoices so much that he bursts with laughter (breaks his head, etc.). | 24 | 34 |
| N11 | Like snow and blood, (ATU 709) | The character wants to have a child or spouse who is as white and blush as snow (milk) and blood. | 17 | 34 |
| I67 | Emu and nandu in the Milky Way. | The giant figure of an emu (in Australia) or a rhea (in South America) is visible in the Milky Way. | 11 | 34 |
| I74 | Stars – stones. | Stars – (bright) stones, sequins, beads. | 24 | 34 |
| I85b | The North Star – Man. | The North Star – one person. | 24 | 34 |
| I85c | Vessels with weather. | The character goes up to the sky and finds vessels containing various (two or more) types of precipitation, weather phenomena, seasons and/or celestial bodies. | 11 | 34 |
| I90 | Behind the rolling ball. | The character goes towards their goal, following a rolling ball of thread (less often an apple or a ball). | 25 | 34 |
| I97 | Rainbow horse. | Rainbow – hoofed animal (horse, bull, goat, sheep). | 25 | 34 |
| K102a5 | Fill the vessel with tears. | A woman must fill one or two vessels with tears (less often with blood). Usually, after this, her punishment must end, or the punishment depends on which of the vessels contains more tears. | 22 | 34 |
| K175 | The wind blew away the flour, ATU 759C. | A man was carrying flour, but the wind blew it away. The man complains to an authoritative figure and usually receives compensation. Cf. motif M57d3 ("The Wind-Giver"). | 20 | 34 |
| K19d | A man freezes in the sky. | Once in the sky, the husband of the star suffers from the cold. He freezes to death or perishes after touching forbidden fire. | 6 | 34 |
| K32i | Two nurses beside a sleeping man, ATU 894. | A girl finds the body of a young man who shows no signs of life and must sit next to him for a certain amount of time so that he comes back to life and takes her as his wife. Usually, she leaves at the last moment and an impostor becomes the wife of the revived man. | 28 | 34 |
| K67 | Burnt moccasins, K1615. | At night, one person intends to throw another person's shoes or clothes into the fire, but ends up burning his own shoes or clothes. Usually, the father-in-law throws his son-in-law's shoes into the fire at night in order to freeze him out, but the son-in-law has already switched shoes, so the father-in-law burns his own. | 14 | 34 |
| K89d | Hides, turning into a needle. | Left alone in the house or finding herself in a stranger's house, a girl (less often a male character) hides by turning into a needle (a pin) or another tool for sewing or spinning. | 16 | 34 |
| I85c1 | Heavenly vessel for rain, A1131.4, A1131.4.1. | In the sky there is a vessel, a box or an indescribable container for storing rain (rain clouds). | 22 | 35 |
| J12d | Kills a rival. | After a girl marries a worthy suitor, the rejected suitor or his relatives kill the rival. See motif J12. | 32 | 35 |
| J48 | The parrot cuts the rope. | A character climbs up to the sky or descends from the sky to the ground on a rope. A parrot cuts the rope, and the character falls. | 7 | 35 |
| K12b | The sorceress's husband breaks the ban, ATU 400(1). | The hero enters a world beyond the human world and marries there. His wife allows him to visit his former world, but on certain conditions. The hero breaks these conditions, which leads to (irreparable) misfortune. Cf. motif F94 (the hero betrays his fairy wife in her world); K25a6 (the hero visits his world together with his fairy wife). | 22 | 35 |
| K27zz | The Cannibal and the Blinded Wives, ATU 462. | A man does not suspect that his (new) wife (less often his mother) is a cannibal/witch/treacherous woman; she persecutes (former) wives (his wife) and/or blinds them or throws them into a pit, or her husband does so at her instigation. Contrary to the cannibal's plans, the son of one of the wives survives, kills the cannibal, and rescues his mother and sisters. | 25 | 35 |
| K32g1 | Forty horses or forty knives? | The guilty party is offered a choice of items of utilitarian value (often forty, seven, three, etc. horses or the same number of knives). The person usually does not understand that these are methods of execution. | 23 | 35 |
| L120a | Dragon tongue and blacksmith's tongs. | The hero hides in a smithy from the dragon chasing him. When the monster breaks through and rubs the door (with its tongue), the blacksmith (or the hero himself) burns it (usually clamping its tongue with red-hot tongs or throwing a red-hot club into its mouth). | 20 | 35 |
| L72i | Discarded soap. | Fleeing for his life, the character throws soap behind him, which turns into an obstacle for his pursuer (a slippery mountain, river, etc.). | 22 | 35 |
| M128 | Colourful animals, ATU 1036. | Having agreed with his opponent that he would get animals with certain external characteristics or behaving in a certain way, the hero takes all or almost all of them when the livestock is divided. | 22 | 35 |
| M138 | The lifespan of humans and animals, ATU 173. | At first, everyone was given 20 or 30 years. For animals, this is a long time, but for humans, it is short. Humans received part of the lifespan of animals. | 31 | 35 |
| M176 | Test: jumping over an obstacle. | The characters agree to jump over a ditch, stream, fire, etc., or walk across a log, rope, etc. One or all of them {specified in brackets} fall. | 24 | 35 |
| M177 | And he had no heart, ATU 52. | A weak predator eats part of its victim's body and explains to the strong one that this part did not exist at all (otherwise he would not have come to a place where he knew he would be eaten). | 24 | 35 |
| M17b | Wife deceives blind man. | The wife directs the blind man's arrow at game, lies that he has missed, and eats the meat herself. | 22 | 35 |
| M184 | The slow overtakes the sleeping, ATU 275A. | The swift-footed and slow characters agree to race each other. The swift-footed is confident of victory and takes his time, while the slow one stubbornly moves towards the goal and arrives first. | 25 | 35 |
| M187c | Race: crab/crayfish – participant. | Participating in a race, the crab defeats its faster opponent. | 25 | 35 |
| M193a | Kolobok, ATU 2025. | A woman baked a flatbread (pancake, pie, dough figure). It rolled away (ran away). On its way, it encounters various people and/or animals who want to eat it. It rolls away from each of them, but a fox (rarely another animal) eats it. | 28 | 35 |
| M199g1 | Hold on to the handle, ATU 1052. | A human (a weaker animal) deceives a strong giant (a demon, a stronger animal). One of the episodes: both carry a tree, the strong man takes hold of the top (by the crown), the man supposedly takes hold of the crown (by the top), but instead sits on the tree carried by the strong man or walks along pretending to support the branches. | 30 | 35 |
| M199n | Fill a holey cap with gold, ATU 1130. | A man offers a demon to fill his hat, bag, etc. with money. The demon does not notice that there is a hole in the hat and gives the man much more than he intended to give. | 26 | 35 |
| M65b | Lost loot | Having resorted to deception, the character kills the game, but the thieves take the loot. See M53 motif. | 23 | 35 |
| M84b | The dice are thrown into the water | An animal, bird or fish that is killed and eaten comes to life after its bones are thrown into the water. See M84 motif. | 14 | 35 |
| B28b | Taming of things. | The inhabitants of the area where the hero finds himself are afraid of creatures that are tools, utensils, and plants that are now harmless. The hero easily defeats these creatures and usually transforms them into what they are now. | 16 | 35 |
| B43a | Created from many objects. | The character is created from many materials or objects, or from materials brought from different places. | 32 | 35 |
| C27 | Monster under the ice. | The monster breaks the ice on a river or lake. Usually people walk on the ice, see a protruding horn (fin), and try to saw it off. The monster breaks the ice, and many people die. | 21 | 35 |
| D11 | Food was heated on the body. | Before fire was known, food was prepared by warming it with the body (usually under the armpit); fire is kept under the character's armpit. | 15 | 35 |
| E9i2 | The magical wife – the duck. | Before meeting the hero, his beloved (wife, helper, adopted daughter) takes the form of a duck. | 20 | 35 |
| F14A | Birth from stone. | An anthropomorphic character emerges from stone. | 12 | 35 |
| F4 | Child in a vessel, T561. | In the days of the first ancestors, children were conceived not through sexual intercourse, but in vessels, piles of earth, lumps of clay, etc. | 21 | 35 |
| F56 | Temptation and incest. | Upon seeing the vagina of his mother, daughter, daughter-in-law, sister, niece, or mother-in-law, a man or boy thinks about incest or commits it. | 14 | 35 |
| F6 | Hollowed-out vagina. | (The first) woman does not have a vagina at first. Usually, it is made for her by a bird, animal, fish, etc. | 18 | 35 |
| G13a | People ate earth. | Before the advent of cultivated plants (fire, hunting skills), people ate earth, clay, and stones. | 12 | 35 |
| G28 | Tree with fish. | The tree contains a fish in its trunk. | 19 | 35 |
| H34b | The river flows in both directions. | Somewhere there is or was a river that flowed or, according to the plan, was supposed to flow in two directions at once. | 25 | 35 |
| H56 | The forbidden fruit: people become mortal, C621. | After eating certain food, the first humans become mortal or lose their human nature. Cf. motif F97 (humans become sexually mature). | 19 | 35 |
| I131 | The thread of life. | Every person's life corresponds to a thread; when the thread breaks, the person dies. | 23 | 35 |
| I22b1 | Birds perish at the border of our world. | Some migratory birds (shamans in the form of birds) die on the border of our world. | 25 | 35 |
| I27c | Four-eyed dog. | Dogs with two spots above their eyes stand out and are usually called two- or four-eyed. | 26 | 35 |
| A46 | The sun and moon arise from the eyes of a creature. | The sun and moon (Rigveda: only the sun) emerge from the eyes of an anthropomorphic creature. | 20 | 36 |
| B103 | Cornelian cherry. | The character thinks that since the cornel blooms earlier than other fruit trees, its fruits will ripen earlier than others. The character is mistaken and is left without fruit. | 19 | 36 |
| B62 | Man and vulture. | Man believes that vultures live better than humans, changes his appearance to that of a vulture. The former vulture lives with the man's wife, and the man usually does not like his new life. | 15 | 36 |
| C6j | Obtaining land in connection with the creation of man. | In the same narrative, the story of the creation of man and the attempt to prevent it follows immediately after the story of obtaining earth from the bottom of the sea or from the underworld. | 22 | 36 |
| E29 | The lizard makes hands for humans, A1311.1. | Two characters (usually a coyote and a lizard) argue about whether human hands should be shaped like paws or end in fingers. | 15 | 36 |
| E30 | Wooden substitute spouse. | A man has no wife or a woman has no husband, and uses a wooden substitute as a spouse. | 16 | 36 |
| F70e1 | Daughter in the role of son, AT 884B. | An old man needs a son to do men's work. (Only the youngest) daughter takes on this task (successfully passing the test set by her father), pretending to be a man. | 21 | 36 |
| F74 | The naked man pretends to be dead. | Upon seeing a dangerous character, a man or woman undresses and pretends to be dead (or the character undresses the woman). Examining and sniffing the supposed corpse, the character finds what he takes to be a wound or signs of decay and leaves. | 24 | 36 |
| F82 | Incest with mother-in-law, T417. | The son-in-law resorts to trickery to sleep with his mother-in-law, or the mother-in-law with her son-in-law. Usually, the son-in-law insists that his mother-in-law, rather than his wife, accompany him on a hunt. | 25 | 36 |
| H46a | The dog and the ear of corn. | The possibility of using cereals for food is determined by the behaviour of the dog in the era of creation. See motif H46. | 20 | 36 |
| I113 | The piglet – the golden bristle, (ATU 530A). | A pig or boar made of gold or with golden bristles is a precious object. (In ATU, "a pig with golden bristles" is one of the possible miraculous objects; the presence of a corresponding number in regional indexes does not necessarily mean the presence of an image; only cases where the image is directly named are taken into account). | 15 | 36 |
| I125 | Hyades – animal jaw. | Hyades (sometimes, possibly, Pleiades or Orion) – jaw or severed head of a large animal or anthropomorphic creature. | 14 | 36 |
| L100f | Guest fleeing from his host, ATU 1741. | While the host is away, the guest is told that the host is going to kill or maim him, and imaginary evidence is presented. The returning host tries to stop the fleeing guest, who is convinced that he was warned for good reason. | 32 | 36 |
| L100f1 | Lover fleeing from her husband, ATU 1725. | A worker (the young son of the master) arranges things so that the food prepared by the mistress for her lover, who is working in the field, goes to the master, and when the master goes to the man, not knowing that he is his wife's lover, the man thinks that the husband is coming to kill him and flees. | 34 | 36 |
| L100g | The One-Legged Goose, ATU 785A. | A servant serves his master a roasted bird, one of whose legs has already been eaten. He tells him to look at the chickens, geese, etc., which are standing on one leg. When they run away, it becomes clear that they all have two legs. Usually, the servant says that if the master had scared the roasted goose, it would have shown its second leg too. | 29 | 36 |
| L108c | White Hand. | To prevent the victim from recognising him and opening the door, the predator, the cannibal, shows part of his clothing, his hand, his paw, making the victim believe that his mother, teacher, etc. has come. | 19 | 36 |
| L116a | Doe with golden horns. | While chasing a roe deer (fallow deer, deer), the hero finds himself in the lair of a demon or wizard; the roe deer is an enchanted person or demon. | 25 | 36 |
| L15c | Who is afraid of what (hero and adversary). | A dangerous character asks the hero how he can be killed, what he is afraid of. The hero lies, saying that the named object does not harm him. | 20 | 36 |
| L15c1 | The righteous adversary suffers damage. | A dangerous character naively reveals what he fears or what his life consists of, and the hero takes advantage of this. | 22 | 36 |
| L1b1 | The female demon and her brothers. | A woman comes into conflict with her brothers and turns into a dangerous demon. | 24 | 36 |
| L20a | The parrot devourer. | A man climbs a tree, takes chicks (usually parrots) from a nest and throws them to a woman. She eats them raw, then kills or tries to kill the man. | 12 | 36 |
| L37b1 | Toad under a stone. | To cure a sick person or rid a house of other misfortunes, one must kill (catch, expel) a toad, frog or snake hiding in the house (in the garden, under the roots). | 23 | 36 |
| L39d | Give an apple to someone. | A boy climbs a tree to pick fruit. A demonic character asks him to share, but not to throw the fruit on the ground, but to pass it from hand to hand. He grabs the boy and carries him away. | 17 | 36 |
| M120a | Weeping corpse eater, ATU 37, Th. K931. | The character pretends to be a mourner and eats (treats the body disrespectfully) the deceased. | 15 | 36 |
| M137 | A weak predator imitates a strong one, ATU 47D. | A weaker predator tries to imitate a stronger one, but cannot perform the actions that the strong one performs easily. | 27 | 36 |
| M181 | Two people are going to a festival. | Two characters are invited to a festival. (On the way and) upon arriving at the destination, one deceives the other. | 18 | 36 |
| M199a | Squeezing brains out of the ground. | A man buried something soft and liquid in the ground, and when he stamped on it (shot an arrow into it) and the buried object splashed onto the surface, he said that he had squeezed the brain (innards) out of the earth. | 15 | 36 |
| M38b | Silly wives imitate a sorceress, ATU 898 | The first wife, rejected or taken later than others, performs certain actions with the help of magic. Other wives try to imitate her but are killed, maimed, or disgraced. | 28 | 36 |
| M39a6a | Clever daughter-in-law and captive khan | After a long search, the ruler finds an intelligent wife for his son. At the mercy of his enemies, he sends a message with one of them, the true content of which is understood only by his daughter-in-law. She destroys enemies and frees her father-in-law. (The boys have a younger wife instead of an intelligent daughter-in-law). | 16 | 36 |
| M3a | Count the inhabitants of the waters | The character invites aquatic creatures to count them, and to do this, form a chain; crosses it to the other side or climbs to land. See M3 motif. | 17 | 36 |
| M84a | A revived goat | After supernatural characters put the bones of a dead and eaten deer, cow, ram, or goat in its skin, the animal is whole (and usually comes to life). See M84 motif. | 29 | 36 |
| I48a | Those who fell through the earth. | The hero's adversary descends into the underworld. | 24 | 36 |
| I85a1 | The North Star – a hole in the sky. | The North Star – a hole leading to the upper world. | 14 | 36 |
| K100f2 | The thirst-quenched breaks his chains. | A captured supernatural character breaks his chains and escapes to freedom after being given water (or wine, etc.) to drink. | 22 | 36 |
| K107b | Prohibition on lighting candles. | One spouse forbids the other from seeing them. When the other willingly or unwillingly breaks the prohibition, the first disappears (gets into trouble). (In the Tuscan version, the prohibition is broken by the woman's mother). | 20 | 36 |
| K27x1 | The invisible servant ("Bring me that, I don't know what"), (ATU 465A). | Having received a difficult task (usually: to bring an object or creature that has no specific characteristics, such as "something, I don't know what," "a strange wonder," etc.), the hero meets an invisible man who serves others; he is kind to him, and the man becomes his assistant. (This motif is certainly present in some texts of the ATU 465A plot, but it is not specifically highlighted in the definition). (Cf. motif K131B). | 21 | 36 |
| K27x6 | The stars and the wind guide the hero. | Setting out in search of a marriage partner, the hero or heroine successively encounters the embodiments (masters) of celestial bodies and atmospheric phenomena (the sun, moon, stars, wind). | 18 | 36 |
| K58 | Canal builder. | To win the hand of his beloved, the character builds a canal or aqueduct or digs a well. Usually, the woman does not end up marrying the person who completed the work, and either she herself or the suitor perishes. | 7 | 36 |
| K6 | Rope made from bodily secretions. | A vine or rope emerges from tears, snot, urine, saliva, and chewed substance. See motif K1A. | 14 | 36 |
| K61c1 | Overheard secret of a demon, (ATU 500, ATU 1091A). | A person will die if they cannot find the answer to the demon's question. A person or their acquaintance accidentally learns the answer by overhearing the demon talking to himself or to another demon. See motif C29. | 29 | 36 |
| K64b | Sticky object. | The hero's opponent provokes him to touch an object that turns out to be sticky. The hero sticks to the object (see Miller 1890: 41). See motif K64. | 22 | 36 |
| K75a3 | Groom. | Appearing incognito to an authoritative character, the hero works for him as a groom. | 23 | 36 |
| K77b2 | Weapons of the goat. | The goat (goat, ram, etc.) responds to the predator's questions in the sense that parts of its body are weapons and other objects designed to kill the questioner, or that the goat is actually armed. | 20 | 36 |
| K80a3 | To the forest for berries. | Members of the same family (girls, young women or children) go to the forest to pick berries and kill (bewitch) the one who is the object of their envy. | 8 | 36 |
| K8c1 | Swallowed by a herbivore, then by a wolf. | A tiny man is first accidentally swallowed by a large herbivore, then carried off by a wolf that began to eat the carcass of this animal. | 24 | 36 |
| K91 | The invisible battle. | Dogs, the hero's horse, or the hero himself fight the enemy in the underworld. Those watching from a distance judge the course of the battle by the colour of the water or foam rising to the surface, the colour of the first animal to emerge, etc. | 23 | 36 |
| N22 | Alive if they didn't die | fairy-tale text ends with a formula that says that if the characters are not dead, they are still alive. {Motive at work, more data}. | 17 | 36 |
| N3 | Hungry fingers | One finger says he's hungry and/or offers to steal something. The rest of the fingers express their opinion on this matter. | 19 | 36 |
| K97 | Tested fear, ATU 537. | A man prepares to kill a large bird, but does not kill it. When the bird later carries him, it pretends to leave him on a rock or throw him down. In doing so, it makes it clear how frightened it was. Either the bird first drops and catches the man, and later he makes her experience fear herself (the Volyn variant is slightly different). | 30 | 37 |
| L37a2 | Who will become a ferryman. | A man comes to ask God (fate, the sun, etc.) questions that he was asked to ask by those he met along the way. Someone asks when he will be freed from his duties. Answer: let him leave another person in his place. | 23 | 37 |
| L42c | Inside the house, outside the house. | The character hides from someone stronger, sometimes inside the house, sometimes outside, and the stronger character cannot catch him. | 18 | 37 |
| L44a | Give me your liver! | The demon demands that the man hiding in the shelter give him parts of his body. The man gives the demon parts of the body of a dead animal. The demon does not understand the deception and dies, giving parts of his own body in return. | 14 | 37 |
| L58 | The stingy man. | A man refuses to give food to his closest relatives or spouse; as punishment, he or his food changes its nature. | 17 | 37 |
| L5f | The good skull. | Head, face or skull – a woman's husband, fiancé or son; not dangerous to her, brings wealth, saves from hunger, etc. | 21 | 37 |
| M13 | God does as he is asked, ATU 750A, 775. | A person appeals to higher powers with a request, without considering that his words may have a different meaning than he intended. Either a person accidentally utters the wrong word or accidentally and hastily expresses an empty or absurd desire. As a result, something happens that he did not want at all. Cf. motifs I58B and M13A.Most of the references in ATU 775 (Midas' short-sighted wish) are either incorrect or impossible to verify. In connection with this plot, the reference to Uther 2000 is taken into account only for the Lithuanian variant, since there is a summary of the Latvian one, and for the Greek one, since the motif exists in Ancient Greece and among the neighbouring South Slavs. For ATU 750A, the reference to Bäcker 1988 in connection with the "Chinese" is incorrect; these are Manchus, not Chinese, and the stated motif is not present in the text. | 19 | 37 |
| M173a | Returning for the second boot (ATU 1525D). | A character throws one of a pair of objects onto the path of another. The traveller passes by, but when the deceiver throws the second object, he leaves his belongings and returns for the first. At this time, the deceiver steals the belongings. | 29 | 37 |
| M187 | Race: snail – participant. | Participating in a race, a snail (mollusc, sea cucumber, etc.) defeats a faster opponent. | 18 | 37 |
| M198a3 | Who stole the ruby? | One of the brothers secretly takes valuables belonging to all of them or is illegitimate. The brothers come to an authoritative figure to determine who is the thief or illegitimate child. Usually, the figure tells a story and determines the culprit based on the reaction of those who have come. | 18 | 37 |
| M81c | Blind people in the sky | A person goes to heaven or (rarely) to the lower world, where he meets blind people (one or two), usually makes them sighted, and returns to earth himself. | 18 | 37 |
| A32 | Figure on the lunar disc, A751. | A figure or imprint of some creature or object is visible on the lunar disc. Statistical calculations also include motifs A32A – A32J (a rabbit, frog, predatory animal, human, tree, etc. are visible on the moon). | 18 | 37 |
| B85b | Wind in a bag. | The wind was or is in a small container, released from it or flying out of it from time to time. | 24 | 37 |
| F20 | Lovers stuck together. | After copulation, the man and woman are unable to break their embrace. | 22 | 37 |
| F65c | The imaginary dead man: the boy reveals the deception. | A man pretends to be dead (in order to marry his daughter or to be able to eat the meat of hunted animals alone). One of his younger children recognises their (adoptive) father or notices that the supposed dead man is alive (he runs away from the funeral pyre, laughs, etc.). | 22 | 37 |
| G1 | The stolen child. | In order to acquire or regain values (land, soil, cultivated plants, sun, fire, shamanic knowledge, luck), people lure or steal the son or daughter of a certain character. | 13 | 37 |
| G3 | Rock of plenty. | Cultivated plants or fertile soil for their cultivation are hidden inside the rock. Birds or thunder gods pierce a hole in the rock. | 12 | 37 |
| G8c | They cut down a tree to get valuables. | The first ancestors try to cut down a tree (less often a high rock) to get useful plants hanging on the branches (at the top) or water or fish in the trunk. The damage disappears as soon as the workers are distracted from their work, or periodically. | 18 | 37 |
| H36g | False news: how many times to dine. | God sends a messenger to the people to tell them to eat infrequently (once a day, once every three days, etc.). The messenger says that one should eat often – at least two or three times a day. | 12 | 37 |
| I130 | Heavenly net. | One of the constellations – a hunting or fishing net, a seine, a trap, a snare. | 22 | 37 |
| I35a1a | Insulting a deity. | The character considers himself equal to the deity, imitating him, mocking him or trying to kill him. | 17 | 37 |
| I81 | Waters fall into the abyss. | Earthly waters fall into the abyss. | 26 | 37 |
| I88 | The multi-tailed beast. | Describes a creature with several tails. | 18 | 37 |
| J28a | The truth about the father. | When asking how one of his parents died, the hero receives a series of false answers. He often exposes himself to the same dangers, but remains alive, proving the falsity of the proposed versions. | 16 | 37 |
| K102a3 | Dead tooth. | Someone (usually a woman) places a poisonous tooth (bone, nail, etc.) in the hero's bed. The young man dies, but is then revived. | 18 | 37 |
| K103a | The tree raises its branches. | A suddenly grown plant (tree, vine, lotus) bends (raises its branches, etc.), allowing only the hero or heroine to climb it or pick its fruits (flowers). | 25 | 37 |
| K14d | Imaginary crime, (ATU 910A). | Testing his wife (household member, acquaintance), a man pretends to have committed a crime or performs incomprehensible actions that could be interpreted as a crime. Usually, his wife (friend) betrays him, and he presents evidence of his innocence. | 24 | 37 |
| K160 | Getting Satan's Hair, ATU 461. | The hero is given the task of bringing back the hair, feathers, scales, etc. of a dangerous character. He does this with the help of the character's wife or mother. | 25 | 37 |
| K1i | Tree for descending from a cliff. | Near the cliff, at the bottom of the pit, or in the underworld, a tree, reed, or vine grows, which the character uses to descend or climb to the ground. | 12 | 37 |
| K38e1 | The Copper Forest, (ATU 511). | Characters pass through a forest with metal trees of two or more types (copper, silver, etc.). | 23 | 37 |
| K53 | Animal skins – a means of transformation. | A character temporarily transforms into an animal or bird of a certain species by putting on its skin, or skins taken along with them come to life and serve the hero. | 18 | 37 |
| I6a | Male and female: different types of precipitation. | The male and female of a huge bird carry different types of precipitation (for example, the eagle carries snow, and the eagle carries rain). Or (Buryats of Mongolia) the same bird carries different types of precipitation depending on whether it is angry or not. See motif i6. Traditions associated with Na-Dene languages are highlighted in italics in the list. | 32 | 38 |
| J19 | The sinister guest: the death of a woman. | While her husband or brother is hunting, an evil spirit comes to his wife or sister; he kills her or takes her away. Her sons, who were torn from her womb or born at that time, are saved. | 22 | 38 |
| K100d | The helper turns out to be a prince, ATU 314. | At the end of the story, the animal helper (horse, lion, etc.) turns into a prince (princess) itself. | 18 | 38 |
| K27z6 | The Stone of Patience, ATU 894. | Having fallen victim to injustice and endured suffering, a young woman tells her story to certain inanimate objects (often a "stone of patience"), or her husband tells the story after learning of his wife's fate. The woman is saved, justice is restored. | 27 | 38 |
| K27zy | The hero between two cannibals. | A young man (woman) lives in the house of a cannibal (witch). In order to destroy him or her, the cannibal orders that a certain object be brought from other cannibals (often from his or her mother or sister). The hero or heroine escapes (and destroys all the cannibals). | 23 | 38 |
| K33a8 | The heroine is transformed into a dove. | A woman transformed into a dove by the machinations of a rival tries to establish contact with her children or husband. | 22 | 38 |
| K59 | Osiris's chest. | One person places another in a box and closes the lid, or ties the other to a board, a boat, etc., and throws them into the water. The coffin (box, board) is nailed to a distant land, where the captive is freed. Usually, he returns and takes revenge on his enemy. | 22 | 38 |
| K75c | The Unwashed Woman, ATU 361. | The devil promises a person wealth if he does not wash (cut his hair, etc.) for a certain period of time; both keep their promises. | 32 | 38 |
| L27a | One is eaten, the other runs away. | Sisters or a brother and sister find themselves in the same house with an antagonist, whose cannibalism they only suspect or do not know about at all. Trying to hide his actions, the cannibal eats one of the children. The other child or children run away, and the antagonist pursues them. Usually the antagonist is female, and if male, he has no sexual interest in his victims. (In the Central Andes, the plot may have been borrowed in the 19th century from Chinese migrants; see motifs J47, M21). | 9 | 38 |
| L40b | Absurd actions aimed at luring a character out. | To make the character come closer, absurd actions are performed in front of him. The character does not understand the deception and comes closer to explain how to act correctly. | 21 | 38 |
| L43 | Dangerous characters devour refuse. | Characters dangerous to the hero (demons, robbers, merchants) mistake excrement, insects, snakes and other disgusting things (not intended for food) for something pleasant (edible). | 26 | 38 |
| L49 | Parts of the body fall down. | Individual parts or pieces of a character's body are successively thrown down. (In American variants, those below usually mistake them for game, honey, or fish). | 20 | 38 |
| L5h | A severed head stuck in a hole. | Two sisters or two brothers find themselves in the demon's house or in front of an obstacle. One of them crawls through a narrow hole. The other gets stuck. The brother or sister pulls him or her by the head, and the head is torn off. | 12 | 38 |
| L72h | The abandoned flint. | Fleeing for his life, the character throws behind him a tool for kindling fire (flint, tinder, match, kindling), which becomes an obstacle in the path of his pursuer. (A discarded flint is counted if it serves to strike fire, and is not counted if it is simply a hard stone that turns into a mountain). | 14 | 38 |
| M119 | Shown repeatedly, ATU 37. | A character repeatedly shows another person the same object or creature; the other person believes that there are as many objects or creatures as the character has shown them. Usually, the character takes care of the other person's young, eats them or they die due to his negligence, or he is hired as a shepherd and eats the other person's livestock. When checked, he shows the parent (the owner of the herd) the same un-eaten young (or the same sheep), and the parent believes that all the young (animals) are safe. In ATU, this is plot 37, but two other plots are included as variants, and the sources are indicated for all three collectively. | 25 | 38 |
| M199f | Threat to wrinkle the lake with a rope, ATU 1045(1). | The character pretends to want to deprive the devils (water dwellers) of their habitat (pull the shores of the lake together, two mountains, muddy the lake, dry up the sea, build a church on the land of the devils, etc.). To avoid this, the devils (fish) comply with the character's demands. | 23 | 38 |
| N34 | Honey and oil | Streams (jets) that consist not of water but of honey (honey and butter, butter and milk, milk and blood) are mentioned as signs of generosity and abundance. Cf. H16 motives - H16B, K33F. | 19 | 38 |
| A16 | Dangers on the path of the sun. | Every night, the sun passes by creatures or objects that try to swallow or destroy it. | 25 | 38 |
| B42h1 | The arrow pierced the animal. | In the plot of cosmic hunting, one of the astral objects is identified with an arrow or bullet, and it is emphasised that it struck an animal or three animals, which are identified with Orion's Belt. {In the Khoisan variants, it is emphasised that the arrow did not reach its target}. | 17 | 38 |
| D8 | Predator and fire. | The first fire (or summer) is stolen from a large predator – a lion or leopard in Africa, a tiger in Asia, a bear in northern Asia and North America, and a jaguar in South America. | 19 | 38 |
| F87a | The snake wife and her children: transformation into birds. | A snake crawls onto the clothes of a girl bathing, climbs down in exchange for a promise to marry him, and takes her to the underwater world. She is happy there and gives birth to children. Together with them, she visits her relatives. They call the snake out of the water and kill it. After that, the wife transforms her children and/or herself into birds. | 12 | 38 |
| G23b | Ethnic groups from body parts. | People from different ethnic groups arise from parts of the creature's body, or people from different groups receive their names (and characteristics) depending on which parts of the creature's body they have received. | 16 | 38 |
| H36c | The lizard betrays man. | The lizard is to blame for the fact that man is mortal. See motif H36. | 26 | 38 |
| I120b | Taking something out of an animal's ear. | The character takes food, clothing, and other valuables from the ear of an animal (most often a horse or cow). | 25 | 38 |
| A11b | One-eyed luminaries. | The sun or moon has one eye (usually the second eye is knocked out or sucked out, but sometimes the reason is not explained; among the Munduruku, the sun of the rainy season has lost both eyes, while the sun of the dry season has retained both). See motif 11A. | 23 | 39 |
| A2c | Extra suns – children of the chief, A736.1.4.1. | The extra suns that existed in the past or may appear in the future are the children of the Sun-father. See motif A2A. | 16 | 39 |
| B115 | Evergreen trees. | Conifers and some other trees and shrubs (small shrubs) became evergreen after the elixir of immortality was accidentally spilled on them. Cf. motif H6b. | 20 | 39 |
| B46a | Separated star of the Pleiades. | One of the stars of the Pleiades was separated from the others (usually stolen by the stars of the Big Dipper and identified with Alcor). | 22 | 39 |
| B70 | Hare ears. | A man beats defenseless hares, foxes, and other small animals (one or many) that are usually locked in his house. The story explains the colouring of the tips of the ears and tails of these animals. Cf. motif M45A. | 14 | 39 |
| B73b | In search of a family member. | Two teenagers or young people are looking for each other, calling out to each other (or one of them is calling the other): a girl is looking for her missing (deceased) brother or brother's wife; a brother is looking for his sister or brother; young parents are looking for their child; one or both of those calling out turn into birds with a characteristic call. | 16 | 39 |
| C10 | The Flood: Wet Tails, A2211.1. | During the flood, some birds or animals escape to a mountain, a tree, a boat, or by clinging to the sky; their tails or other parts of their bodies remain in the water and as a result acquire their current colour or shape. Cf. A2211.7 ("During the flood, birds cling to the sky; their tails acquire their current colour"). | 22 | 39 |
| C35 | The cosmic marriage will not take place. | It becomes known that if characters representing natural phenomena and parts of the universe marry, it will lead to disaster. The marriage is broken off. | 18 | 39 |
| E38b | People from a pumpkin. | After a global catastrophe or at the beginning of time, a pumpkin appears on earth, from which the ancestors of humans emerge. | 17 | 39 |
| E9d | The magical wife – the dog. | Before meeting the hero, his beloved (wife, helper) has the image of a dog or puppy (wolf cub). | 26 | 39 |
| F14 | Son of a man and a stone. | The hero is born as a result of the union of a man with a stone or rock. | 15 | 39 |
| F18a | Long penis. | The penis of a male character is much longer than normal or becomes so. During intercourse, it usually crawls towards the woman like a snake. (Only texts with a focus on authenticity are included, not anecdotes). | 23 | 39 |
| F64a | Describes the future spouse. | Leaving or pretending to be dying, the character gives instructions to a relative regarding what he or she should do to get married, indicating a partner with certain characteristics, or the character indicates the place of a future meeting with this partner; or (Philippines) describes a person who should be accepted as a guest; comes himself under the guise of the person mentioned. See motif F64. | 35 | 39 |
| F76 | Animals teach love. | People learn how to make love by watching birds, fish or animals mating; animals teach people how to make love or arouse desire in them. | 20 | 39 |
| F97 | Forbidden fruit: people become sexually mature, C621. | After eating certain foods, people become sexually mature and/or lose their body hair or skin. Cf. motif H56 (people become mortal). | 21 | 39 |
| H1c | Trampled grave. | People cease to be reborn (or no longer come to the living) after the deceased is buried in the ground for the first time or someone tramples the earth on a fresh grave, preventing the deceased from rising from the grave. | 21 | 39 |
| H7c | Unfinished prayer, ATU 1199. | Death promises to take a man after he finishes his prayer or song (formerly ATU 1199B). The man breaks off his prayer (song) in the middle, and Death cannot take him. | 33 | 39 |
| L4b | Blood cannot be washed away. | The character learns about the violation of the prohibition to enter a certain room, as evidence of this has been preserved on the body of the heroine (hero) or on an object in her (his) hands (often blood on a key or an apple). | 24 | 39 |
| L65d | The younger sister of the cannibal. | When the older sister becomes a cannibal, the younger sister (temporarily) escapes. Cf. motifs L1B, L65C. | 24 | 39 |
| L86 | Children run away from their demon mother. | Having turned into a demon, a woman pursues her children. Cf. motif K102a2: A mother seeks to destroy her son (children) because he interferes with her love affair and/or sides with his father in a conflict between his parents. | 20 | 39 |
| M105 | The supposedly murdered mother. | The character hides his mother (wife, mother-in-law), but tells another that he has killed or sold her, or demonstratively leads her away to be sold, but lets her escape. See motif M104. | 38 | 39 |
| M135 | Two Rams and a Wolf, ATU 122K*. | Two ungulates – usually after the wolf agrees to share the meadow between them – gore the predator from both sides, killing or maiming it. | 35 | 39 |
| M144 | The King's Drum, ATU 49A. | One character manages to convince another that dangerous and inedible objects are attractive and delicious (a wasp's nest is a drum, a snake is a flute, dung is a delicacy, etc.). | 22 | 39 |
| M29X2 | Trickster other creatures | See the motives in square brackets. | 27 | 39 |
| M39i | The Hangman's Treasure, ATU 910D | After going broke, a person decides to hang himself, but finds gold (specially put by the father where his son hangs). | 27 | 39 |
| M44c | Food thieves are a young hero | A young hero steals the older character's food. He is usually caught, but not punished, but invited into the house. | 18 | 39 |
| M56b | Bring tears and skins | A weak character is tasked with bringing the skin (paw, tears, etc.) of animals that are stronger than him or are difficult to catch. He cunningly performs the task. Usually a rabbit or hare completes the task, but does not receive the reward he expected. {In the New World, the motive is from African Americans}. | 24 | 39 |
| I47 | The rainbow as a stream of secretions. | The rainbow smells disgusting, is associated with foul-smelling animals, is a stream of excretions, is associated with the lower body, causes inflammation or skin diseases, and is associated with death. | 15 | 39 |
| I82i | Venus – Zahra/Zura. | The name of the object in the night sky (usually Venus) sounds like Zukhra, Zahra, Zura, etc. | 20 | 39 |
