It is also classified in the international Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index as tale type 425B, "Son of the Witch", thus distantly related to the Graeco-Roman myth of Cupid and Psyche.
The following day, the Drakäna says she wants the house swept and unswept, the meal cooked and uncooked, and the waterjugs filled and unfilled.
The following day, the Drakäna says her son is to be married, and gives the princess two heaps of dirty clothes to be washed with a single bar of soap, and a piece of bread to feed her dog and her donkey with.
The last task done, the Drakäna plans another way to devour the human girl: she orders the princess to go beyond another mountain where her sister, the witch, lives, and get from there violins and drums for the upcoming wedding.
The Drakäna's son tells the princess this is a trap, and advises her to proceed: on the streets, she is to pluck a fig full of worms from a fig tree, eat it and compliment the tree; drink from a muddy and dirty spring and compliment it; cut off a rag of her dress and give to a woman cleaning an oven with her breasts; enter the witch's house and, while she is distracted sharpening her teeth, the princess is to get the instruments and escape.
The princess follows the instructions to the letter and gets the instruments while the witch is at the kitchen, but she leaves and commands the woman at the oven, the spring and the fig tree to stop her, to no avail.
Finally, the Drakäna celebrates her son's wedding to another bride, and glues candles on the princess's fingers, so she illuminates the sleeping couple for the whole night, and burns to death while at it.
[6] The Greek folklorists follow Jan-Öjvind Swahn [sv], who, in his monograph, indexed type 425A as the "oldest" of the "Animal as Bridegroom" subtypes.
Some time later, after his elder sisters-in-law to the vizier's son and the prince, the Crab husband suggests he takes his human wife to meet his mother.
However, some time later, the ogress begins to force tasks on the human daughter-in-law to test her "courage": first, she is to take piles of clothes to wash in the river, but the soap must be left intact; she is also to iron and fold them by evening, then to feed a donkey with chaff and a dog with a bone, but their fodder must not be touched.
The girl takes the donkey and the dog, but her husband Crab meets her en route, teaching her to summon the Fates by the river for them to fulfill her task.
On seeing the success of her daughter-in-law, the ogress mother gives the pair her blessing and summons the girl's family to celebrate a second wedding, with musical instruments.
[10] William Roger Paton collected from a teller named Mersini, from the island of Lesbos, a tale titled Melidoni ("Sorrow" or "Care"): a poor fisherman wants to marry his three daughters to suitable suitors.
Melidoni's mother betroths him to another bride and tells the girl to fill many mattresses with feathers, to make a donkey dance, to feed the dog, and to bring back a loaf of bread untouched.
Finally, on the wedding day, the girl is forced to hold torches, bearing the pain of their burning, and—as her husband instructed the night before—throws them at the bride.
(Paton also wrote that in a retelling, the same informant added a fourth task: to separate a heap of cereal grains, which the girl does by summoning the birds again).
[13][14][15] In a variant collected by Greek folklorist Georgios A. Megas [el] with the title Ο χρυσαετός του κόσμου ("The Golden Eagle of the World"), a married couple lives a happy life, until the wife is pressed by her neighbours to ask her husband's name.
Her husband advises her to change the donkey's and the dog's fodder on the way to the sister's house, complement a crooked fig tree and a river filled with dirty water, get the things, and escape.
Finally, the dragon mother prepares her son's wedding to another bride and forces the human girl to wash her 40 piles of husband's clothes in the river.
Lastly, the dragon-mother marries the Golden Eagle of the World to another bride, and forces her true daughter-in-law to hold candles near the bridal bed, bearing the pain of their burning, lest she be devoured.
During the night, the Golden Eagle of the World tricks the false bride into holding the candles for a time and releases his true wife from the task.
[16] In a Greek tale translated by literary critic Jacques Boulenger [fr] into French with the title Les souliers de fer ("The Iron Shoes"), a poor fisherman has three daughters and earns his living by catching fish in the sea.
Maricoula hears the voice again (which the story explains it is Constantino's, testing his wife) offering to fulfill the task for her in exchange for a kiss, but the girl declines once again.
Maricoula follows the voice's warnings and brings back the box, despite the ogress's sister commanding the door, the dog and the horse to stop her.
The Moira spies on the sleeping positions of the princesses, and declares the youngest's (her arms lying by her legs) is the cause, and convinces the royal couple to expel her cadette and bring luck for the elder two.
Fed up with such misfortune, the princess cries out for the ground to swallow her up, and it happens: she is dragged to the house of a lamia, where she is made to be her servant, having to perform difficult tasks for her son's upcoming marriage, otherwise the witch will devour her.
[20] In a Cretan tale collected from a source in Afrata, Xania, and translated as The Mayflower, a couple have five daughters, the elder four hate the youngest and beat her.
The son knows it is a trap, so he advises Theodora to get the sieve and flee, then throw behind her a bar of soap and a comb that he gives her to deter his aunt's rampage.
The drakaina's son advises her to drink from a river of pus and blood, eat bitter and rotten apples from a tree, give hay to a donkey in the barn, stand two fallen doors, get the flute and the box and escape.
Theodora follows his advice to the letter and escapes, even though the drakaina's sister commands the doors, the donkey, the apple tree and the river to stop the girl.