Chapter XII: Part 12

“One day as I was sauntering, mournful and dejected, through the bazár, I espied a learned man who cried out, ‘If any one has lost his money by theft or otherwise, my knowledge of the occult sciences enables me to recover the same, but on condition that I receive one fourth of the amount.’ When I heard this seasonable proclamation, I immediately approached the man of science, and stated to him my sad condition and how I had been reduced from affluence to poverty. The sage undertook to restore my wealth, and above all to discover the treasures concealed in my father’s house. I conducted him to the house and showed him every apartment, which he carefully examined one after another. At length by his art he discovered the stores we were in search of; and when I saw the gold and silver and other valuables, which exceeded calculation, the demon of fraud entered my heart, and I refused to fulfil my promise of giving a fourth of the property to the man of wisdom. I offered him only a few small pieces of silver; instead of accepting which, he stood for a few moments in silent meditation, and with a look of scorn said, ‘Do I thus receive the fourth part of your treasure which you agreed to give me? Base man, of what perjury are you guilty?’ On hearing this I became enraged, and having struck him several blows on the face, I expelled him from my house. In a few days, however, he returned, and so far ingratiated himself into my confidence that we became intimate friends; and night and day he displayed before my sight the various hidden treasures contained within the bowels of the earth. One day I asked him to instruct me in this wonderful science, to which he answered that no instruction was requisite. ‘Here,’ said he, ‘is a composition of surma, and whoever applies the same to his eyes, to him will all the wealth of this world become visible.’[155] ‘Most learned sir,’ I replied, ‘if you will anoint mine eyes with this substance, I promise to share with you the half of all such treasures as I may discover.’ ‘I agree,’ said my friend; ‘meanwhile let us retire to the desert, where we shall be free from interruption.’

“We immediately set out, and when we arrived there I was surprised at seeing this cage, and asked my companion whose it was. I received for answer, that it belonged to no one. In short, we both sat down at the foot of this tree, and the sage, having produced the surma from his pocket, began to apply it to my eyes. But, alas! no sooner had he applied this composition than I became totally deprived of sight. In a voice of sorrow I asked him why he had thus treated me, and he replied, ‘Such is the reward of treachery; and if you wish to recover your sight, you must for some time undergo penance in this cage. You must utter no complaint and you shall exclaim from time to time, ‘Do no evil to anyone; if you do, evil will befall you.’ I entreated the sage to relieve me, saying, ‘You are a mere mortal like myself, and dare you thus torment a fellow-creature? How will you account for your deeds to the Supreme Judge?’ He answered, ‘This is the reward of your treachery.’ Seeing him inexorable, I begged of him to inform me when and how my sight was to be restored; and he told me, that a noble youth should one day visit me, and to him I was to make known my condition, and farther state, that in the desert of Himyar there is a certain herb called the Flower of Light, which the youth was to procure and apply to my eyes, by means of which my sight should be restored.’”

When the man in the cage had ended his story, the magnanimous Hatim bade him be of good cheer, for he would at once endeavour to relieve him. By the aid of the fairies, who carry him through the air for the space of seven days, he arrives in the desert where the Flowers of Light shine brilliant as lamps on a festival night, diffusing the sweetest perfume far and wide; and recking naught for the serpents, scorpions, and beasts of prey which infested the place (for he had a talisman that protected him), he advances and plucks three of the largest and most brilliant flowers. Returning in the same manner as he had gone thither, he reaches the spot where the blind man Hamír is imprisoned: taking down the cage, he releases the wretched man, compresses the stalk of the flower so that the juice drops upon his sightless eyeballs, and when this has been repeated three times Hamír opens his eyes, and seeing Hatim falls prostrate at his feet with a profusion of thanks.

Although there are some differences in the details of the story of Baba Abdullah and that of Hamír, as above, yet the general similarity between them is sufficient to warrant the conclusion that if one was not adapted from the other, both must have been derived from the same source; and here we have, I think, clear evidence of the genuineness of another of the tales which Galland was believed to have invented himself.

_HISTORY OF SIDI NU’MAN—p. 325._

It is curious to find this current as a folk-tale at Palena, in the Abruzzi, without any material variation except in the conclusion. My friend Mr. E. Sidney Hartland has favoured me with the following abstract of the Italian version, as given in vol. iii. of the “Archivio per lo studio delle Tradizioni Popolari” (Palermo, 1882), p. 222:

