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"The Fisherman and the Jinni" is the second top-level story told by Sheherazade in the One Thousand and One Nights .
There is an old, poor fisherman who casts his net exactly four times a day. One day he goes to the shore and casts his net. First he catches a dead donkey, then a pitcher full of dirt, then shards of pottery and glass. On his fourth and final try, he calls upon the name of God and casts his net. When he pulls it up he finds a copper jar with a cap that had the seal of Solomon on it. The fisherman is overjoyed, since he could sell the jar for money. He is curious of what is inside the jar, and removes the cap with his knife. A plume of smoke comes out of the jar and condenses into an Ifrit (a more powerful, malevolent jinni). The fisherman is frightened, although initially the jinni does not notice him. The jinni thinks that Solomon has come to kill him. When the fisherman tells him that Solomon had been dead for many centuries, the Jinni is overjoyed and grants the fisherman a choice of the manner of his death.
The jinni explains that for the first hundred years of his imprisonment, he swore to enrich the person who frees him forever, but nobody freed him. For the second century of his imprisonment, he swore to grant his liberator great wealth, but nobody freed him. After another century, he swore to grant three wishes to the person who frees him, yet nobody did so. After four hundred years of imprisonment, the jinni became enraged and swore to grant the person who frees him a choice of deaths.
The fisherman pleads for his life, but the jinni does not concede. The fisherman decides to trick the jinni. He asks the jinni how he managed to fit into the bottle. The jinni, eager to show off, shrinks and places himself back into the bottle to demonstrate his abilities. The fisherman quickly puts the cap back on and threatens to throw it back to the sea. The jinni pleads with the fisherman, who begins to tell the story of "The Wazir and the Sage Duban" as an example of why the jinni should have spared him.
After the story, the jinni pleads for mercy, and swears to help him in return for being released. The fisherman accepts the bargain, and releases the jinni. The jinni then leads the fisherman to a pond with many exotic fish, and the fisherman catches four. Before disappearing, the jinni tells the fisherman to give the fish to the Sultan. The fisherman does so and is rewarded with money for presenting the fishes. However, every time a fish is fried, a person will appear and question them, and the fish answer. When the fish are flipped in the pan, it will be charred. Awed by the sight, the Sultan asks the fisherman where he got the fish and goes to the pond to uncover their mystery. When he reaches his destination, the Sultan finds a young man who is half man and half stone.
The young man recounts his story, as the story of "The Ensorcelled Prince".
The Sultan hears this and then assists the Prince in his liberation and revenge. He kills the slave and then takes his place covered in bandages in the tomb. He speaks in a thick accent to the wife when she arrives. He tells her if she'd change back the prince and the inhabitants he would be cured and they could pursue their love once more. She does as he commands and when she comes to greet him, the king pulls out his sword and cuts her in two.
The king and the now-cured prince become close friends, and the fisherman who first found the fish is rewarded with his son being appointed the Sultan's treasurer, and the Sultan and the Prince marry the fisherman's two beautiful daughters.
The story is classified in the international Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index as tale type ATU 331, "The Spirit in the Bottle". [1] According to scholars Ulrich Marzolph , Richard van Leewen and Stith Thompson, similar stories have appeared as literary treatments in the Middle Ages (more specifically, since the 13th century), [2] [3] although Marzolph and van Leewen argue that the literary treatments derive from legends about King Solomon. [4]
In the same vein, in his 2004 revision of the ATU system, German scholar Hans-Jörg Uther indicated an Oriental origin for the tale type, of Jewish and Arabic provenance. [5]
One Thousand and One Nights is a collection of Middle Eastern folktales compiled in the Arabic language during the Islamic Golden Age. It is often known in English as the Arabian Nights, from the first English-language edition, which rendered the title as The Arabian Nights' Entertainment.
Scheherazade is a major female character and the storyteller in the frame narrative of the Middle Eastern collection of tales known as the One Thousand and One Nights.
