My Favourite Storybook
I have several favourite storybooks, but I think the one I like the best is “Arabian Nights”. It is a big book and has many stories in it all of them about wonderful adventures and magic and strange things happening to handsome princes and beautiful princesses. They are all said to have been told to king Shahriyar by the beautiful princess Shahrazad, but they are really a collection of very old eastern tales.
The book is so long that I have not read it all yet, but there are three stories which I have read several times because I like them the best.
One is called “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves”, which tells how a poor man, called Ali Baba, became rich by finding a cave in which a robber band kept all the wealth they stole. The cave was closed by a door, which could only be opened by saying the magic words, “Open Sesame”; and Ali Baba found out the secret while he was hiding in some bushes near the cave when the robber chief came there and said the magic words.
Another interesting story is “Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp.” Aladdin was a poor boy who found an old lamp one day in a cave. He took it home, and began to polish it; and when he was rubbing it to make it bright, suddenly a terrible Jinn appeared, who was the slave of the lamp. Aladdin was frightened, but the Jinn told him that he was his servant, and could do anything for him. Whenever Aladdin wanted him, he had to rub the lamp, and he would come. The Jinn, when called, brought him money, and fine dresses, and rich food, built palaces for him and gave him all he could desire. I wish I could find Aladdin’s wonderful lamp!
The adventures of “Sindbad the Sailor” is full of marvels and it is exciting to read about how he suffered from the dreadful Old Man of the Sea, and of his being carried away in the claws of that huge bird, the Roc.
Of course, I know that all these stories are only fairy-tales, but they are very amusing.
