The Magic Turban, the Magic Whip, and the Magic Carpet

Once upon a time that was no time there were two brothers. Their father

and mother had died and divided all their property between them. The

elder brother opened a shop, but the younger brother, who was but a

feather-brain, idled about and did nothing; so that at last, what with

eating and drinking and gadding abroad, the day came when he had no more

money left. Then he went to his elder brother and begged a copper or two

of him, and when that all was spent he came to him again, and so he

continued to live upon him.

At last the elder brother began to grow tired of this waste, but seeing

that he could not be quit of his younger brother, he turned all his

possessions into sequins, and embarked on a ship in order to go into

another kingdom. The younger brother, however, had got wind of it, and

before the ship started he managed to creep on board and conceal

himself without any one observing him. The elder brother suspected that

if the younger one heard of his departure he would be sure to follow

after, so he took good care not to show himself on deck. But scarcely

had they unfurled the sails when the two brothers came face to face, and

the elder brother found himself saddled with his younger brother again.

The elder brother was not a little angry, but what was the use of

that!--for the ship did not stop till it came to Egypt. There the elder

brother said to the younger brother: “Thou stay here, and I will go and

get two mules that we may go on further.” The youth sat down on the

shore and waited for his brother, and waited, but waited in vain. “I

think I had better look for him,” thought he, and up he got and went

after his elder brother.

He went on and on and on, he went a short distance and he went a long

distance, six months was he crossing a field; but once as he looked over

his shoulder, he saw that for all his walking he walked no further than

a barley-stalk reaches. Then he strode still more, he strode still

further, he strode for half a year continuously; he kept plucking

violets as he went along, and as he went striding, striding, his feet

struck upon a hill, and there he saw three youths quarrelling with one

another about something. He soon made a fourth, and asked them what they

were tussling about.

“We are the children of one father,” said the youngest of them, “and our

father has just died and left us, by way of inheritance, a turban, a

whip, and a carpet. Whoever puts the turban on his head is hidden from

mortal eyes. Whoever extends himself on the carpet and strikes it once

with the whip can fly far away, after the manner of birds; and we are

eternally quarrelling among ourselves as to whose shall be the turban,

whose the whip, and whose the carpet.”

“All three of them must belong to one of us,” cried they all. “They are

mine, because I am the biggest,” said one.--“They are mine by right,

because I am the middling-sized brother,” cried the second.--“They are

mine, because I am the smallest,” cried the third. From words they

speedily came to blows, so that it was as much as the youth could do to

keep them apart.

“You can’t settle it like that,” said he; “I’ll tell you what we’ll do.

I’ll make an arrow from this little piece of wood, and shoot it off. You

run after it, and he who brings it to me here soonest shall have all

three things.” Away flew the dart, and after it pelted the three

brothers, helter-skelter; but the wise youth knew a trick worth two of

that, for he stuck the turban on his head, sat down on the carpet,

tapped it once with the whip, and cried: “Hipp--hopp! let me be where my

elder brother is!” and when he awoke a large city lay before him.

He had scarce taken more than a couple of steps through the street, when

the Padishah’s herald came along, and proclaimed to the inhabitants of

the town that the Sultan’s daughter disappeared every night from the

palace. Whoever could find out what became of her should receive the

damsel and half the kingdom. “Here am I!” cried the youth, “lead me to

the Padishah, and if I don’t find out, let them take my head!”

So they brought the fool into the palace, and in the evening there lay

the Sultan’s daughter watching, with her eyes half-closed, all that was

going on. The damsel was only waiting for him to go to sleep, and

presently she stuck a needle into her heel, took the candle with her,

lest the youth should awake, and went out by a side door.

The youth had his turban on his head in a trice, and no sooner had he

popped out of the same door than he saw a black efrit standing there

with a golden buckler on his head, and on the buckler sat the Sultan’s

daughter, and they were just on the point of starting off. The lad was

not such a fool as to fancy that he could keep up with them by himself,

so he also leaped on to the buckler, and very nearly upset the pair of

them in consequence. The efrit was alarmed, and asked the damsel in

Allah’s name what she was about, as they were within a hair’s-breadth of

falling. “I never moved,” said the damsel; “I am sitting on the buckler

just as you put me there.”

The black efrit had scarcely taken a couple of steps, when he felt that

the buckler was unusually heavy. The youth’s turban naturally made him

invisible, so the efrit turned to the damsel and said: “My Sultana, thou

art so heavy to-day that I all but break down beneath thee!”--“Darling

Lala!” replied the girl, “thou art very odd to-night, for I am neither

bigger nor smaller than I was yesterday.”

Shaking his head the black efrit pursued his way, and they went on and

on till they came to a wondrously beautiful garden, where the trees were

made of nothing but silver and diamonds. The youth broke off a twig and

put it in his pocket, when straightway the trees began to sigh and weep

and say: “There’s a child of man here who tortures us! there’s a child

of man here who tortures us!”

The efrit and the damsel looked at each other. “They sent a youth in to

me to-day,” said the damsel, “maybe his soul is pursuing us.”

