FOLK-LORE
AND
LEGENDS

ORIENTAL

W. W. GIBBINGS
18 BURY ST., LONDON, W.C.
1889

——

PREFATORY NOTE

The East is rich in Folklore, and the lorist is not troubled to discover material, but to select only that which it is best worth his while to preserve. The conditions under which the people live are most favourable to the preservation of the ancient legends, and the cultivation of the powers of narration fits the Oriental to present his stories in a more polished style than is usual in the Western countries. The reader of these tales will observe many points of similarity between them and the popular fictions of the West—similarity of thought and incident—and nothing, perhaps, speaks more eloquently the universal brotherhood of man than this oneness of folk-fiction. At the same time, the Tales of the East are unique, lighted up as they are by a gorgeous extravagance of imagination which never fails to attract and delight.

C. J. T.

CONTENTS

THE COBBLER ASTROLOGER.

In the great city of Isfahan lived Ahmed the cobbler, an honest and industrious man, whose wish was to pass through life quietly; and he might have done so, had he not married a handsome wife, who, although she had condescended to accept of him as a husband, was far from being contented with his humble sphere of life.

Sittâra, such was the name of Ahmed’s wife, was ever forming foolish schemes of riches and grandeur;