The name "Lucsandra" may derive from that of the mythical princess Cassandra (Alexandra), and from the city of Leuctra connected to her cult.
This tale was originally collected and published by author I. C. Fundescu [ro] with the name Fata din dafinu, in 1875.
[2] According to Laura Regneala, a version of the tale, titled Fata din Dafin, was written down by Romanian folklorist G. Dem.
Nothing his mother did placated him until she promised him that he could marry Sanda-Lucsandra, a fair maiden who lived past nine lands and nine seas.
When he grew up, however, he demanded that his parents marry him to her, and when the queen confessed she had made up Sanda-Lucsandra, he set out in search of her.
[4] Romanian scholarship classified the story in the then Aarne-Thompson Index as type AaTh 652A, "The Myrtle".
[8] Writer and folklorist Cristea Sandu Timoc stated that the title Fata din Dafin is another name for the tale type ATU 408, The Love for Three Oranges, in variants from southern Romania.
[10] Fundescu stated that "Dafinu" was the name for the laurel tree in Romanian, and recalled the Greek myth of Apollo and Daphne, the maiden transformed into her arboreal namesake.
[11] Romanian folklorist Petru Caraman (ro) also considered that the maiden harked back to the myth of Daphne.
[12] Moses Gaster and B. Heller cited the Romanian tale Fata din Dafin as a parallel to the story of prophet Isaiah hiding inside of a cedar-tree.
[14] Researcher Galina Kabakova sees that, in the tale type, the plant acts as a parent to the heroine; after the prince touches her, she cannot return to the tree, and has to fend for herself in the world of men.
[18] von Hahn cited a Wallachian tale from Banat, collected by the Schott brothers, with the title Die Waldjungfrau Wunderschön.
He also reported a Turkish variant where her abode is a cypress tree, and 7 other texts found in Greece.
[21] One of the Greek variants was collected from Iannina by Austrian consul Johann Georg von Hahn, with the title Das Lorbeerkind ("The Laurel Child").
[24] In a Turkish tale translated as The Silver Cypress Tree with Golden Fruit, a poor childless woman takes a piece of wood, carves a likeness of a child and cradles it as if a baby.
On the appointed day, the prince departs before early dawn and leaves the maiden asleep.