zebra, is the Gúr-i-khár of Persia, where it is the noblest game
from which kings did not disdain to take a cognomen, e.g.,
Bahrám-i-Gúr. It is the "wild ass" of Jeremiah (ii. 24: xiv. 6).
The meat is famous in poetry for combining the flavours peculiar
to all kinds of flesh (Ibn Khallikan iii. 117; iii. 239, etc.)
and is noticed by Herodotus (Clio. cxxxiii.) and by Xenophon
(Cyro. lib. 1) in sundry passages: the latter describes the
relays of horses and hounds which were used in chasing it then as
now. The traveller Olearius (A. D. 1637) found it more common
than in our present day: Shah Abbas turned thirty-two wild asses
into an enclosure where they were shot as an item of
entertainment to the ambassadors at his court. The skin of the
wild ass's back produces the famous shagreen, a word seemingly
derived from the Pers. "Saghrí," e.g. "Kyafash-i-Saghri"=slippers
of shagreen, fine wear fit for a "young Duke". See in Ibn
Khallikan (iv. 245) an account of a "Júr" (the Arabised "Gúr")
eight hundred years old.
[FN#240] "Dasht-i-lá-siwá-Hú"=a desert wherein is none save He
(Allah), a howling wilderness.
[FN#241] Per. "Náz o andáz"=coquetry, in a half-honest sense. The
Persian "Káká Siyáh," i.e. "black brother" (a domestic negro)
pronounces Nází-núzí.
[FN#242] In the text Nimak-harám: on this subject see vol. viii.
12.
[FN#243] i.e., an Arab of noble strain: see vol. iii. 72.
[FN#244] In the text "Kazzák"=Cossacks, bandits, mounted
highwaymen; the word is well known in India, where it is written
in two different ways, and the late Mr. John Shakespear in his
excellent Dictionary need hardly have marked the origin "U"
(unknown).
[FN#245] Here and below the Hindostani version mounts the lady
upon a camel ("Ushtur" or "Unth") which is not customary in India
except when criminals are led about the bazar. An elephant would
have been in better form.
[FN#246] The Ashrafí (Port. Xerafim) is a gold coin whose value
has greatly varied with its date from four shillings upwards. In
The (true) Nights we find (passim) that, according to the minting
of the VIth Ommiade, 'Abd al-Malik bin Marwán (A.H. 65-86=A.D.
685-703), the coinage of Baghdad consisted of three metals. "Ita
quoque peregrina suis nummis nomina posuit, aureum Dinar
denarium, argentem Dirhen (lege dirham), Drachma, reum fols
(fuls), follem appellans. * * * Nam Vera moneta aurea nomine
follis lignabatur, ut reorum sub Aarone Raschido cussorum qui
hoc nomen servavit." (O. G. Tychsen p. 8. Introduct. in Rem
numariam Muhammedanorum.) For the dinar, daric or miskál see The
Nights, vol i. 32; ix. 294; for the dirham, i. 33, ii. 316, etc.;
and for the Fals or Fils=a fish scale, a spangle of metal, vol.
i. 321. In the debased currency of the Maroccan Empire the Fals
of copper or iron, a substantial coin, is worth 2,160 to the
French five-franc piece.
[FN#247] In the Hindi, as in Galland's version, the horse is
naturally enough of Turcoman blood. I cannot but think that in
India we have unwisely limited ourselves for cavalry remounts to
the Western market that exports chiefly the mongrel "Gulf Arab"
and have neglected the far hardier animal, especially the Gútdán
blood of the Tartar plains, which supply "excellent horses whose
speed and bottom are" say travellers in general, "so justly
celebrated throughout Asia." Our predecessors were too wise to
"put all the eggs in one basket."
[FN#248] An act of worship, see my Pilgrimage in which
"Tawáf"=circuiting, is described in detail, ii. 38; iii. 2O1 et
seqq. A counterpart of this scene is found in the Histoire du
Sultan Aqchid (Ikhshid) who determined to witness his own
funeral. Gauttier vol. i. pp. 134-139. Another and similar
incident occurs in the "Nineteenth Vezir's Story" (pp. 213-18 of
the History of the Forty Vezirs, before alluded to): here Hasan
of Basrah, an 'Alim who died in A.H. 110 (=A.D. 728) saw in
vision (the "drivel of dreams?") folk of all conditions, sages,
warriors and moon-faced maids seeking, but in vain, to release
the sweet soul of the Prince who had perished.
[FN#249] Here, after Moslem fashion, the mother ranks before the
wife: "A man can have many wives but only one mother." The idea
is old amongst Easterns: see Herodotus and his Christian
commentators on the history of Intaphernes' wife (Thalia, cap.
cxix). "O King," said that lady of mind logical, "I may get me
another mate if God will and other children an I lose these; but
as my father and my mother are no longer alive, I may not by any
means have another brother," etc., etc.
[FN#250] In Galland the Histoire de Ganem, fils d'Abu A¥oub,
surnomm⁄ l'esclave d'Amour, precedes Zayn al-Asnám. In the Arab
texts Ghanim bin Ayyúb, the Thrall o' Love, occurs much earlier:
see The Nights vol. ii. 45.
It is curious to compare the conclusions of these tales with the
formula of the latest specimens, the Contes Arabes Modernes of
Spitta-Bey, e.g. "And the twain lived together (p. iii.) and had
sons and daughters (p. ii.), cohabiting with perfect harmony (fí
al-Kamál pp.42, 79); and at last they died and were buried and so
endeth the story" (wa khalás p.161).
[FN#251] In Galland and his translators the Adventures of
Khudadad and his Brothers is followed by the Histoire du Dormeur
Eveill⁄ which, as "The Sleeper and the Waker," is to be found in
the first of my Supplemental Volumes, pp. 1-29. After this the
learned Frenchman introduced, as has been said, the Histoire de
la Lampe merveilleuse or "Alaeddin" to which I have assigned, for
reasons given in loco, a place before Khudadad.
[FN#252] i.e. Daddy Abdullah, the former is used in Pers., Turk.
and Hindostani for dad! dear! child! and for the latter, see vol.
v. 141.
[FN#253] Here the Arab. syn. of the Pers. "Darwaysh," which
Egyptians pronounce "Darwísh." In the Nile-valley the once
revered title has been debased to an insult = "poor devil" (see
Pigrimage i., pp. 20-22); "Fakír" also has come to signify a
Koran-chaunter.
[FN#254] To "Nakh" is to make the camel kneel. See vo!. ii. 139,
and its references.
[FN#255] As a sign that he parted willingly with all his
possessions.
[FN#256] Arab. "'Ubb" prop.=the bulge between the breast and the
outer robe which is girdled round the waist to make a pouch. See
vol. viii. 205.
[FN#257] Thirst very justly takes precedence of hunger: a man may
fast for forty days, but with out water in a tropical country he
would die within a week. For a description of the horrors of
thirst see my "First Footsteps in East Africa," pp. 387-8.
[FN#258] In Galland it is Sidi Nouman; in many English
translations, as in the "Lucknow" (Newul Kishore Press, 1880), it
has become "Sidi Nonman." The word has occurred in King Omar bin
al-Nu'uman, vol. ii. 77 and 325, and vol. v. 74. For Sídí = my
lord, see vol. v. 283; Byron, in The Corsair, ii. 2, seems to
mistake it for "Sayyid."
High in his hall reclines the turban'd Seyd,
Around--the bearded chiefs he came to lead.
[FN#259] The Turco-English form of the Persian "Puláo."
[FN#260] i.e. the secure (fem.). It was the name of the famous
concubine of Solomon to whom he entrusted his ring (vol. vi. 84),
also of the mother of Mohammed who having taken her son to
Al-Medinah (Yathrib) died on the return journey. I cannot
understand why the Apostle of Al-Islam, according to his
biographers and commentators, refused to pray for his parent's
soul, she having been born in Al-Fitrah (the interval between the
fall of Christianity and the birth of Al-Islam), when he had not
begun to preach his "dispensation."
[FN#261] The cane-play: see vol. vi. 263.
[FN#262] Galland has une Goule, i.e., a Ghúlah, a she-Ghúl, an
ogress. But the lady was supping with a male of that species, for
which see vols. i. 55; vi. 36.
[FN#263] In the text "Wazífah" prop. = a task, a stipend, a
salary, but here = the "Farz" devotions which he considered to be
his duty. In Spitta-Bey (loc. cit. p. 218) it is = duty,
[FN#264] For this scene which is one of every day in the East;
see Pilgrimage ii. pp. 52-54.
[FN#265] This hate of the friend of man is inherited from Jewish
ancestors; and, wherever the Hebrew element prevails, the muzzle,
which has lately made its appearance in London, is strictly
enforced, as at Trieste. Amongst the many boons which
civilisation has conferred upon Cairo I may note hydrophobia;
formerly unknown in Egypt the dreadful disease has lately caused
more than one death. In India sporadic cases have at rare times
occurred in my own knowledge since 1845.
[FN#266] In Galland "Rougeau" = (for Rougeaud?) a red-faced
(man), etc., and in the English version "Chance": "Bakht" = luck,
good fortune.
[FN#267] In the text "Sarráf" = a money-changer. See vols. i.
210; iv. 270.
[FN#268] Galland has forgotten this necessary detail: see vol. i.
