Prof. Waller Hastings
Northern State University
Aberdeen, SD 57401

Motifs and Tale Types

        Folklorist Nils Ingwersen notes that in folk tales, you already know from the beginning what is going to happen; it is familiar to you.  Folk tales are made to be heard, not read, but when you tell a tale, you co-create it each time - that is, you follow a formula but provide your own details or embellishments.  This is called oral-formulaic literature, and motifs are the building blocks of this literature.
        For instance, one common pattern in folk literature has to do with the site of action.  One always meets the protagonist at home, then sees him/her transferred into the unknown world; part of the final reward is always either a new home or a return to the original home.  This is the basis of some of Propp’s functions; how does a “motif” differ?  Is a motif just a pattern?
        Here's a simple definition of a motif:

a simple element which serves as a basis for expanded narrative, or less strictly, a conventional situation, device, interest, or incident employed in folklore (from Holman’s Handbook to Literature, 3rd edition)
A motif, then, is a plot element or object that may recur over and over in various folk tales.  A motif might also be thought of as a single function from Propp’s analysis, or a common constellation of functions, with specific “coloring” details reattached.  Katherine Briggs defines “motifs” as “the strands that make up a tale.”
        Sometimes a single motif can be a story by itself.  Briggs cites the tale of crop division, where a human and a supernatural creature dispute the ownership of a field, take turns taking either the top or the roots of the crops, and the man always wins (Tale Type 1030, Motif K171).  But while it may be a single tale or tale type by itself, it also can be part of a longer story - as in the various combats in “Jack the Giant-Killer.”
        The standard index of motifs, produced by Stith Thompson at Indiana University, contains about 40,000 distinct motifs, carefully categorized for ease of reference: for example, Animals (B), Tabus (C), Ogres (G), Unnatural Cruelty (S), Sex (T).  Thompson’s Motif-Index is a 6-volume guide to all the various motifs found in a variety of folk literatures, including myths, legends, tall tales, and other oral narratives, not just folk fairy tales.
        Here are several examples of motifs:
 
S31  Cruel Stepmother
F311   Fairy Godmother
D813  Magic Object received from fairy
D1050.1  Clothes produced by magic
F861.4.3  Carriage from pumpkin
D411.6.1  Transformation: mouse to horse
N711.6   Prince sees heroine at ball and is enamoured
C761.3  Tabu: staying too long at the ball
H36.1  Slipper test: identification by fitting of shoes
F823.2  Glass slipper
L162   Lowly heroine marries Prince

Did you guess that they are all drawn from Cinderella?  Note how very specific they may be, as in D411.6.1 - but also fairly general, as in S31, the cruel stepmother.  Motifs include actions (N711.6), objects (F823.2), dramatis personae (F311), etc.  By understanding the motif classfication, we can see, for example, that the motif of the cruel stepmother is but one variation among a number of possibilities of unnatural cruelty.
        Knowledge of motifs can be very important as a practical matter in the study of folk tales, since it allows one to identify similarities based on distinctive events, characters, and situations.  This is important for a number of purposes:

I might rather say it gives a vocabulary with which to fill out the grammar established by Propp’s structuralism; thus, knowledge of a variety of motifs is the basic tool of the trade for the storyteller.
        Motifs don't exist in isolation, but particular clusters of motifs may often occur together, creating similar-appearing tales.   A particular cluster of motifs that hangs together through several individual tales and across various cultures is called a “tale type.”  The Finnish folklorist Antti Aarne first attempted a classification of folk tales by type, using such patterns of connected motifs.  He found motifs to fall generally into seven categories: a supernatural opponent, a supernatural spouse, a supernatural task, a supernatural helper, a magic object, supernatural power or knowledge, and other supernatural motifs.   The Aarne-Thompson Tale Type Index is a guide to the various combinations of motifs that tend to recur together.  Neal Phillip has observed that the characteristic patterns of the tale type provide not only a system for repairing and perpetuating a particular story, but also the framework for “endless experiment and assimilation.”
EXERCISE:  Select several motifs from familiar stories.  (You don't need to be familiar with the Motif Index to do this - you can simply take elements that you have seen in several different stories.)  Recombine them to create your own original "folk" tale.
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