The prince fell in love with her, and sent his mother to propose for her hand. The mother took two pieces of royal brocade as a present, which the young lady ordered a slave in her hearing to cut up for dusters. Then the mother brought her an emerald collar worth four thousand diners, when she ordered it to be threshed, and thrown to the pigeons. The old lady acknowledged herself beaten, and asked Sittoukan if she wished to marry or not. The latter demanded that the prince should be wrapped in seven shrouds, and carried to the palace which she indicated, as if he were dead. Then she went and took off the shrouds one after another, and when she came to the seventh, she spat on him, saying, "If you did not love women, you would not be wrapped in seven shrouds." Then he said, "Is it you?" and he bit his finger till he bit it off, and they remained together. IX.--Histoire du musician ambulant et de son fils. This travelling musician was so poor that when his wife was confined, he went out to beg for their immediate necessities, and found a hen lying on the ground with an egg under her. He met a Jew to whom he sold the egg for twenty mahboubs. The hen laid an egg every day, which the Jew bought for twenty mahboubs, and the musician became rich and opened a merchant's shop. When his son was grown, he built a school for him at his own expense, where poor children were taught to read. Then the musician set out on pilgrimage, charging his wife not to let the Jew trick her out of the hen. A fortnight afterwards, the Jew called, and persuaded the woman to sell him the hen for a casket of silver. He ordered her to cook it, but told her that if anybody else ate a piece, he would rip him up. The musician's son came in, while the fowl was cooking, and as his mother would not give him any, he seized the gizzard, and ate it, when one of the slaves warned him to fly before the arrival of the Jew. The Jew pursued the boy, and would have killed him, but the latter took him up with one hand, and dashed him to pieces on the ground. The musician's son continued his journey, and arrived at a town where thirty-nine heads of suitors who had failed to conquer the princess in wrestling, were suspended at the gate of the palace. On the first day the youth wrestled with the princess for two hours without either being able to overcome the other; but during the night the king ordered the doctors to drug the successful suitor, and to steal the talisman. Next morning when the youth awoke, he perceived his weakness, and fled. Presently he met three men quarrelling over a flying carpet, a food-producing cup, and a money mill. He threw a stone for them to run after and transported himself to Mount Kaf, where he made trial of the other talismans. Then he returned to the palace, called to the princess to come down to wrestle with him, and as soon as she stepped on the carpet, carried her away to Mount Kaf, when she promised to restore the gizzard, and to marry him.