30 and elsewhere. In Lane's story of the man metamorphosed to an
ass, the old woman, "quickly covering her face, declared the
fact."
[FN#269] In the normal forms of this story, which Galland has
told very badly, the maiden would have married the man she saved.
[FN#270] In other similar tales the injured one inflicts such
penalty by the express command of his preserver who takes strong
measures to ensure obedience.
[FN#271] In the more finished tales of the true "Nights" the mare
would have been restored to human shape after giving the best
security for good conduct in time to come.
[FN#272] i.e. Master Hasan the Rope-maker. Galland writes, after
European fashion, "Hassan," for which see vol. i. 251; and for
"Khwájah" vol. vi. 146. "Al-Habbál" was the cognomen of a learned
"Háfiz" (= traditionist and Koran reader), Abú Ishák Ibrahim, in
Ibn Khall. ii. 262; for another see iv. 410.
[FN#273] "Sa'd" = prosperity and "Sa'dí' '= prosperous, the
surname of the "Persian moralist," for whom see my friend F. F.
Arbuthnot's pleasant booklet, "Persian Portraits" (London
Quaritch, 1887).
[FN#274] This is true to nature as may be seen any day at Bombay
The crows are equally audacious, and are dangerous to men Iying
wounded in solitary places.
[FN#275] The Pers. "Gil-i-sar-shúí" (=head-washing clay), the
Sindi "Met," and the Arab "Tafl," a kind of clay much used in
Persian, Afghanistan, Sind, etc. Galland turns it into terre à
decrasser and his English translators into "scouring sand which
women use in baths." This argillaceous earth mixed with mustard
oil is locally used for clay and when rose-leaves and perfumes
are used, it makes a tolerable wash-ball. See "Scinde or The
Unhappy Valley," i. 31.
[FN#276] For the "Cowrie" (Cypr£a moneta) see vol. iv. 77. The
Bádám or Bídám (almond) used by way of small change in India, I
have noted elsewhere.
[FN#277] Galland has "un morceau de plomb," which in the Hindí
text becomes "Shíshahkápaysá" = a (pice) small coin of glass: the
translator also terms it a "Faddah," for which see Nusf (alias
"Nuss"), vols. ii. 37, vi. 214 and ix. 139, 167. Glass tokens, by
way of coins, were until late years made at Hebron, in Southern
Syria.
[FN#278] For the "Ták" or "Tákah" = the little wall-niche, see
vol. vii. 361.
[FN#279] In the French and English versions the coin is a bit of
lead for weighting the net. For the "Paysá" (pice) = two
farthings, and in weight = half an ounce, see Herklot's Glossary,
p. xcviii.
[FN#280] In the text "bilisht" = the long span between thumb-tip
and minimus-tip. Galland says long plus d'une coud⁄e et gros à
proportion.
[FN#281] For the diamond (Arab. "Almás" from {Greek}, and in Hind.
"Híra" and "Panná") see vols. vi. 15, i. ix. 325, and in latter
correct, "Euritic," a misprint for "dioritic." I still cannot
believe diamond-cutting to be an Indian art, and I must hold that
it was known to the ancients. It could not have been an
unpolished stone, that "Adamas notissimus" which according to
Juvenal (vi. 156) Agrippa gave to his sister. Maundeville (A.D.
1322) has a long account of the mineral, "so hard that no man can
polish it," and called Hamese ("Almás?"). For Mr. Petrie and his
theory, see vol. ix. 325. In most places where the diamond has
been discovered of late years it had been used as a magic stone,
e.g., by the Pag⁄s or medicine-men of the Brazil, or for
children's playthings, which was the case with the South-African
"Caffres."
[FN#282] These stones, especially the carbuncle, which give out
dight in darkness are a commonplace of Eastern folk-lore. For
luminous jewels in folk-lore, see Mr. Clouston (i. 412): the
belief is not wholly extinct in England, and I have often heard
of it in the Brazil and upon the African Gaboon. It appears to me
that there may be a basis of fact to tints fancy, the abnormal
effect of precious stones upon mesmeric "sensitives."
[FN#283] The chimney and chimney-piece of Galland are not
Eastern: the H. V. uses "Bukhárí" = a place for steaming.
[FN#284] i.e. "Rachel."
[FN#285] In the text "lakh," the Anglicised "lac" = 100,000.
[FN#286] This use of camphor is noted by Gibbon (D. and F. iii.
195).
[FN#287] " b o hawá" = climate: see vol. ii. 4.
[FN#288] Galland makes this article a linen cloth wrapped about
the skull-cap or core of the turban.
[FN#289] Mr. Coote ( loc. cit. p. 185) is unable to produce a
puramythe containing all of "Ali Bába;" but, for the two leading
incidents he quotes from Prof. Sakellarios two tales collected in
Cyprus One is Morgiana marking the village doors (p. 187), which
has occurred doubtless a hundred times. The other, in the "Story
of Drakos," is an ogre, hight "Three Eyes," who attempts the
rescue of his wife with a party of blackamoors packed in bales
and these are all discovered and slain.
[FN#290] Dans la forêt, says Galland.
[FN#291] Or "Samsam," The grain = Sesamum Orientale: hence the
French, Sesame, ouvre-toi! The term is cabalistical, like Súlem,
Súlam or Shúlam in the Directorium Vit Human of Johannes di
Capuâ: Inquit vir: Ibam in nocte plenilunii et ascendebam super
domum ubi furari intendebam, et accedens ad fenestram ubi radii
lune ingrediebantur, et dicebam hanc coniurationem, scilicet
sulem sulem, septies, deinde amplectebar lumen lune et sine
lesione descendebam ad domum, etc. (pp. 24-25) par Joseph
Derenbourg, Membre de l'Institut 1re Fascicule, Paris, F. Vieweg,
67, Rue de Richelieu, 1887.
[FN#292] In the text "Jatháni" = the wife of an elder brother.
Hindostani, like other Eastern languages, is rich in terms for
kinship whereof English is so exceptionally poor. Mr. Francis
Galtson, in his well-known work, "Hereditary Genius," a misnomer
by the by for "HeredTalent," felt this want severely and was at
pains to supply it.
[FN#293]In the text "Thag," our English "Thug," often pronounced
moreover by the Briton with the sibilant "th." It means simply a
cheat: you say to your servant "Tú bará Thag hai" = thou art a
precious rascal; but it has also the secondary meaning of robber,
assassin, and the tertiary of Bhawáni-worshippers who offer
indiscriminate human sacrifices to the DeŸss of Destruction. The
word and the thing have been made popular in England through the
"Confessions of a Thug" by my late friend Meadows Taylor; and I
may record my conviction that were the English driven out of
India, "Thuggee," like piracy in Cutch and in the Persian Gulf,
would revive at the shortest possible time.
[FN#294] i.e. the Civil Governor, who would want nothing better.
[FN#295]This is in Galland and it is followed by the H. V.; but
it would be more natural to suppose that of the quarters two were
hung up outside the door and the others within. VOL. XIII
[FN#296] I am unwilling to alter the time honoured corruption:
properly it is written Marjánah = the "Coralline," from Marján =
red coral, for which see vols. ii. 100; vii. 373.
[FN#297] i.e. the " 'Iddah." during which she could not marry.
See vol. iii. 292.
[FN#298] In Galland he is a savetier * * * naturellement gai, et
qui avait toujours le mot pour rire: the H. V. naturally changed
him to a tailor as the Chámár or leather-worker would be
inadmissible to polite conversation.
[FN#299] i.e. a leader of prayer; the Pers. "Písh-namáz" =
fore-prayer, see vols. ii. 203; iv. 111 and 227. Galland has
"ímán," which can mean only faith, belief, and in this blunder he
is conscientiously followed by his translators--servum pecus
[FN#300] Galland nails down the corpse in the bier--a Christian
practice--and he certainly knew better. Moreover, prayers for the
dead are mostly recited over the bier when placed upon the brink
of the grave; nor is it usual for a woman to play so prominent a
part in the ceremony.
[FN#301] See vols. v. 111; ix. 163 and x. 47.
[FN#302] Galland is less merciful, "Aussit∂t le conducteur fut
d⁄clar⁄ digne de mort tout d'une voix, et il s'y condamna
lui-même," etc. The criminal, indeed, condemns himself and firmly
offers his neck to be stricken.
[FN#303] In the text "Lauh," for which see vol. v. 73.
[FN#304] In Arab. "Kama" = he rose, which, in vulgar speech
especially in Egypt, = he began. So in Spitta-Bey's "Contes
Arabes Modernes" (p. 124) "Kámat al-Sibhah dhákat fi yad akhí-h"
= the chaplet began (lit. arose) to wax tight in his brother's
hand. This sense is shadowed forth in classical Arabic.
[FN#305] So in old Arabian history "Kasír" (the Little One), the
Arab Zopyrus, stows away in huge camel-bags the 2,000 warriors
intended to surprise masterful Queen Zebba. Chronique de Tabarí,
vol. ii., 26. Also the armed men in boxes by which Shamar, King
of Al-Yaman, took Shamar-kand = Shamar's-town, now Samarkand.
(Ibid. ii. 158.)
[FN#306] i.e. for a walk, a "constitutional": the phrase is very
common in Egypt, and has occurred before.
