One day, the king was travelling (hunting to forget his childlessness in the Polish, inspecting his country in the Russian), and grew thirsty.
He came to a lake where thirty ducks (Russian) or twelve geese (Polish) were swimming, and where there were clothes on the shore.
Andrew Lang included the Russian version King Kojata, in The Green Fairy Book.
A. H. Wratislaw collected a Polish variant Prince Unexpected in his Sixty Folk-Tales from Exclusively Slavonic Sources, as tale number 17.
[5] In addition, in a Czech language book of Slavic fairy tales, Erben published a variant where the antagonist describes himself as "Kościéj nesmrtelný" (litt.
[6] A version of the tale, named Kojata and sourced as Russian, was published in The Golden Fairy Book.
[9] The tale was translated into English as The Unlooked-for Prince and included by Andrew Lang in The Grey Fairy Book.
[10] The tale is classified in the Aarne–Thompson–Uther Index as ATU 313, "The Magic Flight" or "Maiden helps the hero flee",[11] with the episode of the "forgotten fiancée".
[13] Philologist and folklorist Julian Krzyżanowski, establisher of the Polish Folktale Catalogue according to the international index, classified Kojata as type T 313A, "Ucieczka (Dziewczyna ułatwia bohaterowi ucieczkę)" ("Flight (Girl facilitates the hero's escape)").
[14] A. H. Wratislaw suggested the antagonist of the story is the Polish version of Koschei the Deathless, the wizard character of Russian folklore.
When they take off the disguise to bathe and play in the water, a human male hides the clothing of the youngest - a story that mirrors the widespread tale of the swan maiden.
John decides to depart and meet the King of the Devils, and passes by the same brook where his father made his deal.
John finally reaches the house of the King of the Devils and is ordered to perform tasks for him: to make a feathered hat out of a cabbage leaf, to make silver spurs out of cabbage water, and to create brass scales out of a jug of pure water.
With the King of Devils' daughter's help, John fulfills the first two tasks, but the girl says the third one is impossible to do, and bids them flee that same night.
After reaching King Greenbeard's country, the girl assumes her normal form, turns John back and marries him.
[19] In a tale from the Mordvin people titled "Обещанный сын" ("The Promised Son"), an old couple are sad for not having any children.
The boy decides to leave home and walks through the woods until he reaches the hut of Baba Yaga.
The witch tells the boy that the gray-bearded man is her brother-in-law, who has a daughter by Baba Yaga's sister, and another eleven from a second marriage.
The girl turns the boy into a grouse and herself back into a dove, and both fly to the gray-bearded man's house.
There, the gray-bearded man orders the boy to perform some tasks for him: to build a bridge over a river; to raze a forest, plant a wheat field, harvest it, grind the grain into flour, and prepare a bread with the flour - all of this overnight; and identify the girl from a row of his twelve daughters.