The Sea-Hare is a German fairy tale

Fairy tale

A fairy tale is a type of short story that typically features such folkloric characters, such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, dwarves, giants or gnomes, and usually magic or enchantments. However, only a small number of the stories refer to fairies...

 collected by the Brothers Grimm

Brothers Grimm

The Brothers Grimm , Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm , were German academics, linguists, cultural researchers, and authors who collected folklore and published several collections of it as Grimm's Fairy Tales, which became very popular...

, number 191.

It is Aarne-Thompson type 554, The Grateful Animals, and similar to 851, Winning the Princess with a Riddle.

Synopsis

A princess had a magical tower with twelve windows, and whenever she looked from a window, she saw more clearly from it than the one before. Being haughty, she had no wish to marry, and decreed that any suitor must hide from her to win her, but if she found him, he was to lose his head. After ninety-seven lost their lives, three brothers presented themselves, and the first two lost. The youngest son

Youngest son

The youngest son is a stock character in fairy tales, where he features as the hero. He is usually the third son, but sometimes there are more brothers, and sometimes he has only one; usually, they have no sisters....

asked for three tries. He went hunting and spared a raven, a fish, and a fox. The raven tried to hide him in an egg, where he could be seen only from the eleventh window. The fish swallowed him, where he could be seen only from the twelfth. The fox turned him into a pretty sea-hare and sold him, to the princess. When she went to the windows, he hid in her hair. She could not see him and angrily threw the sea-hare out of her hair. He sneaked off, the fox restored him, and he went to claim her, and they married.