The Fisherman and the Djinn Podcast Part 1 (Fairy Tale Flip) Ep 25

Welcome, welcome to Fairy Tale Flip. I’m Vanessa Y. Rogers and my host is Donna Lee Fields. And once a month we come

together and we dive into a fairy tale. And this month we are diving into one of

the oldest stories, the fisherman and the jin from 1001 Arabian night. And man

was this a crazy a crazy hole to go down. I don’t know if you felt like

that, Donna. This was just like so much information that I was not familiar with. Um, so it was quite a a journey

for me. Oh my goodness, Vanessa. I think I I wrote to you right away and said, “I don’t know where the story ends. I’m so

confused.” So, and then I remembered that it’s it’s a thousand1 nights and that has everything to do why we

couldn’t figure out where it ends. Yes. And we’ll talk about that. Yeah. So, why don’t you give our listeners a

summary and I think you’re going to give a summary of the story. Today we’re going to talk about the fisherman in the gin, but also the the overall story that

it’s sourcing from, which will make more sense when she tells it. Exactly. The thousand1 nights because I

wasn’t really sure if I wanted to do the fisherman and the genie and then I and then you said you mentioned it was part of 10001 nights. I said I am all in. I

love the thousand1 nights. I remember I bought it once when I lived in Spain and I bought it in Spanish because I had to

do you know it had to be a challenge at least. I read all of the thousand1 stories and they were that was an

adventure. Vanessa, have you ever read all of them? I Well, actually, I don’t know what

version I read. I did read a version and I didn’t love it. Um because I had half

the time I felt like I didn’t know what was happening. I feel like I need to go back and reread it. But now that I’ve

read it, I’m wondering if I didn’t read the full version, but like the the um

the smaller version, the aided version, it’s possible because we only know some

of the really famous stories and I didn’t even like them when I read the thousand one nights. There’s some absolutely gorgeous stories in it, but

they’re either runchy or very violent. It’s like whole compendium. It’s really

an adventure. All right. So, let me just give you a very brief summary of the the of Thousand1 Nights. And we’re focusing

on just one of the stories which actually has five stories within it. And that’s why um we didn’t know when it

ended. And there’s a reason for that as well. So, The Thousand1 Nights is a compendium of many different cultures.

It was written over a period of time. And Vanessa, you’re going to go into details about that one. But basically,

it’s about a king of, let’s say, Persia, what we know now as Persia, Shahar, and

he was furious because of the infidelity of his first wife. So, he vowed to marry

one woman every night and kill her the next day. And he did because he was the king. Um, so this went on for a while

until the daughter of the visor, his closest consultant, Sherah Hazed, asks

her father to be the king’s next wife. And of course, he doesn’t want to do this because it’s a death sentence, but

she insists. And so, we’re going to go into what she does to justify why she

wanted to marry the king. And what she does is, just really brief, she tells a thousand1 stories. Every night she tells

a different one. and her sister’s there. Some what I’ve just found out is sometimes her sister doesn’t come into

the story maybe in the abridged versions, but her sister has everything to do with the eventual success of this

queen Shered and why the king doesn’t kill her because she tells him a story

every night. And the fisherman and the genie is one of those stories. And the brilliant part of what she does is she

begins the story at night. Her sister says, “If you’re not tired, could you

tell me a story that will break open the night?” And she and the king, of course,

listens in and he’s intrigued with the story. And she ends a story just at daybreak. And her sister says, “Um, how

strange.” And she says to her sister, “Yes, but I have a stranger one to tell you.” And she begins the first few lines

of the story and then stops. And of course, the king is so intrigued that he

doesn’t kill her as as dawn breaks, and he waits till the next night to hear the rest of the story. So, the fisherman and

the genie is one of those stories. And a very brief summary is that it’s an older

fisherman who casts his net four times. He he’s desperate to make a living. He

pulls up, and I’m going to go into this because Vanessa has a lot of the symbolisms behind what he pulls up. He

pulls up a dead donkey, a jar of mud, trash, and a brass jar with a stopper in

it. And he pulls up the stopper from the jar, a smoky demon emerges, a genie who

threatens to kill the fisherman. Not exactly what we’re used to when we think about a genie coming out of a bottle.

