Wednesday, 25 February 2009 19:33
THN
Alf Layla wa Layla The Thousand Nights and a Night translated by Sir Richard F. Burton. Early versions of this collection of tales go back to the tenth century, but the present collection includes material from as recent as the sixteenth. It made its way to Europe, specifically France, in the early 1700's and Burton's version was published in the late 1800's. The source tales come from all over the Near East, as well as India. The frame story of Shaharazad is Persian and if you're looking for Sindbad the Sailor, this book is his home. Many of these tales feature the Caliph Harun al'Rashid, a historical figure who ruled the Abbasids and was a correspondent of Charlemagne. This is the 1850 version which is much less exhaustive and inclusive than his famous 17 volume 1885 version. Nonetheless, the file is huge. Other copies of this can be found here.
Andrew Lang's version. of The Arabian Nights. (Broken Link 2/11/02)
Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp - a story associated with the Nights, but not included in the canonical collection. (Broken Link 2/11/02)
Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves is also associated with the Nights. This is from the Burton translation. (Broken Link 2/11/02)
Jinni, Genie, Djinn, Richard F. Burton had a fair amount to say abouth them in the footnotes to his translation of the Nights. He also had notes about Ghuls, more commonly known as ghouls, the Rukh, and flying carpets.
John Crocker has an excellent set of notes on the Nights entitled Arabian Nights Entertainments after the publishing house which put out Burton's translation. He details works of art, music & literature inspired by the Nights, as well as providing a history of the Nights and of many of the characters contained therin.
Fatme Sharafeddine Hassan's essay The Passion and the Magic: Distinctions of Arabic Folktales, highlights common features of those stories.
alt.mythology.jinn has been a fairly low traffic newsgroup devoted to that subject.
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