The tale belongs to the international cycle of the Animal as Bridegroom as a subtype, with few variants reported across Europe.
The tale was published by abbot and preacher Jean-Paul Bignon in the work Les Aventures d'Abdalla, fils d'Hanif, tome 2.
[4] Princess Zeineb narrates her tale in first person: she is the youngest of six daughters of King Batoche, who rules the eastern part of the Isle of Gilolo.
The king returns to tell his daughters about the event, and they see a leopard with a ferocious glare in his eyes.
She finds some of her previous clothes, now in tatters, puts them on and decides to beg for food and work in the world.
After walking to deeper parts of the island, the princess moves to the city of Soucad, where she decides to take up the job of seamstress.
The man enters a trance and closes the window for the whole night, then returns to his mates and lies that he spent a happy evening with the princess, which convinces the other two to try their luck.
Zeineb manages to delay her trial for three months by bribing local magistrates, but she is still sentenced to be burnt alive.
Suddenly, a great sound of acclamation is heard in the mob: the king of Soucad, their monarch, has returned, and wished to surprise his people.
The king of Soucad, the same leopard, marries Zeineb and tells her the whole story: he is the legitimate heir to the throne, but his brother conspired with a magician to turn him into an animal.
[5] The tale has been compared to the Graeco-Roman myth of Cupid and Psyche, by Apuleius, and to "Beauty and the Beast", in that a human heroine marries a supernatural or animal husband and loses him, having to search for him.
[6][7][8] As such, it is classified, in the international Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index, as tale type ATU 425, "The Search for the Lost Husband".
[22][23] According to scholar Christine Goldberg, Swahn reported 17 variants of subtype 425N across Europe, in Ireland, Britain, Germany, Italy, Spain and France.
[24] In a French tale from Ille-et-Vilaine with the title Le crapaud qui se marie ("The Frog that Married"), there is a man so old moss has grown on his legs.
One day, just like every morning, his youngest daughter, Lida, takes his to rest on a bench under an apple tree in their yard.
Lida faints with the lack of light, and the frog's servants (little toads) take her to a mossy bed and nudge her awake.
Lida and the frog celebrate their wedding, but the amphibian notices she is withering with the lack of sunshine and open air.
Lida and her sisters play together and, one day, walk towards a distant hill, where the elder two say out loud it is a nice place for a palace.
Suddenly, they hear shouting coming from their backyard, and find three evil-looking men, who want to force their way into the palace.
After it stops, a handsome prince exits the carriage and tells Lida she defeated his enemy that cursed him into frog form for centuries.
The castle disappears and the crow says only the youngest can save him, but she must dress in rags and look for a job in a nearby town.
The prince turns back into a snake, and tells the girl she needs to go out in the forest and find work in a beautiful castle.
[29][30] In an English tale published by folklorist Joseph Jacobs with the title Three Feathers, a woman is married to a man whose face she has never seen.
One night, while he is asleep by her side, the woman lights a torch and discovers her husband is a handsome man.
Their efforts to impress her fail, because the woman makes up some excuse so that the male servant can do a chivalrous deed for her: by the use of the feather and the spell, the footman is stuck trying to close the shutters that keep opening; the coachman tries to gather the woman's clothes from the cloth's hanger, and a wind blows them about all night; the coachman goes to the cellar to get some brandy for her, and the contents from the barrels keep spilling out.
The frog wakes up and feels insulted that Ramoncita's sisters interrupted him, so the girl can only find him across the sea, so gives her a magic kerchief, and vanishes.
Ramoncita decides to look for him and goes to the seashore, then uses the magic kerchief to open up a dry path for her until she reaches a city, where she rents a house from two old ladies.
Lastly, the third priest comes and is served a cup of tea, who Ramoncita enchants to drink all night long.