Green-Vanka

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Green-Vanka (Russian: Ванька-зеленый, romanized: Vanka-zelenyn) is a Russian fairy tale (skazka), first collected in the 1930s and published in 1998. It deals with a friendship between a merchant's son and a magic horse that are forced to flee for their lives due to the boy's stepmother, and reach another kingdom, where the boy adopts another identity by only uttering the words "Green-Vanka", and defeats three dragons to protect three princesses.

According to scholarship, tales where the hero is instructed by his horse to always utter "I don't know" (or a variation thereof) are reported particularly in Russia, in Finland, in the Baltic Countries and in Hungary.