Maroula  Maroula is a Greek fairy tale collected by Georgios A. Megas in "Folktales of Greece". Andrew Lang included a variant, The Sunchild, in "The Grey Fairy Book", without listing any source information. It is Aarne-Thompson type 898, Daughter to be Given to the Sun when Twelve. A childless woman tells the Sun that if she could only have a child, the Sun could take the child when she was twelve. Then she has a daughter, Maroula or Letiko. When Maroula is twelve, a fine gentlemen meets her while she is gathering herbs and tells her to remind her mother of her promise. In Megas's variant, this happens twice; the first, the mother instructs Maroula to tell the Sun that she forgot; the second, the Sun has her put an apple in her headdress to remind her by falling out in the evening; the mother keeps her a long time, and finally sends her again, and the Sun returns, so she tells Maroula to tell the Sun that he may take "it" when he finds it, and so he takes Maroula. In Lang's variant, her mother stops up the house to keep all sunlight out, but she leaves open a key hole, and when the light falls on Letiko, she vanishes. In both variants, she is miserable in the Sun's house and makes up excuses. In Megas's, she scratches her own cheeks and blames, in turn, a cockeral, a cat, and a rose bush for scratching her. In Lang's, she is sent after straw; she sits in the shed and laments being taken from her mother; when she returns, she claims her shoes were too large and slowed her, so the Sunball shrinks them. The same thing happens when she is sent for water, except that she says her petticoat was too long; and then when she is sent for slippers, and says her hood blocked her sight. Finally, the Sun realized she is unhappy and decided to send her home. He summons animals to ask whether they would take her home, and then what they would eat on the way. In Megas's variant, both lions and foxes say they will eat Maroula; only foxes say the same in Lang's. Then he asked two hares in Lang's version and two deer in Megas's, and they would eat grass and drink from streams.