help, and vanishes. The youth rides some more into a wadi and sees a dead donkey. He skins the donkey and makes a garment out of its hide. He then reaches a kingdom, ruled by a Sultan with seven daughters. Because of his strange vestments, the youth is mockingly called "Donkeyskin". One day, at the cistern, the boy waits for everyone to leave, before he takes off the donkey hide and bathes in the water. The sultan's seventh daughter sees him and falls in love with him. At the ceremony of selecting a husband, each of the princesses throws an apple to their suitors, the youngest and seventh princess throws her to Donkeyskin. Her father questions her choice, but she remains steadfast, so he marries her off to the lowly boy and banishes her from the palace to the stables. When a neighbouring Sultan threatens the kingdom, the Sultan's six sons-in-law rush to defend it, but Donkeyskin departs first, summons the Daughter of the King of the Djinns and asks her for a strong horse. He defeats the enemies, and goes back to his lowly disguise. German linguist and Semitologist Gotthelf Bergsträsser published a Syrian tale from Ma'lula. In this tale, a widowed man remarries, but his new wife hates her step-son. The boy decides to run away from home, so he steals his father's magic wishing ring and leaves. On the journey, he trades clothes with a beggar and steals an animals intestines from a woman. He reaches another kingdom and finds work as a farmhand in a man's garden, and tells his name is Grindkopf. Later, when his employer is asleep, he uses the ring to summon a horse, an armor and a fez, and rides around the garden in secret. One day, his riding is spied on by the vizier's daughter, who falls in love with him. Later, she decides to look for a suitor, but fancies none of the men in the city, so it is suggested that every bachelor passes by her window and she will throw an apple to the one she chooses. The suggestion is carried out: every man in the city passes by the vizier's daughter's window, but she throws her apple to Grindkopf. Thinking his daughter made a wrong choice, the vizier summons everyone the next day, and still she chooses the Grindkopf. Enraged at her decision, the vizier agrees to