The actual authorship and genesis of the story of the boy and the dike is probably the story "Le Petit Éclusier" by prolific French children's author Eugenie Foa (1796–1852), first published in 1848.[33][34] This appeared in an English translation by Sarah West Lander,[35] titled "The Little Dykeman" and attributed to Foa, in the monthly magazine Merry's Museum for Boys and Girls in March 1868.[36][37]