[FN#307] These visions are frequent in Al-Islam; see Pilgrimage
iii. 254-55. Of course Christians are not subject to them, as
Moslems also are never favoured with glimpses of the Blessed
Virgin and the Saints; the best proof of their "Subjectivity."
[FN#308] For this word see De Sacy, Chrest. ii. 421. It has
already occurred in The Nights, vol. iii. 295.
[FN#309] Not a few pilgrims settle for a time or for life in the
two Holy Places, which are thus kept supplied with fresh blood.
See Pilgrimage ii. 260.
[FN#310] i.e. Bayt al-Mukaddas, for which see vol. ii. 132.
[FN#311] An affidavit amongst Moslems is "litis decisio," as in
the jurisprudence of medi val Europe.
[FN#312] In Arab folk-lore there are many instances of such
precocious boys--enfants terribles they must be in real life. In
Ibn Khall. (iii. 104) we find notices of a book "Kitáb Nujabá
al-Abná" = Treatise on Distinguished Children, by Ibn Zakar al-
Sakalli (the Sicilian), ob. A. D. 1169-70. And the boy-Kazi is a
favourite role in the plays of peasant-lads who enjoy the
irreverent "chaff" almost as much as when "making a Pasha." This
reminds us of the boys electing Cyrus as their King in sport
(Herodotus, i. 114). For the cycle of "Precocious Children" and
their adventures, see Mr. Clouston (Popular Tales, etc., ii. 1-
14), who enters into the pedigree and affiliation. I must,
however, differ with that able writer when he remarks at the end,
"And now we may regard the story of Valerius Maximus with
suspicion, and that of Lloyd as absolutely untrue, so far as
William Noy's alleged share in the 'case.' " The jest or the
event happening again and again is no valid proof of its untruth;
and it is often harder to believe in derivation than in
spontaneous growth.
[FN#313] In Galland Ali Cogia, Marchand de Bagdad, is directly
followed by the Histoire du Cheval Enchant⁄. For this "Ebony
Horse," as I have called it, see vol. v. p. 32.
[FN#314] "Bánú" = a lady, a dame of high degree generally, e.g.
the (Shah's) Banu-i-Harem in James Morier ("The Mirza," iii. 50),
who rightly renders Pari Banu = Pari of the first quality. "Peri"
(Parí) in its modern form has a superficial resemblance to
"Fairy;" but this disappears in the "Pairika" of the Avesta and
the "Pairik" of the modern Parsee. In one language only, the
Multání, there is a masculine form for the word "Pará" = a
he-fairy (Scinde, ii. 203). In Al-Islam these Peris are beautiful
feminine spirits who, created after the "Dívs" (Tabari, i. 7),
mostly believe in Allah and the Koran and desire the good of
mankind: they are often attacked by the said Dívs, giants or
demons, who imprison them in cages hung to the highest trees, and
here the captives are visited by their friends who feed them with
the sweetest of scents. I have already contrasted them with the
green-coated pygmies to which the grotesque fancy of Northern
Europe has reduced them. Bánú in Pers. = a princess, a lady, and
is still much used, e.g. Bánú-í-Harim, the Dame of the Serraglio,
whom foreigners call "Queen of Persia," and rám-Banu="the calm
Princess," a nickname. A Greek story equivalent of Prince Ahmad
is told by Pio in Contes Populaires Grecs (No. ii. p. 98) and
called {Greek}, the Golden box. Three youths ({Greek}) love the
same girl and agree that whoever shall learn the best craft
({Greek}) shall marry her; one becomes an astrologer, the second
can raise the dead, and the third can run faster than air. They
find her at death's door, and her soul, which was at her teeth
ready to start, goes down ({Greek}).
[FN#315] Light of the Day.
[FN#316] Galland has "Bisnagar," which the H. V. corrupts to
Bishan-Garh = Vishnu's Fort, an utter misnomer. Bisnagar, like
Bijnagar, Beejanuggur, Vizianuggur, etc., is a Prakrit corruption
of the Sanskrit Vijáyanagara = City of Victory, the far-famed
Hindu city and capital of the Narasingha or Lord of Southern
India, mentioned in The Nights, vols. vi. 18; ix. 84. Nicolo de'
Conti in the xvth century found it a magnificent seat of Empire
some fifteen marches south of the pestilential mountains which
contained the diamond mines. Accounts of its renown and condition
in the last generation have been given by James Grant ("Remarks
on the Dekkan") and by Captain Moore ("Operations of Little's
Detachment against Tippoo Sultan"). The latest description of it
is in "The Indian Empire," by Sir William W. Hunter. Vijáyanagar,
village in Bellary district, Madras, lat. 15 degrees 18' N.,
long. 76 degrees 30' E., pop. (1871), 437, inhabiting 172 houses.
The proper name of this village is Hampi, but Vijáyanagar was the
name of the dynasty (?) and of the kingdom which had its capital
here and was the last great Hindu power of the South. Founded by
two adventurers in the middle of the xivth century, it lasted for
two centuries till its star went down at Tálikot in A. D. 1565.
For a description of the ruins of the old city of Vijáyanagar,
which covers a total area of nine square miles, see "Murray's
Handbook for Madras," by E. B. Eastwick (1879), vol. ix. p. 235.
Authentic history in Southern India begins with the Hindu kingdom
of Vijáyanagar, or Narsinha, from A. D. 1118 to 1565. The capital
can still be traced within the Madras district of Bellary, on the
right bank of the Tungabhadra river--vast ruins of temples,
fortifications, tanks and bridges, haunted by hy nas and snakes.
For at least three centuries Vijáyanagar ruled over the southern
part of the Indian triangle. Its Rajas waged war and made peace
on equal terms with the Mohamadan sultans of the Deccan. See vol.
iv. p. 335, Sir W. W. Hunter's "Imperial Gazetteer of India,"
Edit. 1881.
[FN#317] The writer means the great Bazar, the Indian "Chauk,"
which = our English Carfax or Carfex (Carrefour) and forms the
core of ancient cities in the East. It is in some places, as
Damascus, large as one of the quarters, and the narrow streets or
lanes, vaulted over or thatched, are all closed at night by heavy
doors well guarded by men and dogs. Trades are still localised,
each owning its own street, after the fashion of older England,
where we read of Drapers' Lane and Butchers' Row; Lombard Street,
Cheapside and Old Jewry.
[FN#318] The local name of the Patna ganzes. The term was
originally applied to the produce of the Coan looms, which,
however, was anticipated in ancient Egypt. See p. 287 of
"L'Arch⁄ologie gyptienne" (Paris, A. Quantin) of the learned
Professor G. Maspero, a most able popular work by a savant who
has left many regrets on the banks of Nilus.
[FN#319] The great prototype of the Flying Carpet is that of
Sulayman bin Dáúd, a fable which the Koran (chap. xxi. 81)
borrowed from the Talmud, not from "Indian fictions." It was of
green sendal embroidered with gold and silver and studded with
precious stones, and its length and breadth were such that all
the Wise King's host could stand upon it, the men to the left and
the Jinns to the right of the throne; and when all were ordered,
the Wind, at royal command, raised it and wafted it whither the
Prophet would, while an army of birds flying overhead canopied
the host from the sun. In the Middle Ages the legend assumed
another form. "Duke Richard, surnamed 'Richard sans peur,'
walking with his courtiers one evening in the forest of
Moulineaux, near one of his castles on the banks of the Seine,
hearing a prodigious noise coming towards him, sent one of his
esquires to know what was the matter, who brought him word that
it was a company of people under a leader or King. Richard, with
five hundred of his bravest Normans, went out to see a sight
which the peasants were so accustomed to that they viewed it two
or three times a week without fear. The sight of the troop,
preceded by two men, who spread a cloth on the ground, made all
the Normans run away, and leave the Duke alone. He saw the
strangers form themselves into a circle on the cloth, and on
asking who they were, was told that they were the spirits of
Charles V., King of France, and his servants, condemned to
expiate their sins by fighting all night against the wicked and
the damned. Richard desired to be of their party, and receiving a
strict charge not to quit the cloth, was conveyed with them to
Mount Sinai, where, leaving them without quitting the cloth, he
said his prayers in the Church of St. Catherine's Abbey there,
while they were fighting, and returned with them. In proof of the
truth of this story, he brought back half the wedding-ring of a
knight in that convent, whose wife, after six years, concluded
him dead, and was going to take a second husband." (Note in the
Lucknow Edition of The Nights.)
[FN#320] Amongst Eastern peoples, and especially adepts, the will
of man is not a mere term for a mental or cerebral operation, it
takes the rank of a substance; it becomes a mighty motive power,
like table-turning and other such phenomena which, now looked
upon as child's play, will perform a prime part in the Kinetics
of the century to come. If a few pair of hands imposed upon a
heavy dinner-table can raise it in the air, as I have often seen,
what must we expect to result when the new motive force shall
find its Franklin and be shown to the world as real "Vril"? The
experiment of silently willing a subject to act in a manner not
suggested by speech or sign has been repeatedly tried and
succeeded in London drawing-rooms; and it has lately been
suggested that atrocious crimes have resulted from overpowering
volition. In cases of paralysis the Faculty is agreed upon the
fact that local symptoms disappear when the will-power returns to
the brain. And here I will boldly and baldly state my theory
that, in sundry cases, spectral appearances (ghosts) and abnormal
smells and sounds are simply the effect of a Will which has, so
to speak, created them.