There was once a husband and wife. The wife says that she cannot eat anything, and only picks a few grains of rice with a large pin. Her husband asks why she eats nothing, and she answers that she does not want to eat. Meantime she goes out secretly every night, and the husband begins to have suspicions of her. One night he follows her softly, and finds she goes to the burial ground, where she meets with certain female companions. They open a grave and feed on the flesh of the dead. The next morning the husband cooks rice again, and the wife picks up a few grains of it with a pin as before. The husband exclaims, “What! you enjoy the flesh of dead men, and over rice you are so finical as to eat it with a pin!” The wife is so enraged at learning that her husband knows of her doings that she goes to the waterbucket, fills a small bottle from it, and having muttered certain words over the water flings it upon him and he instantly becomes transformed into a dog. A provision merchant sees him running about, and takes and sets him on his counter. When the people come to buy provisions the dog examines the money to see if it be good, and the false coin he throws on the ground. One day a man comes to buy bacon and offers false coin. The provision merchant refuses to take it; they dispute over the matter, and it is referred to the dog, who throws the money on the ground. The man is astonished, and returning home tells his wife, who at once says that the dog is not a dog, and desires her husband to bring her the animal that she may see it. The man returns to the provision merchant and begs him to lend him the dog for a little while, and takes it home. The wife, who is a companion of the wife of him who has been changed into a dog, and understands witchcraft, fills a bottle with water, pronounces certain words over it, and throws the water upon the dog, who immediately becomes a man again, and she advises him to do to his wife as she had done to him, and imparts the secret to him. As soon as he returns home he fills the bottle with water from the bucket, says the words he had learned, and throws the water over his wife, who becomes a mare. He drives her out of the house and beats her as flax is beaten. To every one who asks why he is thrashing the mare he tells his story, and the people say, “Serve her right!” This goes on for some time. At last, when the husband sees that his wife has voided enough foam from the mouth, with another dash of water he changes her back to her proper form, and henceforward she eats whatever is set before her, obeys her husband in all things, and never goes out by night again. So they live long, happy and contented.

This version from the Abruzzi so closely resembles the story of Sidi Nu’mán that we should perhaps be justified in concluding it to have been directly derived from Galland’s Nights, in the absence of any Venetian version, which might well have been imported independently from the East; but however this may be, the story in Galland bears unquestionable internal evidence that it is a genuine Arabian narrative, having nothing peculiarly European in its details.

A somewhat similar story is quite familiar to me, but I cannot at present call to mind whether it occurs in a Persian collection or in The Nights, in which the woman going out when she thinks her husband asleep, the latter follows her to a hut at some distance which she enters, and peeping into the hut, he sees a hideous black give her a severe beating for not coming sooner, while she pleads that she could not venture to quit the house until her husband was sound asleep. The two carouse together, and by-and-by the black going outside for a purpose, the husband strikes off his head with his sword and then conceals himself close by. The woman, after waiting some time, goes out to see what is detaining her paramour, and finding his headless body, she moans over it in great sorrow, and then taking the corpse on her back carries it away and throws it into the river. Her husband hastens home before her, and so she suspects nothing. Some days after, when she refuses to do some light work because of her physical weakness, her husband can no longer control himself, and tells her that she had strength enough to carry on her back the body of her black paramour, and so on.[156]

The ghoul-wife of Arabian tales, who eats little or nothing at home, has her counterpart in the rákshasí of Indian fictions, who secretly devours antelopes etc. There are many parallels in The Nights and other Asiatic story-books to the incident of Sidi Nu’mán being changed back into his proper form, the most noteworthy being perhaps the case of the Second Calender in the shape of a monkey, or ape, whom the princess, an adept in white magic, at once recognises as a man and veils her face, as does the young woman in the case of Sidi Nu’mán: but while the Calender is restored to his own form, the princess, alas! perishes in her encounter with the genie who had transformed him.—In most of the Arabian tales of magical transformations of men and women into beasts the victims are ultimately restored to their natural forms, but in the Indian romance of the princes Somasekhara and Chitrasekhara, a wicked king named Ugrabáhu is permanently changed by some water taken from a magic fountain into a monkey and sold to a beggar, who compels him to perform tricks in public for his benefit. Heywood, in his “History of Women” (Book viii.), cites some curious European stories of men being transformed into donkeys by eating a certain kind of cheese.

_HISTORY OF KHWAJAH HASAN AL-HABBAL—p. 341._

How this entertaining story found its way into North Germany—and nowhere else in Europe, so far as I am aware—it is not easy to say, but its twin-brother seems to be orally current there, in all essential details, excepting the marvellous conclusion. For the poor ropemaker, however, a struggling weaver and for the two gentlemen, Sa’d and Sa’dí, three rich students are substituted. There does not appear (according to the version given by Thorpe in his “Yule Tide Stories,” which he entitles, not inaptly, The Three Gifts) to be any difference of opinion among the students regarding the influence of Destiny, or Fate, upon men’s fortunes: they simply give the poor weaver a hundred dollars, “to assist him in his housekeeping.” The weaver hides the money in a heap of rags, unknown to his wife, who sells them to a rag-collector for a trifling sum. A year afterwards the students are again passing the house of the weaver and find him poorer than ever. He tells them of his mishap and they give him another hundred dollars, warning him to be more careful with the money this time. The weaver conceals the dollars in the ash-tub, again without the cognisance of his wife, who disposes of the ashes for a few pieces of soap. At the end of the second year the students once more visit the wretched weaver, and on being informed of his loss, they throw a bit of lead at his feet, saying it’s of no use to give such a fool money, and go away in a great huff. The weaver picks up the lead and places it on the window-sill. By-and-by a neighbour, who is a fisherman, comes in and asks for a bit of lead or some other heavy thing, for his net, and on receiving the lead thrown down by the students promises to give him in return the first large fish he catches. The weaver does get a fine fish, which he immediately cuts open, and finds in its stomach a “large stone,” which he lays on the window-sill, where, as it becomes dark, the stone gives forth a brighter and brighter light, “just like a candle,” and then he places it so that it illuminates the whole apartment. “That’s a cheap lamp,” quoth he to his wife: “wouldst not like to dispose of it as thou didst the two hundred dollars?” The next evening a merchant happening to ride past the weaver’s house perceives the brilliant stone, and alighting from his horse, enters and looks at it, then offers ten dollars for it, but the weaver says the stone is not for sale. “What! not even for twenty dollars?” “Not even for that.” The merchant keeps on increasing his offers till he reaches a thousand dollars, which was about half its real value, for the stone was a diamond, and which the weaver accepts, and thus he becomes the richest man in all the village. His wife, however, took credit to herself for his prosperity, often saying to him, “How well it was that I threw away the money twice, for thou hast me to thank for thy good luck!”—and here the German story ends. For the turban of the ropemaker and the kite that carried it off, with its precious lining, we have the heap of rags and the rag-collector; but the ashes exchanged for soap agrees with the Arabian story almost exactly.

