Supplemental Nights to the Book of the Thousand and One Nights — Volume 3 (of 6) Part 2
General
Supplemental Nights to the Book of the Thousand and One Nights — Volume 3 (of 6) Part 2
Fairy tales; Tales -- Arab countries
Another Arabian version is found—as Sir Richard Burton points out, note
2, p. 159—in “The Fisherman’s Son,” one of the tales translated by
Jonathan Scott from the Wortley-Montague MS. text of The Nights, where
the hero finds a magic ring inside a cock: like Aladdin, he marries the
King’s daughter and has a grand palace built for him by the genii. The
ring is afterwards disposed of to a Jew, in the same manner as was the
Lamp to the Magician, and the palace with the princess is conveyed to a
distant desert island. The fisherman’s son takes to flight. He purchases
of a man who offered them for sale a dog, a cat, and a rat, which turn
out to be well-disposed magicians, and they recover the ring from the
Jew’s mouth while he is asleep. The ring is dropped into the sea
accidentally while the animals are crossing it to rejoin their master,
but is brought to the hero by a fish which he had returned to the sea
out of pity in his fisherman days. The genie conveys the palace back
again, and so on.—In a Mongolian version (“Siddhí Kúr”) a young merchant
parts with all his wares to save a mouse, an ape, and a bear from being
tortured to death by boys. One of those creatures procures for him a
wishing-stone, by means of which he has a grand palace built and obtains
much treasure. He foolishly exchanges his talisman with the chief of a
caravan for all their gold and merchandise, and it is afterwards
restored to him by the grateful and ingenious animals.—In a Tamil
version—referred to by Sir Richard, p. 51, note 1—which occurs in the
“Madanakámarájankadai,” a poor wandering young prince buys a cat and a
serpent; at his mother’s suggestion, he sets the serpent at liberty and
receives from its father a wishing ring. He gets a city built in the
jungle—or rather where the jungle was—and marries a beautiful princess.
An old hag is employed by another King to procure him the princess for
his wife. She wheedles herself into the confidence of the unsuspecting
young lady, and learning from her the properties of the ring, induces
her to borrow it of her husband for a few minutes, in order that she
(the old trot) might apply it to her head to cure a severe headache. No
sooner has she got possession of the ring than she disappears, and
having delivered it to the other King, he “thought” of the princess, and
in the twinkling of an eye she is carried through the air and set down
before him. The ring is recovered by means of the cat which the hero had
fostered, and so on.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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