[1] In Russia the story was more commonly known as "Sister Alionushka, Brother Ivanushka", and collected by Alexander Afanasyev in his Narodnye russkie skazki.

In Russia the story was more commonly known as Sister Alionushka, Brother Ivanushka, and collected by Alexander Afanasyev in his Narodnye russkie skazki.

The Polish folklorist Julian Krzyżanowski suggested that a 1558 Latin language booklet by a Polish author and poet, Christopher Kobylienski [pl], contains a literary treatment of the tale type: a pair of siblings escapes from home; the boy drinks from "dangerous waters" cursed by a witch and becomes a lamb; his sister marries a king, but a creature named Invidia shoves her into the sea and replaces her; the sister becomes a fish.

[4][5] Tired of the cruel mistreatment they endure from their stepmother, who is an evil witch, a brother and sister run away from home, wander off into the countryside, and spend the night in the woods.

When the queen's ghost secretly visits her baby's bedside for three consecutive nights, the king catches on and her stepmother's evil plan is exposed.

[12] Stith Thompson located variants in Eastern Europe (Russia, Baltic region and the Balkans), but also across the Near East and into India.

[15] In this regard, the Hungarian Folktale Catalogue (MNK) registers 48 variants,[7] classified as type 450, Az őztestvér ("The Roe Deer Sibling").

[17] Scholars Anna Angelopoulou and Aigle Broskou state that tale type 450 is "widespread" in Greece, with 124 variants recorded.

In the Polish type, the sibling pair either escapes from home or are abandoned in the forest by their parents; later, the boy drinks some water from an animal's footprint and becomes a lamb, a goat or a bull; the sister eventually marries a king, but is replaced by her stepmother or a rival.

[22][23] The type is also attested in the Bulgarian Folktale Catalogue with the title "Братчето еленче" ("Little Fawn Brother") or Brüderchen Hirsch ("Little Hart Brother"): the brother and sister escape from a cannibalistic attempt by their parents in a "Magical Flight" sequence by throwing objects behind them (a comb, a jug of water, razors), or their stepmother convinces their father to abandon the two in the forest; while traversing the woods, the boy drinks water from a deer's hoofprints and becomes one; they settle in the forest, the sister atop a tree near a spring, and the deer underneath it; eventually, the sister is found by a king and marries him.

[27] According to the Latvian Folktale Catalogue, the tale type is also found in Latvia, indexed as type 450, Apburtais brālis ("Enchanted Brother"): the pair of siblings escape from their stepmother; the brother drinks water and becomes an animal (deer, ram, wolf, goat, or horse); the sister marries a king, but the stepmother comes back and shoves her into the water.

In these tales, the boy becomes a "silken, fleecy lamb", and, after his sister marries the prince, their step-mother turns her into a duck.

[30] In his Catalogue of Persian Folktales, German scholar Ulrich Marzolph [de] reports 11 Iranian variants of type 450, "Brüderchen und Schwesterchen" ("Little Brother and Little Sister"), wherein the pair of siblings escape from their evil stepmother or from a div, and the little brother becomes a gazelle by drinking from a water source.

In the Turkish catalogue, they indexed a similar narrative as type TTV 168, "Bruder Hirsch" ("The Deer Brother"), with 32 variants in Turkey.

In this type, the stepmother wishes for the death of her step-children, a brother and sister pair, who escape from her in a Magical Flight sequence.

After the siblings make their way to the woods, the brother drinks water from a puddle and becomes a deer, while the girl takes refuge up a tree.

[36] Modern psycho-analysis interprets the relation between brother and sister in this story as a metaphor for the animalistic and spiritual duality in humans.

Note then the symbolical gesture with which the girl ties her gold chain around her brother's neck, as if to suggest the taming of the animalistic side.

She uses some sort of bilocation to send out her soul and feed her baby, but it weakens her greatly in the process; her husband the King and his soldiers rescue her right before she withers away.