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The Frog Princess:
"The king (or an old peasant woman, in Lang's version) sets his three sons to marry, and tests their chosen brides. The king tells them to shoot arrows and find their brides where the arrows land, and the youngest prince's arrow is picked up by a frog. The two older sons may already have girls picked out, but the youngest son -- Ivan Tsarevich in the Russian version—is at a loss until a friendly frog takes pity on him and offers to marry him. In Calvino's version, the princes use slings rather than bows and arrows. In the Greek version, the princes set out to find their brides one by one; the older two are already married by the time the third sets out. Another variation involves the sons chopping down trees and heading in the direction the fallen tree points in order to find their brides. [8]

The king assigns his three prospective daughters-in-law various tasks, such as spinning cloth and baking bread. In every task the frog far outdoes the lazy brides-to-be of the older brothers; in some versions, she uses magic to accomplish the tasks, the other brides attempt to emulate her and cannot do the magic. Still, the young prince is ashamed of his froggy bride, until she is magically transformed into a princess.

In the Russian versions of the story, Prince Ivan and his two older brothers shot arrows in different directions to find brides for themselves. The other brothers' arrows landed in the houses of the daughters of an aristocratic and a wealthy merchant. Ivan's arrow landed in the mouth of a a frog in a swamp, who turns into a princess. Princess Frog is usually a beautiful, intelligent, friendly, skilled girl. She was obligated to spend 3 years in a frog's skin for disobeying her father. Her last test may be dancing, with the frog bride having shed her skin; the prince then burns it, to her dismay. If he had waited, she would have been free, but he has lost her. He then sets out to find her again and meets up with Baba Yaga, whom he impresses with his spirit, demanding to know why she has not offered him hospitality. She may tell him that Koschei has his bride captive, and how to find the magic needle, without which Koschei will be helpless; with that, he rescues his bride. In other versions, his wife flies into Baba Yaga's hut as a bird; he catches her, she turns into a lizard, and he can not hold on. Baba Yaga rebukes him and sends him to her sister; there he fails again, but is sent to the third sister, where he catches her, and no transformations break her free again.

In some versions of the story, the transformation is a reward for her good nature; in others, she is transformed by witches out of amusement; and in others, she is revealed to have been an enchanted princess all along."

Georgic and Merlin:
"In the woods near a rich lord's castle, a mysterious bird sang. Fascinated, the lord had it captured. It ceased to sing, but he threatened with death anyone who freed it. One day, it pleaded with his son Georgic, who freed it; it told him to call on it, Merlin, in need and then flew off. His mother feared that her husband would kill Georgic. A salt-vendor offered to take him away, and his mother gave him money to do it. He took the money and at the next castle, offered the boy as a shepherd, despite the warnings of wolves that threatened. When the salt-vendor went to leave him, Georgic demanded the money and when it was refused, he called on the bird; it appeared, and a club wielded by an invisible hand struck the man until he gave the money. Then he called on the bird to give him a whistle to summon the wolves and muzzles to keep them from biting, and so he kept the sheep safe.

In the same region, there was a dragon with seven heads that had to receive a maiden every year. That year, the lot fell to Georgic's master's daughter, who wept for fear. When she was sent, Georgic asked the bird for a horse, a sword, and a black cloak; he took her on his horse and carried her to the place, where he called for the dragon. It declared it was not hungry that day, she was to come back the next, and left. Georgic carried her back; she had been too upset to recognize him, but she had cut a piece from his cloak. She went back the next day, and this time Georgic wore a gray cloak, but the events went as before. The third day, Georgic wore a purple cloak, and he stopped and borrowed a long iron fork that a man was using on the stove. He used it to drag the dragon from its lair and cut off its heads with his sword. He cut out the tongues, and the daughter cut off a piece of this cloak as well.

A coal miner claimed to have done it. The daughter said the dragon slayer had cut out the tongues, and the coal miner claimed to have eaten them. The lord held a great feast, and the daughter saw Georgic in his black cloak, which had exactly the hole in it that she had cut. Georgic vanished. The lord had a second banquet, at which Georgic wore the gray cloak, with the hole just as she had cut it; the lord asked him whether he was the one who had rescued his daughter, and he said he might be. The third banquet, Georgic arrived grandly, and the daughter recognized him by the hole, and they married.

