The setting is in Arabia. Also, it is in ancient times.

 The Old Man  The Wife of the Old Man  The Old Man’s Slave  The Slave’s Son  The Steward’s daughter  The Steward

The theme in this story is that it doesn’t matter what you look like on the outside. What matters is the inside, and how you act.

The old man is leaving on a trip for a year. He leaves his wife in charge of his slave and the slave’s son, whom he loves like his own son. The wife is jealous of the old man’s attention to the slave and her son. So she practices magic and turns the slave in to a cow, and the slaves son in to a calf.

The old man comes home and asks the wife where the slaves are. The wife tells him the slave died, and the son ran away. To celebrate the feast of Bairam the old man sacrifices a cow even though he doesn’t know it is his slave. Strangely, the cow starts to cry, and softens the old man’s heart, so he makes the steward kill the cow instead. The cow turns out to have no meat to sacrifice, even though she looked fat.

Because the cow had no meat, he wants to sacrifice the calf (who is the son) as well. The calf starts to cry and beg just like the cow. The old man is so confused by this, he asks the steward to see if he knows anything….

The steward takes the old man to the steward’s daughter because she knows magic. The steward’s daughter told the old man about the calf and cow. The old man is angry and asks if she could turn the calf back. The steward’s daughter turns back the calf, but as a punishment to the wife, she turns her in to a hind.