| J15a | Woman among the Jaguars. | Setting off on a journey (usually in search of a fiancé, husband, or relatives), a woman finds herself in the lair or settlement of large dangerous predators - pumas or jaguars. See motif J15. | 34 | 39 |
| j1b | Heroic avengers - with a missing or altered plot start: it is unclear whether the characters with whom the heroes live are their real or adoptive parents; the hero's mother herself tries to destroy him in infancy. | Heroic avengers - with a missing or altered plot start: it is unclear whether the characters with whom the heroes live are their real or adoptive parents; the hero's mother herself tries to destroy him in infancy. | 11 | 39 |
| K168 | Imaginary life in an instant, ATU 664*, 681. | A person experiences an eventful long period of life. Everything turns out to be an illusion, and he finds himself back in the same place and at the same moment in time from which the story began. | 24 | 39 |
| K1B | Trap: abandoned woman. | A woman is lured onto a tree, rock or island and left there. | 20 | 39 |
| K33a1 | Born in a well, T581.2.0. | A woman is thrown into a well (pond, pit, etc.) or becomes a water bird. In the water, she gives birth to a child (twins, triplets) or is thrown into the water with her baby. She is rescued along with her children. | 24 | 39 |
| K38e2 | The collapsed kingdom. | Returning from the underworld to earth, the princess places the objects surrounding her (clothes, house, "kingdom") into a small object (egg, ball of yarn, etc.), which she takes with her. | 18 | 39 |
| K67e | Before the First Cuckoo, ATU 1029. | Someone promises to fulfil their duties until they hear a bird singing at a certain moment in a temporal cycle (annual or daily). Another character imitates the bird. The first recognises the deception. | 35 | 39 |
| K69 | Pilgrims to the deity. | Several men walk towards the horizon to ascend to the sky and visit the Sun or another supreme deity. Usually, one or more of them perish along the way, while others reach their destination. They return by a shorter route than they came. | 20 | 39 |
| K75a1 | The younger brother-in-law's place is in the barn. | The ruler orders his youngest daughter (and her chosen husband) to live in conditions that do not correspond to her status. He does not know that her chosen one is not a poor wretch, as he seems, but a mighty warrior and a handsome man. | 26 | 39 |
| M9 | Trapped in a hollow | The character puts his head or hand in a hollow or (rarely) another hole), gets stuck in it, or falls into a hollow. Usually, as a result, the character dies or undergoes a metamorphosis. | 21 | 39 |
| M91c5 | Unprofitable sale, ATU 1551 | The person himself or his little son goes to the bazaar to sell a cow (or another large pet). The crook convinces him that it is a sheep (or another animal that is smaller and cheaper). Each of the crook's friends confirms the score or gives an even lower grade. A man at a loss sells a cow for the price of a sheep. | 34 | 39 |
| M100 | Dream on the edge of a cliff, ATU 10***. | Zoomorphic characters lie down to sleep on the edge of a cliff. At night, one of them suggests moving (turning), and his companion (companions) falls and breaks. | 18 | 40 |
| M154a | The ox, the donkey and work, ATU 207A. | One of the domestic animals (usually a donkey) persuades another to pretend to be sick. After that, the advisor has to work for both of them. Then he tells the pretend sick animal that the owner is going to slaughter him, and the animal rushes to work. | 32 | 40 |
| M157a3 | The demand to milk the bull. | A character demands that another provide him with offspring or milk from a male animal. | 22 | 40 |
| M29a1 | Raven(s) - main trickster | In three or more different episodes related to deception, absurd, obscene or anti-social behavior the protagonist is raven (crow) | 22 | 40 |
| M29o1 | A monkey is a loser and a loser | As a result of its stupidity or antisocial behavior, the monkey dies or suffers damage. See the motives in square brackets. | 32 | 40 |
| M30b | Birds take the feathers they have given | Birds give a non-flying or ugly character feathers so that he can fly or become beautiful, but then take them away. | 20 | 40 |
| M38c1 | Converting old to young: an unsuccessful imitation, ATU 753 | The character (supposedly) forges a person, rejuvenating or reviving him, the other unsuccessfully tries to imitate him. | 29 | 40 |
| M39e1 | Iron eaten and boy kidnapped, ATU 1592, 1592A | A person appropriates property. The owner or his assistant puts the kidnapper in such a position that he is forced to return everything (usually the victim kidnaps the child of the deceiver). {Apparently, all references in Ting 1978 do not refer to Chinese, but to Tibetans; Uther 2004 refers to the Dagestan text in Levin 1978, No. 52, but it is not clear which group we are talking about; there is also a deaf reference to the “Code of Japanese fairy tales - Tsukan”, it needs to be checked}. | 31 | 40 |
| M57a1 | Where it comes, there's gold | When a beautiful woman walks on the ground, jewels appear under her feet, flowers bloom, etc. | 20 | 40 |
| M60a | The hunter comes to the one he wounded | The creature/character runs away or swims away with a hook, harpoon, arrow, or other object thrown by the hero in his body. Local shamans can't heal an existence/character. The hero or his friend comes to the wounded man's village, takes out the object that caused the injury, or drives him even deeper into the body. The patient recovers or dies accordingly. See L105 and M60 motifs. | 32 | 40 |
| D13f | Laughter and fire. | Laughter causes the appearance or spread of fire or the sun. Usually, the owner of fire or the sun loses it after bursting into laughter. | 11 | 40 |
| D4c | Obtaining summer. | Characters obtain the warm season from its original owners. | 17 | 40 |
| F25 | The reason for menstruation: someone else's blood. | Women have been stained with someone else's or their own blood, or with blood-like paint, ever since women began menstruating. | 23 | 40 |
| F29 | A girl sits on the ground. | A girl (woman) sits on the ground and copulates with a snake, worm or eel that crawls out of the ground towards her. This usually happens when she is busy with housework (cooking, weaving, etc.). | 17 | 40 |
| I13d | Wintering with snakes, ATU 672D. | A person enters the dwelling of snakes, spends a long time there, is released or escapes. While in the dwelling of snakes, he usually licks a stone that relieves thirst and hunger. | 35 | 40 |
| I35a1 | Challenging the thunderer. | The character claims the role of the thunder god and imitates him. | 21 | 40 |
| I51b | Earth – animal. | The earth or sky is perceived as a large mammal or created from parts of its body. | 20 | 40 |
| I8c | Suspended Earth. | The earth is prevented from falling or swaying because it is tied with ropes. | 23 | 40 |
| J59a | Flight after the arrow, D1092, D1526.1. | After shooting an arrow (rarely: throwing a ball), a person flies on it, behind it or in front of it, or sends another person on the flying arrow. Cf. motif J59. | 20 | 40 |
| J9 | Children from their mother's womb show her the way. | Even before they are born, children speak from their mother's womb, showing her the way. | 16 | 40 |
| K102b | Ride for the last time, B184.1.6. | In order to destroy the hero (heroine), the antagonist must first get rid of his beloved animal (usually a horse). When the animal is about to be slaughtered, the hero (heroine) mounts it, rides away and escapes. | 27 | 40 |
| K147 | The horse brings the hero's remains, and he is revived. | The enemy dismembers the hero's body. The remains are tied to the horse's saddle, or the horse itself picks them up and brings them to friendly characters. They revive the hero. | 20 | 40 |
| K23 | Battle with birds. | Birds attack inhabitants of another world or a person who has entered another world. See motif K22. | 32 | 40 |
| K27n3c | The one who gives tasks – a zoomorphic creature. | A character who gives the hero difficult tasks or subjects him to trials is associated with a land or water animal or a fish. See motif K27. | 35 | 40 |
| K27ss | Overtake (an old) woman. | A strong man must overtake a woman, often an old woman. This is difficult or impossible to achieve. | 24 | 40 |
| K35a3 | The master becomes a servant. | In order to obtain the privileges enjoyed by the hero, the deceiver manages to swap status with him. | 25 | 40 |
| K35c1 | Better the one you love (ATU 677). | The young man is not killed, but rewarded, because he answered correctly (evasively) the question of a powerful character – which of the two women he should marry, which is more beautiful, which object or material is more valuable, etc. | 23 | 40 |
| K38b3 | The hero cares for the chicks. | A powerful bird or other flying creature helps a person for taking care of its chicks/offspring: feeding them, sheltering them, decorating them, etc. | 20 | 40 |
| K61d | From work became a beetle, ATU 501. | A young woman accidentally gives her fiancé, husband or mother-in-law the impression that she works a lot. To prevent the deception from being revealed, she or someone else makes others believe that women's work makes them ugly or turns them into animals. The husband forbids his wife to work. | 33 | 40 |
| I8e | Four hold up the world. | The sky or the earth is supported by four anthropomorphic male characters located at the four cardinal points. | 28 | 41 |
| K114 | Brothers leave after the birth of their sister (ATU 451). | Several brothers leave home immediately after or shortly before their mother gives birth to a girl (usually they want a brother and wait for news about who their mother has given birth to, but accidentally or maliciously a signal is given that a boy has been born). The girl grows up and goes in search of her brothers. | 31 | 41 |
| K27o3 | Competition between two teams. | Two groups of characters compete in overcoming trials or play a game, divided into two teams (at least two episodes with different characters on both sides). The participants are either anthropomorphic but possess different unusual abilities, or they are different animals (natural phenomena, elements, etc.). Cf. motif K27xy (Characters with different properties in opposing camps). | 25 | 41 |
| K27xy | Characters with different properties in the enemy camp. | Several men (animals), each of whom can do something better than the others, work together to accomplish difficult tasks set before them by their opponents. The competition is not intended to find a worthy suitor for a girl or to get rid of an unwanted suitor. Cf. motif K27o3 (Competition between two teams). | 19 | 41 |
| K27y | Obtaining material for arrows. | The hero is sent or, knowing the danger, goes himself to obtain various (at least two) materials for making a bow and arrows (shafts, feathers, bowstring, flint for arrowheads, paint for colouring arrows, resin and fibres for attaching the arrowhead or feather to the shaft, etc.). See motif K27. | 25 | 41 |
| K47b | The dog becomes handsome. | A woman marries a man who originally had the appearance of a dog. The birth of children from a dog is not essential to the plot. | 22 | 41 |
| K73a7 | Miraculous children: a sister with two brothers. | A woman gives birth to three (not two or many) miraculous children – two boys and a girl. They grow up and triumph over their enemies. | 22 | 41 |
| L121 | The hunter and his werewolf wife. | An animal or cannibal (man-eater) transforms into a woman and marries a hunter with the sole intention of killing him. Usually, the wife takes on her true form when she goes into the forest with the hunter. | 15 | 41 |
| L131 | Your children are burning (all versions). | To get rid of a demonic creature or make a bird or ladybird fly away, they are told that the place where their home and/or children are located is engulfed in fire. | 17 | 41 |
| L33f | The nightjar breaks the rock. | A rock or boulder pursues a character. The character calls for help, and the nightjar splits the rock into pieces. | 17 | 41 |
| L95b | Together with the demon against the child. | Having promised to give the child to the demon, the mother or father does not try to save him or her, but arranges for the child to fall into the demon's hands. Against all odds, the son or daughter is saved.[1] Motif L85 "Half-creatures, F525" (the character has only half a body (vertically) or only one leg, which does not prevent him from moving) [AKB]. See also text No. 35.[2] Voracity is a characteristic feature of šǝʔōl in Is 5:14, Hab 2:5, Pr 1:12, Ps 141:7 (see Gaster 1950:189, O’Callahan 1954:169). | 23 | 41 |
| M165 | A coat for a wolf, ATU 102. | One zoomorphic character promises another to sew a coat (boots), asks him to bring sheep, eats them, and does not sew anything. | 25 | 41 |
| M178 | The Lying Goat, ATU 212. | The owner successively sends others to graze the goat (herd of goats). The goat eats grass to its heart's content, but each time replies to the owner that it has been kept on a starvation diet. The owner is outraged and kills or drives away the shepherds. Convinced of the goat's deceitfulness, he decides to kill it. Either the owner begins to skin the live goat, or the goat runs away. In most versions, both motifs are combined. | 31 | 41 |
| M203 | The Great Pan is dead, ATU 113A. | A supernatural being conveys a message to an unknown recipient through a passer-by. By fulfilling the request, the person provokes an unexpected reaction from another supernatural being (usually living in his house). Most of the material was collected by K.Yu. Rakhno. | 20 | 41 |
| M29p | Trickster vs Spider | See the motives in square brackets. | 21 | 41 |
| M39a6f | Sell and return the sheep | The father tells his son to sell the sheep (goat) and return it along with the proceeds. Usually a girl teaches how to sell trimmed wool. | 21 | 41 |
| M39a8a | Drops a heavy object from a tree | A fool or buffoon climbs a tree taking a heavy objects with him and then drops it frightening those who are under the tree | 28 | 41 |
| M45 | The predator pretends to be dead | When a zoomorphic character falls asleep or pretends to be dead (seriously ill), the animals he usually hunts gather to meet him. He catches or kills them, or they run away at the last minute. | 22 | 41 |
| M46b | A born infant | The character turns into a tiny object or creature, swallowing or touching which a woman (usually a virgin) becomes pregnant and gives birth to a boy. He steals valuables or gets along with a woman. See M46 motif. | 27 | 41 |
| M97 | A blind man asks trees, D1313.4. | Blinded or far from the target, the character walks, bumping into trees of various species and asking everyone a question or request. He eventually achieves his goal. | 23 | 41 |
| N4 | Fused ribs | Fused ribs are a sign of heroic strength. {The motive was highlighted and the material was collected by Kostyantin Rahno}. | 17 | 41 |
| B44e | Dialogue of the first ancestors. | First ancestors (usually birds or animals) argue with each other about the length of time periods in the calendar or daily cycle, or about the desirability of the dominance of cold and dark or warm and light times. See motif B44. | 38 | 41 |
| B68 | Giant hazel grouse. | The giant hazel grouse became small – it was usually torn into pieces, which turned into the current hazel grouse. | 19 | 41 |
| C33a | The restored chain. | Throughout the year, someone tries to saw through or break the chain or rope that holds him or another character. On a certain day of the year, when the chain has become completely thin, it is restored to its former state, or the pole to which the chain is attached is reinserted into the ground. Cf. motif G8d. | 21 | 41 |
| D13A | Obscene dance for the Sun. | To amuse the owner of fire or the Sun, others dance indecently, imitate copulation, display their genitals, or publicly relieve themselves. | 18 | 41 |
| D6a | Crocodile and fire. | The crocodile/caiman is the temporary or original owner of fire or lightning. | 18 | 41 |
| F45a | Intentional conception by the wind. | A woman or female animal conceives by deliberately exposing her genitals to the wind. | 19 | 41 |
| F70e | Girl turns into a man, ATU 514. | A girl pretends to be a man, magically acquires male nature and lives with his wife. Cf. motif K137 (in Uther 2004, plot 514 mistakenly includes a Karakalpak text with our motif K137). | 33 | 41 |
| G13c | What to eat before the advent of agriculture. | Before the advent of cultivated or edible wild plants, people ate what is now considered unfit for consumption: (rotten) wood, bark, earth, stones, mushrooms. | 19 | 41 |
| H19 | The raven interferes with hunting. | The raven hides game animals in a pen or cave or scares them away from hunters. See motif H18. | 22 | 41 |
| H4a | Interrupted renewal. | People no longer rejuvenate (usually, they do not change their skin), because they were disturbed at the moment of renewal or were not recognised as the same person after renewal. See motif H4. | 22 | 41 |
| B16 | Salt water: bodily secretions, A1115. | The water of the sea, rivers, etc. comes from the fluid that flows from the body of a living being, or is contaminated by it; therefore, it is salty or opaque. | 23 | 42 |
| B48a | Pieces of foreign flesh. | The bodies of animals, birds or fish contain internal organs or muscles that were originally parts of the bodies of other animals, birds, fish or monsters. Cf. motif B36C. | 19 | 42 |
| C30a | A pound of flesh, ATU 890. | A man borrows money on the condition that if he fails to repay it by a certain date, he will have to give the lender a certain amount of his own flesh. The lender cannot cut off the flesh, because he is unable to fulfil the formally logical but essentially absurd demand made of him. | 31 | 42 |
| F18b | Long penis after forbidden sex. | After intercourse with a forbidden partner (incest, intercourse with an animal or spirit), a man's penis becomes so long that he is forced to carry it in a basket, etc. | 32 | 42 |
| H18b | Cattle return to the water. | Having received livestock from supernatural characters, a person (usually due to violating a prohibition on looking, shouting, etc.) immediately loses all or most of the animals (they go into the water, into the sky, scatter, etc.). | 23 | 42 |
| H32a | Lost abundance: the wronged wife. | A young woman is the embodiment of fertility; she comes to live with people, and food becomes readily available. The woman is wronged, she leaves, and the superabundance ends. | 20 | 42 |
| I22f | Talking trees. | The character must pass small objects (trees, logs, blades) that constantly collide and diverge, fall and rise. | 26 | 42 |
| K99a3 | Happy dream: sun, moon and stars. | A person sees the sun, moon and stars (all together or some of them) in a dream. At the end of the story, the meaning of the dream becomes clear: these are people who love or worship him (often two wives and a child). | 23 | 42 |
| L108b1 | The blacksmith makes his voice thin. | To make his voice thin, the character turns to the blacksmith. | 19 | 42 |
| L41a | Stone in a basket. | The character runs away from his captor, leaving a stone (or a log, sand) in his place. See motif L41. | 33 | 42 |
| L75 | Flint kills his mother at birth. | One of two brothers is the embodiment of evil; at birth, he cuts open his mother's body, killing her. | 16 | 42 |
| M114d | Boiled eggs: eaten a year ago, ATU 821B. | A man eats boiled eggs and leaves without paying. Much later, he returns to repay his debt. The owner demands payment for the chickens that would have hatched from those eggs, become hens, laid eggs themselves, and so on. Someone comes to court and pretends to be boiling seeds for sowing. The judge agrees that chickens cannot hatch from boiled eggs. | 38 | 42 |
| M130c | The Lion and the Mouse, ATU 75. | When a lion (tiger, bear, elephant, human) is trapped, a mouse or rat frees it (usually by gnawing through the ropes). | 34 | 42 |
| M136a | Carrying light in bags, ATU 1245. | People try to bring light, darkness, smoke, etc. into or out of a room. | 38 | 42 |
| M141 | Animals in a pit, ATU 20A. | Several animals of different species find themselves in a pit from which they cannot escape. They devour each other, and the last one manages to escape. | 26 | 42 |
| M150 | The deceitful shepherd. | Having taken on the task of herding a flock, the character eats the animals entrusted to him. | 25 | 42 |
| M181a | Fire at sunset. | The character believes that unattainable natural objects are accessible cultural objects. Usually agrees to go after fire upon seeing a red sunset, fireflies, etc. | 15 | 42 |
| M29g2 | Cancer is a cunning winner | Cancer (crab) defeats or deceives strong opponents by cunning. | 25 | 42 |
| M43 | Bait figure | To kill or catch a monster, he sees a figure made of wood or clay or a living person. Most often, a monster's claws or sharp leg get stuck when they pierce a tree. | 21 | 42 |
| I61 | Milk on the Milky Way, A778.5. | The Milky Way is a trail of spilled milk. | 23 | 42 |
| I64 | Animal tracks on the Milky Way. | The Milky Way – traces of animals that walked or ran. | 21 | 42 |
| I8G1 | Giant at the pillar of the world. | At the foot of the world pillar is an anthropomorphic character, or a character identified with a tree or pillar on which the world rests, or a character holding ropes on which the world is suspended. | 21 | 42 |
| K100f | The young man releases the fish. | A man catches an unusual fish (rarely: a bird or some kind of aquatic creature). His son (a worker) releases it. For this, the father (king) drives him away, or the one who released the fish leaves on his own. The rescued fish helps him. | 22 | 42 |
| K157a | The tavern where they feed for free, ATU 425D, (ATU 304). | In order to find a missing husband (wife, saviour), the character regularly gathers random people to tell stories (usually keeping a shop, bathhouse, etc. for this purpose). From the conversations, it becomes clear that one of the visitors is the person they are looking for, or his story helps to find the missing person. | 29 | 42 |
| K56f | The division of the rooster, ATU 1533. | A man divides a roasted rooster (goose) according to the social ranks of those present (the head to the host, the wings to the daughters, etc.), usually taking the least prestigious but meatiest part for himself. | 26 | 42 |
| K66a | The flying ship as a condition of marriage, ATU 513B. | The princess (inheritance) is given to the one who builds (obtains) a ship capable of moving on land (flying through the air). | 30 | 42 |
| N1 | Origins: when Altai was the size of a bump | The fabulous and epic texts start from the beginning, which states that today's huge objects were tiny at the time. | 11 | 42 |
| N28a | The roots of mountain | The roots (belt) of mountains or stones are mentioned in myths, riddles, spells, and songs as something that does not really exist. | 19 | 42 |
| L15d1 | Imaginary container of the soul. | When a character is asked to reveal the location of his soul (death, power), he first gives an incorrect answer, and the questioner usually begins to show signs of attention to the corresponding locus or object. | 27 | 43 |
| L17a1 | One-eyed, two-eyed and three-eyed, ATU 511. | Characters with a sequentially increasing number of eyes follow the hero or heroine. He or she puts the eyes to sleep one by one, but forgets about the last one. | 27 | 43 |
| L37c1 | Misfortune, ATU 735A. | The happiness (misfortune, hardship, etc.) of each person is represented by specific characters with whom they interact. | 31 | 43 |
| L92 | Imaginary help to a cannibal. | A demon, a cannibal, chops down a tree or rock on top of which the hero has climbed. Another character offers the cannibal a rest and takes over the chopping, but only spoils his work or (among the Athapaskans) kills him as soon as the cannibal hands him his axe. (African variants are clearly borrowed from Eurasia). | 23 | 43 |
| M122 | Advisors inside. | In a difficult situation, the character asks for advice from his tail, penis, or some creatures in his stomach (these are excrement, intestinal parasites, his "sisters," etc.). | 22 | 43 |
| M199k | Digging a well, ATU 1049. | A giant sends a man to fetch water, giving him a huge wineskin. The man cannot carry so much water, but he gets out of the situation with a trick (he pretends that he wants to bring the whole well at once; that he has already brought the water and drunk it all himself; etc.). | 29 | 43 |
| M206 | Half of the reward, ATU 1610. | A guard (nobleman) agrees to let a man pass to an authoritative figure on condition that he gives him half of the expected reward. The man asks for a beating as a reward or expected it from the outset. | 39 | 43 |
| M38c | Converting old to young, ATU 753 | blacksmith (supposedly) forges a person, rejuvenating or revitalizing him. | 34 | 43 |
| A12f | The Money Lender. | The stars fade because the moneylender demands that they repay their debt. | 9 | 43 |
| A19c | The Sun Horse. | The sun is associated with a horseman or rides in a carriage drawn by horses (equidae). | 24 | 43 |
| A2a1 | The moon shone like the sun. | At first, the moon was as bright and hot as the sun. | 28 | 43 |
| A32c1 | Predatory beast on the moon. | The figure or imprint of a predatory mammal (fox, wolf, dog, coyote, jaguar, lion) is visible on the lunar disc. Either this animal is associated with the moon, belongs to it. See motif A34. | 22 | 43 |
| B42mn | A hunter chases the Big Dipper. | Only one character (rather than several) chases an animal (elk or bear) across the sky, associated with one of the circumpolar constellations, but not with the Pleiades or Orion. (In the Kalevala tradition, there is no identification with stars). | 16 | 43 |
| C3 | The snake plugged the hole in the ark, A1853.1, (ATU 825). | The snake (eel, frog) saved the ship (or the whole world) by plugging the hole from which water was pouring with its body. | 24 | 43 |
| C6b | Diver – muskrat (beaver, otter). | The desired object is brought up from the bottom by a muskrat (rarely a beaver or otter). | 26 | 43 |
| C6c1 | Birds: successful and unsuccessful divers. | Two or more different birds (in Siberia, often a loon and a duck) successively try to retrieve something from the bottom. Only one succeeds. | 19 | 43 |
| E10 | Young animals turn into children. | Characters who have shed their animal (plant, object) forms become the children of women or spouses who catch them off guard. | 17 | 43 |
| E9i3 | The magical wife – the goose. | Before meeting the hero, his beloved (wife, helper) has the image of a goose. | 32 | 43 |
| I11a | The earth is supported on the back of a turtle (frog). | Describes how, in the process of creation, the earth is placed on the back of a turtle or frog, which becomes its support. | 14 | 43 |
| I48 | Locked in the underworld. | The character is deprived of the ability to move, after which he acquires cosmic dimensions: he supports the earth (sky) or his movements cause earthquakes (less often - storms). | 15 | 43 |
| I95b | Orion – the balance beam. | Orion is a yoke. | 15 | 43 |
| J53 | Fawns and bear cubs | The children of a character associated with a hoofed animal (deer, antelope) come into conflict with an enemy associated with a predator or a larger hoofed animal. They kill his children and/or run away from him. See motif J52. | 28 | 43 |
| K120a3 | Dress in a nut. | The character receives a nut containing valuables (beautiful clothes, jewellery, animal helpers, etc.), or (Germans, Latvians) hides the valuables in the nut himself to use them later. | 24 | 43 |
| K25d | The forbidden tuber in the heavens. | After digging up the root, a person pierces the sky or the earth, sees the world below, and descends there. Usually, the hole is made by a woman who has fallen into the sky; her husband, a sky dweller, or his relatives forbid her to dig up a certain root; breaking the ban, the woman sees the earth below and decides to descend. See motif K19B. | 26 | 43 |
| K27r1 | The supposed burnt. | The antagonist believes that the hero was burned, but returned safely from the afterlife, so he orders himself or his representative to be burned. | 30 | 43 |
| K27x2 | Getting an egg from under a bird, ATU 1525H 1 . | The character is able to get an egg or chick (and put them back) from under a bird in a nest, or change the bird's feathers (pluck feathers), or get a fruit from an animal's womb so that the bird or animal does not notice. | 28 | 43 |
| K56c | The Golden Axe, ATU 729. | A man loses his axe. A spirit or chief offers him a golden one, but the man says that the axe is not his and for this he receives axes of gold and silver as a reward. Another man deliberately loses his ordinary axe, seeking to obtain a golden one, but suffers a fiasco. | 39 | 43 |
| K73b1 | Mother and child in a barrel. | A woman with her newborn son (pregnant with a boy) or a girl with a young man are placed in a barrel (box; rarely: in a boat) and lowered into the sea (river). | 20 | 43 |
| K80c2 | Those who find treasure kill each other, ATU 763. | Two (or more) people find (steal) valuables. Unwilling to share, one kills the other, but dies himself, poisoned by the poison that the victim manages to slip into his food. | 37 | 43 |
| K85e | Sea horses. | Magical horses live in water. | 25 | 43 |
| K8c3 | Not through the mouth, but through the side. | One (zoomorphic) character refuses to use any part of another's body except the one he uses to kill him. | 25 | 43 |
| K101a | The girl rising from the coffin, ATU 307. | A man spends several nights next to a dead girl who has become a dangerous demonic creature. As a result, the girl is exorcised. | 32 | 44 |
| K11a | Feathers turn into birds and people. | Plucked feathers of a (huge) bird turn into actual birds (or their plumage) or humans emerge from them. | 23 | 44 |
| K125 | One of the subjects is a traitor. | The pursuer asks various objects where the hero is hiding or where he has run. Everyone remains silent, but one of the objects betrays the hero. | 29 | 44 |
| K131a | The hero divides the carcass, ATU 159*. | Several animals (often a lion, a falcon, an ant) argue (usually over prey or habitat). The hero resolves their dispute, and they grant him the ability to take on their form (to possess their qualities). | 23 | 44 |
| K165 | Seeking to experience fear, ATU 326. | The young man has never experienced fear and wants to know what it is like. Robbers and evil spirits do not frighten him. | 35 | 44 |
| K27z3 | The Cat with the Lamp, ATU 217. | The character taught the cat (monkey, dog) to hold a candle (lamp) or to extinguish it on command. Seeing a mouse (rat), the cat rushes after it and as a result drops (does not extinguish) the candle. | 37 | 44 |
| K29b | Safe in the pit, K959,6. | The hero is asked to climb (or is thrown) into a pit, which is immediately filled with earth or into which a pole or stones are lowered, K959,6 (Posthole murder). The hero proves his magical abilities by climbing out of the pit alive. | 28 | 44 |
| K88a | Blinded heroine, ATU 404. | The stepmother (aunt, rival) blinds a young woman. The latter regains her eyesight (often by exchanging them for some valuable item). | 32 | 44 |
| K8c5 | The bear dies after swallowing a mouse. | A zoomorphic character no larger than a fox allows itself to be swallowed by a bear and kills it by tearing it apart from the inside. | 24 | 44 |
| K99a | Father will serve his son, ATU 517, (725). | A young man or woman (often after having a dream) declares that a great future awaits him or her (usually that his or her father, parents, brothers, or sisters will show him or her signs of respect). The young man or woman is expelled, but the prophecy comes true. | 32 | 44 |
| L80 | Drop of blood. | A demonic creature or animal is killed, but comes back to life or can come back to life if even a small piece of its flesh or blood is left behind, unnoticed. | 16 | 44 |
| L85F | One-legged. | The character has only one leg (and one arm), which does not prevent him from moving. Unlike motif L85 (half-creatures), the character has a complete body, not divided in half vertically. | 29 | 44 |
| L9b | Knife elbows, G341. | The sharp elbows or (rarely) knees of the character resemble knives or awls. | 28 | 44 |
| M106a | "I Myself" and "No One" in the Demon's House. | The character who caused the damage calls himself by a fictitious name such as "Nobody," "I Myself," etc. Usually, others decide that the victim himself is to blame for what happened. | 24 | 44 |
| M142 | The Punished Tail, ATU 154. | A zoomorphic character accuses his tail of hindering his escape from pursuit (usually punishes it and dies as a result). (ATU data not entered; plot 154 includes several independent motifs; which of them are present in the traditions referred to by ATU cannot be determined without referring to the original sources). | 26 | 44 |
| M151 | Hello, house! ATU 66A, 66B | A dangerous character pretends to be dead or absent, or pretends to be an inanimate object. The potential victim says aloud that the deceased (object or place – house, burrow, log, etc.) should do or say something. The character does so, revealing himself. | 24 | 44 |
| M160 | Offence by word and deed, ATU 159B. | A strong wild beast and a man become friends. The man breaks a promise he made to the beast or speaks contemptuously of it. The beast asks to be physically hurt and says that the insult inflicted by words is more painful (the wound on the body has healed, but the wound on the soul has not; or the beast dies of grief). | 37 | 44 |
| M191 | Cat and wild animals, ATU 103A, 103A*. | The fox (dog, squirrel) lives with the cat and pretends to be a strong beast; forest predators are frightened and bring meat to appease the cat. | 34 | 44 |
| N5 | Winter is recognized by frost, summer by rain | Long trips, hikes, flights, or battles are described using a formula that indicates that characters learn about winter through snow or frost, and summer through warmth, rain, dew or other similar signs. | 12 | 44 |
| C7 | The Flood: The Destroyed Barrier. | Initially or after the flood, an earthen or stone barrier, the body of a character or creature prevents the flow of water. Later, this barrier is removed or destroyed. | 23 | 44 |
| E38a | People made of pieces. | A woman gives birth to a pumpkin, a sack, a sack of eggs, a piece of meat. The newborn is cut open, chopped up, and the pieces turn into new people; numerous people (usually tribal ancestors) emerge from the pumpkin or sack. Cf. motif F47. | 16 | 44 |
| I118 | The spider-advisor. | A female spider (less commonly, an old spider) protects the hero or heroine, who live with her, and the hero marries her daughter. (Texts in which the spider only lifts the hero up to the sky or lowers him to the ground are not included; see motif I117). | 13 | 44 |
| I35 | Thunder - animal skin. | Thunder is produced by a (tanned) animal skin or (rarely) a person being dragged, or clothing being dragged behind or shaken out. | 26 | 44 |
| A29 | The sun and the demon compete for the hero. | A character associated with the upper world and a character associated with the earth or the lower world each strive to possess a human being and pull him towards themselves. One or both rivals are women. The character of the upper world and/or the one for whom the struggle is being waged is associated with the luminaries – the sun, the moon, Venus. | 18 | 45 |
| A8b | The sun in the world of the dead. | Setting beyond the horizon, the sun shines on the anthropomorphic inhabitants of the underworld – the dead, dwarves, etc. | 27 | 45 |
| B11 | The appearance of rivers. | A river (rarely: a chain of lakes, a narrow strait) or its current course is created by humans or animals. See motifs B12, B13. This section covers other variants of the motif. | 38 | 45 |
| B44c | To be warm and light. | The characters argue about whether there should be darkness or light, cold or warmth on earth. See motif B44. | 44 | 45 |
| B81 | Dog with a gun. | The creator and his opponent consider whether to give the dog the ability to shoot (with a bow or a gun). | 20 | 45 |
| C18a | The sun lures out the rooster. | The hidden sun is lured out by the rooster, or people believe that without the rooster's crow, the sun will not rise. | 21 | 45 |
| E6 | Because of a woman, the connection between worlds is broken. | When a woman of childbearing age (she is menstruating, miscarrying, pregnant, with a child, or simply fat) tries to pass from one world to another, the connection between the worlds is severed forever. | 22 | 45 |
| F5b | Artificial bride. | The character (listed in square brackets in the list of ethnic groups) offers another woman. Not having one or not wanting to give her away, he makes a bride out of wood, snow, etc., turns an animal into a girl, sends a servant instead of his daughter, turns himself into a woman, or confesses to the lie when the trouble is over. See motif E8. | 25 | 45 |
| G15 | Corn girls. | In another world or in the past, products or materials used by humans look or looked like people. | 18 | 45 |
| I138 | Glass Mountain. | The glass mountain (tower, bridge) is mentioned as an unusual (inaccessible) locus. | 25 | 45 |
| L37c | Two Shares, ATU 735. | A person encounters the incarnations of Fortune (and Misfortune) – his own or someone else's. He manages to influence their behaviour and change (for himself) the course of events for the better. | 26 | 45 |
| L66 | Underground passage beneath the monster. | To help the hero, a small animal digs an underground passage beneath the lying monster, and the hero strikes it from below. | 21 | 45 |
| L94b1 | The demon collects the riches back into the box. | A man receives a box (bag, horn, etc.) as a gift, which he must open only at home. Driven by curiosity, he opens it on the way, and everything that should make him wealthy (houses, livestock, etc.) spills out. The demon who appears agrees to return everything, but sets a condition, the severity of which the man does not immediately understand. | 23 | 45 |
| M106e | For a long winter, ATU 1541. | A man says that provisions have been made for the winter, in case of need, etc. In the absence of the owner, a man enters the house and claims that his name is Winter (Ramadan, Necessity, etc.). The woman thinks that her husband meant this man and gives him all the provisions. | 36 | 45 |
| M199b | He did not throw a stone, but released a bird, ATU 1062. | A man and his opponent agree to test their strength by throwing a stone. The opponent throws the stone, and the man releases a bird he had hidden beforehand. The bird does not return, and the opponent admits defeat. | 36 | 45 |
| M73 | Excretion substitution: who is stronger, K1721 | Two characters compare their excrement or vomit to learn about each other's diet and decide which of them is the more powerful beast. One of them manages to replace the selections. (Traditions in which vomiting is substituted are greasy). | 23 | 45 |
| J53a1 | Method of revenge: lure into smoke and fire. | The children of the murdered man kill the murderer's children, luring them to a place where they perish from heat or smoke. | 24 | 45 |
| K100f1 | The Wild Man, ATU 502. | A man (king) catches a strange (anthropomorphic) creature. His son releases the wondrous captive (after which he flees from his father's wrath or is banished). The freed captive helps him. Cf. motif K161. | 31 | 45 |
| K27r2 | Dancing apples. | Task: bring objects (fruit, wood, water, etc.) that perform actions characteristic of humans (sing, dance, yawn, laugh, etc.). | 28 | 45 |
| K35c | The Dev in the Well, ATU 677, 677*, 986. | The dev (ajdaha, sea king) did not kill the man who descended to him, as people assumed, but rewarded him because he greeted him and/or answered his question correctly. | 25 | 45 |
| K43a | A kind person leaves the fire. | People leave a boy, a girl, a sister and brother, a young woman or young spouses alone and depart. Someone sympathises with those who have been abandoned and secretly hides fire for them. | 30 | 45 |
| K56a6 | Food asks her to taste it. | On the way to another world, people or objects ask a child (girl) to taste the food they offer or to do some work. The child (girl) does everything (rarely does not do) and therefore achieves the goal. | 24 | 45 |
| M91c4 | The pot cooks by itself | A person removes the pot from the fire, its contents continue to boil, or the person prepares food in advance, puts it in a pot or pit. Another believes that the pot cooks without fire or incredibly fast (or that a stick, if it hits the ground or the pot, creates food), buys a pot (stick). | 21 | 45 |
| M94a1 | Mountain riding: trickster animals | By stupidity or negligence, a zoomorphic character rolls down a mountain and as a result dies or suffers damage (attacks the edge, falls into the water, etc.). | 20 | 45 |
| M94 | Mountain riding | One character invites the other to roll down the mountain to destroy him. Cf. Motive L42C. | 20 | 46 |
| N10a | Transparent bones | A woman or (rarely) a man with a transparent body is described - bones are visible through the skin, bone marrow is visible through the bones. This transparency is a sign of beauty. | 10 | 46 |
| N2 | Origins: when the goat was a commander | Fabulous and epic texts start from the beginning, which states that animals were performing human social or economic functions at that time. | 11 | 46 |
| M191b | The snake will not forget its severed tail, ATU 285A. | A man does good (does no harm) to a snake (fish, lion) and benefits from it. His son (less often someone else or himself) wounds the snake (usually cuts off its tail) and, if it is his son, dies from the bite. The snake refuses to continue its relationship with the man, and neither of them will forget their loss. | 35 | 46 |
| M39f | There was a hat, a head - I don't remember, ATU 1225 | A fool is left headless (usually trying to get into a bear's den). When asked whether the deceased had a head, wife or someone else, they say that there was a hat (beard), but they definitely do not remember the head. | 37 | 46 |