Soon after, her father fell ill. A wizard said that he could be cured with a piece of orange from the orange tree of the Armenian Sea, water from the Fountain of Life, and some bread and wine from the Yellow Queen. Georgic had two brothers-in-law, jealous of him, who set out and became lost. Georgic also set out. In the wood, he met a hermit, who gave him a magic wand to lead him. It would take him to the orange tree, where he should cut the orange into four parts, one of which he should take away. Then he would reach the Fountain of Life, but he should go to the Yellow Queen's castle first, taking some wine and bread, and a lance, calling out it was for his father-in-law's health. He would then find a stag which he should ride to the Fountain; if the lion that guarded it woke, he should use the lance to kill it. He retrieved the things in this way.

He met his brothers-in-law along the way, and traded some of what he had won for the ear and wedding ring of one, and the toe of the other. The hermit had warned him that he would have to give what he had taken back to the Yellow Queen after a month. He did not warn them, and when the Yellow Queen came, he was gone, and his brothers-in-law were beaten for having it. They had to run to him and beg his help, which he gave."

The Giant Who Had No Heart in His Body:
"A king had seven sons, and when the other six went off to find brides, he kept the youngest with him because he could not bear to be parted from them all. They were supposed to bring back a bride for him, as well, but they found a king with six daughters and wooed them, forgetting their brother. But when they returned, they passed too close to a giant's castle, and he turned them all, both princes and princesses, to stone in a fit of rage.

When they did not return, the king, their father tried to prevent their brother from following, but he went. On the way, he gave food to a starving raven, helped a salmon back into the river, and gave a starving wolf his horse to eat. The wolf let the prince ride on him, instead, and showed him the giant's castle, telling him to go inside. The prince was reluctant fearing the wrath of the giant, but the wolf consoled him. The wolf persuaded the prince to enter the castle for there he would encounter not the giant, but the princess the giant kept prisoner.

The princess was very beautiful and the prince wanted to know how he could kill the giant and set her and his family free. The princess said that there was no way, as the giant did not keep his heart in his body and therefore could not be killed. When the giant returned, the princess hid the prince, and asked the giant where he kept his heart. He told her that it was under the door-sill. The prince and princess dug there the next day and found no heart. The princess strewed flowers over the door sill, and when the giant returned, told him that it was because his heart lay there. The giant admitted it wasn't there and told her it was in the cupboard. As before, the princess and the prince searched, to no avail; once again, the princess strewed garlands of flowers on the cupboard and told the giant it was because his heart was there. Thereupon the giant revealed to her that, in fact, a distant lake held an island upon which there sat a church; within the church was a well where a duck swam; in the duck's nest was an egg; and in the egg was the giant's heart.

The prince rode to the lake, where the wolf jumped to the island. The prince called upon the raven he had saved from starvation, and it brought him the keys to the church. Once inside, he coaxed the duck to him, but it dropped the egg in the well first, and the prince called on the salmon to get him the egg. The wolf told him to squeeze the egg, and when he did, the giant screamed. The wolf told him to squeeze it again, and the giant promised anything if he would spare his life. The prince told him to change his brothers and their brides back to life, and the giant did so. Then the prince squeezed the egg in two and went home with the giant's captive princess as his bride; accompanying him were his brothers and their brides, and the king rejoiced."

The Gifts of the Magician:
"A widower forbade his only son to shoot at some birds. One day, he did so, and chased after a bird he wounded until he became lost in the forest. When night fell, he saw a magician being chased by wolves. He shot the largest wolf, which put all the rest to flight. The magician gave him shelter during the night. In the morning, he could not be woken. The magician left to hunt. The boy woke and talked with the maid servant, who told him to ask for the horse in the third stall as a reward. When he did, the magician tried to persuade him otherwise, but finally gave it to him, along with a zither, a fiddle, and a flute, telling him to play each one in turn if he were in danger.

