Week 5 Story: Scherherazades' Arabian Nights, but condensed.

 

Story One:

Due to his first wife's schemes, the Sultan despised trusted women and sought to be rid of them. With the grand-vizir's help, the Sultan married a new woman every-night, and killed her the next. This continued until Scherherazade's, the vizir's daughter, married the Sultan with a plan in mind. One night, she asked her husband if her sister could stay with her. He acquiesced. Later, Scherherazade was awoken by her sister, and asked to tell a story. Again, the Sultan agreed, and so began the start of Scherherazade's clever plot to stop the Sultan's tyranny at the risk of death.

Author's Note: I wanted to try my hand at microfiction since I usually am a wordy person, and/or have my moments of not typing enough. So, I decided to use the story of Scherherazade, aka the start of the Arabian Nights, as my first attempt at condensing a story. Personally, I like the original story as it's nicely wrapped up, but I feel if you needed to it could also be condensed down. Likewise, I didn't change anything from the original story; sorry, didn't make it fancy or unique, but kept it simple and to the point of what happens.

Scheherazade and the sultan by the Iranian painter Sani ol molk (1849-1856)
(Commons Wikipedia)

Story Two:

There once was a merchant who accidentally killed a Jinns' son by tossing stones. As his pleading did nothing, the Jinn and merchant came to a concession that the merchant would come back in a years time to be killed. The merchant's family was grief-stricken, still the merchant put his affairs in order. Here, Scherherazade stops her story to begin it the next night. Making his way to his fate, the merchant acquires three old men who hear of his woes. When the Jinn arrives, one of them asks the Jinn to punish him instead if his story is greater.

Author's Note: This is a very condensed, and obviously less detailed version of The Story of the Merchant and the Genius in the Arabian Nights that Sherherazade begins to tell to the Sultan. Likewise, the only thing I really did change was the usage of Genius in the original story since I felt like it doesn't give the same impact as using Jinn, the original Arabic.

Story Three:

The old man begins to tell the Jinn about the misfortune of his wife. In her jealousy, she turned the mother and her son into cows because he wanted the boy as an heir. Upon his return, she stated the slave died, and the child missing. With a feast upon them, the mother was slaughtered as a sacrifice, and the boy almost had the same fate. Instead, the wife's plot was discovered; the calf-boy turned back into his self, and married to the young girl who changed him back, and the wife turned into a cow as punishment in turn.

Author's Note: So, I struggled with this one and wasn't able to incorporate everything from the original story. However, I still feel like it does justice for The Story of the First Old Man and of the Hind. I like to consider all these microfiction stories a snap shot at what's happening in the Arabian Nights without going into heavily detail. Literally, it's to the point.