Then they went on still further, till they came to another garden, where

every tree was sparkling with gold and precious stones. Here too the

youth broke off a twig and shoved it into his pocket, and immediately

the earth and the sky shook, and the rustling of the trees said:

“There’s a child of man here torturing us, there’s a child of man here

torturing us,” so that both he and the damsel very nearly fell from the

buckler in their fright. Not even the efrit knew what to make of it.

After that they came to a bridge, and beyond the bridge was a fairy

palace, and there an army of slaves awaited the damsel, and with their

hands straight down by their sides they bowed down before her till their

foreheads touched the ground. The Sultan’s daughter dismounted from the

efrit’s head, the youth also leaped down; and when they brought the

princess a pair of slippers covered with diamonds and precious stones,

the youth snatched one of them away, and put it in his pocket. The girl

put on one of the slippers, but being unable to find the other, sent for

another pair, when, presto! one of these also disappeared. At this the

damsel was so annoyed that she walked on without slippers; but the

youth, with the turban on his head and the whip and the carpet in his

hand, followed her everywhere like her shadow. So the damsel went on

before, and he followed her into a room, and there he saw the black

Peri, one of whose lips touched the sky, while the other lip swept the

ground. He angrily asked the damsel where she had been all the time, and

why she hadn’t come sooner. The damsel told him about the youth who had

arrived the evening before, and about what had happened on the way, but

the Peri comforted her by saying that the whole thing was fancy, and she

was not to trouble herself about it any more. After that he sat down

with the damsel, and ordered a slave to bring them sherbet. A black

slave brought the noble drink in a lovely diamond cup, but just as he

was handing it to the Sultan’s daughter the invisible youth gave the

hand of the slave such a wrench that he dropped and broke the cup to

pieces. A piece of this also the youth concealed in his pocket.

“Now didn’t I say that something was wrong?” cried the Sultan’s

daughter. “I want no sherbet nor anything else, and I think I had better

get back again as soon as possible.”--“Tush! tush!” said the efrit, and

he ordered other slaves to bring them something to eat. So they brought

a little table covered with many dishes, and they began to eat together;

whereupon the hungry youth also set to work, and the viands disappeared

as if three were eating instead of two.

And the black Peri himself began to be a little impatient, when not only

the food but also the forks and spoons began to disappear, and he said

to his sweetheart, the Sultan’s daughter, that perhaps it would be as

well if she did make haste home again. First of all the black efrit

wanted to kiss the girl, but the youth slipped in between them, pulled

them asunder, and one of them fell to the right and the other to the

left. They both turned pale, called the Lala with his buckler, the

damsel sat upon it, and away they went. But the youth took down a sword

from the wall, bared his arm, and with one blow he chopped off the head

of the black Peri. No sooner had his head rolled from his shoulders than

the heavens roared so terribly, and the earth groaned so horribly, and a

voice cried so mightily: “Woe to us, a child of man hath slain our

king!” that the terrified youth knew not whether he stood on his head or

his heels.

He seized his carpet, sat upon it, gave it one blow with his whip, and

when the Sultan’s daughter returned to the palace, there she found the

youth snoring in his room. “Oh, thou wretched bald-pate,” cried the

damsel viciously, “what a night I’ve had of it. So much the worse for

thee!” Then she took out a needle and pricked the youth in the heel, and

because he never stirred she fancied he was asleep, and lay down to

sleep herself also.

Next morning when she awoke she bade the youth prepare for death, as his

last hour had come. “Nay,” replied he, “not to thee do I owe an account

of myself; let us both come before the Padishah.”

Then they led him before the father of the damsel, but he said he would

only tell them what had happened in the night if they called all the

people of the town together. “In that way I shall find my brother,

perhaps,” thought he. So the town-crier called all the people together,

and the youth stood on a high daïs beside the Padishah and the Sultana,

and began to tell them the whole story, from the efrit’s buckler to the

Peri king. “Believe him not, my lord Padishah and father; he lies, my

lord father and Padishah!” stammered the damsel; whereupon the youth

drew from his pocket the diamond twig, the twig of gems, the golden

slipper, the precious spoons and forks. Then he went on to tell them of

the death of the black Peri, when all at once he caught sight of his

elder brother, whom he had been searching for so long. He had now

neither eyes nor ears for anything else, but leaping off the daïs, he

forced his way on and on through the crowd to his brother, till they

both came together.

Then the elder brother told _their_ story, while the younger brother

begged the Padishah to give his daughter and half the kingdom to his

elder brother. He was quite content, he said, with the magic turban and

the magic whip and carpet to the day of his death, if only he might live

close to his elder brother.

But the Sultan’s daughter rejoiced most of all when she heard of the

death of the Peri king. He had carried her off by force from her room

one day, and so enchanted her with his power that she had been unable to

set herself free. In her joy she agreed that the youth’s elder brother

should be her lord; and they made a great banquet, at which they feasted

forty days and forty nights with one another. I also was there, and I

begged so much pilaw[11] from the cook, and I got so much in the palm of

my hand, that I limp to this day.

[11] Boiled rice, with flesh added and scalded butter.