Ancient ✦ Wisdom ✦ Atlas

Motif family

Shapeshifter and Transformation

The figure who changes form # human to animal, god to mortal, one being to another. Includes voluntary transformation, punishment-transformation, and metamorphosis as escape or transcendence.

100 traditions

6,570 occurrences

311 mapped motifs

16 sub-families

  • african akan
  • african bantu
  • afro caribbean
  • ainu
  • akan
  • amazonian
  • andamanese
  • arctic inuit
  • armenian
  • arthurian
  • australian aboriginal
  • basque
  • bavili
  • biblical
  • buddhist
  • buryat mongol
  • caucasian
  • celtic
  • celtic irish
  • celtic welsh
  • chaco amerindian
  • christian apocrypha
  • comparative
  • confucian
  • daoist
  • egyptian
  • ekoi
  • estonian
  • 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
  • khoekhoe
  • khoisan south african
  • kikuyu
  • kimbundu
  • korean
  • malagasy
  • malay
  • mangaian
  • maori
  • 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
  • san
  • shan
  • shinto
  • siberian
  • sikh
  • slavic
  • sufi
  • taoist
  • temne
  • tibetan buddhist
  • tongan
  • vietnamese
  • xhosa
  • yoruba
  • zoroastrian
  • zulu
  • zuni

Conserved neighbors: trickster · death and transformation

Sub-families · the next landing down

Disguises and Recognition

14 motifs

Animal Bodies and Soul Transmigration

8 motifs

Animal Forms, Hybrids, and Boundaries

8 motifs

Transformations into Animal Forms

3 motifs

Transformative Pursuit and Escape

4 motifs

Punitive Transformations

6 motifs

Stone Transformation and Petrification

5 motifs

Metamorphic Origin Explanations

6 motifs

Transformative Magic and Enchantment Reversal

5 motifs

Love, Kinship, and Marriage Transformations

8 motifs

Battle Transformations of Heroes

5 motifs

Tree Transformations, Animated Trees, and Group Metamorphosis

4 motifs

Transformed Objects, Structures, and Weapons

4 motifs

Multiform Beings and Altered Bodies

5 motifs

Cosmic Mutability of Forms

2 motifs

Enchanted Fish, Horses, and Mounts

3 motifs

Not yet placed in a sub-family

221 motifs, showing the 60 most attested

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