I had nearly omitted an Arabian version of the outcast infants which seems to have hitherto escaped notice by story-comparers.  Moreover, it occurs in a text of The Nights, to wit, the Wortley-Montague Ms., Nights 472-483, in the story of Abou Neut and Abou Neeuteen = Abu Niyyet and Abu Niyyeteyn, according to Dr. Redhouse; one of those translated by Jonathan Scott in vol. vi. of his edition of the “Arabian Nights,” where, at p. 227, the hero marries the King’s youngest daughter and the King in dying leaves him heir to his throne, a bequest which is disputed by the husbands of the two elder daughters.  The young queen is brought to bed of a son, and her sisters bribe the midwife to declare that she has given birth to a dog and throw the infant at the gate of one of the royal palaces.  The same occurs when a second son is born.  But at the third lying-in of the princess her husband takes care to be present, and the beautiful daughter she brings forth is saved from the clutches of her vindictive sisters.  The two little princes are taken up by a gardener and reared as his own children.  In course of time, it happened that the King (Abu Neeut) and his daughter visited the garden and saw the two little boys playing together and the young princess felt an instinctive affection for them, and the King, finding them engaged in martial play, making clay-horses, bows and arrows, &c., had the curiosity to inquire into their history.  The dates when they were found agreed with those of the queen’s delivery; the midwife also confessed; and the King left the guilty parties to be punished by the pangs of their own consciences, being convinced that envy is the worst of torments.  The two young princes were formally acknowledged and grew up to follow their father’s example.

We must go back to India once more if we would trace our tale to what is perhaps its primitive form, and that is probably of Buddhist invention; though it is quite possible this may be one of the numerous fiction which have been time out of mind the common heritage of nearly all peoples, and some of which the early Buddhists adapted to their own purposes.  Be this as it may, in the following tale, from Dr. Mitra’s “Sanskrit Buddhist Literature of Nepal” (Calcutta:  1882), pp. 65, 66, we seem to have somewhat like the germ of the Envious Sisters: 

Buddhistversion.

King Brahmadatta picked up in Kampilla a destitute girl named Padmavati, who scattered lotuses at every step she moved, and made her his favourite queen.  She was very simple-minded.  Other queens used to play tricks upon her, and at the time of her first delivery cheated her most shamefully.  The wicked ladies said to her on that occasion, “Dear Padma, you are a rustic girl; you do not know how to give birth to a royal child.  Let us help you.”  She yielded.  They covered her eyes, threw into the river the twin boys she had brought forth, and smeared her face with blood.  They deceived her