After that, the fish having completely let go went away. The
Prince-King and the Princess-Queen, both of them, [after] bathing
came to the palace.
Finished.
North-western Province.
In the Arabian Nights (Lady Burton's ed., vol. v, p. 304), Princess
Miriam, daughter of the King of France, who had been in a vessel that
was captured, was offered for sale in Alexandria, and was bought
by a youth for a thousand gold dinars (about £500), all the money
he had. Each night she knitted a silk girdle, which he sold in the
morning for twenty gold dinars. While he was wearing on his head a
beautiful silk handkerchief worked by her, the work was recognised
by a Minister sent by the French King in search of her. He bought it
for a thousand dinars, and gave a feast at which he made the youth
drunk and induced him to sell the Princess for ten thousand dinars;
she was carried back to France, and married to the Minister. After
some adventures while the youth was endeavouring to carry her off,
the two lovers escaped to Baghdad, and were formally married by the
Khalif. With her own hand she killed the Minister when he came to
demand her return to France.
Sir R. F. Burton agreed with Dr. Bacher that this story is based on
a legend of Charlemagne's daughter Emma and his secretary Eginhardt
(vol. vi, p. 290). Notwithstanding its resemblance to this tale, the
Sinhalese story may be an independent one. The account of the Princess
who works a jacket or scarf occurs in Nos. 8 and 248, in which, also,
the sale led to her abduction. In a variant, robbers carried her off
and sold her for a thousand masu.