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Catherine and her Destiny is an Italian fairy tale collected by Thomas Frederick Crane in Italian Popular Tales, and included by Andrew Lang in The Pink Fairy Book. It is classified as Aarne–Thompson–Uther Index as ATU 938, "Placidas" (Eustacius):
The Golden-Headed Fish is an Armenian fairy tale. It was first collected by ethnologue and clergyman Karekin Servantsians in Hamov-Hotov (1884) with the title ԱԼԹՈՒՆ ԲԱՇ ԲԱԼԸՂ. It was later translated to English by A. G. Seklemian, and also in French as Le poisson à tête d'or by scholar Frédéric Macler. Andrew Lang included it in The Olive Fairy Book.
What the Rose did to the Cypress is a Persian fairy tale. Andrew Lang included it in The Brown Fairy Book (1904), with the note "Translated from two Persian MSS. in the possession of the British Museum and the India Office, and adapted, with some reservations, by Annette S. Beveridge."
Go I Know Not Whither and Fetch I Know Not What is a Russian fairy tale collected by Alexander Afanasyev in Narodnye russkie skazki.
"The Peasant's Wise Daughter", "The Peasant's Clever Daughter" or "The Clever Lass" is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm in Grimm's Fairy Tales as tale number 94. It has also spread into Bohemia and Božena Němcová included it into her collection of Czech national folk tales in 1846.
"The Pink" or "The Carnation" is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm in Grimm's Fairy Tales as tale number 76.
The Three Apples, or The Tale of the Murdered Woman, is a story contained in the One Thousand and One Nights collection. It is a first-level story, being told by Scheherazade herself, and contains one second-level story, the Tale of Núr al-Dín Alí and his Son. It occurs early in the Arabian Nights narrative, being started during night 19, after the Tale of the Portress. The Tale of Núr al-Dín Alí and his Son starts during night 20, and the cycle ends during night 25, when Scheherazade starts the Tale of the Hunchback.
Shahmaran is a mythical creature, half-woman and half-snake, originating in the Armenian, Indo-Iranian and Turkic folklores.
Antun Yusuf Hanna Diyab was a Syrian Maronite writer and storyteller. He originated the best-known versions of the tales of Aladdin and Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves which have been added to the One Thousand and One Nights since French orientalist Antoine Galland translated and included them, after which they soon became popular across the West.
The Ebony Horse, The Enchanted Horse or The Magic Horse is a folk tale featured in the Arabian Nights. It features a flying mechanical horse, controlled using keys, that could fly into outer space and towards the Sun. The ebony horse can fly the distance of one year in a single day, and is used as a vehicle by the Prince of Persia, Qamar al-Aqmar, in his adventures across Persia, Arabia and Byzantium.
The Sisters who Envied Their Cadette is a fairy tale collected by French orientalist Antoine Galland and published in his translation of The Arabian Nights, a compilation of Arabic and Persian fairy tales.
Hassan of Basra is a folktale associated with the Arabian Nights, a compilation of Persian and Arabic folktales. Similar stories are attested in the same collection: Janshah and Mazin of Khorassan.
Little Nightingale the Crier is a Palestinian Arab folktale collected by scholars Ibrahim Muhawi and Sharif Kanaana. It is related to the theme of the calumniated wife and classified in the international Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index as type ATU 707, "The Three Golden Children".
Histoire du prince et de son cheval is a modern Egyptian folktale first collected by author Gillaume Spitta-Bey in the late-19th century. Orientalist E. A. Wallis Budge translated it as The Story of the Prince and his Horse. Orientalist J. C. Mardrus included the tale as The Eleventh Captain's Tale in his translation of The Arabian Nights, despite it not being part of the original text of the compilation.
Ahmed and Paribanou, or The Story of Prince Ahmed and the fairy Pari Banou, is one of the tales of the compilation Arabian Nights. One of the Islamic kings of India had three sons, namely Houssain (Husayn), Ali, and Ahmed (Ahmad), and a niece named Nouronnihar. Prince Ahmed was the younger brother of Houssain. The latter possessed a magic carpet of wondrous locomotive powers. Ahmed was equally blessed in the ownership of a magic tent, a present from the fairy Paribanou, which would cover a whole army when spread, yet fold up into so small a compass that it might be carried in one's pocket.