The incident of the kite carrying off the poor ropemaker’s turban in which he had deposited the most part of the gold pieces that he received from the gentleman who believed that “money makes money”—an unquestionable fact, in spite of our story—is of very frequent occurrence in both Western and Eastern fictions. My readers will recollect its exact parallel in the abstract of the romance of Sir Isumbras, cited in Appendix to the preceding volumes: how the Knight, with his little son, after the soudan’s ship has sailed away with his wife, is bewildered in a forest, where they fall asleep, and in the morning at sunrise when he awakes, an eagle pounces down and carries off his scarlet mantle, in which he had tied up his scanty store of provisions together with the gold he had received from the soudan; and how many years after he found it in a bird’s nest (Supp. Nights, vol. ii. p. 361 and p. 365).—And, not to multiply examples, a similar incident occurs in the “Kathá Sarit Ságara,” Book ix. ch. 54, where a merchant named Samudrasúra is shipwrecked and contrives to reach the land, where he perceives the corpse of a man, round the loins of which is a cloth with a knot in it. On unfastening the cloth he finds in it a necklace studded with jewels. The merchant proceeds towards a city called Kalasapuri, carrying the necklace in his hand. Overpowered by the heat, he sits down in a shady place and falls asleep. The necklace is recognised by some passing policemen as that of the king’s daughter, and the merchant is at once taken before the king and accused of having stolen it. While the merchant is being examined, a kite swoops down and carries off the necklace. Presently a voice from heaven declares that the merchant is innocent, explains how the necklace came into his possession, and orders the king to dismiss him with honour. This celestial testimony in favour of the accused satisfies the king, who gives the merchant much wealth and sends him on his way. The rest of the story is as follows: “And after he had crossed the sea, he travelled with a caravan, and one day, at evening time, he reached a wood. The caravan encamped in the wood for the night, and while Samudrasúra was awake a powerful host of bandits attacked it. While the bandits were massacring the members of the caravan, Samudrasúra left his wares and fled, and climbed up a banyan-tree without being discovered. The host of bandits departed, after they had carried off all the wealth, and the merchant spent that night there, perplexed with fear and distracted with grief. In the morning he cast his eyes towards the top of the tree, and saw, as fate would have it, what looked like the light of a lamp, trembling among the leaves. And in his astonishment he climbed up the tree and saw a kite’s nest, in which there was a heap of glittering priceless jewelled ornaments. He took them all out of it, and found among the ornaments that necklace which he had found in Svarnadvípa and the kite had carried off. He obtained from that nest unlimited wealth, and descending from the tree, he went off delighted, and reached in course of time his own city of Harshapúra. There the merchant Samudrasúra remained, enjoying himself to his heart’s content, with his family, free from the desire of any other wealth.”

There is nothing improbable—at all events, nothing impossible—in the History of Khwajah Hasan al-Habbál. That he should lose the two sums of money in the manner described is quite natural, and the incidents carry with them the moral: “Always take your wife into your confidence” (but the Khwajah was a Muslim), notwithstanding the great good luck which afterwards befell, and which, after all, was by mere chance. There is nothing improbable in the finding of the turban with the money intact in the bird’s nest, but that this should occur while the Khwajah’s benefactors were his guests is—well, _very_ extraordinary indeed! As to the pot of bran—why, some little license must be allowed a story-teller, that is all that need be said! The story from beginning to end is a most charming one, and will continue to afford pleasure to old and young—to “generations yet unborn.”

_ALI BABA AND THE FORTY THIEVES—p. 369._

I confess to entertaining a peculiar affection for this tale. It was the first of the tales of the “Arabian Nights Entertainments” which I read in the days of my “marvelling boyhood”—eheu! fugaces, &c., &c. I may therefore be somewhat prejudiced in its favour, just as I still consider Scott’s “Waverley” as the best of his long series of fascinating fictions, that being the first of them which I read—as it was the first he wrote. But “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves”—the “open, sesame!” “shut, sesame!”—the sackfuls of gold and silver and the bales of rich merchandise in the robbers’ cave—the avaricious brother forgetting the magical formula which would open the door and permit him to escape with his booty—his four quarters hung up _in terrorem_—and above all, the clever, devoted slave-girl, Morgiana, who in every way outwitted the crafty robber-chief;—these incidents remain stamped in my memory ineffaceably: like the initials of lovers’ names cut into the bark of a growing tree, which, so far from disappearing, become larger by the lapse of time. To me this delightful tale will ever be, as Hafiz sings of something, “freshly fresh and newly new.” I care not much though it never be found in an Arabic or any other Oriental dress—but that it is of Asiatic invention is self-evident; there is, in my poor opinion, nothing to excel it, if indeed to equal it, for intense interest and graphic narrative power in all the Nights proper.

