Once upon a time in Picardy a noble couple, hopeful that God would grant them a child, undertook a pilgrimage to Compostella. En route, marauders bound the husband and raped the wife, who then tried to kill her spouse. For this her father had her set adrift in a sealed barrel, but rescuers took her to the Sultan of Almeria, with whom she settled and had children. And the great grandson of this Picard noblewoman was none other than the mighty Saladin.

Once upon a time in Libya there were two young and beautiful Jewesses. Their father had died in the prime of his manhood, leaving them alone and vulnerable in a strange land. One day a sheik arrived in their village and kidnapped the elder of the two. He carried her off to an oasis near the Tunisian border, where she bore him many children. And the eldest son of this Jewish captive is none other than Colonel Mohamar Khadafi.