One Thousand and One Nights

This short story is about a “simpleton,” his wife, their donkey, and a pair of “tricksters” who resolve to steal the donkey and “make an ass of its master” (77). Praying on the simpleton and his wife’s religiosity and gullible stupidity, they manage to convince them that their donkey is a human cursed by his mother into animal form for mistreating her. When the simpleton goes to purchase another donkey and comes across his old one at the market-place, rather than realizing that he had been duped, he rebukes the donkey for mistreating his mother and getting turned into a donkey yet again, whispering to him: “By Allah, I will not buy you a second time!” (78).

Like “The Tale of the Hunchback,” this story includes three interconnected stories: “The Tale of King Yunan and Duban the Doctor,” “The Tale of King Sindbad and the Falcon,” and “The Tale of the Enchanted King.”

The story begins with a poor fisherman who casts his net and pulls up “a bottle made of yellow copper,” which “bore the seal of our master Solomon son of David” (80). By breaking the seal, he releases a terrifying jinnee who threatens to kill him.