Sir Richard Burton has remarked, in note 1, p. 219, that Mr. Coote could only find in the south of Europe, or in the Levant, analogues of two of the incidents of this tale, yet one of those may be accepted as proof of its Eastern extraction, namely, the Cyprian story of "Three Eyes," where the ogre attempts to rescue his wife with a party of blacks concealed in bales: "The King's jester went downstairs, in order to open the bales and takes something out of them. Directly he approached one of the sacks, the black man answered from the inside,'Is it time, master?' In the same manner he tried all the sacks, and then went upstairs and told them that the sacks were full of black men. Directly the King's bride heard this, she made the jester and the company go downstairs. They take the executioner with them, and go to the first sack. The black man says from the inside, 'Is it time ?' 'Yes,' say they to him, and directly he came out they cut his head off. In the same manner they go to the other sacks and kill the other black men.''[408]
The first part of the tale of Ali Baba—ending with the death of his greedy brother—is current in North Germany, to this effect:
A poor woodcutter, about to fell a beech at the back of the scattered ruins of the castle of Dummburg, seeing a monk approach slowly through the forest, hid himself behind a tree. The monk passed by and went among the rocks. The woodcutter stole cautiously after him and saw that he stopped at a small door which had never been discovered by the villagers. The monk knocks gently and cries, "Little door, open!" and the door springs open. He also cries, "Little door, shut!" and the door is closed. The woodcutter carefully observes the place, and next Sunday goes secretly and obtains access to the vault by the same means as that employed by the monk. He finds in it "large open vessels and sacks full of old dollars and fine guilders, together with heavy gold pieces, caskets filled with jewels and pearls, costly shrines and images of saints, which lay about or stood on tables of silver in corners of the vault." He takes but a small quantity of the coin, and as he is quitting the vault a voice cries, "Come again!" First giving to the church, for behoof of the poor, a tenth of what he had taken, he goes to the town and buys clothes for his wife and children, giving out to his neighbours that he had found an old dollar and a few guilders under the roots of a tree that he had felled. Next Sunday he again visits the vault, this time supplying himself somewhat more liberally from the hoard, but still with moderation and discretion, and "Come again!" cries a voice as he is leaving. He now gives to the church two tenths, and resolves to bury the rest of the money he had taken in his cellar. But he can't resist a desire to first measure the gold, for he could not count it. So he borrows for this purpose a corn-measure of a neighbour—a very rich but penurious man, who starved himself, hoarded up corn, cheated the labourer of his hire, robbed the widow and the orphan, and lent money on pledges. Now the measure had some cracks in the bottom, through which the miser shook some grains of corn into his own heap when selling it to the poor labourer, and into these cracks two or three small coins lodged, which the miser was not slow to discover. He goes to the woodcutter and asks him what it was he had been measuring. "Pine-cones and beans. But the miser holds up the coins he had found in the cracks of the measure, and threatens to inform upon him and have him put to the question if he will not disclose to him the secret of his money. So the woodcutter is constrained to tell him the whole story and much against his will, but not before he had made the miser promise that he would give one-tenth to the church, he conducts him to the vault. The miser enters, with a number of sacks, the woodcutter waiting outside to receive them when filled with treasure. But while the miser is gloating over the enormous wealth before him—even "wealth beyond the dreams of avarice"—a great black dog comes and lays himself down on the sacks. Terrified at the flaming eyes of the dog, the miser crept towards the door but in his fear forgot the proper words, and instead of saying, "Little door, open!" he cried!, "Little door, shut!" The woodcutter, having waited a long time, approached the door, and knocking gently and crying "Little door, open!" the door sprang open and he entered. There lay the bleeding body of his wicked neighbour, stretched on his sacks, but the vessels of gold and silver, and diamonds and pearls, sank deeper and deeper into the earth before his eyes, till all had completely vanished.[409]
The resemblance which this North German tale bears to the first part of "All Baba" is striking, and is certainly not merely fortuitous; the fundamental outline of the latter is readily recognisable in the legend of The Dummburg, notwithstanding differences in the details. In both the hero is a poor woodcutter, or faggot-maker; for the band of robbers a monk is substituted in the German legend, and for the "open, sesame" and "shut, sesame," we have "little door, shut," and "little door, open." In both the borrowing of a corn-measure is the cause of the secret being revealed—in the one case, to Kasim, the greedy brother of Ali Baba and in the other, to a miserly old hunks; the fate of the latter and the disappearance of all the treasure are essentially German touches. The subsequent incidents of the tale of Ali Baba, in which the main interest of the narrative is concentrated;—Ali Baba's carrying off the four quarters of his brother's body and having them sewed together, the artifices by which the slave-girl