The Seemurgh probably belongs to the original mythology of Persia, for she appears in the early part of the Shah Nameh. When Zal was born to Sam Neriman, his hair proved to be white. The father regarding this as a proof of Deev origin, resolved to expose him, and sent him for that purpose to Mount Elburz. Here the poor babe lay crying and sucking his fingers till he was found by the Seemurgh, who abode on the summit of Elburz, as she was looking for food for her young ones. But God put pity into her heart, and she took him to her nest and reared him with her young. As he grew up, the caravans that passed by, spread the fame of his beauty and his strength, and a vision having informed Sam that he was his son, he set out for Elburz to claim him from the Seemurgh.

It was with grief that Zal quitted the maternal nest. The Seemurgh, when parting with her foster-son, gave him one of her feathers, and bade him, whenever he should be in trouble or danger, to cast it into the fire, and he would have proof of her power; and she charged him at the same time strictly never to forget his nurse.

[32] See _Arabian Romance_.

[33] [Illustration] a pearl. Life, soul also, according to Wilkins.

[34] Ferdousee's great heroic poem. It is remarkable that the Peries are very rarely spoken of in this poem. They merely appear in it with the birds and beasts among the subjects of the first Iranian monarchs.

[35] Chap. xx. translation of Jonathan Scott, 1799.

[36] See below, _Shetland_.

[37] _i. e._ possessed, insane. It is like the ??f???pt?? of the Greeks.

[38] It must be recollected that the Peries are of both sexes: we have just spoken of Peri _kings_, and of the _brothers_ of Merjan.

[39] In the Shah Nameh it is said of Prince Siyawush, that when he was born he was _bright as a Peri_. We find the poets everywhere comparing female beauty to that of superior beings. The Greeks and Romans compared a lovely woman to Venus, Diana, or the nymphs; the Persians to a Peri; the ancient Scandinavians would say she was Frith sem Alfkone, "fair as an Alf-woman;" and an Anglo-Saxon poet says of Judith that she was _Elf-sheen_, or fair as an Elf. In the Lay of Gugemer it is said,

Dedenz la Dame unt trovee Ki de biaute resanbloit _Fee_.

The same expression occurs in Meon (3, 412); and in the Romant de la Rose we meet, _jure que plus belle est que fee_ (10, 425). In the Pentamerone it is said of a king's son, _lo quale essenno bello comme a no fato_.

[40] Mines de l'Orient, vol. iii. p. 40. To make his version completely English, M. von Hammer uses the word Fairies; we have ventured to change it.

[41] In Purchas' Pilgrims, vol. i., quoted by Sir W. Ouseley.

ARABIAN ROMANCE.

The Prophet is the centre round which every thing connected with Arabia revolves. The period preceding his birth is regarded and designated as the times of ignorance, and our knowledge of the ancient Arabian mythology comprises little more than he has been pleased to transmit to us. The Arabs, however, appear at no period of their history to have been a people addicted to fanciful invention. Their minds are acute and logical, and their poetry is that of the heart rather than of the fancy.

They dwell with fondness on the joys and pains of love, and with enthusiasm describe the courage and daring deeds of warriors, or in moving strains pour forth the plaintive elegy; but for the description of gorgeous palaces and fragrant gardens, or for the wonders of magic, they are indebted chiefly to their Persian neighbours.[42]

What classes of beings the popular creed may have recognised before the establishment of Islam we have no means of ascertaining.[43] The Suspended Poems, and Antar, give us little or no information; we only know that the tales of Persia were current among them, and were listened to with such avidity as to rouse the indignation of the Prophet. We must, therefore, quit the tents of the Bedoween, and the valleys of 'Araby the Blest,' and accompany the khaleefehs to their magnificent capital on the Tigris, whence emanated all that has thrown such a halo of splendour around the genius and language of Arabia. It is in this seat of empire that we must look to meet with the origin of the marvels of Arabian literature.

