Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 5 1887.djvu/126

118 "somewhat less than dogs, but larger than foxes." (Thalia, § 102-105.)

Janshah, leaving the ants behind him, proceeds on his journey alone till he reaches the Sabbath river, which he crosses, and arrives at the city of the Jews. While waiting for a caravan to take him home, he hears a crier offering a thousand pieces of gold and a beautiful slave-girl in return for a single day's work. On answering the proclamation, Janshah is taken to a merchant, who leads him to the foot of a high mountain, where he sews him up in the skin of a mule. A huge bird carries Janshah to the summit of the mountain, whence he throws down precious stones to the Jew, who abandons him to his fate. Janshah wanders over the mountains till he arrives at the palace of Sheykh Nasr, Solomon's deputy-ruler of the birds, who receives him kindly, and promises to send him home when the birds arrive to pay him their usual annual visit. When the day comes, the sheykh goes forth to receive the homage of the birds, giving Janshah the keys of the palace to amuse himself with, and, of course, warns him not to open a particular door. Within it Janshah finds a great basin of water, a pavilion, and a great open saloon, containing many wonderful objects. Presently three doves, as large as eagles, descend to the basin, cast off their feather-dresses, and become three beautiful maidens, who bathe there. Janshah joins and converses with them (a very unusual circumstance in any tale of the kind, and wholly inconsistent with what follows), and they presently fly away, and leave him disconsolate.

The Jinn in most of the tales of The Thousand and One Nights resemble the Shedim or Mazikeen of the Jews; but the beautiful and gracious beings spoken of in such stories as Janshah and Hasan are human, except in their supernatural power, and more closely resemble the peris of Persia and the fairies of Italian romance, the Ifrits and Morids being represented as their subjects or slaves. The Deevs of Persia have more resemblance to the devils of the Middle Ages than to the evil Jinn of the Arabian Nights.

By the advice of Sheykh Nasr, Janshah waits his opportunity till