checkmates the robber-chief and his followers in their attempts to discover the man who had learned the secret of the treasure-cave—her marking all the doors in the street and her pouring boiling oil on the robbers concealed in the oil-skins in the courtyard;—these incidents seem to have been adapted, or imitated, from some version of the world-wide story of the Robbery of the Royal Treasury, as told by Herodotus, of Rhampsinitus, King of Egypt, in which the hero performs a series of similar exploits to recover the headless body of his brother and at the same time escape detection. Moreover, the conclusion of the tale of Ali Baba, where we are told he lived in comfort and happiness on the wealth concealed in the robbers' cave, and "in after days he showed the hoard to his sons and his sons' sons, and taught them how the door could be caused to open and shut"—this is near akin to the beginning of Herodotus' legend of the treasury: the architect who built it left a stone loose, yet so nicely adjusted that it could not be discovered by any one not in the secret, by removing which he gained access to the royal stores of gold, and having taken what he wanted replaced the stone as before; on his deathbed he revealed the secret to his two sons as a legacy for their future maintenance. The discovery of Ali Baba's being possessed of much money from some coins adhering to the bottom of the corn-measure is an incident of very frequent occurrence in popular fictions; for instance, in the Icelandic story of the Magic Queen that ground out gold or whatever its possessor desired (Powell and Magnusson's collection, second series); in the Indian tale of the Six Brothers (Vernieux's collection) and its Irish analogue "Little Fairly;" in the modern Greek popular tale of the Man with Three Grapes (Le Grand's French collection), and a host of other tales, both Western and Eastern. The fate of Ali Baba's rich and avaricious brother, envious of his good luck, finds also many parallels—mutatis mutandis—as in the story of the Magic Queen, already referred to, and the Mongolian tale of the poor man and the Dakinis, the 14th relation of Siddhí Kúr. Morgiana's counter-device of marking all the doors in the street, so that her master's house should not be recognised, often occurs, in different forms: in my work on Popular Tales and Fictions, vol. ii. pp. 164, 165, a number of examples are cited. The pretended merchant's objecting to eat meat cooked with salt, which fortunately aroused Morgiana's suspicions of his real characterûfor robber and murderer as he was, he would not be "false to his salt"[410]—recalls an anecdote related by D'Herbelot, which may find a place here, in conclusion: The famous robber Yacúb bin Layth, afterwards the founder of a dynasty of Persian monarchs called Soffarides, in one of his expeditions broke into the royal palace and having collected a large quantity of plunder, was on the point of carrying it off when his foot struck against something which made him stumble. Supposing it not to be an article of value, he put it to his mouth, the better to distinguish it. From the taste he found it was a lump of salt, the symbol and pledge of hospitality, on which he was so touched that he retired immediately without carrying away any part of his booty. The next morning the greatest astonishment was caused throughout the palace on the discovery of the valuables packed up and ready for removal. Yacub was arrested and brought before the prince, to whom he gave a faithful account of the whole affair, and by this means so ingratiated himself with his sovereign that he employed him as a man of courage and ability in many arduous enterprises, in which he was so successful as to be raised to the command of the royal troops, whose confidence in and affection for their general induced them on the prince's death to prefer his interest to that of the heir to the throne, from whence he afterwards spread his extensive conquests.
Since the foregoing was in type I discovered that I had overlooked another German version, in Grimm, which preserves some features of the Arabian tale omitted in the legend of The Dummburg:
There were two brothers, one rich, the other poor. The poor brother, one day wheeling a barrow through the forest, had just come to a naked looking mountain, when he saw twelve great wild men approaching, and he hid himself in a tree, believing them to be robbers. "Semsi mountain, Semsi mountain, open!" they cried, and the mountain opened, and they went in. Presently they came out, carrying heavy sacks. "Semsi mountain, Semsi mountain, shut thyself!" they cried; and the mountain closed and they went away. The poor man went up then and cried. "Semsi mountain Semsi mountain, open!" the mountain opens, he goes in, finds a cavern full of gold, silver, and jewels, fills his pockets with gold only, and coming out cries, "Semsi mountain, Semsi mountain, shut thyself!" He returns home and lives happily till his gold is exhausted. Then "he went to his brother to borrow a measure that held a bushel, and brought himself some more." This he does again, and this time the rich brother smears the inside of the bushel with pitch and when he gets it back finds a gold coin sticking to it, so he taxes his poor brother with having treasure and learns the secret. Off he drives, resolved to bring back, not gold, but jewels. He gets in by saying, "Semsi mountain, Semsi mountain, open!" He loads himself with precious stones, but has forgotten the word, and cries only, "Simeli mountain, Simeli mountain, open!" The robbers return and charge him with having twice stolen from them. He vainly protests, "It was not I " and they cut his head off.
