Ileana Simziana

According to mid-20th century scholarship, the tale type is found in Europe, and most of its variants appear (in descending order) in Finland (17 tales),[lower-alpha 1] Turkey (13 tales), Ireland[lower-alpha 2] and Lithuania (10 tales), Denmark (9 tales), Greece and Poland[lower-alpha 3] (6 tales), Romania (4 tales).[12][13] Variants were also "sporadically" collected in Asia (Indonesia and Malaysia), in Iberian tradition (Spain, Portugal) and its former colonies (Cape Verde Islands, Mexico and Chile).[14][15]

A variant of this story, entitled The Girl Who Pretended to be a Boy, was published in 1901 in Andrew Lang’s The Violet Fairy Book, and was an English translation of a tale from the 1894 Romanian Sept Contes Roumains (Seven Romanian Stories), edited by Jules Brun and Leo Bachelin.[1][16]

In a variant collected by Pauline Schullerus from Harbachtal with the title Das tapfere Königstöchter ("The Valiant King's Daughter"), the Red Emperor, now a frail and 99-year-old man, receives a letter from his friend, the Green Emperor, summoning him to war. The Red Emperor laments the lack of male heirs, but his three daughters offer to take his place. The elders dress in male clothes and cross the bridge, but a iron-toothed wolf frightens them back to their kingdom. The third daughters disguises herself in masculine clothes, rides her horse and avoids an encounter with the wolf. Some miles later, she finds a golden swinr rib on the floor, but her horse warns her against it. She reaches her destination, and the king sees the swine rib, demanding the knight to retrieve its owner. Later, he has to find a maiden with golden hair and the Sword of God. On this third task, the she-knight steals the sword, and God Himself and Saint Peter decree that she is to become a man, since she was already dressed in masculine clothes.[17]

In a Macedonian variant collected from Ohrid by Bulgarian folklorist Kuzman Shapkarev with the title "Девойка, престорена на юнак" ("A Girl, Pretending to be a Boy"), the king wants a male heir, but the queen gives birth only to girls. So she disguises the youngest as a boy to appease her husband. His parents marry him to a princess, daughter of an Emperor. On their honeymoon, the disguised prince puts a sword between him and the princess. The Emperor invites his son-in-law to take part in a challenge to jump over a ditch and to tame his wild boar. Impressed with his abilities, the Emperor sends his son-in-law for a magical water and a pumpkin hung on a chain between heaven and earth. With the help of a talking horse, he obtains the items and is magically transformed into a man.[18]

The tale type registers 19 variants in Greece, according to the Greek Folktale Catalogue.[19]

The tale type is also registered in Latvia, as type AaTh 514, Māsa karā ("The Sister in the War"): the heroine replaces her brother in the army and is promoted to the rank of a king's general. The king sends the general on difficult tasks and a sorcerer changes her into a man.[20]

Lithuanian folklorist Jonas Balys, in his analysis of Lithuanian folktales (published in 1936), reported 10 Lithuanian variants of tale type 514, Lyties pakeitimas ("The Shift of Sex").[21]

In a Lithuanian tale collected by August Leskien and Karl Brugmann with the title Ápė bajóro dukterį, katrà į vaiską iszëjo or Von der Edelmannstochter, die Soldat wurde ("About the nobleman's daughter who became a soldier"), a nobleman has nine daughters and laments the fact that he does not have sons. His youngest daughter offers to dress in male's clothes and join the army. She enlists as a soldier and rises to the rank of general. "He" impresses the king's daughter, who marries the general. However, on their honeymoon, the princess suspects something about her "husband". Her father sends the general with a letter to another king, and on the way "he" befriends people with supernatural powers who become "his" companions and help "him" in the second king's trials. When the companions return to the first king's realm, the general lags behind and enters a hut in the forest. After "he" leaves, a witch - who lives in the hut - curses him to become a man. He returns to his wife now a man, and they live happily.[22]

