The Fisherman and the Jinni

"The Fisherman and the Jinni" is the second top-level story told by Sheherazade in the One Thousand and One Nights.

Synopsis[]

There was an old, poor fisherman who cast his net four times a day and only four times. One day he went to the shore and cast his net. When he tried to pull it up, he found it to be heavy. When he dove in and pulled up the net, he found a dead donkey in it. Then he cast his net again and netted a pitcher full of dirt. Then he cast his net for a third time and netted shards of pottery and glass. On his fourth and final try, he called upon the name of God and cast his net. When he pulled it up he found a copper jar with a cap that had the seal of Solomon on it. The fisherman was overjoyed, since he could sell the jar for money. He was curious of what was inside the jar, and removed the cap with his knife. A plume of smoke came out of the jar and condensed into an Ifrit (a more powerful, malevolent jinni). The fisherman was frightened, although initially the jinni did not notice him. The jinni thought that Solomon had come to kill him. When the fisherman told him that Solomon had been dead for many centuries, the Jinni was overjoyed and granted the fisherman a choice of the manner of his death.

The jinni explained that for the first hundred years of his imprisonment, he swore to enrich the person who freed 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 freed him, yet nobody did so. After four hundred years of imprisonment, the jinni became enraged and swore to grant the person who freed him a choice of deaths.

The fisherman pleaded for his life, but the jinni would not concede. The fisherman decided to trick the jinni. He asked the jinni how he managed to fit into the bottle. The jinni, eager to show off, shrank and placed himself back into the bottle to demonstrate his abilities. The fisherman quickly put the cap back on and threatened to throw it back to the sea. The jinni pleaded with the fisherman, who began to tell the story of "The Wazir and the Sage Duban" as an example of why the jinni should have spared him.

Duban was a wise sage who was summoned to King Yunan to cure the king of his terrible leprosy. Duban cured him by having him play polo with a club tipped with medicine. The king was very grateful until a vizier told him that if Duban could cure him that easily, he could also kill him just as quick. The king remained skeptical and the two exchange some moral tales.

The king recounts the tale of king Sindbad who accidentally killed his own falcon that was attempting to save him from being poisoned by vipers while the vizier recounts the story of a vizier who carelessly goaded a prince into almost getting eaten by a ghula during a hunting trip.

The stories are recited but eventually the king is won over to the vizier's side. The king tells Duban he will kill him and Duban says that after he is beheaded, the king must read from a special book to his head and he will hear the head speak. The king is amazed at this and Duban is prepared and executed as was chosen by the king. Duban is beheaded and the king licks his fingers and turns the pages of the book open to find nothing there. The book was poisoned and the king dies. The head tells him that had he been grateful to Duban then God would have spared him but since he hadn't spared him then God wouldn't spare the king either.

After the story, the jinni pleaded for mercy, and swore to help him in return for being released. The fisherman accepted the bargain, and released the jinni. The jinni then led the fisherman to a pond with many exotic fish, and the fisherman caught four. Before disappearing, the jinni told the fisherman to give the fish to the Sultan. The fisherman did so and was rewarded with money for presenting the fishes. Every time a fish was fried, a person would appear and question them, and the fish answered. When the fish would be flipped in the pan, it would be charred. Awed by the sight, the Sultan asked the fisherman where he got the fish and went to the pond to uncover their mystery. When he reached his destination, the Sultan found a young man who was half man and half stone.

The young man recounted his story, as the story of "The Ensorcelled Prince".

The prince had been a famous monarch of his country and had married his cousin whom he loved. However, his cousin did not return his love, and each night would elope with a slave. She would drug the prince and leave the city gates to sleep with the slave. The prince found out about this by overhearing one of his slave girls talk about it and followed his wife out of the gate one night to find the slave and kill him. He struck the slave in the neck but only wounded him and left before finishing the job.

His wife spent the next three years in mourning and built a tomb for her still living lover. The prince put up with this for a while but eventually had enough and yelled at her that the slave was never coming back. Realizing he was the one who did this the wife cursed the prince and all the inhabitants of the city. She turned the prince into half stone and the inhabitants into fishes and placed them in a giant pond.

The Sultan heard this and then assisted the Prince in his liberation and revenge. He killed the slave and then took his place covered in bandages in the tomb. He spoke in a thick accent to the wife when she arrived. He told her if she changed back the prince and the inhabitants he would be cured and they could pursue their love once more. She did as he commanded and when she came to greet him, the king pulled out his sword and cut her in two.

The king and the now-cured prince became close friends, and the fisherman who first found the fish was rewarded with his son being appointed the Sultan's treasurer, and the Sultan and the Prince married the fisherman's two beautiful daughters.

Adaptations[]

Film[]

The 1940 film The Thief of Baghdad borrows elements of this story.
King Yunan from the Duban the Sage story appears in Pasolini's Arabian Nights portrayed by Salvatore Sapienza. However, his story is changed to the third dervish's tale involving the shipwreck at the magnetic mountain.

Television[]

In the Disneyland TV series, this story was animated for the 1957 episode Our Friend the Atom, as seen here.

References[]

(1955) The Arabian Nights Entertainments, New York: Heritage Press
(2006) The Arabian Nights Reader, Marzolph, Ulrich, Wayne State University Press