Let's not forget the popularity of the pomegranate in the folktale. I was tempted to quote "The Love of Three Pomegranates*" but there, as is maybe obvious from the more popular orange version, the pomegranates are replacable with any other reddish fruits, so here's a snippit of another one in Calvino, '
The School of Salamanca', that I quite like, where the fact that the pomegranate is a pomegranate is a little more important:
[...]
Hearing that voice, the princess almost died of fright, but curiosity then got the better of her and she granted him permission to show himself. "Ring I am, and a man will I become!" The ring gleamed brighter, and there stood a dazzling young man. The princess was fascinated and couldn't take her eyes off of him. Then when she heard all his accomplishments and the misfortunes he was enduring, she fell in love with him and insisted that he remain with here. In the daytime the youth turned back into the ring, which she wore on her finger. At night when they were alone, he took back his human form.
But the Master didn't stand idly by. One morning the king woke up in terrible pain. All the doctors were called, and they made him take every medicine known to man, but his suffering did not lessen. The princess was grieved, and the youth still more so because he knew all this was the Master's doing. As a matter of fact, here came a foreign doctor to the palace, from a a country at the end of the earth, and he claimed that if they let him into the king's room, he would cure him. They showed him in at once, but the princess saw the ring gleaming more intensely and realized that the youth wanted a word with her. She shut herself up in the chamber, and the young man said, "What a mistake you have made! That doctor is the Master! He will cure your father but, for his pay, he will demand the ring! Refuse to give it up, but if the king orders you to, then throw it on the floor as hard as you can!"
Things happened that way: the king got well and told the doctor, "Name whatever you want, and I will give it to you." At first the doctor pretended to want nothing, but at the king's insistence, he asked for the ring on the princess's finger. She screamed, cried, and finally fainted; but feeling the king grab her hand to take the ring by force, she suddenly jumped up, slipped it from her finger, and threw it to the floor.
As soon as she hurled it, a voice was heard. "Ring I am, and a pomegranate will I become!" The pomegranate broke open on the floor, and seeds scattered all over the room.
"Doctor I am, and a cock will I become!" said the Master, turning into a cock and proceeding to eat the seeds one by one. But one seed landed under the long skirt of the princess, who kept it hidden there.
"Pomegranate I am, and a fox will I become!" said the seed, and out from under the princess's skirt jumped a fox and ate the cock in one gulp.
The pupil had outwitted the Master! The fox turned back into a young man, told the king his story, and the next day all the cannons were fired in honor of the princess's marriage.
*in the version in Calvino, the Ugly Saracen tries to kill the lady who was birthed from a pomegranate by sticking a hairpin in her ear. This makes a little more sense now, thanks to time's handy pomegranate-eating advice.
