Note 40 — HISTORY OF NASSAR, THE SON OF KHOJA HUMAYUN, THE MERCHANT OF BAGHDAD. (continued 2)

Compared with this what was the archery feat of Locksley (alias Robin Hood), as described in Ivanhoe? It seems to have been a common practice in Persia to suspend a finger-ring as the mark and prize in an archery competition. A story is told of a Sháh who, while on a pleasure excursion to Massala Shíráz, appointed an archery contest for the amusement of himself and his courtiers. He caused a gold ring, set with a valuable gem, to be fixed on the dome of ’Asád, and it was announced that whosoever should send an arrow through the ring should obtain it as the reward of his skill. The four hundred skilled archers forming the royal body-guard each shot at the ring without success. It happened that a boy on a neighbouring house-top was at the same time diverting himself with a little bow, when one of his arrows, shot at random, went through the ring. The boy, having thus obtained the prize, immediately burned his bow, shrewdly observing that he had done so in order that the reputation of this his first feat should never be impaired. (Sa’dí’s Gulistân, or Rose-Garden, ch. iii). The famous Persian poet and robber-chief Kurroglú had a band of 777 men under his command, and Demurchy-oglú (i.e. the son of the blacksmith) offered himself for a vacancy. Kurroglú, in order to test the nerve of the candidate, bade him sit down; then taking an apple from his pocket and a ring from his finger, he stuck the ring in the apple, and ordered one of his men to remove the cap from the head of the new comer. Having placed the apple on the young man’s head, Kurroglú rode to one side and bent his bow and continued to pass one arrow after another through the ring. Out of sixty arrows that were shot not one went astray. (Chodzko’s Popular Poetry of Persia, pp. 88, 89). Here we have the feat of William Tell—with a difference.