[1] The tale is about a princess who rescues her beautiful sister from an evil enchantment and a prince from a wasting sickness caused by dancing nightly with the fairies.

(Jacobs' notes reveal that in the original story both girls were called Kate and that he had changed one's name to Anne.)

The tale touches upon the wicked stepmother theme but never fully develops it, and the green hill may be related to the Venusberg of Tannhäuser, or another site of pleasure.

Unlike many popular tales, which are known from reworked literary forms, "Crackernuts" is very close to the oral tradition.

[2] It combines Aarne–Thompson types 306, the danced-out shoes, such as "The Twelve Dancing Princesses", and 711, the beautiful and the ugly twin, such as "Tatterhood".

The fairies' forcing young men and women to come to a revel every day and dance to exhaustion, and so waste away, was a common European belief.