[3] A mother of thirteen sons motivates them to become fast runners, by arranging a competition each night: whoever reaches home first will enjoy the soup made from herbs their father has gathered.
One day, the king promises a prize of gold for the hero who manages to steal the blanket of a giant in the vicinity.
Thirteenth protests, since the bolster is full of little bells, which makes it impossible to steal it and sneak away unnoticed.
At midnight the couple is asleep, and Thirteenth stretches out his hand for the bolster, but the bells chime and the giant wakes.
The boy is steadily becoming fatter, and Thirteenth realises that his finger will reveal that he is fat enough for the giant to eat.
When the stove is heated, the giantess releases Thirteenth from the barrel, asking him to help her prepare a lamb for dinner.
When she is cooked, Thirteenth carves her up and serves her legs as a meal; and places her upper body in the bed, with strings attached to the head and hands, covered under a blanket.
According to scholar Jack Zipes, the tale is classified in the international Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index as type ATU 328, "The Boy Steals the Ogre's Treasure".
[5] According to Kurt Ranke, some scholars (Grimm Brothers, Johannes Bolte and Waldemar Liungman [sv][6]) have noticed great similarities between tale types ATU 328 and ATU 531, even proposing some deeper connection between both types, since they also appear in combination with each other due to their narrative contents.
[10] In addition, German scholar Kurt Ranke, in Enzyklopädie des Märchens, noted that in Yugoslavian, Rhaeto-Romance, Italian and Greek variants, the hero is known as some variation of the number "Thirteenth".
Despite his talent, the boy cannot cheer up the king, for he is sullen over the loss of his precious possessions to the Empire of the Turk: his favourite white horse and his sky-blue brocaded quilt.