I remember listening to a story when I was a child:

Once, a young boy jumped into the river to swim. He sees with surprise that a water fairy is swimming in the river unaware of what is happening around her. The young boy moves close to her without being seen and catches the fairy:

“I love you. Marry me!” he says.

The fairy replies:

“Brave boy, your lot is to be loved. But you cannot live under water, and I cannot live above it. This love would ruin us. The best we can do is for me to try to realize some wishes of yours. But be wise and choose your equal as your beloved!”

The fairy then tells the young boy to swim across the river and light a fire at the foot of the mountain. She gives a lock of her hair to the young boy before he leaves, and tells him to put the hair into the fire he will light. The moment the young boy does what she says, the skirt of the mountain splits into two and a grand door opens. The young boy enters through the door and sees a magic mirror the fairy mentioned before he came to the cave. The young boy looks at his image in the mirror for a long time and then walks through the curtain hanging there. He is startled. He sees a fairy living in a fine and beautiful mansion, and he starts trembling as soon as he looks her in the eye. To that fairy’s right was another fairy. She was hardly visible as her clothes were so heavily embroidered in pearls, silvers and golden jewellery. On the left was another fairy displaying affection, love and merciful feelings.

The young boy looked at the fairy girls for a while and took away the one that was living in the highest place. As soon as they left the cave the beauty of the fairy surpassed the light of the sun. Proud, the young boy looked at the fairy and got a huge shock: the beautiful fairy whose hand he was holding was in fact a snake. Surprised, the young boy calls out to the water fairy:

“Who is this I am holding in my hand? Wasn’t it a fairy?”

“She is not a snake. By the will of Allah, she will become a monster after your wedding!”

“What harm did I cause to you? Why did you give me a monster?”

“Didn’t I tell you to look in the mirror at the cave’s entrance?”

“Yes, you did, and I did what you said.”

“Although you did, it seems that you couldn’t see yourself properly. Although you saw yourself in the mirror, it seems you didn’t recognize yourself properly. You were silver yourself and you took away the golden fairy. It’ll be a fairy one day, and a monster for the next two. Your share was the girl who was displaying affection and mercy. She was the proper one for you. You won’t be a lover to the fairy you chose, you’ll only be a slave to her.” The water fairy then plunged deep into the sea and disappeared.

(374-376.)