The Little Crab (, German: Der kleine Krebs) is a Modern Greek folktale translated and published by Greek folklorist from a source in Siteia, in 1938. The tale is related to the international cycle of the Animal as Bridegroom or The Search for the Lost Husband, in that a heroine marries a supernatural husband in animal shape, loses him, and has to seek him out. It is also classified in the international Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index as tale type 425B, "Son of the Witch", thus distantly related to the Graeco-Roman myth of Cupid and Psyche. Source According to Megas, the tale was collected by M. Loudaki from a female teller named Urania Karantoni, from Seteios, Sitia, Crete. Summary A widow lives with her three daughters, and they earn their living by gathering herbs in the mountains. One day, the youngest takes her basket next to a river and finds a little crab she takes with her to her house. The little crab comes out of the basket and lives with the woman until it grows larger and larger. One night, the widow has a dream about the crab ordering her to go to the king by sunset of the following day and ask for the king's daughter's hand in marriage for the crab. The woman wakes up and does not pay much attention to the contents of her dream. The following day, the crab appears to her and threatens to devour her if she does not go to the king's palace on the crab's orders. After the threat, the widow goes to the palace and tells the king there is a crab in her house that wishes to marry the princess. The king then orders him to perform a task first: he has to build a palace unlike any other on Earth next to the kings. The crab summons all devils with a whistle and commands them to erect the palace. The next day, the king orders a second task: to build a garden with all types of trees and all birds that sing in the morning. The crab also fulfills the task. Lastly, the king orders the crab to have the sky above the city of golden colour. The next morning, the sky is indeed painted with golden colour. The king then concedes that the crab must be no ordinary person, and arranges his daughter's marriage to the crab. The husband-to-be