Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 10, 2025
We behaved with the greatest temerity in entering these ruins; no one now living had been in before we did. The building is the abode of jinni, and no one who goes in is ever able to come out by the same door. We were so fortunate as to be able to do so.
Jinni also inhabit the lakes in the Gara mountains, and it is considered dangerous to wet your feet in them, for you will catch a fever. We could not induce the Bedouin to gather a water-plant we coveted in one of them for this reason. They inhabit, too, the caves where the people dwell, and have to be propitiated with suitable offerings.
But the Minister wondered thereat with exceeding wonder; and when the Court broke up King Shahryar entered his palace. When it was the Second Night, said Dunyazad to her sister Shahrazad, "O my sister, finish for us that story of the Merchant and the Jinni;" and she answered "With joy and goodly gree, if the King permit me."
Then the youth would have fallen on him with the sword; but the King seeing that the Prince was doughtier than he, sheathed his scymitar and stood till the young man came up to him, when he accosted him courteously and said to him, "O youth, art thou a man or a Jinni?" Quoth the Prince, "Did I not respect thy right as mine host and thy daughter's honour, I would spill thy blood!
Then the King's son of the Jinn mounted his courser and taking the Prince up behind him, fared on swiftly through the murks and glooms until morning, when lo, they found themselves in a dark land and a desert, full of black rocks and stones, as it were a piece of Hell; and the Prince asked the Jinni, "What is the name of this land?"
He had brought her so far, to the very threshold of what she sought, and, if he should now abandon her, that threshold must remain uncrossed. De Launay had taken on some of the attributes of a guardian angel, a jinni who alone could guide her to the goal she sought. And she was about to divorce him, to cut the slight tie that bound him to her.
Then, O Jinni, I married the herdsman's daughter to him, and she transformed my wife into this gazelle, saying: Her shape is a comely and by no means loathsome. After this she abode with us night and day, day and night, till the Almighty took her to Himself. Such is my tale! Quoth the Jinni, "This story is indeed strange, and therefore I grant thee the third part of his blood."
She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when the Jinni narrated to the Jinniyah how the King had caused the wedding contract to be drawn up between the hunchbacked groom and the lovely young lady who was heart-broken for sorrow; and how she was the fairest of created things and even more beautiful than this youth, the Jinniyah cried at him "Thou liest! this youth is handsomer than any one of his day."
Quoth Judar, "If he be indeed my friend, salute him and bid him come to me." "On my head be it," quoth the Minister. Then Judar bringing out the ring rubbed it and bade the Jinni fetch him a dress of the best, which he gave to the Wazir saying, "Don this dress and go tell the King what I say."
Cried the people, "By Allah he is a pretty fellow!"; and at the cry Badr al-din awoke and found himself lying at a city-gate with a crowd gathered around him. Quoth one, "Well! well!"; and quoth another, "Ho! ho!"; and a third, "So! so!"; and a fourth cried, "This youth is mad, is possessed of the Jinni!"
Word Of The Day
Others Looking