The animated film is based on the fairy tale of the same name (1957) by Otfried Proisler.
The book says that the bull is called Corbinian, and in the cartoon he is not called by name.
Unlike the film, in the book the witches were simply deprived of magical power.
In the film, the carter has one horse, and there are two of them in the book.
As a soundtrack, the composer Filipp Koltsov's fully electronic musical suite was used, which was not usual at that time.