The most copious record of stories of Asiatic enchantment that we
possess, is contained in the Arabian Nights' Entertainments; to which
we may add the Persian Tales, and a few other repositories of Oriental
adventures. It is true that these are delivered to us in a garb of
fiction; but they are known to present so exact a picture of Eastern
manners and customs, and so just a delineation of the follies, the
weaknesses and credulity of the races of men that figure in them, that,
in the absence of materials of a strictly historical sort of which we
have to complain, they may not inadequately supply the place, and may
furnish us with a pretty full representation of the ideas of sorcery
and magic which for centuries were entertained in this part of the
world. They have indeed one obvious defect, which it is proper the
reader should keep constantly in mind. The mythology and groundwork of
the whole is Persian: but the narrator is for the most part a
Mahometan. Of consequence the ancient Fire-worshippers, though they
contribute the entire materials, and are therefore solely entitled to
our gratitude and deference for the abundant supply they have furnished
to our curiosity, are uniformly treated in these books with disdain
and contumely as unworthy of toleration, while the comparative upstart
race of the believers in the Koran are held out to us as the only
enlightened and upright among the sons of men.
Many of the matters most currently related among these supernatural
phenomena, are tales of transformation. A lady has two sisters of the
most profligate and unprincipled character. They have originally the
same share of the paternal inheritance as herself. But they waste it
in profusion and folly, while she improves her portion by good
judgment and frugality. Driven to the extremity of distress, they
humble themselves, and apply to her for assistance. She generously
imparts to them the same amount of wealth that they originally
possessed, and they are once more reduced to poverty. This happens
again and again. At length, finding them incapable of discretion, she
prevails on them to come and live with her. By wearisome and ceaseless
importunity they induce her to embark in a mercantile enterprise. Here
she meets with a prince, who had the misfortune to be born in a region
of fire-worshippers, but was providentially educated by a Mahometan
nurse. Hence, when his countrymen were by divine vengeance all turned
into stones, he alone was saved alive. The lady finds him in this
situation, endowed with sense and motion amidst a petrified city, and
they immediately fall in love with each other. She brings him away
from this melancholy scene, and together they go on board the vessel
which had been freighted by herself and her sisters. But the sisters
become envious of her good fortune, and conspire, while she and the
prince are asleep, to throw them overboard. The prince is drowned; but
the lady with great difficulty escapes. She finds herself in a desert
island, not far from the place where she had originally embarked on
her adventure; and, having slept off the fatigues she had encountered,
beholds on her awaking a black woman with an agreeable countenance, a
fairy, who leads in her hand two black bitches coupled together with a
cord. These black bitches are the lady's sisters, thus metamorphosed,
as a punishment for their ingratitude and cruelty. The fairy conveys
her through the air to her own house in Bagdad, which she finds well
stored with all sorts of commodities, and delivers to her the two
animals, with an injunction that she is to whip them every day at a
certain hour as a further retribution for their crimes. This was
accordingly punctually performed; and, at the end of each day's
penance, the lady, having before paid no regard to the animals'
gestures and pitiable cries, wept over them, took them in her arms,
kissed them, and carefully wiped the moisture from their eyes. Having
persevered for a length of time in this discipline, the offenders are
finally, by a counter-incantation, restored to their original forms,
being by the severities they had suffered entirely cured of the vices
which had occasioned their calamitous condition.
Another story is of a calender, a sort of Mahometan monk, with one eye,
who had originally been a prince. He had contracted a taste for
navigation and naval discoveries; and, in one of his voyages, having
been driven by stress of weather into unknown seas, he suddenly finds
himself attracted towards a vast mountain of loadstone, which first,
by virtue of the iron and nails in the ship, draws the vessel towards
itself, and then, by its own intrinsic force, extracts the nails, so
that the ship tumbles to pieces, and every one on board is drowned.
The mountain, on the side towards the sea, is all covered with nails,
which had been drawn from vessels that previously suffered the same
calamity; and these nails at once preserve and augment the fatal power
of the mountain. The prince only escapes; and he finds himself in a
desolate island, with a dome of brass, supported by brazen pillars,
and on the top of it a horse of brass, and a rider of the same metal.
This rider the prince is fated to throw down, by means of an enchanted
arrow, and thus to dissolve the charm which had been fatal to
thousands. From the desolate island he embarked on board a boat, with
a single rower, a man of metal, and would have been safely conveyed to
his native country, had he not inadvertently pronounced the name of
God, that he had been warned not to do, and which injunction he had
observed many days. On this the boat immediately sunk; but the prince
was preserved, who comes into a desolate island, where he finds but
one inhabitant, a youth of fifteen. This youth is hid in a cavern, it
having been predicted of him that he should be killed after fifty days,
by the man that threw down the horse of brass and his rider. A great
friendship is struck up between the unsuspecting youth and the prince,
who nevertheless fulfils the prediction, having by a pure accident
killed the youth on the fiftieth day. He next arrives at a province of
the main land, where he visits a castle, inhabited by ten very
agreeable young men, each blind of the right eye. He dwells with them
for a month, and finds, after a day of pleasant entertainment, that
each evening they do penance in squalidness and ashes. His curiosity
is greatly excited to obtain an explanation of what he saw, but this
they refuse, telling him at the same time, that he may, if he pleases,
pass through the same adventure as they have done, and, if he does,
wishing it may be attended with a more favourable issue. He determines
to make the experiment; and by their direction, after certain
preparations, is flown away with through the air by a roc, a stupendous
bird, that is capable in the same manner of carrying off an elephant.
By this means he is brought to a castle of the most extraordinary
magnificence, inhabited by forty ladies of exquisite beauty. With
these ladies he lives for eleven months in a perpetual succession of
delights. But in the twelfth month they tell him, that they are
obliged to leave him till the commencement of the new year. In the
mean time they give him for his amusement the keys of one hundred
apartments, all but one of which he is permitted to open. He is
delighted with the wonders of these apartments till the last day. On
that day he opens the forbidden room, where the rarity that most
strikes him is a black horse of admirable shape and appearance, with
a saddle and bridle of gold. He leads this horse into the open air,
and is tempted to mount him. The horse first stands still; but at
length, being touched with a switch, spreads a pair of wings which the
prince had not before perceived, and mounts to an amazing height in
the air. The horse finally descends on the terrace of a castle, where
he throws his rider, and leaves him, having first dashed out his right
eye with a sudden swing of his tail. The prince goes down into the
castle, and to his surprise finds himself in company with the ten
young men, blind of one eye, who had passed through the same adventure
as he had done, and all been betrayed by means of the same infirmity.