The Tale of the Woodcutter and his Daughters (German: Die Geschichte von dem Holzhauer und seinen Töchtern) is an Egyptian folktale related to the international cycle of the Animal as Bridegroom.
German orientalist Enno Littmann collected this tale from an informant named Maḥmûd, who heard the story in Giza.
The woodcutter becomes rich, buys a palace and marries his two elder daughters to princes, while the youngest prefers the company of the strange horse.
The girl, named "Herrin der Schönheit und Anmut" ("Mistress of Beauty and Grace"), falls into a state of despair, and her father opens a public bath house for everyone to share stories.
One day, an old spinner and her daughter go to the bath house and tell the girl about a strange scene: on a certain night, she saw a rooster screaming, and a man on a ship lamenting over a betrayed secret.
The three women arrive, and see a hen singing a joyous tune, while the man appears on his ship, still lamenting over his secret.
He tells her she is a servant, and the mother forces the girl to do chores for her son's upcoming wedding: to separate a heap of mixed cereals (beans, wheat, corn and barley) and to clean her palace with a beaded cloth and a broom decorated with pearls and emeralds.
[5][6] Type ATU 425B, "The Son of the Witch", is considered by scholarship to correspond to the ancient Graeco-Roman myth of Cupid and Psyche, that is, the supernatural husband's mother forces the heroine, her daughter-in-law, to perform difficult and impossible tasks for her.
[7] According to Greek folklorist Georgios A. Megas [el], the main motif of tale type 425D is H11.1.1, "Recognition at inn [hospital, etc.
[8][9] In the same vein, Swedish scholar Jan-Öjvind Swahn [sv] identified among the "motifs characteristic of subtype D" the bath-house, the inn, or places where the heroine goes to hear stories or news about her husband.
[10] According to researcher Samia Al Azharia Jahn, the supernatural bridegroom may appear as a horse, a goat or a camel in Arab variants.
[11] Likewise, scholar Jan-Öjvind Swahn [sv] asserted that the animal or supernatural husband appears as a horse in tale type 425A "in the Orient".
This tale contains the episode of the Magic Flight: as the heroine and her husband escape from his mother's clutches, they shapeshift into a garden (her) and a garden-keeper (him).
[19] Russo-Assyrian author Konstantin P. (Bar-Mattai) Matveev [ru] translated and published a tale from the Assyrian people, titled "Теленок" ("The [Bull] Calf").
One day, the princess tells her mother about her husband's woman form, and the queen advises her to ask for his bull calf skin and burn it in a tandoor oven.
Seeing that her iron shoes are worn out, she then builds an inn to give food and water to travellers in exchange for news of her husband.
One day, a father and duo son come to the inn and tell the princess about a strange sight: the son went looking for their donkeys, saw three camels delivering flour to a mill and three pigeons (one yellow, one white, one blue) perched on their donkeys talking about lost wives; the blue one about his who has built an inn.
[22] Samia Jahn stated that the Egyptian tale from Giza (see above) shows the same conclusion as Sitt Ward: the supernatural husband's mother forces tasks on his human wife.