The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, vol 13 by Sir Richard Francis Burton (summer reading list txt) 📕

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 Fak�r. Then the Fak�r 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’” [Kur�n, 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 memori� 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 ‘Al� Az�z.

 

[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�v�que’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 Kurrogl�, 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 S�str�, 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 sany�s� [devotee] after washing it for him!—Another correspondent in the same periodical. Pandit Putl�b�i 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 chaturth�. 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 Kashm�r” 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 Kath�,” 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 “Kath� Sarit S�gara,” 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’� 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, “K�randa-vy�ha,” which contain a description of the Boddhisattva Avalokiteswara’s descent into the hell Av�chi, 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 “S�nanda Charitra,” of which the outline is given in Taylor’s “Catalogue Raisonn� of Oriental MSS.

in the Government Library, Madras,” vol. ii. p. 643: S�nanda, the son of Purna Vitta