The tale was collected by Ivan Khudyakov from a source in the then-existing Ryazan Governorate, originally titled "Опять Сноха" ("The Daughter-in-Law, Again").
[1] The tale was translated into German language by author August von Löwis de Menar with the title Das Mädchen als Soldat ("The Girl as Soldier").
The heroine's husband warns her that his mother's "sister" is not a relative, but the witch Baba Yaga, who will devour her, so he gives her a piece of butter, a comb and a brush.
[15] In this regard, Jan-Öjvind Swahn, in his work about Cupid and Psyche and other "Animal as Bridegroom" tales, surmised that, in "Slavonic tradition", tales of type Aa 428 involve a sequence named "The Girl as a Soldier" or "The Girl At War", wherein the heroine wears a male disguise, joins with a compatriot who tries to unmask her gender, and eventually marries him.
[16] In addition, the East Slavic Folktale Index classified this sequence (heroine masquerading as a male soldier and the tests to her gender) as tale type SUS 884B*, "Василиса-поповна" ("Vasilisa-popovna").
[17] The East Slavic Folktale Catalogue, last updated by Russian folklorist Lev Barag [ru] in 1979, registers 12 variants.
[19][20] In a Russian tale collected by E. A. Chudinsky from Makaryevsky Uyezd, in Nizhny Novgorod Governorate, with the title "Василиса Васильевна" ("Vasilisa Vasilievna"), a master ("barin", in the original) has three daughters, and Baba Yaga has a son, Vasily Vasilyevich.
Vasily takes a bath and cannot find Vasilisa, so he returns to his mother to plot how to capture her: they carve some pigeons, paint them, and go to the market to sell them.
[21][22] In a tale collected by folklorist Dmitry Sadovnikov from Samarskago Kraya (Samara Region) with the title "Иван Агич и Василиса Васильевна" ("Ivan Agich and Vasilisa Vasilievna"), a father has three daughters and is drafted to a war, despite his age.
In the army, she assumes the male identity of Vasily Vasilyevich, and becomes friends with a man named Ivan Agich, son of Baba Yaga.
Baba Yaga feels anger at her success, but Ivan Agich stands up to his mother and takes his wife to regions unknown.
The dark-haired girl advises Vasilisa: she warns that a birch tree will beat her with a broom; rusty door will creak to alert her; and wolves, bears and dogs who will eat her.
Vasilisa ties the ribbon on the birth tree; oils the doors; throws the pins and meat to the animals and greets Baba Yaga's sister.
The witch's sister goes to another room to sharpen her teeth; the mice give Vasilisa a reed and she flees back to Baba Yaga's house.
In this tale, titled "Василиса Прекрасная" ("Beautiful Vasilisa"), a peasant couple ask his three daughters which will go to work for the Barkhat-Tsarevich ("Velvet Prince").
The Velvet Prince discusses with his mother if their new companion is male or female, and they devise tests: to sleep a certain way on bed; to take a bath.
Her husband, the Velvet Prince, warns her that it is a ploy to kill her, but teaches her a magical command to summon the animals of the forest to get their fur.
The elder daughters, dressed in masculine clothes, ride a horse and try to cross the bridge, but their father, in his monster disguise, scares them away.
She rides until she finds a hut where a forest shishiga (a kind of witch) lives with her son Vanyushka and a little dog named Vikushka.
The little dog intercepts Vasilisa and teaches her how to do it: leave the pail on the grass, climb a tree and let the she-bears come.
During the chase, dog Vikushka alerts the pair about the witch coming for them, so they throw behind them the comb (which becomes a palisade), the wolf hair (which turns into a pack of wolves) and the stone spindle (which they crack in half).
The king agrees, but decides to test their courage first: each of the princesses walk over a bridge, when a bear (Kartaus under a magical disguise) scares them back to the palace.
For the second test, Baba Yaga tells her son to take his companion to the market: if she is a woman, she will want to check female products, like women's dresses.
Baba Yaga then convinces her son to make a bed, tie twelve pigeons to the bedposts and sell the furniture to Kartaus's daughter, so the birds will bring her to him.
Baba Yaga's son goes to the market and peddles the bed, which Kartaus's daughter wishes to have, since, after all, she wants to be rewarded for the great favour she did her father.
Kartaus buys the bed to his daughter, but the pigeons begin to coo a song about flying back to Baba Yaga beyond the blue sea.
[28] The East Slavic Folktale Catalogue lists a single variant from Belarus, in the work of ethnographer Michał Federowski [pl].
[29] Federowski collected the tale from an informant named Taciana Pýtliczanka in Slonim District, which starts with the episode of the heroine masquerading as a man and going to the witch ("Девушка, попав к ведьме, выдает себя за мужчину").
[30] In this tale, titled Ab wiedżmi jak syna żänila (Belarusian: "Аб ведзьме, як сына жаніла"; English: "About a witch who married her son"), a man plants too much wheat and has to carry them on a cart, but has no one to do it for him, so he dresses his daughter in male garments and sends her on the way.
The girl does know where to go, when her husband intercepts again and advises her how to proceed: he gives her a ball of thread which she is to throw and follow, some wheat for geese on the road, some cheese for the cats, some bread for the dogs, some butter to grease some doors; when at his aunt's house, she is to hold her left cheek before taking a bite of the food is offered her, then spit it out when the aunt asks her to return the food.