The folktale is widespread "throughout Europe, India, Asia, some parts of Africa" and in the Americas. Commenting on the tale repertoire of female storyteller Argyro, a Greek refugee from Asia Minor, Greek scholar Marianthi Kaplanoglou stated that she knew a story of the tale type ATU 1641, a "common" type to both "the Greek and Turkish corpora". German scholar , in his catalogue of Persian folktales, listed 10 variants of the tale type across Persian sources, with the title
Der falsche Wahrsager ("The False Soothsayer"). According to Professor
Bronislava Kerbelytė, the tale type is reported to register 229
Lithuanian variants, under the banner
Doctor Know-All. ==References==