The horse warned him not to go back to his father, who would only beat him. He rode the horse on, to the king's city, where everyone admired the horse. The horse told him to tell the king to stable it with the royal horses; then they would grow as beautiful as it. This worked, but made the old groom envious of the boy. He told the king that the boy had claimed to be able to find the king's old war-charger, which had been lost in the woods. The king ordered the boy to find it in three days. The horse told him to demand a hundred dead oxen, cut to pieces, and they rode off. At the horse's instructions, he bridled the third horse that came to them, and then distracted the magician's raven by throwing the meat behind them. The groom claimed that he had said he could restore the king's vanished wife. The horse told him to ride it to the river, where it would dive in and assume her true form; she was the queen. This pleased the king, but the groom told him that the boy had threatened to take the throne, and the king sentenced him to be hanged. The boy played the zither, and the hangman had to dance all day. The next day, everyone came to see him hanged, the boy played the fiddle, and the whole crowd danced. The third day, the king wanted to refuse to let him play the flute, but the crowd persuaded him. The king insisted on being tied to a tree first, but he still danced, until his back was raw, and then the magician appeared. He destroyed the gallows and killed the king. The people chose the boy for their king, and the old groom drowned himself, because the boy might have been poor all his life without his interference."

The Girl and the Dead Man:
"A poor woman's oldest daughter said she would go seek her fortune. The mother offered her a whole bannock with her curse or a little one with her blessing. She took the big one, and when she ate and birds begged for some, she refused it. She found a place at a house, watching by night over the body of the housewife's brother, which was under spells, but she fell asleep the first night and the mistress hit her such a blow that she died.

The second sister set out the same way and came to the same end.

The youngest also set out, but asked for the little one with her blessing, and shared it with the birds. She got the same place as her sisters, but stayed awake. In the night, the body propped itself up on its elbow and grinned; she threatened to beat it. It propped itself up twice more, and the third time, she hit it with a stick. The stick stuck to the body, and to her hand, and she had to follow it into the woods, where the nuts and sloes hit her as they went, but they got out of the woods and back to the house. They gave her a peck of gold and a peck of silver, and a cordial, which she used to bring her sisters back to life."

The Glass Coffin:
"A tailor's apprentice became lost in a forest. When night came, he saw a light shining and followed it to a hut. An old man lived there and, after the tailor begged, allowed him to stay for the night. In the morning, the tailor awoke to witness a fight between a great stag and a bull. After the stag won, it bounded up to him and carried him off in its antlers. It set him down before a wall of stone and pushed him against a door in it, which then opened. Inside the door, he was told to stand on a stone, which would bring him good fortune. He did so, and it sank down into a great hall, where the voice directed him to look into a glass chest. The chest contained a beautiful maiden, who asked him to open the chest and free her, and he did so.

The maiden told him her story: She was the daughter of a rich count, and after the death of her parents, she had been raised by her brother. One day, a traveler stayed the night and used magic to get to her in the night, to ask her to marry him. She found the use of magic repellent and rejected his proposal. In revenge the magician then turned her brother into the stag, imprisoned her in the glass chest (coffin), and enchanted all the lands around them.

The tailor and the maiden emerged from the enchanted hall and found that the stag had been transformed back into her brother. The bull he had killed had been the magician. The tailor and the maiden then married."

The Gnome:
"A king owns an apple tree, and whoever picked an apple from it he would wish underground. His three daughters looked to see if any fell, and after a time the youngest said that their father loved them too much for that. When they ate, they sank underground. The king offered them to whoever saved them.

Three huntsmen set out. They found a castle with no one in it but food set out, so they watched and then ate, and agree that they would draw lots; one would stay and the other two would search. The eldest stayed, and a mannikin begged for bread. When the man gave him some, the mannikin dropped it and asked it to give him it again. He refused and the mannikin beat him. The same thing happened to the second huntsman. When the third one stayed, he did take up the bread, but refused after the mannikin dropped it again and beat him. The mannikin got him to stop by promising to show him how to get the king's daughters again. He showed him a deep well without water, warned that his companions would betray him and so he had to go alone, and vanished. The third told the other two, and they went to the well. The eldest and next both tried to be lowered, but panicked; the youngest went down and found the king's daughters being held captive, one by a dragon with nine heads, one by one with five, one by one with four. He killed the dragons and had the king's daughters lifted in the basket. Then he put in a rock; his brothers cut the rope and took the princesses back to the king.

The youngest found a flute. Playing it conjured up elves, who brought him to the surface. The princesses told the truth, and the older brothers were hanged, but the youngest son married the youngest princess."