While they did it, the boy told the king the story of their lives (with a refrain of "o, a string of pearls twined with golden flowers").
Journalist Eustace Clare Grenville Murray collected a Romanian variant titled Sirte-Margarite.
In this tale, two sisters promise grand things to the king, the youngest that she will bear twins with golden hair.
The twins regain human form and appear at a gathering (a "claca") to retell their story as they string together pearls from a basket.
[4] A variant from northern Moldavia was collected from teller Sanda Buftea, from Broscăuți, and published by Romanian author Elena Niculiță-Voronca in 1903 with the title Suie-te, mărgăritari mare.
[5] Romanian folklorist Dumitru Stăncescu [ro] collected a tale titled Inșir te Mărgărite cu dalbe flori aurite from an informant named Ion Georgescu.
[6] The opening sequence, of a woman promising to bear fabulous children and their kidnapping, is a common fairy tale motif, but in most such tales – "Ancilotto, King of Provino", "The Three Little Birds", "The Dancing Water, the Singing Apple, and the Speaking Bird", "The Wicked Sisters" – the children are abandoned, rather than murdered.
Writer and folklorist Cristea Sandu Timoc considered that Insir-te margarite and variants were typically Romanian, and belonged to tale type AaTh 707C*.
He also reported that "more than 70 variants" of this subtype were "known" (as of 1988), closely connected to the international type ATU 707, "The Three Golden Children".