Among the innumerable tales current in Muhammedan countries regarding the extraordinary sagacity of Solomon is the following, which occurs in M. Rene Basset’s Contes Populaires Berbers (Paris, 1887):  Complaint was made to Solomon that some one had stolen a quantity of eggs.  “I shall discover him,” said Solomon.  And when the people were assembled in the mosque (sic), he said:  “An egg-thief has come in with you, and he has got feathers on his head.”  The thief in great fright raised his hand to his head, which Solomon perceiving, he cried out:  “There is the culprit—­seize him!” There are many variants of this story in Persian and Indian collections, where a kazi, or judge, takes the place of Solomon, and it had found its way into our own jest-books early in the 16th century.  Thus in Tales and Quicke Answeres, a man has a goose stolen from him and complains to the priest, who promises to find out the thief.  On Sunday the priest tells the congregation to sit down, which they do accordingly.  Then says he, “Why are ye not all seated?” Say they, “We are all seated.”  “Nay,” quoth Mass John, “but he that stole the goose sitteth not down.”  “But I am seated,” says the witless goose-thief.

We learn from the Old Testament that the Queen of Sheba (or Saba, whom the Arabians identify with Bilkis, queen of El-Yemen) “came to prove the wisdom of Solomon with hard questions,” and that he answered them all.  What were the questions—­or riddles—­the solution of which so much astonished the Queen of Sheba we are not told; but the Rabbis inform us that, after she had exhausted her budget of riddles, she one day presented herself at the foot of Solomon’s throne, holding in one hand a bouquet of natural flowers and in the other a bouquet of artificial flowers, desiring the king to say which was the product of nature.  Now, the artificial flowers were so exactly modelled in imitation of the others that it was thought impossible for him to answer the question, from the distance at which she held the bouquets.  But Solomon was not to be baffled by a woman with scraps of painted paper:  he caused a window in the audience-chamber to be opened, when a cluster of bees immediately flew in and alighted upon one of the bouquets, while not one of the insects fixed upon the other.  By this device Solomon was enabled to distinguish between the natural and the artificial flowers.

Again the Queen of Sheba endeavoured to outwit the sagacious monarch.  She brought before him a number of boys and girls, apparelled all alike, and desired him to distinguish those of one sex from those of the other, as they stood before him.  Solomon caused a large basin full of water to be fetched in, and ordered them all to wash their hands.  By this expedient he discovered the males from the females; since the boys merely washed their hands, while the girls washed also their arms.[76]