[1] "East of the Sun and West of the Moon" was collected by Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe.

It was likely an offspring from the tale of "Cupid and Psyche" in The Golden Ass,[3] which gave rise to similar animal bridegroom cycles[4] such as "Beauty and the Beast".

She finally persuades her daughter to disclose the entire account about the strange man who sleeps beside her in the dark each night, and leaves before daybreak.

In response to the girl's story, she insists that the White Bear must really be a troll, gives her a candle, and tells her to light it at night, to see who is sharing her bed, warning her not to spill any tallow.

Waking him, thus, she is told that if she had waited for a year, he would have been free, but now he must go to his wicked stepmother, a witch-queen who turned him into his form and lives in a castle that lies "east of the Sun and west of the Moon", and marry her daughter, a witch-princess.

That third old woman does not know the way to the castle either, but lends the girl another horse to ride to the East Wind, and gives her the golden spinning wheel with which she had been working.

The North Wind says he once exhausted himself blowing an aspen leaf to her desired destination, but would take her there if she was absolutely determined to go there.

This time, the girl's weeping and plaintive utterances, as she attempts to awaken the prince, are overheard by imprisoned townspeople within the castle.

On the third day, the princess agrees to another night in the prince's bedchamber in exchange for the girl's golden spinning wheel.

The prince tells her how she can save him: He will declare that he will marry anyone who can wash out the tallow stains from his shirt, since his stepmother and her daughter cannot do it.

The bear and the girl live like husband and wife, but he becomes a man at night, and disappears during the day, and she cannot light any candle at home.

The girl and the man decide to play a trick on the large-nosed woman: he will set a challenge for his future bride to wash the tallow spot on his shirt.

The girl eventually yields and tells her mother about the mysterious bedmate, and the woman suggests she lights a candle to better see them at night.

The sorceress is drawn to the golden gifts, which the girl trades for three nights with her husband, the bear prince, now in human form.

Finally awakened, the bear prince plots with the girl, his true wife, a way to defeat the sorceress: whoever washes the wax stain on his shirt shall have him for husband.

In this tale type, the heroine is a human maiden who marries a prince that is cursed to become an animal of some sort.

[10][11] According to Hans-Jörg Uther, the main feature of tale type ATU 425A is "bribing the false bride for three nights with the husband".

[12][a] According to Jan-Öjvind Swahn [sv]'s study on some 1,100 variants of Cupid and Psyche and related types, he concluded that the bear is the "most usual" form of the supernatural husband in Germanic and Slavonic areas.