"The She-bear" is an Italian literary fairy tale, written by Giambattista Basile in his 1634 work, the Pentamerone.
Others of this type include Cap O' Rushes, Catskin, Allerleirauh, The King who Wished to Marry His Daughter, Donkeyskin, Little Cat Skin, Mossycoat, The Princess That Wore A Rabbit-Skin Dress, and The Bear.
[2] Henriette-Julie de Murat used a similar transformation in Bearskin, for the heroine to escape not her father but an ogre husband.
[4] After long inspection of many women, he realized that his daughter Preziosa was in fact as beautiful as her mother, and no other woman was.
Ruth Manning-Sanders altered the tale so that, as in Catskin, the heroine fled a threatened marriage to another suitor—unwanted and far too old for her, but not her father.