Peg-Transforming Ogre of Mamza’s Tale

Overview

Mamza accompanies other girls gathering brushwood and finds a wooden peg, which she puts against her breast. Its weight prevents her keeping up; even after discarding the other wood she cannot make the peg fall. It is an ogre in transformed shape and demands a promise that she will return to that place. Once she promises, it drops and she escapes home. When she fails to return, the ogre follows her tracks and asks her family for fire. It insists that Mamza bring it herself. Her unsuspecting parents suggest a long branch so she can remain at a distance, but the visitor demands that she approach its hand, seizes her and carries her away.

Each of her seven brothers reaches the ogre’s house in turn. Mamza hides the first, but the ogre detects a human smell, falsely promises not to eat her family, offers food and leads the visitor to its gardens. Before leaving, it orders Mamza to celebrate if a white wind announces her brother’s death, and lament beneath dust if a red wind announces its own. The ogre defeats the brother in wrestling and devours him. Mamza weeps before putting on kohl and coloring her lips out of fear. The same fate overtakes all seven brothers, after which the ogre marries her.

Her parents later have an exceptionally small son, Madjitâtâ, who learns of the missing family and comes with an iron club. He refuses the ogre’s food and strikes its head once when they wrestle. The fallen ogre asks for another blow, but the boy first demands his seven brothers back. Following its instruction, he cuts its little toe and all seven emerge. The ogre asks again for another blow and dies; the French account does not narrate a second delivered strike. The red wind rises, Mamza rejoices, and the reunited siblings take the ogre’s wealth home. Basset’s comparative note explains second-blow revival in other tales, a separate context for the request rather than an additional action in this ending.

Origins & earliest records

René Basset, Nouveaux contes berbères (1897), no. 103, Les huit frères, leur sœur et l’ogre, complete printed pp. 96–102. Original note 187, p. 300, identifies Mohammed ben Ahmed b. Sâdemou as communicating the text at Ouargla in 1885. The earlier text and transcription in Basset’s Étude sur la Zénatia du Mzab, pp. 147–152, are a bibliographic lead, not a separately inspected witness.

Records & interpretation

Complete original French episode inspected in DjVu pages 135–141, printed pp. 96–102, with original preface iii–iv and notes 187–190 on printed pp. 300–302. The single delivered blow, repeated request for another blow, release through the toe and actual death are distinguished from the editor’s comparative explanation of second-blow revival.

Selected bibliography

Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.

1. 01

   Nouveaux contes berbères

   René Basset, translator and editor; text communicated by Mohammed ben Ahmed b. Sâdemou · 1897

   No. 103, complete pp. 96–102; note 187, p. 300; comparative notes 188–190, pp. 301–302.

Family, evolution & connections

References

Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.

1. Primary collected narrative; original facsimiles inspectedOriginal edition, complete Ouargla ogre narrative and contributor noteResearch access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.