| M46e | The Sun is a Toy | They (promise to) give a child the Sun (and or the Moon) to play with | 22 | 46 |
| M7 | Waiting for transport | The character goes to the lower world, to the sky, to the country on the horizon, etc. and waits for someone to give him a ride to his goal. Usually, some animals/birds or celestial bodies follow by, and the last (often the Sun or Month) delivers. | 13 | 46 |
| M81d | Healed blind people | A person meets (most often in the sky) one or two blind people and restores their sight. | 28 | 46 |
| M81e | Don't herd cattle on giant land, ATU 314A, 321 | young man undertakes to herd cattle and is warned not to cross the borders of a giant, dragon, witch, etc. The young man violates the ban and kills a giant. | 32 | 46 |
| B38c | The raven and the loon adorn each other. | The raven and the loon paint each other. | 14 | 46 |
| C33 | Prometheus (the chained strongman). | A strongman-god-fighter is chained to a rock or a pillar for centuries. | 16 | 46 |
| E2 | People on trial. | When creating humans, the creator does not immediately achieve perfection. The first versions of the creation are rejected, then the appropriate form and material are found. See motif E1A. | 24 | 46 |
| F36 | Children against the lover. | (Adopted) children of a woman or man kill the lover (or spouse of non-human nature) of their father or (adoptive) mother. | 32 | 46 |
| H24d | Still gathering what has been released. | An animal character who released the contents (darkness, insects, reptiles) from a vessel is still trying to gather everything back (etiology of the behaviour of a certain species of animal). | 15 | 46 |
| H29 | Progenitor of foreign tribes. | A woman mates with an animal. The people of a hostile tribe originate from or derive their culture from the descendants of this union, from the relatives of the animal or from the children of the woman's brothers. | 20 | 46 |
| I101 | The Great Bear – stakes. | The Big Dipper or several bright stars of another constellation are stakes, pillars supporting a platform, or some object is stretched, dried, or stored on these stakes. | 19 | 46 |
| I35b | Copper sky. | The sky is considered to be metallic. The process of its creation resembles metal forging. | 15 | 46 |
| K107d | Trying to wake up a wonderful spouse. | After overcoming difficulties, a girl (rarely a boy) finds a magical spouse, but at first cannot wake him (her) up. | 26 | 46 |
| K117a | Making the silent speak. | A girl who is constantly silent is promised to the one who can make her speak; or a husband struggles to make his magical wife speak. | 30 | 46 |
| K61c | Find out the name, ATU 500. | A demon agrees to help (agrees not to harm) a person on condition that the person guesses his name. At the last moment, the person accidentally learns the demon's name, and the demon disappears or rewards the person. | 32 | 46 |
| K62a | The Quarrel of the Mouse and the Bird, ATU 222B. | A mouse (rat, mole, etc.) and a bird quarrel after failing to divide their winter supplies. (This episode usually serves as the beginning of a story about a war between birds and animals). | 32 | 46 |
| K123a | The broken jug. | A boy or young man accidentally, or more often out of mischief, breaks or overturns a vessel belonging to a woman or girl. This episode forms the basis of the rest of the story. | 30 | 47 |
| K27w | The monster kills the person giving the tasks. | The task giver demands that a dangerous creature be brought to him or that something belonging to a monster or deity be brought to him. The hero fulfils the task, but the beast, monster, deity or the object itself kills the task giver. See motif K27. | 36 | 47 |
| K54 | Two giants. | When encountering a giant or a snake, a person is afraid of it, but it becomes his friend and asks for help when he is fighting another giant or snake. The person fulfils the request. | 28 | 47 |
| L31 | The sticky monster. | People are forced against their will to follow an object, person or animal (usually sticking to it) that carries them far away (usually into water or into the sky). | 25 | 47 |
| L64 | Removable head. | A certain character removes, takes out a part of his body (head, scalp, lungs), takes it in his hands, puts it back. | 32 | 47 |
| L85a | The half-child. | The character is born as half a person or becomes one as a result of an accident. He or she does not belong to a special category of mythical half-beings and usually regains physical completeness. See motif L85, cf. motif L112. | 24 | 47 |
| M101b | Man past, future, present, ATU 157. | A large predator wants to see a human being. First, it meets a child and learns that this is a future human being, then an old man – a former human being. The encounter with a present human being (a hunter, a soldier) ends badly for the beast. | 37 | 47 |
| M135a | The wolf's misfortunes, ATU 122A. | A wolf (or, less commonly, another predator) approaches various (more than one type of) domestic animals (animals and humans) in order to eat them, but, agreeing to fulfil the request, remains hungry and is usually beaten. | 32 | 47 |
| M136c | The fool takes the prediction of death seriously, ATU 1313A. | Based on indirect signs or someone's words, the fool believes that he has died and lies motionless. | 42 | 47 |
| M146 | The wolf was lured into a trap, ATU 35B*. | Knowing that the meat is in a trap or poisoned, or that there is a trap ahead, a zoomorphic character provokes another to try the meat first or to go ahead. | 27 | 47 |
| M162 | Eats his own entrails, ATU 21. | The character pretends to eat his own entrails or flesh. Others believe him and kill themselves (or allow themselves to be killed). | 27 | 47 |
| M38a1 | Imitates relatives or wives, ATU 552B, J2411.3. | The character imitates the sisters' sons-in-law or husbands, or the wife's brothers (shoshone's) or wives (comox and chalkomel). {ATU combines a motive with another}. | 21 | 47 |
| M39a6 | Misunderstood instructions: shorten the road | During the journey, a person allegorically asks someone else to say something, sing, etc., so that time on the road passes faster. He understands instructions literally by doing ridiculous actions. | 23 | 47 |
| M52 | Mascara fresheners | The character (by deception) kills an ungulates. He asks another to refresh the carcass, looks for a knife to do it, or a fire to fry the meat. The other freshens the carcass, gives fire or a knife, but takes or tries to take all the meat for himself. | 30 | 47 |
| M65 | The trickster was pinched and the meat was eaten | trickster bakes meat obtained by trick, deception; immobilized by sticking to a tree, ground, or stone; at this time, another character (fox, wolf, coyote, birds) eats all the meat. See M53 motif. | 20 | 47 |
| A23b | First rays on mountains and trees, (ATU 120). | Two characters argue about who will be the first to see the rising sun. The winner is the one who first notices not the sun itself, but its reflection or the trees and mountains illuminated by its first rays. | 35 | 47 |
| A42 | Phaeton (imitator of the Sun), A724.I.I. | The character comes to the Sun, tries to fulfil its role, but deliberately or through incompetence breaks the rules, usually causing disasters on earth. | 24 | 47 |
| B42k | Cosmic hunting – Pleiades. | In stories about cosmic hunting, the object of pursuit or the hunters are identified with the Pleiades. See motif B42. | 24 | 47 |
| B60 | Offended children leave their parents. | Children come into conflict with their parents over food, clothing, attention, which they demand and which their parents deny them, and sexual behaviour. They leave their parents, turning into birds, bats, stars or atmospheric phenomena. See motif B59. | 22 | 47 |
| B7b | Water from a vessel. | The sea (flood, river) flows out of a small container. | 32 | 47 |
| C31 | The wise hedgehog (cosmology). | The hedgehog is wiser or more cunning than all the gods and animals; it possesses knowledge that is vital for human existence. | 23 | 47 |
| F17 | Genitals out of place, A1313.3. | Human genitals were initially located, should have been located, or could have been located under certain circumstances not where they are now; either there were no genitals initially, or people did not know their purpose and copulated using other parts of the body. | 27 | 47 |
| H2 | The selfish animal. | Animals ask God to make humans (tigers: domestic animals) mortal or otherwise reduce their numbers, as they fear that humans will trample them, deprive them of food or habitat, force them to work, etc. | 23 | 47 |
| I103 | Dog Star. | Sirius is associated with a dog or a wolf. | 29 | 47 |
| I22c | Board from the stern of the Argo. | The character safely slips, sails or flies through the opening, which then slams shut, but the edge of the stern of the boat, the tail of an animal or bird, the body of a riding animal, the hero's companion or his own heel is crushed, torn off, etc. | 24 | 47 |
| B68b | Attempted to frighten God. | A character who, by his appearance, behaviour or unexpected appearance, tried to frighten God (people) and was turned into an animal (with a different appearance than before) for this. | 19 | 48 |
| B79a | A bird laid an egg. | At the beginning of time, a bird flies, lays an egg or eggs, and various objects or creatures hatch from them. | 15 | 48 |
| F9f | Asmodeus. | Without the woman's knowledge, the demon regularly kills her suitors on their wedding night. | 28 | 48 |
| H13 | The returned dead come back to life. | The character comes to the underworld, brings back the dead person or brings back their remains. The dead person comes back to life and (for a while) remains among the living. | 26 | 48 |
| I76a | The snake becomes a dragon. | After a certain period of time, a snake or fish transforms into another creature, usually a dragon. | 25 | 48 |
| I87c | The mitten house, ATU 283B. | Animals use a small object belonging to the human world (skull, mitten, jug, etc.) for shelter or transportation. Cf. motif I87: characters use an object (skull, animal shoulder blade, mitten) belonging to the world of giants as a shelter. | 13 | 48 |
| J52a | Antagonist – female bear. | A she-bear or bear treacherously kills his companion, neighbour, etc., who is associated with a herbivorous animal or a weaker predator. The victim's children take revenge by killing the murderer's children or flee. See motifs J52, J54. | 35 | 48 |
| J7 | Substituted signs. | A woman or girl sets off to her husband (beloved) or relatives, or a man sets off to find a bride. She or he loses their way after a certain character substitutes the signs indicating the way. See motif J12. | 32 | 48 |
| K130 | Who is the sweetest in the world? | A woman (rarely: a man) asks who is the most beautiful of all and receives the answer that she (he) is. One day she (he) is told that someone else is more beautiful. | 34 | 48 |
| K174 | The thrown ring. | To signal their arrival, a person places, or more often discreetly throws, a ring or other small item of personal jewellery or toiletries into the jug of a maid or servant. Upon discovering it, the other person understands that the first is nearby. | 30 | 48 |
| K27n3a | The task giver – the Sun, Moon, Thunder or Wind. | The character who gives the hero difficult tasks or subjects him to trials is associated with the sun, moon, thunder or wind (cloud, downpour). See motif K27. | 29 | 48 |
| K73a5 | The child is replaced by a kitten. | Malicious women replace the newborn with a kitten (telling the father that his wife has given birth to a kitten). See motifs K73, K73A. | 25 | 48 |
| M90 | The snake guesses the material, ATU 857 | Someone asks a riddle about the material from which a particular item is made or originated. It is almost impossible to guess, but the character learns the secret, forcing the hero or heroine to fulfill the conditions set. (Usually requires a girl to marry him). | 32 | 48 |
| L114a | The awake child. | One (usually the youngest) of a group of young men or women (children) ends up with them in the house of a cannibal or cannibaless. The cannibal intends to kill the newcomers when they fall asleep. The youngest consistently answers the cannibal's questions about why he is not sleeping, forcing him to carry out new tasks instead of attacking the sleepers. The brothers (sisters) run away and escape. | 29 | 48 |
| L20 | Raw meat eater. | Two characters hunt or fish. One turns out to be or becomes a cannibal, which is revealed when he/she begins to eat the prey raw. | 17 | 48 |
| L93b | The hare as helper. | The hare or rabbit, resorting to cunning, helps the hero or heroine, saving them. | 22 | 48 |
| M39a6h | Pluck a goose, ATU 921F* | The king tells the commoner to pluck a goose (geese, shear a ram, etc.). He understands correctly: to rob the vizier. | 30 | 48 |
| L90a | A hut on chicken legs. | Describes a house that stands on the legs or a single leg of a bird or small animal and/or rotates (is capable of turning). | 15 | 49 |
| M106g | Dragging a cow onto the roof, ATU 1210. | A man lifts a cow (donkey, ox, wife) onto the roof so that the animal can eat the grass growing there (the wife has gathered turnips, etc.) – usually by throwing a noose around the neck of the wife or animal. | 39 | 49 |
| M12 | The unlucky hunter. | Unable, unwilling or unable to obtain game (fish), the hunter (fisherman) cuts flesh from his own body, removes his own entrails and collects his blood. He usually offers this to others under the guise of animal meat or fish. Alternatively, a woman cuts flesh from her own leg to feed her husband. | 33 | 49 |
| M136b | Cuts the branch he is sitting on, ATU 1240. | A man cuts the branch he is sitting on and similar variants (cuts the rope he climbed up on; climbs onto a dry branch that breaks; climbs onto a tree that has been cut down in order to fell it). | 43 | 49 |
| M179a | The master is driven out of the house. | One character deceives another or, in the absence of the other, occupies his dwelling and refuses to return it. | 31 | 49 |
| M30c | He falls, breaking the ban | A character flying through the air falls, violating the ban on talking, looking down, flying over villages, etc. (The character is not dropped by the person carrying it and flies above the ground, not descends from the sky or rises to the sky). | 23 | 49 |
| M39a2c | Salt is sown ATU 1200, J1932.3. | A fool (or a character pretending to be crazy) sows salt (small objects) like a grain. | 38 | 49 |
| M39h | Husband pretended to be blind, ATU 1380 | The wife wants to get rid of her husband and usually asks the spirit to blind him. The husband hides in a hollow, behind an altar, etc., and answers on behalf of the spirit (usually advises to kill her husband with good food), or the husband tells his wife that delicious food can make you blind. Pretending to be blind, the husband kills his lover (and wife). | 38 | 49 |
| I46a | The Old Woman's Rainbow. | The rainbow is associated with a woman, usually an elderly one. | 23 | 49 |
| I50a | Severed legs of an animal helper. | A demon sequentially tears off the legs of an animal that helps the hero (usually the horse on which the hero rides). | 28 | 49 |
| J22a | Two of one. | Two men or a brother and sister emerge from a single body or embryo cut in half, or the second emerges from a part of the body or from the secretions of the first. Cf. motif M37. | 24 | 49 |
| K120a1 | Three dresses, (ATU 510B). | To get rid of an unwanted suitor (her own father, brother, monster), a girl demands that he obtain a dress for her (usually three dresses in succession) made of unusual material (gold, fly wings, etc.), and when the condition is fulfilled, she runs away. | 26 | 49 |
| K142 | Burying one dead man three times, ATU 1536B. | After killing several people, a man asks a gravedigger to bury the dead and each time says that the dead man has returned. The gravedigger buries everyone, but believes that there is only one dead man. | 44 | 49 |
| K35a1 | Do not pick up the feather of the firebird. | Setting off on a journey, a person (often against the advice of their horse) picks up a precious feather. Upon learning of this, an authoritative character gives them difficult tasks. | 32 | 49 |
| K56a4b | The wind carries away the yarn. | A girl is told to clean the yarn, or to spin and weave. The wind blows the yarn (cloth, spindle) away, the girl goes in search of it, and comes across a character who rewards her. | 15 | 49 |
| K56a9 | The mouse helper rings a bell. | When a small animal (usually a mouse) rings a bell, beats a drum, etc., a blind or distant antagonist believes that these sounds are made by the hero (heroine). Thanks to this, the hero (heroine) is saved. | 30 | 49 |
| A2b1 | The Last Sun. | Two or more suns shine in the sky. When the extra ones are destroyed, there is a danger that the last one will be destroyed along with them and darkness will ensue. | 24 | 49 |
| A41 | The sun eats its children. | Two characters have children (brothers and sisters, mothers). One suggests killing these children (mothers), giving reasons in favour of such a decision. In fact, he hides his own children, while his interlocutor actually kills his children. One of the characters and/or the surviving child is the sun. | 16 | 49 |
| B11a | The mammoth – creator of the landscape. | The mammoth, represented as an underground fish-like creature, creates rugged terrain on wet ground and digs river beds. | 15 | 49 |
| C5b | Animals sent on reconnaissance. | After a global catastrophe or during the creation of the earth, animals run around, making the earth large, reporting on its condition, or are sent to find out how large the earth is. | 22 | 49 |
| C6c3 | The loon – a successful diver. | The loon dives and brings back a piece of earth (grass, etc.), which turns into land (it is the only or the only successful diver). | 23 | 49 |
| E9c | The magical wife – a hoofed animal. | Before meeting the hero, his beloved (wife, helper) has the image of a large hoofed mammal (buffalo, antelope, moose, etc.). | 28 | 49 |
| G17 | The gift of the reptile. | Cultural or important food crops, partially cultivated plant species owe their origin to snakes, moray eels or crocodiles/caimans. | 22 | 49 |
| H10 | The sunken stone. | People are mortal, as they are likened to a stone thrown into water; they usually miss the opportunity to resemble organic matter that floats in water. | 19 | 49 |
| H6a | People and plants. | Mortal humans are contrasted with plants, which regularly shed their bark, bloom in spring after winter dormancy, or reproduce vegetatively. See motif H4. | 30 | 49 |
| I15 | Creatures without mouths. | Creatures without mouths. Usually, their mouths are cut open later. | 24 | 49 |
| A23c | Who will fly higher? ATU 221A | Birds argue about which of them will fly higher or arrive first. The winner is the one whose victory seemed unlikely (he hides in the feathers of a strong bird and flies away with it). | 31 | 50 |
| F80a | Removable genitals. | Genitals exist independently of people; they can be left behind, attached to the body, etc. | 35 | 50 |
| F83 | News precedes the hero. | The character does something forbidden and indecent in a place hidden from prying eyes, and then asks people what's new. They reply that there is no news – except that so-and-so (the character) did such-and-such. | 28 | 50 |
| G21 | Coconut head. | A coconut palm grows out of the character's head. | 26 | 50 |
| H49 | The slain dog sought to save the child, Th B524.1.4.1; B221.2.2; ATU 178A. | A dog or other animal kills a creature that threatened a small child. The owner or other people mistake the saviour for an aggressor and kill it. | 38 | 50 |
| I36 | Thunder and lightning – relatives or in-laws. | Thunder and lightning (two thunders, two lightnings) – characters related by kinship, marriage or property. | 25 | 50 |
| I87b | The braggart meets the strongest, ATU 650B. | When a character boasts of his strength, his wife or mother says that there is someone stronger than him. He sets off in search and meets a character who is much stronger than him. {ATU gives a definition of the plot (or rather, the first half of it) similar to ours, but some of the references given refer to our motif i87a, not i87b}. | 28 | 50 |
| J18 | A woman falls from the sky. | A pregnant woman or a woman with a child falls from the sky. She or her newborn daughter dies or undergoes a metamorphosis. Her son or her daughter's son survives and grows up. Cf. motif K9. | 24 | 50 |
| J57 | Son of the Sun. | Conceived by the Sun, a woman gives birth to sons or a son; when they come of age, they visit their father. See motif J56. | 20 | 50 |
| K15b | The replaced barrel of water. | By secretly switching the vessels containing living and dead (giving and taking away strength) water (rarely: oil, etc.), from which the combatants drink during a duel, the hero defeats his opponent. | 26 | 50 |
| K173 | It is better to suffer when young (Placidas), ATU 938. | A powerful and wealthy man loses everything, is separated from his wife and children, and they are separated from each other. The man regains his power and wealth, and the family is reunited. | 40 | 50 |
| K21 | Once in heaven, she gets married. | A girl ends up in the sky and gets married there. | 23 | 50 |
| K27o | Ball game. | The confrontation between heroes and antagonists unfolds in the form of a ball game. | 27 | 50 |
| L42e | Captured again, ATU 327C. | A demon catches the hero, carries him home, but the hero escapes on the way. The demon returns, catches the hero again, and this time brings him to his home. Or the demon catches and carries several children, but they escape on the way, leaving only one, whom the demon brings to his home. | 29 | 50 |
| L44 | Show your head! ATU 1152 | A demon or powerful beast demands that a person or weak animal show certain parts of their body. The person shows parts of a large animal's body or certain objects. The opponent decides that the hero is more frightening and powerful than them. | 35 | 50 |
| M135b | The wolf regrets his own stupidity. | The wolf (rarely a bear, jackal, or fox) approaches various domestic animals in order to eat them, but, agreeing to fulfil their request, remains hungry and usually beaten, and in conclusion blames himself ("Am I a mullah to read?" etc.). In the Persian version, the fox tells him this. | 32 | 50 |
| M136 | The Unknown Sickle, ATU 1202. | Some people do not know what to do with cutting tools; they try to use tools that are not suitable for these purposes instead. | 31 | 50 |
| M39a6g | Six loaves (four coins), ATU 921A, Th H585.1. | person explains that he lends part of his earnings, and pays the debt in the other part, i.e. raises children and supports parents. | 40 | 50 |
| M89 | Melted wax | A character is humiliated after an object or creature made of wax, resin, or excrement that he made himself or that he thought was strong melts warmly, the present. | 29 | 50 |
| N7 | Three apples | fairy-tale text ends with a formula that says that three apples fell from the sky or tree, at least one of which went to the narrator. Or it is said that someone give/should give the narrator one or three apples. | 14 | 50 |
| N10b | Transparent neck | A girl or (rarely) a young man with a transparent neck is described, through which you can see the drinks and/or food that this girl or boy swallows. This neck is a sign of beauty. | 18 | 51 |
| N23 | They stayed there and I came back here | fairy-tale text ends with a formula that says that the characters stayed or left where the action took place, and the narrator returned home and/or came to the place fairy tale performances. | 8 | 51 |
| N33 | Drives the enemy into the ground | hero drives the enemy into the ground, or he and the enemy alternately drive each other into the ground (ankle-deep, waist-deep, etc.). | 28 | 51 |
| K22b | Man helps the inhabitants of another world. | The inhabitants of another world are attacked by certain enemies. A human helps them to defeat these enemies, because these creatures are not dangerous to humans. See motif K22. | 35 | 51 |
| K27z2b | The Murdered Doll, ATU 879. | The complicated relationship between a simple girl and a prince leads to the prince intending to kill his bride on their wedding night. The girl substitutes a doll for herself, the prince stabs the doll with his sword, mistakes the spurting juice (syrup, honey) for blood, and repents of the murder. The real girl appears, and the young couple are happy. | 26 | 51 |
| K90 | Black and red, (ATU 156B*). | A person sees two opposing monsters or animals (usually of contrasting colours: red and black, black and white) and helps one of them, or one of the combatants helps the person. (Cf. ATU 156B, 738). | 28 | 51 |
| B42p | Ursa Major – bear. | The Big Dipper is identified with a bear. | 24 | 51 |
| B45 | The Wedding of Winter and Summer, A1153. | The arrival of warm (bright, abundant) or cold (hungry, dark) times is associated with the marriage of a certain character who brings cold, warmth, abundance, etc. | 19 | 51 |
| C13 | Rebellion of things. | During or before the onset of a global catastrophe (flood, darkness) or (surui) at night, household items and/or stones, trees, domestic animals, and cultivated plants turn into wild birds and animals or come to life. | 25 | 51 |
| C8a | Millstones fall on each other. | Finding themselves alone and without other marriage partners, a brother and sister make it possible to marry each other by the occurrence of an incredible event. This event takes place, giving them a sign to become spouses. Among such events (alternatively or sequentially): 1) millstones rolling down from two different mountains fall on top of each other; 2) swords thrown from two mountains end up in the same scabbard; 3) objects thrown up join together; 4) smoke from two fires joins together (rising in a column); 5) two planted bamboo stalks join at the tops. See motif C8. | 9 | 51 |
| F43 | Disappearance of women. | The women of the community of the first ancestors kill or abandon the men. | 25 | 51 |
| G32 | Food from the underworld. | People obtain cultivated plants from the underwater or underground world. | 29 | 51 |
| I115a | Orion and the Pleiades – men and women. | In the same narrative or ritual context, Orion and the Pleiades are contrasted with each other as a man or men and a woman or women. (Orion is usually associated with the masculine principle, and the Pleiades with the feminine; among the Mentawai, d'Antracast, and Toba peoples, the opposite is true (due to regional influences? In Indonesia and eastern South America, the Pleiades are usually a group of young men). | 25 | 51 |
| I139 | Throwing an axe, F531.3.2.3. | Two (rarely three) men or women are at a distance from each other, but regularly throw or pass something to each other. This is a sign of their unusual size, strength, and agility. | 20 | 51 |
| K92b | I love you like salt, ATU 923. | A daughter tells her father (rarely her brother) that she loves him like salt (or that salt is more important than him, etc.). He sends his daughter away (gets angry with his sister), but then realises she is right. | 39 | 51 |
| L100e | The lover, the master and the guest, ATU 1358A, (ATU 1360B). | Before entering, the guest notices the mistress with her lover in the house. When the husband arrives, the guest pretends to be clairvoyant and shows the husband where the lover is hiding and where the food prepared for him is. | 27 | 51 |
| L45 | The fooled watchman. | A strong character traps a weak one and leaves someone to guard the prey. The guard fails to fulfil his duties (usually tricked by the weak one), and the weak one escapes. {African borrowings in America are difficult to distinguish from possible local cases} | 35 | 51 |
| M191a | Bell on a cat's neck, ATU 110. | Mice decide to hang a bell around a cat's neck or tail so that they will know when it is approaching. Usually, none of the mice are able to do this. | 42 | 51 |
| L96a | Oh! | A person sighs, after which a character named Oh, Uh, Hey-way, etc. appears. | 27 | 52 |
| M141b | Animals flee from the end of the world, ATU 20C. | An insignificant event (a falling leaf, acorn, etc.) is taken by an animal as the beginning of a catastrophe (the end of the world, war, the falling of the sky, etc.) and it flees. Other animals join the fleeing animal. | 44 | 52 |
| M29o | Trickster - Monkey | See the motives in square brackets. | 36 | 52 |
| M39a3 | Did he have horns? ATU (1381B), 1600 | fool kills a man, throws him into a pond, well, etc. A clever man throws a goat there. A fool searches for a corpse in the pond, asks if the victim had horns, etc. Everyone is obviously crazy, and the murder charge has been denied. {The Buryat and Yakut versions may be recent Russian borrowings. The ATU 1581B definition also includes an episode where a human corpse was replaced with a goat carcass, but most of the texts that have been verified do not contain this motive}. | 38 | 52 |
| I80 | The thunderbolt's apprentice. | A character who finds himself in the locus of a deity responsible for atmospheric phenomena violates certain prohibitions or instructions, thereby causing excessively strong thunderstorms, rain, snowfall or wind. | 25 | 52 |
| J56 | The trial of the sons. | A son or sons come to their father. He subjects them to trials in order to find out whether they are really his children. | 16 | 52 |
| K38b3b | The hero shelters the chicks. | A mighty bird (rarely – another creature) helps a person for sheltering (warming) its chicks (offspring, children). | 22 | 52 |
| K80a1 | The bird tells of the crime. | A bird (usually arising from the remains of the murdered person or embodying their soul) tells of the crime committed or takes revenge on the murderer itself. | 37 | 52 |
| M87 | In a house where you can't see the owners | The character comes to a place that is abandoned or seems to have been abandoned by the inhabitants. He tries to take or touch things, but invisible owners prevent him from doing so, or the things themselves hurt him. | 18 | 52 |
| A18 | The Sun Boat. | The sun and/or moon make their daily and/or nightly (underground, in the land beyond the horizon, behind the mountain) journey in a boat. | 33 | 52 |
| A19 | Heliophores. | Anthropomorphic or zoomorphic creatures help the luminary move across the sky (and the underworld). See motif A17: zoomorphic creatures are helmsmen or rowers in the sun boat. | 32 | 52 |
| B110 | Where the back is – swamps, where the head is – red poppies. | A character who is dragged along the ground or who runs, falls apart or hits the ground with different parts of his body. This determines the characteristics of the landscape and flora. | 23 | 52 |
| B33a1 | Insulted March. | A person (animal, bird) teases or insults March or another calendar month and is punished as a result. | 27 | 52 |
| B51a | The snake is the enemy of the swallow. | The snake is the enemy of the swallow (usually because the swallow prevents the snake from destroying people – the snake sends a mosquito or other blood-sucking insect to find out whose blood tastes better; the mosquito returns to report that it is human blood; the swallow bites off its tongue, and the snake plucks the feathers from the swallow's tail). | 26 | 52 |
| E31a1 | Who will be the husband of the created girl? ATU 653C. | Three (rarely four or two) men participate in the creation of the girl: one carves the figure out of wood, another dresses her, and the third brings her to life. To whom should the animated girl belong? | 32 | 52 |
| F10 | Teeth knocked out. | A woman has a second mouth (usually in her vagina) with sharp teeth. A man inserts or throws a stone, bone, stick, etc. into this mouth, knocking out the teeth or extracting toothy animals from it in this way. | 49 | 52 |
| F32 | The snake son gathers fruit. | Small children or a single infant, who temporarily transform into adult men and/or emerge from their mother's womb, or a snake living in a woman's womb, climb a tree and help her gather fruit, bark, tree mushrooms, etc.; or a father discovers his daughter's connection with a snake when he climbs a tree to gather fruit for her. | 22 | 52 |
| H6b | The elixir of immortality is spilled on plants. | The elixir of immortality, intended for humans, is not delivered to its destination, but falls on plants, which become evergreen, capable of regeneration or bearing fruit. (Traditions in which the "elixir of immortality" is linked to the motif of false news are marked with an asterisk. Cf. motif B115). | 25 | 52 |
| I32 | The tree of infants. | There was or is a tree on which babies grow; the souls of unborn babies; whose leaves have turned into people; whose trunk is covered with many female nipples or flowers from which babies suck milk or juice. | 18 | 52 |
| B57 | Bloody sunset. | Blood spurting from a killed or wounded person or animal colours the sky (dawn, northern lights) or other natural objects (moon, vegetation) red. | 33 | 53 |
| B64d | Arrow bones. | Certain bones in the bodies of living creatures (usually birds and fish) are arrows shot into them. | 22 | 53 |
| B77b1 | The sky was struck with a pestle. | The sky receded and/or the connection between humans and the deity ceased after the sky or the heavenly deity was touched or struck during work with a pestle used to pound in a mortar or with a spoon used to stir porridge (Ewe, Nubians, Nyiman). | 16 | 53 |
| C12b | People – descendants of dogs. | All people or individual ethnic groups, lineages, families are considered descendants of dogs (with which a man mated). | 20 | 53 |
| H33 | Children walk from birth. | At first, children walked, had to walk, or could walk immediately after birth. | 36 | 53 |
| I2 | Lightning from the eyes or mouth. | Lightning bolts fly from the eyes or mouth {specified} of a creature embodying a thunderstorm. See motif I1. | 40 | 53 |
| I4a | Thunder in trouble: falls to the ground. | Thunder falls to earth and cannot rise. Usually, a person helps it return to the sky. | 30 | 53 |
| I87a2 | What are two? Dialogue, ATU (812*), 2010, H602.1.1., †H602.1.1. | The antagonist names numbers from one to 7, 12, etc., the hero answers what each number corresponds to, and the antagonist is unable to refute him. | 35 | 53 |
| I87aa | The Great Bull, ATU 1960A. | Describes a giant bull (rarely: horse): head in one field, body in another; a bathhouse on its tail, a lake on its back; people standing at its head and tail have to walk a long way to meet each other; etc. Usually the bull is killed and eaten (by people in Baltic-Finnish traditions and in Olonets antiquity; by birds in most southern traditions). | 28 | 53 |
| J54 | The last female escapes. | The heroes of the narrative exterminate animals or demons of a certain species. This species could have disappeared altogether if one or more individuals (often a pregnant female) had not been saved. {This motif does not include aetiological endings, according to which the current creatures of a certain species originate from a dismembered original creature}. | 32 | 53 |
| K122 | The queen of the other world finds the hero (ATU 551). | Having penetrated the world of a powerful woman, unattainable without the support of supernatural helpers, the man returns. The deceiver tries to take credit for the feat. The woman whom the hero met in her world finds him and punishes (rejects) the deceiver. | 30 | 53 |
| K128b | The Hare Shepherd, ATU 570. | The ruler will give his daughter to the one who can herd (gather, train) hares (squirrels, sheep, poultry, partridges) without loss. A poor young man accomplishes the task with the help of a magic device. To have an excuse to refuse, the ruler's family members try to buy one hare (a magic pipe, etc.) so that the suitor cannot fulfil his promise, but as a result they find themselves in a humiliating position. | 45 | 53 |
| K20 | Mortal desires a star, C15.1, C15.1.1. | Looking at the sky at night, a man or woman expresses a desire to marry a star or the Moon (kuchin: to possess a star as an object). See motifs K19a, K19b. | 48 | 53 |
| K92 | King Lear, ATU 923, 923B. | The father asks his children a question, the answer to which seems obvious (does his daughter love him, who is the eldest in the family, etc.). The youngest daughter (less often – son) gives an unexpected answer, the father drives her away (deprives her of her inheritance), and later becomes convinced of her intelligence and nobility. | 33 | 53 |
| L107 | Ears-blankets. | People have disproportionately large ears (rarely: lips): they cover themselves with them like a blanket, use them as an umbrella, can step on them, etc. | 28 | 53 |
| L10a | A demon approaches a hunter's campfire. | A demonic character approaches a man's campfire. The man leaves a log in his place and hides. The character throws himself on the log, mistaking it for a sleeping man; usually, the hunter kills or wounds the demon. | 24 | 53 |
| L114b1 | Task: bring the cannibal himself, ATU 328. | The character sequentially steals various items from the cannibal's house and finally catches or kills him. | 37 | 53 |
| L42g1 | A knock is heard, the father has left. | Father (stepfather) takes children into the forest and slips away unnoticed. To make the children think he is nearby chopping wood, father hangs a board, pumpkin, etc. on a tree, which bangs against the trunk in the wind. | 29 | 53 |
| L94a | Grabbed by the beard. | When a person leans over the water, a demon grabs him by the beard and releases him on the promise that he will fulfil his demand. | 24 | 53 |
| M110 | The forgotten liver, ATU 91. | Upon learning that it is being transported by water to be eaten, the land animal explains to the transporter that it has forgotten on the shore the organ without which the meat is not tasty, which must be used as medicine, etc. The transporter agrees to return for this organ, and the animal runs away. | 32 | 53 |
| M29w | Jaguar (ocelot, puma) is a loser and a loser | As a result of their stupidity or antisocial behavior, a jaguar (puma, ocelot) dies or suffers damage. See the motives in square brackets. The character is named if it is a puma or ocelot; otherwise, a jaguar. | 39 | 53 |
| M74b | Who ate the fat? | The character adjusts so that the sign that identifies the thief who ate supplies or who should be eaten is not on him, but on another character (smears with leftovers or with the secretions of your body of another, replaces secretions, etc.). | 42 | 53 |
| M75b1a | Intended wife, ATU 930A | A high-ranking person finds out that a (just born) poor or ugly girl is intended for him, or the girl herself finds out that she is destined to become a man's wife of high origin. A betrothed or someone else tries to kill a girl, but only hurts her and the prediction is fulfilled; if the girl is ugly, she becomes beautiful. | 42 | 53 |
| M93 | Part of the body as a watchman | When falling asleep or going to do something else, the character tells a certain part of his body to wake him up in case of danger. The organ did not give a signal or the character himself did not listen to it, as a result, the misfortune happened. | 21 | 53 |
| I95 | The Pleiades – a sieve for grain. | The Pleiades are a sieve or riddle for sifting agricultural products. See motif I95. | 18 | 54 |
| J53c | One friend kills another. | Two women live together, both have children. One of them leaves the house with the other, kills her and (later) eats her. The children of the murdered woman escape. See motif J52. | 26 | 54 |
| K131d | Seven-league boots. | Mention is made of footwear that allows the character to quickly cover enormous distances. | 34 | 54 |
| K15a | Substituted weapon. | The hero secretly replaces the weapon or magical tool of a powerful character with a worthless fake. Traditions in which the replaced weapon belongs to Grom are highlighted in bold. | 30 | 54 |
| K38a | White and black rams, F67. | Upon arriving in the underworld, the hero sees white and black horses, rams, etc. The white ones will take him to the upper world, while the black ones will take him even lower. Usually, the hero accidentally touches the black one. Sometimes a third ram or horse is mentioned, red or grey. Or the hero grabs the left horn of the animal instead of the right, and as a result ends up not where he wants to be. | 28 | 54 |
| K78 | Swallowed, extracted from the little finger. | The cannibal swallows people. When he is killed, it turns out that they are not in his belly or that they are dead there. They are found alive not in the belly, but in the cannibal's finger, or there is a means of reviving them in the little finger, or the cannibal's finger must be cut or severed to find the people. | 27 | 54 |
| A11a | Eyes of the luminaries: coolness and night. | The visible sun or moon are their eyes; if the eyes of the luminaries were not damaged, it would be much brighter and hotter. | 23 | 54 |
| B13a | Water rushes after a person. | A stream of water (with a predator in it) rushes after a character who is trying to escape from it. | 32 | 54 |
| B33d | The Old Woman of Winter. | An elderly woman embodies winter, is associated with snow, and/or at the border between winter and spring (autumn) there are several very cold days associated with a certain old woman. | 26 | 54 |
| B52c | The earth is larger than the sky. | When the earth and sky were created, they turned out to be different sizes. The earth was compressed, and mountains appeared. See motif B52. | 21 | 54 |
| E35 | Webbing between the fingers. | The first humans or creatures created by the Creator's rival were incomplete, not fully anthropomorphic (they resembled larvae, had webbing on their fingers, etc.). | 24 | 54 |
| E9o | The magical wife – a frog or a toad. | A man marries a woman who has the appearance of a frog or toad. | 38 | 54 |
| F50 | Children born multiple times. | Children have the ability to leave their mother's womb and return to it again. | 28 | 54 |
