Although the tale appears in the work One Thousand and One Nights, a similar story is attested earlier in the Indian Panchatantra, albeit with a flying bird-like mechanism in the shape of a Garuda.

[5] An Indian craftsman and inventor of magical devices arrives in the Persian city of Shiraz at the time of the New Year celebration, mounted upon a splendid artificial horse – surprisingly life-like, despite its mechanical nature.

Reunited with his beloved son, the King of Persia releases the craftsman, who seizes the opportunity for revenge, using the horse to abduct the princess and disappearing swiftly over the horizon with her.

By having her pretend to be partially cured, the prince succeeds in persuading the king of Cashmere to openly present the ebony horse to complete the princess' healing.

[6][7] These stories include Cleomades,[8][9] Chaucer's The Squire's Tale,[10][11] Valentine and Orson[12] and Meliacin ou le Cheval de Fust, by troubador Girart d'Amiens (fr).

[22] The oldest attestation and possible origin of the tale type is suggested to be an 11th century Jain recension of the Pancatantra, in the story The Weaver as Vishnu.

In this tale, a poor weaver fashions an artificial likeness of legendary bird mount Garuda, the ride of god Vishnu.

He uses the construct to reach the topmost room of the princess he fell in love with and poses as Lord Vishnu to impress his beloved.

He also suggested that a flying horse, either of wax or wood, appears in ancient Indian literature (e.g., the Rig Veda), and may date from before the time of Christ.

[27] Another line of scholarship sees a possible predecessor of the tale type with Chinese god Lu Ban, patron deity of carpenters and builders.

[31] Czech scholar Karel Horálek, in Enzyklopädie des Märchens, considered India the "center of diffusion" of the tale type.

[33] Philologist Franz Miklosich collected a variant in Romani language which he titled Der geflügelte Held ("The Flying Hero"), about an artifex that fashions a pair of wings.

[40] A variant exists in the newly discovered collection of Bavarian folk and fairy tales of Franz Xaver von Schönwerth, titled The Flying Trunk (German: Das fliegende Kästchen).

[43] According to the Hungarian Folktale Catalogue (MNK), tale type 575, A repülő királyfi ("The Flying Prince"), registers few variants in Hungary.

[60] The tale type also exists in Latvia, with the title Brīnuma spārni ("Wonderful Wings"): an artisan fashions the artificial bird for the prince, who travels to another kingdom, falls in love with a princess and escapes with her on the flying device.

[66] In an Ossetian tale titled "Деревянный голубь" ("The Wooden Dove"), a metalsmith and carpenter argue whose is the more necessary skill: metalworking or woodworking.

[67] A similar story, also named The Tale of the Ebony Horse, can also be found in One Hundred and One Nights, another book of Arab literature and whose original manuscripts were recently discovered.

[68] According to professor Ruth B. Bottigheimer, an Arabic-language manuscript mentions a tale titled Fars al-abnus ('Horse of Ebony'), predating Hanna Diyab's story by two centuries.

[70] Andrew Lang published the story with the name The Enchanted Horse, in his translation of The Arabian Nights, and renamed the prince Firouz Schah.

[72] French orientalist François Pétit de La Croix published in the 18th century a compilation of Middle Eastern tales, titled Les Mille et un jours ("The Thousand and One Days").

[73] German scholar Ulrich Marzolph [de] located another narrative from the Ottoman Turkish Ferec baʿd eş-şidde ('Relief After Hardship'), an anonymous book dated to the 15th century.

The weaver flies off on the chest and reaches the kingdom of Oman, where he introduces himself as the Angel Gabriel to a princess locked in a tower.

Unaware of her husband's fate, she takes their son and goes to a caravan to another city, where they set up shop in hopes of finding Rafik.

[84] Anthropologist Stephen Fuchs collected a tale titled Uṛhan Ghōṛā ("The Flying Horse"), from a Baiga source named Musra, from the Bijora village near Dindori in eastern Mandla.

On the day of the execution, he escapes with the princess on the winged horse, but the couple must make a hasty descent on a small island for her to give birth.

The king decides to set a contest to settle their dispute: the metalsmith creates an iron fish and the carpenter a wooden horse that can fly.

Angry at the unjust payment, the soldier enters the magician hut and sits on a three-legged stool, waiting for his employer.

[92] Sufi scholar Idries Shah adapted the tale as the children's book The Magic Horse: a King summons a woodcarver and a metalsmith to create wondrous contraptions.

The tale type was also adapted into a Czech fantasy film in 1987, titled O princezně Jasněnce a ševci, který létal (Princess Jasnenka and the Flying Shoemaker).

The film was based on a homonymous literary fairy tale by Czech author Jan Drda, first published in 1959, in České pohádky.