[1] 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".
The king sees the blind puppies and, feeling he was deceived, orders the woman to be tied to the stairs and covered with pitch, and for everyone to spit on her.
After Muhammed talks about the singing rose, the ogress tells him about the garden where it is located: he is to exchange the fodder of a goat and a lion, then a gate will open, and he is to take the flower with him and flee before he becomes stone.
[6] In a late-19th century study, scholar W. A. Clouston listed L'Histoire d'Arab-Zandik as the "Modern Arabic" version of The Sisters Envious of Their Cadette, from the compilation The Arabian Nights.
[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] W. A. Clouston noted that the fairy Arab-Zandyk replaces the Speaking Bird of the other variants of type 707 in revealing the truth to the king.
[10] 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.
[13][14] In the tale The Nightingale that Shrieked, collected by Inea Bushnaq, the youngest sister promises twins: "a boy with locks of gold and silver" and a girl who can make the sun shine with her smile and rain fall with her weeping.
Years later, they are sent on a quest for the Tree with Apples that dance and Apricots that sing and the Bulbul Assiah, the Nightingale that Shrieks, both tasks completed only by the brother.
[15][16] In a tale El-Shamy collected from a female teller in a village in the Nile Delta and published with the title The Promises of the Three Sisters, a king forces a ban on lighting candles at night.
Inside, three sisters are weaving and talking: the eldest promises to bake a cake to feed the king and his army; the second that she will weave a carpet to sit the entire army; and the third that she will bear twins, a boy named Clever Muhammed and a girl called Sitt el-Husn ("Mistress of Beauty"), both with golden and silver hair.
[17] In a tale collected by Yacoub Artin Pacha in the Nile Valley with the title El-Schater Mouhammed, a king forbids lighting candles at night.
They overhear their conversation: the elder wants to marry the king and promises to spread silk from their house to the palace; the second claims she can bake a cake grand enough for him and the people; the youngest promises to give birth to twins, a boy and a girl, the boy having hair of gold and silver and, when he cries, the sky will be clouded, it will be cold and rainy, and when he laughs, the skies will be clear, even in winter.
Years later, the midwife tricks the king that the twins, the boy named El-Chater Mouhammed and the girl Sit-el-Hôsn oual Gamal, intent to dethrone the king, and suggests to give the twins the quest for the objects: the Tree of Sitti-Han (El-Chater obtains the tree and marries its owner, a maiden named Sitti-Han) and "a baby or infant who can speak eloquently".
To assuage their fears, an evil old woman named Asuset essetút visits the siblings' house and convinces them to seek the ettufáh el-li ifúh / wi irud errúh lirrúh ("perfumed apples that restore the soul"), and the emerald bird that sings.
[20] In a Tunisian tale translated into Russian as "Смертельная зависть" ("Mortal Jealousy"), three sisters tell one another their dreams about future husbands: the elder to the royal cook, the middle one to the chamberlain, and the youngest to the king himself, and she will bear him a son and a daughter.
Envying their cadette's fortunate marriage, the elder sisters take the boy and the daughter as soon as they are born (in consecutive pregnancies), replace them for a kitten and a monkey, and cast in the water.
The titular M'hammed, le fils du sultan, the youngest son, decides to take a similar journey, despite his mother's pleas.
The boy gives his father the necklace, and the sultan decides to name M'hammed as his successor, but he warns him against freeing his six elder brothers.
Time passes, and M'hammed, hearing his mother's pleas, decides to release his brothers, who become angry that their cadet will rule over them.
Back to the children, the poor old woman raises them, two boys and a girl, and the queen's sisters realize they are alive, so they come to the old woman house with a plan: they pretend to be wanderers and compliment the house in front of the girl, but suggest her elder brothers build her a pool and bring a nightingale to sing her sweet songs.
The elder brother offers to go on the journey, meets an old man on the way, who advises hi, when he reaches a fenced garden, to get the bird in a cage and run back without listening to the voices around him.
Moved by the bird's words, the king summons the midwife and learns the truth of their ploy, but discovers the queen took her own life.
[23] In a variant collected in the Tell Atlas area from an informant from Tafoughalt, titled Los hermanos de los mechones de oro ("The Siblings with Golden Locks"), a rich man listens to three women talking near the fountain: the first wants to marry him and promises to weave a burnoose with the wool of a single sheep; the second claims she can prepare a meal for the whole village with a single sheep's thigh, and the third promises to bear him twins with golden locks.
[25] Authors Ahmed Al-Shahi and F. C. T. Moore collected a Sudanese tale from a Ja'alyin source with the title How Wad al-Nimair - shame upon him - married his daughter.
The third time, Wad al-Nimair finds the bird and plucks the thorn from her head, turning her back into Path-of-the-Flood (the girl's name).
Wad al-Nimair then beheads his seven co-wives, reinstates his eighth wife and welcomes Path-of-the-Flood, al-Hassan and al-Husain as his children.
When the she gives birth to her children in three consecutive years, each time they bribe a midwife to get rid of the babies and replace them for puppies.