100 Pulls from the Folk-Motif Index

The Stith Thompson Motif-Index of Folk Literature is not what I'd call a particularly useful text for real-world folkloric studies. It’s a big list of story elements shorn from their context, heavily weighted according to the biases of its composer, and full of entries that are either too broad to be a useful comparison or too specific to possibly exist in more than one tradition.

On the plus side: it’s a big list of story elements shorn from their context which means you can flip to a random page, start reading, steal everything you think is interesting, tweak as you see fit, and build up the religious and cultural narratives of whatever fantasy people you please. Here’s a link: the copyright never got renewed so this whole damn thing is public domain, baby!

For this post I just went and chose at random, but with the way that the Index reduces everything to generically-named components you can easily build a more structured myth by picking an entry you like (weddings, deaths and births are a good place to start) and build out links one by one. I might do that for a second installment. 

A Mythology in 100 Parts

1. Creator is accompanied by a dog (A33.1.1)
2. God as son of 9 giantesses (A112.5)
3. Deity born from skull (A114.3)
4. Twin (or triune) goddesses (A116.2)
5. God with 3/5/6 faces (A123.2.X)
6. Maggots in the mouth of man-eating god (A123.2.2.1)
7. God with 2 joined bodies (A123.1.2)
8. God with 13 eyes (A123.3.1.3)
9. God with 8 heads (A123.4.1.3)
10. God with a stone head (A123.4.2)
11. Goddess of war in shape of a red woman (A125.1.1)
12. God in tiger's skin (A131.5)
13. Bear goddess (A132.5)
14. God's home under tree of life (A151.7.1.1)
15. God uses interpreter to speak to women (A182.3.0.4)
16. God's elephant (A155)
17. Gods covered in red and yellow feathers (A139.9.3)
18. Dwarf god (A134)
19. God carries siblings in a basket on his back (A137.4.1)
20. Goddess appears as coral reef (A139.8.2)
21. Animal elders & the angels of animals (B1 & B1.1)
22. Dragon as modified shellfish (B11.2.1.3)
23. Man-eating mares (B16.1.3.1)
24. Ghormuhas: men's bodies, horses' heads, one leg, cannibals. (B15.7.5)
25. Burrowing swine heat ground (B19.4.1)
26. Sheep with a fiery collar (B19.4.3)
27. Giant swimming raven (B31.3.1)
28. Air-going elephant (B45)
29. Flying crustacean (B48)
30. Deer with one gold and one silver antler (B15.3.2.1)
31. Frog with magic knowledge (B126.1)
32. Animal languages learned from ghosts / spirits (B217.3)
33. Magic dead pig (D1281.1)
34. Clairvoyant tube (D1323.9)
35. Star-deity and drought-demon fight (A225)
36. Angel of the deep (A421.0.1)
37. God of the Squid (A455.1)
38. Goddess of Smith-work (A451.1.1)
39. Water spirits have hearth made of three human skulls (F420.2.5)
40. Abandoned infant lives by eating corpse of murdered father (G25)
41. Witch has 3 giant sons (G206)
42. Witch with iron teeth (G314.2)
43. Witch with 15 tails (G219.8.1)
44. Witch has extraordinary physical strength (G221.3)
45. Moon punishes for breach of tabu (C905.2)
46. Transformation: man to peanut (D222.1)
47. Magic drink causes insanity (D1367.2)
48. Blood of salamander protects against fire (D1382.13)
49. Magic red stone protects from poison (D1383.6)
50. Earth from saint's grave expels demons (D1385.1)
51. Magic sight given to child + magic sight given by dead person (D1821.6 + D1821.8)
52. Rejuvenation by song of pelican (D1889.3)
53. Covenant of friendship (P311.5)
54. Student enters competition with their teacher (P342)
55. Woman disguised as monk enters monastery (P426.3.3)
56. Impregnation by lightning (T528)
57. Lesbians give birth to monsters (T462.1)
58. Hunting is a madness of kings (P12.1)
59. King descends to bottom of sea in glass barrel (P15.5)
60. Princes as smiths (P31.1)
61. 2 brothers become pirates (P251.5.1)
62. Twins freed from mother's rotting corpse (T584.2.1.1)
63. Mother kills husband for murdering their daughter (P211.2)
64. King mourns wife's death so much he becomes a pirate (P27.2)
65. King never touches earth; carried around by slaves (P14.5)
66. Inauguration of king as espousal to goddess (P11.6)
67. Woman paints face to become pregnant (T579.8.2)
68. Child with several mothers (T589.9)
69. Children from a well (T589.6.4)
70. Child born each day for a week (T586.5.2)
71. Marriage by drinking festival (T135.6)
72. Marriage of girl to sword (T117.2)
73. Wife goes to land of dead to procure husband's heart (F81.1.1)
74. Stair to lower world (F94)
75. People of the lower world emerge to drink and dance in the evening (F108.2)
76. Journey to the Land of Women (F112)
77. Journey to Land of the Unborn (F115)
78. Submarine monastery (F133.3)
79. Witch's house at border of otherworld (F147.3)
80. Ogres harnessed to plow (G675)
81. Blood of 5 ogres: yellow, red, white, green, black (G367.1)
82. Devil employed as midwife (G303.9.3.2)
83. Woman requires 30 men (as husbands) (T146.2)
84. Wife hides husband's infidelity from emperor, shelters his mistress (T222)
85. Pot so heavy with ghosts that girl cannot lift it (E499.3)
86. Speaking and bleeding trees; reincarnated persons (E631.0.4)
87. Noah saves a giant on the ark; too big to go inside, has to stay in the rigging (F531.5.9)
88. Stolen animal's meat impossible to cook (Q212.4)
89. Punishment: Imprisonment in white-hot iron house (Q414.2)
90. Princess (queen) compelled to keep an inn (Q481)
91. Abduction by goddess's cat (R13.2.3.1)
92. Captivity in subterranean palace (R41.1.1)
93. Girl hidden in skin of dead mother (R318)
94. Intestines wagered (N2.3.5)
95. Evil spirit harpoons sleepers (F402.1.11.3)
96. Recognition by hole burned in hand when woman removes glove (H56.1)
97. Quest for golden wood for knife handle (H1359.1)
98. Wolf tries in vain to be doctor (J512.5)
99. Beaver and porcupine trick each other (K896.1)
100. Fox disguised as scholar (K1822.2)