So, it turns out that for the first hundred years of his imprisonment, the genie swore to enrich person who frees

him from the bottle. No one frees him. The second century of his imprisonment in the bottle, he swore to grant his

liberator great wealth, but nobody frees him. The third century, he swore to

grant three wishes to the person who frees him, but nobody does. And so, in

the fourth century, being inside this bottle, the genie beames becomes enraged and swears to grant the person who frees

him a choice of their own death. However, the fisherman tricks this

demon. The genie brings puts him back into the jar. The demon then offers to make the fisherman rich if he releases

him again. The fisherman tells him a story about a king and a sage. And after the story, the genie pleads for mercy,

swears to help him in return for being released, and the fisherman accepts the bargain and releases the genie.

Okay. Now, Vanessa, go.

There’s a second part to the story that we’re gonna cover some as well. So, I’m

going to give that part as well, just for so our listeners. So, a lot of times w when westerners tell the story, they

stop where Donna where Donna did. Um, because we like kind of like a a closed

ending, one that that ends. But like she was saying in the beginning, a lot of these stories just keep going and

there’s a stories within stories within stories. And so this story actually has

a continuation. Um, and I’m going to record I was I was going to record before we we hopped on and then I was

deep in the notes and I didn’t. But so the second part of the story is when the fisherman comes to present the king with

uh the four fishes. Oh, did he say that part yet? No, I didn’t say that part. Could you explain where what he does with this?

Yeah. So once so once the the fisherman releases the jin, I’m saying jin because

that’s the original term. Donna is saying genie. That is the French translation of the word jin. So it’s

just what westerners say now, but if you are into any sort of fantastical fantasy

literature, you’ll see the word jin. Dji n. And that’s the the word I’m I’m

using. Um and so the jin uh he comes back out and he says, “Okay, follow me.”

And he takes the the fisherman to a clear lake and it is this lake is

enscconced by four hills. And within the

beautiful lake are four fish that look like nothing the fisherman has ever seen

before. And the fish are of four different colors, red, white, blue, and yellow. And the the the jin tells him to

cast his net into the water and take the fish to the king. And so the king uh

once the the j the fisherman receives the fish, he takes the fish and he tries

to cook them. All these weird things start happening and the the the king

goes to the place where the fish are and discovers that there is a prince who is

half stone. And the prince who’s half stone has been turned half stone by his

wife who had fallen in love with another man. And in her rage when he discovered

their affair froze the entire world in in a kind of enchantment turned everybody in the the

kingdom into fish except for her lover and the prince who she on a daily basis

punishes. and she’s trying to revive her husband who has had his throat slit by

the angry prince when he discovered the affair. And then um at in the end uh the

king gets the the wife, the sorceress to reverse the enchantment and the kingdom is re uh vitalized and all the fish turn

back into humans. And so that is the second part of the fisherman and the

jin. Um, and they’re they’re part of the same story, but like we were saying, they’re all just like flowing in one

into the other. So, it’s it’s kind of like a crazy ball of yarn. No, it’s like when the um the authors we

know know as the classics. We can let’s just reference Mark Twain. A lot of his stories are so long because how we used

to write was a chapter a week for magazines to just make it longer and receive more money, right? And so this

story was really let’s make it as long as possible so I can live longer, right?

Yes. I mean let’s put it into context. And one thing I also wanted to mention because these stories are horrific about

infidelity and mostly it’s because the king even though the king may think that he is all you know all powerful and can

control everything inside of the the women’s harum we can call it uh he didn’t have

as much control as he thought and things happened that he didn’t have control about. And so infidel infidelity for the

king was so passionately contrary to his nature. And that’s why these stories are

filled with infidelity. The stories of infidelity. And they’re specifically filled with

infidelity of women, not of men. And it’s in part because the it’s a way for

the men to process the only part of women’s life that they don’t seem to be able to have control over. men during

this time um throughout throughout history, but specifically during um the

rise of Islam, they’re allowed, I believe, four wives and they’re allowed to have concubines during this history.

I don’t know about today, modern day, but um they’re allowed to have multiple women, but women are have to remain

faithful to one man. Um and when they don’t, it is incredibly

frowned upon. Um, and so it’s this like processing of men’s anxiety about

women’s sexuality that they feel like they they can’t have control over.

