The Golden Bird () is a Berber tale from Kabylia, collected by author Mouloud Mammeri. 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". These tales refer to stories where a girl promises a king she will bear a child or children with wonderful attributes, but her jealous relatives or the king's wives plot against the babies and their mother. Variants are collected in Algeria and in Kabylie, among the Berbers.
Summary In this tale, three sisters express their wishes to marry the king, and boast about their abilities: the elder boasts she can prepare crêpes for the king with a single grain of wheat; the middle one that she can sew a beautiful coat with a single fleece, and the youngest that she will bear twins, a boy and a girl, with golden forehead. The king, who was strolling in the garden at the time, overhears their conversation, and decides to marry all three. Later, he bids his elder wife fulfills her boast and cook him the crêpes, but she fails. The middle one cannot weave the coat either. As for the youngest, she is pregnant, and indeed gives birth to her children: babies with blond hair so shiny it looks like gold. The elder sisters feel threatened by their cadette's success and bribe a midwife to replace the children for puppies and throw them in the water in a box.
It happens thus: the box washes away and is rescued by a fisherman, who brings it home to his wife. They open it and find the twins inside, their hair shining with a blinding light. They decide to raise the children and name them Aziz and Aziza. Despite their poor situation, Aziz and Aziza play games with a king's son and win louis and enough gold for their adoptive parents. They move out to a palace, but, in time, their adoptive parents die of old age, and leave the twins alone. Aziz spends his days hunting while Aziza stays home. One day, a local old woman, envying their good life, pays them a visit and convinces Aziza to send her brother to fetch lioness's milk in a satchel made of the skin of a lioncub, so the girl can use the milk on her skin and be even more beautiful. Aziz agrees to fetch her the milk, and consults with the local wise men how to approach the lioness: take seven sheep and throw them to the lioncubs in their den while their mother is away. Aziz reaches the lioness's den, feeds them the sheep and takes the cub and milk with him. Next, the old sorceress tells Aziza about a wonderful necklace made of pearls that can make her even more beautiful.
Lastly, the old woman tells Aziza to seek the Golden Bird that can sing melodious songs and can predict the future. Aziz goes to fetch the bird and is turned to stone when he interacts with the bird. When Aziz does not return at the appointed time, Aziza goes after him, captures the bird and restore her male twin and other petrified people. The twins bring the Golden Bird in a cage and hang it on his palace. Meanwhile, the king, their father, goes with his retinue to the twins' palace to see for himself Aziza's beauty and the bird's singing, but the animal stops its song. The king orders the bird to sing, and the bird replies that it cannot sing to a king that wants to marry his own daughter and kill his own son. The king is intrigued by the bird's words, and, advised by the bird, brings with him his former third wife (which he imprisoned), the midwife and his elder co-wives to the palace the next day. At the assemblage, the Golden Bird reveals the whole truth to the twins, their mother and the king.
Analysis Tale type The tale is classified in the international Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index as type ATU 707, "The Three Golden Children": three sisters converse among themselves about their plans to marry the king, the youngest promising to bear children with wondrous aspect; the king decides to marry the youngest (or all three), and the youngest bears the wondrous children, who are taken from her and cast in the water by the jealous aunts; years later, the children, after many adventures, reunite the family, which leads to the aunts being punished.Aarne, Antti; Thompson, Stith. The types of the folktale: a classification and bibliography. Folklore Fellows Communications FFC no. 184. Helsinki: Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 1961. pp. 242–243. The tale type, according to scholars Ibrahim Muhawi and Sharif Kanaana, is very popular in the Arab world.
Motifs French ethnologist , 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.
Hasan El-Shamy remarked that in Middle Eastern tales the royal children, born of the third sister, are a brother-sister twin pair.
