IV.—­Histoire du Pecheur et de son Fils.

A king falls in love with the wife of a fisherman, and the wazir advises the former to require the fisherman on pain of death to furnish a large hall with a carpet in a single piece.  The fisherman’s wife sends him to the well of Shoubrah where he exclaims, “O such-and-such-a-one, thy sister so-and-so salutes thee, and asks thee to send her the spindle which she forgot when she was with thee yesterday, for we want to furnish a room with it.”  The fisherman drives a nail into the floor at one end of the room, fixes the thread on the spindle to it, and draws out a wonderful carpet.  Then the wazir demands a little boy eight days old, who shall tell a story of which the beginning shall be a lie and the end a lie.  The fisherman is sent to the well with the message, “O such-and-such-a-one, thy sister so-and-so greets thee, and requests thee to give her the child which she brought into the world yesterday.”  But the child only cries until three gnats are applied to him, one on each side and one on the back.  Then the boy speaks, saying, “Peace be on thee, O king!” and afterwards tells his lying story:  “When I was in the flower of my youth, I walked out of the town one day into the fields when it was very hot, I met a melon-seller, I bought a melon for a mahboub, took it, cut out a piece, and looked inside, when I saw a town with a grand hall, when I raised my feet and stepped into the melon.  Then I walked about to look at the people of the town inside the melon.  I walked on till I came out of the town into the country.  There I saw a date-tree bearing dates a yard long.  I wished for some, and climbed the date-tree to gather a date and eat it.  There I found peasants sowing and reaping on the date-tree, and the threshing wheels were turning to thresh the wheat.  I walked on a little, and met a man who was beating eggs to make a poultry yard.  I looked on, and saw the chickens hatch; the cocks went to one side and the hens to the other.  I stayed near them till they grew up, when I married them to each other, and went on.  Presently I met a donkey carrying sesame-cakes, so I cut off a piece and ate it.  When I had eaten it, I looked up, and found myself outside the melon, and the melon became whole as it was at first.”  Then the child rebukes and threatens the king and the wazir and the fisherman’s wife sends her husband to take the child back to the well.

The fisherman had a son named Mohammed l’Avise (Al-Shatir), who was as handsome as his mother; but the king had a son whose complexion was like that of a Fellah.  The boys went to school together, and the prince used to say, “Good day, fisherman’s son,” and Mohammed used to reply, “Good day, O son of the king, looking like a shoe-string.”  The prince complained to his father, who ordered the schoolmaster to kill Mohammed and he bastinadoed him severely.  The boy went to his father, and turned fisherman.  On the first day he caught a mullet