Reading Diary Week 5: Arabian Nights

This reading diary will cover half of the Arabian Nights unit. Story source: The Arabian Nights' Entertainments by Andrew Lang and illustrated by H. J. Ford (1898).

Scheherazade
This is the introduction section of the Arabian Nights tales. It begins with an evil sultan who marries a new bride each night and has them killed in the morning. The servant doing his bidding/killing has a daughter of his own and she requests to be married to him to try to save others from the fate. Just before she is killed her sister has her tell a story, and then the story continues in the next section. I recalled the princess in Aladdin telling stories but I didn't really know why until know. What a terrible thing to be so powerful that you command a wife and death each and every day.

The wife telling her first story to her sister and her new husband, the sultan.

The Merchant and the Genius
These stories are utilizing stories within stories, which is kind've hard for me to wrap my brain around but also are really interesting. I was surprised that the same plot that was happening between the wife and the sultan is happening between the merchant and the genie- the genie lets him live to finish telling his stories just like the sultan lets the wife live to finish telling hers.

The Hind
In this story one of the three old men told a miraculous enough story to save the merchants life from the genie. I was surprised in the end when it was over but then the next old man stood up and began to tell yet another story to the genie. Its pretty interesting that these old men who didn't even know the merchant when working on his behalf to save his life.

The Two Black Dogs
In another of the wife's stories the second old man told the genie of how he got the two black dogs following him around. The dogs are his brothers who plotted against him and who were turned to dogs by the husbands fairy wife. The genie was again intrigued and spared the merchant and also again the sultan was impressed with the story. Then it was time for the story of the third man but she didn't remember it so she changed to a better story.

The Fisherman
This story got a little complicated because of the number of layers in it. In simplest terms the queen was at first telling the story of a genie telling a story to a fisherman, then it switched and the fisherman was telling a story to the genie.

The story of the Fisherman
It goes like this, the fisherman caught the genies bottle in a net and instead of the genie granting him wishes he would only grant him the choice of his way to die. The fisherman was cunning and tricked the genie back into his bottle and returned him back to the sea. This could be a fun story to retell, perhaps I could add on to the end. Also it could be told as a warning to future fishers in the area.

The Greek King and the Physician Douban
Another level of storytelling was added to this by the fisherman telling the story of a king who would then tell a story to his grand vizir. So now at this point the wife is telling a story of a story of a story. I bet the sultan is having a hard time wrapping his brain around it all and in this way he'll never let the story end.

The Story of the Parrot
The physician Douban was a character in the Kings story and he bought a parrot to watch over his wife when he had to leave for business. This story was interesting because the physician trusted the parrot but then in the end he thought he was lying so he flung him on the ground and actually killed him. Not a very happy story.

The Physician's Revenge
 Now the fisherman continued to tell the story of the Greek King, and this story began to take shape to represent the situation that the fisherman and the genie were in. It showed that if the king had spared the physician then they both could have lived, but since he did not the physician go his revenge. This is just like if the genie had spared the fisherman, the fisherman wouldn't be about to throw him back into the ocean.

The Sultan and the Fish
The fisherman ended up releasing the genie so he could tell him a story in return for the story about the Greek king/physician. This story was about some magical fish a naive sultan who went to the lake but found a man half made of marble. This is some very complicated stuff, I thought I would like layered stories but they are so hard to follow.

King of the Black Isles
This story had a happy ending for the sultan and for the man made of stone. As well as this the fish were turned back to people and the evil enchantress was killed by the sultan. This tangled web of stories was finally over and I was entertained but so glad.