It is related to the cycle of the Calumniated Wife, and is classified in the international Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index as tale type ATU 707, "The Three Golden Children".
[4] A childless king with six wives goes hunting in the woods and finds an emaciated-looking woman named "Queen of the Forest" atop a tree.
[9] Likewise, researcher Noriko Mayeda and Indologist W. Norman Brown divided Indian variants of type 707 in five groups: (1) quest for wonderful items; (2) reincarnation into flowers; (3) use of wooden horses; (4) children sing a song; (5) miscellaneous.
[10][11] James Hinton Knowles collected a tale from Kashmir from a teller he identified as Pandit Ánand Ram of Renawari, Srinagar.
[13] Sarat Chandra Mitra translated a legend, "current" in the village of Panchthupi, in the Kandi subdivision of the Murshidabad district, in Western Bengal, which he considered to have "striking similarities" to the Bihari folktale he collected.
[14] Researcher Tony K. Stewart published a similar tale, titled Şaşțhī Who Removes Sorrow, where the goddess Sasthi helps the unfortunate queen, and the truth is revealed by her sons when they try to give water to wooden horses.
While bathing in the sea Jam-chi-chume-der, they fill their wooden bowls with flowers, while the queen plays with her golden plate.
Enraged, the witches feign illness and try to convince the king to kill the children and take their livers as remedy.
[17] In an Indian tale from Goa with the title Twenty Brothers and a Sister, a man gathers his seven daughters to impart them with their marriage portions, and asks them whose destiny they are born to fulfill.
The prince departs to deal with some business in a distant land, and promises to return to take his wife to his parents' house.
In turn, the seventh sister promises that, when the children will be born, a rain of pearls will fall where he is to signal their birth.
While the prince is away, the girl keeps working at the kitchen in her father's house and, when she is in labour, her elder sisters blindfold her and take the children as soon as they are born, placing them in boxes in the river and replacing them for frogs.
[18] In a 1981 article, researcher John Leavitt noticed that some Indian variants of type 707, collected from Kumaon and Garhwal, fit a ritual and religious context about a local deity named Goril, Gōryā or Gōllā.
[19] French ethnologue Paul Ottino [fr] and researcher Aditya Malik provided the summary of a North Indian (Kumaoni or Central Himalayan) variant about the legend of Goriya (Golu Devata or Goludev): a king, Halrai or Jhalrai of the Katyuri dynasty, meets a woman named Mata Kalinga in the forest (possibly the goddess Kali herself).
In one version, the queens throw the boy under a wild cow, bury him under a salt heap and even abandon him in the woods, but he survives these attempts.
As soon as the king's son is born, the cowives replace him for a stone and try to have the boy killed: first they cast it to a snake then to an elephant, but both animals protect the little prince.
The next day, Gol brings his wooden horse to drink water and breaks the queens' pitchers, but fills the maidservant's one.
Gol retorts that a wooden horse can drink water from a river just as it is possible for a woman to give birth to a stone.
The king reunites with his family and banishes the seven queens to a far-off portion of the palace as per his son's merciful request.
[25] In another similar tale from Kumaon, published by author Taradutt Gairola with the title Goril, in the ancient state of Champawatgarh, lives prince Jhalu Rai.
Jhalu Rai comes to the temple to attack it, but, on seeing the goddess, named Kalindra, falls in love with her at once and takes her to his palace as his eighth queen.
[26] In a tale collected from a teller in Isfahan and published by professor Mahomed-Nuri Osmanovich Osmanov [ru] with the title "Мельник с золотыми кудрями" ("The Boy with Golden Curls"), three sisters are talking through the night, and the youngest says she will give birth to a boy with golden curls she will name Kazolzari: when he cries, diamonds and pearls will appear; when he laughs, roses will fall from his mouth, and with every step he takes, he leaves behind a trail of bars of gold and silver.
His aunts feign illness and send him to a get milk from a lioness, a mare that gave birth to 40 foals, and a self-swinging cradle.
At the end of the tale, Kazolzari takes a wooden horse to eat hay in front of the king, who notices the absurdity of the situation.
[27] Author Charles Swynnerton published a tale from the Upper Indus with the title Lál Bádsháh, the Red King, or, The Two Little Princesses.
She build a house on the outskirts of town and learns of her sister's fate: she has become another wife of Lál Bádsháh; gave birth to a son, but the other co-wives replace him for a basket of charcoal.
The second time, the boy retorts that if a wooden horse drinking water is a silly notion, so is a woman giving birth to a basket of charcoal.
[29] In a tale collected from an informant in Casares, Spain, with the title Los hijos de palo ("The Wooden Children"), three tailor sisters talk to each other about marrying the king, the youngest promising to bear wise twin boys, each with a star on the front.
The king mocks their strange behaviour, and the twins retort that the same could be said of believing in the idea that a human woman can give birth to wooden images.
In these tales, the royal children give wooden horses water to drink and later reveal the truth to their father, the king.