Transplanted to a rich and fertile soil, the sons of the desert speedily abandoned their former simple mode of life; and the court of Bagdad equalled or surpassed in magnificence any thing that the East has ever witnessed. Genius, whatever its direction, was encouraged and rewarded, and the musician and the story-teller shared with the astronomer and historian the favour of the munificent khaleefehs. The tales which had amused the leisure of the Shahpoors and Yezdejirds were not disdained by the Haroons and Almansoors. The expert narrators altered them so as to accord with the new faith. And it was thus, probably, that the delightful Thousand and One Nights[44] were gradually produced and modified.

As the Genii or Jinn[45] are prominent actors in these tales, where they take the place of the Persian Peries and Deevs, we will here give some account of them.

According to Arabian writers, there is a species of beings named Jinn or Jan (Jinnee _m._, Jinniyeh _f. sing._), which were created and occupied the earth several thousand years before Adam. A tradition from the Prophet says that they were formed of "smokeless fire,"

_i.e._ the fire of the wind Simoom. They were governed by a succession of forty, or, as others say, seventy-two monarchs, named Suleyman, the last of whom, called Jan-ibn-Jan, built the Pyramids of Egypt.

Prophets were sent from time to time to instruct and admonish them; but on their continued disobedience, an army of angels appeared, who drove them from the earth to the regions of the islands, making many prisoners, and slaughtering many more. Among the prisoners, was a young Jinnee, named 'Azazeel, or El-Harith (afterwards called Iblees, from his _despair_), who grew up among the angels, and became at last their chief. When Adam was created, God commanded the angels to worship him; and they all obeyed except Iblees, who, for his disobedience, was turned into a Sheytan or Devil, and he became the father of the Sheytans.[46]

The Jinn are not immortal; they are to survive mankind, but to die before the general resurrection. Even at present many of them are slain by other Jinn, or by men; but chiefly by shooting-stars hurled at them from Heaven. The fire of which they were created, circulates in their veins instead of blood, and when they receive a mortal wound, it bursts forth and consumes them to ashes. They eat and drink, and propagate their species. Sometimes they unite with human beings, and the offspring partakes of the nature of both parents. Some of the Jinn are obedient to the will of God, and believers in the Prophet, answering to the Peries of the Persians; others are like the Deevs, disobedient and malignant.

Both kinds are divided into communities, and ruled over by princes. They have the power to make themselves visible and invisible at pleasure.

They can assume the form of various animals, especially those of serpents, cats, and dogs. When they appear in the human form, that of the good Jinnee is usually of great beauty; that of the evil one, of hideous deformity, and sometimes of gigantic size.

When the Zoba'ah, a whirlwind that raises the sand in the form of a pillar of tremendous height, is seen sweeping over the desert, the Arabs, who believe it to be caused by the flight of an evil Jinnee, cry, Iron! Iron! (_Hadeed!_ _Hadeed!_) or Iron! thou unlucky one!

(_Hadeed! ya meshoom!_) of which metal the Jinn are believed to have a great dread. Or else they cry, God is most great! (_Allahu akbar!_) They do the same when they see a water-spout at sea; for they assign the same cause to its origin.[47]

The chief abode of the Jinn of both kinds is the Mountains of Kaf, already described. But they also are dispersed through the earth, and they occasionally take up their residence in baths, wells, latrinae, ovens, and ruined houses.[48] They also frequent the sea and rivers, cross-roads, and market-places. They ascend at times to the confines of the lowest heaven, and by listening there to the conversation of the angels, they obtain some knowledge of futurity, which they impart to those men who, by means of talismans or magic arts, have been able to reduce them to obedience.[49]

The following are anecdotes of the Jinn, given by historians of eminence.[50]

It is related, says El-Kasweenee, by a certain narrator of traditions, that he descended into a valley with his sheep, and a wolf carried off a ewe from among them; and he arose and raised his voice, and cried, "O inhabitant of the valley!" whereupon he heard a voice saying, "O wolf, restore him his sheep!" and the wolf came with the ewe and left her, and departed.