Sir Richard Burton has remarked, in note 1, p. 369, that Mr. Coote could only find in the south of Europe, or in the Levant, analogues of two of the incidents of this tale, yet one of those may accepted as proof of its Eastern extraction, namely, in the Cyprian story of “Three Eyes,” where the ogre attempts to rescue his wife with a party of blacks concealed in bales: “The King’s jester went downstairs, in order to open the bales and take something out of them. Directly he approached one of the sacks, the black man answered from the inside, ‘Is it time, master?’ In the same manner he tried all the sacks, and then went upstairs and told them that the sacks were full of black men. Directly the King’s bride heard this, she made the jester and the company go downstairs. They take the executioner with them, and go to the first sack. The black man says from the inside, ‘Is it time?’ ‘Yes,’ say they to him, and directly he came out they cut his head off. In the same manner they go to the other sacks and kill the other black men.”[157]

The first part of the tale of Ali Baba—ending with the death of his greedy brother—is current in North Germany, to this effect:

A poor woodcutter, about to fell a beech at the back of the scattered ruins of the castle of Dummburg, seeing a monk approach slowly through the forest, hid himself behind a tree. The monk passed by and went among the rocks. The woodcutter stole cautiously after him and saw that he stopped at a small door which had never been discovered by the villagers. The monk knocks gently and cries, “Little door, open!” and the door springs open. He also cries, “Little door, shut!” and the door is closed. The woodcutter carefully observes the place, and next Sunday goes secretly and obtains access to the vault by the same means as that employed by the monk. He finds in it “large open vessels and sacks full of old dollars and fine guilders, together with heavy gold pieces, caskets filled with jewels and pearls, costly shrines and images of saints, which lay about or stood on tables of silver in corners of the vault.” He takes but a small quantity of the coin, and as he is quitting the vault a voice cries, “Come again!” First giving to the church, for behoof of the poor, a tenth of what he had taken, he goes to the town and buys clothes for his wife and children, giving out to his neighbours that he had found an old dollar and a few guilders under the roots of a tree that he had felled. Next Sunday he again visits the vault, this time supplying himself somewhat more liberally from the hoard, but still with moderation and discretion, and “Come again!” cries a voice as he is leaving. He now gives to the church two tenths, and resolves to bury the rest of the money he had taken in his cellar. But he can’t resist a desire to first measure the gold, for he could not count it. So he borrows for this purpose a corn-measure of a neighbour—a very rich but penurious man, who starved himself, hoarded up corn, cheated the labourer of his hire, robbed the widow and the orphan, and lent money on pledges. Now the measure had some cracks in the bottom, through which the miser shook some grains of corn into his own heap when selling it to the poor labourer, and into these cracks two or three small coins lodged, which the miser was not slow to discover. He goes to the woodcutter and asks him what it was he had been measuring. “Pine-cones and beans.” But the miser holds up the coins he had found in the cracks of the measure, and threatens to inform upon him and have him put to the question if he will not disclose to him the secret of his money. So the woodcutter is constrained to tell him the whole story and much against his will, but not before he had made the miser promise that he would give one-tenth to the church, he conducts him to the vault. The miser enters, with a number of sacks, the woodcutter waiting outside to receive them when filled with treasure. But while the miser is gloating over the enormous wealth before him—even “wealth beyond the dreams of avarice”—a great black dog comes and lays himself down on the sacks. Terrified at the flaming eyes of the dog, the miser crept towards the door, but in his fear forgot the proper words, and instead of saying, “Little door, open!” he cried, “Little door, shut!” The woodcutter, having waited a long time, approached the door, and knocking gently and crying “Little door, open!” the door sprang open and he entered. There lay the bleeding body of his wicked neighbour, stretched on his sacks, but the vessels of gold and silver, and diamonds and pearls, sank deeper and deeper into the earth before his eyes, till all had completely vanished.[158]

