"The Stone-cutter" is a supposed Japanese folk-tale published by Andrew Lang in The Crimson Fairy Book (1903), taken from David Brauns [de]'s Japanische Märchen (1885).
"The Stone-cutter" was translated into English by Andrew Lang in The Crimson Fairy Book (1903), taken from Japanische Märchen und Sagen collected by David Brauns [de] (Leipzig, 1885).
[3] Brauns's tale closely follows the "Japanese Stonecutter" parable[6] in Dutch author Multatuli (Eduard Douwes Dekker)'s novel Max Havelaar (1860).
[8] Multatuli's parable, in turn, was an adaptation of the story written by Wolter Robert baron van Hoëvell under the pen name "Jeronimus" and published in the Tijdschrift voor Nederlandsch-Indië (1842).
[12] And even before Brauns's German-translated version appeared, Charles Wycliffe Goodwin noted in 1875 that "The Japanese Stone-cutter" from the Dutch Novel was similar to the Grimms' tale.
[21] While the similar cumulative tale The Fisherman and His Wife is explicitly moralist in tone, The Stonecutter's lesson proceeds from a more philosophical viewpoint.