It tells the story of a princess destined to marry a seemingly dead man, who is, in reality, under a curse, his body prickled by numerous pins.
Meanwhile, the story takes a turn to explain how a prince from a neighbouring kingdom fell deathly ill and seemed to die, but his body looked as if it was in a state of sleep.
Astrologers divined that he would be that way for twelve years, and the king places his son's body in a bungalow outside his kingdom, only to be accessed by his destined bride.
Before the king exits the improvised mausoleum, he writes a warning that only a chaste woman who has made offerings to the gods for her husband can enter the door to the bungalow, only her and nobody else.
The action returns to the first king and his family: they stop by the forest to cook a meal, while the princess goes for a walk and finds the bungalow.
She realizes the beggar man's words have become true, and finds provisions the prince's family have left for twelve years.
In the tenth year, the princess feels lonely and longs for a female companion, when an acrobat girl appears outside the bungalow.
After two more years, the princess hears a bird chirp outside, saying that the time of the vigil is at an end and the girl should take the leaves from a certain tree, make a juice out of it and give it to the prince in a silver cup.
Later, the prince begins to notice differences between the girl who claims to be his wife and the one that acts as their servant, and suspects something is amiss.
The prince overhears the whole story, whips the acrobat girl with a switch to expel her, and goes to meet the princess, his true saviour.
[8][9][10][11] Ramanujan states that the story is combined in India with a local version of the King Lear judgment, indexed as type AT 923B, "The Princess Who Was Responsible for Her Own Fortune".
[18] Ramanujan cited it as an example of "woman-centered folktale",[19] and the Indian tale showcases a wife's devotion and a new bride's loneliness and fear in a new household.
[21] Israeli professor Dov Noy reported that the tale type 894 was "very popular in Oriental literature", with variants found in India, Iran, Egypt and regionally in Europe (southern and eastern).
[23] In this regard, according to Enzyklopädie des Märchens, type 437 is reported in Europe (South, Southeastern, Eastern and Northeast), in the Caucasus, Middle East, North Africa, Central Asia and India.
[27] In a tale from New Goa, collected in the Konkani language, The King of Pins, a princess gives alms to a beggar lady.
The next day, the princess trades the hen with chicks for another night with the prince, and manages to talk to him, for he avoided drinking the potion.
[28] India-born author Maive Stokes collected and published the Indian tale The Princess who Loved her Father like Salt.
She begins the task of carefully taking each needle, one by one, until one day she purchases a slave girl to keep her company.
[29] Maive Stokes compared this tale to a Sicilian variant collected by folklorist Laura Gonzenbach, with the name Der böse Schulmeister und die wandernde Königstochter ("The Evil Schoolmaster and the Wandering Princess").
[30] In a Central Indian tale collected from a Bharia source in Mandla and titled The Sister, a princess with seven brothers receives a prophecy by an astrologer: she will marry a corpse.
The princess comes back from the bath and finds the prince awakened, and the maidservant lies she is a lowly servant.
[31] In a tale collected by Sunity Devi, Maharani of Coochbehar, with the title The Needle Prince, seven princesses who are sisters talk among themselves about leaving or not leaving their parents' home: the six elder princesses would rather stay with their parents, while the youngest, although reluctant to express her opinions at first, tells them she would like to marry one day and live with her husband always.
She walks to the house, which is in fact a richly furnished palace, takes a bath in a swimming pool filled with rosewater, eats some food, and finds the body of a handsome young man lying as if dead, pierced with thousand of needles.
The prince overhears the story and approaches the girl, proposing to marry her in the garden, surrounded by the fairies and blessed by two Brahmins.
The king worries for his daughter's fate, since the Guru's predictions have been true in the past, and takes her to the forest to do charity to beggars and mendicants.
After the merchant oil leaves, his daughter learns from the princess how to revive the dead man, and goes to finish the task the next day, since there is only a blade of dub grass left.
Some time later, the man goes to town to buy gifts for his wife (red bangles and other accessories) and the maidservant (a Mina bird).
[33][34] In a tale from Uttar Pradesh published by author Krishna Prakash Bahadur with the title The Lucky Princess, a king summons his seven daughters to ask them by whose good fortune do they have food to eat.
As for the princess, she notices she is inside a palace; she opens every room and finds a dead prince's body in the attic, all prickled with needles.
Some time later, the prince buys from the market an emerald and a pigtail for the false princess and a doll on the true's one request.