The resemblance which this North German tale bears to the first part of “Ali Baba” is striking, and is certainly not merely fortuitous; the fundamental outline of the latter is readily recognisable in the legend of the Dummburg, notwithstanding differences in the details. In both the hero is a poor woodcutter, or faggot-maker; for the band of robbers a monk is substituted in the German legend, and for the “open, sesame” and “shut, sesame,” we have “little door, shut,” and “little door, open.” In both the borrowing of a corn-measure is the cause of the secret being revealed—in the one case, to Kasim, the greedy brother of Ali Baba, and in the other, to a miserly old hunks; the fate of the latter and the disappearance of all the treasure are essentially German touches. The subsequent incidents of the tale of Ali Baba, in which the main interest of the narrative is concentrated;—Ali Baba’s carrying off the four quarters of his brother’s body and having them sewed together; the artifices by which the slave-girl checkmates the robber-chief and his followers in their attempts to discover the man who had learned the secret of the treasure-cave—her marking all the doors in the street and her pouring boiling oil on the robbers concealed in the oil-skins in the courtyard;—these incidents seem to have been adapted, or imitated, from some version of the world-wide story of the Robbery of the Royal Treasury, as told by Herodotus, of Rhampsinitus, King of Egypt, in which the hero performs a series of similar exploits to recover the headless body of his brother and at the same time escape detection. Moreover, the conclusion of the tale of Ali Baba, where we are told he lived in comfort and happiness on the wealth concealed in the robbers’ cave, and “in after days he showed the hoard to his sons and his sons’ sons, and taught them how the door could be caused to open and shut”—this is near akin to the beginning of Herodotus’ legend of the royal treasury: the architect who built it left a stone loose, yet so nicely adjusted that it could not be discovered by any one not in the secret, by removing which he gained access to the royal stores of gold, and having taken what he wanted replaced the stone as before; on his deathbed he revealed the secret to his two sons as a legacy for their future maintenance. The discovery of Ali Baba’s being possessed of much money from some coins adhering to the bottom of the corn-measure is an incident of very frequent occurrence in popular fictions; for instance, in the Icelandic story of the Magic Quern that ground out gold or whatever its possessor desired (Powell and Magnússon’s collection, second series); in the Indian tale of the Six Brothers (Vernieux’s collection) and its Irish analogue, “Little Fairly”; in the modern Greek popular tale of the Man with Three Grapes (Le Grand’s French collection), and a host of other tales, both Western and Eastern. The fate of Ali Baba’s rich and avaricious brother, envious of his good luck, finds also many parallels—_mutatis mutandis_—as in the story of the Magic Quern, already referred to, and the Mongolian tale of the poor man and the Dakinis, the 14th Relation of Siddhí Kúr. Morgiana’s counter-device of marking all the doors in the street, so that her master’s house should not be recognised, often occurs, in different forms: in my work on Popular Tales and Fictions, vol. ii. pp. 164, 165, a number of examples are cited. The pretended merchant’s objecting to eat meat cooked with salt, which fortunately aroused Morgiana’s suspicions of his real character—for robber and murderer as he was, he would not be “false to his salt”[159]—recalls an anecdote related by D’Herbelot, which may find a place here, in conclusion: The famous robber Yacúb bin Layth, afterwards the founder of a dynasty of Persian monarchs called Soffarides, in one of his expeditions broke into the royal palace and having collected a large quantity of plunder, was on the point of carrying it off when his foot struck against something which made him stumble. Supposing it not to be an article of value, he put it to his mouth, the better to distinguish it. From the taste he found it was a lump of salt, the symbol and pledge of hospitality, on which he was so touched that he retired immediately without carrying away any part of his booty. The next morning the greatest astonishment was caused throughout the palace on the discovery of the valuables packed up and ready for removal. Yacúb was arrested and brought before the prince, to whom he gave a faithful account of the whole affair, and by this means so ingratiated himself with his sovereign that he employed him as a man of courage and ability in many arduous enterprises, in which he was so successful as to be raised to the command of the royal troops, whose confidence in and affection for their general induced them on the prince’s death to prefer his interest to that of the heir to the throne, from whence he afterwards spread his extensive conquests.

* * * * *

Since the foregoing was in type I discovered that I had overlooked another German version, in Grimm, which preserves some features of the Arabian tale omitted in the legend of The Dummburg:

There were two brothers, one rich, the other poor. The poor brother, one day wheeling a barrow through the forest, had just come to a naked-looking mountain, when he saw twelve great wild men approaching, and he hid himself in a tree, believing them to be robbers. “Semsi mountain, Semsi mountain, open!” they cried, and the mountain opened, and they went in. Presently they came out, carrying heavy sacks. “Semsi mountain, Semsi mountain, shut thyself!” they cried; the mountain closed and they went away. The poor man went up then and cried, “Semsi mountain, Semsi mountain, open!” the mountain opens, he goes in, finds a cavern full of gold, silver, and jewels, fills his pockets with gold only, and coming out cries, “Semsi mountain, Semsi mountain, shut thyself!” He returns home and lives happily till his gold is exhausted. Then “he went to his brother to borrow a measure that held a bushel, and brought himself some more.” This he does again, and this time the rich brother smears the inside of the bushel with pitch, and when he gets it back finds a gold coin sticking to it, so he taxes his poor brother with having treasure and learns the secret. Off he drives, resolved to bring back, not gold, but jewels. He gets in by saying, “Semsi mountain, Semsi mountain, open!” He loads himself with precious stones, but has forgotten the word, and cries only “Simeli mountain, Simeli mountain, open!” The robbers return and charge him with having twice stolen from them. He vainly protests, “It was not I,” and they cut his head off.

