PAUL WANNER - THE MAGIC THREAD, ORIGINS?

The version in the Book of Virtues and that in Hey, Listen to This (both from the early 1990s) are direct English translations of the Paul Wanner version, illustrated in English (and more languages, like Spanish and Swedish) by Nikolai Ustinov in the 1980s. The original German was published by Schreiber Esslingen. It's the same text (A later, shorter version appears in The Monk who Sold his Ferrari, abridged by Robin Sharma, from 1996).

Previously the same tale, with the same text by Paul Wanner, was published in German by Schreiber Esslingen in 1971 with illustrations by Severino Baraldi. 

During the next five years, Schreiber and Ustinov stayed in contact and developed a series of children’s books together. Due to not only the VAAP bureaucracy, but also the illustrator’s time-consuming work, the first collection of six tales, re-told by the author Paul Wanner (1895–1990), did not come out until 1984, under the title Die schönsten Kindergeschichten. In 1985, it was expanded with another six tales, first issued as Die schönsten Märchen für das ganze Jahr, and then under the serial title, Die schönsten Kindergeschichten Europas. The series consisted of an unusual collection of lesser-known tales from Germany, France, Italy, Spain, England, Finland, Sweden – and the USSR.

Already in 1971, Schreiber had issued a series by Wanner, entitled Die schönsten Märchen Europas, with illustrations by the Italian artist Severino Baraldi, but the new series with Ustinov differed from the previous both in form and content. The aesthetic style and design of the series were striking. It was issued both as one collected hardcover edition and as single stories in thin booklets of 16 pages each, with a 20 x 27 cm format and “look” reminiscent of the characteristic cheap, mass-printed, paper booklets for children by the Soviet children’s book publisher Children's Literature (Detskaya Literatura). The Italian edition of these booklets was published by AMZ in 1985. Previously, Giunti Marzocco had published the Baraldi-illustrated edition of the same tales as a collected hardcover containing "Il filo magico" in 1983.

Gerhard Schreiber held the international rights to Ustinov’s illustrations and eventually the book series and collection were published in several European languages. 

Ustinov, Nikolai (ill. to) Wanner, Paul. Die schönsten Kindergeschichten. Neu erzählt von Paul Wanner. Gemalt von Nikolai Ustinov. Esslingen 1984. Ustinov, Nikolai (ill. to) Wanner, Paul: Die schönsten Kindergeschichten Europas (Reihe). Erzählt von Paul Wanner. Gemalt von Nikolai Ustinov. Esslingen 1985/1986. Inhalt: Aus Deutschland: Zwergenkönig Rübezahl; Aus Frankreich: Der Zauberfaden; ...

“The Magic Thread” from Fairy Tales, illustrated by Nikolai Ustinov. Translation copyright 1985 by Hodder & Stoughton Ltd. Used by permission of Doubleday, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.; also published by Random House in 1987

In both the Ustinov and Baraldi versions, "The Magic Thread" is seen as a French tale, likewise in the English versions (translator?) lifted from Wanner (published by Doubleday) in the Book of Virtues (1993) and in Hey, Listen to This (1992). But I have found no source material in French, no matter how much I googled the title. It appears to be a GERMAN tale, though SET IN FRANCE (in the Loire Valley).

The earliest version I could find, "Der Zauberfaden," is written in German, its author and year of publishing unknown, but it is surely a literary tale (Kunstmärchen): the characters have proper names, the scope is cautionary, using hyperbole (if you could skip all your waiting/unpleasant times you would only miss one or two decades, NOT an entire lifetime!), and there is a lot of worldbuilding (ie the main character's time doing military service, etc). 

http://www.kuk-verlagsanstalt.com/German/Literatur/Geschichten/Zauberfaden.html

In the Wanner version, the names of the antihero and his love interest/wife were changed from Hans and Marie to Peter and Lise, but otherwise the story is nigh identical to the Wanner version.

Timeline:

• Time unknown, "Der Zauberfaden," anonymous literary tale, written in German but set in France
• 1971: Paul Wanner, Severino Baraldi, Esslingen (German). First introduced as a French tale
• 1983: Wanner-Baraldi published in Italy by Giunti Marzocco
• 1984: Wanner, Nikolai Ustinov, Esslingen (German)
• 1985: Wanner-Ustinov published in Italy by AMZ, / Wanner-Ustinov published in English by Doubleday
• 1987: Wanner-Ustinov published in English by Random House
• 1992: Wanner version from Doubleday recollected in Hey, Listen to This (no illustrations) 
• 1993: Wanner version from Doubleday recollected in The Book of Virtues (no illustrations) 
• 1996: Abridgement by Robin Sharma recollected in The Monk who Sold his Ferrari. / Episode "Self-Discipline season 1," Adventures from the Book of Virtues
• 2006: Click (film, existential comedy)