Note 1 — Chapter XI · : Moorish Romances of Spain

This striking tale is, of course, manufactured out of a number of original and separate elements—the lovers destined to be kept in ignorance of love because of some danger prophesied at their birth, the old theme of the language of birds, the ‘helpful animal’ theme, and that of the magic carpet. The latter is merely an adaptation of the idea that a magician was able to transport himself through the air in a non-natural manner, and this ability he seems to have handed on to the witches of the Middle Ages, whose broomsticks were merely magical substitutes for the ‘flying horse.’1 But the appearance of the carpet in such a tale makes it probable that it drew its inspiration from Persia, the land where carpets were first manufactured, as the wizards of more primitive folk adopted other and simpler means of supernatural flight.