Sorcerer vs Sorceress Queen

Nights 739-756

This week’s story was about a princess from the sea people named Julnar and her son. It felt similar in a lot of ways, with the shape of a king looking for a wife and finding a perfect slave woman to have a son with. But the details were different. We’ve never met one of the sea people before. And her son’s eventual betrothal, which had similar twists like being lost at sea and being turned into an animal, was different in other details. 

I liked the first half more than the second. It felt like a bit of a missed opportunity when the Julnar’s son left the sea people. I wanted to hear more about them! Instead we got someone who might be the iconic sorceress queen from the Magic set. Her name is Queen Lab, she is referred to as a “sorceress queen” (Night 752, p. 80), and she turns men into animals. She is evil and is eventually killed by the sea people when they rescue Julnar’s son from her clutches.

We also meet ‘Abdallah in this story (“there is no greater sorcerer in this age” (Night 755, p. 85)). He helps the prince escape the sorceress queen, at least for a while. I thought this might lead to the Sandals of Abdallah, but we aren’t there yet. One of the last stories in the Nights is called “‘Abd Allah of the land and ‘Abd Allah of the Sea.” So I guess we’ll see him there. If there were any more Magic cards in this story, we could say it was the “Metamorphosis” when Queen Lab turned the prince into a bird. There are so many of these changes that it’s hard to place a single Metamorphosis as the exemplar in the Nights (in fact, Queen Lab gets a taste of her own medicine before her story ends).