[91]. Galland makes each contain quatre vases de bronze, grands comme des cuves.
[92]. The Arab. is “Líwán,” for which see vols. iv. 71 and vii. 347. Galland translates it by a “terrace” and “niche.”
[93]. The idea is borrowed from the lume eterno of the Rosicrucians. It is still prevalent throughout Syria where the little sepulchral lamps buried by the Hebrews, Greeks and Romans are so called. Many tales are told of their being found burning after the lapse of centuries: but the traveller will never see the marvel.
[94]. The first notice of the signet-ring and its adventures is by Herodotus in the Legend of the Samian Polycrates; and here it may be observed that the accident is probably founded on fact; every fisherman knows that fish will seize and swallow spoon-bait and other objects that glitter. The text is the Talmudic version of Solomon’s seal-ring. The king of the demons, after becoming a “Bottle-imp,” prayed to be set free upon condition of teaching a priceless secret, and after cajoling the Wise One flung his signet into the sea and cast the owner into a land four hundred miles distant. Here David’s son begged his bread till he was made head cook to the King of Ammon at Mash Kernín. After a while, he eloped with Na’úzah, the daughter of his master, and presently when broiling a fish found therein his missing property. In the Moslem version, Solomon had taken prisoner Amínah, the daughter of a pagan prince, and had homed her in his Harem, where she taught him idolatry. One day before going to the Hammam he entrusted to her his signet-ring presented to him by the four angelic Guardians of sky, air, water and earth when the mighty Jinni Al-Sakhr (see vol. i. 41; v. 36), who was hovering about unseen, snatching away the ring, assumed the king’s shape, whereby Solomon’s form became so changed that his courtiers drove him from his own doors. Thereupon Al-Sakhr, taking seat upon the throne, began to work all manner of iniquity, till one of the Wazirs, suspecting the transformation, read aloud from a scroll of the law: this caused the demon to fly shrieking and to drop the signet into the sea. Presently Solomon, who had taken service with a fisherman, and received for wages two fishes a day, found his ring and made Al-Sakhr a “Bottle-imp.” The legend of St. Kentigern or Mungo of Glasgow, who recovered the Queen’s ring from the stomach of a salmon, is a palpable imitation of the Biblical incident which paid tribute to Cæsar.
[95]. The Magician evidently had mistaken the powers of the Ring. This is against all probability and possibility, but on such abnormal traits are tales and novels founded.
[96]. These are the Gardens of the Hesperides and of King Isope (Tale of Beryn Supplem. Canterbury Tales, Chaucer Soc. p. 84):—
In mydward of this gardyn stant a feirè tre
Of alle manner levis that under sky be,
I-forgit and i-fourmyd, echè in his degre
Of sylver, and of golde fyne, that lusty been to see.