Right. And there’s one point, a really good point I think you even have in your notes, Vanessa, is that infidelity

couldn’t even be legally um accountable to the men because there was no no such

thing as infidelity. They could have intercourse with whomever they wanted to, right? Um, it’s kind of like, which is

kind of funny, um, I know this is tangental, but lesbianism for until the early 19th century or late 19th century,

a woman could not be convicted of lesbianism because nobody believed that

the law didn’t believe that it could happen. So, homosexual men could be convicted. They they considered it

illegal, but women couldn’t. And so in the story we’re talking about uh men weren’t in in they couldn’t be

unfaithful because it wasn’t considered to be unfaithful. They could have sex with whoever they wanted. Does it make

sense now? Yeah. Okay. Absolutely.

Okay. All right. Where do you want to start? Do you want to start at um this the

story the the whole book? Do you I think that might be a good place to start because a lot of times I like to ground

us in the place and the time. Um but this story this compilation of stories

is not from any one place or time. So it’s really difficult for us to ground us in geography.

Well, how about then why don’t we go into that? Why don’t you explain how it how it evolved into this the

thousand1 nights that we know now because your notes are fantastic on that.

Um okay so let’s talk about the origins of 101 nights. So it has three main

phases of life. The first is oral oral storytelling. And we’ve mentioned this in the past. All folktales come from

oral tradition. Um and the 101 Arabian Knights is no different. And in fact,

there were professional storytellers that were primarily males. And they

would tell these stories to only male audiences because they were telling it in coffee houses where only males were

allowed uh to frequent. Um obviously there’s female storytelling that is

happening inside the home. We’ll talk a little bit more about this, but so they start out as oral storytelling

throughout this entire region from Spain to India. So these stories span

continents, not just one region, but continents. And the I believe it’s

called the um what is the the Silk Road? The Silk Road is where many of these storytellers begin to spread their

stories from their countries and then the stories are taken and told in other

countries. And so a lot of these stories will be uh some of them are from India,

some of them are from Spain, some of them are from Persia, which is modern day Iran, some of them are from Iraq.

And there’s just like this massive coming together of all of these tales

from these oral storytellers. Then they start to be written down handwritten in

a manuscript form and that happens in Persia uh modern day Iran we think in in

3rd to 7th century and then Baghdad it is um there’s this location called

the house of wisdom where a lot of uh of stories are kept and they copy down the

Persian version and then Syria and Egypt Egypt also get their version from uh

Baghdad, but the they they have different uh methods because in Egypt

they want it actually to be 1,01 stories where the Syrian version only has 271

versions. So it actually comes to the west in printed form prior to it coming

to uh Arab nations. It’s collected by a French man, um, Gallen, I believe is his

name, in the 1700s, and he has it printed on the printing

press. And now he strips out a lot of the Islamic Islamic um, language,

anything that has to do with Allah, anything that has to do with prayers. And he really westernizes it. And so the

Western audiences start to read it and they absolutely adore it. Then it is

printed in Egypt with the um 1001 stories on a printing press designed by

a military leader who originally creates this printing press to print out um

military manuals. And then later on he’s like okay we can use it for the classics. Uh and so he prints he prints

out a different version of the Arabian Knights. So the version that we currently usually read is a a different

translation from a man named Richard Burton and he inserts again. So when the

French uh guy translated it, he took out all the body, all the sexual in

innuendos. Um, and Richard decides, no, all of that needs to go back in because

he really wants to push that in the faces of Victorian England. and he wants to like say uh um kind of uh make fun of

the prudishness of what is occurring in Victoria, the Victorian times where

sexuality is absolutely repressed and um and so his translation is considered

quite uh on the nose, I guess you would say. Um, and so that is the current

version that we uh have translated into English. And so it’s it’s actually quite

a a crazy story and it’s kind of difficult in in fact for scholars to even like figure out where all the

different manuscripts are because at one point at one port part uh point Mongols

come and burn down the house of wisdom in Iraq. And so all of these like

ancient scripts that were kept in this this library are absolutely destroyed.

But luckily the 101 Arabian Knights had already been copied by hand by different places and were being held in different

loca locations. So the irony of all of this is the western audiences get this

story way before at least 130 years prior to they do in um Arabia and is

it’s better received as well because it’s because it’s oral storytelling.

