The history of Aḥiḳar and his nephew Nadan forms part of Eastern popular literature. When publishing my history of Roumanian popular literature seventeen years ago (Bucureesti, 1883) I devoted a special chapter to the Roumanian versions of this history (pp. 104–114). I was the first to recognize the connection between the Roumanian and Slavonic versions and those contained in the Arabian Nights. I then drew attention to the intimate relation between this legend and that which has entered the Greek life of Æsop. Since that time scholars have paid much attention to this legend, especially as through Meissner's studies it is being considered as one of the lost Apocrypha mentioned already in the Book of Tobit.