Went and poked at a couple of story ideas that were forming.
And the tale announced that it would appear as an episode in a novel already in progress. After all, the way to hook it into the tale is to have one of the existing characters called in to make a judgement -- he has a rep for it, and this will underscore that nicely by having such an appeal made to him. (He can't be the hero because he's already got his tale that will win him his bride.)
The fun part of massive fairy-tale mashups is that the tales have to play nicely together. and while they can be disjointed to great extent -- and are, even in the folklore -- it's not infinite.
sigh Still have to find other eyes to play nicely with the merchant's daughter and the deserting soldiers -- who won't play nicely with each other