| H43aa | Spat-upon figures. | Having created the human body, the creator leaves. At this time, his opponent spits on the figure, which has not yet come to life, smears it with mud, etc. | 24 | 54 |
| L120 | Snakes turn into apple trees, ATU 300A. | After overhearing a conversation between demonic characters who are planning to turn themselves into something edible, attractive, and safe, and to destroy anyone who touches them, the hero neutralises the demons. | 30 | 54 |
| L48 | Demons devour their own kind. | The hero (usually somewhere on high ground - on a tree, rock, at the edge of a precipice or well) kills and/or throws one of his opponents down from there. The other opponents do not recognise their comrade and believe that the slain man is the hero they are pursuing. | 32 | 54 |
| M197 | Cooking on a distant fire, ATU 1262. | Seriously or demonstrating the absurdity of such actions, the character tries to fry or cook something on a fire (source of light) located far from the object that needs to be heated. | 45 | 54 |
| M22 | The crane as saviour. | A long-necked bird living near water (crane, heron, bittern, swan) helps a fugitive escape from his pursuer (indicated in brackets). See motifs J44-J46 (a long-legged bird helps cross the river, drowns the pursuer; the pursuer is most often a bear). | 29 | 54 |
| M57d1 | Donor Bird | bird consistently gives a person magical objects (or gives one, with which he receives the rest) or consistently fulfills his wishes. | 29 | 54 |
| M62c | Tug of war, ATU 291 | A weak character takes turns negotiating with two strong ones to compete in a tug of war. They don't know they're pulling each other's rope or that they're tied to a tree. | 24 | 54 |
| M156a | Answering objects. | A dangerous animal is about to kill a human or another animal that helped it. The predator and its prey agree to ask passers-by (people walking or sailing by) which of them is right. Among those who respond are inanimate objects (most often trees). | 26 | 55 |
| M197a | The big cauldron gave birth to a small one, ATU 1592B. | A man took a cauldron (pot) and returned it with a small cauldron. The owner of the cauldron agreed that the big cauldron gave birth to a small one. The next time, the man did not return the cauldron: he died. The owner had to agree. | 46 | 55 |
| M46a | A picked up baby | The character turns into a baby, is picked up by the owners of valuables, and then steals valuables or converges with a woman. The baby is not a demonic creature and does not intend to kill those who pick it up (cf. Motive L60). | 22 | 55 |
| M75c | Treasures on the mountain, ATU 936 | A person is offered to climb a rock or tree to get treasures. A return descent is not possible. Doomed to death, the hero remains alive. | 39 | 55 |
| J40 | Enemy from the sky. | The sky is inhabited by creatures that descend to kill people. Usually, the creature carries away a person or many people, or a human head. The hero (usually a close relative of the deceased) avenges the killer and/or returns the kidnapped person (persons; the carried-away body part). | 23 | 55 |
| J47a | Bob to the sky, ATU 328A, 804A. | A plant (usually not a mighty tree, but a legume) grows unusually fast, and a character climbs it to reach the sky. | 29 | 55 |
| K56a4 | The messenger dog. | When a kind girl returns home, an animal or bird (usually a dog) announces that she is well, but when an unkind girl returns or when her dead body is brought back, the dog (rooster, crow) announces that something is wrong with her. | 23 | 55 |
| A32d2 | Man with a pitchfork on the moon. | A man with a pitchfork in his hands can be seen in the silhouette of the moon's spots. | 14 | 55 |
| A7 | The sun chases the moon. | The sun and the moon (month) are two characters, one of which eternally pursues the other across the sky or pursued it when they rose into the sky from the earth. | 22 | 55 |
| C1 | Falling sky. | In the past, a catastrophic shift in the layers of the universe occurred or will occur in the future. Among the variants (sometimes combined): the sky fell to the earth; the present earth or underground world swapped places with the sky; the earth turned upside down; it fell into the underworld; the layers of the universe successively collapsed onto the earth or will swap places in the future. | 28 | 55 |
| F47 | People made of pieces of flesh. | Pieces of a creature cut into many parts or a lump of living flesh are scattered or dispersed. After that, people emerge from them. Cf. motifs E38A and K98. | 18 | 55 |
| F70a | Scratches his body. | Accusing a man or young man of assaulting her (usually sexually), a woman presents fabricated material evidence (tearing her clothes, scratching her body, etc.). See motif F70. | 39 | 55 |
| H36b | The chameleon betrays man. | The chameleon is to blame for the fact that man is mortal or that he must labour; he loses the trust placed in him by the deity. See motif H36. | 28 | 55 |
| H48 | Fever sisters. | Illnesses – female sisters (less often male brothers), usually children of an evil spirit. | 34 | 55 |
| I13b | Horned snake, B91.3. | A small snake, the snake has horns on its head. | 29 | 55 |
| A32g | Holding on to a bush. | On the lunar disc, a character can be seen holding onto a tree or bush and ending up on the moon with them. See motif A32D. | 27 | 56 |
| B31 | Women turn into aquatic mammals. | A woman (usually after coming into conflict with a man or being left alone), or a man and a woman (spouses, lovers, brother and sister) turn into aquatic mammals. | 28 | 56 |
| B5b | Universal mother. | A woman (alone or with her companion) creates or gives birth not only to humans, but also to various creatures, objects, and parts of the universe. | 26 | 56 |
| B72 | The cuckoo was not given water. | Since the children do not give their mother water, she turns into a bird (usually a cuckoo) and flies away. | 27 | 56 |
| C29 | Overheard secret. | People (God) learn a secret by overhearing (spying on) a character talking to himself or his relatives (or performing actions that should be remembered). The knowledge gained is related to cosmogony or the acquisition of cultural values. | 29 | 56 |
| E4 | Creation from mud on the skin, A1263.3. | From mud on the skin (rarely: from under the fingernails), the character creates the earth, people or other creatures. | 27 | 56 |
| G18 | A person wishes to be sacrificed. | A boy, woman, or, less commonly, a man asks others to leave him/her in the forest, burn him/her, scatter his/her remains, or drag his/her body to the site of a future vegetable garden. Cultivated plants grow in this place. | 25 | 56 |
| H34g | Porridge from a grain. | One grain was enough to prepare a meal. | 27 | 56 |
| K99a1 | The condemned riddle-solver is freed. | A man thrown into prison is released and exalted because he alone manages to solve the riddles set by the king or save the princess (king, prince, etc.). | 38 | 56 |
| L135 | The Wanderer. | A person leaves home and finds himself in unfamiliar places. His journey is marked by encounters with various strange creatures. In the end, he either returns home or leaves the earth for another world. (With an abundance of episodes, the story often either breaks off or does not contain the initial episodes explaining the reason for the hero's departure from home). | 40 | 56 |
| L27 | The eaten maiden. | Sisters or friends encounter a demon. One or both do not understand the danger. One is eaten or maimed, the other escapes. | 27 | 56 |
| L50 | Cannibal by the trail, G321. | The character kills travellers passing by. Usually, he does not attack them unexpectedly, but distracts their attention first. Often, he pushes his victims down somewhere. | 21 | 56 |
| M154b | Husband performs his wife's work, ATU 1408. | The husband (rarely: son) stays at home instead of his wife (mother), but does everything poorly and ineptly. | 43 | 56 |
| M166 | The world among animals, ATU 62. | A predator suggests that its potential prey, which is sitting in a tree, come down (usually telling a bird that there is peace among the animals and there is no need to be afraid). The prey is in no hurry to come down and usually advises the approaching dogs to spread the word about the peace among the animals. The predator runs away. | 47 | 56 |
| M75b | The animal in the carcass was carried away by a bird | A person hides in the skin or carcass of a large animal. A bird brings a skin or carcass to the nest without knowing what it brought the person. | 39 | 56 |
| I69 | Heavenly excrement. | Luminous celestial objects or atmospheric phenomena are bodily secretions of celestial beings. | 24 | 56 |
| K102a2 | Conflict between son and mother. | The mother seeks to destroy her son (children) because he interferes with her love affair. Cf. motif L86: Children flee from their demon mother. | 37 | 56 |
| K107a1 | The head of the household brings the promised gifts, (ATU 425C). | When the head of the household leaves on business, those left behind ask him to bring them gifts. The elders ask for something of obvious value (usually clothing and jewellery), while the youngest ask for something unusual and, at first glance, of little value (a flower, a bird, etc.). As a result, it is the youngest who, having overcome trials, achieves success in life. | 36 | 56 |
| K107c | Knives on the Window (Finist the Bright Falcon), ATU 432. | A magical spouse who arrives in the form of a bird or appears in some other way meets a woman. Jealous sisters (stepmother, brother, etc.) wound him (usually by placing razors, glass shards, etc. in his path). The wounded young man disappears, and the woman goes in search of him. | 39 | 56 |
| K14a | Thrown into the furnace, ATU 910K. | The antagonist orders the killing of the first person to arrive at the agreed place in the morning. The hero is accidentally delayed, and the antagonist himself or his wife or son are killed. | 35 | 56 |
| K18d | At the pike's command, ATU 675. | A young man releases or saves a fish (frog, snake, supernatural creature), it grants his wishes, and he marries a princess. {References to ATU are not entirely reliable. In particular, Uther 2004 includes a Corsican variant (Massignon 1984, No. 66), in which the main part of the plot is missing. References to Balkan variants probably correspond to the definition of the plot, since it does exist among the Bulgarians}. | 38 | 56 |
| K1h | Walled up in a hollow. | The character finds himself inside a tree trunk or inside a rock; someone frees him by making a hole from the outside. | 33 | 56 |
| K61a | Learn the secret, ATU 500*. | In order to find out the exact number, a specific object in a certain set, the name of a specific character, or the reason for a certain phenomenon, the character tries to surprise (or unintentionally surprises) the owner of such knowledge. The latter begins to talk to himself, involuntarily revealing the necessary information to the hero standing nearby. | 23 | 56 |
| K65e | Midwife in the demonic world, ATU 476**, (ATU 156B*). | A woman is invited into the non-human world, where she delivers a child for one of the creatures (or serves as a nanny for a certain period of time, baptises the child). Then she returns to the human world. | 30 | 56 |
| K157 | Robbers killed one by one, ATU 304. | The character lures his opponents out one by one and cuts off each one's head as soon as they appear. Less commonly, a multi-headed opponent sticks out its heads one by one, and the hero cuts them off. | 39 | 57 |
| K24a | A supernatural man hides a woman's clothes. | A man, usually of non-human nature, hides the clothes or sits on the clothes of an ordinary earthly girl. To get her clothes back, she is forced to enter into a romantic relationship with him. Traditions in which the character is a snake or dragon (ATU 425M) are marked with an asterisk*. | 31 | 57 |
| K56e | Two Hunchbacks, ATU 503. | Two people have the same physical defect (a bump, a hump). The first one finds himself in a place where spirits gather, and they rid him of his defect. The second comes to the spirits, and they double his defect, giving him what they took from the first person. (Uther 2004 mentions Kasevich, Osipov 1976, No. 171; the Karen text is published there and does not correspond to the definition of the motif). | 43 | 57 |
| K67d | Escape from the worker, ATU 1132. | The worker (rarely – the husband) annoys the master (wife) so much that he or she decides to run away, taking his or her property with him or her. The worker hides in a sack (chest) with his or her property and ends up back where he or she started. | 42 | 57 |
| K75a2 | Gardener. | Appearing incognito to an authoritative figure, the hero works for him as a gardener. | 28 | 57 |
| A35a | Mud thrown in the face. | Moon spots - mud (manure, clay, ash, dough, dirty rag) thrown in the face of the Moon/Moon as a result of a family or love conflict - often by a brother/sister or mother. | 33 | 57 |
| B27 | Variants of metamorphosis. | The characters ponder what object or creature they should transform into, and once they have made their choice, they undergo metamorphosis. | 26 | 57 |
| B64 | Bony fish. | Bones in the bodies of fish are the result of fights, battles, military expeditions; they are arrows stuck in them (gill openings – from stuck arrows), or small bones – fragments of the original large bones. | 27 | 57 |
| B71 | Dancing flashes. | The northern lights are people who play, dance, sit by the fire, fight or run with torches. | 34 | 57 |
| F65b | The imaginary dead man: eats alone, K1867. | The character fakes death in order to eat greedily alone. | 21 | 57 |
| F9g | Brünnhilde, ATU 519. | A powerful woman defeats and kills her suitors. The hero or his assistant defeats her (usually on their wedding night, subduing her with rods or a whip). The hero marries the heroine. | 39 | 57 |
| H36ff | The raven betrays man. | The raven (crow) or other large bird of prey tries to kill people and/or is responsible for the fact that humans (tigres: domestic animals) are mortal or susceptible to disease. | 27 | 57 |
| I16 | Physical abnormalities of the first humans. | Early humans have no mouth, anus, or genitals, and their women are unable to give birth. | 36 | 57 |
| M90a | Marry a guesser | The girl will marry the person who guessed her name, or someone who will fit the ring, or someone who says what material a particular object is made of or originated, etc. The deceiver fulfills the condition. | 40 | 57 |
| M109b | The beaten one carries the unbeaten one, ATU 4. | A weaker character convinces a stronger one that he feels even worse than he does. Usually, the stronger one agrees to carry him on his back. | 39 | 57 |
| M157a6 | You think you are looking at an abbot, ATU 922. | To help a person answer the ruler's questions, a servant or friend impersonates him and gives witty answers. Most often, the ruler asks, among other things, what he is thinking at the moment. Answer: you think you are looking at one person, but in fact it is another. | 46 | 57 |
| M199d | Competition with the devil in wrestling and running, ATU 1071, 1072. | A man and his opponent agree to compete in wrestling and running. The man sends his "relatives" – a bear and a hare – to compete in his place. (ATU numbers 1071 and 1072 are combined, as they are almost always paired.) | 29 | 57 |
| M61 | Incitement to quarrel (by words), K1084, ATU 1577 | The character provokes a quarrel by telling each of his opponents how one of them allegedly used hostile or offensive language towards the other. | 41 | 57 |
| L23 | Proteus. | Trying to free himself, the captured character successively transforms into various substances, materials or animals, or (Urarina, Setebo) orders various dangerous animals to successively attack the person who captured him. (In some cases, only one variant of transformation is mentioned, but in the same context as in typical variants with a series of transformations). | 25 | 58 |
| M114i | What do your relatives do? ATU 875(4), 921. | When asked where her father, mother, brother, etc. are, the girl or boy answers in such a way that only an intelligent person can guess what is meant (father went to make an enemy out of a friend, mother went to make one out of two, etc.); or the girl explains the meaning of similar phrases uttered by others. | 38 | 58 |
| M143 | The fox in the well, ATU 31, 32. | Finding himself in a pit or well, one character persuades another to climb down to him, thanks to which he gets out, leaving the other at the bottom. | 43 | 58 |
| M197e | Unknown beast, ATU 1091. | A man smears himself with resin, rolls around in feathers, crawls backwards on all fours, lets his hair down, etc. The demon thinks he is facing an unknown beast. The man escapes. | 36 | 58 |
| M29v | The dwarf deer is a cunning winner | The character defeats or deceives strong opponents using cunning. The protagonists are dwarf ungulates, usually duker or deer - taxonomically distant from each other, but similar in appearance. In some publications on African traditions, it is difficult to determine which animal we are talking about, but it is certain that these are small cloven-hoofed animals, usually (always?) dukers. See the motives in square brackets. | 24 | 58 |
| A17 | Midday rest of the sun. | Having travelled halfway across the sky or the underworld, the Sun stops to rest. | 36 | 58 |
| C9 | Warning of the flood. | God, an animal, or a certain character warns one of the people about an impending catastrophe (usually a flood) in which most people will perish. | 22 | 58 |
| F65a | The Imaginary Dead Man: Meeting with a Lover, ATU 885A. | The spouse leaves the character at the burial site; the (pretend) dead person comes back to life and leaves to be with their lover. | 28 | 58 |
| I19 | They feed on the smell of food. | Anthropomorphic creatures satisfy their hunger with the vapours of food being prepared. See motifs I14 (people without anuses), I15 (people without mouths). | 34 | 58 |
| I45a | Do not look at the moon or stars. | Pointing at or staring at the moon or stars will cause illness (death) or the pointing finger to rot or wither. | 22 | 58 |
| J31 | Father's weapon. | Heroes receive weapons or other items that belonged to their deceased father and are necessary for fighting their antagonists. | 34 | 58 |
| K117c | Dancing against their will, ATU 592. | When a character plays a pipe (violin, horn, etc.), people and animals begin to dance against their will. | 43 | 58 |
| K163 | Aladdin's Lamp, ATU 561. | A sorcerer orders a young man to retrieve a magical object (often a lamp) from a hard-to-reach place. The young man finds the object (but refuses to give it up), and the sorcerer grants his wishes. | 44 | 58 |
| K27n3b | The one who gives tasks dwells in the sky. | The character who gives the hero or heroine difficult tasks or subjects them to trials lives in the sky, but is not associated with the sun, moon, thunder or wind. See motif K27. | 39 | 58 |
| K38f7 | Wild animals serve the hero. | The character acquires wild animals (at least two different species) that serve him like dogs. | 24 | 58 |
| K85 | Horse brothers. | The antagonist owns the fastest horse. The hero obtains an even faster horse (usually the brother or sister of this horse), which is the only one that surpasses the antagonist's horse and usually orders the antagonist to throw off his rider. | 20 | 58 |
| M91c3 | The postman hare | A person releases an animal or a bird - supposedly with his wife instructing his wife to cook food, etc. Another does not understand deception and buys an animal. | 38 | 58 |
| A27 | Crowns of the sun and moon. | The light and/or heat of the sun and/or moon is contained in their crowns, necklaces or clothing (made of feathers or animal teeth). | 32 | 59 |
| A32d1 | Cain and Abel on the moon. | Cain and Abel are associated with the moon, usually distinguishable (both or only Cain) in the silhouette of lunar spots. | 21 | 59 |
| G10 | The tree is suspended from the sky. | A tree whose trunk has been cut down remains hanging because it is held up from above. | 23 | 59 |
| H43 | One creates the body, and another the soul. | One character creates people's bodies, while another brings them to life. | 21 | 59 |
| L19b3 | Twelve-headed monster. | A creature with 12 heads is mentioned – either singly or at the end of a series of creatures with fewer heads. | 26 | 59 |
| L52 | The hero flies away from the top of the tree. | A person escapes from a pursuer by climbing a tree and then flying away from it himself or on the back of a bird, or a bird helps the hero escape in some other way. | 32 | 59 |
| M134c | Having eaten his fill in the storeroom, he cannot get out, ATU 41. | A zoomorphic character climbs into a cellar (pantry, garden, etc.) and eats so much that he cannot get out. | 37 | 59 |
| M167a | The tiger frightened by Twilight. | A strong predator mistakes an unfamiliar word for the name of a creature that is stronger than him and flees. | 17 | 59 |
| M29gg | The hedgehog is a cunning winner | hedgehog defeats or deceives strong opponents by cunning. | 34 | 59 |
| M39d | Shemyakin Court, ATU 1534 | A person consistently and unintentionally harms others. The victims take him to a judge. He saves a person from punishment by making a formally logical but clearly unacceptable decision in each case. | 42 | 59 |
| K108 | The revived wife cheats on her husband, ATU 612. | Wife dies, husband revives her, she leaves him for another man, punished. | 49 | 59 |
| K25a5 | Two brothers and bird maidens. | The older brother is a hunter, the younger brother (rarely a sister) is a housekeeper. Learning that bird maidens come down to the younger brother, the older brother teaches the younger brother what he must do so that the older brother can catch one of them and make her his wife. The wife finds feather clothing and flies away (often the younger brother, out of simplicity, gives it to her), and the husband sets off in search of her. | 12 | 59 |
| K2b | Gorynya and Dubyna. | The occupations or names of the hero's companions are unusual and different for each one, but their specific abilities, which can be inferred from these names, are insignificant for the development of the plot. Cf. motif K66, "Heroes with different abilities". | 36 | 59 |
| K65a | Spirits fall from the sky. | After being thrown from a height or expelled, various creatures end up in different locations, acquiring corresponding functions and names. | 21 | 59 |
| K8c4 | The elk dies after swallowing a mouse. | A small animal (bird, mouse, porcupine, fox) or (rarely) a tiny human being allows itself to be swallowed by a large ungulate (elk, deer, bison, tapir) in order to rip open its belly (and eat it). | 28 | 59 |
| K116 | Choosing a companion (ATU 516C). | To choose an assistant, a young man asks the candidates to perform simple tasks (eat bread, set off on a journey). The behaviour of the chosen candidate shows that he will take care of the hero, while the behaviour of the others shows that they will only think of themselves. | 10 | 60 |
| K14c | Son mistaken for lover, ATU 910B. | Returning after a long absence and seeing signs that there is another man in the house, a man thinks that his wife has a lover, but does not rush to act and convinces himself that it is his own son or his wife's relative. | 43 | 60 |
| K76b | Son-snake and husband-snake. | The son or foster son of snake spouses. He turns into a human. The snake is the princess's magical spouse, lost and returned. | 38 | 60 |
| K8e | Penetrates inside through the anus. | The character penetrates inside the creature through the anus. | 39 | 60 |
| B16c | The mill grinds salt, ATU 565. | The magic mill is ordered to grind salt, but is not given the command to stop. The mill sinks into the sea, usually grinding salt to this day. | 47 | 60 |
| B3d | Worm excrement. | The earth is obtained by a worm; it arises from worm excrement, extracted from the worm. | 13 | 60 |
| D4e | Coyote or fox obtains fire. | The thief or giver of fire, light or sun is a coyote or fox (indicated in square brackets). See motif 4A. | 24 | 60 |
| I25a | Bones for cows. | The character gives herbivorous animals food intended for carnivores, and carnivores food intended for herbivores; the character sees that the animals have food that is inedible for them and corrects the situation. | 34 | 60 |
| K93a | Sword on the marriage bed, T351. | When lying down with a woman, a man places a sharp or pointed object between her and himself as a sign that he will abstain from sex during the night (sometimes the woman places the sword herself). | 35 | 60 |
| M168 | Who is more cowardly than a hare? ATU 70. | Hares are desperate because they are more cowardly than everyone else, but they rejoice when they learn that there are animals (frogs, sheep) that are afraid of them. | 45 | 60 |
| M29k1 | Turtle, Toad, Frog are a loser trickster | A turtle (toad, frog) gets into unpleasant situations due to its own stupidity or carelessness. See the motives in square brackets. The character is named if it is a toad or frog; otherwise, a turtle. | 37 | 60 |
| K93b3 | Boys, foals, puppies: born together. | To have a child, a woman eats fish, an apple or something else. Part of it (often the peel, broth, skin, etc.) is eaten by a mare, dog or other animals. The woman gives birth to a son (twins), the mare to a foal (foals), the dog to a puppy (puppies). | 37 | 61 |
| L38a | Sticky trap – resin stump. | The character sticks to an object, usually by successively sticking individual parts of their body to it. The object is either a trap for a demonic creature or is itself a creature of a non-human nature. Cf. motif M182 (tar doll), probably brought to the New World after Columbus from Africa. | 21 | 61 |
| L57 | The character returns his organ. | The character loses an internal organ or part of the body, which is taken away by others; he approaches unnoticed and takes back what was lost. | 27 | 61 |
| L5c | Head-chaser, D1641.7, D992, D1602.12, R261.1. | The monster head pursues celestial bodies, people, or attaches itself to someone else's body. See motif L5. | 54 | 61 |
| M118a | Forty Robbers and Jugs of Oil, ATU 954(2). | The chieftain (demon) brings robbers (other demons) to the courtyard of someone else's house, hiding them in empty jugs, barrels, etc. At night, they are supposed to attack the owners. A girl or young woman (less often, the owner of the house) learns of the danger and destroys the robbers (usually by pouring boiling water into each jug or barrel). | 54 | 61 |
| M127 | The tailless fox, ATU 2A. | The character is saved, but is left without a tail (without an ear), after which he tries to make other members of his species (social group) lose their tails (ears) as well. | 37 | 61 |
| M202 | Pulling a splinter out of a lion's paw, ATU 156. | A man pulls a thorn out of the paw (a bone out of the throat) of a strong and dangerous animal or demon, who is grateful. | 51 | 61 |
| M44b | Food thieves are women | The character discovers that someone is stealing game or fish from his trap, mountain, etc. or ravages his garden, vegetable garden, field; he or his messengers wait and catch the thief. The kidnappers are women, or the aquatic animal is the kidnapper, but when caught, it gives the hero a woman. | 29 | 61 |
| K131b | Magical objects exchanged and returned, ATU 569. | Having received and then lost a magical object, the hero returns it with the help of a new one (a club, a box with an army, etc.), received in exchange for the first or obtained by the hero's brother. The episode may be repeated several times. | 43 | 61 |
| K27g4 | Sow, reap and bake bread in one day. | The character must complete all field work in an unimaginably short time and present the products of the new harvest. | 37 | 61 |
| B10 | Drunk water, A1013. | The character drinks a lake or all the water in the world, or the only water is in his stomach. They pierce his stomach or remove the plug, forcing him to burp up the water - the water pours out. See motif B7. | 29 | 61 |
| B54 | Splinters turn into fish. D441.10+. | Wood chips, branches or pieces of bark that have fallen or been thrown into the water turn into fish and aquatic animals. | 37 | 61 |
| C32c | Nails must be preserved. | Nails (and hair) have special significance for a person's fate, their soul or the world as a whole. (Compound motif). | 32 | 61 |
| F1 | Transformed man. | The first woman, female deity, or female animals were originally men (males) who then changed their gender. | 35 | 61 |
| F58 | The trickster and women. | The character spends the night with a group of women, concealing his nature and/or intentions. In the end, he is either identified and punished, or he slips away to continue his mischief. | 34 | 61 |
| F73 | Imaginary wound. | The character mistakes the vulva or anus for a wound. See motifs F73A, F73B. (In the traditions of South and Central America, it is impossible to distinguish local variants from European borrowings). | 38 | 61 |
| A32b | Moon toad, A751.3. | The figure or imprint of a toad or frog is visible on the lunar disc; the moon is associated with this animal. | 33 | 62 |
| B33h | Mother of the Sun. | The sun has a mother who lives with him (less often with her) in the same house. Cf. motif K27x6b ("The character goes to the mother of the sun") | 41 | 62 |
| B41 | The talking dog. | Because the dog spread certain information, argued with its owners, and spoke at inappropriate times, it lost the gift of speech. | 40 | 62 |
| F40a | The common husband of the first women. | A male character, androgynous, with a monstrous penis, single-handedly possesses all women, rules over them or leads away the first women. | 30 | 62 |
| H6c1 | Values in exchange for a child. | To obtain the desired object, the character grabs the young or the female bird (snake, crab) and promises to release them if the father (mother, male) bird delivers the desired object. | 34 | 62 |
| I20c1 | Dwarves – inhabitants of rocks and hills. | Dwarves do not live deep underground, but inside hills, in rocks, in mines, etc., and usually come out from there onto the ground. | 22 | 62 |
| I35c | Craftsman god. | One of the mythological characters who, using his craft skills, first makes (usually forges) tools and natural objects; he is the patron of craftsmen (usually blacksmiths). | 21 | 62 |
| L56 | Fire in the belly of a monster. | A large animal or monster perishes from a fire kindled in its belly. See motif K8A. | 35 | 62 |
| L72c | The abandoned mirror. | Fleeing for his life, the character throws a mirror behind him, which turns into an obstacle for his pursuer (ice, lake, etc.) or attracts his attention and causes him to lose time. (In the Udmurt version, objects destroy obstacles in the character's path). | 33 | 62 |
| M14 | Brutal murder of wife or son. | A man brutally murders his wife (rarely: children, fiancée, sister) and/or eats her flesh himself, or brings her flesh to her relatives (if he kills children, he brings the flesh to his wife). | 26 | 62 |
| J64 | Into the sky on a pillar of smoke. | Without touching the fire or burning, the character rises into the sky or crosses the river on clouds of smoke. | 27 | 62 |
| K107a3 | Beauty and the Beast, ATU 425C. | When her father leaves, the daughter asks him to bring her a flower (leaf, etc.). The father picks it in the garden of an enchanted prince who has a monstrous appearance. The monster demands the daughter from her father and, thanks to the girl, regains his princely appearance. | 28 | 62 |
| K117 | Nesmeyana (bride, young man), ATU 559, (571). | A woman will marry the man who makes her laugh; a man promises a reward to anyone who makes his daughter, mother or son laugh. | 42 | 62 |
| K152a | The Devil and His Wife in the Pit, ATU 1164. | A man saves a devil (snake, predator) suffering from the proximity of a certain character or object. To reward his saviour, the devil promises to possess a princess and leave her when the man comes to treat her. The devil either breaks his promise or warns the man not to try to cure those whom the devil will later possess. The man informs the devil that the character or object he fears so much is approaching again. The devil flees and never returns. | 45 | 62 |
| K27z8 | Riddles that cannot be solved, ATU 851, 927. | A person poses a riddle that can only be solved by knowing the circumstances in which he found himself. | 43 | 62 |
| K33e | Chosen and returned children (Griselda), ATU 887. | Newborn children disappear (die) one after another, but are returned to their wife or husband grown up and in good health. | 40 | 62 |
| K37a | Recognising a man. | The character must identify his son or husband among many identical people or animals. See motif K37. | 44 | 62 |
| K27x9 | Retrieving an object from the bottom of the sea. | The hero must retrieve a small object (often a ring or signet ring) thrown into deep water (often the sea). Cf. motif C6 ("The Diver"). | 36 | 63 |
| K80c | Ivico's cranes, ATU 960, 960A. | Before dying, the murderer's victim turns to birds (stars, animals, plants, etc.). Later, seeing these birds (the moon, the sun, this plant, etc.), the murderer recalls his deed aloud or otherwise gives himself away. Or the birds, being the only witnesses to the crime, lead the investigators to the murderers. | 36 | 63 |
| B38a | Two birds adorn each other. | Two birds agree to paint each other. One of them does not become more beautiful as a result and often becomes uglier. See motif B36A. | 29 | 63 |
| B40 | The rabbit as a substitute for the deer. | The hare/rabbit is a false deer, a former deer, a brother of the deer, a former or failed owner of antlers, its ears are false antlers. | 44 | 63 |
| B69 | Striped chipmunk, A2217.2. | Wishing to reward or punish a small rodent (chipmunk, marmot, squirrel), the character makes it striped, usually by running a paw or hand down its back. | 25 | 63 |
| B77a | The giant pushed back the sky. | One or more anthropomorphic characters push the sky away from the earth. See motif B77. | 34 | 63 |
| C4 | The Flood: Falling Fruit. | During the flood or at the beginning of time, fruits, seeds, or other objects fall into the water one after another. As this happens, the water begins to recede, exposing the earth. | 27 | 63 |
| H26 | Mosquitoes had to be drowned. | A vessel containing stinging insects or reptiles should be thrown into a river or the sea, or buried in a remote place. See motif H24B. | 26 | 63 |
| I20c | Dwarves – inhabitants of the underworld. | Dwarves live in an underground world that partly resembles the earthly world. If dwarves and humans meet, it happens underground. | 38 | 63 |
| L105 | The invisible hook, B5482.3. | A wounded animal, fish or anthropomorphic character runs or swims away – usually with a hook, harpoon, arrow or other hunting or fishing implement stuck in its body; local healers cannot cure the wounded creature (usually because they cannot see the object that caused the wound); a person comes to the wounded person's village and successfully treats them (usually by removing the object that caused the wound). Cf. motif M60A. | 32 | 63 |
| M3 | Human chain | The character crosses a water or air barrier on the backs of chained animals, birds, or fish. | 21 | 63 |
| M63 | An enumeration of body members | Before reaching the part of the body that is most suitable for certain purposes, others are named or tried. (Cf. Motive F22: The enumeration is related to finding the partner's genitals). | 31 | 63 |
| M83b | Whose sleep better? ATU 1626 | Two (or more) characters agree to give food to whoever has the best dream. One talks about a feast he went to in a dream (or says he was in a different world), the second admits that he ate everything alone - he was sure that after the feast, the first one would not qualify for food (which someone who finds himself in a different world does not need food). | 39 | 63 |
| L8 | Left behind feet and heads. | A character temporarily leaves parts of his body behind. Usually, a marriage partner makes it impossible to reunite the departed part with the remaining one. See motif L5. (For the Greater Southwest, Mesoamerica, and the Central Andes, borrowing from the Spanish or the superimposition of a borrowed motif on a pre-Columbian one cannot be ruled out. Stories of witches leaving parts of their bodies behind, which are of European origin, are widespread among the Spanish-speaking population of the Caribbean). | 20 | 64 |
| M101a | Predators learn to fear humans, ATU 157A. | Learning that humans are supposedly stronger than him, a large predator finds a human and challenges him to a contest of strength. This ends badly for him. Cf. motif M101. | 48 | 64 |
| M198a | The Clever Brothers (The Lost Camel), (ATU 655A). | Brothers (rarely: one person) determine the characteristics of a domestic animal they have not seen, or of the person who stole the animal, based on subtle clues. {In ATU, plots 655 and 655A are combined; in Aarne, Thompson 1961 and in regional indexes, our motif M198A corresponds to plot 655A} (Type 655A only in Aarne, Thompson 1984. In ATU mixed with 655). | 39 | 64 |
| M77 | Soiled bed | The character stains another's clothes or bed with sewage or something that looks like sewage, threatens to ruin the air and accuse the other, etc.; taking advantage of the victim's confusion, achieves the goal. | 44 | 64 |
| J50 | Attempt to resurrect the dead. | The father or mother of twin heroes dies or is killed. An attempt to revive the deceased fails. | 17 | 64 |
| K103d | Enter the horse's ear and take it out of the cow's ear. | An animal (rarely a demonic creature) orders the hero or heroine to retrieve necessary items from its ear or to enter its ear in order to transform, fall asleep, etc. | 25 | 64 |
| K161 | The Released Dragon, (ATU 302C*). | A character who has deprived a dragon (demon, thunder) of its freedom orders others not to unlock the dungeon (not to enter a certain room, not to give the chained creature anything to drink, etc.). The prohibition is violated, the chained creature is freed, which leads to disaster. Cf. motif K100f1. | 29 | 64 |
| K65 | Spirits of loci. | Having been cast out, discarded, or born of the first ancestors, creatures of a certain category acquire individuality, transforming into spirits who are the masters of various loci. | 25 | 64 |
| K66d | Bear fosterling. | A boy who grew up (was conceived) in a bear's den (lion's cave) becomes a bogatyr. | 40 | 64 |
| M90a1 | Lice skin, H522.I.I,ATU857. | It is required to sew clothes from the skin of lice (fleas) or guess the origin of a large animal, a large skin, the contents of the box; the animal (skin) arose from lice (fleas), in the box - louse. | 49 | 64 |
| M99 | The threat to exterminate birds, AA 981.1. | The character is going to abuse all birds or (less commonly) animals, but after hearing wise advice, he abandons his intention. | 36 | 64 |
| F22 | Studying the partner's body. | The character asks a person of the opposite sex about the purpose of the part of the body used for sexual intercourse (usually after asking questions about other parts). Alternatively, the character tries out different parts of the body for sexual intercourse or for placing the genitals. Cf. motif M63. | 33 | 64 |
| I104 | Stars - fragments. | Stars are formed from particles of the body, fragments of a larger celestial body (usually the moon); stars (usually also the sun and moon) are formed from the body of a single being. | 34 | 64 |
| B1f | Two brothers: the winner and the loser. | In the era of creation, two men have a common origin, are not antagonists, and display their characteristics in a series of episodes. One is intelligent and successful, the other is simple-minded and irresponsible. | 31 | 65 |
| B48 | Predators become herbivores. | Harmless and herbivorous animals were or could become dangerous predators. | 39 | 65 |
| G8b | They cut down a tree to get the one who climbed it. | A person hides in a tree or (Kazakhs) hides behind walls. Another tries to cut down the tree (break down the walls) to get the person, but the cut tree grows back (or the already felled tree rises, the wall is restored). | 36 | 65 |
| I43b | The Milky Way – snake, fish. | The Milky Way is a reptile, fish or chain of fish. | 24 | 65 |
| J55 | The unrecognised hero encounters enemies. | The hero encounters characters who, not recognising him, say that they are waiting for so-and-so (naming him) to kill him. He easily kills them or turns them into animals. | 27 | 65 |
| K153 | Grateful animals and an evil man, ATU 160. | A man does a favour for several (potentially dangerous) animals and another man. The grateful animals help him, but the man betrays and harms him. | 49 | 65 |
| K27p1 | The enemy father-in-law takes the form of an animal. | The father-in-law (less often the mother-in-law) orders the hero to kill or tame a dangerous animal or not to kill a certain animal while hunting. This animal is himself or his daughter (wife). | 43 | 65 |
| K33c | Girl found inside a foetus, (ATU 408). | A young man obtains a girl who is inside a fruit or (rarely) a flower, stem, leaf, or egg. | 48 | 65 |
| K65f | Which eye do you see with? (ATU 476**) | Once in the locus of demons, a person sees them in their true form. Upon returning, the person sees the demon again, which ordinary people are incapable of doing. The demon blinds him. | 22 | 65 |
| M198b2 | A fortune teller named Grasshopper. | An authoritative character asks a person whose name (or his wife's name) is the name of an insect (most often Grasshopper) to guess what is in his fist (in a box, etc.). The corresponding insect is there. The person says that now he, so-and-so, has been caught, while others think that he has guessed correctly. | 30 | 65 |
| M38d | Item characters die one after another, ATU 85, 295 | Two or more characters, which are small objects or small animals, live or travel together and die one by one while committing protozoa actions. | 38 | 65 |
