It is a translation of the Scottish tale "Nicht Nought Nothing", originally collected by Andrew Lang from an old woman in Morayshire, Scotland.
[3] Jacobs' version "Nix Nought Nothing" (1898) with the altered title derives from Lang's Scottish tale.
After learning from the hen-wife a counteracting spell to ward off his sleepiness for as long as she wished, she succeeds in waking the prince for a while, and securing the promised marriage.
This is also the source from which Jacobs, acting on Lang's hint, borrows the detail about the heroine hurling an object (flask/water bladder) that turns into a lake to drown the giant.
From Ireland comes a similar tale, "The Three Tasks" (Carleton's Traits and Stories of Irish Peasantry, 1830);[6] as well as "The Giant and his Royal Servant" (Patrick Kennedy, Fireside Stories of Ireland, 1870) which shares the element of the royal family's attempt to trick the giant by delivering a commoner's child as the prince's surrogate.
[7] Lang's essay, "A Far-travelled Tale", argues that analogues are to be found even farther afield (Zululand, Madagascar, Samoa, among the Algonquian Indians, Japan, to add to the list).
Obstacle flight) and lists counterparts such as the story of Śṛingabhuja in the Kathasaritsagara,[8] Russian stories of "Vasilissa the Wise and the Water King" and the Japanese mythological tale of Izanagi casting combs and headdresses to throw off the "ugle woman of Hades" (actually eight women, called Yomotsu-shikome).
As noted in the synopsis, Jacobs adapted odds and bits from these analogues to repair the defect (lacuna) that Lang detected in his own raw collected version.
The sorceress assists in the quest of the Golden Fleece when she "throws behind the mangled remains of her own brother, Apsyrtos" to stop the Colchians in pursuit.
An American English variant was read by Mr Newell before the Folk-Lore Congress entitled Lady Feather Flight.