Pomegranate-Revealing Head in Beddo’s Tale

Overview

Basset’s Beddo narrative follows two tricksters, Beddo and Amkammel, who steal a farmer’s oxen by offering to watch them in turn. Their appetites are extravagantly represented: one drinks all the sea water and the other all the fresh water, then they reverse their drinks over the second ox. An apparent ox-headed figure is only one man hiding beneath an ox’s head to frighten his companion. The pair subsequently feign a quarrel to make an old woman rise from the money on which she is sitting, steal it and leave. One takes the stolen money while the other sleeps.

The later sequence is abrupt: the pursued thief is described as dying of illness and being buried by his wife, but the two companions subsequently converse and go hunting together. Beddo offers to shave the other man, cuts his throat and buries his head. A pomegranate tree grows at the burial place. Beddo takes one of its fruits to the king; on arriving, he feels its weight and finds that it is a head. He still calls it a pomegranate, but the king says that his deed is known and orders his beheading. The revealing fruit, rather than the earlier ox-head disguise, provides the supernatural culmination. The printed narrative does not explain the transition from the earlier burial to the renewed encounter.

Origins & earliest records

René Basset, Contes populaires berbères (1887), no. 57, Beddou, complete printed pp. 114–116, headed Zouaoua. Original note 112, p. 205, identifies Bibliothèque nationale fonds berbère manuscript no. 1, distinct from manuscript no. 17 used for other stories. Basset is the French translator and editor; no individual teller is identified there.

Records & interpretation

Complete French narrative inspected against original DjVu pages 152–154, printed pp. 114–116. The apparent earlier burial and subsequent encounter are retained as an unresolved transition rather than silently rewritten as a clearly described resurrection. Original notes 112–114 on DjVu page 243 verify manuscript no. 1 and explain Beddo as beginning and Amkammel as the one who completes, supporting the opening wordplay. The cited earlier Manuel de langue kabyle, Textes pp. 20–22, is a bibliographic lead, not an independently inspected witness.

Selected bibliography

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

1. 01

   Contes populaires berbères

   René Basset, translator and editor · 1887

   No. 57, Beddou, complete pp. 114–116; contributor and name notes 112–114, p. 205.

Family & connections

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References

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1. Primary collected narrative; original facsimile inspectedOriginal edition, complete narrative 57Research access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

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