| M39g | Crying for an unborn child, ATU 1450 | The girl weeps, imagining the dangers that threaten her future child; remembering an incident that could end badly; jealous of the fiancé she does not have; distracted from urgent matters, considering the name of the future child instead of meeting the groom. | 47 | 65 |
| L73c | The scarf opens and closes the way. | By waving a piece of cloth (towel, scarf, item of clothing) or throwing it, placing it on water, etc., the character creates obstacles (in the path of the pursuer) or a means of overcoming them (bridge, etc.). | 27 | 66 |
| M29w1 | The leopard is a loser and a loser | As a result of their stupidity or antisocial behavior, the leopard (panther, leopard) dies or suffers damage. See the motives in square brackets. | 42 | 66 |
| M60 | Imaginary physician: finished off enemy, K824, K1955 | After injuring a demon (robber), the hero goes to his locus. There he, or (rarely) his assistant, pretends to be a doctor and finishes off an opponent. | 29 | 66 |
| J37 | A bird carries away the antagonist. | Transforming into a powerful bird or creating one, the hero lifts his opponent into the air and carries him away. | 32 | 66 |
| K113a | The bride where the arrow fell. | A young man throws an object, shoots an arrow, etc. Where the arrow lands (where the object falls), the young man finds a wife or a means of obtaining one. | 36 | 66 |
| K117b | Stuck Together, ATU 571, 571B. | The hero causes various people (and animals) to stick to each other (or to objects). | 53 | 66 |
| K44 | The false mother is rejected. | The character kidnaps the boy or hides him from his mother or father, pretending to be his mother or father. The kidnapped boy learns the truth and leaves the kidnapper. | 22 | 66 |
| K80b | Mother killed, father ate, ATU 720. | The mother or stepmother kills the boy (rarely a girl) and usually feeds her husband, i.e. the child's father, his flesh. The boy is reborn, usually (at first) in the form of a bird that tells the story of what happened. Cf. motif K80A. Traditions in which the boy is killed by his own mother are highlighted in bold. | 40 | 66 |
| A23 | Who will become the sun? | The first ancestors come together to choose who will become the sun, to raise the sun to the sky, to see the sun rise for the first time, and to name the sun correctly. See motif A22. | 29 | 66 |
| A6A | Two-faced moon/month. | In the same ethnic group, the gender of the moon/month varies in different texts; it changes depending on the phases; the moon is a married couple; the moon is a woman who used to be a man. See motifs A3 - A5. {The material is incomplete. For Western European traditions, data contained in fairy tales is not included}. | 50 | 66 |
| A13a1 | The raven obtains the sun. | The raven rescues or obtains the hidden or stolen sun (daylight). | 31 | 67 |
| B2e | Earth-man. | The Earth or the world as a whole is a male character (alone or alongside a female character). | 29 | 67 |
| B40a | The one who lost his horns. | Nowadays, hornless animals lose their horns or are deprived of the opportunity to grow them. See motif B40. | 38 | 67 |
| B42h | Orion's Belt – game, hunter – another star. | Orion's Belt – game, another star or group of stars within or outside Orion – hunter. | 31 | 67 |
| F9 | Dangerous woman. | For various reasons, sexual intercourse with a woman is deadly dangerous for a man, or so it seems to him: Teeth, blades or sharp stones in the vagina or on the inside of the thighs; the vagina is a toothy mouth. See motif F9A. | 46 | 67 |
| H3A | Violated sexual taboo. | People die (fall ill) and cannot come back to life because a taboo related to sexual contact or pregnancy was once violated. {The motif may be composite, including historically unrelated variants}. | 42 | 67 |
| h54d | Lord of the spirits. | A character whose eyelids (eyelashes, eyebrows) are so heavy that he cannot open his eyes without help, possesses enormous power and is dangerous to heroes and people in general. He is often associated with the underworld or with a bygone era. | 25 | 67 |
| H7a | Death and the healer, ATU 332. | Having received knowledge from Death (rarely: Happiness or a certain spirit) about whether the sick person will be healed or not, whether she is going to take his soul, the person will know whether he will recover. U.nyak praises him for his impartiality; U.t himself; the poor man scolds the doctor, becomes rich. Usually he sees where exactly Death (spirit, etc.) is near the bed, whether it is going to take his soul, whether the person will recover. U. praises him for his impartiality; U. himself; the poor man scolds the sick man, and on this basis knows what will happen to him. | 49 | 67 |
| I94 | Pleiades – holes. | The Pleiades are something holey. | 25 | 67 |
| J28b | Hot flatbread. | Upon learning that a woman (usually the hero's mother) is hiding the truth about his father, mother, brothers, or bride, a young man (rarely a young woman) causes her pain, forcing her to tell the truth (usually by pressing hot bread into her palm or sticking her fingers into hot food). | 25 | 67 |
| J6 | The children of the murdered woman grew up in the house of their antagonists. | A pregnant woman is killed (and eaten). Twins are taken from her womb, who are usually also destined to be eaten, but they escape, live (secretly) in the house of their antagonists, and take revenge on them. | 32 | 67 |
| K152 | The devil runs away in terror, ATU 1164. | A man saves a devil who is suffering from the proximity of a certain character or object. To reward his saviour, the devil promises to possess a princess and leave her when the man comes to treat her. The devil either breaks his promise or warns the man not to try to cure those whom the devil will possess later. The man informs the devil that the character or object he fears so much is approaching again. The devil flees and never returns. | 50 | 67 |
| K3 | A tree or rock grows. | The hero climbs a tree or rock to get bird eggs, chicks, fruit, honey, etc. He cannot climb down because another character makes the tree (rock) very tall or makes the tree trunk thick. See motif K1A. | 48 | 67 |
| L23d | Transformations of the captured woman. | A man captures a desirable woman. Trying to free herself, she transforms into various substances, materials, animals or (urarina, setebo) orders various dangerous animals to attack the man who captured her. | 25 | 67 |
| M161 | Dog in a bag. | A character gives another a sack that is supposed to contain food, but in fact contains a dog; or frees a girl (boy) from a sack or chest and replaces her with a dog or other dangerous animal. The animal attacks the person who opened the sack. | 36 | 67 |
| M25 | A holiday in heaven, K1041 | To take part in a festival in heaven or visit a deity, a flightless character manages to climb high into the sky. He usually cannot go down the same way, falls and as a result dies, maims or metamorphoses. | 29 | 67 |
| L9a | Ostronog, G341.1. | The character's leg is crippled (intentionally or accidentally) or originally pointed. He uses the pointed bone for hunting, fishing or killing people. | 34 | 68 |
| M39a4a | Sells a lizard a cow, ATU 1643 | fool sells or gives an animal (plant, statue) meat, pet, cloth, etc., believing that the buyer will pay; or the fool works where no one asked him to, and takes the animal for its owner. When he comes for money, he beats an animal (a tree, a statue, follows an animal) and as a result finds a treasure. | 51 | 68 |
| M45a | The old man and the beasts | A person is sleeping or pretending to be asleep or dead. Animals take him for a dead man - they mourn him, carry him to bury him, they are going to eat it, etc. A person beats the crowd and/or obtains benefits. | 29 | 68 |
| M74aa | An imaginary visit | The character (several times) pretends to be his name (that he is going to visit), and eats up supplies himself. See M74A motif. | 55 | 68 |
| K118a | Portrait of an unknown beauty. | Upon seeing the portrait of a beauty, a man strives to meet her. | 40 | 68 |
| K1e | Abandoned on an island, K1616. | The character is abandoned on an island or on the other side of a river or sea. See motif K1A. | 50 | 68 |
| K77b1 | Wolf's Head, ATU 125. | When they see predators, domestic animals consciously or accidentally behave in such a way that the predators flee in fear. | 43 | 68 |
| K80d | The stuck pin. | A young woman or man is enchanted (turned into a bird, animal, immobilised) when a pin or other sharp object is stuck into their body. | 44 | 68 |
| B18 | Light in a vessel, A1411.1. | Daylight, warmth, sun or moon are stored in a vessel, under a vessel, under a cover, in a bag, etc. | 32 | 68 |
| C25b | The Moon Spinner. | In the sky, on the moon (rarely – on the sun), somewhere outside our world, a certain character spins, weaves, knits, embroiders or makes bast fabric. | 35 | 68 |
| G9 | The felled forest is reborn, D1602.1+. | The forest cut down during clearing is reborn by morning. | 21 | 68 |
| B77b | They touched the sky with a long object. | The sky moved away and/or the connection between people and the deity ceased after the sky or the heavenly deity was touched or struck with a long object (a pestle, a broom, etc.) during work. Cf. motifs B77b1 and B77b2. | 24 | 69 |
| D4o | Dry by the fire. | In order to steal fire from its owner, the character pretends to be wet and cold, and after receiving permission to dry off, runs away, bringing fire to the people. | 31 | 69 |
| H37 | The spirit's superweapon falls into the hands of the hunter. | A magical item that makes hunting or fishing easy and reliable falls into the hands of a character who is unable to control it or abuses it. | 32 | 69 |
| H47 | Offended sky/earth. | The sky (celestial deity) or Earth is offended by people's behaviour towards them and reacts accordingly. | 26 | 69 |
| K127 | Animal brothers, ATU 451. | A girl has many brothers, who are turned into birds or animals (rarely: into plants; killed by witchcraft), then usually disenchanted (brought back to life; usually all of them, in the Georgian version – one). See motif K127A. | 51 | 69 |
| K27f1 | Building a bridge. | A character builds a bridge (usually from precious materials) in an implausibly short time. | 39 | 69 |
| K65c | Eve's Unwashed Children, ATU 758. | A woman (rarely a man) hides some of her children (less often, all of them) or some of her domestic animals from God. According to God, the hidden children become either poor people or creatures of a non-human nature, and the hidden domestic animals become wild. | 40 | 69 |
| K74a | Only the hero defeats the demon and follows in his footsteps. | A demonic character arrives and mocks one of the men remaining in the house. When the hero remains, he defeats the demon and follows in his footsteps to where he dwells. Cf. motif K74 (an unassuming and weak-looking man approaches a warrior preparing dinner; he eats everything, ties up, beats or kills the cook. When the hero remains to cook, he defeats the demon). | 54 | 69 |
| M39c | Horse egg, ATU 1319 | A fool is told that a round fruit is a mare's egg (donkeys, elephants, etc.). A fool buys fruit for a lot of money. When he throws it or drops it, a small animal (usually a hare) jumps out of the thickets. A person believes that this is a foal (donkey, etc.) that has hatched. | 51 | 69 |
| M90a5 | Golden apples | The story mentions the golden fruits (rarely leaves) of a tree, usually golden apples. | 45 | 69 |
| I89 | The lost caravan. | There is a star that brings death and misfortune; it is usually told how people mistake a star or constellation rising at night for the Morning Star, set off on a journey and lose their way. | 17 | 70 |
| K100c | The snake bites the girl's suitors, ATU 507 (main part, variant 2). | A woman (rarely a young man) does not know that inside her (him) there is something dangerous for her (his) marriage partner (usually a snake), or that on her wedding night she will turn into a snake, or that a snake will crawl in on her wedding night. The hero or his companion eliminates the danger. {Motif K100C is similar to F9f1, but the latter belongs to the cosmological-etiological category and is associated with the idea of a dangerous woman, while K100C is adventurous}. | 37 | 70 |
| K17 | Ornithomorphic groom. | A male character in the form of a winged creature approaches a girl and either magically or unnoticed by her impregnates her. See motif K16: taking the form of an animal or bird, he enters the girl's house. | 47 | 70 |
| K67a | The Drowned Wife, ATU 1120. | A character of low status annoys characters of high status. Learning of the intention of the characters of high status to drown him or his property (rarely: to strangle him), he arranges for one of them or their property to be drowned instead. | 50 | 70 |
| A22 | Into the sky from the bonfire. | One or two people fall into fire or boiling water and ascend to the sky, turning into the sun and/or the moon. | 34 | 70 |
| B43 | Purusha, D287.5. | Elements of the landscape or parts of the universe are created from the body of the original being. | 28 | 70 |
| B90 | Master of wolves. | There is an anthropomorphic patron, master or mistress of wolves; he usually gives instructions to the wolves on a certain day of the year. | 32 | 70 |
| F54 | Oedipus, ATU 931, 933. | Unaware of this, the son and mother (Konkani: daughter and father) engage in sexual relations and later learn of the incest they have committed. Cf. motifs c8c, f54e. | 50 | 70 |
| F8 | Meeting of men and women. | In the beginning (.55.60.67.73.) women and men lived separately from each other, then came together. Cf. motif F45 (Amazons). | 30 | 70 |
| I110a | Star Plough. | Orion (rarely - another constellation) - plough. | 31 | 70 |
| B4 | The elongated land. | Islands or mainland pulled out of the ocean, pulled by a rope. | 28 | 71 |
| C19a | The child is playing with the sun | The character (except Quileut: Raven) turns into a child, asks for and receives heavenly bodies to play, or (Chukchi) comes to play with the little daughter of the owner of the stars. | 23 | 71 |
| F87 | Children transformed by a snake woman, ATU 425M. | The snake forces the girl to promise to marry him and takes her to the underwater world. She is happy there and gives birth to a son (or two sons) and a daughter. Together with her children, she returns to visit her relatives. They learn what words she must use to summon her husband from the water, summon him, and kill him. Seeing the bloody water, the snake's wife (rarely the snake himself) turns the children and herself into birds or trees. | 28 | 71 |
| F9e1 | Dangerous animal in the vagina. | A woman's womb is dangerous because it contains a toothy or stinging animal (not just its mouth) or many such creatures. | 42 | 71 |
| H36gg | The coyote betrays man. | The coyote is to blame for the fact that humans are mortal. | 27 | 71 |
| I68b | The night of fulfilled wishes. | On a certain night of the year, any wish that is expressed or conceived will come true. Cf. motif M13. | 28 | 71 |
| I75 | Previous worlds. | Before the emergence of the present world or present humans, there were others (at least two worlds or races). | 20 | 71 |
| I92 | The rainbow changes gender. | A person who has come into contact with a rainbow in a certain way (walked under it, drunk water where the rainbow drinks, etc.) changes their gender. | 41 | 71 |
| J59 | Following the arrow to the sky. | To reach the sky, one must shoot an arrow that will pierce the vault of heaven. See motif J58; see motif J59A: a man flies after or on an arrow (without the motif of an arrow piercing the vault of heaven). | 58 | 71 |
| K101 | Night dances of girls, ATU 306. | A girl or boy disappears at night. Usually, the girl's clothes or shoes are worn out overnight, or the boy looks sick and tired in the morning. The girl or boy is followed and seen spending the night in another world. | 44 | 71 |
| K115 | Spider web at the entrance, B523.1, ATU 967. | When a character hides in a shelter, a spider immediately weaves a web at the entrance. Enemies decide that no one has entered the cave or room for a long time and leave. | 50 | 71 |
| K27z | Gambling for life and death. | A character gains power over another by winning a game of chance or an intellectual game (not a sporting competition). The motif includes all texts with motif K27z4. | 43 | 71 |
| K37b | Recognising a woman by her missing little finger. | A man must identify his chosen one blindfolded. He does this by touch, knowing that one of her fingers is damaged or missing. | 54 | 71 |
| K38c | A bird carries a hero. | After the hero helps the bird (usually by doing good to its chicks), it takes him to the place he desires, or instructs its chicks to do so. (This does not involve movement between levels of the universe; in the Sumerian version, the bird gives the hero the ability to move with lightning speed and directs him to his goal). | 39 | 71 |
| K95 | Together and after death, ATU 970. | Two people who love each other (usually a man and a woman) die prematurely and are buried in the same grave or nearby. After or during the burial, something unusual happens that is connected with the story (special plants grow in that place, the smoke from the two funeral pyres joins together, the dead turn into two birds, two stars, etc.). | 45 | 71 |
| L15e | The life of a hero in a sword, ATU 302B. | The hero's life is in a certain object, usually his weapon. An enemy steals or discards this object, the hero weakens or dies, his friends or brothers return the object, and the hero comes back to life. {In ATU, this is motif 302B; at least some of the references cited by Uther do not contain the motif in our formulation (not found in Japan or Burma); original publications are required}. | 36 | 71 |
| M149 | Say that I am a stump, ATU 154. | A strong enemy is ready to kill the hero (a human or a weak animal). Someone, seemingly unaware of this, loudly announces that the hero's enemy is being sought in order to kill him. The hero is saved. Usually, the enemy asks not to be betrayed, saying that he is a stump, a log, etc. This allows him to be treated as such – thrown, chopped, etc. (ATU data not entered; plot 154 includes several independent motifs; which of them are present in the traditions referred to by ATU cannot be determined without referring to the original sources). | 38 | 71 |
| M169 | Medicine from a wolf's skin, ATU 50. | In the presence of an authoritative figure, one of the subordinates plots against another. The latter says that the problem can be solved by maiming the former (usually using a part of his body as medicine). The schemer is killed or maimed. | 50 | 71 |
| M60b | Imaginary doctor: finishing off the victim | The deceiver, promising to cure a wounded or sick person, finishes him off and eats him or offers a remedy that is only worse for him. | 28 | 71 |
| K98 | The slain man turns into a camp. | An animal or (less commonly) a woman who gave birth to a hero or helped him turns into a house and property. | 31 | 72 |
| K99b | Midnight escape: change of partner, (ATU 856). | A girl and a young man agree that he will take her away at night. The young man is late or falls asleep, and the girl is taken away by someone else who happens to be at the appointed place. | 28 | 72 |
| L33 | Rolling Stone, R261. | The stone rolls after the character, trying to crush him. | 28 | 72 |
| M62a | Incitement to quarrel (action) | The hero quietly damages each of the two characters; they accuse each other, quarrel, fight. | 50 | 72 |
| A20 | Childhood and youth of the Sun and Moon. | The Sun and the Moon (less often the Sun and a star, the Moon and a star) are brothers (sisters, brother and sister) who initially live on earth, but at the end of the story, as teenagers or young adults, ascend to the sky and become celestial bodies. | 27 | 72 |
| A23a | Who will be the first to see the sun? ATU 120, | Arguing about superiority or seniority, the characters agree to decide in favour of the one who first sees the rising sun (the beginning of the year). The winner is the one whose victory seemed unlikely. (In Uther 2004(1), No. 120: 87, the definition of the motif includes the detail that the winner looks not to the east but to the west and sees the tops of trees illuminated by rays of light. In Europe, in most cases (except for the Scots) that have been verified, this detail is indeed present. However, it is absent in American and some Asian traditions). | 48 | 72 |
| B26 | Gone to the animals. | A person who follows wild animals (temporarily) turns into one of them or their master, or lives with animals that look like humans to him. | 36 | 72 |
| C30 | Impossible condition. | In order to free himself from an obligation, the character sets a condition that is formally logical and uncomplicated, but in reality impossible to fulfil. | 46 | 72 |
| I38 | Dog-headed creatures. | There are creatures that combine the characteristics of dogs and humans (usually people with dog faces or heads). | 32 | 72 |
| M91b | Ash sold, (ATU 1535) | A person manages to fraudulently sell or exchange ash for gold and money. Others are unsuccessfully offering ash for sale. | 45 | 72 |
| K27g | To bathe in boiling water. | The character is ordered to bathe in (hot) milk, in boiling water, to jump into the fire; he remains unharmed, while his opponent usually perishes. | 45 | 72 |
| J17 | Frogs in the hair. | Instead of lice in the character's hair, there are other creatures, or he pretends that such creatures live in his hair. | 45 | 73 |
| K67c | Skin torn from the back. | The character agrees that under certain conditions another person may tear the skin from his back or cause him some other bodily harm. | 49 | 73 |
| I22a | The sky beats against the earth, F791. | The sky constantly beats against the earth like the lid of a boiling cauldron. | 36 | 73 |
| M113 | Birds are forbidden to drink. | In summer, during the height of the heat, or constantly, birds of a certain species are not allowed to drink from ponds and springs. It is generally believed that they drink only rainwater and cry out, begging for rain. See motif M112. | 37 | 73 |
| M95 | Take the gift home, ATU 311 | weaker character asks a stronger character to take the gift to his family and climbs into a basket, bag, etc. A strong character brings and leaves a gift without knowing that brought whoever sent this gift. Usually a girl hides her sisters in a bag (chest), and next time she sits there herself, and the cannibal believes that there are gifts for the girls' parents in the bag and carries the bag. | 42 | 73 |
| F65 | The imaginary dead man. | To satisfy their secret desire, which involves breaking social norms (forbidden sex, refusing to share food with relatives), the character pretends to be dying, abandoned at the burial site. | 69 | 74 |
| I41b | The rainbow drinks water. | The rainbow drinks (draws into itself) water (and living creatures). | 41 | 74 |
| K120a | Prevented incest (sister and brother), (ATU 313E). | A man is going to marry his sister (often it turns out that she is the only one who meets the requirements for a bride). Usually, the girl manages to avoid such a marriage. | 46 | 74 |
| K60a | Are the bonds strong? | Unaware of the danger, the character allows himself to be tightly bound. | 46 | 74 |
| M196 | Who will speak first? ATU 1351. | A husband and wife agree to award a small prize to the one who remains silent the longest. Both or one of the spouses continue to remain silent even when others mistake them for dead or commit violence against them. | 51 | 74 |
| L61 | Samoyed, F1035. | The character eats himself, guts himself, or kills himself in order to be eaten. | 36 | 75 |
| M136d | Shattered dreams, ATU 1430. | A person dreams of gradually becoming rich and forgets that this has not yet happened. As a result, he loses the initial source of future prosperity (breaks a jug, scares away a hare he was about to shoot, etc.) or senselessly causes harm to himself or others. | 56 | 75 |
| H28a | The ashes of the burned turn into gnus. | When a character is burned, the smoke and sparks turn into mosquitoes and other blood-sucking insects that scatter throughout the world. | 22 | 75 |
| I55 | Stars – holes. | Stars – holes in the sky; or holes in the canopy, in the roof of a dwelling, appear to be stars. | 45 | 75 |
| I59b1 | The Milky Way – the road to a distant city. | The Milky Way – the road to a distant city, usually with religious significance (Rome, Jerusalem, etc.). | 29 | 75 |
| K32h3 | The antagonist is burned. | The antagonist is executed by being burned alive. (Episodes in which the burning of the character is not a punishment but a means of getting rid of him are not taken into account). | 37 | 75 |
| K32M | The heroine is transformed into an animal (not drowned). | To take the heroine's place, her rival turns her into an animal or bird without pushing her into the water. Cf. motif k33. | 59 | 75 |
| K48 | The hero's singing bird, ATU 550. | The antagonist orders the wonderful bird captured by the hero to sing or talk, but it remains silent or cries out inappropriately. The bird begins to sing (talk) after the hero has triumphed over his opponents. | 45 | 75 |
| K49 | Dead mother nursing a baby, E323.1. | A woman who has been transformed into an animal or found herself outside the human world returns to her child to feed and care for it. Cf. motif K33. | 48 | 75 |
| K80c4 | Silent witnesses to crime, ATU 960, 960A. | In a deserted place, one person kills another. After some time, he is exposed thanks to facts and circumstances that do not seem important and do not directly tell about the crime (the victim's last words; objects or living beings that were or appeared at the scene of the murder). (All texts containing motifs K80c3 and K80c4 also contain the more general motif K80c). | 45 | 75 |
| I78 | Square Earth. | The earth is thought of as rectangular (usually square). | 36 | 76 |
| K123 | The old woman's curse. | A boy, a young man, or, less commonly, a girl deliberately or accidentally offends an elderly woman (or a cripple). She utters words that cause him or her to want to do something dangerous (most often to find a marriage partner). | 39 | 76 |
| K136a | The girl's floating hair. | Seeing the girl's hair carried away by the water, the man decides to marry the girl to whom the hair belongs. | 45 | 76 |
| L14 | The cultivated snake. | People bring a small creature (usually a worm or reptile) into their home and raise it, or it settles into a man-made dwelling on its own. The creature turns into something terrifying or magnificent. See motif L13 (raised monster attacks people). | 51 | 76 |
| M157b | Take the most precious thing (ATU 875). | The husband drives his wife away, allowing her to take what is most precious to her. She takes her sleeping or intoxicated husband. He returns with her. {Traditions mentioned in El-Shamy 2004 are highlighted in bold; it is highly likely that this motif is indeed present in them; some traditions mentioned in ATU 875 are given in brackets; they are not included in the correlation table, the original publications are required}. | 47 | 76 |
| M163 | Dear Cat, ATU 1281, 1651. | A man arrives in a country where there are many mice (rats, snakes) but no cats. He sells a cat there and receives a reward. | 56 | 76 |
| C20 | The drunken cannibal. | A dangerous character is killed, neutralised, and deprived of his (her) values after being cheered up at a party, lured into a trap with music, promises of alcohol, women, etc.; the same method is used to enlist the favour of a powerful helper. | 41 | 76 |
| H16a | Rivers of blood, A671.2.2. | The narratives (in various contexts) mention rivers (lakes) of blood (as well as water used to wash the dead, pus, bones, sweat). Cf. motifs H16, K33F, N34. | 36 | 76 |
| B33 | Woman-wind. | There is a female character who embodies the wind or is considered the mother or mistress of the winds. | 38 | 77 |
| B79 | Cosmic egg. | In the world ocean or in the world abyss, from an egg (eggs) or egg-like sphere, shell, etc., the earth, sky, luminaries, and creator gods arise. | 28 | 77 |
| C6c | The Diver – Bird. | The bird dives and brings up the desired object from the bottom. See motif C6. | 56 | 77 |
| E31c | Rescuers of the Abducted Maiden, ATU 513A, ATU 653. | Several men, each possessing a unique skill, bring a (kidnapped) girl from a distant country. | 53 | 77 |
| F39 | Women's time. | In the past or in distant lands, women dominated men, were the active party in marital relations, and engaged in male activities. Men engaged in female activities. Later, the situation changed. Either women missed the opportunity to gain superiority. See motif F38. | 48 | 77 |
| I43a | Cosmic serpent. | A giant reptile, serpent, fish, or chain of fish stretches across the earth and/or supports the sky. Usually associated with the Milky Way, sometimes with a rainbow. | 27 | 77 |
| J32a | At night by his father's grave, ATU 530. | When dying, a person orders that someone spend the night at his grave or bring something to the grave. | 42 | 77 |
| M98 | Who's more? AA 981.1. | The character counts the number of members in two huge and alternative sets (dead and alive, men and women, etc.). Usually numbers are distributed equally, and one term (or some) is endowed with the properties of both. By referring it to one of the sets, the character proves a thesis. | 40 | 77 |
| M159 | The Lion's Share, ATU 51. | The strongest character (usually a lion) offers to divide the spoils (harvest). The more cunning character refuses his share, but remains unharmed. Usually a wolf (hyena, jackal) divides the spoils, giving the lion the larger share, but the lion beats him. The third character gives the lion everything. The lion asks who taught him to divide so well and receives the answer: the one whom the lion mauled. | 45 | 77 |
| M18 | Stolen tackle, D657.1. | The character turns into an object of fishing or hunting and presents himself as a target. The fisherman or hunter does not harm them, but they take away what they use: arrows, darts, harpoons, hooks, bait; or they catch fish, having turned themselves into hooks; or they are caught but escape death by taking on human form again. | 41 | 77 |
| M46d | The child asks for a toy | A small child cries and calms down only after being given a valuable item hidden in the house to play with. After receiving an item, a child or an associated character takes it away. | 31 | 77 |
| L108b | The Thin Voice, (ATU 327F). | To prevent his victim from recognising him, the predator, the cannibal, makes his voice thinner by mechanical means - he smears his throat (tongue) with fat, cauterises it with a hot stone or iron, exposes it to ant bites, consults a blacksmith, etc. | 41 | 78 |
| M116a | I also rested here, ATU 980. | A man drags his father, intending to leave him to die in a deserted place, give him to an almshouse, throw him into a precipice, etc. He stops on the way. The father says that he also stopped at this place when he was dragging his father. Or the boy asks to keep the sledge, the skin, etc., on which his father is dragging his grandfather (or takes half of the cloak with which his father covered the old man): it will come in handy when he drags his father himself. Or the old man is given a wooden (broken, etc.) plate to eat from, and the boy says that he will give his father the same one when he grows old. The man brings his father home (begins to take care of him). | 49 | 78 |
| M157a4 | Fishing on a mountain. | The character proves the absurdity of another's statements by claiming that he (or someone else) fished on a mountain, extinguished a fire with straw, sowed wheat in the sea, watched flying fish, etc. (or he himself imitates such actions). The absurdity of the statements stems from the incorrectly chosen locus or means for performing certain actions. | 49 | 78 |
| M198 | The Clever Brothers (the illegitimate khan), ATU 655. | In the house of the khan (judge, king, etc.), three brothers (rarely one person) determine that the food and drink served to them smell of dead flesh, dog, goat, etc., and (or that) the host who receives them is illegitimate or of low birth. After questioning the servants and his mother, the host is convinced that the brothers are right. | 50 | 78 |
| I5 | Thunder – animal. | Thunder (lightning, rain) has the appearance of a four-legged mammal - a pig, buffalo, camel, anteater, tapir, dog, cat, leopard, monkey, etc. | 41 | 78 |
| K27z2a1 | An innocent woman is accused of promiscuity. | Noticing that a woman is pregnant, her relatives or in-laws accuse her of promiscuity, because, according to their calculations, she could not have conceived by her husband or fiancé. After severe trials, the woman meets again the father of the boy she gave birth to. | 33 | 78 |
| K38d1 | Girl sacrificed to the dragon. | Fearing a monster living in the water or wishing to end a flood or drought, a girl is sacrificed or voluntarily hides in the waters. | 41 | 78 |
| B38 | Unsuccessful colouring. | The character decorates birds or animals, or they decorate each other. Some are dissatisfied with the result. | 58 | 78 |
| B42b | Hunting hoofed animals. | In the cosmic hunting plot, the objects of pursuit are hoofed animals (elk, deer, mountain sheep). See motif B42. | 39 | 78 |
| B42t | The seven stars of the Big Dipper – animal. | All seven stars of the Big Dipper (and not just the stars of the dipper) are considered to be the figure of an animal - a bear, moose, deer, ram, camel, or dog. | 33 | 78 |
| D4l | Fire from the sky. | The first fire is brought down to earth from the sky; the first ancestors go to the sky and bring back fire or warmth. See motif D4A. | 43 | 78 |
| D7 | Toad and fire. | The frog or toad possesses the first fire, steals it from its original owner, and tries to extinguish it or save it from dying out. See motif D4. | 30 | 78 |
| F44 | Quarrel between men and women. | In the community of the first ancestors, women and men quarrel, leave, kill, maim each other, etc. | 39 | 78 |
| H11 | The call of God. | People are mortal or defective because they respond to the call (or pronounce the name) of a creature that brings death, or do not hear the call (do not pronounce the name; do not respond to the call, do not notice) of a creature that promises immortality (power). | 35 | 78 |
| H7b | Death sticks to a tree or a bench, ATU 330. | A person asks Death (a spirit) to climb a tree or sit on a bench, to which they stick and can only be freed with his permission. | 52 | 78 |
| I115 | Orion and the Pleiades. | Orion and the Pleiades appear in the same story. | 39 | 78 |
| H16b | Milk pond. | The narratives (in various contexts) mention a milk pond (river, lake, wave in the sea) existing on earth (but not among the stars). Cf. motifs H16, K33F, N34. | 38 | 79 |
| H42 | The creator leaves. | Having created human bodies or conceived creation, the creator or his representative leaves for a time. Another character, out of malice or incompetence, spoils or tries to spoil the results of the work, creating something that the creator would have done better. Most often, this leads to humans being mortal or susceptible to disease. See motif H40. | 33 | 79 |
| I82h | Venus – Cholpan/Cholbon. | The name of Venus sounds like Cholpan, Cholbon, Tsolmon, etc. (čol- 'to sparkle, to shine' [Vámbéri 1879: 155]). | 35 | 79 |
| J66 | The straps are bitten through. | The character cuts or bites through bowstrings and other straps in advance, punctures boats, preventing opponents from fighting or pursuing him. | 38 | 79 |
| K13a | Severed leg: a person ascends to the sky. | The character's leg (rarely: both legs) is cut off, bitten off, torn off, or damaged. The character ascends to the sky: to the moon; becomes the moon; turns into a star or constellation; becomes the sun; blood flowing from the leg colours the sky. | 29 | 79 |
| K27z1 | Don't take the cage, don't take the bridle! ATU 550. | The assistant teaches how to steal the desired object, but not to take anything else (take the bird, but not the cage, the horse, but not the bridle, etc.). The character takes what he should not, is caught, released on the promise to deliver another object, then the girl. In the end, the hero keeps both the girl and everything he stole. {ATU 550 includes a much wider range of texts; in particular, the Indian, Burmese and Persian variants mentioned in Uther 2004 do not correspond to our definition}. | 50 | 79 |
| K88b | Food in exchange for eyes. | The character suffers from thirst or hunger. His companion promises to share water or food with him (to make him rich) if he allows himself to be blinded. | 50 | 79 |
| L46 | Head down. | The character walks, climbs or descends upside down, or sees the world turned upside down. | 46 | 79 |
| L72b | The whetstone mountain. | Fleeing for his life, the character throws small objects behind him, which turn into powerful obstacles in the path of his pursuer. One of the objects thrown is a whetstone. (In one of the Udmurt variants, the objects thrown destroy the obstacles in the character's path). See motif L72. | 37 | 79 |
| L81a2 | The demon comes to drink the girl's blood (ATU 709A). | While the men are away, a demonic character comes to a girl or woman to drink her blood or otherwise torment her. The men notice that the girl is wasting away, but at first they do not know the reason. | 27 | 80 |
| M29a | Trickster - Raven (a) | See the motives in square brackets. | 57 | 80 |
| K27r | Passing away. | The person giving the task requires an item or message to be brought from the world. | 49 | 80 |
| K34 | Dangerous swings, K855. | The character puts others on the swing and, after swinging them, throws them (or threatens to throw them) into the water, onto rocks, etc. | 36 | 80 |
| K38b | The serpent threatens the chicks, B364.4. | A snake or monster of aquatic-chthonic or indeterminate nature eats or maims the young of a bird or other flying creature – in most cases, the chicks of a huge bird. A man kills the snake (monster). See motif K38. | 62 | 80 |
| K56a | The unworthy fail, the worthy succeed, ATU 431. | Two or three sisters successively go to a powerful character. The first or the first two act incorrectly, perish or fail to achieve their goal. The last one acts correctly, is saved or rewarded. | 37 | 80 |
| K73b | Punishment of the innocent. | A woman falsely accused of murdering her newborn child, or of giving birth to a puppy instead of a child, etc., is subjected to cruel and humiliating punishment or execution. See motif K73. | 50 | 80 |
| K86 | The Crying Child. | A small (usually capricious) child is ignored, sent away from home, abandoned on the road, or given to another person for a time. As a result, the child is carried away by an animal or a spirit. | 44 | 80 |
| A2b | The extra suns are extinguished. | In addition to the current sun and/or moon, other suns and moons shone in the sky, which were then destroyed. See motif A2A. | 50 | 80 |
| I44 | Chthonic serpent. | A huge serpent encircles, embodies or supports the earth. | 37 | 80 |
| B17 | Night in a vessel. | Darkness is a special object that can be carried and transferred (usually brought from the original owner in a vessel or bag). | 40 | 81 |
| I42 | Rainbow – a pair of creatures. | The rainbow is a pair of creatures, usually a man and a woman, male and female. | 27 | 81 |
| K92a | A woman builds a house, ATU 923B. | A girl who has been driven from her home or has become the wife of an insignificant pauper becomes rich and respected. | 48 | 81 |
| L108a | The goat kills the antagonist. | A predator or cannibal swallows people and animals. A goat (rarely a sheep) punishes it and usually rescues those who have been swallowed (most often by cutting open its belly, allowing those who have been swallowed to escape alive). | 46 | 81 |
| L114b | Task: to bring the property of the cannibal, ATU 328. | After receiving the task or on his own initiative, the trickster enters the character's house (usually that of the cannibal) several times, each time taking one of his belongings or one of his family members. | 55 | 81 |
| M114 | The rope of sand, ATU 1174. | The character is asked to make (or actually makes) a rope or other object out of sand, ash, smoke, etc. | 53 | 81 |
| M180 | The Fox and the Crane, ATU 60. | A zoomorphic character invites another to visit, but serves food in such a way that the other cannot take it in his mouth. The other, inviting the first to visit, puts him in a similar position. | 52 | 81 |
| M40 | Distorted instructions | The character is sent to get something relatively low in value. He asks for something else and shouts to whoever sent him to confirm the assignment. Usually, a weaker character comes to a stronger wife or son and tells her (him) that her husband (his father) told him to surrender to him, feed him, marry him, etc. {It is highly likely that American versions are borrowed after Columbus}. | 48 | 81 |
| L11 | The turtle bench. | Everyday objects take the form of fish, invertebrates, reptiles, dangerous predators, or objects that transform into these animals under special circumstances. | 41 | 82 |
| L113 | Married to a werewolf (ATU 363). | A girl who has long rejected suitors falls in love with a handsome man who turns out to be a demon, a werewolf, or a dangerous animal. The girl barely escapes or perishes. | 51 | 82 |
| L3 | A husband turns into a demon. | The demon takes on human form and comes to his wife (less often to another woman). Usually, the woman (alone or with a child) runs away and/or kills the monster, either by herself or with someone's help. | 42 | 82 |
| M109a1 | Head in the dough, ATU 3. | A zoomorphic character smears his head with dough (sour milk, butter, etc.) to make it look as if his brains are spilling out from the beatings. | 35 | 82 |
