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Supplemental Nights to the Book of the Thousand and One Nights — Volume 3 (of 6) Part 1

General

Supplemental Nights to the Book of the Thousand and One Nights — Volume 3 (of 6) Part 1

Fairy tales; Tales -- Arab countries

The first notice of the signet-ring and its adventures is by Herodotus
  in the Legend of the Samian Polycrates; and here it may be observed
  that the accident is probably founded on fact; every fisherman knows
  that fish will seize and swallow spoon-bait and other objects that
  glitter. The text is the Talmudic version of Solomon’s seal-ring. The
  king of the demons, after becoming a “Bottle-imp,” prayed to be set
  free upon condition of teaching a priceless secret, and after cajoling
  the Wise One flung his signet into the sea and cast the owner into a
  land four hundred miles distant. Here David’s son begged his bread
  till he was made head cook to the King of Ammon at Mash Kernín. After
  a while, he eloped with Na’úzah, the daughter of his master, and
  presently when broiling a fish found therein his missing property. In
  the Moslem version, Solomon had taken prisoner Amínah, the daughter of
  a pagan prince, and had homed her in his Harem, where she taught him
  idolatry. One day before going to the Hammam he entrusted to her his
  signet-ring presented to him by the four angelic Guardians of sky,
  air, water and earth when the mighty Jinni Al-Sakhr (see vol. i. 41;
  v. 36), who was hovering about unseen, snatching away the ring,
  assumed the king’s shape, whereby Solomon’s form became so changed
  that his courtiers drove him from his own doors. Thereupon Al-Sakhr,
  taking seat upon the throne, began to work all manner of iniquity,
  till one of the Wazirs, suspecting the transformation, read aloud from
  a scroll of the law: this caused the demon to fly shrieking and to
  drop the signet into the sea. Presently Solomon, who had taken service
  with a fisherman, and received for wages two fishes a day, found his
  ring and made Al-Sakhr a “Bottle-imp.” The legend of St. Kentigern or
  Mungo of Glasgow, who recovered the Queen’s ring from the stomach of a
  salmon, is a palpable imitation of the Biblical incident which paid
  tribute to Cæsar.

Footnote 95:

  The Magician evidently had mistaken the powers of the Ring. This is
  against all probability and possibility, but on such abnormal traits
  are tales and novels founded.

Footnote 96:

  These are the Gardens of the Hesperides and of King Isope (Tale of
  Beryn Supplem. Canterbury Tales, Chaucer Soc. p. 84):—

          In mydward of this gardyn stant a feirè tre
          Of alle manner levis that under sky be,
          I-forgit and i-fourmyd, echè in his degre
          Of sylver, and of golde fyne, that lusty been to see.

  So in the Kathá (S. S.) there are trees with trunks of gold, branches
  of pearls, and buds and flowers of clear white pearls.

Footnote 97:

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Opening the text

General

Supplemental Nights to the Book of the Thousand and One Nights — Volume 3 (of 6) Part 1

Fairy tales; Tales -- Arab countries

The first notice of the signet-ring and its adventures is by Herodotus
  in the Legend of the Samian Polycrates; and here it may be observed
  that the accident is probably founded on fact; every fisherman knows
  that fish will seize and swallow spoon-bait and other objects that
  glitter. The text is the Talmudic version of Solomon’s seal-ring. The
  king of the demons, after becoming a “Bottle-imp,” prayed to be set
  free upon condition of teaching a priceless secret, and after cajoling
  the Wise One flung his signet into the sea and cast the owner into a
  land four hundred miles distant. Here David’s son begged his bread
  till he was made head cook to the King of Ammon at Mash Kernín. After
  a while, he eloped with Na’úzah, the daughter of his master, and
  presently when broiling a fish found therein his missing property. In
  the Moslem version, Solomon had taken prisoner Amínah, the daughter of
  a pagan prince, and had homed her in his Harem, where she taught him
  idolatry. One day before going to the Hammam he entrusted to her his
  signet-ring presented to him by the four angelic Guardians of sky,
  air, water and earth when the mighty Jinni Al-Sakhr (see vol. i. 41;
  v. 36), who was hovering about unseen, snatching away the ring,
  assumed the king’s shape, whereby Solomon’s form became so changed
  that his courtiers drove him from his own doors. Thereupon Al-Sakhr,
  taking seat upon the throne, began to work all manner of iniquity,
  till one of the Wazirs, suspecting the transformation, read aloud from
  a scroll of the law: this caused the demon to fly shrieking and to
  drop the signet into the sea. Presently Solomon, who had taken service
  with a fisherman, and received for wages two fishes a day, found his
  ring and made Al-Sakhr a “Bottle-imp.” The legend of St. Kentigern or
  Mungo of Glasgow, who recovered the Queen’s ring from the stomach of a
  salmon, is a palpable imitation of the Biblical incident which paid
  tribute to Cæsar.

Footnote 95:

  The Magician evidently had mistaken the powers of the Ring. This is
  against all probability and possibility, but on such abnormal traits
  are tales and novels founded.

Footnote 96:

  These are the Gardens of the Hesperides and of King Isope (Tale of
  Beryn Supplem. Canterbury Tales, Chaucer Soc. p. 84):—

          In mydward of this gardyn stant a feirè tre
          Of alle manner levis that under sky be,
          I-forgit and i-fourmyd, echè in his degre
          Of sylver, and of golde fyne, that lusty been to see.

  So in the Kathá (S. S.) there are trees with trunks of gold, branches
  of pearls, and buds and flowers of clear white pearls.

Footnote 97:

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Supplemental Nights to the Book of the Thousand and One Nights — Volume 3 (of 6) Part 1

Supplemental Nights to the Book of the Thousand and One Nights — Volume 3 (of 6) Part 1

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