"The Love for the Three Oranges" or "The Three Citrons" (Neapolitan: Le Tre Cetre) is an Italian literary fairy tale written by Giambattista Basile in the Pentamerone in the 17th century.

In the first subtype, indexed as AaTh 408A, the fruit maiden suffers the cycle of metamorphosis (fish-tree-human) - a motif Goldberg locates "from the Middle East to Italy and France"[20] (especifically, it appears in Greece and Eastern Europe).

[31][c][d] According to Christina Mazzoni, the geographic distribution of the citrus fruit (or citron) in warm weather, its association with the tale type, and the popularity of the story across the European Mediterranean and the Middle East "led to the assumption" of its possible origin in Southern Europe.

[38] According to professor Gönül Tekin [tr], the tale type is also "very common" not only in Turkey, but "all over" the Near East (including Iran) and in India, which would preclude a possible Italian origin for the story.

[39] Richard McGillivray Dawkins, on the notes on his book on Modern Greek Folktales in Asia Minor, suggested a Levantine origin for the tale, since even Portuguese variants retain an Eastern flavor.

In 1975 the Institute published a catalog edited by Alberto Maria Cirese [it] and Liliana Serafini reported 58 variants of type 408 across Italian sources, under the name Le Tre Melarance.

[60] For instance, the version The Three Lemons, published in The Golden Rod Fairy Book[61] and Vom reichen Grafensohne ("The Rich Count's Son"), where the fruits are Pomeranzen (bitter oranges).

[64] North American folklorist Ralph Steele Boggs (de) stated that the tale type was very popular in Spain, being found in Andalusia, Asturias, Extremadura, New and Old Castile.

In this tale, sourced from Šariš with the title Ako starý otec pri smrti povedal mladému svojmu synovi, aby si vzal takú ženu, ktorá je nie ani zrodená ani pokrstená ("How a man on his deathbed asked his son to find a bride that was neither born, nor baptized"), after a man dies, his son wanders the world in search of the girl.

[86] Scholars Anna Angelopoulou and Aigle Broskou, editors of the Greek Folktale Catalogue, stated that tale type 408, Τα τρία κίτρα ("The Three Citrons"), is "common" in Greece, with 85 variants recorded.

[91] In a Romanian variant collected by Arthur and Albert Schott from the Banat region, Die Ungeborene, Niegesehene ("The Not-Born, Never Seen [Woman]"), a farmer couple prays to God for a son.

He steals the three pomegranates and rushes back to the hermit woman, and the garden trembles to alert its guardians to stop him, but, due to the prince's kind actions, he leaves unscathed.

[93][94] Writer and folklorist Cristea Sandu Timoc collected a Romanian variant from teller Florescu Floarea, from Vidin, with the title Cele trei roade de aur ("The Three Golden Fruits").

On the way back, he passes by a forest on a hot day, and decides to quench his thirst by cutting open the first orange: a Vila emerges, and asks for water and, since the prince has none with him, she vanishes.

[106] In a Maltese variant collected by researcher Bertha Ilg-Kössler [es] with the title Die sieben verdrehten Sachen [de] ("The Seven Crooked Things"), a king promises to build a fountain of some liquid for the poor if he is blessed with a son.

The cucumber maiden then begins to tell her sorrows to the objects: the pomegranate bursts in response to her story, the doll dances and the razor greatly sharpens, but before she does anything, the prince finds her and takes her to the palace.

As for the true maiden, she goes through a cycle of reincarnations: on the spot she was drowned, a silver fish with gold fins appears, which the gypsy woman orders to be cooked; one of the fish bones remains and is discarded in the garden, where a beautiful tree sprouts; the gypsy orders the tree to be felled and burnt, but a chip survives and is flung off to the cabin of a poor old woman, which she takes as a pot lid.

The reed-maiden then narrates the tale of the king who searched for a wife for his son, and, when she finishes, the vine yields fresh fruits and the dove is cooked, confirming her identity as the true reed-maid.

The female kulbadagus's daughter marvels at the tree maiden's beauty and convinces the youth to go back home and bring musicians and a retinue for his soon-to-be bride.

With the help of a poor old woman in the village, the tree maiden, as the fish, asks her to fetch a few drops of her blood in an apron and bury it near the malik's son's house.

[126] Scholar Hasan El-Shamy lists 21 variants of the tale type across Middle Eastern and North African sources, grouped under the banner The Three Oranges (or Sweet-Lemons).

As he leaves, an ugly servant comes out of the palace to wash the king's clothes, sees the lemon girl's reflection in the water, and turns her into a brown-feathered bird, taking her place on the tree.

[130] According to a study by Russian scholar Vladimir Minorsky, the tale type appears in Iran as Nâranj o Toronj, wherein the prince searches for the "Orange (Pomegranate) Princess".

[131] Later, German scholar Ulrich Marzolph [de], in his catalogue of Persian folktales (published in 1984), located 23 variants of the tale type in Iran, which is listed as Die Orangenprinzessin ("The Orange Princess").

[138] Russian Iranist Alexander Romaskevich (ru) collected another Iranian tale in the Jewish-Iranian dialect of Shiraz with the title "Жена-померанец и злая негритянка" ("The Orange-Wife and the Evil Black Woman").

A. Yaremenko with the title "Раранджа и Транджа" ("Raranja and Tranja"), a childless woman makes a vow to Allah to dig two ditches and fill them with honey and butter for the people.

In the place where the bird's blood landed, springs a lotus tree (which Yaremenko explains is a wild jujube) of green and gold colour and studded with pearls.

A beautiful peri maiden comes out of the egg, who the prince places up a nearby tree while he goes back to the palace to bring the bridal party (berbûk) to welcome her as his bride, and leaves her there.

In this tale, titled The Story of the Patience Stone, a prince of Qanshīrīn wants a beautiful wife, and journeys to a "hidden realm" where he is given three loaves of bread, for him to open near water.

[163] In a Brazilian variant collected by lawyer and literary critic Silvio Romero, A moura torta, a father gives each of his three sons a watermelon and warns them to crack open the fruits near a body of water.