Ben Shohnah relates, that in the year 456 of the Hejra, in the reign of Kaiem, the twenty-sixth khaleefeh of the house of Abbas, a report was raised in Bagdad, which immediately spread throughout the whole province of Irak, that some Turks being out hunting saw in the desert a black tent, beneath which there was a number of people of both sexes, who were beating their cheeks, and uttering loud cries, as is the custom in the East when any one is dead. Amidst their cries they heard these words--_The great king of the Jinn is dead, woe to this country!_ and then there came out a great troop of women, followed by a number of other rabble, who proceeded to a neighbouring cemetery, still beating themselves in token of grief and mourning.

The celebrated historian Ebn Athir relates, that when he was at Mosul on the Tigris, in the year 600 of the Hejra, there was in that country an epidemic disease of the throat; and it was said that a woman, of the race of the Jinn, having lost her son, all those who did not condole with her on account of his death were attacked with that disease; so that to be cured of it men and women assembled, and with all their strength cried out, _O mother of Ankood, excuse us! Ankood is dead, and we did not mind it!_

FOOTNOTES:

[42] Compare Antar and the Suspended Poems (translated by Sir W.

Jones) with the later Arabic works. Antar, though written by Asmai the court-poet of Haroon-er-Rasheed, gives the manners and ideas of the Arabs of the Desert.

[43] The Jinn are mentioned in the Kuran and also in Antar.

[44] See Tales and Popular Fictions, p. 37, _seq._ Lane, Thousand and One Nights, _passim_.

[45] Genius and Jinn, like Fairy and Peri, is a curious coincidence.

The Arabian Jinnee bears no resemblance whatever to the Roman Genius.

[46] "When we said unto the Angels, Worship ye Adam, and they worshiped except Iblees (who) was of the Jinn."--Kuran. chap. xviii.

v. 48. Worship is here prostration. The reply of Iblees was, "Thou hast created _me_ of fire, and hast created _him_ of earth."--_Ib._ vii. 11; xxxviii. 77.

[47] It was the belief of the Irish peasantry, that whirlwinds of dust on the roads were raised by the Fairies, who were then on a journey. On such occasions, unlike the Arabs, they used to raise their hats and say, "God speed you, gentlemen!" For the power of iron, see _Scandinavia_.

[48] The Arabs when they pour water on the ground, let down a bucket into a well, enter a bath, etc., say, "Permission!" (_Destoor!_) or, Permission, ye blessed! (_Destoor, ya mubarakeen!_)

[49] For the preceding account of the Jinn, we are wholly indebted to Lane's valuable translation of the Thousand and One Nights, i. 30, _seq._

[50] The first is given by Lane, the other two by D'Herbelot.

MIDDLE-AGE ROMANCE.

Ecco quei che le carte empion di sogni, Lancilotto, Tristano e gli altri erranti, Onde conven che il volgo errante agogni.

PETRARCA.

Few will now endeavour to trace romantic and marvellous fiction to any individual source. An extensive survey of the regions of fancy and their productions will incline us rather to consider the mental powers of man as having an uniform operation under every sky, and under every form of political existence, and to acknowledge that identity of invention is not more to be wondered at than identity of action. It is strange how limited the powers of the imagination are. Without due consideration of the subject, it might be imagined that her stores of materials and powers of combination are boundless; yet reflection, however slight, will convince us that here also 'there is nothing new,' and charges of plagiarism will in the majority of cases be justly suspected to be devoid of foundation. The finest poetical expressions and similes of occidental literature meet us when we turn our attention to the East, and a striking analogy pervades the tales and fictions of every region.

The reason is, the materials presented to the inventive faculties are scanty. The power of combination is therefore limited to a narrow compass, and similar combinations must hence frequently occur.

Yet still there is a high degree of probability in the supposition of the luxuriant fictions of the East having through Spain and Syria operated on European fancy. The poetry and romance of the middle ages are notoriously richer in detail, and more gorgeous in invention, than the more correct and chaste strains of Greece and Latium; the island of Calypso, for example, is in beauty and variety left far behind by the retreats of the fairies of romance. Whence arises this difference?

No doubt