version, collected by Paul Sébillot in Littérature orale de la Haute-Bretagne, is called Le Merle d'or (The Golden Blackbird). Andrew Lang included that variant in The Green Fairy Book (1892). In The Golden Blackbird, the gardener's son set out because the doctors have prescribed the golden blackbird for their ill father. The two older brothers are lured into the inn without any warning, and the youngest meets the talking hare that aids him only after he passes it by. The horse is featured only as a purchase, and he did not have to perform two tasks to win the Porcelain Maiden, the princess figure. Also, the hare is not transformed at the end of the tale. Another version, collected by François-Marie Luzel, is called Princess Marcassa and the Dreadaine Bird. There, the sick man is a king rather than a gardener, and the animal - a white fox in this variant - isn't the brother of the princess, but the soul of a poor old man whom the prince, after being robbed by his older brothers, buries with the last of his money. The prince, while stealing the bird, impregnates the princess as she sleeps, and it's the child's insistence on finding his father which makes the princess follow him and reveal the truth. Ireland An Irish variant of the type, published in 1936 (Le roi magicien sous la terre), seems to contain the Celtic motif of "the journey to the Other World". In another Irish variant, The Bird of the Golden Land, the king sets his sons on the quest for the titular bird, and whoever brings it with him shall have the crown. The three brothers arrive at a house of an old man, who gives a sledge to the oldest prince, a rope to the second and a cradle to the youngest. He also directs them to a secret underground passage that leads to the Golden Land. The youngest descends on the cradle and arrives at the hut of an old woman, who seems to know the reason for his quest. She directs him to a stable, where he finds a mare that can take him across seas and to the King of the Golden Land. After he meets the King, His Majesty proposes a challenge: the king will hide three times in different locations, and thrice the prince must find him (which he does, by accident).