File:Stories from the Arabian nights (1911) (14566836397).jpg

Identifier: storiesfromarabi00hous2 (find matches)
Title: Stories from the Arabian nights
Year: 1911 (1910s)
Authors: Housman, Laurence, 1865-1959 Dulac, Edmund, 1882-1953, ill
Subjects: Folklore, Arab Fairy tales
Publisher: London : Hodder and Stoughton
Contributing Library: New York Public Library
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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h might be laid at the Sultans feet, as ahumble offering from the poorest of his subjects. No sooner had the monarch seen them, sostrange of form and so brilliant and diversein hue, than his longing to taste of thembecame strongly awakened ; so, by the hand ofhis vizier, he sent them to the cook to be pre-pared forthwith for the royal table. As forthe poor fisherman, he received no fewer thanfour hundred pieces of gold from the Sultansbounty, and returned to his family rejoicing inan affluence which surpassed his utmost expec-tations. The cook meanwhile, proud of an opportunityto exhibit her culinary skill on dainties so rare,scaled and cleaned the fish and laid them in afrying-pan over the fire. But scarcely had shedone so when the wall of the kitchen divided,and there issued forth from it a damsel ofmoon-like beauty richly apparelled, holding a rodof myrtle in her hand. With this she struckthe fish that lay in the frying-pan, and cried— O fish of my pond,Are ye true to your bond ?
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AND THE GENIE And immediately the four fishes lifted their headsfrom the frying fat and answered— Even so, the bond holds yet;Paid by thee, we pay the debt.With give and take is the reckoning met. Thereupon the damsel upset the pan into the fireand retired through the wall in the same waythat she had come, leaving the four fish allcharred to a cinder. The cook, beholding her labour thus broughtto naught, began to weep and bewail herself,expecting no less than instant dismissal, and wasstill loud in her lamentations when the vizierarrived to see if the fish were ready. On hearing her account of what had occurred,the vizier was greatly astonished, but feared tobring so strange a report to the Sultans earswhile the cravings of the royal appetite werestill unsatisfied ; so recalling the fisherman bya swift messenger, he bade him procure in allhaste four more fish of the same kind, promisingto reward him according to the speed with whichhe accomplished the task. So spurred, and by theadd

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