Aicha defends her father's property against two armed thieves.

Aicha confronts the man-eater
       
Aicha's father had a cat that ate only sweets from the sweetshop. Whenever he was away, he ordered the shop to deliver fresh sweets to his house. One day, as soon as their father had left, Aicha's two sisters ate all the sweets. The poor cat had nothing to eat that day, so it took its revenge by peeing on the ashes in the fireplace at night. As a result, there were no embers left in the morning.
       
 Of course, Aicha had to find live coals. Who else? Her sisters cried because no food could be cooked. Aicha decided to go to their nearest neighbor's house. The man who lived there was a person of ill repute, so people said, but Aicha was not afraid of anyone, ever. So she went to see the mysterious neighbor.
       
 When she entered his house, Aicha noticed all sorts of objects that were used by sorcerers. Then she met the owner of the house. She immediately saw that he was a man-eating demon, because he showed jackal's teeth when he smiled his false smile at her. He was sitting on a donkey's head and was stirring stew in his pan with the bones from the leg of a goat.
       
The girl watched him carefully, and he watched her. In their clairvoyance, each could assess the other's capacity for sorcery. Aicha saw that he was a ghoul or ogre, a man-eating, man-shaped demon."What do you want?" he asked her.
       
       "A live coal," she answered.
       
       "Take it," he said, showing his jackal's teeth.
       
       
       
While Aicha bent over the fire, the ogre-man touched her foot ever so lightly. It was the only part of her that was exposed, and the touch was no more than a gentle pinprick. When she walked home, a thin trickle of blood, no more than a thread, issued from the tiny wound. ?o,?she thought, ?he demon wants to know where I live.?
       
Aicha decided to take precautions and exact her revenge. Across the path to her house she dug a trench seven feet in depth. She filled the trench with leaves and branches and covered the opening with a cowhide. Later, when the ogre-man followed the trail of her blood, he walked over the hide and fell into the pit. Immediately, Aicha came out of hiding and set fire to the leaves and branches. The ogre was trapped and burned to ashes. But as the fire died, a sepulchral voice was heard from the pit: "One of my bones will take revenge on you!"
       
So Aicha climbed into the pit. She searched among the smoldering branches for the one bone that had not burned to ash. When she found it, it suddenly exploded in her hand and a tiny splinter lodged in her flesh. The fragment remained deep under her skin, invisible and impalpable. Yet this minute chip of bone changed Aicha's life. It created in her heart an irresistible longing for adventure, a desire to ride horses, fight battles, and hunt lions. So she said good-bye to her father, put on men's clothes, mounted the fine horse that her father had given her, and rode out into the wide world.
       
       Aicha battles the monster Horath
       
After riding many miles, Aicha came to the seacoast. There she met workmen who were building a port city. The builders seemed to carry an air of sadness, however. It was as if they despaired of ever completing their job. When she asked about their dejection, they told her that every night huge monsters--looking like enormous gray lions--came out of the sea. These monstrous beings would destroy all the buildings and demolish the walls that they had just erected. Aicha told the unhappy builders that she knew of a remedy against the horde of lions. So they took her to meet their king.
       
The king was surprised when the young warrior with a girl's voice told him that she could chase away the monsters. Nevertheless, he told his workmen to do exactly as Aicha said. She ordered them to form large creatures out of clay that looked exactly like the lions from the sea: gray, fit, and very strong. These statues were placed on the walls in great numbers.