It’s very plebeian. It’s very street Arabic. It’s not formal Arabic and so

it’s really looked down upon by those in the elite and so the westerners really

admire it while in in many of the Middle Eastern countries they look down their

noses at it as um street

stories too colloquial. Well, the other thing that I wanted to comment on is that you made a point of saying that it was men

telling men the stories and we’ve done a lot of fairy tales where it’s women telling women. So, I was looking through

our our list of fairy tales and I can’t remember exactly which one was I thought it was an African tale. Do you remember

I don’t mean to put you on the stop, Vanessa, but which is the fairy tale that especially women told to the girls

of the of the tribe? Do you remember? But we’re going to think think about that one and if you can remember we’ll

get back to it because a lot of our stories are just that is women empowering the young girls in their

families. I honestly feel like that is a lot of the stories that we cover. So much of

the stories that we talk about are about women processing their repressed

sexuality, women rep processing um their inability to have control in in society.

And so a lot of the stories that you and I have touched on are much more

female-based, whereas this one definitely is male-based because it’s

told by males to males, written by males, printed by males, and and so it

has very much that um lens to it where I feel like so many of the stories I’m

thinking about the one from Japan where she shapeshifts into into a spider. Um,

right the the the talking eggs where it doesn’t even have one male figure in the

entirety of the story. So many of the stories that we talk about are really um

a way for females to explore and um have

express their anger and frustration. Whereas it’s the opposite in this case.

males are feel like they are expressing their their frustration and anger with women being um unfaithful. How dare they

when men are able to have multiple wives and multiple concubines and they don’t

even have accountability at all. Okay, so you ready? Let’s turn that around. Let’s turn it around.

Um you you usually ask me why I like the story and I will answer that. But let me ask

you because um it’s when I when when you said it was a thousand one nights is

when I really really turned onto the story. But why did you like it before then? Why did you choose it? Do you remember?

Well, you know, I really like the idea of Jyn. Um I read a book I don’t it was

probably a decade ago. Um the the City of Brass and it’s a trilogy. It’s a a

book series I definitely recommend for anyone who likes fantasy and it was one

of the very first books that I encountered um what is called a jin and

you don’t see it in a lot of western literature and so I really

latch on to any stories that are unique or supernatural in a in a way that is

something that I haven’t seen before and I think that they are a a an interesting

character um and representation of a supernatural world that we don’t generally see because they are amoral.

They can be evil. They can be uh good. They don’t have to, you know, be in one

camp or the other. They have supernatural powers. Some of them um they, you know, they inhabit different

places. So, I I really liked that that element because they are just such a

mysterious uh character and creature to explore. Okay, I love that answer. I think that’s

really in insightful. And for me, again, it’s because of Thousand1 Nights and the

background story really evolved just as much as the his the stories themselves did as a whole collection. And for me

the the heroine the the person that should be celebrated

across the globe throughout history is Sher is is Sher um Sherah Zade.

Why I realized that when I was thinking about getting ready for this podcast I

finally understand why I’ve always sort of been in love with her and a very in my case platonically although if you

know whatever gender you identify with some people fall in love with her for real. Um she answers the question that

everyone has always asked me when about let’s say war about violence about

vengefulness about revenge what is the alternative to that because I’m against war and people say well what’s there’s

always been more so then you know don’t worry about it so much and I’m thinking just because there has always been

something that in my case I believe is absolutely wrong doesn’t mean that there’s not an alternative and we

shouldn’t think about it people are schooled in war People are schooled in violence. You know, think of armies,

think of politics. If we spent think all the money that is spent in weapons, etc.

If all of that money and all of that training were turned into peaceful

alternatives, we wouldn’t have war. I’m really convinced of that. And then people say, “Well, then give us a

solution.” Well, I say I say fairy tales is the answer. And in this case is

Sherah Huzad. She gives us the answer in her own beautifully intelligent,

insightful way. She orchestrates an entire plan. She doesn’t kill the king.

She makes him fall in love with her through her cleverness. She She is passive. She is heroic. She’s dramatic.