Armenian author and historian Marietta Shaginyan located tales about a woman transforming into a man in Armenia. In these tales, a widowed mother dresses her daughter in masculine clothes. Later in life, the daughter, now a young woman, impresses a king with her abilities and marries the king's daughter. After his daughter suspects there is something wrong with her "husband", the king sends the "son-in-law" on dangerous quests. The last task is to get a rosary from an old deva mother, who curses the woman to become a man as punishment.[23]

Author Charles Downing translated and published an Armenian variant tilted The Girl who Changed into a Boy. In the story, it's the king's daughter, who the "hero" was married to, that orders her father to set the crossdressing knight into the perilous quests to dispose of "him".[24]

In a Georgian tale translated by Caucasologist Heinz Fähnrich with the title Wie das Mädchen zum Mann wurde ("How a Girl became a Man"), a king's vizir feels he is too old to join the king, and wishes he had sons. His three daughters try to dress in man's clothes to prove they can replace their father, but only the yougenst passes his test. The vizir approves his youngest daughter decision's, and tells her to introduce herself to the king as the vizir's son. "He" is welcomed as a guest in the king's palace. At night, the king's daughter comes to "his" room and explains she fells in love with "him" as soon as she saw "him" arrive at the city. The queen learns of the night encounter and tells her husband, the king, to send the "youth" to keep him away from their daughter. So, the king sends the vizir's "son" on missions: to get him apples of immortality, later the water of immortality; and to discover the secret of the petrified city. With the help of a Mother of the giantesses, the "hero" gets the items and goes to the petrified city, where "he" defeats a sorceress queen and restores the city to its original state. The sorceress queen breaks her spell, turns the vizir's son into a man, and is killed by him. The hero goes to the city of glass (where he got the water of immortality) to fetch his bride, and returns to his parents.[25]

In a Karbardian tale titled Die tapfere Tochter ("The Courageous Daughter"),[26] a king has no sons, only three daughters, so he puts them through a test: they are to dress in masculine clothes, cross a bridge and face a certain danger on the bridge. The two elders fail, but the youngest soldiers on and leaves her kingdom behind. She reaches another kingdom whose Khan wishes to marry a certain maiden hidden by powerful spirits. The heroine agrees to bring her. On her way, she rescues some snakelings from a burning steppe, and their mother helps and guides the heroine to get the maiden. After the maiden is brought to the Khan, the maiden asks for a box with seven locks and a herd of a buffalo ox and seven buffalo cows that live in the sea. After the heroine brings the buffalo to the maiden, the buffalo curses the heroine to become a man.[27]

In a tale from the Abkhazian people with the title "Царь и его везир" ("The King and his Vizir"), a vizir sends his eldest son to the king's army, but decides to play a trick on him: before his son reaches the king's castle, the vizir pretends to be a highwayman to scare him. His elder fails the test, so does his youngest. His third child, a girl, dresses in male garments and passes his test. "He" rides the horse to the house of three "adauys" and breaks down the gate. The "adauys" are impressed with their guest's demonstration of power and welcome "him". Later at night, the "adauys"'s three sisters enter the guest's room, one at a time. The guest declines any romantic advances by saying "he" is o a mission. The youngest sister, who possesses omniscient powers, knows their guest is a girl, but predicts that "he" will become a man in the future, and advises her to choose their lamest horse the next morning. The "hero" then goes to the king and is tasked with getting the heart and liver of a big boar, and three cups of milk from a stag. During the second mission, "he" reaches a petrified city. Its queen cast a spell over the city, for whatever she says becomes reality. The "hero" finds the queen and forces her to reverse the spell, to turn every man into woman, and every woman into man. The hero then kills the queen. On the way back, he gets the cups of milk from the stag and returns to the king. On the way back to his father, he passes by the "adauys"'s house and takes their three sisters as wives for him and his brothers.[28]

