Prâslea the Brave and the Golden Apples

German scholar Ulrich Marzolph [de], in his catalogue of Persian folktales, identified a similar narrative in the Iranian tale corpus, which he titled Erlebnisse in der Unterwelt ("Adventure in the Underworld").

[7] However, in a later study, professor Mehri Bagheri stated that this narrative is "well-known" in Iran and neighbouring countries, with more than 20 versions collected in the former.

[8] According to Russian professor V. A. Yaremenko, the story of a thief in the night who comes to steal the king's golden apples and the hero who stops him is "very common in almost every part of Iraq".

[10] In an Iraqi variant, a king with three sons, Ahmad, Mahmud and Muhammed, owns a tree with beautiful blossoms, but lately it has been losing them.

[11] In the Typen türkischer Volksmärchen ("Turkish Folktale Catalogue"), by Wolfram Eberhard and Pertev Naili Boratav, both scholars classified a cycle of stories they named TTV 72, "Der Phönix" ("The Phoenix").

The youngest princess tells him that, if he gets trapped down there, he should go to her room, get four dice and throw it at the wall; four rams will appear and he must jump on the white one.

[13] Researcher Genevieve Massignon stated that the theft of the golden fruits "is frequently found in France" as the opening episode of type 301A.

The prince enters the castle and meets a princess, who reveals she is the daughter of the king of Spain, and that she and her sisters have been trapped in the underworld for 500 by the eagle (a great magician).

[a] He jumps onto the black ram and arrives at another kingdom, where a princess is to be sacrificed to a dragon that blocks the flow of water (a feature of tale type ATU 300, "The Dragon-Slayer").

The prince rescues this fourth princess, saves eaglets from a snake and their father, the King of Eagles, in gratitude, takes him back to the surface world.

The betrayed prince finds a job as a tailor and uses the magical nuts to produce the three marvellous robes to give to the youngest princess he rescued.

[20] Another variant from Lesbos, Les Pommes d'Or ("The Golden Apples"), follows this structure very closely: the invasion of the garden by an unknown thief; the night watch; the descent through a hole; the finding of three princesses in underground castles or houses.

Close to the wedding of the youngest princess to his elder brother, the prince orders the sewing of three garments: the first of the sky filled with stars, the second of the earth with its flowers and the third of the sea and its fishes.

The three princes stand guard to watch over the tree: the culprit is a "dark cloud of thunder and lightning" that holds out a hand to steal the apple.

After the exposal of the false dragon killer, the king thanks the youth and indicates to him the place where he can find eagles that may take him to the surface, but he must kill a many-headed serpent that menaces the nest.

[22] In a second variant collected by von Hahn from Tinos, there is still the vigil on the tree at night against the thief (a drakos), but the princesses are held captive in an underground chamber.

[24] In an Albanian tale published by Albanologist Robert Elsie with the title The Scurfhead, a king with three sons has a tree that grows three quinces every year, but a dragon always appears to eat the fruits.

His sons decide to protect the tree: the two elders fail, but the youngest, nicknamed "Scurfhead", hurts the dragon and plans to follow a blood trail he left behind.

The youth kills the snake and their father, in gratitude, promises to take him back to the surface (this variant lacks the offering of food to the eagle, present in several other tales of the same type).

[25] In an Armenian variant titled The Adventures of a Prince, first published in the compilation Manana, the king has fallen ill and sends his three sons to a distant land (India) to recover the apple-fruits from a Tree of Immortality.

Out of gratitude, the eagle mother promises to give the prince a ride back to the upper world, the "Land of Light".

One of the houri-maidens suspects a possible treason on the prince's brothers and warns him to find the three rams (red, white and black) that can bring him back to the surface.

[28] In an Armenian tale, The Youngest of the Three, a sick king sends his sons to fetch the Apple of Life in a garden in India, which is guarded by giants.

The tale concludes with the third prince summoning the three differently coloured horses and taking part in a tournament as a mysterious knight.

The youngest princess, the most beautiful of the three, gives him a ring as a memento and warns him that, in case he is stranded in the underworld, he can use a white ram to reach the surface (its pair, a black one, will take him deep underground).

He wanders a bit and arrives at an old woman's house, who informs him of a dragon who demands the sacrifice of the princess in order to release the water sources.

[32] 20th century Hungarian scholar, Ágnes Kovács found 145 variants of the tale type ATU 301, divided into 6 redactions.

[38] Scholar C. V. Trever listed two Kurdish tales and one Armenian that contain the episode of the rescue of the bird chicks by killing a snake enemy.

In this version there is the motif of the hero sacrificing part of his flesh to give meat to the bird to finish the journey, but he is healed soon after.

[47] Further studies by professor Joseph Szövérffy indicate that "most of the versions of this type come from Eastern Europe, Asia Minor, and the area surrounding the Mediterranean".