[1] Despite its origins as a literary tale, variants are recorded from oral tradition across Europe, in the Americas, and even in Asia.

[3][4][5] Austrian consul and folktale collector Johann Georg von Hahn saw a parallel between the miraculous birth of the princess's child and their banishment to the sea in a casket and the Greek legend of Danae and her son, the hero Perseus.

[13] Professors Michael Meraklis and Nicole Belmont remarked that, in some Greek and French variants of the tale type, the hero is a half-man son, born due to a hasty wish from his mother.

[14][15] The tale type of ATU 675 is "told all over Europe"[16] and, argued Stith Thompson, "disseminated rather evenly" over the continent.

[17] While noticing its dissemination throughout Europe, Paul Delarue stated that the tale type can be found in Turkey, and "here and there in the rest of Asia" (including Vietnam).

[18] 19th century Portuguese folklorist Consiglieri Pedroso claimed that the tale type is "popular everywhere", but specially "in the East of Europe".

[20] Historian William Reginald Halliday suggested an origin in Middle East, instead of Western Europe,[21] since the Half-Man or Half-Boy hero appears in Persian tales.

[24] In an Irish variant collected in Bealoideas, a leprechaun is the magical creature that grants the wishes to a half-wit hero.

[27] In a variant from Albret (Labrit), Bernanouéillo ("Bernanoueille"), collected by abbot Leopold Dardy, the donor who offers the protagonist the power to fulfill his wishes is "Le Bon Dieu" (God).

[28] In the Portuguese variant The Baker's Idle Son, the pike that blesses the fool with the magical spell becomes a man and marries the princess.

[29] In a Greek variant collected by Johann Georg von Hahn, Der halbe Mensch ("The Half-Man"), the protagonist, a man born with only half of his body, wishes for the princess to be magically impregnated.

After the recognition test by the child and the banishment of the family on the barrel, the princess marries a man of her father's court, and the half-man another woman.

In 1975 the Institute published a catalog edited by Alberto Maria Cirese [it] and Liliana Serafini reported 16 variants of type 675 across Italian sources, under the name Il Ragazzo Indolente.

[32] In a variant collected by Sicilian writer Giuseppe Pitre, Lu Loccu di li Pàssuli e Ficu ("The Fig-and-Raisin Fool"), the foolish character's favorite fruits are figs and raisins.

[37] In this variant, Zerbino is a lazy woodcutter from Salerno who earns his living by gathering firewood and selling, and spends the rest of his time sleeping.

[41] In another variant by Grundtvig, Den dovne Dreng ("The Idle Youth"), the titular protagonist releases a frog into the water, which blesses him with unlimited wishes.

The child identifies Sigurdur, and the king puts his daughter, his grandchild and the lazy boy on a chest and throws them in the sea.

[50] In an Inari Sámi tale titled The Great Lord's Son-in-Law, a poor boy finds a giant pike in a forest lake.

The boy is brought to the lord's mansion to interpret the bird's shrill, and is also convinced to marry the girl to give her baby a father.

[51] In the Bulgarian tale Der Faulpelz, oder: Gutes wird mit Gutem vergolten ("Lazybones, or: Good is repaid with good"), the lazy youth puts a fish back in the ocean and in return is taught a spell that can make all his wishes come true ("lengo i save i more").

[52] The tale was originally collected by Bulgarian folklorist Kuzman Shapkarev with the title Лèнго - ленѝвото дèте или доброто со добро се изплашчат ("Lengo, the Lazy Child or Good with Good is Repaid") and sourced as from Ohrid, modern day North Macedonia.

[55] A collection of Upper Silesian fairy tales by Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff (unpublished at the time, but in print only later by his descendant Karl von Eichendorff (de)) contains a fragmentary version of the tale type, with the name Der Faulpelz und der Fisch ("The Lazy Boy and the Fish") or Das Märchen von dem Faulpelz, dem wunderbaren Fisch und der Prinzessin ("The Tale of the Lazy Boy, the Wonderful Fish and the Princess").

Scholarship suggests its origin to be legitimately Slavic, since the main character sleeps by the stove and eats cabbage soup, elements present in Russian and Polish variants.

When the king discovers this, he kills a bull, sews its hide, and places his daughter, his grandson and the lazy boy inside, then throws them in the sea.

[60] Scholars Richard Dorson and William Bernard McCarthy reported that the tale type was "well documented" in Hispanic- (Iberian) and Franco-American traditions,[61][62] and also existed in the West Indies and among the Native Americans.

[64] In Argentinian variants, the main character, John the Lazy, receives a "virtue wand" from the magical fish to fulfill his wishes.

One day, the vulture king sees Tabong lying down and, thinking him dead, flies down to eat him, but the youth catches the bird.

[68] In a Thai tale titled Saen Pom, Thao Saenpom[69] or Der Mann mit den Tausend Geschwüren ("The Man with a Thousand Warts"), a man named Saen Pom is covered from head to toe in warts, and works in the king's garden planting crops, including eggplant (in some versions, he waters them with his urine).

The king, now knowing the cause of his public disgrace, orders his daughter, his grandson and Saem Pom to be cast adrift in the sea on a boat.

Thus, Saen Pom, the princess and the boy (now named Prince U-Thong) live together in Thep Nakhorn before they move to Ayutthaya.