It is related to the theme of the calumniated wife and classified in the international Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index as type ATU 707, "The Three Golden Children".
Four women talk in the woods in front of the king's garden: the first promises to feed his troops (méḥalla, in the original) with only a plate of couscous, the second that she can sate the thirst of the troops with only a bucket of water, the third that she can weave head coverings (ḥaïk, in the original) for the troops with the hair of one horse only, and the fourth that she can bear the king a boy with a lock of silver and a girl with tresses of gold ("Nweld Lih would Zekkoura Enta 'Noqra ou Bent Guettaïta Enta 't Dhehb", in the original).
[6] French ethnologist Camille Lacoste-Dujardin, in her study about the Kabylian oral repertoire, listed L'oiseau des pays de labour (sic) as a Moroccan variant of type 707.
[7] French ethnologist Camille Lacoste-Dujardin [fr], in regards to a Kabylian variant, noted that the sisters' jealousy originated from their perceived infertility, and that their promises of grand feats of domestic chores were a matter of "capital importance" to them.
[8] Hasan El-Shamy remarked that in Middle Eastern tales the royal children, born of the third sister, are a brother-sister twin pair.
[9] Philologist Johannes Østrup ascribed an "Oriental" origin to the motif of the monarch banning lighting candles at night, which appears in many of the variants.
[10][11] In a Moroccan Arabic tale titled ṭ-ṭăyʁ l-mḥăddəθ ("The Talking Bird"), collected in Chefchaouen, Morocco, by researcher Aicha Ramouni from teller Lālla Ḥusniyya l-ʕAlami, the third sister promises to give birth to twins, a boy and a girl who can make the sun appear with their smiles and rain fall with their tears, and leave one brick of gold and other of silver whenever they walk.
[12][13] In a variant from Morocco titled L'Oiseau Conteur, a local king is married to two co-wives, but has not fathered a son yet.
Every time a child is born to her (two boys and a girl, in three consecutive pregnancies), the co-wives replace them for puppies and cast them in the river.
Back to the children, years later, an old woman appears in the twins' house and tells her about the Singing Bird that makes people mad.
The male twin goes on a journey and meets ogresses that advise him not to interact with the bird, who has divinatory knowledge and can turn him to stone, just as it has done to countless people before.
The girl obeys the ogresses' advice and captures the bird in a sack, then forces the animal to restore her brother and everyone.
[16] In a Moroccan tale collected by Jilali El Koudia with the title Three Women, three female friends go to collect grass in a field that belongs to a bachelor, and they comment about their marriage wishes with him: the first boasts she can bake bread with a single grain; the second that she can make bean soup with a single bean, and the third promises she will bear him a son with a golden birthmark on the forehead.
Due to their great jealousy, the first co-wives cut off the boy's finger and smear the mother's mouth with blood, then send off the child to an old woman to be buried alive.
One day, they decide to pluck some herbs near the estate of a wealthy man and begin to converse about marriage plans to the man: one of them says out loud she can prepare couscous with a single grain of wheat; the other that she can prepare a dish of damriqt (a dish made of beans) with a single grain, while the third promises to bear a boy with a golden ponytail.
The boy rides his horse through villages in search of the woman that devoured her son, and accompanied by a wolf, a hare and a goat.
The boy knocks on the door to his father's house and is invited as an honored guest, and the man asks his co-wives to prepare a fine meal.
Later that night, the boy goes to meet the woman in secret and washes her with ablution water, puts her in fine robes, and brings her to her husband's house.
The boy asks for the door and curtains to be closed, and he shows the shining lock of golden hair, proving his mother's innocence and his father's folly.
The man who owns the orchard overhears their words and marries all three, then requests each of them to fulfill their boasts: the first two admit they are unable to do so.
The boy's woman is relieved her son is alive and goes to embrace him, then wishes the other two women suffer the same fate that befell her: living and eating with the animals.