False Hero

The false hero is a stock character in fairy tales, and sometimes also in ballads. The character appears near the beginning of a story in order to claim to be the hero or heroine and is, therefore, usually of the same sex as the hero or heroine. The false hero presents some claim to the position. By testing, it is revealed that the claims are false, and the hero's true. The false hero is usually punished, and the true hero put in his place.

Vladimir Propp identified it as one of the eight roles he found in an analysis of Russian folktales, but the figure is widely found in many nations' tales.