And she’s even laughing at him because she does he doesn’t realize what she’s doing to him with her sister, with a

partner, with another female presence. She rebukes anyone who resorts to

violence. For instance, the king who kills this woman, a different woman every morning because he doesn’t know

how to process his own emotions about being betrayed. And she shows us how we can use words, we can use companionship,

we can use trust, intrigue, um, philosophy, and human nature to settle

conflicts. Does that make sense, Vanessa? Yeah. And I love that she weaponizes

storytelling for good, right? She she uses she story she uses stories to reprogram

his traumatized brain uh to be one from a monster to one of

one of humanity again. like she she’s able to bring him back from the brink of

a psychological crisis into the world of of man and woman again. And through

that, she’s saving the lives of women. She is willing to sacrifice herself in

this instance to put everything on the line to make sure that other women are

not being murdered by someone who once again cannot process his own trauma. And

so she is kind of the original therapist, right? But she’s just using

fairy tales. And I think that you’re very right. Fairy tales are one of the best uh tools that we can use to process

our own trauma, to process our own feelings. Um and and that’s what she’s

doing in this instance. She’s saving herself. She’s saving the women that would have come after her. And she’s

saving a king from his own destru self-destruction and uh hoping hopefully

revitalizing um a kingdom that has been torn aunderder from his vengefulness.

Beautifully said, right? Because this is the thousand one nights also is a celebration of cultures. We kind of

think of it as the as Baghdad mostly the Arabian cultures but it’s a whole um

sort of multi-layered um it has details of of many different cultures which she brings out and she

does talk about infidelity a lot but again her her very manner and her sister’s devotion to her and the whole

game they’re playing restructures everything it reframes everything and there was an article that you sent me

from literary hub by Sharon Blackie do you remember you sent me that article. I did and I forgot to read it myself. So

now I need to go back and read it. Tell us about it. It’s such a wonderful article and and um

I’ll send you the link again if you don’t have it so that our listeners can read it because it’s such a beautifully

written article. I I sent you a message saying she writes this article in the same way as a fairy tale is written and

she just draws you in. It’s beautiful and it’s it’s light and insightful. And

one of the things she says is exactly what you were talking about. Why do fairy tales speak to us so strongly? And

it’s because they show us what we need to be shown. We’re usually drawn to a fairy tale that we need right at that

minute. And healing comes in the fairy tales we read. So for instance, in this

one, it talks about this fairy tale talks about social and political and environmental crises. Um there’s always

economic uncertainty in our world. But Sharon Blackey says in these uncertainties has become the norm and a

livable future for us and for our children is increasingly hard to imagine. And she talks about women. She

says it can be especially hard for girls and young women to find an anchor and

develop an authentic sense of stealth in the world we’re living in in this chaos.

But fairy tales insist that we face the unfacable and dig deep for previously

unimagined inner resources. Fairy tales and especially this one teach us to be

savvy, inspire us to grow in confidence, show us how to be bold, and claim the

future we dream of. Now, don’t you want to read the article? Yes. Is that a direct quote? Did you

just direct quote? Yep. Okay. Yeah, that’s really beautiful. Yeah. Okay. Okay. I have another point

that I wanted to make. My father-in-law sent me. I think it was a couple yesterday or the day before. He sent me

this uh YouTube video all about how um how to make storytelling addictive. And

it was a marketing video uh specifically about, you know, how marketers can use

storytelling to draw in their listeners. But it really got me thinking about how

she was kind of the the first one written that does this this through

naturally, right? Because every single time she creates a a cliffhanger. We see

this in in books and we see this in movies. We read up we read too late into

the night because the story is addictive. Like the chapter ends and we’re like we have to find out what

happens. We have to keep going. Um, and that’s what she’s doing in the story as well. She she understood the neur

neuroscience before neuroscience was even a a field that was studied. She understood the the need for that that

dopamine that we look for in a story when the stakes couldn’t be higher when we want to find out what happens to the

main character. And she kind of is the inventor of the cliffhanger, right? if

you can reme recall all of these TV shows um from our past where the season

the the story ends but you have to find out what happens to the next one and so you um

what is what is the most famous one Vanessa you’re young I’m not sure if you saw this it’s not not slamming it that

was what came out of it it was who shot Jr. do you remember that series oh our readers have to tell me who shot

Jr. It was the most famous cliffhanger. It’s the first time in modern television where this the last the episode ends

with a death and you have to you have to find out who killed him. They made a huge publicity um stunt about it. But

yes, you’re right. She she began cliffhanger again. She ought to be celebrated. We ought to know her more.

