Feigning sadness, the selfish woman drew her unwitting husband into a sinister scheme.

Since antiquity, Morocco’s coasts have been visited by all the great sailing nations of the Mediterranean. The ancient Greeks called Morocco’s high mountain ranges Atlas, believing them to be the head and shoulders of the giant who carried heaven’s vast dome. Atlas stood where the sky’s edge reached the horizon, at the point where the sun set. For the peoples of the Mediterranean, that horizon was believed to be the end of the earth.

In A.D. 42 Morocco became a Roman province. Christianized in the fourth century, it remained part of the Christian world until it was conquered in a series of Arab raids. By A.D. 800 Morocco was thoroughly Islamized, its churches, libraries, and monasteries having been completely destroyed. Settlers from Arabia imposed their language on the original population of North Africa, nomadic shepherds called Berbers, and the fairy tales of the East became widely known.

The Berbers comprised a number of tribes and subtribes, many of whom survive to this day. They still live in the Atlas Mountains, much as they did in Roman days. Theirs is a colorful culture and folklore, and their ancient languages (over 300 closely related oral dialects of Afro-Asiatic origin) still retain Latin words. Like the three Moroccan folktales retold here in modern form, their tongues reveal the Berbers' pre-Islamic origins. In contrast to the history of the country (filled with an endless series of battles of Arabs against Berbers, prince against prince, or sultans against the kings of Spain and Portugal), Moroccan folktales are peaceful and beautiful.