 Joseph Jacobs attempted to reconstruct a protoform of the tale in his "Europa's Fairy Book", titled "The Language of Animals".In his commentaries, the folklorist argues that the story's original format involves a prophecy that the boy would become pope or king.Scholars Johannes Bolte and Jiri Polívka suggested the ATU 671, ATU 517 ("The Boy Who Learned Many Things") and ATU 725 ("The Prophecy, or, Dream of Future Sovereignty") types comprised an original single tale.