Motif-Index of Folk-Literature

Record summary

Stith Thompson’s expanded Motif-Index of Folk-Literature, issued in a second edition from 1955 to 1958, catalogued recurring narrative motifs across international folklore. It provides a verifiable route for locating deluge, survivor, warning, divine punishment and world-renewal motifs in named traditions and collections. The work is valuable for discovery and cross-cultural indexing, not for demonstrating diffusion or historical events. Classification reflects mid-century European and comparative-folklore assumptions, and indexed motifs can conceal major differences in genre, performance and cultural meaning.