Here the twelve wild men represent the forty robbers, and, as in Ali Baba, it is the hero’s brother who falls a victim to his own cupidity. In the Arabian tale the hero climbs up into a tree when he sees the robbers approach; in The Dummburg he hides himself behind a tree to watch the proceedings of the monk; and in Grimm’s version he hides in a tree. On this last-cited story W. Grimm has the following note: “It is remarkable that this story, which is told in the province of Münster, is told also in the Hartz, about The Dummburg, and closely resembles the Eastern story of ‘The Forty Thieves,’ where even the rock Sesam, which falls open at the words Semsi and Semeli, recalls the name of the mountain in the German saga. This name for a mountain is, according to a document in Pistorius (3, 642), very ancient in Germany. A mountain in Grabfeld is called Similes, and in a Swiss song a Simeliberg is again mentioned. This makes us think of the Swiss word ‘Sinel,’ for ‘sinbel,’ round. In Meier, No. 53, we find ‘Open, Simson.’ In Pröhle’s ‘Märchen für die Jugend,’ No. 30, where the story is amplified, it is Simsimseliger Mountain. There is also a Polish story which is very like it.” Dr. Grimm is mistaken in saying that in the Arabian tale the “rock Sesam” falls open at the words Semsi and Semeli: even in his own version, as the brother finds to his cost, the word Simeli does not open the rock. In Ali Baba the word is “Simsim” (Fr. Sesame), a species of grain, which the brother having forgot, he cries out “Barley.” The “Open, Simson” in Meier’s version and the “Semsi” in Grimm’s story are evidently corruptions of “Simsim,” or “Samsam,” and seem to show that the story did not become current in Germany through Galland’s work.

Dr. N. B. Dennys, in his “Folk-Lore of China, and its Affinities with that of the Aryan and Semitic Races,” p. 134, cites a legend of the cave Kwang-sio-foo in Kiang-si, which reflects part of the tale of Ali Baba: There was in the neighbourhood a poor herdsman named Chang, his sole surviving relative being a grandmother with whom he lived. One day, happening to pass near the cave, he overheard some one using the following words: “Shih mun kai, Kwai Ku hsen shêng lai,” Stone door, open; Mr. Kwai Ku is coming. Upon this the door of the cave opened and the speaker entered. Having remained there for some time he came out, and saying, “Stone door, close; Mr. Kwai Ku is going,” the door again closed and the visitor departed. Chang’s curiosity was naturally excited, and having several times heard the formula repeated, he waited one day until the genie (for such he was) had taken his departure and essayed to obtain an entrance. To his great delight the door yielded, and having gone inside he found himself in a romantic grotto of immense extent. Nothing however in the shape of treasure met his eye, so having fully explored the place he returned to the door, which shut at his bidding, and went home. Upon telling his grandmother of his adventure she expressed a strong wish to see the wonderful cavern; and thither they accordingly went together the next day. Wandering about in admiration of the scenery, they became separated, and Chang at length, supposing that his grandmother had left, passed out of the door and ordered it to shut. Reaching home, he found to his dismay that she had not yet arrived. She must of course have been locked up in the cave, so back he sped and before long was using the magic sentence to obtain access. But alas! the talisman had failed, and poor Chang fell into an agony of apprehension as he reflected that his grandmother would either be starved to death or killed by the enraged genie. While in this perplexity the genie appeared and asked him what was amiss. Chang frankly told him the truth and implored him to open the door. This the genie refused to do, but told him that his grandmother’s disappearance was a matter of fate. The cave demanded a victim. Had it been a male, every succeeding generation of his family would have seen one of its members arrive at princely rank. In the case of a woman her descendants would in a similar way possess power over demons. Somewhat comforted to know that he was not exactly responsible for his grandmother’s death, Chang returned home and in process of time married. His first son duly became Chang tien shih (Chang, the Master of Heaven), who about A.D. 25 was the first holder of an office which has existed uninterruptedly to the present day.

_ALI KHWAJAH AND THE MERCHANT OF BAGHDAD—p. 405._

_Precocious Children._—See note at end of the Tale, p. 416.—In the (apocryphal) Arabic Gospel of the Saviour’s Infancy is the following passage:

“Now in the month of Adar, Jesus, after the manner of a King, assembled the boys together. They spread their clothes on the ground and he sat down upon them. Then they put on his head a crown made of flowers, and like chamber-servants stood in his presence, on the right and on the left, as if he was a king. And whoever passed by that way was forcibly dragged by the boys, saying, ‘Come hither and adore the king; then go away.’”

A striking parallel to this is found in the beginning of the Mongolian Tales of Ardshi Bordshi—_i.e._, the celebrated Indian monarch, Rájá Bhoja, as given in Miss Busk’s “Sagas from the Far East,” p. 252.

