"The Master Maid" is a Norwegian fairy tale collected by Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe in their Norske Folkeeventyr.

Jørgen Moe wrote the tale down from the storyteller Anne Godlid in Seljord on a short visit in the autumn of 1842.

[5] Others of this type include "The Two Kings' Children", "The Water Nixie", "Jean, the Soldier, and Eulalie, the Devil's Daughter", "Nix Nought Nothing", and "Foundling-Bird".

The first morning, the giant went out to bring his goats to pasture and ordered the son to clean out the stables and to not go into any of the rooms about the one where he slept.

The son disobeys and finds three pots bubbling with no fire, and one turns things into copper, the second into silver, and the third into gold.

Seeing them sailing, he sets a monster to drink up the sea, but the Master Maid has the prince throw down the salt, and it transforms into a mountain, cutting off the water.

The giant sends for a monster to bore through the hill, but when he reaches the other side, the Master Maid has the prince refill the ocean by pouring the flask of water into it.

The wedding guests, finding he will not come in, go out with food, and when he is about to ride off, the bride's sister rolls an apple to him, and he bites it and forgets the Master Maid.

[9] Although the tale has universal appeal, being collected from all over the world, the highest number of variants seems to have been recorded in Ireland, with 515 versions.

[12] According to Walter Puchner, in The Forgotten Fiancée subtype, the heroine uses the pair of birds (hen and rooster) to jog the prince's memory in Scandinavian variants.

[13] Scholars point that the tale of the Magic Flight also happens in the Greek myth of hero Jason and sorceress Medea, when they escape at the end of the epic quest for the Golden Fleece.

[17] In the reconstructed protoform, written by Joseph Jacobs, the giant tricks the king into giving him his son, by demanding as payment the first thing to meet him when he returns, and the Master Maid wins her way to the prince not by repairing the carriage but by tricking her way into the prince's room, as in "East of the Sun and West of the Moon".

[19] In the Serbian variant The Golden-Fleeced Ram, the hero's father is killed by the titular creature, but is avenged by his son.

[20] French author Edouard Laboulaye included a translation titled The Golden Fleece, whose source was a publication by Vouk Stephanovitch (Vuk Karadžić).

In this tale, the hero is named Stoian, son of Ianko Lazarevitch, and he is helped by a Vila, a fairy woman of Slavic folklore.

Stoian is forced by the king to build a vineyard overnight, an ivory tower (akin to one in Smyrna) and to bring him the Princess of the East Indies.

[23][24] In "The Brown Bear of Norway", a variant of "East of the Moon and West of the Sun", the heroine also must deal with the impudent servants when she reaches the castle where the prince lives and can not get in.

In an early 20th century study, Norwegian folklorist Reidar Thoralf Christiansen stated that the variants of the tale in Norway alone were "far too numerous", and that "about 50 versions [were] known".