The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night Volume XVI Part 9

The enchanted palaces of the Firm Island, with their prodigies of the Hart and the Dogs, &c., may also be mentioned (Amadis of Gaul, book II., chap. 21, &c.).

Pp. 107, 108.--Stories of changed s.e.x are not uncommon in Eastern and cla.s.sical mythology and folk-lore; usually, as in this instance, the change of a man into a woman, although it is the converse (apparent, of course) which we meet with occasionally in modern medical books.

In the Nights, &c., we have the story of the Enchanted Spring (No. 135j) in the great Sindibad cyclus (Nights, vi., pp. 145-150), and Lane (Modern Egyptians, chap. xxv.) relates a story which he heard in Cairo more resembling that of the transformed Wazir. In cla.s.sical legend we have the stories of Tiresias, Caeneus, and Iphis. Turning to India, we meet with the prototype of Caeneus in Amba, who was reincarnated as Sikhandin, in order to avenge herself on Bhishma, and subsequently exchanged her s.e.x with a Yaksha, and became a great warrior (Mahabharata Udyoga-Parva, 5942-7057). Some of the versions of the Enchanted Spring represent the Prince as recovering his s.e.x by an exchange with a demon, thus showing a transition from the story of Sikhandin to later replicas. There is also a story of changed s.e.x in the Hindi Baital Pachisi; and no doubt many others might be quoted.

History of What Befel the Fowl-let with the Fowler (Pp.

119-128).

One of the most curious stories relative to the escape of a captured prey is to be found in the 5th Canto of the Finnish Kalevala. Vainaimoinen, the old minstrel, is fishing in the lake where his love, Aino, has drowned herself, because she would not marry an old man. He hooks a salmon of very peculiar appearance, and while he is speculating about cutting it up and cooking it, it leaps from the boat into the water, and then reproaches him with his folly, telling him that it is Aino (now transformed into a water-nymph) who threw herself in his way to be his life-companion, but that owing to his folly in proposing to eat her, he has now lost her for ever. Hereupon she disappears, and all his efforts to rediscover her are fruitless.

The Tale of Attaf (Pp. 129-170).

P. 138, note 6.--I may add that an episode is inserted in the Europeanised version of this story, relative to the loves of the son of Chebib and the Princess of Herak, which is evidently copied from the first nocturnal meeting of Kamaralzaman and Budur (No. 21, Nights, iii., pp. 223-242), and is drawn on exactly similar lines (Weber, i. pp. 508-510).

History of Prince Habib, and What Befel Him with the Lady Durrat Al-Ghawwas (Pp. 171-201).

P. 197, note 1.--Epithets of colour, as applied to seas, frequently have a purely mythological application in Eastern tales. Thus, in the story of Zaher and Ali (cf. my "New Arabian Nights," p. 13) we read, "You are now upon an island of the Black Sea, which encompa.s.ses all other seas, and flows within Mount Kaf. According to the reports of travellers, it is a ten years' voyage before you arrive at the Blue Sea, and it takes full ten years to traverse this again to reach the Green Sea, after which there is another ten years'

voyage before you can reach the Greek Sea, which extends to inhabited countries and islands."

Kenealy says (in a note to his poem on "Night") that the Atlantic Ocean is called the Sea of Darkness, on account of the great irruption of water which occasioned its formation; but this is one of his positive statements relative to facts not generally known to the world, for which he considered it unnecessary to quote his authority.

P. 200.--According to one account of impalement which I have seen, the stake is driven through the flesh of the back beneath the skin.

Reading the account of the Crucifixion between the lines, I have come to the conclusion that the sudden death of Christ was due to his drinking from the sponge which had just been offered to him. The liquid, however, is said to have been vinegar, and not water; but this might have had the same effect, or water may have been subst.i.tuted, perhaps with the connivance of Pilate. In the latter case vinegar may only have been mentioned as a blind, to deceive the fanatical Jews. The fragmentary accounts of the Crucifixion which have come down to us admit of many possible interpretations of details.

Index to the Tales, and Proper Names, Together with Alphabetical Table of Notes in Volumes XI. To XVI.

Also

Additional Notes on the Bibliography of the Thousand and One Nights.

Index to the Tales and Proper Names in the Supplemental Nights.

N.B.--The Roman numerals denote the volume, the Arabic the page.

{The Arabic numerals have been discarded}

Abbaside, Ja'afar bin Yahya and Abd Al-Malik bin Salih the, i.

Abd Al-Malik bin Salih the Abbaside, Ja'afar bin Yahya and, i.

Abdullah bin Nafi', Tale of Harun Al-Rashid and, ii.

Abu Niyattayn, History of Abu Niyyah and, iv.

Abu Niyyah and Abu Niyyatayn, History of, iv.

Abu Sabir, Story of, i.

Abu Tammam, Story of Aylan Shah and, i.

Advantages of Patience, Of the, i.

Adventure of the Fruit Seller and the Concubine, iv.

Adventures of Khudadad and his Brothers, iii.

Adventures of Prince Ahmad and the Fairy Peri-Banu, iii.

Al-'Abbas, Tale of King Ins bin Kays and his daughter with the Son of King, ii.

Alaeddin, or the Wonderful Lamp, iii.

Al-Bundukani, or the Caliph Harun Al-Rashid and the daughter of King Kisra, vi.

Al-Hajjaj and the Three Young Men, i.

Al-Hajjaj bin Yusuf and the Young Sayyid, History of, v.

Al-Hayfa and Yusuf, The Loves of, v.

Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, Story of, iii.

Ali Khwajah and the Merchant of Baghdad, Story of, iii.

Allah, Of the Speedy relief of, i.

Allah, Of Trust in, i.

Al-Maamun and Zubaydah, i.

Al-Maamun, The Concubine of, ii.

Al-Malik Al-Zahir Rukn Al-Din Bibars al-Bundukdari and the Sixteen Captains of Police, ii.

Al-Nu'uman and the Arab of the Banu Tay, i.

Al-Rahwan, King Shah Bakht and his Wazir, i.

Al-Rashid and the Barmecides, i.

Al-Rashid, Ibn Al-Sammak and, i.

Appointed Term, which, if it be Advanced may not be Deferred, and if it be Deferred, may not be Advanced, Of the, i.

Arab of the Banu Tay, Al-Nu'uman and the, i.

a.s.s, Tale of the Sharpers with the Shroff and the, i.

Attaf, The Tale of, vi.

Attaf, The Tale of, (by Alex. J. Cotheal), vi.

Aylan Shah and Abu Tammam, Story of, i.

Baba Abdullah, Story of the Blind Man, iii.

Babe, History of the Kazi who bare a, iv.

Bakhtzaman, Story of King, i.

Banu Tay, Al-Nu'uman and the Arab of the, i.