The Bird Maiden

Nights 508-536

The three nested stories from last week all end, each with a happy ending for all but the snake queen and the villains.

Janshah has the best story. He wins a difficult bride: the beautiful Shamsa, a jinn woman whose bird costume lets her fly like a bird. Janshah steals the bird costume while she is bathing, then follows her on a great quest to the jeweled castle of Takni. There, he receives the favor of the jinns. They send Janshah back home on a flying couch and help Janshah’s father slaughter the army of India. Janshah and Shamsa have some great times together, but eventually he loses her when she is bit by a shark. That’s a lot of plot! It’s a fun story.

The end of Buluqiya’s story is only remarkable for the appearance of a jeweled bird from Paradise (Night 532, p. 441) that tells him about the four leaves of Adam (it’s a fun piece of Golden Legend-type symbolism). And finally, Karim’s story ends when he and some others eat the snake queen. Villains can’t stomach her and die; Karim and the king are blessed by eating her flesh.

These stories were great. They’re among the first that I would recommend to readers of the Arabian Nights. I don’t know if they are too typical of the Nights, but I think they’re what readers would expect.

As far as Magic cards, Shamsa is sort of a “Bird Maiden” and the bird of paradise is sort of a “Jeweled Bird”. I should mention somewhere in here that I looked up where some of the Magic flavor text comes from, for “Bird Maiden” and “Repentant Blacksmith” (the only quotes from a version of Arabian Nights that aren’t from a children’s version). The “Bird Maiden” quote is from Night 12, p. 74; the Blacksmith’s is from Night 13, p. 85. Neither of them have anything to do with the stories of the Bird Maiden Shamsa or the Blacksmith we met earlier. The Blacksmith quote is actually supposed to be said by a glass of wine.

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