Nouman (Sidi), an Arab who married Amīnê, a very beautiful woman, who ate her rice with a bodkin. Sidi, wishing to know how his wife could support life and health without more food than she partook of in his presence, watched her narrowly, and discovered that she was a ghoul, who went by stealth every night and feasted on the fresh-buried dead. When Sidi made this discovery, Aminê changed him into a dog. After he was restored to his normal shape, he changed Aminê into a mare, which every day he rode almost to death.—Arabian Nights (“History of Sidi Nouman”).
Your majesty knows that ghouls of either sex are demons which wander about the fields. They commonly inhabit ruinous buildings, whence they issue suddenly on unwary travellers, whom they kill and devour. If they fail to meet with travellers, they go by night into burying grounds, and dig up dead bodies, on which they feed.—“History of Sidi Nouman.”
Nouredeen, son of Khacan (vizier of Zinebi, king of Balsora). He got possession of the “beautiful Persian” purchased for the king. At his father’s death he soon squandered away his patrimony in the wildest extravagance, and fled with his beautiful slave to Bagdad. Here he encountered Haroun-al-Raschid in disguise, and so pleased the caliph, that he was placed in the number of those courtiers most intimate with his majesty, who also bestowed on him so plentiful a fortune, that he lived with the “beautiful Persian” in affluence all the rest of his life.—Arabian Nights (“Nouredeen and the Beautiful Persian”).
Nour´eddin´ Ali, younger son of the vizier of Egypt. “He was possessed of as much merit as can fall to the lot of man.” Having quarrelled with his elder brother, he travelled to Baso´ra, where he married the vizier’s daughter, and succeeded his father-in-law in office. A son was born to him in due time, and on the very same day the wife of his elder brother had a daughter. Noureddin died when his son was barely twenty, and unmarried.—Arabian Nights (“Noureddin Ali,” etc.).
Nourgehan’s Bracelet. Nourgehan, emperor of the Moguls, had a bracelet which had the property of discovering poison, even at a considerable distance. When poison was anywhere near the wearer, the stones of the bracelet seemed agitated, and the agitation increased as the poison approached them.—Comte de Caylus, Oriental Tales (“The Four Talismans,” 1743).
Nour´jahad, a sleeper, like Rip Van Winkle, Epimen´idês, etc. (See Sleepers.)
Nourjeham (“light of the world”). So the Sultana Nourmahal was subsequently called.—T. Moore, Lalla Rookh (“The Light of the Haram,” 1817).
Nourmahal´ (The sultana), i.e. “Light of the Haram,” afterwards called Nourjeham (“light of the world”). She was for a season estranged from the sultan, till he gave a grand banquet, at which she appeared in disguise as a lute-player and singer. The sultan was so enchanted with her performance, that he exclaimed, “If Nourmahal had so played and sung, I could forgive her all;” whereupon the sultana threw off her mask, and Selim “caught her to his heart.”—T. Moore, Lalla Rookh (“The Light of the Haram,” 1817).
Nouron´ihar, daughter of the Emir Fakreddin; a laughing, beautiful girl, full of fun and pretty mischief, dotingly fond of Gulchenrouz, her cousin, a boy of 13. She married the Caliph Vathek, with whom she descended into the abyss of Eblis, whence she never after returned to the light of day.
The trick she played Bababalouk was this: Vathek, the caliph, was on a visit to Fakreddin, the emir´, and Bababalouk, his chief eunuch, intruded into the bathroom, where Nouronihar and her damsels were bathing. Nouronihar induced the old eunuch to rest himself on the swing, when the girls set it going with all their might. The cords broke, the eunuch fell into the bath, and the girls made off with their lamps, and left the meddlesome old fool to flounder about till morning, when assistance came, but not before he was half dead.—W. Beckford, Vathek (1784).