Ancient ✦ Wisdom ✦ Atlas

Motif family

Flood, Fire, and Cosmic Renewal

The destruction of the world or the old order by water, fire, or catastrophe, followed by renewal and the establishment of a new world. Includes the flood narrative, the ark/vessel of survival, and the survivor pair who repopulate or restart.

96 traditions

2,712 occurrences

101 mapped motifs

15 sub-families

  • african akan
  • african bantu
  • ainu
  • akan
  • amazonian
  • andamanese
  • arctic inuit
  • armenian
  • arthurian
  • australian aboriginal
  • basque
  • biblical
  • buddhist
  • caucasian
  • celtic
  • celtic irish
  • celtic welsh
  • chaco amerindian
  • christian apocrypha
  • comparative
  • confucian
  • daoist
  • egyptian
  • ekoi
  • estonian
  • ethiopian christian
  • fijian
  • filipino
  • finnic
  • finnish karelian
  • fjort
  • ganda
  • georgian
  • germanic
  • gnostic
  • greek
  • greek roman
  • guiana amerindian
  • hausa
  • hawaiian
  • hermetic
  • hindu
  • hopi
  • inca
  • indigenous australian
  • inuit
  • islamic
  • islamicate folklore
  • jain
  • japanese
  • jewish christian
  • jewish pseudepigrapha
  • kikuyu
  • korean
  • malagasy
  • malay
  • mangaian
  • maori
  • maya
  • maya quiche
  • melanesian
  • mesopotamian
  • micronesian
  • mongol
  • nahua maya inca
  • native american california
  • native american great lakes
  • native american northeast woodlands
  • native american northwest coast
  • native american plains
  • native american plateau
  • native american southeast
  • native american southwest
  • navajo
  • norse
  • oceanic
  • persian
  • roman
  • romanian
  • samoan
  • shan
  • shinto
  • siberian
  • sikh
  • slavic
  • sufi
  • taoist
  • temne
  • tibetan buddhist
  • tongan
  • vietnamese
  • xhosa
  • yoruba
  • zoroastrian
  • zulu
  • zuni

Conserved neighbors: cosmic origin · divine judgment · death and transformation · covenant

Sub-families · the next landing down

Floodwaters, Deluge, and Flood Damage

8 motifs

Arks, Floating Refuges, Islands, and Tree Refuges

5 motifs

Shipwreck Survivors and Flood Landfall

5 motifs

Concealed Refuges and Flight from Catastrophe

8 motifs

World Fires and Burning Cities

5 motifs

Destruction of Humanity and Giants; Averted Extinction

3 motifs

Submerged Cities, Islands, and Lost Lands

4 motifs

Righteous Remnants and the Few Spared

9 motifs

Survivor Pairs, Lineages, Repeopling, and Refounding

7 motifs

Cosmic Dissolution and Final Destruction

6 motifs

New Heavens, New Earths, and Renewed Ages

6 motifs

Radiant Halls, Mountain Halls, and the Peaceful World to Come

3 motifs

Cosmic Ordering through Music and Vessel-Shaping

2 motifs

Warnings and Object Recoveries Before the End

3 motifs

Final Battlefield, Last Battle, and Ship of the Dead

3 motifs

Not yet placed in a sub-family

30 motifs

Each motif link opens its evidence page: every tagged passage with its quote, and a path into the book where the passage lives.