1001 NIGHTS AND A NIGHT
These Stories are better known to us as 1001 Arabian nights. Originally translated into English by Sir Richard Burton in the late 1800’s, these Arabian folk tales comprised over sixteen volumes, featuring beautiful princesses, great kings and powerful magicians. Any traveler across the endless desert sands could find that one mis-step would send them into a land where Djinn reigned supreme, all manner of dangerous creatures roamed freely, and time seemed to stop. Only the brave and pious had any chance of survival.
The stories are actually a series of tales within a single over arching framework. After finding his wife was unfaithful, the king determined to marry a virgin each night and chop off her head the next morning. This went on for long months until there were few virgins left in the land. The brave and wise Scheherazade begged her father, the king’s vizier, to offer her in marriage. She had a cunning plan to stop the carnage once and for all.
On the night of her wedding, she asked the king if her sister could come and keep her company until her death in the morning. When the king agreed, she began to tell her sister a series of stories, leaving off in the middle of a particularly good tale, so intriguing the king that he agreed to let her live for another night to finish her stories. This went on for over three years, and Scheherazade bore the king three children during this time, until he finally saw the error of his ways and they lived happily ever after.
1001 Nights and a Night contains the fables of Aladdin and the Magic Lamp, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, and Sinbad the Sailor who crossed the Seven Seas. For years these were the stories that fired the imaginations of the western world, until the advent of science fiction gained popularity. They still possess enough magic to woo us with their images of hot desert nights and bawdy heroes who through trickery and boldness manage to climb fantastical mountains made of jewels and cross dangerous oceans filled with man eating serpents.
So the next time you find an old and battered lamp, be careful not to rub too hard, or your wishes may come dreadfully true.
Gia Dawn www.GiaDawn.com