“Long ages ago there lived a mighty king called Ardshi Bordshi.[160] In the neighbourhood of his residence was a hill where the boys who were tending the calves were wont to pass the time by running up and down. But they had also another custom, and it was that whichever of them won the race was king for the day—an ordinary game enough, only that when it was played in this place the Boy-King thus constituted was at once endowed with such extraordinary importance and majesty that everyone was constrained to treat him as a real king. He had not only ministers and dignitaries among his playfellows, who prostrated themselves before him, and fulfilled all his behests, but whoever passed that way could not choose but pay him homage also.”[161]

This is followed by an analogous story to that of Alí Khwajah and the Merchant of Baghdad, under the title of “The False Friend,” in which a merchant on a trading journey entrusts a friend with a valuable jewel to give to his wife on his return home, and the friend retaining it for his own use suborns two men to bear witness that they saw him deliver it to the merchant’s wife, so the King dismisses the suit. But the Boy-King undertakes to try the case _de novo_; causes the two witnesses to be confined in separate places, each with a piece of clay which he is required to make into the form of the jewel, and the models are found to be different one from the other, and both from the shape of the jewel as described by the false friend. A similar story occurs in several Indian collections, with a Kází instead of the Boy-King.

A curious instance of precocity is related in the Third Book of the “Masnaví” (see _ante_, p. 556), of which Mr. E. H. Whinfield gives an outline in his admirable and most useful abridgment of that work: The boys wished to obtain a holiday, and the sharpest of them suggested that when the master came into school each boy should condole with him on his alleged sickly appearance. Accordingly, when he entered, one said, “O master, how pale you are looking!” and another said, “You are looking very ill to-day,” and so on. The master at first answered that there was nothing the matter with him, but as one boy after another continued assuring him that he looked very ill, he was at length deluded into imagining that he must really be ill. So he returned to his house, making the boys follow him here, and told his wife that he was not well, bidding her mark how pale he was. His wife assured him he was not looking pale, and offered to convince him by bringing a mirror; but he refused to look at it, and took to his bed. He then ordered the boys to begin their lessons; but they assured him that the noise made his head ache, and he believed them, and dismissed them to their homes, to the annoyance of their mothers.

Another example of juvenile cleverness is found in a Persian collection of anecdotes entitled “Latá’yif At-Taw’áyif”, by ’Alí ibn Husain Al-Va’iz Al-Káshifí: One day Núrshírván saw in a dream that he was drinking with a frog out of the same cup. When he awoke he told this dream to his vazír, but he knew not the interpretation of it. The king grew angry and said, “How long have I maintained thee, that if any difficulty should arise thou mightest unloose the knot of it, and if any matter weighed on my heart thou shouldst lighten it? Now I give thee three days, that thou mayest find out the meaning of this dream, and remove the trouble of my mind; and if, within that space, thou art not successful, I will kill thee.” The vazír went from the presence of Núrshírván confounded and much in trouble. He gathered together all the sages and interpreters of dreams, and told the matter to them, but they were unable to explain it; and the vazír resigned his soul to death. But this story was told in the city, and on the third day he heard that there was a mountain, ten farsangs distant from the city, in which was a cave, and in this cave a sage who had chosen the path of seclusion, and lived apart from mankind, and had turned his face to the wall. The vazír set out for his place of retirement, saying to himself, “Perhaps he will be able to lay a plaster on my wound, and relieve it from the throbbings of care.” So he mounted his horse, and went to find the sage. At the moment he arrived at the hill a company of boys were playing together. One of them cried out with a loud voice, “The vazír is running everywhere in search of an interpreter, and all avails him nothing; now the interpretation of the dream is with me, and the truth of it is clear to me.” When these words reached the ears of the vazír he drew in the reins, and calling the boy to him asked him, “What is thy name?” He replied, “Buzurjmihr.” The vazír said, “All the sages and interpreters have failed in loosing the knot of this difficulty—how dost thou, so young in years, pretend to be able to do it.” He replied, “All the world is not given to every one.” The vazír said, “If thou speakest truth, explain.” Said the boy, “Take me to the monarch, that I may there unloose the knot of this difficulty.” The vazír said, “If thou shouldst fail, what then will come of it?” The boy replied, “I will give up my own blood to the king, that they may slay me instead of thee.” The vazír took the boy with him, returned, and told the whole matter to the king and produced the boy in his presence. The king was very angry, and said, “All the wise men and dream-interpreters of the court were unable to satisfy me, and thou bringest me a child, and expectest that he shall loose the knot of the difficulty.” The vazír bowed his head. And Buzurjmihr said, “Look not upon his youth, but see whether he is able to expound the mystery or not.” The king then said, “Speak.” He replied, “I cannot speak in this multitude.” So those who were present retired, and the monarch and the youth were left alone. Then said the youth, “A stranger has found entrance into thy seraglio, and is dishonouring thee, along with a girl who is one of thy concubines.” The king was much moved at this interpretation, and looked from one of the wise men to another, and at length said to the boy, “This is a serious matter thou hast asserted; how shall this matter be proceeded in, and in what way fully known?” The boy replied, “Command that every beautiful woman in thy seraglio pass before thee unveiled, that the truth of this matter may be made apparent.” The king ordered them to pass before him as the boy had said, and considered the face of each one attentively. Among them came a young girl extremely beautiful, whom the king much regarded. When she came opposite to him, a shuddering as of palsy, fell upon her, and she shook from head to foot, so that she was hardly able to stand. The king called her to him, and threatening her greatly, bade her speak the truth. She confessed that she loved a handsome slave and had privately introduced him into the seraglio. The king ordered them both to be impaled, and turning to the rewarding of Buzurjmihr, he made him the object of his special bounty.