[FN#321] The text has "But-Khanah" = idol-house (or room) syn.
with "But-Kadah" = image-cuddy, which has been proposed as the
derivation of the disputed "Pagoda." The word "Khánah" also
appears in our balcony, origin. "balcony," through the
South-European tongues, the Persian being "Bálá-khánah" = high
room. From "Kadah" also we derive "cuddy," now confined to
nautical language.
[FN#322] Europe contains sundry pictures which have, or are
supposed to have, this property; witness the famous Sundarium
bearing the head of Jesus. The trick, for it is not Art, is
highly admired by the credulous.
[FN#323] i.e. the Hindu Scripture or Holy Writ, e.g.
"Káma-Shastra" = the Cupid-gospel.
[FN#324] This shifting theatre is evidently borrowed by Galland
from Pliny (N. H. xxxvi., 24) who tells that in B. C. 50, C.
Curio built two large wooden theatres which could be wheeled
round and formed into an amphitheatre. The simple device seems to
stir the bile of the unmechanical old Roman, so unlike the Greek
in powers of invention.
[FN#325] This trick is now common in the circuses and hippodromes
of Europe, horses and bulls being easily taught to perform it:
but India has as yet not produced anything equal to the "Cyclist
elephant" of Paris.
[FN#326] This Arab.-Pers. compound, which we have corrupted to
"Bezestein" or "Bezettein" and "Bezesten," properly means a
market-place for Baz or Bazz = cloth, fine linen; but is used by
many writers as = Bazar, see "Kaysariah," vol. i. 266.
[FN#327] The origin of the lens and its applied use to the
telescope and the microscope are "lost" (as the Castle-guides of
Edinburgh say) "in the glooms of antiquity." Well ground glasses
have been discovered amongst the finds of Egypt and Assyria:
indeed much of the finer work of the primeval artists could not
have been done without such aid. In Europe the "spy-glass"
appears first in the Opus Majus of the learned Roger Bacon (circa
A. D. 1270); and his "optic tube" (whence his saying "all things
are known by perspective"), chiefly contributed to make his
wide-spread fame as a wizard. The telescope was popularised by
Galileo who (as mostly happens) carried off and still keeps,
amongst the vulgar, all the honours of invention. Some
"Illustrators" of The Nights confound this "Nazzárah," the Pers.
"Dúr-bín," or far-seer, with the "Magic Mirror," a speculum which
according to Gower was set up in Rome by Virgilius the Magician
hence the Mirror of Glass in the Squire's tale; Merlin's glassie
Mirror of Spenser (F. Q. ii. 24); the mirror in the head of the
monstrous fowl which forecast the Spanish invasion to the
Mexicans; the glass which in the hands of Cornelius Agrippa (A.
D. 1520) showed to the Earl of Surrey fair Geraldine "sick in her
bed;" to the globe of glass in The Lusiads; Dr. Dee's show-stone,
a bit of cannel-coal; and lastly the zinc and copper disk of the
absurdly called "electro-biologist." I have noticed this matter
at some length in various places.
[FN#328] D'Herbelot renders Soghd Samarkand = plain of Samarkand.
Hence the old "Sogdiana," the famed and classical capital of
Máwaránnahr, our modern Transoxiana, now known as Samarkand. The
Hindi translator has turned "Soghd" into "Sadá" and gravely notes
that "the village appertained to Arabia." He possibly had a dim
remembrance of the popular legend which derives "Samarkand" from
Shamir or Samar bin Afrikús, the Tobba King of Al-Yaman, who lay
waste Soghd-city ("Shamir kand" = Shamir destroyed); and when
rebuilt the place was called by the Arab. corruption Samarkand.
See Ibn Khallikan ii. 480. Ibn Haukal (Kitáb al Mamálik wa
al-Masálik = Book of Realms and Routes), whose Oriental Geography
(xth century) was translated by Sir W. Ouseley (London, Oriental
Press, 1800), followed by Abú 'l-Fidá, mentions the Himyaritic
inscription upon an iron plate over the Kash portal of Samarkand
(Appendix No. iii.).
[FN#329] The wish might have been highly indiscreet and have
exposed the wisher to the resentment of the two other brothers.
In parts of Europe it is still the belief of the vulgar that men
who use telescopes can see even with the naked eye objects which
are better kept hidden; and I have heard of troubles in the South
of France because the villagers would not suffer the secret
charms of their women to become as it were the public property of
the lighthouse employ⁄s.
[FN#330] "Jám-i-Jamshíd" is a well worn commonplace in Moslem
folk-lore; but commentators cannnot agree whether "Jám" be = a
mirror or a cup. In the latter sense it would represent the
Cyathomantic cup of the Patriarch Joseph and the symbolic bowl of
Nestor. Jamshíd may be translated either Jam the Bright or the
Cup of the Sun: this ancient King is Solomon of the grand old
Guebres.
[FN#331] This passage may have suggested to Walter Scott one of
his descriptions in "The Monastery."
[FN#332] In the text "Lájawardí," for which see vols. iii. 33,
and ix. 190.
[FN#333] In Galland and the H. V. "Prince Husayn's."
[FN#334] This is the "Gandharba-lagana" (fairy wedding) of the
Hindus; a marriage which lacked only the normal ceremonies. For
the Gandharbas = heavenly choristers see Moor's "Hindú Pantheon,"
p. 237, etc.
[FN#335] "Perfumed with amber" (-gris?) says Galland.
[FN#336] The Hind term for the royal levée, as "Selám" is the
Persian.
[FN#337] Arab. "'Ilm al-Ghayb" = the Science of Hidden Things
which, says the Hadis, belongeth only to the Lord. Yet amongst
Moslems, as with other faiths, the instinctive longing to pry
into the Future has produced a host of pseudo-sciences, Geomancy,
Astrology, Prophecy and others which serve only to prove that
such knowledge, in the present condition of human nature, is
absolutely unattainable.
[FN#338] In folk-lore and fairy tales the youngest son of mostly
three brothers is generally Fortune's favourite: at times also he
is the fool or the unlucky one of the family, Cinderella being
his counterpart (Mr. Clouston, i. 321).
[FN#339] The parasang (Gr. {Greek}), which Ibn Khall. (iii. 315)
reduces to three miles, has been derived wildly enough from Fars
or Pars (Persia proper) sang = (mile) stone. Chardin supports the
etymology, "because leagues are marked out with great tall stones
in the East as well as the West, e.g., ad primam (vel secundam)
lapidem."
[FN#340] A huge marquee or pavilion-tent in India.
[FN#341] The Jinn feminine; see vol. i. 10. The word hardly
corresponds with the Pers. "Peri" and Engl. "Fairy," a creation,
like the "Dív," of the so-called "Aryan," not "Semitic," race.
[FN#342] Galland makes the Fairy most unjustifiably fear that her
husband is meditating the murder of his father; and the Hindí in
this point has much the advantage of the Frenchman.
[FN#343] Pers. = "Light of the World"; familiar to Europe as the
name of the Grand Moghul Jehángír's principal wife.
[FN#344] The Arab stirrup, like that of the Argentine Gaucho, was
originally made of wood, liable to break, and forming a frail
support for lancer and sworder. A famous chief and warrior, Abú
Sa'íd al-Muhallab (ob. A. H. 83 = 702) first gave orders to forge
foot-rests of iron.
[FN#345] For this Egyptian and Syrian weapon see vol. i. 234.
[FN#346] See vol. vii. 93, where an error of punctuation
confounds it with Kerbela,--a desert with a place of pilgrimage.
"Samáwah" in Ibn Khall. (vol. i. 108) is also the name of a town
on the Euphrates.
[FN#347] Nazaránah prop. = the gift (or gifts) offered at visits
by a Moslem noble or feoffee in India to his feudal superior; and
the Kalichah of Hindú, Malabar, Goa and the Blue Mountains (p.
197). Hence the periodical tributes and especially the presents
which represent our "legacy-duty" and the "succession-duty" for
Rajahs and Nabobs, the latter so highly lauded by "The Times," as
the logical converse of the Corn-laws which ruined our corn. The
Nazaránah can always be made a permanent and a considerable
source of revenue, far more important than such unpopular and
un-Oriental device as an income-tax. But our financiers have yet
to learn the A. B. C. of political economy in matters of
assessment, which is to work upon familiar lines; and they
especially who, like Mr. Wilson "mad as a hatter," hold and hold
forth that "what is good for England is good for the world."
These myopics decide on theoretical and sentimental grounds that
a poll-tax is bad in principle, which it may be, still public
opinion sanctions it and it can be increased without exciting
discontent. The same with the "Nazaránah;" it has been the custom
of ages immemorial, and a little more or a little less does not
affect its popularity.
[FN#348] Pers. = City-queen.