Here the twelve wild men represent the forty robbers, and, as in Ali Baba, it is the hero's brother who falls a victim to his own cupidity. In the Arabian tale the hero climbs up into a tree when he sees the robbers approach, in The Dummburg he hides himself behind a tree to watch the proceedings of the monk; and in Grimm's version he hides in a tree. On this last-cited story W. Grimm has the following note: "It is remarkable that this story, which is told in the province of Munster, is told also in the Hartz, about The Dummburg, and closely resembles the Eastern story of 'The Forty Thieves,' where even the rock Sesam, which falls open at the words Semsi and Semeli, recalls the name of the mountain in the German saga. This name for a mountain is, according to a document in Pistorius (3, 642), very ancient in Germany. A mountain in Grabfeld is called Similes and in a Swiss song a Simeliberg is again mentioned. This makes us think of the Swiss word 'Sine!,' for 'sinbel,' round. In Meier, No. 53, we find 'Open, Simson.' In Prohle's 'Marcher fur die Jugend,' No. 30, where the story is amplified, it is Simsimseliger Mountain. There is also a Polish story which is very like it." Dr. Grimm is mistaken in saying that in the Arabian tale the "rock Sesam" falls open at the words Semsi and Semeli: even in his own version, as the brother finds to his cost, the word Simeli does not open the rock. In Ali Baba the word is "Simsim" (Fr. Sesame), a species of grain, which the brother having forgot, he cries out "Barley." The "Open, Simson" in Meier's version and the "Semsi" in Grimm's story are evidently corruptions of "Simsim," or "Samsam," and seem to show that the story did not become current in Germany through Galland's work.
Dr. N. B. Dennys, in his "Folk-Lore of China, and its Affinities with that of the Aryan and Semitic Races," p. 134, cites a legend of the cave Kwang-sio-foo in Kiang-si, which reflects part of the tale of Ali Baba: There was in the neighbourhood a poor herdsman named Chang, his sole surviving relative being a grandmother with whom he lived. One day, happening to pass near the cave, he overheard some one using the following words: "Shih mun kai, Kwai Ku hsen shêng lai," Stone door, open; Mr. Kwai Ku is coming. Upon this the door of the cave opened and the speaker entered. Having remained there for some time he came out, and saying, "Stone door, close; Mr. Kwai Ku is going," the door again opened and the visitor departed. Chang's curiosity was naturally excited, and having several times heard the formula repeated, he waited one day until the genie (for such he was) had taken his departure and essayed to obtain an entrance. To his great delight the door yielded, and having gone inside he found himself in a romantic grotto of immense extent. Nothing however in the shape of treasure met his eye, so having fully explored the place he returned to the door, which shut at his bidding, and went home. Upon telling his grandmother of his adventure she expressed a strong wish to see the wonderful cavern; and thither they accordingly went together the next day. Wandering about in admiration of the scenery, they became separated, and Chang at length, supposing that his grandmother had left, passed out of the door and ordered it to shut. Reaching home, he found to his dismay that she had not yet arrived. She must of course have been locked up in the cave, so back he sped and before long was using the magic sentence to obtain access. But alas! the talisman had failed, and poor Chang fell into an agony of apprehension as he reflected that his grandmother would either be starved to death or killed by the enraged genie. While in this perplexity the genie appeared and asked him what was amiss. Chang frankly told him the truth and implored him to open the door. This the genie refused to do, but told him that his grandmother's disappearance was a matter of fate. The cave demanded a victim. Had it been a male, every succeeding generation of his family would have seen one of its members arrive at princely rank. In the case of a woman her descendants would in a similar way possess power over demons. Somewhat comforted to know that he was not exactly responsible for his grandmother's death, Chang returned home and in process of time married. His first son duly became Chang tien shih (Chang, the Master of Heaven), who about A.D. 25 was the first holder of an office which has existed uninterruptedly to the present day.