| M145 | The lion in the well, ATU 92. | One character (usually zoomorphic) shows another his reflection in a body of water. The latter believes that a beast resembling him is challenging his seniority, invites him to visit, etc.; usually throws himself into the water and perishes. | 43 | 82 |
| M16 | The healed cripple. | The wife or relatives (often the mother) of the sick person do not care for him. He recovers, and those who treated him badly are punished. Cf. motifs F62 and F96. | 33 | 82 |
| M170 | Animals at repentance, ATU 20D*, 61A. | Pretending to be concerned only with performing religious rituals or following rules (confessing sins, going on pilgrimages, giving up meat, etc.), a zoomorphic character kills those who trust him. | 53 | 82 |
| M29x | The hyena is a loser and a loser | As a result of its stupidity or antisocial behavior, the hyena dies or suffers damage. See the motives in square brackets. | 48 | 82 |
| B12 | Snake rivers. | The riverbed follows the path of a snake, fish, dragon, or crab; the river arises from parts of the snake's body; the river is a snake. | 45 | 82 |
| B42f | Ursa Major – hoofed animal. | The Big Dipper (as a whole or only the dipper) is identified with a large hoofed animal (elk, deer, mountain sheep). Unless otherwise specified, see motif B42 in the description of cosmic hunting. | 29 | 82 |
| B9 | Water in a tree. | A huge amount of water is contained in the trunk of a tree, or the tree turns into water. | 34 | 82 |
| D13i | Broken tooth. | The character amuses the audience in order to identify the deceiver and thief by his broken tooth. The latter laughs and gives himself away. | 17 | 82 |
| F40b | A man in a village of women. | A single man finds himself in a village of women. Usually, he is forced to satisfy a woman against his will, or each woman demands to have sex with him. | 50 | 82 |
| I72a | Stars – children of the moon, A764.1.3. | Stars – children of the moon and/or sun. | 41 | 82 |
| K106 | Thrown to the cows. | The hero (a miraculous infant, a magical rooster) is thrown at the feet of animals, but they do not trample him. | 45 | 82 |
| K27u | Hide, ATU 329. | Task: to hide (the hero finds the antagonist, and/or the antagonist cannot find the hero). See motif K27. | 49 | 82 |
| I6 | Birds that bring storms. | A person encounters a huge bird carrying clouds, rain, snow, thunderstorms, etc. | 38 | 83 |
| I79A | Kirtimukha/Sisiutl. | The creature has a head or bulge in the middle of its body and snake-like protrusions extending on both sides (from the head, cheeks, mouth) or across the head in profile symmetrically at both ends. In the art of the Nanai, Ulch, Orochi, Udegei, Nivkh, and Ainu peoples (less obviously, the Negidal and Uilto peoples), it is curvilinear. The Orochi, Udegei, and Nivkh peoples draw from a well, then thin out. The goat finds him asleep, the kids jump out, the goat puts a vmnament with central symmetry based on a similar image. | 19 | 83 |
| J32d | The Princess in the Tower, ATU 530. | The girl will be won by the one who, on horseback or by some other means, quickly reaches a hard-to-reach place (the top of a tower, a mountain, the upper floor of a palace, the top steps of a staircase, a bridge, the bottom of a chasm, jumps over a moat, etc.). Usually, the girl herself is located where the suitor must climb or (rarely) descend. In Italian versions, the hero wins tournaments. | 46 | 83 |
| A44 | The protector moon. | A character fleeing from pursuit, wronged or suffering on earth, asks the Moon to take him to her, or climbs up to the moon himself using a ladder or rope that has descended from there. | 42 | 83 |
| C18 | Luring the sun. | A character embodying or controlling the sun hides or is hidden. In order to restore or obtain light and warmth for the first time, the character's attention is attracted or distracted by songs, music, dances, unusual gifts, indecent or strange behaviour, offers of sex, food and/or alcohol. | 35 | 83 |
| I4 | Thunder rides across the sky. | When a vehicle moves across the sky, thunder rumbles. | 43 | 83 |
| L106 | Demand to return the harpoon. | A person takes an object belonging to another and loses it; the owner demands that the object be returned; the hero goes after it (to another world), usually finds it and brings back what was lost. See motifs K56a3 and L105. | 33 | 83 |
| L42b | The gullible children of the cannibal. | After capturing the hero, the antagonist brings him home and leaves him in the care of a family member. The latter believes the hero's words and follows his instructions. See motif L42. | 35 | 83 |
| M120 | The Cannibal Nanny, ATU 37, Th. K931. | A zoomorphic character takes on the responsibility of caring for other people's children (raising them, teaching them, healing them), but in reality has no intention of doing so, and usually eats the children. | 55 | 83 |
| M49a | A substituted shaman | hero needs to penetrate unnoticed into the locus of dangerous creatures; he meets an old woman (usually a shaman, a doctor) going there, puts on her skin, and penetrates into dangerous ones in her guise creatures. | 32 | 83 |
| L65a | The Cannibal Sister, ATU 315A. | A daughter is born, or people find a girl; she is a monster or turns into a monster and devours everyone. Her brother escapes (usually leaves, marries, returns), and she pursues him unsuccessfully. | 44 | 84 |
| M167 | The tiger mistaken for a bull, ATU 177. | In the dark, a person mistakes a tiger (lion, demon) for another person or a domestic animal (bull, ox). | 19 | 84 |
| M41 | Eye juggling, J2423 | The character throws his eyes (an inhaler has a tooth) up or into the distance. At first they return to the eye sockets, but then they disappear. | 35 | 84 |
| M51 | The meat is on the tree | One of the two characters gets meat. The weaker deceives the stronger one, hiding the meat in his absence to eat alone later. | 40 | 84 |
| K76a | The frog son and the frog husband. | A frog or toad marries a beautiful woman, or a handsome young man marries a frog. | 48 | 84 |
| M91b1 | Leather sold, (ATU 1535) | A man is going to sell a pet skin. On the way, he gets big money by deception or by chance. Usually, upon return, a person says that he received money for the skin, after which others slaughter their livestock and try unsuccessfully to sell the skins for money they are not worth. (In India, the hero sometimes supposedly sells not skin, but beef, which is forbidden to brahmanas). | 49 | 84 |
| M8a | Birds are hammering the rock: release from the trap | Animals, and more often birds, find it difficult to break through a rock from the outside or inside, make a hole in the tree, in the body of an absorber creature, tear fetters, etc., to help a character or get out of the confined space by yourself. The list includes groups whose texts deal with the exit of the first ancestors to earth from a confined space. | 35 | 85 |
| M185a | On the tail of the winner (all versions). | Birds, animals and fish compete to see which of them can run or swim fastest or climb highest. A weak character secretly clings to the winner and wins. There are 3 key versions: A. Birds argue about which of them will fly higher or arrive first. The winner is the one whose victory seemed unlikely, ATU 221A. See motif A23C.B. A fast and a slow animal (insect) agree to compete in speed or long jump. The slow one secretly clings to the fast one, ATU 275B. See motif M185.C. Two fish (fish and whale, dolphin, squid and dolphin, etc.) agree to race each other. The weaker one secretly clings to the tail (fin) of the stronger one and wins, ATU 250. See motif M186A. | 60 | 85 |
| B44a | Units of time. | Characters argue about the number of discrete units of time that determine the duration of a certain period of time (most often winter or night). See motif B44. | 56 | 85 |
| E13B | Knowledge from the sky. | Sacred knowledge, objects and rituals received from the celestials. | 37 | 85 |
| H55 | Sinners in the Other World, ATU 471, (ATU 470). | A person going to the other world sees people who are punished or rewarded for their actions in life. | 53 | 85 |
| I8f | Pillars of the world: one object. | The sky, the world rests on a single object (a pillar or tree). | 44 | 85 |
| K160a | The demon's answers to his wife's questions, ATU 461. | A woman living in the house of a supernatural character hides a man who has come to her and asks the character questions, the answers to which the man must find out. | 52 | 85 |
| K25e | The magical wife – ancestor of humans. | Humans in general or a specific ethnic, tribal or social group are considered descendants of an earthly man and woman of supernatural origin. | 42 | 85 |
| K33b | Friends abandon a beautiful woman. | A girl goes with her friends to the forest, to the river; everyone returns home, but she is forced to stay or return. She escapes from a dangerous creature, becomes the wife of a supernatural character, a leader, etc., or dies, but is avenged. | 30 | 85 |
| K77b | Bremen Town Musicians, ATU 130. | Having left their owners, domestic animals find an empty house or build a house. Robbers or predatory animals come there. Domestic animals attack or simply scare them away. Predators do not understand who they are facing and flee. | 55 | 85 |
| L22 | Deep sleep. | Having broken some taboo, seen an unusual object or a strange character, people fall into a deep sleep; at night, while asleep, they are killed or maimed. | 38 | 86 |
| M29w2 | The tiger is a loser and a loser | As a result of its stupidity or antisocial behavior, the tiger dies or suffers damage. See the motives in square brackets. | 52 | 86 |
| A45 | The insulted moon. | A man teases and insults the moon and is punished as a result. | 47 | 86 |
| B45A | Winter versus summer. | The alternation of seasons and/or differences between the climates of different localities are explained by the struggle between characters associated with warmth and those associated with cold. See motif B45. | 47 | 86 |
| F71 | Susanna and the Elders, ATU 883A. | After being rejected, the man falsely accuses the woman of promiscuity; others believe him and try to punish her severely. | 55 | 86 |
| I12 | World axis. | A tree, a pole with branches, rarely a smooth pole connects the tiers of the universe. The most distinct variants, according to which the tiers of the universe are strung on a tree, are marked in italics. | 37 | 86 |
| G20 | A woman turns into plants. | Edible (cultivated or wild) plants emerge from the body of an old woman, a young woman or a girl. | 40 | 87 |
| I120 | Cornucopia. | Food and clothing can be obtained from the horns of domestic animals (oxen, cows, goats). | 30 | 87 |
| K128 | Graze without loss. | A character orders the hero to graze animals (or birds) and promises to execute him (deprive him of his reward) if even one animal is lost. Cf. K128B (ATU 570). | 43 | 87 |
| L114 | The younger brother saves from the werewolf. | A group of young men or women arrives at the demon's lair. The younger brother or sister, or a character who is considered sick, unpleasant, unfit, and often goes with others against their will, saves them all. See motif L113. | 50 | 87 |
| L90 | Mouth to the sky. | One lip (one fang, horn, etc.) of the creature reaches the sky, while the other drags along the ground. | 45 | 88 |
| F27 | Girls and water spirits. | It is dangerous for girls or women to approach water (water creatures drag them away or swallow them; a girl who approaches water dies; she becomes pregnant by a snake; through her fault, a flood or other disaster occurs; water spirits themselves come to a girl who has her first period). | 32 | 88 |
| K65b | People and spirits. | Spirits (deities) or unpleasant animals (snakes, frogs, worms, etc.) are generated by the same first anthropomorphic pair or the same pair of first ancestors as humans (deities). | 39 | 88 |
| J62c | A sister asks her brother to obtain the impossible. | In order to destroy the young man, the antagonist arouses in his sister (rarely: in him himself) a desire to possess wonderful objects, the attempt to obtain which is deadly dangerous. The young man sets off to obtain the objects. | 45 | 89 |
| K132 | The Invincible Rooster, ATU 715, 715A. | A small character (usually a rooster) comes to a powerful enemy. Thanks to creatures and objects that he encounters along the way and hides in his body or bag, the character remains unharmed after all attempts to destroy him. Cf. motif L126. | 48 | 89 |
| K16 | The bird becomes a young man. | Taking the form of a bird, bat, insect, small animal, or fish, the man enters the young woman's home (her father's house). | 43 | 89 |
| K75a | Throwing an apple at a suitor, H316. | The character chooses one of many suitors (a woman chooses a husband, a boy chooses a father, a young man chooses a bride) by throwing an object (often an apple) at him. Cf. motif K113A (throwing an object at random, not at a person who is nearby). | 46 | 89 |
| L100b | The forgotten bride. | Having escaped from his pursuers, the young man parts with the girl, intending to return for her soon, but forgets her. When he is about to take another wife, the girl manages to restore his memory with the help of magic, and she marries him. Alternatively, the girl, who has briefly parted from her magical spouse, herself forgets him after an embrace or a kiss in her parents' house. | 43 | 89 |
| L125 | The Werewolf Wife, ATU 411. | After meeting a beautiful woman, a man finds her in a situation where her inhuman nature is revealed. After that, the marriage falls apart. | 37 | 89 |
| L19a | Creature with an even number of heads. | Creatures (any except ornithomorphs) with an even number (but not more than ten) of heads at one end of the body are described or depicted, except when such creatures are mentioned among others and the series ends with an odd number or a number greater than ten. | 46 | 89 |
| B14A | Tears turn into water. | Rivers, springs, the sea, floodwaters, and rain arise from tears (for rivers of tears in the world of the dead, see motif H16). | 47 | 89 |
| E36 | Hard covering of the body. | The human body was or could have been covered with a protective layer (bone, rarely wool), but it has only been preserved on the nails (head). | 43 | 89 |
| A32dd | Man with brushwood on the moon. | The lunar disc shows the figure or imprint of an anthropomorphic character carrying a bundle of wood or brushwood. | 23 | 91 |
| B109 | Man became a bear. | A man grows fur and becomes a bear (the origin of bears). | 37 | 91 |
| C34 | The Flood: the wounded creature. | The flood begins after people kill (harm, maim) some kind of creature (usually aquatic). | 45 | 91 |
| H41 | The dog betrays man. | Because of the dog, man is weak, mortal, and wicked. Usually, the antagonist bribes the dog with warm wool, and it betrays human figures to him for desecration. | 32 | 91 |
| K151 | The Golden Fish, ATU 555. | A magical helper grants a poor man's simple wish. The poor man or his wife ask for more and more. In the end, the helper punishes the beggar (usually by taking away everything that was given). {Many references to texts outside Europe in Uther 2004 are not related to the plot of ATU 555 and do not contain the K151 motif. This applies in particular to the Arabic and Ossetian variants}. | 55 | 91 |
| K27x5 | Helpers of different ages. | When setting out in search of a woman or miraculous objects, a person consistently encounters characters of a non-human (often demonic) nature who help him. The characters are similar, but usually each subsequent one is older (younger) than the other. | 49 | 91 |
| K73a8 | Miraculous children: brother and sister. | A woman gives birth to a miraculous boy and girl. They are replaced by animals or objects and thrown away, but they escape and triumph over their enemies. | 38 | 91 |
| L38 | The demon trap. | The demon sets a trap, and people fall into it. Cf. motif K64A. | 36 | 91 |
| L42g | Hansel and Gretel, ATU 327A. | The stepmother, and more often the father (usually at the insistence of his new wife), leaves the children in a deserted place or sends them into the forest. They end up in the house of a cannibal or cannibals, all (or at least one of them) survive and achieve success. | 56 | 91 |
| L98 | The man-eating owl. | The demon that carries off children and threatens heroes, people, etc., is the eagle owl; there is a race of owls that is hostile to humans. | 42 | 91 |
| M29b3 | The fox (jackal, coyote) is a loser and a loser | As a result of its stupidity or antisocial behavior, the fox (jackal) dies or suffers damage. See the motives in square brackets. If it is not specified that a “jackal”, then the protagonist is a fox. | 77 | 91 |
| M29z1 | Anthropomorphic trickster (miscellaneous). | purely anthropomorphic character, or a character who bears the name of an animal or plant but does not act zoomorphic in the course of his adventures. See the motives in square brackets. {Data not fully entered} | 62 | 91 |
| M29z4 | Anthropomorphic trickster (miscellaneous) | 63 | 91 | |
| M39a6d | Encrypted message | One of the relatives or spouses transfers a text or object to the other through third parties. Only the recipient understands the meaning of the words or the item handed over, saves the sender and/or destroys his enemies. | 38 | 91 |
| I108 | The Pleiades – a single character. | The Pleiades are a single character, not a group of people. | 56 | 92 |
| I87a | One creature is larger than another. | A character of gigantic size turns out to be small in comparison with a character of even greater size, or the same character turns out to be small in some episodes and gigantic in others. | 35 | 92 |
| K113 | Animal princess, ATU 402. | Young men (usually three brothers) find wives (usually by shooting arrows or other objects at random, see motif K113A). The wife of the youngest brother is initially ugly or appears in the form of an animal (often a frog or snake), but turns out to be a beauty and a sorceress. Alternatively, the girls choose their husbands, and the wife of the youngest brother is a sorceress. | 54 | 92 |
| K38f1 | Severed tongues. | After killing a monster or animal, the hero cuts off and hides a part of its body, usually the tongue. (In most cases, the deceiver takes credit for the feat, after which the hero presents the hidden item, thus exposing the deceiver). | 37 | 92 |
| J45 | The leg serves as a bridge, R246. | The character extends his leg (dafla: arm; upper tanana: tail) or neck as a bridge across a water barrier. Usually, those being pursued or walking ahead cross such a bridge to the other side, while the pursuer or those walking behind fall into the water because the character removes his bridge. See motif J44. | 49 | 93 |
| J52 | Children kill children in revenge for their parents. | A character (usually zoomorphic and female) treacherously kills another. The victim's children take revenge by killing the murderer's children. | 49 | 93 |
| L28 | Snake meat. | A person who eats unusual or forbidden meat or fish, or touches something forbidden, turns into a reptile or a fish. | 47 | 93 |
| L68 | Two in the night. | Left alone (usually at night in a deserted place) with his companion, a man undergoes a monstrous metamorphosis. | 41 | 93 |
| M131 | It's not a tail, it's a root, ATU 5, ThR5. | The character does not show that he has been caught by the tail or by the leg. The other thinks he has grabbed the root and lets go of the first one. (The variant is similar in meaning, although formally different. The American variants are most likely of African origin, but the turtle as a trickster is local, while in African variants the hare acts as the trickster). | 64 | 93 |
| G6a | Tree of the year. | The year is described as a tree, the number of branches, twigs, and leaves of which corresponds to the number of seasons, months, days, etc. (or the year is a column with a certain number of objects on it; a building with a certain number of rooms). | 33 | 93 |
| H1a | He who wished death upon another is himself in mourning. | The character decides that people should die. His or her child, mother, or some other being whose life is dear to him or her dies. Now the decision-maker agrees to make people immortal, but it is impossible to change the decision that has been made. | 33 | 93 |
| I141 | Magic wand. | The wand is an instrument for performing actions whose results cannot be explained rationally. | 49 | 93 |
| A1 | The ancient sun. | Another sun — less powerful or less favourable to humans — existed before the appearance of the current one. | 36 | 94 |
| B29 | Eschatological festival. | People turn into animals, birds or stones, living beings acquire their current characteristics at a general meeting, festival, after a festival, after performing a ritual or after defeating a common enemy. | 39 | 94 |
| C6j1 | The earth is brought by the antagonist of the deity. | An anthropomorphic deity sends someone to fetch earth from the bottom of his enemy. At first, the enemy or both characters sometimes have the appearance of birds. After the enemy brings the earth, a confrontation begins between the two characters, who now always have anthropomorphic appearances. | 34 | 94 |
| E8 | Wooden people. | The first humans or the wife of the first ancestor were made of wood. | 47 | 94 |
| K82 | The evil sister-in-law. | A man's wife or another woman tries to destroy his sister. | 51 | 94 |
| N27 | Bird's milk | Bird milk (variant: chicken, pigeon, hawkish, etc.) milk is mentioned in fairy tales, riddles, paroemias and conspiracies as something very rare and difficult to obtain or non-existent actually. | 37 | 94 |
| M106f | Guest from the Other World, ATU 1540. | A stranger tells a woman that he has come from the other world. The woman gives him money and belongings with a request to pass them on to her deceased son, husband, etc. Usually, the woman's (new) husband (or son), upon learning of the deception, rides after him, and as a result, the deceiver steals his horse. | 58 | 94 |
| M127a | The bird tricks the fox, ATU 223. | In response to a character's request to make him laugh or feed him, a bird sits on a person's or animal's head or on a fragile object. Another person tries to knock the bird down, kills or maims the person on whom the bird has landed, or breaks the object. Alternatively, the bird distracts the person's attention, and during this time the character eats the food that the person was carrying. | 45 | 95 |
| J27 | Cast out and at home, Z210.1. | A little boy (several babies) was abandoned, born to a mother who had already died, lives in a river, in a forest, etc. Another boy lives with his father or mother, but in the end the first one moves to live in the locus of the second. Often (see motif J25, "Infants hide and return"), the brother living in the river, in the forest, etc., first secretly meets with his "home" brother (with his brothers; with other children from his clan; with a puppy nursed by his mother). | 48 | 95 |
| K121 | The knight at the crossroads. | At the crossroads, it is indicated that one road is safe, another is neutral, and the third is deadly dangerous. There can only be two roads – dangerous and safe. The hero travels along the dangerous road. | 34 | 95 |
| A12c | Reptiles or fish eclipse the sun. | Eclipses of the sun, moon or their setting (marked*) are caused by a snake, lizard, dragon, fish or crocodile; these creatures attack the luminaries now or attacked them at the beginning of time. See motif A12. | 56 | 95 |
| A6 | The sun and moon – women. | The sun and moon are considered female characters (including cases – Tuscarora, Oneida, when the gender is not directly specified, but both arise from the body of a female character). | 45 | 95 |
| F16 | Men and women: exchange of characteristics. | Men possessed biological characteristics that are now characteristic of women, or vice versa (beards, menstruation, breasts, childbearing). | 44 | 95 |
| L114c | Exchanging clothes with the cannibal's daughters, ATU 327B. | Children or young men (usually brothers) exchange clothes (headgear, jewellery, blankets, sleeping places) with the children of a hostile character, who then kills his own children instead of them at night. Usually, the brothers end up with a cannibal, and the younger brother orders them to swap places (clothes, etc.) with his daughters for the night. Outside Europe, the protagonists are animals. | 73 | 96 |
| L65 | The scary baby. | An infant or small child turns out to be a demon and kills people. | 48 | 97 |
| G8 | Overgrown clearing, D1565.1+, E30.1. | People or animals cut or gnaw at a tree, mountain, or pillar of the sky. The damage disappears as soon as the workers are distracted from their task (usually when they take a break) or periodically (at certain times). | 82 | 97 |
| I82c | Wife of the Moon. | Venus or an unidentified star in the eastern and/or western sky – the wife of the Moon. See motif I82b. | 46 | 97 |
| K100a | Tobiah, (ATU 505). | Setting off on a journey, a young man releases a caught fish or animal, or he or his father does someone a favour. As a reward for their help, a person or creature in the guise of a stranger or animal comes to the young man, becomes his companion and protector. | 45 | 97 |
| K35 | The replaced man. | The deceiver pretends to be a hero in order to take his place (to possess his woman). (This motif includes all texts with motif K35a3). | 54 | 97 |
| K66c | Bear marriage. | A bear (lion) takes a woman away, or a she-bear takes a man away. They have children who are either human or bear-like in appearance. Less commonly, a woman gives birth to a son in a den because she was pregnant at the time of her abduction by the bear. | 60 | 97 |
| K32d | The replaced one grazes cattle. | As a result of the antagonist's intrigues, a noble girl (young woman) or boy (young man) is turned into a servant or servant, sent to graze cattle or chase birds in the field. Everything is revealed – usually after people hear a song in which the hero or heroine tells about the substitution. Most often, the hero or heroine goes to relatives or (less often) to the groom. The deceiver accompanies her or him and is accepted as a relative or bride. The deceiver is executed. Comoros: the deceiver becomes the mistress, turning the girl's parents into peacocks. | 35 | 98 |
| K4 | Nest destroyer. | The character climbs a tree or rock to get a bird, bird eggs, or chicks, climbs into a bird's nest, comes into conflict with another character, and/or cannot climb down. See motifs K1, K2A. Traditions in which the nest destroyer is a woman are highlighted in italics; bold italics indicate those in which the character falls into the trap not through the fault of another person, but by accident, or, having climbed up to destroy the nest, does not fall into the trap at all, although he quarrels with his companion; an asterisk* marks those in which the character remains in the trap (undergoes a metamorphosis). | 73 | 98 |
| K99 | The Untold Dream, ATU 725. | A person dreams about an upcoming celebration for himself or a member of his family (rarely: he daydreams about it). Either another person buys the dream and becomes the protagonist of the story, or the person who saw it hides its content from everyone, or he is persecuted for excessive conceit, as evidenced by the content of the dream. The meaning of the dream is revealed at the end of the story. Often, the young man ascends to the throne and marries the heiresses of two kingdoms (in the dream, these were two suns or the sun and the moon). | 60 | 98 |
| M171a | Mena: gets a girl, ATU 1655. | A character (often zoomorphic) gets a girl (boy) by successively exchanging smaller values for larger ones. | 63 | 98 |
| N15 | It flowed down the mustache, but did not get into the mouth | fairy-tale text ends with a formula that says that the narrator ate food and/or drinks, but they did not get into his mouth. | 17 | 98 |
| L13 | The raised monster. | People feed a dangerous creature, or it grows on its own in a man-made enclosure. Once it becomes big and strong, it starts to destroy people. | 49 | 99 |
| M134 | Tower of Wolves, ATU 121. | Animals, demons or people stand on top of each other to reach something. The one at the bottom jumps off (leans, jerks), and everyone falls after him. | 43 | 99 |
| B33c | Borrowed days. | The month on the border between winter and spring (usually March) takes (rarely: buys, steals) a few days from its neighbour. | 24 | 100 |
| B42n | Orion – one person. | The constellation Orion is identified with a man, usually a giant, warrior, or hunter. | 41 | 100 |
| F33 | Connection with a water creature. | A woman or group of women take a water animal or water monster as their lover. The husband(s), brother(s) or (adopted) children of the woman(s) kill or maim the lover and (in some cases) the woman(s). | 47 | 100 |
| G29 | Demon from artefacts. | The character consists of various artefacts of domestic and industrial use or transforms into them. | 40 | 100 |
| G2 | The Return of Persephone. | A character embodying fertility and life, who first disappears and then (periodically) returns. | 36 | 101 |
| I110b | Orion – reapers. | Orion – people or agricultural tools associated with harvesting or haymaking. | 26 | 101 |
| I117 | The spider carries from world to world. | A spider or spider woman lifts a hero or heroine up to the sky, helps them descend to earth, or otherwise helps them cross the path leading to another world. | 38 | 101 |
| M157a1 | Father gives birth. | The character proves the absurdity of another's statements by responding that his or her father (or another male or male animal) has given birth or is about to give birth, or that he or she is menstruating. | 44 | 101 |
| M29w3 | Leo is a loser and a loser | As a result of its stupidity or antisocial behavior, the lion dies or suffers damage. See the motives in square brackets. | 83 | 101 |
| I68 | Opening of the sky. | At a certain moment, a crack or window opens in the sky (rain pours through it, it is possible to see what is happening in heaven, perhaps communication with the celestials). | 49 | 101 |
| K22 | Cranes and pygmies, F535.5.1. | The inhabitants of a distant land, who differ from (ordinary) people, occasionally fight off enemies of a non-human nature who attack them. | 39 | 101 |
| K87 | Marriage to an animal ends badly. | A woman becomes the wife of an animal (rarely another non-human creature). The husband takes care of her, but the marriage ends with the murder of the husband, the woman, their offspring, the woman's relatives, the transformation of the woman herself into an animal, leading to hostility between humans and animals, etc. | 41 | 101 |
| I8g | Atlas, A842. | A single giant holds up the earth or the sky. | 48 | 102 |
| K107a | Wear out iron shoes, Q502.2. | Before reaching their goal, the character must wear out iron shoes or an iron staff. | 38 | 102 |
| K2 | The discarded ladder. | The hero climbs or descends a ladder, rope, pole, etc. The rope, etc. breaks or is cut. Usually, another character deliberately throws away the ladder, cuts the rope, or breaks off the lower branches of the tree, making return impossible. See motif K1A. {Statistical calculations for this motif also include all texts from motif K2A, except for Koreans}. | 73 | 102 |
| K8d | Jonah: swallowed by an anthropomorphic creature. | The character enters the body of an anthropomorphic creature, kills it from within (K952) and/or returns to the outside without outside help. | 48 | 102 |
| M74a | Strange newborn names, ATU 15 | The character pretends to be invited to visit several times in connection with the birth of a child, or gives names to various tracts that the boat passes by. The names and titles sound strange, but they become clear when it turns out that the character ate supplies. | 59 | 102 |
| C14 | Monsters destroy people. | During or on the eve of a global catastrophe (flood, darkness), animals or monsters attack people. (See motif C13A (rebellion of things: animated objects and/or domestic animals threaten people, attack them).) | 44 | 102 |
| H9 | Strong and fragile. | People are mortal (they get sick and grow old) because they are compared to something weak, fragile, easily subject to destruction or decay (upper Tanana: people have not died out because they are made of durable material rather than ephemeral material). | 49 | 102 |
| H6c | The immortal raven. | The raven (crow, vulture) is associated with death or contrasted with humans as immortal among mortals (sent to bring the elixir of immortality or water that revives the dead; drinks this water himself; teaches people funeral rites; etc.). | 54 | 103 |
| I20 | Underground dwarves, F451. | The inhabitants of the underworld or the land on the horizon where the sky meets the earth are dwarves. See motif I14A. | 51 | 103 |
| L15h | External soul: sequential investments. | The object in which the character's life is concentrated is enclosed in another, which is enclosed in a third, and so on (like an egg in a duck, a duck in a hare, a hare in a chest). Or the animal in which the character's soul is enclosed transforms into other animals as it flees. There are three or more enclosures or transformations. | 61 | 103 |
| L24 | Suffocating demons with smoke. | Demons (or one of them) attack people and then hide. People destroy the demons' lair and kill all or most of them by spreading a smoky fire around the demons' refuge. | 36 | 103 |
| M158 | Tops and roots, ATU 1030. | A human and an animal (devil) or two animals decide to cultivate a field and divide the harvest so that one gets the above-ground part and the other gets the underground part. One of the characters (always) loses out. | 70 | 103 |
| M116 | The undead father helps with advice, ATU 981. | People must kill their fathers (or mothers; Nyoro: deprive them of power and property; Baluchi: do not take them with you on a journey). One young man hides his father, and his wise advice helps to avoid trouble. | 53 | 104 |
| F70b | Revenge of the rejected. | A woman takes revenge on a man who rejected her love (but does not necessarily pretend that the man tried to force himself on her). | 55 | 104 |
| H46 | The dog's share. | A character (usually God) is about to deprive people of their food (most often grain), but does not do so for the sake of the dog (and/or cat; rarely for the sake of birds). Either God gave the ear of corn to the dog, and the man took it for himself. | 43 | 104 |
| J51 | A piece is missing, E33. | The character is dismembered or eaten; he is revived from his remains, but since one of his bones was broken, swallowed or carried away (or a drop of blood or a piece of flesh was lost), the revival fails, or the character remains defective in some way. | 51 | 104 |
| K27q | Milk of a wild animal. | Task: to obtain the milk of a wild animal or milk possessed by a dangerous creature. See motif K27. | 67 | 105 |
| L73 | Drink the river! G522 | Trying to drink a river, lake, or sea, the antagonist bursts. | 37 | 105 |
| N10 | Transparent body | A woman or (rarely) a man with a transparent body is described. This transparency is a sign of beauty. | 29 | 105 |
| I59a | Thief in the sky. | Astral objects or lunar spots are associated with stories about the theft of various items, the value of which is insignificant (straw, firewood, cabbage, etc.). | 37 | 106 |
| I8i | At first, the earth swayed. | Initially, the earth rocks, unstable, and must be specially secured. | 33 | 106 |
| K51 | The deceived wife. | The husband feigns death, disappears or leaves home for a long time. The wife learns that he has married another woman, finds and, as a rule, kills her husband and/or rival, who often turns out to be a creature of non-human nature. | 24 | 106 |
| K62 | War of animals, Th B260-B263. | Animals, birds, etc. fight or play with each other, divided into two hostile camps. The stakes are high, often life itself. {Data incomplete}. ATU 222. B261, war between birds and animals. ATU 222A. B261.1, the bat joins first one side, then the other. K2323.1, the raised tail of a fox serves as a signal. | 64 | 106 |
| D12 | Food was heated in the sun. | People in the past or inhabitants of distant lands cooked food in the sun; or the owner of the fire lies, saying that the food was cooked in this way. | 43 | 106 |
| D3 | The invention of fire. | The first fire was obtained by friction or striking; a certain character gives fire or shows how to obtain it, teaches how to cook food on fire; fire was obtained from lightning. {The section is incomplete, there is much more data. A specific plot of the invention of fire hardly exists. Variants involving abduction and invention are often intertwined in the same narrative}. | 54 | 106 |
| L34 | Burning hair. | The character kills or maims the enemy by setting fire to their clothes, mask, headdress, hair, or an object behind their back. | 30 | 106 |
| L7 | Mistakenly chases after an animal. | While chasing a person, spirit, monster or beast, mistakenly chases after a large two-legged object passing by, usually an animal. | 25 | 106 |
| L17b | Mouth on the back of the head. | A character or creature has a second face or a second mouth on the back of its head. | 48 | 107 |
| M152a | Bound together, ATU 78 | A strong predator (a giant cannibal) and a weak predator are tied together with a rope to feel more confident. The strong one flees and drags the weak one behind him. | 49 | 107 |
| M42 | Eyes taken out and lost, E781 | The character takes his eyes out of his orbits and loses them. He usually regains his eyes later, makes new ones, takes away from another character, etc. See the M41 motif. | 58 | 107 |
| M53 | Game dances around the hunter, K826 | The character invites others to gather around him, focusing on an activity (usually dancing with their eyes closed or lowered), and then kills the crowd (usually one at a time). | 42 | 107 |
| M75 | Taken from vultures | The character attracts and catches corpse eaters (usually birds) and as a result obtains valuables or returns something valuable (fire, woman, animals, etc.). | 53 | 107 |
| I83 | The sky of birds. | Birds (especially vultures and eagles) lived or live in the sky, usually on one of several tiers of the upper world. | 44 | 107 |
| J30 | Remains of parents. | Before the heroes defeat their antagonists or flee from them, they find or receive the remains or property of the victim. | 57 | 107 |
| K119a | The Ungrateful Master. | An animal saves a human, does him a favour, and he humiliates or kills it. See motifs K119, M161. | 58 | 107 |
| K33a | Brother Goat, ATU 450. | Young siblings (most often a brother and sister) leave home. One of them (rarely: several brothers) accidentally breaks a taboo and is transformed into an animal (usually a hoofed animal) or (rarely) a bird; later, the spell is usually broken. | 61 | 107 |
| A39a | Twelve months, ATU 294. | Each of the calendar segments (usually months) that make up the year is represented by a special object or creature. | 54 | 107 |
| B50 | Whose blood is sweeter? | A dangerous character wants to find out from a blood-sucking insect where it drank blood or whose blood (flesh) tastes better. Usually, the insect deliberately lies, or another character prevents it from telling the truth (by pulling out its tongue). As a result, the dangerous character chooses animals or plants as the object of its aggression, rather than people. (The motif is related to the story of Noah's flood (see motif C3); †: There are versions in which the motif is presented separately, as well as those in which it is included in the story of Noah's flood.) | 50 | 107 |
| E9h | The magical wife - the dove. | Before meeting the hero, his beloved (wife, helper) has the image of a dove. | 60 | 108 |
| H40 | The dog guards the man. | The dog guards and protects (successfully or unsuccessfully) a human figure that has not been completely finished by the creator, or the entrance to paradise. | 37 | 108 |
| I17 | Physical abnormalities of inhabitants of the other world. | Creatures without mouths, anuses, or genitals, unable to give birth, live underground, in the sky, across the sea, or in certain areas. (Traditions describing women unable to give birth are marked with an asterisk*). | 68 | 108 |
| K93 | Twins and a woman, ATU 303. | After a series of adventures and victories, the hero finds himself in trouble. His twin or brother follows in his footsteps, meets the same characters, but when he encounters the final enemy, he defeats him and revives (frees) the hero. | 66 | 108 |
| K96 | Fifty Sons, ATU 303A. | Several (more than three) brothers marry or must marry in such a way that their wives are sisters. | 59 | 108 |
| M199 | Squeezing water from a stone, ATU 1060. | A man and a giant (devil, predator, robber) agree to test their strength by crushing a stone. The man squeezes a piece of cheese, an egg, etc., and the giant believes that he is facing a strong man. {ATU 1060 includes variants in which the character squeezes brains (guts, etc.) out of the ground, without specifying this in the definition; where we were able to verify this, we did not include such traditions}. | 60 | 108 |
| M8 | A destroyed obstacle | Some characters (not humans) are struggling to break a strong barrier that prevents access to the desired location or to a high-value object. See also M8A - M8D motifs; they are included in the M8 motif in the correlation tables. | 41 | 108 |
| M91a | Imaginary murder (blood bubble) | The character pierces a container of animal blood or other red liquid, simulating murder or suicide. Cf. motifs K10C (wrapped in giblets) and M199H (Giant's ripped belly). | 62 | 108 |
| M112 | Animals at the well, ATU 55. | A zoomorphic character refuses to dig, clean or fill a source of drinking water and is forbidden to use the water. {List of African variants in Paulme 1977. In cases where the protagonist is a kite, hawk, buzzard, saker (and possibly also an eagle), it is most likely the same bird - Buteo buteo from the hawk family}. | 54 | 109 |