[FN#349] Compare with this tale its modern and popular version
Histoire du Rossignol Chanteur (Spitta-Bey, No. x, p. 123): it
contains the rosary (and the ring) that shrinks, the ball that
rolls and the water that heals; etc. etc. Mr. Clouston somewhere
asserts that the History of the Envious Sisters, like that of
Prince Ahmad and the Perí-Banu, are taken from a MS. still
preserved in the "King's Library," Paris; but he cannot quote his
authority, De Sacy or Langlès. Mr. H. C. Coote (loc. Cit. P. 189)
declares it to be, and to have been, "an enormous favourite in
Italy and Sicily: no folk-tale exists in those countries at all
comparable to it in the number of its versions and in the extent
of its distribution." He begins two centuries before Galland,
sith Straparola (Notti Piacevoli), proceeds to Imbriani
(Novajella Fiorentina), Nerucci (Novelle Montalesi), Comparetti
(Nivelline Italiane) and Pitre (Fiabe Novelle e Racconti popolari
Italiani, vol. I.); and informs us that "the adventures of the
young girl, independently of the joint history of herself and her
brother, are also told in a separate "Fiaba" in Italy. A tale
called La Favenilla Coraggiosa is given by Visentini in his Fiabe
Mantovane and it is as far as it is a counterpart of the second
portion of Galland's tale." Mr. Coote also finds this story in
Hahn's "Griechische Märchen" entitled "Sun, Moon and Morning
Star"--the names of the royal children. The King overhears the
talk of three girls and marries the youngest despite his
stepmother, who substitutes for her issue a puppy, a kitten and a
mouse. The castaways are adopted by a herdsman whilst the mother
is confined in a henhouse; and the King sees his offspring and
exclaims, "These children are like those my wife promised me."
His stepmother, hearing this, threatens the nurse, who goes next
morning disguised as a beggar-woman to the girl and induces her
to long for the Bough that makes music, the Magic Mirror, and the
bird Dickierette. The brothers set out to fetch them leaving
their shirts which become black when the mishap befalls them. The
sister, directed by a monk, catches the bird and revives the
stones by the River of Life and the denouement is brought about
by a sausage stuffed with diamonds. In Miss Stokes' Collection of
Hindu Stories (No. xx.) "The Boy who had a moon on his brow and a
star on his chin" also suggests the "Envious Sisters."
[FN#350] Pop. "Ghaut" = The steps (or path) which lead down to a
watering-place. Hence the Hindí saying concerning the "rolling
stone"--Dhobi-ka kuttá; na Gharká na Ghát-ká, = a washerwoman's
tyke, nor of the house nor of the Ghát-dyke.
[FN#351] Text "Khatíbah" more usually "Khutbah" = the Friday
sermon preached by the Khatíb: in this the reigning sovereign is
prayed for by name and his mention together with the change of
coinage is the proof of his lawful rule. See Lane, M. F., chap.
iii.
[FN#352] This form of eaves-dropping, in which also the listener
rarely hears any good of himself is, I need hardly now say, a
favourite incident of Eastern Storiology and even of history,
e.g. Three men met together; one of them expressed the wish to
obtain a thousand pieces of gold, so that he might trade with
them; the other wished for an appointment under the Emir of the
Moslems; the third wished to possess Yusuf's wife, who was the
handsomest of women and had reat political influence. Yusuf,
being informed of what they said, sent for the men, bestowed one
thousand dinars on him who wished for that sum, gave an
appointment to the other and said to him who wished to possess
the lady: "Foolish man! What induced you to wish for that which
you can never obtain?" He then sent him to her and she placed him
in a tent where he remained three days, receiving, each day, one
and the same kind of food. She had him brought to her and said,
"What did you eat these days past?" He replied: "Always the same
thing!"--"Well," said she, "all women are the same thing." She
then ordered some money and a dress to be given him, after which,
she dismissed him. (Ibn Khallikan iii. 463-64.)
[FN#353] This ruthless attempt at infanticide was in accordance
with the manners of the age nor has it yet disappeared from
Rajput-land, China and sundry over-populous countries. Indeed it
is a question if civilisation may not be compelled to revive the
law of Lycurgus which forbade a child, male or female, to be
brought up without the approbation of public officers appointed
ad hoc. One of the curses of the XIXth century is the increased
skill of the midwife and physician, who are now able to preserve
worthless lives and to bring up semi-abortions whose only effect
upon the breed is increased degeneracy. Amongst the Greeks and
ancient Arabs the Malthusian practice was carried to excess.
Poseidippus declares that in his day--
A man, although poor, will not expose his son;
But however rich, will not preserve his daughter.
See the commentators' descriptions of the Wa'd al-Banát or burial
of Mauúdát (living daughters), the barbarous custom of the pagan
Arabs (Koran, chaps. Xvi. And lxxxi.) one of the many
abominations, like the murderous vow of Jephtha, to which Al-
Islam put a summary stop. (Ibn Khallikan, iii. 609-606) For such
outcast children reported to be monsters, see pp. 402-412 of Mr.
Clouston's "Asiatic and European versions of four of Chaucer's
Canterbury Tales," printed by the Chaucer Society.
[FN#354] Hind. Chhuchhundar (Sorex c£rulescens) which occurs
repeatedly in verse; e.g., when speaking of low men advanced to
high degree, the people say:--
Chhuchhúndar-ke sir-par Chambelí-ka tel.
The Jasmine-oil on the musk-rat's head.
In Galland the Sultánah is brought to bed of un morceau de bois;
and his Indian translator is more consequent, Hahn, as has been
seen, also has the mouse but Hahn could hardly have reached
Hindostan.
[FN#355] This title of Sháhinshah was first assumed by Ardashír,
the great Persian conqueror, after slaying the King of Ispahán,
Ardawán. (Tabari ii. 73.)
[FN#356] This imprisonment of the good Queen reminds home readers
of the "Cage of Clapham" wherein a woman with child was
imprisoned in A.D. 1700, and which was noted by Sir George Grove
as still in existence about 1830.
[FN#357] Arab. Ayyám al-Nifás = the period of forty days after
labour during which, according to Moslem law, a woman may not
cohabit with her husband.
[FN#358] A clarum et venerabile nomen in Persia; meaning one of
the Spirits that preside over beasts of burden; also a king in
general, the P.N. of an ancient sovereign, etc.
[FN#359] This is the older pronunciation of the mod. (Khusrau)
"Parvíz"; and I owe an apology to Mr. C.J. Lyall (Ancient Arabian
Poetry) for terming his "Khusrau Parvêz" an "ugly Indianism" (The
Academy, No. 100). As he says (Ibid. vol. x. 85), "the Indians
did not invent for Persian words the sounds ê and ∂, called
majhúl (i.e. 'not known in Arabic') by the Arabs, but received
them at a time when these wounds were universally used in Persia.
The substitution by Persians of î and π for ê and ∂ is quite
modern."
[FN#360] i.e. Fairy-born, the {Greek} (Parysatis) of the Greeks
which some miswrite {Greek}.
[FN#361] In Arab. Usually shortened to "Hazár" (bird of a
thousand tales = the Thousand), generally called "'Andalíb:"
Galland has Bulbulhezer and some of his translators debase it to
Bulbulkezer. See vol. v. 148, and the Hazár-dastán of Kazwíní (De
Sacy, Chrest. iii. 413). These rarities represent the Rukh's egg
in "Alaeddin."
[FN#362] These disembodied "voices" speaking either naturally or
through instruments are a recognized phenomenon of the so-called
"Spiritualism," See p. 115 of "Supra-mundane Facts," &c., edited
by T.J. Nichols, M.D., &c., London, Pitman, 1865. I venture to
remark that the medical treatment by Mesmerism, Braidism and
hypnotics, which was violently denounced and derided in 1850, is
in 1887 becoming a part of the regular professional practice and
forms another item in the long list of the Fallacies of the
Faculty and the Myopism of the "Scientist."
[FN#363] I may also note that the "Hátif," or invisible Speaker,
which must be subjective more often than objective, is a common-
place of Moslem thaumaturgy.
[FN#364] It may have been borrowed from Ulysses and the Sirens.
[FN#365] Two heroes of the Shahnámeh and both the types of
reckless daring. The monomachy or duel between these braves
lasted through two days.
[FN#366] The "Bágh" or royal tiger, is still found in the jungles
of Mázenderán and other regions of Northern Persia.
[FN#367] In addressing the Shah every Persian begins with the
formula "Kurbán-at básham" = may I become thy Corban or
sacrifice. For this word (Kurbán) see vol. viii. 16.
[FN#368] The King in Persia always speaks of himself in the third
person and swears by his own blood and head, soul, life and
death. The form of oath is ancient: Joseph, the first (but not
the last) Jew-financier of Egypt, emphasises his speech "by the
life of Pharaoh." (Gen. xiii. 15, 16.)
[FN#369] Another title of the Shah, making him quasi-divine, at
any rate the nearest to the Almighty, like the Czar and the
Emperor of China. Hence the subjects bow to him with the body at
right angles as David did to Saul (I Sam. xxiv, 8) or fall upon
the face like Joshua (v. 14).
[FN#370] A most improbable and absurd detail: its sole excuse is
the popular superstition of "blood speaking to blood." The youths
being of the royal race felt that they could take unwarrantable
liberties.
[FN#371] This is still a Persian custom because all the subjects,
women as well as men, are virtually the King's slaves.
[FN#372] i.e. King of kings, the {Greek}.
[FN#373] Majlis garm karna, i.e. to give some life to the
company.
[FN#374] In Arabic "'Ilm al-Mukáshafah" = the science by which
Eastern adepts discover man's secret thoughts. Of late years it
has appeared in England but with the same quackery and imposture
which have ruined "Spiritualism" as the Faith of the Future.