Yes, I agree. Okay. So, let’s let’s I think this is a good place to talk about

the frame story because this is what this book is. Um the frame story is

basically think of it as a Russian nesting doll. So, Shahherzad is the

outer story and you take off the top part and inside is another story. And so

you you find another doll inside and then you take off you un undo that one and inside is another story. And that’s

what’s happening in the fisherman and the jin because the fisherman tells

Shahherzad is telling the king the fisherman and the jin. Then the fisherman tells the jin a story about a

different king. And then inside that story the king tells his visor a story

about a parrot. And then the visor tells the king a story about a she. And so

there’s there’s stories within stories within stories. And this was how oral

storytelling originated. This is not this is not just a cultural phenomenon

that is found in Arabia. It is global. It is how’s oral storytelling worked

from the very beginning because this is how we pass on information to the next

generation. You continuously embedded code into your stories so that people

would uh take in this information and then they would be able to recall it.

And so stories within stories within stories um was just how oral storytelling was was told. And so

different um books that you might be familiar with. The Odyssey, this was 800

BC. This is how that book was told. This was um a very famous one that Westerners are not as familiar with, but one that

was very famous in ancient India. The Pant Tantra is called the great great-g

grandmother of all frame story collections. Um there’s uh the

Canterbury Tales is if anyone’s read that this is basically a competition of storytelling and then I mentioned a few

I don’t know if it was last year I don’t remember when I was reading Donkeote and I remember I might have even mentioned

it on the episode that when we were when I mentioned reading Donkeote that I kept

being like okay Donote Kiote is running into another character great they’re

going to tell them him their life story and I didn’t recognize that for what it

was the a frame story. Doniote is a protagonist. Now what makes that book

unique and why it’s called the first ever novel was because it follows one

protagonist throughout the entire book. And throughout the book are lots of

different stories being told, but you’re still following and caring about

Doniote. And so it is it is worked differently. And so

that’s why that book in particular is considered the first novel, but it’s still in this frame storytelling version

that was native to oral storytelling. Okay. Okay. And if we can just make it

even more personal, this whole Russian nesting doll thing is in regards to 101 nights. It’s the search for truth as

well. It’s, you know, we want to go deeper. All right. Let’s go deeper and let’s go deeper. Unfortunately, people

like to just um scratch the surface these days by scrolling on social media. That’s a whole argument we don’t need to

go into right now. So, sorry, tangent tangent alert. But um in these fairy tales, the people who really do dig in

is as they’re looking for the truth and they’re they’re getting they want more clues. And it also can be looked at as

the the search for the soul because this rushing nesting idea and this the way

the story is told in Thousand1 Nights and the Fisherman and the Jin. It’s a it’s the human psyche. We we don’t want

to we can see the shell and we want to know what’s under the shell. We want to know what um motivates a person. And we

want to know what happened, why that motivation came up. And the the only other the the other

idea about the nesting is the cultural complexity is why people dress a certain

way. What happened? What motivated it? Um why do some people dress that way and some people do another? What are some

cultural um benchmarks? So the whole nesting idea can be taken to virtually

anything. Yeah, that’s it. Absolutely. Yeah, I I love that. I was

kind of ruminating in my head. I’ve been I’ve been thinking a lot about values and beliefs and that is a lot about um

like figuring out what it is that is important to you and what happened in

your own life that caused you to have that belief and caused you to have hold

a value. Um, one one of my values is I don’t like to to throw to be wasteful.

And one of the reasons that was embedded into me was because my grandmother grew up in the the Great Depression. And she

she understood the value of um not just buying new material goods, holding on to

things so that they could have new life and be restored. And and so what you

were talking about the Russian the Russian nesting dolls kind of got me thinking about the digging for the soul

and digging for why we believe what we believe. And a lot of that has to do with our culture and how we were brought

up. So true. And I think that people if when they’re delving into relationships um is

they want to know if they’re being honest with themselves and they want a thriving relationship. if they if they

don’t want to just live with the person that they’ve decided to partner with, but they really want to thrive together, they need to look deeper. And every day

is going deeper and deeper. And what you’re saying is is finding the motivation, finding where these things

came from. And if we can get to the core of it, maybe one day we will, then we can really deeply understand and

appreciate each other. And good lord, wouldn’t that help the world? But it definitely requires a lot of like

introspective work and that requires taking the time to do it. And it’s difficult in our

modernday go reality. Instant gratification world. Yes. Um but

look where it’s gotten us. So let’s take the time. So again, it’s one of the beauties of fairy tales and especially

thousand1 nights. So where else did you want to go? Your notes are so extensive and they’re so interesting. Where else should we go?

Yeah. Okay. So, I want to talk about King Solomon because I went down a really long rabbit hole on King Solomon. Um,

okay. So, I know you were raised in a originally in a Jewish household, right?

