[8] Taiwanese scholarship also recognizes some proximity between the Chinese tale type, the French story Beauty and the Beast (father plucks rose from the Beast and is forced to surrender him his daughter) and Italian The Three Oranges (heroine goes through cycle of transformations, including bird and tree), but emphasize that the European stories deal with love between heroine and hero, while the crux of the Chinese tale is the rivalry between a younger sister who married into good financial circumstances and her elder sister, wanting what the other has.
[15] In her cycle of transformations, she may change into many objects: a cradle, a baby carriage, a spindle, or a type of food (bread, or, as in Taiwanese variants, a red tortoise cake).
From its grave a date tree sprouts, giving sweet fruits to the snake man and bitter ones for the false wife, who chops it down to make a threshold.
[25] Researcher Juwen Zhang published a tale titled The Snake Bridegroom: an old man has two daughters, the elder ugly and lazy, and the younger beautiful and dutiful.
The man goes to chop wood in the mountains and, one day, sees a cowherd cracking a whip to herd the cows and singing a song about a love interest with shining hair and dainty feet.
The old man returns home with the gifts and his younger daughter, and the eldest sister, seeing the riches they brought, regrets not marrying the cowherd and plans to replace her.
[26] In another tale collected by Zhang with the title The Snake and Three Sisters, an old couple live bat the foot of Long White Mountains with their three beautiful daughters.
After the snake spirit goes to fetch his bride, the old woman gives her daughter two bags of millet for her to drop the grains to create a trail for her mother to follow.
The man hurries back home with the red flowers his daughters asked for, and explains the situation to them: the elder two refuse to marry the Snake, but the youngest agrees to spare her father's life.
They throw the bones away and, on their place, a loquat tree sprouts: whenever Snake picks up a fruit, it becomes delicious; whenever the false wife does, it turns into manure - and the tale ends.
One day, however, she begins to miss her family, and wishes to visit them; the garden snake agrees and gives her a pack of sesame seeds so she can plant them to mark her way home when they bloom.
Some relatives of the third sister sense something is wrong and pay a visit to the garden snake's house; they find a golden figure in the ashes, bring it home and hide it in a bamboo chest.
When the old woman's grandson comes home, he tells her someone left a red turtle cake where she placed the kindling, and she goes to check, finding Lotus-Seed Face alive and asleep on a bed.
However, she declines him, for she is still dead, and bids him find objects for her to regain a body: snow to make a dress, a wild flower for a face, and branches for her bones.
The Dragon Prince finds out his true wife is alive, restores her, and Eldest Sister, to avoid punishment, falls into the big water jug and drowns.
[36] In another tale from the aboriginal peoples of Taiwan titled The Snake's Bride, a man named Jihong is looking for wild vegetables for his daughters' dinner, and finds a flower garden in the valley.
[37] In a Vietnamese tale attributed to the Meo people, "Юноша в образе змеи" ("The Youth in the Form of a Snake"), a widowed father has three daughters, the youngest the most beautiful and industrious, the elder two idle and arrogant.
One night, the snake husband finds her and hatches a plan: while he sends the false wife to fetch rice, the true one will wait with an axe to hew the other one.
[42] In another Nepalese tale also titled Der Hundebräutigam ("The Hound Bridegroom"), collected in Lo Mantang, a poor couple live with their three daughters in a town.
The princess follows his instructions, then leaves the burning for last: a large and splendid palace appears the next morning, filled with clothes, jewels, servants and granaries.
Some time later, the princess's sister, Khempano, learns of her cadette's good fortune and pays her a visit, so she can kill her and take her place as the frog's bride.
[54][55] Professor Paul Durrenberger collected a tale from the Lisu people: a widow goes near the lake to cut grass for her horse and sees a tree with seven beautiful flowers she plucks for her seven daughters.
The woman spins a story that she was away at her mother's house for so long that she physically changed when she slept in the hearth and insects ate her hair, which the dragon believes.
The bird's meat and bones are tosses in the fireplace to burn, and the girl, continuing her cycle of transformations, becomes a pair of scissors, a bush, and a dog, which is taken in by an old woman.
The girl falls down in the stream and washes away, while Acha takes the baby back with her to the human snake's house and passes herself off as his true wife, although he notices the exchange.
After some initial reluctance on her part, she eventually relents and accompanies the boy to the snake's house, where she finds her sister Acha cooking food and her husband.
The human snake, at last, plants seven swords across the door, and bids Acha and her sister jump over the blades; whoever manages shall be declared his true wife.
[57] In a tale from the Lisu people translated to Russian with the title "Две сестры" ("Two Sisters"), on the slopes on Mount Biloshan an old woman lives with her three daughters.
However, the elder pinches her nephew to force him to cry, and she pretends the boy is asking for his mother's belongings (her hair ornaments, her necklace, her clothes and her earrings).
Hearing this, the serpent sets a test to verify his wife's identity: both women are to walk through thorny thickets; whichever of them is "without sin" shall be left unharmed.