"The wondrous steed of brass
On which the Tartar King did ride;"
And Leland (Itinerary) derives "Rutlandshire" from "a man named Rutter who rode round it on a wooden horse constructed by art magic." Lane (ii. 548) quotes the parallel story of Cleomades and Claremond which Mr. Keightley (Tales and Popular Fictions, chapt. ii) dates from our thirteenth century. See Vol. i., p. 160.
[FN#6] All Moslems, except those of the Mαliki school, hold that the maker of an image representing anything of life will be commanded on the Judgment Day to animate it, and failing will be duly sent to the Fire. This severity arose apparently from the necessity of putting down idol-worship and, perhaps, for the same reason the Greek Church admits pictures but not statues. Of course the command has been honoured with extensive breaching: for instance all the Sultans of Stambul have had their portraits drawn and painted.
[FN#7] This description of ugly old age is written with true
Arab verve.
[FN#8] Arab. "Badinjαn": Hind. Bengan: Pers. Bαdingαn or Badiljαn; the Mala insana (Solanum pomiferum or S. Melongena) of the Romans, well known in Southern Europe. It is of two kinds, the red (Solanum lycopersicum) and the black (S. Melongena). The Spaniards know it as "berengeria" and when Sancho Panza (Part ii. chapt. 2) says, "The Moors are fond of egg-plants" he means more than appears. The vegetable is held to be exceedingly heating and thereby to breed melancholia and madness; hence one says to a man that has done something eccentric, "Thou hast been eating brinjalls."
[FN#9] Again to be understood Hibernice "kilt."
[FN#10] i.e. for fear of the evil eye injuring the palace and, haply, himself.
[FN#11] The "Sufrah" before explained acting provision-bag and table-cloth.
[FN#12] Eastern women in hot weather, lie mother-nude under a sheet here represented by the hair. The Greeks and Romans also slept stripped and in mediζval England the most modest women saw nothing indelicate in sleeping naked by their naked husbands. The "night-cap" and the "night-gown" are comparatively modern inventions.
[FN#13] Hindu fable turns this simile into better poetry, "She was like a second and a more wondrous moon made by the Creator."