This story has been imported into the “History of the Seven Wise Masters of Rome,” the European form of the Book of Sindibád, where the prince discovers to his father the paramour of his stepmother, the empress, in the person of a young man disguised as one of her maid-servants, and its presence in the work is quite inconsistent with the lady’s violent lust after the young prince. There is a similar tale in the Hebrew version, “Mishlé Sandabar,” but the disguised youth is not detected. Vatsyayana, in his “Káma Sutra” (or Aphorisms of Love), speaks of it as a common practice in India thus to smuggle men into the women’s apartments in female attire. In the Introduction to the “Kathá Sarit Ságara,” Vararuchi relates how King Yogananda saw his queen leaning out of a window and asking questions of a Bráhman guest that was looking up. That trivial circumstance threw the king into a passion, and he gave orders that the Bráhman should be put to death; for jealousy interferes with discernment. Then as that Bráhman was being led off to the place of execution in order that he should be put to death, a fish in the market laughed aloud, though it was dead. The king hearing it immediately prohibited for the present the execution of the Bráhman, and asked Vararuchi the reason why the fish laughed. He desired time to think over the matter and learned from the conversation of a rákshasí with her children that the fish said to himself, “All the king’s wives are dissolute, for in every part of his harem there are men dressed up as women, and nevertheless while those escape, an innocent Bráhman is to be put to death”; and this tickled the fish so that he laughed. Mr. Tawney says that Dr. Liebrecht, in “Orient und Occident,” vol. i. p. 341, compares this story with one in the old French romance of Merlin. There Merlin laughs because the wife of Julius Cæsar had twelve young men disguised as ladies-in-waiting. Benfey, in a note on Liebrecht’s article, compares with the story of Merlin one by the Countess d’Aulnois, No. 36 of Basile’s “Pentamerone,” Straparola, iv. 1, and a story in the “Suka Saptatí.” In this some cooked fish laugh so that the whole town hears them; the reason being the same as in the above story and in that of Merlin. In a Kashmírí version, which has several other incidents and bears a close resemblance to No. 4 of M. Legrand’s “Recueil de Contes Populaires Grecs,” to the story of “The Clever Girl” in Professor T. F. Crane’s “Italian Popular Tales,” and to a fable in the Talmud, the king requires his vazír to inform him within six months why the fish laughed in presence of the queen. The vazír sends his son abroad until the king’s anger had somewhat cooled—for himself he expects nothing but death. The vazír’s son learns from the clever daughter of a farmer that the laughing of the fish indicates that there is a man in the palace unknown to the king. He hastens home and tells his father the secret, who at once communicates it to the king. All the female attendants in the palace are called together and ordered to jump across the mouth of a pit which he has caused to be dug: the man would betray his sex in the trial. Only one person succeeded and he was found to be a man.[162] Thus was the queen satisfied, and the faithful old vazír saved, and his son, of course, married the farmer’s clever daughter.

_PRINCE AHMAD AND THE PERI-BANU—p. 419._

How, in the name of all that is wonderful—how has it happened that this ever-delightful tale is not found in any text of The Nights? And how could it be supposed for a moment that Galland was capable of conceiving such a tale—redolent, as it is, of the East and of Fairyland? Not that Fairyland where “True Thomas,” otherwise ycleped Thomas the Rymer, otherwise Thomas of Erceldoune, passed several years in the bewitching society of the Fairy Queen, years which appeared to him as only so many moments: but Eastern Fairyland, with all its enchanting scenes; where priceless gems are as plentiful as “autumnal leaves which strow the brooks in Vallombrosa”; where, in the royal banqueting-hall, illuminated with hundreds of wax candles, in candelabra of the finest amber and the purest crystal, are bands of charming damsels, fairest of form and feature, who play on sweet-toned instruments which discourse heart-ravishing strains of melody;—meanwhile the beauteous Perí Bánú is seated on a throne adorned with diamonds and rubies and emeralds, and pearls and other gems, and by her side is the thrice-happy Prince Ahmad, who feels himself amply indemnified for the loss of his fair cousin Princess Núr-en-Nihár. Auspicious was that day when he shot the arrow which the enamoured Perí Bánú caused to be wafted through the air much farther than arm of flesh could ever send the feathered messenger! And when the Prince feels a natural longing to visit his father in the land of mortals from time to time, behold the splendid cavalcade issue from the portals of the fairy palace—the gallant jinn-born cavaliers, mounted on superb steeds with gorgeous housings, who accompany him to his father’s capital! But alas! the brightest sky is sooner or later overcast—human felicity is—etc., etc. The old king’s mind is poisoned against his noble son by the whisperings of a malignant and envious minister—a snake in the grass—a fly in the ointment of Prince Ahmad’s beatitude! And to think of the old witch gaining access to the fairy palace—it was nothing less than an atrocity! And the tasks which she induces the king to set Prince Ahmad to perform—but they are all accomplished for him by his fairy bride. The only thing to regret—the _fatal_ blemish in the tale—is the slaughter of the old king. Shabbar did right well to dash into the smallest pieces the wicked vazír and the foul witch and all who aided and abetted them, but “to kill a king!” and a well-meaning if soft-headed king, who was, like many better men, led astray by evil counsellors!