[FN#375] Nor are those which do occur all in the same order: The
first in the Turkish book "Of 'Ebú-'l-Kásim of Basra, of the
'Emír of Basra, and of 'Ebú-'l-Faskh of Wásit," is probably
similar to the first of Petis, "History of Aboulcasem of Basra."
The second "Of Fadzlu- 'llah of Mawsil (Moser), of 'Ebú-'l-Hasan,
and of Máhyár of Wásit," is evidently the seventh in Petis,
"History of Fadlallah, Son of Bin Ortoc, King of Moussel." The
fourth, "Of Ridzwán-Shah of China and the Shahristáni Lady," is
the second in Petis, "History of King Razvanschad and of the
Princess Cheheristany." The eleventh, "Of the Sovereign without a
care and of the Vazír full of care," is the eighth in Petis
History of King Bedreddin Lolo and of his Vizier Altalmulc." The
third, "Of the Builder of Bemm with the two Vazírs of the king of
Kawáshar," the seventh, "Of the Rogue Nasr and the son of the
king of Khurásán," and the tenth, "The Three Youths, the Old Man,
and the Daughter of the King," I cannot, from these titles,
recognise in Petis; while the fifth, "Farrukh-Shád, Farrukh-Rúz,
and Farrukh-Náz," may be the same as the frame story of the
"Hazár ú Yek Rúz," where the king is called Togrul-bey, his son
Farrukrouz, and his daughter Farruknaz, and if this be the case,
the Turkish book must differ considerably from the Persian in its
plan.--Although "The Thousand and One Nights" has not been found
in Persian, there exists a work in that language of which the
plan is somewhat similar--but adapted from an Indian source. It
is thus described by Dr. Rieu, in his Catalogue of Persian MSS.
in the British Museum, vol. ii. p. 773: Tale of Shírzád, son of
Gurgahan, emperor of China, and Gulshád, daughter of the vazír
Farrukhzád (called the Story of the Nine Belvideres). Nine tales
told by Gulshad to Shírzád, each in one of the nine belvideres of
the royal palace, in order to save the forfeited life of her
father.
[FN#376] A translation of this version, omitting the moral
reflections interspersed, is given by Professor E. B. Cowell in
the "Journal of Philology," 1876, vol. vi. p. 193. The great
Persian mystic tells another story of a Dream of Riches, which,
though only remotely allied to our tale, is very curious:
The Fakir and the Hidden Treasure.
Notwithstanding the clear evidence of God's bounty, engendering
those spiritual tastes in men, philosophers and learned men, wise
in their own conceit, obstinately shut their eyes to it, and look
afar off for what is really close to them, so that they incur the
penalty of being "branded on the nostrils" [Kurán, lxviii. 16],
adjudged against unbelievers. This is illustrated by the story of
the poor Fakír who prayed to God that he might be fed without
being obliged to work for his food. A divine voice came to him in
his sleep and directed him to go to the house of a certain scribe
and take a certain writing he should find there. He did so, and
on reading the writing found that it contained directions for
discovering a hidden treasure. The directions were as follows:
"Go outside the city to the dome which covers the tomb of the
martyr, turn your back to the tomb and face towards Mecca, place
an arrow in your bow, and where the arrow falls dig for the
treasure." But before the Fakír had time to commence the search
the rumour of the writing and its purport had reached the King,
who at once sent and took it away from the Fakír, and began to
search for the treasure on his own account. After shooting many
arrows and digging in all directions the King failed to find the
treasure, and got weary of searching, and returned the writing to
the Fakír. Then the Fakír tried what he could do, but failed to
hit the spot where the treasure was buried. At last despairing of
success by his own unaided efforts, he cast his care upon God,
and implored the divine assistance. Then a voice from heaven came
to him saying, "You were directed to fix an arrow in your bow,
but not to draw your bow with all your might, as you have been
doing. Shoot as gently as possible, that the arrow may fall close
to you, for hidden treasure is indeed 'nearer to you than your
neck-vein'" [Kurán, l. 15]. Men overlook the spiritual treasures
close to them, and for this reason it is that prophets have no
honour in their own countries.--Mr. F: H. Whinfield's Abridgment
of "The Masnavi-i Ma'navi." (London, 1887.)
[FN#377] See Mr. Gibb's translation (London: Redway), p. 278
[FN#378] "Rem qu contigit patrum memoriâ ut veram ita dignam
relatu et s penumero mihi assertam ab hominibus fide dignis
apponam."
[FN#379] Thorpe says that a nearly similar legend is current at
Tanslet, on the island of Alsen.
[FN#380] The common tradition is, it was in English rhyme, viz.
"Where this stood
Is another as good;"
or, as some will have it:
"Under me doth lie
Another much richer than I."
[FN#381] Apropos to dreams, there is a very amusing story,
entitled "Which was the Dream ?" in Mr. F. H. Balfour's "Leaves
from my Chinese Scrap Book," p. 106-7 (London: Tr≥bner, 1887).
[FN#382] The story in the Turkish collection, "Al-Faraj ba'd
al-Shiddah," where it forms the 8th recital, is doubtless
identical with our Arabian version, since in both the King of the
Genie figures, which is not the case in Mr. Gibb's story.
[FN#383] Although this version is not preceded, as in the
Arabian, by the Dream of Riches, yet that incident occurs, I
understand, in separate form in the work of 'Alí Azíz.
[FN#384] Sir Richard has referred, in note 1, p. 18, to numerous
different magical tests of chastity, etc., and I may here add one
more, to wit, the cup which Oberon, King of the Fairies, gave to
Duke Huon of Bordeaux (according to the romance which recounts
the marvellous adventures of that renowned Knight), which filled
with wine in the hand of any man who was out of "deadly sin" and
attempted to drink out of it, but was always empty in the hands
of a sinful man. Charlemagne was shown to be sinful by this test,
while Duke Huon, his wife, and a companion were proved to be free
from sin.--In my "Popular Tales and Fictions" the subject of
inexhaustible purses etc. is treated pretty fully--they
frequently figure in folk-tales, from Iceland to Ceylon, from
Japan to the Hebrides.
[FN#385] "The Athenaeum," April 23,1887, p. 542.
[FN#386] See M. Eugene L⁄vêque's "Les Mythes et les L⁄gendes de
l'Inde et la Perse" (Paris, 1880), p. 543, where the two are
printed side by side. This was pointed out more than seventy
years ago by Henry Weber in his Introduction to "Tales of the
East," edited by him.
[FN#387] Also in the romance of Duke Huon of Bordeaux and the
old French romance of the Chevalier Berinus. The myth was widely
spread in the Middle Ages.
[FN#388] Cf. the magic horn that Duke Huon of Bordeaux received
from Oberon, King of the Fairies, which caused even the Soudan of
Babylon to caper about in spite of himself, and similar musical
instruments in a hundred different tales, such as the old English
poem of "The Friar and the Boy," the German tale (in Grimm) of
"The Jew among Thorns," the "Pied Piper of Hamelin," &c.
[FN#389] Not distantly related to stories of this class are
those in which the hero becomes possessed of some all-bestowing
object--a purse, a box, a table-cloth, a sheep, a donkey, etc.--
which being stolen from him he recovers by means of a magic club
that on being commended rattles on the pate and ribs of the thief
and compels him to restore the treasure.
[FN#390] The Dwarf had told the soldier, on leaving him after
killing the old witch, that should his services be at any other
time required, he had only to light his pipe at the Blue Light
and he should instantly appear before him. The tobacco-pipe must
be considered as a recent and quite unnecessary addition to the
legend: evidently all the power of summoning the Dwarf was in the
Blue Light, since he tells the soldier when he first appears
before him in the well that he must obey its lord and master.
[FN#391] Belli signifies famous, or notorious.
[FN#392] This young lady's notion of the "function" of Prayer
was, to say the least peculiar, in thus addressing her petition
to the earth instead of to Heaven.
[FN#393] The gentle, amiable creature!
[FN#394] Chamley-bill was, says Dr. Chodzko, a fort built by
Kurroglú, the ruins of which are still to be seen in the valley
of Salmas, a district in the province of Aderbaijan.
[FN#395] i.e. Kuvera, the god of wealth.
[FN#396] The attendants of Kuvera. a Buddhistic idea.
[FN#397] That every man has his "genius" of good or evil fortune
is, I think, essentially idea.
[FN#398] Such being the case, what need was there for the
apparition presenting itself every morning?--but no matter!
[FN#399] Pandit S. M. Nat⁄sa Sástrí, in "Indian Notes and
Queries," for March, 1887, says that women swallow large numbers
of an insect called pillai-puchchi (son-insect: gryllas) in the
hope of bearing sons, they will also drink the water squeezed
from the loin-cloth of a sanyásí [devotee] after washing it for
him!--Another correspondent in the same periodical. Pandit
Putlíbái K. Raghunathj⁄, writes that Hindu women, for the purpose
of having children, especially a son, observe the fourth lunar
day of every dark fortnight as a fast and break their fast only
after seeing the moon, generally before 9 or 10 p.m. A dish of
twenty-one small, marble-like balls of rice is prepared, in one
of which is put some salt. The whole dish is then served up to
the woman, and while eating it she should first lay her hands on
the ball containing salt, as it is believed to be a positive sign
that she will be blessed with a son. In that case she should give
up eating the rest, but otherwise she should go on eating till
she lays her hands on the salted ball. The Pandit adds, that the
observance of this ball depends on the wish of the woman. She may
observe it on only one, five, seven, eleven, or twenty-one lunar
fourth days, or chaturthí. Should she altogether fail in picking
out the salted ball first, she may be sure of remaining barren
all her life long.
