if I show you the treasures of your father and mother, what will you do?” He answered, “I will buy a slipper for you and a slipper for me, and we will play with them among the stones.”  “No,” said she, “you are still too little,” and waited a year before she asked him again.  This time he answered, “I will buy a tambourine for you, and a flute for myself and we will play in the street.”  She waited two more years, and this time he answered, “We will use them to repair the water-wheels and my father’s palaces, and we will sow and reap.”  “Now you are big,” said she, and gave him the treasures, which he used to erect buildings in his father’s country.  Soon afterwards, an old woman persuaded the youth to marry her daughter; but she herself went into the mountains, collected eggs of the bird Oumbar, which make virgins pregnant if they eat them, and gave them to the sister.  The old woman reported the result to the king, who visited his sister to satisfy himself of the truth of the matter, and then left her, but sent her food by a slave.  When the sister’s time came, four angels descended from heaven, and took her daughter, bringing the child to her mother to be nursed.  The mother died of grief, and the angels washed and shrouded her and wept over her; and when the king heard it, he opened the door, and the angels flew away to heaven with the child.  The king ordered a tomb to be built in the palace for his sister, and was so much grieved at her death that he went on pilgrimage.  When he had been gone some time, and the time of his return approached, the old woman opened the sister’s tomb, intending to throw her body to the dogs to devour, and to put the carcase of a sheep in its place.  The angels put the child in the tomb, and she reproached and threatened the old woman; who, however, seized upon her and dyed her black, pretending that she was a little black slave whom she had bought.  When the king returned, he pitied her, and called her to sit by him, but she asked for a candle and candlestick to hold in her hand before all the company.  Then she told her mother’s story, saying to the candle at every word, “Gutter for kings; this is my uncle, the chief of kings.”  Then the candle threw mahboubs on her uncle’s knees.  When the story was ended the king ordered proclamation to be made, “Let whosoever loves the Prophet and the Elect, bring wood and fire.”  The people obeyed, and the old woman and her daughter were burned.

VIII.—­Histoire du Prince Amoureux.

A woman prayed to God to give her a daughter, even if she should die of the smell of flax.  When the girl was ten years old, the king’s son passed through the street, saw her at the window, and fell in love with her.  An old woman discovered that he loved Sittoukan, the daughter of a merchant, and promised to obtain her.  She contrived to set her to spin flax, when a splinter ran under her nail, and she fainted.  The old woman persuaded her father