Variants Algeria In an Algerian variant collected in Blida by Joseph Desparmet from informant Fatma bent Eldjennâdî, titled La Ghoule Secourable, a king announces his plans to marry, and orders every possible maiden to pass by his window. One day, three girls pass under the king's window: the first promises to feed the king's troops with just a plate of couscous, the second that she can weave garments for the whole troop with wool from a single fleece, and the third that the will bear the king a girl and a boy, both with golden and silver hair. The king marries the first girl and, when she fails on her promise, he divorces her. The same happens to the second girl. He lastly marries the third one, to the envy of the other two. The jealous women seek the services of a Settout (an evil old woman), to act as the queen's midwife. The Settout replaces the queen's first child, a boy, for a puppy and casts him in a box in the river. The same happens with the second child, a girl. They are saved and raised by a fisherman and his wife. Some years later, the fisherman's own children mock the boy and the girl and they leave home. They buy a house and the brother meets the king. The jealous women tell the Settout, who visits the sister while her brother is away. The Settout tells her first about the Les Pommes de Senteur et L’Eau qui rend la vie (Algerian: Etteffâḥ ennifouḥ ou elmâ llî irodd errouḥ, English: “Scented Apples and Water of Life”); then about Le Basilic qui claque et L’eau qui ulule (Algerian: Elḥbeq elli iseffeq ou el mâ llî iouelouel; English: “The Basil that claps and Ululating Water”). When the brother brings the basil and the ululating water, they do not move at all, which the Settout attributes to the absence of their master, L’Aigle Vert (“The Green Eagle”), a little bird in a cage. Lastly, the Settout tells them about the owner of the Green Eagle, a beautiful maiden named Lalla Loundja. With the help of a Ghoule, the brother gets all items to his sister. At the end of the tale, Lalla Loundja marries the brother, and suggests the siblings invite the king and his viziers to a banquet, during which she reveals the truth and reunites the family.Desparmet, Joseph. Contes populaires sur les orges. Tome II. Paris: E. Leroux, 1909. pp. 241-264. French ethnologist , in her study about the Kabylian oral repertoire, listed La Ghoule Secourable as a Kabylian variant of type 707.
In a variant from Beni Snous collected by E. Destaing from informant Si El-Haoussin Ben El-Hadj Ennacer and translated as Le fils et la fille du roi ("The Son and The Daughter of the King"), a king and his ministers go with some troops to a mountain. When they rest and drink a bit of water, three girls come by the fountain and talk to one another what they can do if the sultan marries one of them: the first promises to feed the troops with a single grain; the second that she can weave garments for the whole troop with a single fleece; and the third that she can bear the sultan twins, a boy and a girl with "golden and silver horns". The sultan asks his minister to bring the first girl (the pacha's daughter) to prove her skills; she fails and is sent back to her father. He then summons the judge's daughter (the second girl) to test her weaving skills; she also fails. He then summons the third girl and marries her, to the jealousy of the sultan's other wives. The sultan's co-wives hire the Settout to replace the children for animals and to cast them in the water. The twins are saved by a fisherman named Mohammed. Years later, the boy, now called Mhammed, meets with the sultan at a café. The sultan's co-wives ask Settout to get rid of the boy. The old woman sends him on three quests: firstly, for the singing bird; secondly, for a steed named Baberkat; lastly, for a maiden named Zohra bent Zehour. Zohra bent Zehour marries Mhammed and suggests her husband and his sister invite the sultan for a banquet. During the banquet, Zohra bent Zahour tells their story and shows the sultan the twins' horns of gold and silver.Destaing, E. "Le fils et la fille du roi". In: Recueil de mémoires et de textes en l'honneur de XIVº Congrès des Orientalistes. Publié par par les professeurs de l'Ecole des Lettres et des Médersas. Alger: P. Fontana, 1905. pp. 179-187 (original text), 188-195 (French translation). Destaing identified this tale as a variant of the Arabian Nights tale "Histoire de Les Deux Soeurs Jalouses de leur Cadette",Destaing, E. "Le fils et la fille du roi". In: Recueil de mémoires et de textes en l'honneur de XIVº Congrès des Orientalistes. Publié par par les professeurs de l'Ecole des Lettres et des Médersas. Alger: P. Fontana, 1905. p. 188 (footnote nr. 1) which was confirmed by Camille Lacoste-Dujardin as belonging to tale type 707.
French orientalist collected and published a Berber language variant from Ouargla with the title Tanfoust n Zahouet eddenia (Histoire de Zahouet Eddenia): the king's mother takes her grandchildren and casts them in the water, but they are saved by a fisherman. An old lady goes to the twins' house and convinces the girl to seek the water from between the stones, the pomegranate of the pomegranate trees and l’halib lboui (a curdled milk from the stomach of a young ogre). Lastly, the old lady convinces her to send her brother for a maiden named Zahouet Eddenia, a prisoner guarded by an army of scorpions, scarabs and serpents, and by her brother, a bird that petrifies people with his breath. The male twin is petrified by the bird, but his sister goes after him and defeats the bird. Zahouet Eddenia is rescued by the male twin and brought with them.Biarnay, Samuel. Étude sur le dialecte berbère de Ouargla. Paris: E. Leroux, 1908. pp. 265-272.Laoust, Émile. Contes berbéres du Maroc. Publications de l'Institut des Hautes Études Marocaines. Tome I, Vol. 2. Paris: Éditions Larose, 1949. pp. 189-190. This tale is also a variant of tale type 707.