The Moor accepts her as his mate and they live like husband and wife, but every night, the girl is given a sleeping potion, so that she cannot see who is really standing at her bedside.
At the last house, the youngest sister-in-law welcomes the girl, who is now in labour, and she gives birth that same night to a boy with a golden lock on his chest.
[9][10] Scholar Jan-Öjvind Swahn [sv], in his monograph about Cupid and Psyche, remarked that the heroine's pregnancy was an "essential" trait of subtype AaTh 425L.
[11] On the other hand, scholars Anna Angelopoulou and Aigle Broskou, editors of the Greek Folktale Catalogue, indicated that the "characteristic motif" of subtype 425L is that the heroine, against her husband's prohibition, illuminates his face and discovers a lock on his body that leads to a whole other world.
[12] According to Richard MacGillivray Dawkins, in Greek variants, the mysterious servant may be a "blackamoor" or pasha, summoned by uttering an interjection ("Alas" or "Woe is me").
[13] According to Luisa Rubini, the motif of the character uttering an interjection and accidentally summoning a mysterious servant with the same name is "typical" of Mediterranean tales (from Italy, the Balkans and Turkey).
[14] In a study about the myth of Cupid and Psyche, Danish folklorist Inger Margrethe Boberg argues that the name "Zelebi" comes from Turkish tchélébi, which is a Persian loanword meaning 'gentleman'.
Soon after, she lives with the Black man as her servant: he gives her some coffee laced with a sleeping potion, and she never sees her husband, the Lord of the Underearth.
The girl follows her sisters' advice and feigns sleep; while the Lord of the Underearth is asleep, she turns the key on his navel and sees the whole world.
One day, his sisters pay her a visit, and convince her to spy on her husband at night: they give her a sponge so it can soak up the drink, then she is to feign sleep, and light a candle to better see his face.
The Sun wakes up in anger and orders his servant, Alasandalack, to take the girl to the wilderness, kill her, and bring back her blood for him to drink.
One day, in a bout of sadness, his youngest daughter comes in with a handful of coins and explains where she found them: while she was in a meadow trying to pluck a vegetable from the ground, she sighed aloud "Oh, Alis", when a Black man appears, gives her some money and bids her accompany him to a hut.
The Black man takes the pregnant girl outside the hut and admonishes her, but gives her directions to reach a house that belongs to her sister-in-law.
[24] In a Judeo-Spanish variant summarized by scholar Reginetta Haboucha and sourced from Skoplje, a king goes on a journey, tries to find a bunch of golden grapes for his youngest daughter, which she specifically requested for.
She lights a match and sees a padlock on the man lying in bed next to her: inside, a world of people preparing for the birth of her unborn child.
The girl then brings the candle next to her bedmate's face and sees a handsome youth, but a drop of wax falls on his body and wakes him up.
The enchanted prince comes in and explains to his youngest sister the whole story, while the girl is giving birth to her child, a boy with a key on the front, a padlock on the navel, the sun on his chest, the moon on his back and the Morning Star on his shoulders.
[27] A similar narrative is attested in the Typen türkischer Volksmärchen ("Turkish Folktale Catalogue"), devised by scholars Wolfram Eberhard and Pertev Naili Boratav, indexed as type TTV 104, Die Traube II, with 14 variants registered.
[28] In a Turkish tale collected by Turkologist Ignác Kúnos with the title Der Schlangen-Prinz ("The Snake-Prince"), a poor broom-maker has three daughters and earns their living by selling brooms.
The elder two avoid eating the sherbet and have their feet prickled by a needle, screaming in pain, while the youngest falls asleep and does not feel a thing.
The asleep girl, the daughter of the Padishah of the Peris, wakes up, sees the shawl and accuses her companion of consorting with a human, then flies away.
Suddenly, a "tall and black" marid appears on the ship and shows him the golden cluster, and offers it to the man in exchange for his youngest daughter.
In this tale, titled "Фильфиль Дару" ("Filfil Daru"), a merchant from Sulaymaniyah is ready to go to Lebanon on a business trip, and asks his three daughters, Zarifa, Fatima and Juwana, what he can bring them: Zarifa asks for a silk dress, Fatima for a pet bird, and Juwana for something called "filfil daru", which is very expensive.
After closing the doors, Juwana rushes back to Filfil Daru's sleeping frame to return the keys, but, suddenly, he wakes up and berates her for breaking his trust.
She knocks on the first one and asks for shelter, but the mistress of the house serves her salty food and expels her, shouting that her brother Filfil Daru will soon come with his wife.
She comes from Juwana's room and tells her brother about a poor woman who gave birth to a boy with a mark on his body in the shape of three keys.
In this tale, titled The Sultan of the Underwater, a childless woman goes to the river Nile and prays to God to have a daughter and she will fulfill a vow.
The Black man takes her back to his master's palace, the Sultan of the Genies, and Aïcha avoids drinking the sleeping potion.
The man then calls for his Black servant, Baba Merzoug, and orders him to kill Aïcha and bring back her blood in a flask.
In the marine palace, the girl lives in splendour and luxury, but is warned never to kindle any source of light in their bedchambers, although she feels someone coming to her bed at night.