Do you What was Do you have um a reference point to him from your

childhood? You know, just as sort of a biblical reference. Um, nothing very deep. So,

I’d be interested in anything you have to say. So a lot of times when you ask someone

if they know who King Solomon was, the story that comes to mind is the one of

two mothers. The the two mothers come to King Solomon with one baby and they both

say that the baby is his. And so he offers up his solution and the solution is I will saw the baby in half and you

each get a half of the baby. And the true mother is the one who says no no you can give the baby to the other

mother. Please don’t cut the baby in half. And so, King Solomon is able to de he’s wise. He’s the a wise king. And so,

he’s able to figure out that the true mother is the one who’s willing to to give the baby up so that the baby will

live. Um, and so that’s a lot of what American listeners hear when they hear

about um King Solomon. They He was the wealthy king of Israel. He was the son

of David, the David and Goliath of the Bible. Um he’s famous because he had 700

wives and 300 concubines. Um again, no infidelity, just gold.

Right. Exactly. Exactly. Okay. So, this is the Solom the King Solomon of the Hebrew Bible, the Old

Testament. What Westerners and Americans don’t know is that he has a whole other

life outside of the Old Testament. Um, the testament of Solomon is written by a

Greek Jewish Christian writer. Now, that is

slightly confusing because this is being written around the same time as the Old Testament. It’s being written um by

someone from Greece. He is of Jewish descent, but being raised in the belief

system of Christianity, but Christianity is not really a full religion at this

point. So it’s kind of this like middle ground area. It is a mystical text that

is not a sacred text. So it is not canonical. It is in not it is not in any

religion although it is um widespread as oral tradition. And so um in this uh in

this test testament um there are jin and

they are part of um part of the landscape and king Solomon

is not just a king. He is a prophet of God. So he is on the same level as

Abraham, as Moses, as Jesus is. He is u

he’s very very important. Um and in this

text he has a ring. It’s called the king the ring of Solomon. And he’s able to

rule over nature. He’s able able to rule over the jin in the the area. And so he

has this uprightness of character called moral rectitude and uncompromising honesty. And so he and in um when

westerners hear of King Solomon, he he kind of has this like mystical feeling to him, a little wizardness.

But when um Middle Eastern or Arabic people hear about King Solomon, he has a

different sense. He is a spokesperson for God. He is um he is very important

in that realm. He is he has rulership over a lot of um the kingdom. And his

ring especially which is the seal of on the copper jar in the story of the

fisherman and the jin is indicates to them that this jar is of vital

importance. And so, um, when, uh, when

the Arabs are reading the story, that seal of Solomon has much more

significance than it does to an American or a Western audience would. Um, so I

found that really, really fascinating. Just to give you a slight timeline of

this happening. So the Hebrew Bible is written um in in the BC era. The uh

testament of Solomon is being written around the same time as the New Testament starts to be written. Then the

Quran is written in 600 to 630 AD. So

that’s quite a bit later on which I didn’t wasn’t aware of. and the

testament of Solomon although it’s not sacred text the oral storytelling is widespread and uh is very much believed

and so um jin are a part of the Quran

they are angels are created first they are made of um light jin are made of smokeless

fire and man is made of clay um the the

jar uh the the the jin is being held in has the seal of Solomon. So when the

fisherman pulls up the jar, the seal of Solomon is very significant to the

reader of um in the Middle East. They would have known that within this jar is

something likely a jin. They would have already had that in their the back of their brain because the king Solomon was

the ruler of jin. And so American westerners would not have had that

reference. We have no idea that the king the Solomon ring seal has that meaning

but they do. So um okay so the Quran has jin within it and then 1001 nights are

being written or manuscriptly printed um about 150 years after the

Quran. But the fisherman and the jin is considered one of the oldest stories. So

one of the original 270 stories that came from Persia. Many of the other

stories come later. They might have the same age, but they weren’t necessarily

in the original stories. So, I found that element of King Solomon really

fascinating that he has such a different significance to the people of um that

region as opposed to what Westerners would have interpreted. Because there’s

a lot of information on this one, we’re going to be dividing this episode into two similarly to how we did the Sleeping

Beauty episode, just because there’s a lot of information in this particular

story. and uh it’s it’s really fascinating. So um instead of cutting it

short, we’re going to divide it. So there’s two two parts. So, make sure you you tune in to part two.