[FN#400] I am glad to see among Messrs. Tr≥bner & Co.'s
announcements of forthcoming publications Mr. Knowles' collection
of "Folk-Tales of Kashmír" in popular handy volume form.
[FN#401] A holy man whose austerities have obtained for him
supernatural powers.
[FN#402] Also called "Story of the King and his Four Ministers."
There is another but wholly different Tamil romance entitled the
"Alak⁄sa Kathá," in which a king's daughter becomes a disembodied
evil spirit, haunting during the night a particular choultry (or
serai) for travellers, and if they do not answer aright to her
cries she strangles them and vampyre-like sucks their blood.
[FN#403] The Pandit informs me that his "Folk-Lore in Southern
India" will be completed at press and issued shortly at Bombay.
(London agents, Messrs. Tr≥bner & Co.)
[FN#404] In the "Kathá Sarit Ságara," Book ii., ch. 14, when the
King of Vatsa receives the hand of Vasavadatta, "like a beautiful
shoot lately budded on the creeper of love," she walks round the
fire, keeping it to the right, on which Prof. Tawney remarks that
"the practice of walking round an object of reverence, with the
right hand towards it, has been exhaustively discussed by Dr.
Samuel Fergusson in his paper 'On the ceremonial turn called
Desiul,' published in the Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy,
for March 1877 (vol. i., series ii., No. 12). He shows it to have
existed among the ancient Romans as well as the Celts.... Dr.
Fergusson is of opinion that this movement was a symbol of the
cosmical rotation, an imitation of the apparent course of the sun
in the heavens."
[FN#405] The affection of parents for their children is often a
blind instinct, and sometimes selfish, though, after all, there
is doubtless truth in these lines:
"A mother's love!
If there be one thing pure,
Where all beside is sullied,
That can endure
When all else pass away:
If there be aught
Surpassing human deed, or word, or thought,
It is a mother's love!"
[FN#406] Surma is a collyrium applied to the edges of the eyelids
to increase the lustre of the eyes. A Persian poet, addressing
the damsel of whom he is enamoured, says, "For eyes so
intoxicated with love's nectar what need is there of surma?"--
This part of the story seems to be garbled; in another text of
the romance of Hatim Ta'í it is only after the surma has been
applied to the covetous man's eyes that he beholds the hidden
treasures.
[FN#407] The first part of the story of the Young King of the
Black Isles, in The Nights, bears some analogy to this, but there
the paramour is only "half-killed" and the vindictive queen
transforms her husband from the waist downwards into marble.
[FN#408] On the Sources of some of Galland's Tales. By Henry
Charles Coote, F.S.A. "Folklore Record," 1881, vol. iii. Part 2,
p. 186.
[FN#409] See Thorpe's "Yule Tide Stories," Bohn's ed., pp. 481-
486.˚Thorpe says that "for many years the Dummburg was the abode
of robbers, who slew the passing travellers and merchants whom
they perceived on the road from Leipsig to Brunswick, and heaped
together the treasures of the plundered churches and the
surrounding country, which they concealed in subterranean
caverns." The peasantry would therefore regard the spot with
superstitious awe, and once such a tale as that of Ali Baba got
amongst them, the robbers' haunt in their neighbourhood would
soon become the scene of the poor woodcutter's adventure.
[FN#410] A Persian poet says:
"He who violates the rights of the bread and salt
Breaks, for his wretched self, head and neck."
[FN#411] Miss Busk reproduces the proper names as they are
transliterated in J≥lg's German version of those Kalmuk and
Mongolian Tales--from which a considerable portion of her book
was rendered--thus: Ardschi Bordschi, Rakschasas, etc., but
drollest of all is "Ramajana" (Ramayana), which is right in
German but not in English.
[FN#412] The apocryphal gospels and the Christian hagiology are
largely indebted to Buddhism, e.g., the Descent into Hell, of
which there is such a graphic account in the Gospel of Nicodemus,
seems to have been adapted from ancient Buddhist legends, now
embodied in the opening chapters of a work entitled,
"Káranda-vyúha," which contain a description of the Boddhisattva
Avalokiteswara's descent into the hell Avíchi, to deliver the
souls there held captive by Yama, the lord of the lower world.
(See a paper by Professor E. R. Cowell, LL.D., in the "Journal of
Philology," 1876, vol. vi. pp. 222-231.) This legend also exists
in Telugu, under the title of "Sánanda Charitra," of which the
outline is given in Taylor's "Catalogue Raisonn⁄ of Oriental MSS.
in the Government Library, Madras," vol. ii. p. 643: Sánanda, the
son of Purna Vitta and Bhadra Datta, heard from munis accounts of
the pains of the wicked, and wishing to see for himself, went to
Yama-puri. His coming had been announced by Nárada. Yama showed
the stranger the different lots of mankind in a future state, in
details. Sánanda was touched with compassion for the miseries
that he witnessed, and by the use of the five and six lettered
spells he delivered those imprisoned souls and took them with him
to Kailasa. Yama went to Siva and complained, but Siva civilly
dismissed the appeal.--Under the title of "The Harrowing of
Hell," the apocryphal Christian legend was the theme of a Miracle
Play in England during the Middle Ages, and indeed it seems to
have been, in different forms, a popular favourite throughout
Europe. Thus in a German tale Strong Hans goes to the Devil in
hell and wants to serve him, and sees the pains in which souls
are imprisoned standing beside the fire. Full of pity, he lifts
up the lids and sets the souls free, on which the Devil at once
drives him away. A somewhat similar notion occurs in an Icelandic
tale of the Sin Sacks, in Powell and Magnússon's collection
(second series, p. 48). And in T. Crofton Croker's "Fairy Legends
and Traditions of the South of Ireland," ed. 1828, Part. ii. p.
30 ff., we read of Soul Cages at the bottom of the sea,
containing the spirits of drowned sailors, which the bold hero
Jack Docherty set free.
[FN#413] The Rabbins relate that among the Queen of Sheba's tests
of Solomon's sagacity she brought before him a number of boys and
girls apparelled all alike, and desired him to distinguish those
of one sex from those of the other, as they stood in his
presence. Solomon caused a large basin of water to be fetched in,
and ordered them all to wash their hands. By this expedient he
discovered the boys from the girls, since the former washed
merely their hands, while the latter washed also their arms.
[FN#414] Dr. W. Grimm, in the notes to his "Kinder und
Hausmärchen," referring to the German form of the story (which we
shall come to by and-by), says, "The Parrot, which is the fourth
story in the Persian Touti Nameh, bears some resemblance to
this"--the Parrot is the reciter of all the stories in the
collection, not the title of this particular tale.
[FN#415] To Sir Richard Burton's interesting note on the
antiquity of the lens and its applied use to the telescope and
microscope may be added a passage or two from Sir William
Drummond's "Origines; or, Remarks on the Origin of several
Empires, States, and Cities," 1825, vol. ii. pp. 246-250. This
writer appears to think that telescopes were not unknown to the
ancients and adduces plausible evidence in support of his
opinion. "Moschopalus," he says, "an ancient grammarian, mentions
four instruments with which the astronomers of antiquity were
accustomed to observe the stars--the catoptron, the dioptron, the
eisoptron and the enoptron." He supposes the catoptron to have
been the same with the astrolabe. "The dioptron seems to have
been so named from a tube through which the observer looked. Were
the other two instruments named from objects being reflected in a
mirror placed within them? Aristotle says that the Greeks
employed mirrors when they surveyed the celestial appearances.
May we not conclude from this circumstance that astronomers were
not always satisfied with looking through empty tubes?" He thinks
the ancients were acquainted with lenses and has collected
passages from various writers which corroborate his opinion,
besides referring to the numerous uses to which glass was applied
in the most remote ages. He goes on to say:
"Some of the observations of the ancients must appear very
extraordinary, if magnifying glasses had never been known among
them. The boldness with which the Pythagoreans asserted that the
surface of the moon was diversified by mountains and valleys can
hardly be accounted for, unless Pythagoras had been convinced of
the fact by the help of telescopes, which might have existed in
the observatories of Egypt and Chaldea before those countries
were conquered and laid waste by the Persians. Pliny (L. 11) says
that 1600 stars had been counted in the 72 constellations, and by
this expression I can only understand him to mean the 72 dodecans
into which the Egyptians and Chaldeans divided the zodiac. Now
this number of stars could never have been counted in the zodiac
without the assistance of glasses. Ptolemy reckoned a much less
number for the whole heavens The missionaries found many more
stars marked in the Chinese charts of the heavens than formerly
existed in those which were in use in Europe. Suidas, at the word
{Greek} (glass), indicates, in explaining a passage in
Aristophanes, that burning mirrors were occasionally made of
glass. Now how can we suppose burning mirrors to have been made
of glass without supposing the magnifying powers of glass to have
been known? The Greeks, as Plutarch affirms, employed metallic
mirrors, either plane, or convex, or concave, according to the
use for which they were intended. If they could make burning
mirrors of glass, they could have given any of these forms to
glass. How then could they have avoided observing that two
glasses, one convex and the other concave, placed at a certain
distance from each other, magnified objects seen through them?
