Motif-Index of Folk-Literature

"Folklorists also use motif to refer to the recognizable and consistently repeated story elements (e.g., common characters, objects, actions, and events) that are used in the traditional plot structures, or tale types, of many stories and folktales. These motifs, which Dr. Margaret Read Macdonald calls 'each small part of a tale,' (.) were indexed in 1932 by Stith Thompson and published as the Motif-lndex of Folk-Literature. (.) Thompson built upon the research of Antti Aarne (and the tale type index he created) when he compiled, classified, and numbered the traditional motifs of the mostly European folktale types in Aarne’s index and then cross referenced those motifs with Aarne’s tale types (Dundes). (.) Folklorist Alan Dundes explains that Stith Thompson’s 'six-volume Motif-Index of Folk-Literature and the Aarne-Thompson tale type index constitute two of the most valuable tools in the professional folklorist's arsenal of aids for analysis'."