In the Typen türkischer Volksmärchen ("Turkish Folktale Catalogue"), by Wolfram Eberhard and Pertev Naili Boratav, both scholars grouped tales about a woman-to-man transformation under one type: TTV 97, "Der weinende Granatapfel" ("The Weeping Pomegranate"), with 13 variants. In this tale type, a padishah's daughter is raised as his son, and escapes on a horse before the circumcision ceremony. "He" works for another king and is betrothed to the princess. The princess has a secret lover of supernatural origin and both send the "suitor" on difficult quests, during which the "suitor" becomes a man.[29]

Turkologist Theodor Menzel translated a Turkish variant titled Die Geschichte von von dem weinenden Granat-Apfel und der lachenden Quitte ("The Story of the Crying Pomegranate and the Laughing Bear").[30] In this story, a padishah has nine daughters and wishes for a son. When his wife becomes pregnant again, he threatens to kill her if another daughter is born. So a tenth is born, but her mother dresses her as a boy and raises her as one. Time passes, and the padishah sets a date for the "boy"'s circumcision as a rite of passage, but "he" manages to delay the ceremony for two years. On the third year, "he" escapes on "his" talking horse to another kingdom. There, "he" protects the king against a Dew, and earns the king's favour. "He" tells he wants to marry a maiden clad in red garments "he" saw in one of the palace's rooms. The red-clad maiden tells her prospective "husband" she will consult with a dream oracle before she agrees to their marriage. In truth, her "dream oracle" is her secret lover, the son of the Padishah of the Peris, who comes to her in the shape of a dove and convinces her to send the "knight" to get first a mirror from the Dews, and later a Säbelstein from the Dews. The "boy" gets the mirror and the Säbelstein. After the second task, the Dew mother curses the "boy", if a man, to become a woman, and if a woman, to become a man, and so it happens: the "boy" is changed into a man. Lastly, the red-clad maiden tells her husband-to-be to get the weeping pomegranate and the laughing quince from a distant garden - a trap set by the son of the Padishah of the Peris. With his horse's help and the aid of three magical objects he stole from three quarreling men, he gets the objects and presents them to the king. The son of the padishah of the peris admits defeats and leaves the red-clad maiden to her fate. So the knight marries the red-clad maiden and visits his parents to tell the whole story.[31] Turkologist Ignác Kúnos collected a very similar variant from Adakale with the title Die Geschichte von dem weinenden Granat-Apfel und der lachenden Zitrone ("The Story of the weeping pomegranate and the laughing lemon").[32]

Anthropologist Elsie Clews Parsons collected a variant from Cape Verde Islands, from informant Antonio d'Andrade from Fogo. In this tale, titled The Princess Who Groans: Man or Woman?, a prince named Bonito has a dream about a maiden named Aldraga Jiliana, who "is enchanted at the bottom of the sea, seven towers of Babel, who lives on the Gold Mountain", where no male fly nor human can reach. With his enchanted horse and three colored kerchief, Bonito goes to the Gold Mountain, lures Aldraga Jiliana to his horse and takes her to his kingdom. However, Aldraga Jiliana remains speechless, and Bonito's father, the king, announces that whoever makes Aldraga Jiliana speak shall marry her. Some time later, a youth named Marco rides to the castle with his mule. The mule advises him to go to the store and tune three violins; the maiden will react and groan in response. Marco follows the instructions and makes Aldraga Jiliana speak. However, Bonito's mother, the queen, suspects Marco is a woman, not a man, and devises tests to check her identity: to plant a grapevine and smash the grapes for wine; to go to a farm and pick a bunch of fruits; to bathe in the sea. With the mule's help, Marco passes all tests. The king, Bonito's father, marries "Marco", following the queen's suspicions. Later that night, Aldraga calls to Marco to lie with her, because Aldraga comes from a land where "woman marries woman". A queen's servant overhears the exchange and hurries to tell the queen. "Marco" receives the visit of Saint Peter (San Pedro), his godfather, who calls him "Marta". Saint Peter warns that the queen is coming to kill "him", but, to save "him", equips him with male organs.[33][34]