The Fisherman and the Genie
A poor fisherman pulls up a copper jar sealed with Solomon's seal. Out comes a towering genie who has sworn to kill whoever frees him, and the fisherman must out-think him. With the tales told along the way. By Andrew Lang (1898). A public-domain classic, from The Arabian Nights Entertainments.
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How it begins Sire, there was once upon a time a fisherman so old and so poor that he could scarcely manage to support his wife and three children. He went every day to fish very early, and each day he made a rule not to throw his nets more than four times. He started out one morning by moonlight and came to the sea-shore. He undressed and threw his nets, and as he was drawing them towards the bank he felt a great weight. He though he had caught a large fish, and he felt very pleased. But a moment afterwards, seeing that instead of a fish he only had in his nets the carcase of an ass, he was much disappointed.Vexed with having such a bad haul, when he had mended his nets, which the carcase of the ass had broken in several places, he threw them a second time. In drawing them in he again felt a great weight, so that he thought they were full of fish. But he only found a large basket full of rubbish. He was much annoyed. Keep reading →About this story
A poor fisherman pulls up a copper jar sealed with the seal of Solomon. Out comes a towering genie, who has sworn to kill whoever frees him, and the fisherman has to out-think him. Along the way, there are tales told within the tale.
It comes from the Arabian Nights, in Andrew Lang’s 1898 retelling. It is one of the first stories in the collection, and shows the Nights’ favourite shape, a story that holds other stories inside it. The fisherman’s answer is a classic example of a trick that works by using the other person’s own rules.
- Themes
- Gratitude and ingratitude, cleverness, stories within stories
- Good for
- Readers who like a clever puzzle; a longer, layered story
- Worth noticing
- How the fisherman gets the genie back into the jar.