[5] The motif has been described as "common in oral tradition for centuries (particularly in Arabian fantasy), with wishes granted by genies freed from a bottle)".
It has also been asserted that the motif was "first written down as 'The Three Wishes' (1757 Le Magasin des Enfants) by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont".
[1] An example of the three wishes motif as a joke runs as follows: Three men are stranded on a desert island, when a bottle washes up on the shore.
The second man wishes that he were in Hollywood, and with a snap of the genie's fingers, he finds himself on a Tinseltown movie set.
In the story, the recipient of the monkey's paw wishes for £200, only to learn that his son has been killed in a terrible work accident, for which the employer makes a goodwill payment of £200.