Contains the essential features of Cazotte's story of the Maugraby (cf.
Nights, x., p 418) with interesting additions. The "Mogrébin" confers three
sons on a king and queen and claims Mohammed, the eldest and the cleverest. He
gives him a book to read during his absence of 30 days, but on the 29th day he
finds a girl hanging by her hair in the garden and she teaches him to read it,
but not to tell the magician. The latter cuts off his arm threatening to cut
off his head if he cannot read the book within another 30 days. As soon as he
is gone, Mohammed reads on his arm again with the book, and escapes with the
girl when they separate and return to their respective homes. Mohammed then
changes himself into a sheep for his mother to sell, but warns her not to sell
the cord round his neck. Next day he changes himself into a camel, forbidding
his mother to sell the bridle but she is persuaded to do so, and he falls into
the hands of the magician. But he contrives to escape in the form of a crow
and the magician pursues him for two days and nights in the form of a hawk,
when he descends into the garden of the king whose daughter he had rescued
from the magician, and changes himself into a pomegranate on a tree. The
magician asks for and receives the pomegranate, when it bursts, and the seed
containing the life of Mohammed rolls under the king's throne. The magician
changes himself into a cock, and picks up the seeds, but while he is searching
for the last, it changes into a dagger, and cuts him in two. The princess
acknowledges Mohammed as her deliverer and they are married.