A Turkish variant occurs in the “History of the Forty Vazirs,” where a poor water-carrier of Cairo, named Nu’man, presents his son’s teacher with his only camel, which he used daily for carrying his skins of water, as a reward for instructing the lad in the Kuran, and his wife rails at him for his folly in no measured terms.  In his sleep a white haired old man appears to him in a dream and tells him to go to Damascus, where he would find his portion.  After this has occurred three times in succession, poor Nu’man, spite of his wife’s remonstrances, sets out for Damascus, enters a mosque there, and receives a loaf of bread from a man who had been baking, and having eaten it falls asleep.  Returning home, his wife reviles him for giving away a camel and doing other mad things.  But again the venerable old man appears to him thrice in a dream, and bids him dig close by himself, and there he would find his provision.  When he takes shovel and pick-axe to dig, his wife’s tongue is more bitter than before, and after he had laboured a while and begins to feel somewhat fatigued, when he asks her to take a short spell at the work, she mocks him and calls him anything but a wise man.  But on his laying bare a stone slab, she thinks there must be something beneath it, and offers to relieve him.  “Nu’man,” quoth she “thou’rt weary now.”  “No, I’m rested, says he.  In the end he discovers a well, goes down into it, and finds a jar full of sequins, upon seeing which his wife clasps him lovingly round the neck, exclaiming, “O my noble little hubby!  Blessed be God for thy luck and thy fortune!” Her tune changes, however, when the honest water-carrier tells her that he means to carry the treasure to the King, which he does, and the King having caused the money to be examined, the treasure is found to have the following legend written on it:  “This is an alms from God to Nu’man, by reason of his respect for the Kuran."[FN#377]

This curious story, which dates, as we have seen, at least as far back as the 9th century appears to be spread over Europe.  Mr. E. Sidney Hartland, in an able paper treating of several of its forms in “The Antiquary” for February, 1887, pp. 45-48, gives a Sicilian version from Dr. Pitre’s collection, which is to this effect: 

A poor fellow at Palermo, who got his living by salting tunny and selling it afterwards dreamt one night that a person came to him and said that if he wished to find his fortune he would find it under the bridge of the Teste.  Thither he goes and sees a man in rags and is beginning to retire when the man calls him back, informs him that he is his fortune and bids him go at midnight of that same night to the place where he had deposited his casks of tunny, dig there, and whatever he found was his own.  The tunny-seller gets a pick-axe and at midnight begins to dig.  He comes upon a large flat stone, which he raises and discovers a staircase; he descends, and at the bottom finds an immense treasure of gold.  In brief, he becomes so rich that he lends the King of Spain “a million,” to enable him to carry on his wars; the King makes him Viceroy of Sicily, and by-and by, being unable to repay the loan, raises him to the highest royal dignities.