Reading Notes: Arabian Nights, Part A

Desert, Jordan by _Mrs_B. Web source: Creative Commons 

Arabian Nights: The Merchant and the Genius

- There once was a merchant that had a lot of money and property. He was an important guy, so he often had to travel for business to arrange his affair and stuff like that.

- So the merchant is on a business trip, and he stops to get a drink of water and a very angry genie (or genius, as it is put in the  original work), say that he is going to kill the man for killing the genie's son. The man is super confused because he has no idea who the son is, but apparently he hit him with a stone while he was resting on his trip.

- I'm keeping in mind that Scheherazade is telling this story to a Sultan who is letting her stay alive as she tells the stories every night. However, she is a smart woman because instead of finishing her story and letting her fate be left up to the Sultan, she keeps adding to her stories. 

-Back to the merchant: he asks the genius to postpone killing him for one year so that he can get his life in order I guess? He promises the genie that he will return to the same spot one year later, which seems shady to me, but that's okay. 

- The merchant tells his wife about the devastating news and they feel sad. So the merchant eventually goes back to the desert to meet with the genie and runs into some old men. When the  genie comes to make good on his promise, the first old man says  that he has a story to tell and the genie agrees to listen. 

- This story ends in a cliffhanger, but continues in the next episode. I think that this collection is very interesting because of how it shows the power of stories. It may also be interesting to add an alternate end to this story. 

Bibliography 

The Arabian Nights' Entertainments by Andrew Lang. Web source: The UnTextbook.