| M140 | The fox on the sled, ATU 1. | The character pretends to be dead, sick or infirm, is picked up, and eats the food that others are carrying – usually after first throwing it out of the cart, sleigh, sack, etc. | 66 | 109 |
| K19b | Star-man. | The star man takes an earthly woman as his wife. | 41 | 109 |
| I98a | The Pleiades – a hen with chicks. | The Pleiades (in Tajikistan – Giady) – hen, brooding hen with chicks, chicks, rarely – rooster. | 49 | 110 |
| A32a | Moon Rabbit, A751.2. | The figure or imprint of a rabbit or hare is visible on the lunar disc. | 43 | 110 |
| F49 | Caesarean section, T584. | Women had their stomachs cut open to remove the baby. Someone explains how to give birth or makes childbirth possible. | 56 | 110 |
| I11 | Cosmic turtle/toad. | The turtle (toad, frog) serves as a support (embodiment) of the earth (sky), or the supports of the sky are made from its body. | 40 | 110 |
| H54 | Veki Vija, F571.1. | In order for a character's eyes to be (wide) open, their eyelids (eyelashes, eyebrows) must be raised, propped up, spread apart (rarely: cut off). | 38 | 111 |
| L19b1 | Seven-headed monster. | Describes or depicts a monster (usually a reptile) with seven heads (except in cases where snakes with an increasing number of heads are described sequentially and "seven" is not the largest number). | 50 | 112 |
| L94b | Give back what you don't know at home! | A person promises to give to a supernatural character the first thing that comes their way (either something they have not yet seen in their own home, or something that is behind the door, etc.). The person thinks that they will have to give something of little value, but it turns out to be their own child. | 44 | 112 |
| A21 | Luminaries thrown into the sky, A700.I, A714, A741. | The sun and/or moon were objects that were thrown or placed into the sky. | 53 | 113 |
| A38 | The Sun in a Trap, A728. | The sun falls into a snare, a trap, and finds itself tied by a rope. | 49 | 113 |
| I121 | Paired constellations. | Constellations (usually Ursa Major and Ursa Minor) are considered as two similar, paired objects. (For Africa, Eurasia and Alaska – paired names; for most of America – semantic association, but the names are not paired). | 70 | 113 |
| N29 | Until the boiler boils | time required to perform an action or elapsed since the event described is estimated by comparing it with the time it takes for water to boil and/ or food has been prepared. | 30 | 114 |
| L109 | The man-eating pumpkin. | The pumpkin turns out to be a monster-devourer and/or grows from the remains of a monster. | 19 | 114 |
| M28 | Icarus(failed flight on artificial wings), K1041.1. | When able to take off, the character takes off but falls or stays in a remote place from where he can no longer take off. | 49 | 114 |
| M39a1 | Misunderstood instructions: one step behind, ATU 1696 | character misunderstands the first instruction, promises to do the right thing next time; literally follows a memorized rule that does not correspond to the new situation; so multiple times. | 68 | 114 |
| M5 | Provoked insult | Once in a situation where his life depends on the will of a demon or animal, the hero feels like insulting or hitting him. See M1 motif. | 17 | 114 |
| M114b | Come neither naked nor clothed (ATU 875). | When a character is asked to do and not do something at the same time, or not to do it in any of the possible ways (to come dressed and not naked, with a gift and without a gift, etc.), they figure out a solution. | 58 | 115 |
| M185 | On the tail of the fastest (animals), ATU 275B. | A fast-footed animal (a flightless bird) and a slow character agree to compete in running or jumping. The slow character secretly clings to the fast-footed one (or to a vehicle) and at the finish line pretends that he has run at the same time as him (jumped just as far) or before him. | 54 | 115 |
| M199c | Whoever throws the club higher, ATU 1063. | A person pretends to throw or is about to throw an object somewhere from which it cannot be retrieved (often into the sky, the clouds, or the sea). The opponent asks them not to do so and to stop the contest. | 37 | 115 |
| K19a | Star Wife, T111.2.1. | A man marries a star woman. | 35 | 115 |
| J13 | Two sisters. | Not one woman or girl, but two sisters (or more than two, but only two play an important role in the narrative) wander and meet an unwanted deceiver instead of a desired husband or fiancé, or encounter dangerous creatures. See motif J12. | 70 | 116 |
| K84 | Sisters married to animals, ATU 552.1. | A young man gives his sisters to the first ones who come to woo them (less often, unknown creatures kidnap the sisters one by one, demanding a ransom for them). These are animals or demons, which then usually help him. | 61 | 116 |
| M104 | Allegedly murdered relatives. | A character suggests that another kill their close relatives (children, brothers, mother), hides their own, and assures them that they have killed them. When the other actually kills their children, mother or brothers, it turns out that the first character's relatives are unharmed. See motif A41 (The Moon hides her star children to provoke the Sun into killing his children). | 61 | 116 |
| M118 | The source of values is senselessly destroyed, ATU 954. | The character obtains valuables or finds refuge inside an animal, tree, or building. Later, he himself, or more often someone else following his example, destroys the source of the valuables or makes access to it impossible or too dangerous. | 74 | 116 |
| A32h | Moon tree, A751.6. | A tree, bush, branch, snag, etc. are visible on the lunar disc. See motif A32G. | 52 | 116 |
| B3e | The earth fell into the waters. | At first, below the sky there is only air and water or (rarely) swamp, an indefinite abyss. A character descends from the sky, creates or has a support created for him, and the earth grows out of it; the earth is lowered, dropped from the sky; the earth is thrown, placed on the surface of the sea, and grows into land; the earth is brought from somewhere else (not from the underworld) and placed on the waters. (This is a more general motif compared to motif b79a1, "The bird dropped the firmament onto the waters"). | 52 | 118 |
| L57a | The hero's companion returns his organ. | The enemy takes possession of part of the character's body (remains). Another (usually resorting to trickery) returns what is missing, and the character comes back to life or recovers. | 70 | 118 |
| L6 | The clingy demon. | The creature demands that the person carry it constantly, not allowing itself to be thrown off. | 65 | 118 |
| I85 | The Polar Star – a stake or a nail. | Polar Star – stake, nail, hitching post, etc. | 44 | 118 |
| K30 | The flying enemy carries off the woman. | A flying creature carries a woman away. The kidnapper is killed and/or the woman escapes from him. See also motif L102A (Escape from a seagull husband). | 52 | 118 |
| K35a | The hero brands his rivals, ATU 530A. | In exchange for improving his current situation, the character agrees to have his body injured or branded. | 61 | 118 |
| K27f | To obtain a woman. | An authoritative character demands that the hero obtain a woman. | 75 | 119 |
| M153 | Inscription on a hoof, ATU 47B. | A hoofed animal asks a predator to examine its hoof under various pretexts, and then kills or maims it with a kick. | 70 | 119 |
| E5b | First ancestors from the underworld. | The first human (a group of brothers) or the first human couple emerge from underground (from a cave) or from a small object on the surface (a mound, a reed, a tree, a stone, a pumpkin). Cf. motif E5A: people from the underworld. | 49 | 119 |
| F63 | Man marries, K1321.1, ATU 1538*. | A male trickster transforms into a woman and gets married. In the end, he is exposed or runs away from his husband. | 64 | 119 |
| E1b | Man made of unsuitable material. | A character made of unsuitable material and turns out to be short-lived or poorly suited to performing his functions. | 59 | 120 |
| I13c | The snake's crown, ATU 672, B101.7. | Reptiles possess a treasure that humans take or try to take. Usually it is a crown, a precious stone, or horns on a snake's head. | 67 | 120 |
| I45b | Do not point at a rainbow, C843.1. | If you point your finger or stare intently at a rainbow, you will fall ill, or the finger you pointed with will rot or wither away. | 58 | 120 |
| K124 | It's not a miracle! | An animal killed by a hunter runs away. The animal itself or someone else explains that this is not a miracle (or that it is not a tragedy), but that the real miracle (tragedy) happened somewhere else. A story about what happened follows. | 8 | 120 |
| K33d | Donkey Skin, ATU 510B. | A man discovers that a beautiful girl is hiding under the guise of an ugly hag or under the skin of an animal. | 68 | 120 |
| K26 | The earth seen from the sky. | Approaching an opening or making one, the character sees the world below (usually seeing the earth from the sky). See motif K25. | 61 | 121 |
| K38f4 | Fire-breathing monster, B11.2.11, B19.1, B742.3, B742.4. | Flames burst from the mouth and/or nostrils of a monstrous character hostile to the hero; his breath is fire. | 48 | 121 |
| D5 | Woman controls fire. | The original owner or inventor (but not the embodiment) of fire is a female character. | 51 | 121 |
| K93b2 | Conception from an eaten fruit. | A childless woman conceives a child after eating a fruit (usually an apple; in northern traditions also cabbage, eggs, peas, etc., in India – mangoes). | 63 | 121 |
| L40 | Reflection and shadow, R351. | The character discovers (rarely: cannot discover) another person on a tree or rock, noticing their reflection or shadow. See motif L39. | 75 | 121 |
| M57a2 | The male character exudes values | Instead of common body discharges a a man urinates, spits, etc. beads, flowers, gold and other valuables; valuables are produced by the very presence of particular male person. See motif m57a | 64 | 121 |
| M46 | An imaginary baby | Some creatures steal or own valuables. To return (get) them, the character turns into a small object, from contact with which a woman becomes pregnant, or into a baby. A picked up or born baby takes on its true appearance and steals valuables (including making the girl who picked it up pregnant, if that was his goal). | 45 | 122 |
| C16 | Products of labour become animals, E161, E168. | Contrary to human desire, processed skins, tools, and (meat) food (again) turn into (those) animals (from whose body parts they were made). Cf. motif M84. | 40 | 122 |
| K130a | The Girl in the Brothers' House, (ATU 709A). | Several young men (brothers) live far away from other people. A girl comes to them, or she is miraculously born in their house, and they treat her like a sister. After some time, the girl finds herself in danger, but is ultimately saved. | 64 | 122 |
| K41 | Thunder against the snake. | A character representing a thunderstorm or a giant bird fights a snake or other large creature living in water or underground. | 57 | 122 |
| K64a | The Blinded Cyclops, ATU 1137, K521.1, K603. | A man blinds a sleeping or immobile giant-cannibal and escapes from him. | 59 | 122 |
| I8A | Pillars of the world: anthropomorphic characters. | The world, earth or sky are supported by anthropomorphic beings. | 56 | 123 |
| J25 | Infants hide and return. | Heroes (one, two or one of two), while still infants or embryos, disappear or are thrown away (often into water). To bring them back to the world of humans, they are lured, persuaded or (with difficulty) caught. | 64 | 123 |
| J32f | Stolen apples. | While standing guard, the hero discovers who is stealing fruit (usually apples) from the garden. | 48 | 123 |
| K60b | Invitation to the Coffin, ATU 330B, G514.1. | The character is invited to find out whether the box or pit is the right size for him, whether he can crawl through the opening, climb into the bag, etc., after which he is locked in a coffin, box, barrel, buried, etc. Cf. motif M56D. | 61 | 123 |
| A36 | The moon and immortality. | The moon (month) is contrasted with humans as immortal to mortals; it decides whether humans will be mortal; those who live on the moon are immortal. (Cf. Latvians, Dolgans). | 53 | 123 |
| H45 | The Stained Flatbread, ATU 779G. | A woman or child treats food disrespectfully by smearing it with excrement. For this, people (rarely: only the culprit) are punished. | 61 | 123 |
| M154 | The language of animals and the stubborn wife, ATU 670. | A man who has learned the language of animals laughs when he hears them talking. His wife or mother-in-law (rarely someone else) demands that he explain what is going on. The man is ready to comply with his wife's demand, even though he knows he will die if he reveals the secret. Usually, he hears the domestic animals condemning their master's stupidity and decides not to say anything. | 81 | 123 |
| M50 | Next to the stars | The character tries to join a group of stars (usually the Pleiades) or catch up with characters who run away from him and turn into stars; the goal of the persecution is sexual contact or the desire to be reunited with family. | 32 | 123 |
| M1 | Dangerous crossing. | The character crosses a body of water on the back of a monster or animal that agrees to be a carrier but may or intends to drown or eat its passenger. | 42 | 124 |
| M151A | Supports a rock, ATU 1530, J2273.1. | The character pretends to hold a rock, tree, etc., which is supposedly about to fall. See Dixon 1916: 189. (It is possible that in America the motif is of late African origin). | 39 | 124 |
| I50 | Many-legged beast (hoofed animal), B15.6.3. | Describes or depicts a hoofed animal with six or more legs. | 53 | 124 |
| K129 | Enchanted and brought to life, ATU 709, 709A. | (Due to the intrigues of an antagonist) a girl falls into a deep swoon, but is not dead. A male character of high status (either the girl's spouse or blood relative) revives her. {In sub-Saharan Africa, except for Swahili, borrowing from Europeans is more likely than from Arabs}. | 64 | 125 |
| K33g | Two kinds of fruit, ATU 566. | The person who eats the fruit (leaf, etc.) grows horns (long nose, etc.) or turns into an animal, while the other fruit (leaf, etc.) returns to its normal appearance. | 63 | 125 |
| H27 | Released mosquitoes. | Before spreading throughout the world, stinging or blood-sucking insects or reptiles, diseases or evil spirits were kept in a vessel, bag or other small container. See motif H24. | 67 | 125 |
| H51 | The Devil's Horse. | The horse is a predator or is associated with God's enemy. | 36 | 125 |
| D1 | Woman-fire. | A woman (usually elderly) is the embodiment of fire – alone or together with her husband, the master of fire. Cf. motif D5 (woman possesses fire). | 52 | 126 |
| D1b | Man-fire. | The man is the master or embodiment of fire (alone or alongside the woman-fire). | 58 | 126 |
| F64 | Incestuous parent, T411.1.1. | The character is presented as another person in order to mate with a close relative in the descending or (less commonly) ascending line. | 57 | 126 |
| M182 | Smolyan doll, ATU 175, Th K741. | A character threatens to hit another character and, as a result, gets stuck with all his limbs. Usually, it is a doll covered with something sticky, which the character mistakes for a living creature. | 59 | 126 |
| M157a2 | The bull and the cart give birth, ATU 875E. | The character claims that the calf (kid, etc.) was not born (brought) by a cow (goat, etc.) belonging to another owner, but by his own animal of a different species or male sex, or by an inanimate object (usually a cart). | 65 | 127 |
| B33a | Frozen in spring. | Deciding that it has become (or will soon become) warm, the character believes that winter is over (most often an old woman goes to graze cattle), but dies from the cold or the cattle driven out to pasture perish. Cf. motif I84A ("The frozen son of God"). | 30 | 127 |
| B36 | Living beings acquire their appearance. | Birds, fish, and four-legged animals deliberately or accidentally smear themselves with colouring substances or divide parts of another's body among themselves, thereby acquiring their current appearance. | 57 | 127 |
| C6c4 | Duck – a successful diver. | A duck or similar waterfowl dives and brings back a piece of earth, which turns into land (it is the only or the only successful diver). | 37 | 128 |
| H20 | Released fish. | All the fish or (rarely) molluscs were concentrated in one place. A certain character allows them to escape or deliberately releases them into rivers or the sea. {In some cases, the theme of the spread of fish concentrated in a small container is difficult to separate from the theme of the spread of water. In any case, neither of these exist in Africa}. | 43 | 128 |
| M39 | Misunderstood instructions | After receiving instructions, the character understands (or pretends to understand) them incorrectly or too literally, committing absurdly ridiculous or violent acts. | 71 | 128 |
| K80a2 | The pipe tells of a crime, ATU 780. | A part of the victim's body or a plant that grew at the site of the murder tells people about the crime that was committed, usually after it has been made into a musical instrument. | 41 | 128 |
| K81 | Bezruchka, ATU 706. | For a minor offence or on false charges, a young woman is maimed and expelled from her home (rarely: she is killed or maims herself). The cripple miraculously recovers (the dead woman is resurrected). | 79 | 128 |
| I8B | Pillars of the world: zoomorphic creatures. | The earth or sky is supported by zoomorphic creatures. | 66 | 129 |
| K79 | The snake shows how to recover. | Finding himself in a helpless situation, a man sees how a small animal finds a cure for itself or another animal. The man uses the same cure, saves himself or saves another. | 60 | 129 |
| A2 | Several suns. | There was a time when several, i.e. more than two, suns shone in the sky at the same time. | 48 | 129 |
| I8e1 | Four pillars of the world. | The sky or earth is supported by four objects or beings located at the four cardinal points (either four groups of beings, or four at the corners and a fifth in the centre). Th A841. See motifs 8A, 8D. | 79 | 130 |
| J21 | Birth from eggs. | Gods, ancestors of humans, and founders of dynasties are born from eggs. | 46 | 130 |
| L118 | Hand caught in a log, H1532, ATU 38. | One character provokes another to stick a part of their body into a split log (between two boards, etc.) and knocks out the wedge. | 62 | 130 |
| M124 | Ox Tail, ATU 1004. | The character buries the tail (head, ears) of a domestic animal, claiming that it has fallen into the ground. Usually, he asks others to pull on the tail (head), and when it "breaks off," he accuses others of stealing the animal. | 76 | 131 |
| B28 | The travelling transformer. | Travelling from one locality to another, the character successively transforms people into birds and animals, into stones, sanctuaries (or transforms monstrous animals into ordinary ones), establishes cultural norms, determines the biological characteristics of creatures, the appearance of the locality, etc. | 69 | 131 |
| I37 | Mushrooms. | Mushrooms are mentioned in a mythological context. | 30 | 131 |
| B116 | The eaten book. | The first book (writing, important document) is eaten by an animal or a person. (In some European traditions, the eating of the book is not described, but is implied from the context). Cf. ATU 200. Cf. Thompson 1955-1958. †A2219.2. Cow swallows book; cause of maniplies in stomach. | 45 | 132 |
| M11c | Removes fat from the body. | Without harming himself, a male character cuts off, pierces, roasts, holds over a fire, etc. a part of his body (or his wife's body). The character cooks the meat, fat, etc. obtained in this way and treats his guest to it. This food is not perceived as unclean (cf. motifs M11B and M38). | 64 | 132 |
| K67b | Agreement not to be angry, ATU 1000. | A character of low social status (without supernatural abilities) takes a job with a character of high social status (with supernatural abilities) on the condition that the employer will not get angry with the employee. By repeatedly annoying the employer, the employee causes him to become angry and, as a result, be severely punished or pay a large sum of money. | 78 | 132 |
| I84 | The Milky Way – a ski trail. | The Milky Way – ski tracks. | 31 | 133 |
| F51 | Secret lover, H58. | Someone under cover of night/incognito approaches a person of the opposite sex. The marriage partner deliberately (to determine who it is) or accidentally (thereby exposing the visitor) makes a mark on his/her body (clothing). See motif A31. | 79 | 133 |
| I7 | Cloud serpent. | The reptile produces rain and thunderstorms. | 57 | 134 |
| K39 | Feeding the Simurgh bird, B322.1. | The character must feed a powerful creature by regularly throwing it pieces of meat. When the prepared meat runs out, he cuts off the last piece from his own flesh. See motif K38 (the bird carries the hero where he needs to go; on the way, he throws pieces of prepared meat into its beak; when the supplies run out, he gives the bird a piece of his own flesh). | 73 | 135 |
| M84 | Revived from bones, E32, E33 | A person, animal, fish, or (rarely) a large fruit is killed and eaten. After a meal, what is eaten revives, usually after the bones (seeds) are put together. Cf. motive C16. | 59 | 135 |
| K94 | The bird of happiness (eaten head), ATU 567, 567A. | Those who eat a miraculous bird, fish, animal or fruit gain wealth and power. | 89 | 136 |
| L96 | The changed appearance is sold and returns (ATU 325). | The character has the ability to transform into animals or objects. Sold in this form, he achieves his goal and becomes human again. | 65 | 136 |
| M83 | Who's older? ATU 80A* | Each character claims that he is older and appeared before this world or (Ingush) that his father was cosmic in size. | 49 | 136 |
| I46 | Rainbow belt. | Rainbow – an ornamented part of clothing, bright fabric, decoration, belt. | 62 | 136 |
| I56 | Spirits cannot see the living. | Moving between worlds, the same living person is visible to some and invisible to others. | 42 | 136 |
| H34a | The dispute over the fate of people. | The character believes that people should live easily (without labour and suffering) and makes appropriate suggestions. The interlocutor rejects them. This dialogue forever determines the conditions of people's lives. Those traditions in which the dialogue is conducted by two anthropomorphic brothers or companions are highlighted in bold in the list. | 59 | 136 |
| D9 | Vultures and fire. | The raven or other large dark-coloured bird of prey is the owner, embodiment, spouse, provider or thief of fire, the sun or daylight. | 49 | 137 |
| K100g | Sacrifice a son, (ATU 516C). | In order to revive or heal a friend (to heal oneself, to fulfil a vow), the character agrees to sacrifice his son (children). The slain person usually comes back to life, or the person's willingness to make the sacrifice is sufficient to satisfy supernatural forces. | 52 | 137 |
| K64 | Escape from the cave of the herd owner, ATU 1137, K521.1, K603. | Finding himself in the dwelling of the master of the herds or the owner of wild animals, the character fears that the master will kill him. To escape to freedom, he clings to the underside of one of the animals leaving the pen or cave. | 62 | 137 |
| I99 | The Pleiades – boys or men. | The Pleiades – a group of boys, young men, men or people of different genders, but predominantly male. | 68 | 138 |
| A37 | The sun is subjected to armed attack. | The character deliberately and by resorting to special means (usually shooting with a bow) strikes the sun or several suns or attempts to do so. | 51 | 138 |
| F35 | Feeding meat from a lover. | A character offers another person the meat of his sexual partner, and the other person, unaware, eats or cooks it. | 68 | 139 |
| F9f1 | Snake inside a woman. | Inside the woman there is a snake (snakes, scorpions, just poison) that comes out of her mouth. {Motifs F9f1 and K100C are almost identical, but the first can be included in the cosmological-etiological category and is associated with the idea of a dangerous woman, while the second belongs to the adventure category}. | 31 | 139 |
| K1f | Conflict over a woman. | One man traps another, driven by jealousy or the desire to possess his rival's wife. See motifs K1A, K1E, K2A. | 115 | 139 |
| K77a | Verlioka, ATU 210. | Various objects and animals (rarely: only animals, but including those that are safe in reality) defeat a strong enemy (usually joining the hero who is going to take revenge on the strong enemy for an insult and hiding in the house where the enemy is supposed to appear), attacking him in turn; he dies or flees. Either someone or the attacked character himself places objects in his dwelling that then harm that character. | 75 | 139 |
| I51a | Four-legged animals – the pillars of the earth. | The earth is supported by or has a large mammal at its centre. See motif I8B. | 60 | 140 |
| A14 | Eclipses: the relationship between the sun and the moon, A737.7. | The meeting of the sun and the moon is the cause of eclipses or lunar phases. | 63 | 140 |
| L39 | The hero is forced to climb down from the tree. | By force or deception, the character forces another to climb down from the tree in order to harm him. | 66 | 140 |
| M198b | The Imaginary Diviner, ATU 1641. | A man who is unable to find lost items and expose thieves successfully does so thanks to a fortunate coincidence. | 72 | 140 |
| M81 | Blind people | Wandering, the hero finds himself in a place where blind or blind (two or more) live. | 80 | 141 |
| I65 | Souls of the dead on the Milky Way. | The Milky Way is a path to another world, followed by the souls of the dead and/or shamans, or it is the path of a funeral procession. | 74 | 141 |
| L4 | The Unmasked Murderer, ATU 311, 312. | The character consistently (almost) kills girls (rarely: his nephews or his wife's younger brothers) whom he brings to his home (usually a male character kills wives). The heroine or hero (the youngest of all) avoids the common fate, usually after discovering the captives or their remains. | 83 | 143 |
| B86 | The Tower of Babel. | To reach the sky (the moon, stars, sun), people build a ladder or tower consisting of separate modules (logs, poles, bricks, etc.), but the structure collapses. | 57 | 143 |
| D4a | Theft of fire, A1415. | Fire is stolen from its original owner, returned to people by the thief, or (the motif of theft is not expressed) brought with difficulty from a distant place. | 59 | 144 |
| F38 | Women and secret knowledge. | Women were the keepers of secret knowledge, shrines, or ritual objects that are now forbidden to them; they attempted to regain this knowledge or these objects. | 52 | 145 |
| J15 | The road to the home of dangerous creatures. | Having set out in search of their husband, relatives, etc., a woman, girl or children accidentally take the wrong road and encounter creatures that kill or harm them. | 64 | 145 |
| K80 | The indestructible woman. | The character transforms into objects or creatures, which another character systematically destroys. However, the character (usually a young woman) is reborn each time in a new form and eventually in her original form. | 73 | 145 |
| B116c | The Lost Book. | In the past, the people possessed writing and knowledge, but these were lost, or the people missed the opportunity to acquire them. | 40 | 146 |
| H12c | Orpheus: bringing back his dead wife. | The husband follows his dead wife into the afterlife, but cannot bring her back, or brings her back but loses her again. | 51 | 146 |
| L100 | The Unrecognised Fugitive, D671. | A young man and woman fleeing from their pursuers take on the appearance of different but associatively related creatures or objects (a pond and a duck, a minaret and a muezzin, etc.). Usually, their pursuers do not recognise them. | 65 | 149 |
| M78 | Tiny boy, ATU 700 | A tiny little man performs a series of tricks, mocks people he meets and opponents. | 85 | 149 |
| M39a5a | Pancakes on trees, ATU 1381, 1381B | Realizing that a stupid son, wife or (rarely) husband, after telling the truth, will cause trouble for the family, the mother or husband (wife) adjusts that the son, wife or husband describes events that They obviously couldn't have happened. They're mistaken for crazy, the message is ignored. | 67 | 150 |
| A24 | First sunrise. | The first ancestors live in twilight. When they first find themselves in the rays of the sun, they (spontaneously or by someone's will) perish, turning into animals, spirits, or stones. | 34 | 150 |
| K120 | Prevented incest (daughter and father), (ATU 510B, 510B*), 706C. | The girl's father (rarely: stepfather) intends to marry her (since she is the only one who meets the requirements for a bride). Usually, the girl manages to avoid the marriage. | 54 | 150 |
| K27x3 | The king and the hero's wife, ATU 465. | The ruler seeks to take possession of the wife or bride of a man of lower social status and, in order to get rid of him, gives him impossible tasks or secretly kills him. {Both ATU and some regional indexes (e.g., Cardigos 2006: 110) list texts that do not meet the definition of plot 465: the king's desire to take possession of the hero's wife is not explicitly stated as the reason why the king seeks to get rid of the hero}. | 73 | 150 |
| K38e | Copper, silver, gold. | Locations or objects made of three (rarely four) materials of varying degrees of value, but all valued positively (copper, silver, gold; silver, gold, diamonds, etc.) are mentioned. | 55 | 150 |
| I58 | The Milky Way – the path of birds. | The Milky Way is called the bird path and is associated with migratory birds. | 26 | 152 |
| I52 | Fish – the support of the earth. | The world rests on a fish or fish-like creature, or the earth itself is such a creature or originated from a fish. See motif I8B. | 68 | 153 |
| K131 | Three Wonderful Objects, ATU 518. | Certain characters argue over the possession of magical objects, but the objects go to the hero. Usually, he suggests that the disputants race each other or asks them to let him try out the objects, after which he hides, taking the objects with him. | 69 | 153 |
| K27nn | The Envious Vizier. | Someone from the entourage of a powerful figure seeks to destroy the hero and persuades others to give him difficult tasks. | 69 | 153 |
| A12a | A predatory beast eclipses the luminaries. | During an eclipse or under other circumstances, predators attack the luminaries: wolves, bears, jaguars, pumas, dogs, foxes, raccoons. See motif A12. | 67 | 153 |
| B125 | Animals exchange characteristics. | The absence or presence of certain organs in animals (less often in plants) and the peculiarities of these organs are caused by the fact that during the era of creation, one species exchanged with another or, having borrowed a foreign organ, refused to return it. In some cases, a reverse exchange and return to the original state is described, as well as the transfer of part of one's body to another animal without compensation. Instead of one of the animals, there may be a human or a deity. | 76 | 153 |
| G24 | Food from the sky. | The first seeds (shoots, tubers) of cultivated or important wild food plants and/or agronomic knowledge were brought from the sky (received from the gods). | 61 | 153 |
| L18 | Multi-headed bird. | A bird with two or more heads in descriptions or images. | 50 | 153 |
| L1a | The woman became a bear. | A young woman turns into a bear (in Asia, a tigress) and attacks her close relatives or husband. | 79 | 153 |
| K18 | Recognition of father or mother, H481, ATU 675. | A boy is born whose father (rarely mother) is unknown. He chooses his true father (mother), who usually occupies the lowest social position. Usually, a group of men or women gather together, each of whom wants the boy to choose him or her. | 82 | 154 |
| I110 | Heavenly farmers. | Constellations are associated with agricultural tools or with people engaged in agricultural work (most often ploughing and haymaking). See motifs I110A (plough), I110B (haymaking). | 43 | 155 |
| B42q | Ursa Major – cart. | Ursa Major – chariot, cart. | 49 | 156 |
| L103 | Magical flight: Atalanta, R231. | The fugitive throws or creates objects behind him, which the pursuer, wasting time, collects, eats or destroys, even though they do not hinder his progress. | 84 | 156 |
| I39 | Rainbow bridge, F152. | The rainbow is a bridge, a road, a staircase. | 46 | 158 |
| E9i1 | The magical wife – the swan. | Before meeting the hero, his beloved (wife, helper) takes the form of a swan. | 58 | 159 |
| M152 | Why only one wolf? ATU 1149. | Seeing a predator (a giant, etc.) approaching, the weak character pretends to thank the one who is leading the predator for his promise to bring prey, or his wife and children (rarely: he himself) begin to talk aloud about how they are going to eat the predator or how they have eaten his companions before. | 75 | 159 |
| M85 | Fox is bluffing, ATU 56A | character unable to climb a tree threatens to knock it down or climb a trunk if a bird or squirrel does not drop a cub or egg. The third character explains that the threat is untenable. | 67 | 159 |
| I25 | Bribed guards, B325.1, B567.1. | The path to the house or the entrance to the character's house is guarded by dangerous creatures. The hero appeases them with gifts or words, they let him pass back and forth, sometimes punished for this by the owner. | 71 | 160 |
| K100 | The Faithful Servant, ATU 516. | A person learns about the dangers threatening another (and usually that by warning his friend/master, he will turn to stone). The person eliminates the dangers, despite the fact that his behaviour upsets the person he has saved. | 63 | 160 |
| J44 | The collapsed bridge. | The hero lures the enemy onto a rickety bridge. The enemy falls into the water, into the abyss (see motif J46). See motif J52. | 76 | 161 |
| K83 | Sick Father, ATU 550, 551. | To heal, rejuvenate or save one's father, father-in-law or sister, one must bring medicine (bring a doctor) from a distant country. The medicine is brought and the sick person recovers. | 90 | 161 |
| K38d | The serpent covers the water. | A powerful and dangerous character prevents others from using water (or causes floods), but in most cases allows them to take water (promises not to cause floods) in exchange for people or valuables {italicised in the list of traditions}. | 65 | 162 |
| B52 | Before the flood, there were no mountains. | The floodwaters formed a rugged landscape. | 77 | 163 |
| M106 | Significant name, ATU 1135, 1137, 1138, 1541. | The character calls himself by a fictitious name, which others understand not as a proper name, but as a common noun with a specific meaning. | 89 | 163 |
| M29k | The turtle (toad, frog) is a cunning winner | A turtle (toad, frog) defeats strong opponents by cunning or perseverance. See the motives in square brackets. The character is named if it is a toad or frog; otherwise, a turtle. | 121 | 163 |
| M49 | A hero in someone else's skin | The hero meets a character from the enemy camp and, taking on his form, penetrates enemies. Usually, the hero kills the person he meets and puts on his skin. | 68 | 164 |
| K27s | Running, racing. | Competition: running, racing. See motif K27. | 88 | 164 |
| K33h | Cat, dog and magical object, ATU 560. | A person finds a magical object that grants any wish. This object is stolen. It is returned by animals (which the hero had previously saved). | 99 | 164 |
| H34 | In the past, there was no need to work. | Work did not require effort. Some people do not believe that this is possible, or do not consider it to be right, or do not fulfil the necessary conditions, which is why people have to work. See motifs H34A – H34H; H34 contains only texts that are not classified in more detail. | 69 | 164 |
| G23a | Plants from body parts. | Parts of the body and organs of living beings are transformed into various plants (teeth into corn, testicles into yams, etc.). | 55 | 165 |
| K93b1 | Conception from eaten fish. | After eating fish, a childless woman gives birth to a boy or twins. | 37 | 165 |
| K103 | The cow as helper, ATU 511. | A domestic animal (horse, cow, bull, goat, ram, sheep) helps an orphan, a lonely child, or an unfortunate young woman. | 94 | 165 |
| K27hh | Sorting grain, Th H1091. | The character is tasked with quickly separating small particles of different types (usually seeds of different plant species) mixed together in a single vessel, or counting the number of grains, or gathering scattered or already sown grain. | 92 | 165 |
| F2 | Birth from the leg T541; V52. | The child is born from a tumour on the character's body, either placed there temporarily or emerging from blood that has flowed from a cut. | 82 | 166 |
| G5 | Tree of abundance. | The fruits and shoots of various cultivated plants or the fruits of various wild plants grow on the branches of a single tree or on a single vine; the cultivated plant has a tree-like form that is not characteristic of it in nature. | 46 | 166 |
| B37 | Living beings are given their appearance. | The character decorates various birds (less often fish) and distributes fat to animals. Since then, the corresponding species have possessed their current characteristics. | 90 | 167 |
| I40 | Rainbow bow. | The rainbow is a bow. | 56 | 167 |
| J58 | Chain of arrows, F53. | Characters shoot arrows (darts) that stick into each other and form a chain. They usually climb up the chain to the upper world. | 53 | 167 |
| J62 | Petrified people. | The character turns those who come to him into inanimate objects (usually stones). (In variants of the ATU 303 plot, the motif is often absent; original texts are needed). | 80 | 167 |
| K14 | Dear advice, ATU 677, 910A, 910B. | A person receives or buys simple advice, the meaning of which is initially unclear (travel with a companion, do not skip breakfast, etc.) and either follows it, achieving success, or violates it, getting into trouble. | 96 | 167 |
| K27e | Eat or drink a lot, ATU 1088). | The character is offered to eat or drink an unusually large amount or poison. | 100 | 167 |
| J23 | Late children defeat the monster, ATU 312D. | People in general or older brothers (siblings, older sister) disappear one after another. A woman raises a boy or twins from infancy. Sometimes, left alone, she miraculously conceives a son or finds a baby. He defeats the antagonists, usually reviving or freeing the missing ones. | 89 | 168 |
| K100b | The Grateful Dead Man, ATU 505. | A person helps to bury a dead man (pays his remaining debt, honours a saint). The revived dead man (saint) helps him overcome difficulties. See motif K100A. | 47 | 169 |
| I28 | Animals underground, F127. | Wild or domestic animals live inside a mountain, in a cave or in the underground world, or once came out of there into our world; often animals take on human form underground and have an owner. See motif H18. | 25 | 169 |
| I14 | Creatures without an anus, F529.2. | Creatures without an anal opening are described. | 76 | 170 |
| M29g1 | Trickster - Hare, Rabbit (main trickster) | In episodes involving deception, ridiculous, obscene, or antisocial behavior, the hare or rabbit is the main trickster. Traditions in which 1) a hare or rabbit occurs only once as a trickster, and another trickster (usually a fox/jackal/coyote) is typical; 2) Mesoamerican traditions in which a small rabbit is associated with a small a set of episodes and a high probability of recent African influences. See the motives in square brackets. | 90 | 171 |
| M171 | Mena: from a pea to a horse, ATU 170, 1655, 2034F. | The character stops at a house and in the morning claims that the worthless object or animal he brought has disappeared; either he or other characters use or spoil what the deceiver gives them. Each time, the character receives something more valuable in return and, repeating his trick several times, obtains a truly valuable object, an expensive animal, or a person. (All texts of motifs M171A and M171C are also included in motif M171). | 99 | 172 |
| M183 | Running race: one against many, ATU 275C, 1074. | Numerous relatives of the character, who all look the same, work together to accomplish a task that is impossible for one person to do alone, while their competitors believe that the task was accomplished by only one person. Usually, the fast and slow characters agree to race (jump over an obstacle). The slow one places others who look like him at the finish line or along the entire distance, and they respond to the fast one on his behalf. The fast one does not notice the substitution and admits defeat. | 92 | 172 |
| K88 | Two Travellers (Truth and Falsehood), ATU 613. | Two people set off on a journey or argue about which is stronger: truth or falsehood (stinginess or generosity, etc.). The evil one abandons the good one, crippling or robbing him, but the good one regains his health and achieves success. The villain usually perishes. | 93 | 172 |
| A31 | The Moon in Love. | As a result of intimate contact or romantic conflict, the night light takes on its current appearance – rising from the earth to the sky and/or spots appearing on it, which are now visible. | 72 | 172 |
| H18 | Released animals, A1421. | Hunted animals were concentrated in one place. A certain character creates them there or allows them to scatter. | 92 | 172 |
| M23 | Feigned fear of imaginary danger, ATU 1310–1310C; K581. | The character pretends to be afraid of only one method of killing, which in reality is not dangerous for him (K581: turtle: If you throw me into the water, I will drown! ). {All American variants with a rabbit are most likely of African origin and are not included in the correlation table}. | 100 | 174 |
