Recently, I was looking up the classic telling (1756) of “Beauty and the Beast” by Jeanne Marie Le Prince de Beaumont and one of the things that I found interesting was that it was classified as type 425C, which is Search for a lost husband in Aarne-Thompson – Types of the Folk Tale. It reminded me of an article I had written in 2009 about fairy tale motifs. I posted the short blog post below – If this interests you, you can now find all kinds of information on the internet about this subject. And although it can get a little confusing, if you are a fairy tale buff, you’ll probably find it fascinating. Motifs are recurring themes or ideas in fairy tales. Even though the Standard Dictionary of Folklore says: “A mother as such is not a motif. A cruel mother becomes one because she is at least thought to be unusual,” that is actually what made me curious about recurrences in fairy tales.
Since I try to leave the heart of the fairy tales in my stories when I use them as inspiration, I started recognizing that some recurrences—especially the family unit: Grandmothers, single parents who remarry, stepsisters, siblings—were very important in the foundation of my story. If I changed the family structure, my story structure crumbled. My curiosity led me to research motifs in fairy tales. Seems to be more research on fairy tale motif than there are fairy tales, but the main work I found interesting and wanted to share is the Aarne-Thompson – Types of the Folk Tale.
In 1910, Antti Aarne, compiled and published, Index of Types of Folktale, in German. In 1928 (and again in 1961) it was revised and expanded by the American folklorist Stith Thompson. The 6 volume Aarne-Thompson Types of the Folk Tale uses a system to group fairy and folk tales according to motifs – giving them AT numbers. According to The Department of Scandinavian Studies the “AT-number may cover a whole folktale, or a sequence (an episode) of a folktale.”
There are 5 main categories; however, about half the folk tales and fairy tales are classified under #2 – Ordinary Folktales.
1. Animal Tales (Types 1-299),
2. Ordinary Folktales (Types 300-1199),
3. Jokes and Anecdotes (Types 1200-1999),
4. Formula Tales (Types 2000-2399),
5. Unclassified Tales (Types 2400-2499)
Cinderella, my favorite fairy tale, is AT510.
The Department of Scandinavian Studies also has a great pdf with further motif explanations and an extensive AT list. (Note: I went and looked this up today and couldn’t find the pdf – it has been 8 years lol)
Dorlana Vann - Author 
Very helpful! Learning the motif’s has been on my list for awhile. Thanks for posting.
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Hi Eric – – Yay, I’m glad it was helpful. Some day I’m going to do more research on them because they are so interesting. Thanks for stopping by.
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I found rhe Stith Thompson Motif Index this morning. I thought I would sharewith you.
http://folkmasa.org/motiv/motif.htm
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Awesome thank you!
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