Note 234 — THE TALE OF THE WARLOCK AND THE YOUNG COOK OF BAGHDAD.

MS. pp. 505–537. This story is found in the “Turkish Tales” by Petis de la Croix who translated one fourth of the “Forty Wazirs” by an author self-termed “Shaykh Zádeh.” It is called the “History of Chec Chahabeddin” (Shaykh Shiháb al-Dín), and it has a religious significance proving that the Apostle did really and personally make the “Mi’raj” (ascent to Heaven) and returned whilst his couch was still warm and his upset gugglet had not run dry. The tale is probably borrowed from Saint Paul who (2 Cor. xii. 4), was “caught up into Paradise,” which in those days was a kind of region that roofed the earth. The Shaykh in question began by showing the Voltairean Sultan of Egypt certain specious miracles, such as a phantom army (in our tale two lions), Cairo reduced to ashes, the Nile in flood and a Garden of Irem, where before lay a desert. He then called for a tub, stripped the King to a zone girding his loins and made him dip his head into the water. Then came the adventures as in the following tale. When after a moment’s space these ended, the infuriated Sultan gave orders to behead the Shaykh, who also plunged his head into the tub; but the Wizard divined the ill-intent by “Mukáshafah” (thought-reading); and by “Al-Ghayb ’an al-Absár” (invisibility) levanted to Damascus. The reader will do well to compare the older account with the “First Vizir’s Story” (p. 17) in Mr. Gibb’s “History of the Forty Vizirs,” etc. As this scholar remarks, the Mi’ráj, with all its wealth of wild fable, is simply alluded to in a detached verset of the Koran (xvii. 1) which runs: [I declare] “The glory of Him who transported His servant by night from the Sacred Temple (of Meccah) to the Remote Temple (of Jerusalem), whose precincts we have blessed, that we might show him of our signs.” After this comes an allusion to Moses (v. 2); Mr. Gibb observes (p. 22) that this lengthening out of the seconds was a favourite with “Dervishes,” as he has shown in “The Story of Jewád;” and suggests that the effect might have been produced by some drug like Hashish. I object to Mr. Gibb’s use of the word “Houri” (ibid. p. 24) without warning the reader that it is an irregular formation, masculine withal, for “Huríyah” and that the Pers. “Húrí,” from which the Turks borrowed their blunder, properly means “One Húr.”