| F86 | Conditional signal. | A character calls another character of non-human nature (a mate or ward) with a conventional signal; the other character sees this, makes the same signal or utters the same words, takes on the appearance of the character they have come to replace, kills those who come out to meet them, or makes use of their sexual services. | 85 | 175 |
| J47 | The pursuer falls from a height. | A character climbs up to the sky using a rope, ladder, etc., or climbs a tree or rock, or descends from the sky to the ground, or rises to the ground from the underworld. Another character climbs after them, but the rope or ladder breaks or is cut, and the character falls. | 72 | 175 |
| L106b | For disappearance into another world. | A girl, a young girl or (rarely) a boy loses an everyday object, usually carried away by water or wind. In search of the lost object, she (he) encounters powerful characters, returns the object and/or receives valuables. Traditions recorded only in Roberts 1994: 103-110 are highlighted in italics. | 50 | 176 |
| I27 | The dog of the land of the dead. | The dog and/or (rarely) the domestic cat is the master, guardian of the land of the dead, guide on the way there; dogs live on the way to the land of the dead. (For indirect evidence and similar beliefs, see also Benson 1991). | 33 | 176 |
| K135 | Seven with one blow, ATU 1640. | By accidentally defeating powerful opponents, a physically weak and timid person gains honour. | 78 | 177 |
| N14 | A storyteller at a wedding | fairy-tale text ends with a formula stating that the narrator attended a feast and/or wedding arranged by the characters of the fairy tale. | 41 | 177 |
| K47a | Woman and dog: the origin of humans. | A woman mates with a dog. Her children grow up to be humans and usually become the ancestors of certain ethnic groups. | 74 | 178 |
| E31a | Creators and saviours of girls, ATU 653, 653A, 653B. | Several men (women) participate in the rescue, creation or revival of a girl (man), or mourn her (his) death. The question arises as to whom the revived person should belong to or who contributed more to the revival. Alternatively, three men create something valuable, each contributing their part. The question arises as to whose contribution is more important. | 92 | 178 |
| F34 | Connection with terrestrial quadrupeds. | A woman takes a large land animal as her lover. Her husband, brother or (adopted) children kill or maim the lover and (sometimes) the woman herself. Sometimes there is mention of a group of women and their husbands. (Unlike motif K102, "The Demon's Mistress," the lover is not dangerous to the hero and plays a passive role, and the woman, if she becomes hostile and dangerous, does so only after the lover's death. Unlike motif K76, the woman and her husband/lover of non-human nature are clearly evaluated negatively). | 64 | 178 |
| M57a3 | The female character exudes values | Instead of common body discharges a a woman urinates, spits, etc. beads, flowers, gold and other valuables; valuables are produced by the very presence of particular female person. See motif m57a | 80 | 178 |
| L9 | Cutting and stabbing body parts. | The character's body parts resemble cutting or stabbing weapons. | 79 | 179 |
| L15a | Vulnerable spot on the body, | The character's vulnerable spot is located on the surface of the body, but not in vital internal organs. | 88 | 180 |
| M57c | The animal defecates with gold | An animal (donkey, bull, horse, goat, bear, leopard) or inanimate object makes gold or food stand out, or a character makes others believe that this is the case. | 94 | 180 |
| B1 | Two creators, A50. | Two anthropomorphic creators compete in the creation of the earth and/or humans. One is or becomes the master of the underworld or is associated with the spirit world, in contrast to the first, who is associated with the human world. | 68 | 180 |
| B44 | Dispute about time, A1150, A1172. | The first ancestors (usually human-animals) argue about how long the year, winter, night, or other periods of time should last, and whether cold and darkness should be replaced by warmth and light. | 65 | 181 |
| C6d | Obtaining land from the underworld. | Land (earth) is formed from a small amount of solid substance (silt, sand, clay, mud) that characters retrieve from the underworld (usually from the bottom of the ocean). | 93 | 181 |
| I100 | Pleiades – girls, young women, women. | Pleiades – a group of girls or women (with children). | 68 | 181 |
| L41 | The hero runs away. | After catching a person, the cannibal carries his prey home, but the captive escapes on the road or at the cannibal's house. See motif L38 (a person falls into a demon's trap). | 97 | 182 |
| M29b1 | The wolf is a loser and a loser | As a result of his stupidity or antisocial behavior, the wolf dies or suffers damage. See the motives in square brackets. | 120 | 183 |
| B2d | Marriage of heaven and earth, A625. | The sky (the Sun, Thunder, the Wind living in the sky) is considered male and marries the Earth, who is female; The sky is combined with the female Water; with the daughter of the Earth; the creator (master) of the sky and the creator (mistress) of the earth are husband and wife; rarely: the female Sky (or Sun) is combined with the male Earth. | 81 | 184 |
| M29b2 | The bear is a loser and a loser | As a result of its stupidity or antisocial behavior, the bear dies or suffers damage. See the motives in square brackets. | 134 | 185 |
| M109 | Tail in the ice hole, K1021, ATU 2. | A zoomorphic character sits down, lowering his tail (penis) so that something edible will stick to it, but as a result he is left without a tail (penis) or dies. Cf. motifs M109A, M109C. | 84 | 186 |
| I8D | Pillars of the world: pillars, mountains. | The earth or sky is supported by mountains, pillars, nails, trees. | 92 | 186 |
| K72 | Three maidens. | A character of high status meets or marries three (less often two or four) women. One (promises to bear and) bears him a son (children) with unusual qualities, the other two (promise to engage in and) engage in crafts or housekeeping, or intend to marry men of lower status. | 77 | 186 |
| B36a | Two adorn each other. | Two zoomorphic characters adorn each other, after which one is satisfied with the result and the other is not. | 43 | 186 |
| I37f | Mushrooms - ears. | Mushrooms are called "ears". | 35 | 187 |
| E32 | Progenitor plants. | The first humans or the first woman (progenitor, goddess) are born from trees, emerge from a tree, stump, flower, or reed. | 64 | 188 |
| K80a | A bird or object tells of a crime, ATU 720, 780, 780B. | An object or creature that has emerged from the remains, jewellery, etc. of the murdered person tells about the murder, exposing the criminal. The East Slavic texts in this section were mainly provided by K.Y. Rakhno. | 69 | 188 |
| I62 | Milky Way - river, A778.3. | The Milky Way is a heavenly river, a body of water, a chain of creatures floating in the water. | 69 | 189 |
| M57d | Bay, baton, ATU 563, 564 | A person consistently receives magical items that bring wealth. Others replace them or take them away. A person returns what has been taken - usually by receiving another wonderful object (baton, whip) that hits the kidnappers. | 93 | 189 |
| F70 | Potiphar's Wife, K2111, T418, ATU 318. | A woman falsely accuses a man of assaulting her. | 71 | 189 |
| L70 | Aborted fruit. | The character is killed or maimed by an object dropped from above, the fall of which he expects, but has a false idea of its nature or weight (fruit, piece of bark, turtle, log, etc.). | 92 | 191 |
| M11 | Unclean food. | The character gives others food extracted from his or someone else's body or contaminated with bodily secretions, without revealing the source of the food. | 90 | 191 |
| I22g | Colliding rocks. | Mountains (rocks) are mentioned that constantly collide and diverge, or a crevice or gap in a vertical rock that opens and closes. Cf. motif I22g1, Colliding rocks. | 74 | 192 |
| A14a | Conflict of two luminaries. | The sun and moon (month) are or have been in hostile relations either constantly or from time to time. | 92 | 193 |
| I57 | Thunder pursues the enemy. | Thunder's enemies are animals, reptiles, and spirits that live in burrows. They usually hide from him in various objects and items, and Thunder (a god, angel, etc.) strikes his enemies or these objects with lightning. | 88 | 194 |
| K57 | Cinderella, ATU 510A. | A girl hides her beauty and/or lives in poverty, a man of high status sees her in her true form/in luxurious attire and takes her as his wife, recognising her by an item he gave her or she lost, usually a slipper or shoe, or by seeing her change her clothes. {All texts with this motif are also considered to contain the f62 motif}. | 81 | 196 |
| L53 | Stones in the mouth, K951. | The terrifying creature is killed or neutralised by throwing (red-hot) stones, pieces of iron, etc. into its mouth or anus, or the creature retreats when threatened with a stone being thrown into its mouth. | 95 | 197 |
| C5a | Scout birds. | A bird, various birds, or people who then turn into birds are sent to explore the earth (whether it exists, whether it has dried up, whether there are any survivors, why smoke is rising from the earth, etc.) or with the task of bringing back a piece of solid substance to create dry land. | 90 | 198 |
| G23 | Multiple objects from a single creature. | The origin of various (more than two) creatures or objects is explained by the metamorphosis of a living creature or part of its body. {Only texts of an aetiological nature are taken into account. For statistical purposes, all texts with motifs G23A and G23B are also included in motif G23}. | 73 | 199 |
| K102 | The hero's woman helps his enemy, ATU 315 (sister), 590 (mother). | A woman who is initially friendly to the hero (his sister, mother, less often his wife or lover) then tries to destroy him by acting in concert with his enemy. To this end, she persuades the hero to take actions that are fatal to him. | 94 | 199 |
| K73a4 | The child is replaced by a puppy. | Malicious women replace the newborn with a puppy (telling the father that his wife has given birth to a puppy). See motifs K73, K73A. | 85 | 199 |
| L100d | Deceived admirers, ATU 1358C, 1730. | A man or several men pursue the love of a beautiful woman. Having agreed in advance with her husband, she pretends to agree, arranging a date (with each) for a specific time. Before the first suitor's desires are satisfied, the second arrives. The woman hides the first, then the second, and so on. The husband enters and the couple mocks the admirers who find themselves in a humiliating position. | 74 | 201 |
| A32f | Moon water carrier. | On the lunar disc, a character is visible who has gone to fetch water and/or is holding a vessel for liquid in his hands. See motif A32D. | 60 | 202 |
| B46c | The Great Bear – seven characters. | Each of the stars of the Big Dipper is a separate character (people or animals). | 70 | 206 |
| K118 | The forbidden room, C611. | Upon leaving, the character allows another to take charge of the house, but not to look into a certain room or container. The other violates the prohibition. | 80 | 206 |
| K107 | The Returned Husband, ATU 425A, 425B, 425D, 425E, 432. | A magical husband leaves his wife. She finds and returns him. | 87 | 207 |
| D13 | Laughter. | A character loses their values (gives them away) and/or suffers damage/is healed/is transformed if they laugh or hear laughter. | 98 | 211 |
| J12 | Girls in search of a husband. | A girl or two sisters wander, usually in search of a suitable groom or husband who has left or lives far away. Along the way or upon reaching their destination, they encounter false suitors. (Traditions in which two heroines travel rather than one are highlighted in bold (motif j13). | 86 | 212 |
| K74 | Brothers and the dwarf. | Of two or more characters, each one stays at home or goes to fetch fire for cooking or brings food to the house. Each time, a certain character appears who eats the food and/or defeats the one who stayed behind or came to fetch fire. | 94 | 213 |
| N20 | We have achieved our wishes | fairy tale text ends with a formula that says that the characters have achieved their desires, goals and/or happiness, or that God has fulfilled their wishes. | 23 | 213 |
| K43 | The abandoned survives and triumphs, S300. | People leave a boy, a girl, a sister and brother, a young woman or young spouses alone and leave, or drive them away. Those who are abandoned or expelled discover unusual abilities or helpers, obtaining blood and food. [Materials on European fairy tales are mostly not yet included] | 89 | 215 |
| L37a | To learn the causes of misfortune, Th H1291, ATU 460A. | On the way to a powerful being, a person meets characters who ask him to ask questions on their behalf (usually to find out the cause of their misfortunes). | 93 | 215 |
| K10 | Battle with a bird. | A monstrous bird (bat) attacks people, heroes engage in battle with it. See motifs K10A – K10G. | 106 | 216 |
| I82a | Male Venus. | The Morning and/or Evening Star – a male character. | 111 | 218 |
| E5c | People from the sky. | The first humans or deities-ancestors descend to earth from the sky. | 88 | 218 |
| F30 | The snake lover. | A girl or woman takes a snake, eel, moray eel, lizard or worm as a lover or spouse. People kill or maim the lover, the woman and/or their offspring, or she herself turns into a snake. Cf. motif K76B (the snake-husband becomes and remains a handsome man). See motif F29. | 101 | 218 |
| C25 | Eschatological expectations. | If a certain event occurs, the world will be destroyed. | 68 | 219 |
| B46 | Seven Star Brothers. | Each of the seven stars of the Big Dipper is an adult male. | 62 | 220 |
| F9a | Toothy womb. | There are teeth, blades or sharp stones in a woman's vagina or on the inside of her thighs; the vagina is a toothy mouth. (Only texts with a focus on authenticity are taken into account, not anecdotes). | 79 | 222 |
| L104 | The fugitive and the pursuer change their appearance (ATU 325). | The fleeing character successively takes on the appearance of various creatures or objects; the pursuer also changes his appearance, each time transforming into someone who is dangerous to the pursued in his current form. | 103 | 223 |
| M57a | Beads are like body secretions | Instead of the usual secretions from the human body, beads, flowers, gold and other valuables pour in. | 97 | 225 |
| K27n2 | The task giver – a mythical character. | The character who gives the hero difficult tasks or subjects him to trials is a mythical creature or animal. See motif K27. | 164 | 228 |
| F7 | Woman from the underwater world. | A man catches, grabs, meets, or receives a woman associated with the aquatic-chthonic world (a fish, mermaid, snake, crab, seal, etc.) and takes her as his wife. Cf. motifs E26 and K25. | 104 | 228 |
| J32 | Brothers guard the night thief, ATU 530. | Someone regularly steals livestock (horses, sheep, etc.) or crops (apples, hay, peas, flowers, etc.). Those who undertake to guard them (usually the older brothers) fail to catch the thief, and only the hero (usually the younger brother) discovers him. | 83 | 231 |
| K8c | Jonah: swallowed by a land animal. | The character enters the belly of an ordinary land animal, kills it from within (K952) and/or returns to the outside without outside help. Cf. motif M118. | 121 | 231 |
| J46 | The enemy drowns. | Antagonists perish by falling into water or attempting to cross a water barrier. See motifs J42, J44. | 120 | 235 |
| F35a | Feeding meat from a relative. | The character, unaware of this, eats or prepares meat (slowly kills) a member of his household (a relative, rarely a servant or spouse) or feeds it to his acquaintances, or uses its bones for household needs. | 121 | 241 |
| H5 | People and snakes. | Reptiles or invertebrates possess a life-giving agent; they are contrasted with humans as immortal mortals and/or responsible for the fact that humans die and are not reborn; the dead turn into snakes. See motif H4. (The first death comes from a snake bite (centipede), but snakes are not opposed to humans as immortals to mortals.) | 101 | 242 |
| A2a | The sun emits destructive heat. | The world was or will be (almost) burned when several suns lit up or will light up simultaneously; or destructive heat (or light) once emanated from one sun. | 66 | 244 |
| J42 | Parting waters. | The character creates a dry passage across the bottom of the water body, and after passing through, the waters close again. | 81 | 245 |
| M29g | Trickster - Hare, Rabbit | See the motives in square brackets. They include traditions in which the hare/rabbit appears only as a trickster, and another trickster (usually a fox or jackal) often occurs. | 134 | 246 |
| M156 | The Ungrateful One is Punished, ATU 155. | A dangerous animal (rarely: a spirit) is about to kill a human or another animal – usually the one who freed it from a trap. A third character acts as a judge and saves the human – most often by luring the ungrateful back into the trap. | 116 | 247 |
| M38a | Inept imitation: visiting, Th J2425 | On a visit, the character sees how the owner acts with magic or techniques that suit his nature (in Africa, too, deception). He imitates their actions but fails. Actions are not tests or competitions and are not related to performing feats. This is mainly getting or preparing food. | 86 | 250 |
| J26 | Infants from the river. | The character or that from which he arises is found in a river, lake, sea, or on the riverbank. The future hero emerges from the body of water into which he was thrown. | 134 | 253 |
| K27n1 | The one who gives tasks – a king or a chief. | A character who gives the hero tasks that are impossible for an ordinary person (subjecting the hero to difficult trials), or a character who requires the suitors of his daughter to fulfil certain conditions, is the head of a community or supra-community collective and is neither a member of the same family collective as the hero nor a mythical creature. See motif K27. | 166 | 253 |
| H4 | Skin change as a condition for immortality, D1889.6. | Those who change their skin (bark, clothing) are immortal (forever young). (Cf. motif K56a5a: Skinning oneself to become young: To become a young beauty, an old or ugly woman asks to have her skin skinned off). | 95 | 254 |
| K25a1 | Found clothing. | A magical wife leaves her earthly husband when she finds her clothes, which he has hidden (often feathers, if she is a bird woman), persuades him to give them back, makes new ones or receives them from her relatives. (The variant in which the wife leaves her husband because she is offended is not entirely alternative, but in most texts it does not fit with the motif of found clothing). | 81 | 255 |
| M21 | The fugitive hides with his protector. | The character runs away from his pursuer. The person, animal or object that the character asks for help hides him (and kills the pursuer). | 118 | 256 |
| K38f | The dragon slayer, ATU 300. | A reptilian monster demands human sacrifices (devours people; kidnaps a girl; blocks water sources). The hero kills it. The monster's victims do not play an active role in the action. | 103 | 257 |
| B82 | White Raven, A2411.1.1.6. | The raven (less often another bird of prey, or another black bird the size of a raven) was first white, and then turned black. | 106 | 260 |
| F45 | Amazons. | There are or were settlements where only women lived or live (cf. motifs F8, F45C). | 123 | 266 |
| F34b | Lover of non-human nature. | A girl, woman or group of women voluntarily take as their lover a penis that exists as a special creature, snake, moray eel, lizard, worm, crab, large aquatic animal or aquatic monster, or large terrestrial mammal. People kill or maim the lover, the woman and/or her offspring, or she herself loses her human nature. The woman's behaviour is condemned. | 120 | 267 |
| A35 | Spots on the lunar disc, A751.5. | Dark spots on the lunar disc – dirt, blood, paint, marks from blows, burns on the body or face of a character; they do not form a specific image. See motif A31. | 138 | 271 |
| M91 | Dead twice, ATU 1537 | Pretending that the deceased has just been alive for a relatively long time, the character accuses others of his death, receives a ransom and gifts. | 99 | 271 |
| M91c1 | The herd from the bottom | The character (pretends to) take possession of someone's property (usually setting the owner to be killed instead of him), says that he got everything at the bottom of the river, in the abyss, etc., to him they believe. | 118 | 271 |
| L72a | Comb-thicket. | Fleeing for his life, the character throws behind him a comb (brush), which turns into an obstacle (almost always thickets) in the path of his pursuer. (In South America, this motif is most likely of European origin). See Andreev 1929, No. 313.I. | 85 | 272 |
| L65b3 | Rescue on a tree. | A character who climbs a tree manages to escape from a demon (who usually tries to knock the tree down). | 114 | 274 |
| K37 | Recognising one's own among similar ones, H62.1, H161, H324. | In order to return or obtain a wife, son or husband (in Africa also a domestic animal or object), a person must identify her or him among several identical people or animals (objects). | 118 | 277 |
| K73a | Child substitution. | Malicious women replace the newborn with an animal or an inanimate object (they tell the baby's father that his wife gave birth to an animal or an object). See motif K73. | 114 | 281 |
| L85 | Half-creatures, F525. | The character has only half a body (vertically). See also L85C, "Half-chicken". | 103 | 281 |
| H28 | Creature turns into reptiles, A2034. | A creature that has been killed and destroyed (often burned) (usually a cannibal, a ferocious animal, or a powerful shaman) turns into stinging insects or other harmful, unpleasant, or dangerous creatures. | 111 | 284 |
| H36a | False news: the origin of death, A1335.1. | The character distorts the message conveyed to him, deliberately lies, brings the wrong thing, loses what he is carrying, delays (and is overtaken by another messenger). As a result, people become mortal (they do not revive after death). | 60 | 284 |
| M75b1 | Marco Rich, ATU 930 | A person (usually of high status) learns that a poor boy who is born will inherit his property or become king. He tries to stop it, but what he predicted comes true. | 71 | 285 |
| L5 | Rolling head. | Describes or depicts a creature in the form of a skull or head without a body. | 111 | 287 |
| K76 | The Strange Son, ATU 425A, 441. | A boy who is born or found has a strange or ugly appearance (ball, nut, sack, half-human, dwarf, animal), but then demonstrates magical powers and turns out to be handsome (usually getting a bride of high status). The princess's magical spouse initially has a non-human or ugly appearance. | 114 | 287 |
| K32g | Torn apart by horses. | The antagonist is executed by being tied to a horse (camel, bull), which drags him along the ground or tears him to pieces. | 79 | 291 |
| C19 | Finding the sun. | The missing, hidden, concealed or stolen sun (daylight) reappears. See motif C18 | 134 | 291 |
| C8 | Blood relatives give birth to people. | At the beginning of time or as a result of a catastrophe, the only human couple is a brother and sister (less often a mother and son, father and daughters). They marry and give birth to people. | 61 | 292 |
| I13a | Horned serpent, B91.3. | A huge aquatic or celestial serpent, dragon, or snake-like creature with horns on its head. | 85 | 292 |
| E1 | The creation of man. | The first human being was created, made by a certain character, and did not exist initially (on earth, underground, in the sky, in a small container) and did not arise spontaneously. Only variants that specify the material from which humans were created, or that refer separately to the creation of the human figure and its ensoulment, rather than simply to the fact of "creation" itself, are taken into account. | 109 | 293 |
| M91c2 | Seated in a bag | character is placed in a bag or chest, locked in a cage, tied, etc., to drown, burn, etc. When left for a while, the character pretends to be in the bag voluntarily or because he does not want to become a chief, marry, etc.; the other agrees to take his place. See M91c1 motif. | 121 | 293 |
| K119 | Animal marries a princess, ATU 545B. | An animal promises to make a poor man rich (usually by marrying him to a rich bride; or by marrying a poor girl to a prince) and, resorting to deception, fulfils its promise. | 78 | 294 |
| L110 | The Devourer, (ATU 2028), Th F911.6. | A character swallows many people and/or animals. In the end, his stomach is cut open, and those who were swallowed unharmed come out or are extracted and revived. Cf. motif K8a. | 113 | 296 |
| K28 | Father or uncle – enemy and rival. | The uncle on the mother's side or the father of the young hero (or grandfather, if he replaces the father, who is not mentioned) is his enemy and rival, giving him difficult tasks with the aim of destroying him. | 132 | 297 |
| L65b | Dogs as saviours. | A demonic woman, less often her lover or another monster, is ready to kill or kills the hero. Dogs (or animals and birds that replace them – lions, bears, eagles, etc.) come running (flying), rescue the hero and kill the demon. | 107 | 300 |
| A32e | Character with an object in their hands. | On the lunar (rarely: solar) disc, a character holding an object or animal is visible. See motif A32D. | 104 | 302 |
| M39a | Deer don't want to wet their shoes | fool lives with his brother (and mother), is sent on business, does ridiculous things (all or part of the above): releases animals from the trap, kills (trapped) mother ; cuts off the pet's legs or skins; takes the fontanel on the baby's skull for a boil and squeezes it out; tears a large piece of cloth and ties the pieces to swaying reeds; hearing the murmur of water, throws food into the water; puts the plague in the water; wants to salt the water and pours all the salt into the river. (There are other common episodes as well). | 21 | 304 |
| I9 | Colours of the cardinal points. | Each (or at least three) of the four cardinal directions (as well as the zenith and nadir) and/or the objects located there have their own colour. Abbreviations: E: east, S: south, W: west, N: north. (Cf. Podosinov 2000: 143-147). | 59 | 308 |
| K29a | Unharmed by fire. | The hero demonstrates his magical abilities or cunning by remaining alive in a hot bath, oven, fire, or among burning vegetation. | 131 | 310 |
| B3b | The grown earth. | Initially, the earth or the world as a whole was small in size, then it grew; fertile soil grew from a small amount of initial substance. See motif B3A (the earth grows from a piece of solid substance thrown onto the surface of the water). | 177 | 310 |
| G6 | The first tree. | One of the trees is the main, original tree, which is very different from the others (it was the first to appear; the progenitor of trees; the progenitor of wild or cultivated plants; the sea and rivers within it; the world axis; higher than the others; obscuring the sky). | 117 | 310 |
| L37b | Overheard conversation, ATU 613, N451.1. | By accidentally overhearing a conversation between animals or spirits, a person learns how to help themselves and others. | 126 | 313 |
| K2a | The hero is sent down to the underworld. | The character is sent down to the underworld (into an abyss, a well, etc.). After he sends the treasures (women) he has obtained back up, his envious companions cut the rope, but he manages to return to earth. See motifs K38, K39, K74. | 92 | 315 |
| C2 | Flood and fire. | The inhabitants of the middle world (in part) are destroyed (or will be destroyed) once by fire or drought, another time by a flood, or the world is flooded with a stream of fire and boiling water. | 107 | 319 |
| I1 | Thunderbirds, A284.2. | Creatures that cause or embody rain and/or thunderstorms are birds or winged anthropomorphic characters. {Traditions in which birds are associated with thunderstorms and rain, but Thunder itself is not a bird, are marked with an asterisk (*). | 123 | 325 |
| L108 | The Wolf and the Kids, ATU 123. | Each time the departed character returns, he or she sings a song or gives a signal to a relative (usually a child) or friend who remained at home, who then lets him or her in. The antagonist pretends to be the departed person, imitating his or her voice, showing his or her hand, etc. Cf. motif L27a. | 119 | 326 |
| K33 | The Living Drowned Woman, Th D688, E323.1; ATU 450. | When a malevolent woman pushes another woman into a body of water (a well), the latter drowns or loses her human form, but manages to return to the world of humans. Cf. motif k32m | 135 | 329 |
| K66 | Bogatyrs with different abilities, ATU 513, 653, F601. | Each of several companions or brothers excels others in some way (sees, hears, runs, etc. better than anyone else). Cf. motif K2B, "Gorynya and Dubyna". | 135 | 329 |
| H24 | A vessel opened too early. | A vessel or other small container with valuables or living beings (creatures) is opened (prematurely). Its contents get out of control or disappear. | 138 | 333 |
| L93a | The fox as helper. | The fox, jackal or coyote, resorting to cunning, helps the hero, heroine or people in general, saving them. | 104 | 335 |
| M38 | Inept imitation | 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 | 132 | 335 |
| E11 | Burnt skin. | The future family member reveals himself or remains with the person after the object that defines the character's non-human appearance is destroyed. After the person destroys (usually burns) the discarded animal skin, the character retains his human appearance. See motif E9. | 138 | 349 |
| L94 | Promised to the demon. | A demon or animal helps a person or agrees to let them go, but in return takes a promise to give them a daughter or son. | 111 | 352 |
| J4 | Revenge for the death of male relatives. | The heroes avenge the death (enslavement) of their father, uncle, grandfather, or mother and father, or in general their descendants, with the loss of men being the most painful. | 101 | 353 |
| E5a | People from the underworld, A1234. | The first humans (or only the first men or first women) were not created by a demiurge, but emerged from under the ground (from a cave) or from a small object on its surface (a tree, stone, pumpkin, etc.). There are many emerging humans (or humans and animals). Cf. motif E5B: first ancestors from the underworld. | 116 | 357 |
| L19b | Creature with an odd number of heads. | Creatures (any, except ornithomorphic ones) with more than 10 heads or an odd (but more than one) number of heads are described or depicted (in the case of listing creatures in order of increasing number of heads, the series ends with an odd number). | 138 | 360 |
| B42 | Cosmic hunting, F59.2. | Hunters, their dogs, fleeing or killed animals are visible in the sky in the form of stars and constellations. | 110 | 363 |
| I82b | Venus-woman. | The Morning and/or Evening Star – a female character. | 114 | 364 |
| I3 | Weapons of Thunder. | Lightning (and thunder) is produced by an object (sword, arrow, whip, mirror, etc.) in the hands of a character; lightning is an object. | 131 | 375 |
| I22 | Moving objects, D931.3, D1553. | There are objects that, while remaining in place, move constantly or periodically (collide and diverge, fall and rise, open and close, rotate). | 126 | 383 |
| K73 | Children of the younger wife, ATU 707. | A young wife (promises to give birth and) gives birth to wonderful children (or one son). In the absence of her husband, attempts are made to kill the wife or her child (usually by slandering them to the husband), but they remain alive. (For medieval European variants, see Newell 1906). | 139 | 383 |
| M157 | Impossible births, (ATU 875E). | The character claims that a man, male animal or object gave birth (or had a period), or that an animal of one species gave birth to a young of another species, or that a woman gave birth to an animal or inanimate object. | 116 | 389 |
| L42 | The cannibal brings the hero to his home, ATU 327C. | After capturing the character, the enemy brings the prey home or to the place where he intends to eat it. The character runs away and escapes. | 144 | 390 |
| K27n | Tasks of relatives, H310, H331. | A young man must complete difficult tasks or win a competition in order to obtain permission to marry. The person giving the tasks is indicated in square brackets. See motif K27. | 260 | 391 |
| K8a | Jonah: swallowed by an aquatic or chthonic creature. | The character enters the belly of an aquatic creature or a giant creature whose appearance and habitat are not precisely described. He kills the creature from within (K952) and/or returns to the outside without outside help. Upon emerging from the belly, he often finds himself bald (K921). Cf. motifs I81B (Charybdis) and L110 (Devourer). | 182 | 391 |
| H7 | Personification of death. | Death (as well as illness and old age) is a special character, distinct from the lord of the underworld. It takes away a person's soul or otherwise causes their death. | 139 | 394 |
| I72 | Stars – people. | Stars – anthropomorphic beings. See motif K19 (marriage to a star). Cases where the Star is a unique object, e.g. Venus, rather than one of many Star-people, are not included. | 184 | 403 |
| K56b | The worthy are rewarded, the unworthy are punished. | Two men take turns meeting a character who can reward and punish. One behaves correctly and is rewarded, the other (or two others) behave incorrectly and are punished (rarely: not rewarded). | 160 | 409 |
| H36 | False news (all variants). | A character is sent to deliver instructions or certain items. The messenger distorts the message, brings the wrong items, loses what he is carrying, delays (and is overtaken by another messenger). This has important consequences for him and for the future lives of the people. | 90 | 413 |
| K75 | The younger daughter agrees, ATU 433B. | The girl (usually the youngest of the sisters) does not reject the hero, who temporarily takes the form of an animal, a freak, an old man, a poor man, or a loser, or she picks up the hero's remains and he comes back to life. After some time, the hero reveals his true nature. | 177 | 424 |
| L81 | Demon's fire. | A man who goes in search of fire finds it with a demon. The demon pursues the man, harms him, and kills him. Traditions in which there is only a story about men who are promised fire for a fairy tale (a tall tale) are marked with an asterisk*. | 92 | 425 |
| E9 | The Unknown Mistress, N831.1. | The character notices that someone is running the house in his absence and catches the person doing so by surprise. | 155 | 428 |
| K36 | Turned into an animal, (ATU 449). | The hero (heroine) is temporarily transformed into an animal (usually a dog/coyote or a donkey, with the face of the former]: 151-152t to the ground; and the strength of 99 men; if she had taken the hundredth, she would have remained a woman; if the young man had ground, a horse). When he or she is helped to regain their former appearance, the antagonist is transformed into an animal. In some texts, either only the hero or only the antagonist undergoes metamorphosis. Cf. motifs K62B, J62b1 (the character transforms many people into animals). | 75 | 431 |
| M30 | The trickster falls, (ATU 225, 225A) | character who has no natural wings or can't fly long distances rises into the air, but falls or, having lost its wings, stays where he can't return from. (The motive includes several options, but even when taken together, they don't cover the whole world. Texts with M25 and M28 motifs are counted as including the M30 motif). | 158 | 436 |
| K177 | The wandering heroine. | A girl or woman sets off on a journey to find or return her fiancé or husband, or flees from danger, and her journey ends in a successful marriage. | 177 | 438 |
| L15d | Life is stored outside the body, E700, (ATU 302). | The object in which the character's life is concentrated is separate from him. The character dies when this external form is destroyed. | 153 | 444 |
| J1A | The myth of the avengers with a full plot | 153 | 451 | |
| M29b | Trickster - Fox, Jackal, Coyote | Fox (a), Jackal, Coyote (or Wolf when, apparently, we mean a steppenwolf, i.e. the same coyote). See the motives in square brackets. | 270 | 453 |
| C6 | Obtaining valuables from the underworld. | In texts with an emphasis on authenticity, characters dive or otherwise descend into the underworld to bring back to earth something desirable that is located at the bottom (deep below) (aka "The Earth Diver" motifs) (cf. fairy tale motif k27x9). | 126 | 456 |
| A4 | Sun-woman, A736.2. | The Sun is a woman (the Moon is usually a man, sometimes also a woman, see motif A6; highlighted in bold italics in the list of ethnic groups below). | 158 | 470 |
| K12 | Kidnapped and returned. | The hero returns the woman whom his enemy or rival tried to take away from him. | 195 | 470 |
| B98 | The bat between beasts and birds, ATU 222A. | The bat (rarely: ostrich) tries to join either the beasts or the birds, or finds itself excluded from both. | 51 | 478 |
| I41 | Rainbow serpent, A791.2. | A rainbow is a reptile (usually a snake), less often a fish or snake-like, usually dangerous, object (snake tongue, scorpion tail). | 72 | 478 |
| B98a | The bat becomes an outcast, ATU 222A. | The bat becomes an outcast among other creatures (usually after trying to join either the animals or the birds). | 48 | 490 |
| K1A | Trap: a young man or man is abandoned. | A young man or man finds himself in a place where he is unable to move, but which is isolated from the ground: the top of a tree, a rock, a cave, a burrow, an island. This happens through someone else's fault: the antagonist lures or traps the hero, or (less often) leaves him no other option but isolation. After some time, the hero either finds a way to salvation himself, or is saved by someone else (often a bird or animal), or (rarely) undergoes a metamorphosis and no longer returns to his normal life. For texts with a fairy-tale episode in which the hero is sent down to the underworld and abandoned there, see motif K2A. | 202 | 514 |
| K56 | The worthy are rewarded, the unworthy are punished, ATU 480, 480D*. | One of the girls, young women or young girls (wives of one man) meets a character who is able to reward and punish. She behaves correctly and receives a reward. Another (others) tries to repeat everything, but behaves incorrectly and is punished (rarely: not rewarded). | 142 | 530 |
| K24 | Hidden clothes of a supernatural woman, F202.4.2. | Women (rarely men) possessing magical powers and usually coming from another world (from the sky, from under water, they are winged creatures, bird-people, animal-people; rarely: a girl of higher social status than the hero) take off their clothes (feather coverings, etc.) or part of them. The character hides the clothes (one of them), forcing him (rarely her) to fulfil his (rarely her) desire. | 190 | 565 |
| B3a | Primary waters, A810. | The waters are primary. The earth is lowered onto the water, appears above the water, grows from a piece of solid substance placed on the surface of the water or liquid mud, from an island in the ocean, is exposed when the waters recede, etc. | 214 | 589 |
| K38 | The hero helps the chicks, B364.4. | For doing good to chicks (rarely: young of non-ornithomorphic flying creatures), their mother or father does a favour for the person. | 85 | 591 |
| L72 | Magical flight, D672, D673. | While fleeing, the character throws small objects behind him, which turn into powerful obstacles in the path of the pursuer, or (rarely) the pursuer creates such obstacles in the path of the fugitives. (Cf. SUS 1979, No. 313H = AA 313I, p. 114: escape by throwing magical objects, an episode in various types of fairy tales). | 191 | 596 |
| K176 | Man in search of a woman, ATU 400. | A man sets out on a journey to find or bring back a bride or wife. | 243 | 601 |
| A5 | The Sun and the Moon are male, A711.1, A736.3. | The Moon is male, the Sun is also male or (rarely) has no gender. | 230 | 626 |
| B2a | The earth is a female being, A401. | The earth is a female character (alone or alongside a male character) and is considered to be female or associated with women. | 188 | 641 |
| B77 | Low sky, A625.2; A660. | The sky was close to the ground, then rose. | 144 | 691 |
| A32d | Man on the moon, A751. | The figure or imprint of an anthropomorphic creature is visible on the lunar disc. | 189 | 697 |
| K25 | The magical wife. | A man consciously marries a woman who belongs to the non-human world. | 226 | 753 |
| H12 | The living go to the dead after someone's death, F81. | The living visit the afterlife to bring back the dead (except for texts about a shaman bringing back the soul of a sick person), or, without a specific goal, go there accompanied by or following in the footsteps of the recently deceased. | 131 | 800 |
| A12 | Eclipses: attacks by monsters, A737.1. | A creature or creatures regularly (sunrise and sunset, winter and summer, night and day, phases of the moon) or occasionally (eclipses, eschatological catastrophes) attack the luminaries or block their light. | 219 | 883 |
| K32 | The Substituted Woman, K1911; ATU 403, 404. | The man does not (immediately) notice that another woman, an evil spirit or (in Chaco) a male trickster has replaced his wife or bride, who is banished, imprisoned in the underworld, killed, etc. | 203 | 892 |
| A3 | The Sun-Man and the Moon-Woman, A716.1. | The Moon is female or hermaphroditic, the Sun is male or, possibly, male. | 244 | 1191 |
| K27 | Tasks and competitions. | The character receives tasks that are deadly dangerous or can only be accomplished with supernatural abilities or helpers; the hero completes the tasks and/or miraculously survives. The confrontation between the characters unfolds as a game or competition in which the loser loses their life or status. | 472 | 1698 |