Numerous experiments must have been made with concave and convex
glasses before burning mirrors made of glass could have been
employed. If astronomers never knew the magnifying powers of
glass, and never placed lenses in the tubes of the dioptrons,
what does Strabo (L. 3, c. 138) mean when he says: 'Vapours
produce the same effects as the tubes in magnifying objects of
vision by refraction?'"
Mr. W. F. Thompson, in his translation of the "Ahlak-i-Jalaly,"
from the Persian of Fakír Jání Muhammad (15th century), has the
following note on the Jám-i-Jámshid and other magical mirrors:
"Jámshíd, the fourth of the Kaianian dynasty, the Soloman of the
Persians. His cup was said to mirror the world, so that he could
observe all that was passing elsewhere--a fiction of his own for
state purposes, apparently, backed by the use of artificial
mirrors. Nizámí tells that Alexander invented the steel mirror,
by which he means, of course, that improved reflectors were used
for telescopy in the days of Archimedes, but not early enough to
have assisted Jámshíd, who belongs to the fabulous and
unchronicled age. In the romance of Beyjan and Manija, in the
"Shah Náma," this mirror is used by the great Khosrú for the
purpose of discovering the place of the hero's imprisonment:
"The mirror in his hand revolving shook,
And earth's whole surface glimmered in his look;
Nor less the secrets of the starry sphere,
The what, the when, the bow depicted clear,
From orbs celestial to the blade of grass,
All nature floated in the magic glass."
[FN#416] We have been told this king had three daughters.
[FN#417] See in "Blackwood's Magazine," vol. iv., 1818, 1819, a
translation, from the Danish of J. L. Rasmussen, of "An
Historical and Geographical Essay on the trade and commerce of
the Arabians and Persians with Russia and Scandinavia during the
Middle Ages.--But learned Icelanders, while England was still
semi-civilized, frequently made very long journeys into foreign
lands: after performing the pilgrimage to Rome, they went to
Syria, and some penetrated into Central Asia.
[FN#418] This, of course, is absurd, as each was equally
interested in the business; but it seems to indicate a vague
reminiscence of the adventures of the Princes in the story of The
Envious Sisters.
[FN#419] There is a naivete about this that is particularly
refreshing.
[FN#420] This recalls the fairy Meliora, in the romance of
Partenopex de Blois. who "knew of ancient tales a countless
store."
[FN#421] In a Norwegian folk-tale the hero receives from a dwarf
a magic ship that could enlarge itself so as to contain any
number of men, yet could be earned m the pocket.
[FN#422] The Water of Life, the Water of Immortality, the
Fountain of Youth--a favourite and wide-spread myth during the
Middle Ages. In the romance of Sir Huon of Bordeaux the hero
boldly encounters a griffin, and after a desperate fight, in
which he is sorely wounded, slays the monster. Close at hand he
discovers a clear fountain, at the bottom of which is a gravel of
precious stones. "Then he dyde of his helme and dranke of the
water his fyll, and he had no sooner dranke therof but
incontynent he was hole of all his woundys." Nothing more
frequently occurs in folk tales than for the hero to be required
to perform three difficult and dangerous tasks--sometimes
impossible, without supernatural assistance.
[FN#423] "Say, will a courser of the Sun
All gently with a dray-horse run?"
[FN#424] Ting: assembly of notables--of udallers, &c. The term
survives in our word hustings; and in Ding-wall--Ting-val; where
tings were held.
[FN#425] The last of the old Dublin ballad-singers, who assumed
the respectable name of Zozimus, and is said to have been the
author of the ditties wherewith he charmed his street auditors,
was wont to chant the legend of the Finding of Moses in a version
which has at least the merit of originality:
"In Egypt's land, upon the banks of Nile,
King Pharaoh's daughter went to bathe in style;
She took her dip, then went unto the land,
And, to dry her royal pelt, she ran along the strand.
A bulrush tripped her, whereupon she saw
A smiling baby in a wad of straw;
She took it up, and said, in accents mild--
Tare an' agurs, girls! which av yez owns this child?"
The Babylonian analogue, as translated by the Rev. Prof. A. H.
Sayce, in the first vol. of the "Folk-Lore Journal" (1883), is as
follows:
"Sargon, the mighty monarch, the King of Aganè, am I. My mother
was a princess; my father I knew not, my father's brother loved
the mountain-land. In the city of Azipiranu, which on the bank of
the Euphrates lies, my mother, the princess, conceived me, in an
inaccessible spot she brought me forth. She placed me in a basket
of rushes, with bitumen the door of my ark she closed. She
launched me on the river, which drowned me not. The river bore me
along, to Akki, the irrigator, it brought me. Akki, the
irrigator, in the tenderness of his heart, lifted me up. Akki,
the irrigator, as his own child brought me up. Akki, the
irrigator, as his gardener appointed me, and in my gardenership
the goddess Istar loved me. For 45 years the kingdom I have
ruled, and the black headed (Accadian) race have governed."
[FN#426] This strange notion may have been derived from some
Eastern source, since it occurs in Indian fictions; for example,
in Dr. Rájendralála Mitra's "Sanskrit Buddhist Literature of
Nepál," p. 304, we read that "there lived in the village of
Vásava a rich householder who had born unto him a son with a
jewelled ring in his ear." And in the "Mahábhárata" we are told
of a king who had a son from whose body issued nothing but gold--
the prototype of the gold-laying goose.
[FN#427] Connected with this romance is the tale of "The Six
Swans," in Grimm's collection-- see Mrs. Hunt's English
translation, vol. i. p. 192.
[FN#428] Mahbúb. a piece of gold, value about 10 francs, replaces
the dinár of old tales. Those in Egypt are all since the time of
the Turks: 9, 7, or 6 1/2 frs. according to issue.--Note by
Spitta Bey.
[FN#429] Here again we have the old superstition of "blood
speaking to blood," referred to by Sir Richard, ante, p. 347,
note 1. It often occurs in Asiatic stories. Thus in the Persian
"Bakhtyár Náma," when the adopted son of the robber chief is
brought with other captives, before the king (he is really the
king's own son, whom he and the queen abandoned in their flight
through the desert), his majesty's bowels strangely yearned
towards the youth, and in the conclusion this is carried to
absurdity: when Bakhtyár is found to be the son of the royal
pair, "the milk sprang from the breasts of the queen," as she
looked on him--albeit she must then have been long past
child-bearing!
[FN#430] The enchanted pitcher does duty here for the witches'
broomstick and the fairies' rush of European tales, but a similar
conveyance is, I think, not unknown to Western folk-lore.
[FN#431] In a Norse story the hero on entering a forbidden room
in a troll's house finds a horse with a pan of burning coals
under his nose and a measure of corn at his tail, and when he
removes the coals and substitutes the corn, the horse becomes his
friend and adviser.
[FN#432] M. Dozon does not think that Muslim customs allow of a
man's marrying three sisters at once; but we find the king does
the same in the modern Arab version.
[FN#433] London: Macmillan and Co., p. 236 ff.
[FN#434] This recalls the biblical legend of the widow's cruse,
which has its exact counterpart in Singhalese folk-lore.
[FN#435] This recalls the story of the herd-boy who cried "Wolf!
wolf!"
[FN#436] Again the old notion of maternal and paternal instincts;
but the children don't often seem in folk-tales, to have a
similar impulsive affection for their unknown parents.
[FN#437] Colotropis gigantea.
[FN#438] Rákshashas and rákshasís are male and female demons or
ogres, in the Hindú mythology.
[FN#439] Literally, the king of birds, a fabulous species of
horse remarkable for swiftness, which plays an important part in
Tamil stories and romances.
[FN#440] Here we have a parallel to the biblical legend of the
passage of the Israelites dryshod
[FN#441] Demons, ogres, trolls, giants, et hoc genus omne, never
fail to discover the presence of human beings by their keen sense
of smelling. "Fee, faw, fum! I smell the blood of a British man,"
cries a giant when the renowned hero Jack is concealed in his
castle. "Fum! fum! sento odor christianum," exclaims an ogre in
Italian folk tales. "Femme, je sens la viande fraîche, la chair
de chr⁄tien!" says a giant to his wife in French stories.
[FN#442] In my popular "Tales and Fictions" a number of examples
are cited of life depending on some extraneous object--vol. i.
pp. 347-351.
[FN#443] In the Tamil story-book, the English translation of
which is called "The Dravidian Nights' Entertainments," a
wandering princess, finding the labour-pains coming upon her,
takes shelter in the house of a dancing-woman, who says to the
nurses, "If she gives birth to a daughter, it is well [because
the woman could train her to follow her own profession'], but if
a son, I do not want him;--close her eyes, remove him to a place
where you can kill him, and throwing a bit of wood on the ground
tell her she has given birth to it."--I daresay that a story
similar to the Bengali version exists among the Tamils.
[FN#444] It is to be hoped we shall soon have Sir Richard
Burton's promised complete English translation of this work,
since one half is, I understand, already done.