Hi Steve,

If all the variants by Child and Kemmpinen are types of fruit (i.e. maid outwits false knight and kills him) then most of the analogues are different like apples are different than oranges. I think I'll look more carefully at the analogues.

The English speaking versions in general have

A: The false knight proposes to the maid or seduces the maid through a magic charm.
B: He entices her to bring her father's gold and her mother's jewels (fee) and two steeds.
C: They ride to the seashore where the knight has already drowned six maids; the knight tells the maid to take off her clothes, since they are too "costily" to rot in the salty sea.
D: The maid asks him to turn his back for "it is not fitting that a naked woman he should see.
E: She throws him in the water and refuses to rescue him.
F: When she returns home, the parrot asks her where she's been; sometimes the father is woken. She promises the bird a golden and ivory cage or other rewards and parrot keeps the murder a secret.

Even if you take off the ending with the parrot-- the false knight and maid ride horses to water where they stop and he reveals he's killed six (or seven) king's daughters. Before she takes off her expensive clothes she tricks him to turn his head so he won't see her naked. She throws him in the water and he drowns.

I don't think there are analogues with these distinct characteristics. Child 4A is quite different and part of Child 4B. I'll look again at the analogues.

This Irish oral dialogue version from Connamara appeared in "Once a Week," Volume 11, edited by Eneas Sweetland Dallas, 1864 and has the naked woman scene which needs to be part of the analogue-- but it's missing other parts:

"We had another like him, sir, but he was a murthering villain."

"Who was he?"

"Captain Webb."

"What did he do?"

"He used to ill-use young women, and then strip thorn and throw them into the 'Murthuring Hole,' which is not far from here."

"Come, now, Master Joyce, you must not be asking me to believe too much, or you may weaken my faith in Mao Namara and his famous mare."

"The devil a lie in what I'm going to tell you, sir."

"Well, goon."

"Well, sir, this Captain Webb one day met a fine handsome girl, beautifully dressed, with a bran new cloak and gown. It was near the mouth of the Murthering Hole that he met her. He first sthruve to get his will of her, but he couldn't, for she was a very decent girl; so he tares off her cloak and drags her to the mouth of the Hole, and says, 'Strip.'

"Goon."

"Well, sir, she takes off her new gown, and her flannel petticoat, saving your presence, and then she falls down on her knees and says to him, 'Oh, for the Vargin's sake, turn your head aside while I take off the rest of my things."

"Well?"

"Well, sir, he turned his back to her and his face to the Murthering Hole, when she sprung up and made a dhrive at him, and pushed him in."

"And killed him?"

"Of coorse."

"Bravo!"
* * * *

Richie