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Overview
An enormous beast enters a mountain-foot city at night and devours its inhabitants. It settles there and remains for a century. When hunger returns, it attacks an Arab encampment containing sheep, oxen, mares and camels; the narrative describes the ground afterward as white with bones. A single man escapes on a good mare and reaches another city, where its king feeds him after an initially hostile religious exchange. The survivor reports the monster and describes the occupied city’s two gates, one north and one south.
The king and survivor inspect the place and prepare a trap sized to its southern entrance. Smoke from burning sulfur at the opposite gate drives the monster south. Half its body enters the trap before the two men close it, cutting the creature in two; the account describes rivers filled with its blood and pus. They enter the emptied city and remove a considerable treasure. Its enormous scale and destructive appetite are explicit, but the French story does not assign a zoological species or a particular arrangement of heads, horns or wings.
The human aftermath follows the creature’s actual death. The king offers the survivor office and shared wealth, then attempts to poison him at a meal. The survivor notices, diverts his companion’s attention and turns the dish, causing the king to consume the poison and die. He then seizes rule and threatens the inhabitants into adopting his religion. These coercive acts and the tale’s Muslim–Jewish opposition are features of this historical collected narrative, rather than claims about the conduct of present communities. Basset’s note names Miloud as dictating the Mzab text in 1885.
Origins & earliest records
René Basset, Nouveaux contes berbères (1897), no. 107, Le roi, l’Arabe et le monstre, complete pp. 115–118, headed Mzab. Original note 196, p. 327, identifies Miloud as dictating the text at Mzab in 1885. An earlier text and transcription in Étude sur la Zénatia du Mzab, pp. 116–119, are cited but not separately inspected.
Records & interpretation
Complete French narrative inspected in original DjVu pages 154–157, printed pp. 115–118, including monster death and entire human political aftermath. Source note 196 checked in original page366, printed p.327. Narrated religious hostility and coercive conversion are attributed to this witness.
Selected bibliography
Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.
- 01
Nouveaux contes berbères
No. 107, complete pp. 115–118; source note 196, p. 327.
Family & connections
A source-supported family tree or inspiration record has not yet been compiled for this profile. Related reading below indicates a connection in subject matter, not a proven lineage or creative influence.
References
Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.
- Primary dictated narrative in collected translation; original facsimiles inspectedOriginal edition, complete city-monster narrative and named contributor noteResearch access: 2026-10-05
Image credits
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