The merchant and the genie

Woodcut by William Harvey , 1838–40

The Merchant and the Djinni is a fairy tale from the Arabian Nights . It is in Claudia Otts translation as The Merchant and the Dschinni (Nights 1-3), in Max Henning as The Merchant and the Ifrît , in Gustav Weil as the story of the merchant with the spirit .

content

A merchant stops at a tree on the way, eats dates and throws the stones away. A ghost comes and wants to kill him because the stone has killed his son. The merchant gets hold of his last debts and swears to come back in a year. When it's over, he says goodbye to the family in tears. Under the tree he awaits the spirit. Three old people come by one after the other. The first has a gazelle, the second two dogs. They admire the merchant's history and await the spirit with him. He comes and wants to kill him. Then the first old man offers to tell him his story about the gazelle instead.

classification

A genie is a ghost or demon . The punch line leads over to The Story of the First Old and The Story of the Second Old , whereupon he releases the merchant. According to Claudia Ott , the cycle of the merchant and the dschinni comes from the Indo-Persian tradition, to which the Arabian Nights originally goes back. A story of the third old man is missing in this version, see " Story of the third old man with the mule ".

literature

Claudia Ott (Ed.): A thousand and one nights. How it all started Based on the oldest Arabic manuscript in the edition by Muhsin Mahdi, first translated into German and appended by Claudia Ott. Title of the original Arabic edition: The Thousand And One Nights (Alf Layla wa-Layla). dtv, Munich 2017, ISBN 978-3-423-14611-1 , pp. 31-38 (first CH Beck, Munich 2006).

Individual evidence

↑ Claudia Ott (Ed.): A thousand and one nights. How it all started Based on the oldest Arabic manuscript in the edition by Muhsin Mahdi, first translated into German and appended by Claudia Ott. Title of the original Arabic edition: The Thousand And One Nights (Alf Layla wa-Layla). dtv, Munich 2017, ISBN 978-3-423-14611-1 , p. 690 (first CH Beck, Munich 2006).
↑ Claudia Ott (Ed.): A thousand and one nights. How it all started Based on the oldest Arabic manuscript in the edition by Muhsin Mahdi, first translated into German and appended by Claudia Ott. Title of the original Arabic edition: The Thousand And One Nights (Alf Layla wa-Layla). dtv, Munich 2017, ISBN 978-3-423-14611-1 , p. 645 (first CH Beck, Munich 2006).

Web links

[1] Claudia Ott (Ed.): A thousand and one nights. How it all started Based on the oldest Arabic manuscript in the edition by Muhsin Mahdi, first translated into German and appended by Claudia Ott. Title of the original Arabic edition: The Thousand And One Nights (Alf Layla wa-Layla). dtv, Munich 2017, ISBN 978-3-423-14611-1 , p. 690 (first CH Beck, Munich 2006).

[2] Claudia Ott (Ed.): A thousand and one nights. How it all started Based on the oldest Arabic manuscript in the edition by Muhsin Mahdi, first translated into German and appended by Claudia Ott. Title of the original Arabic edition: The Thousand And One Nights (Alf Layla wa-Layla). dtv, Munich 2017, ISBN 978-3-423-14611-1 , p. 645 (first CH Beck, Munich 2006).