WEBZINE ACC

<The Thousand and One Nights> is one of the most beloved tales around the world. The tale of the carpets that soar through the sky, the spirit of the lamp that grants wishes, the whales and the great bird roc, <The Thousand and One Nights> is a tale that parents tell their children, who grow up and tell their own children in turn. But is that all there is to this timeless tale? Here are five facts about <The Thousand and One Nights> that most people do not know about.

1. <The Thousand and One Nights> is neither a story told over a thousand days nor is it made up of a thousand stories.

The frame story of <The Thousand and One Nights> is the story of Scheherazade, the wise daughter of a Persian vizier who tells many stories to the king of Persia to stop his tyranny. Some take the name of the story to literally mean that Scheherazade had told the king a thousand tales, or that she had told the story over a thousand nights. In fact, <The Thousand and One Nights> is a collection of tales bound together by Scheherazade’s frame story, and though different editions contain different stories, Arabic editions generally contain about 300 smaller stories. That is to say, Scheherazade does not begin each night with a different story. Short stories end over a day, but longer stories, like the seven voyages of Sinbad the Sailor, take more than a few days to wrap up.

(Left) <Scheherazade and Shahryar> (Marie-Éléonore Godefroid, 1842),

(Right) <Scheherazade> (Sophie Gengembre Anderson, date unknown)

2. Why is the story known under two different names, <The Thousand and One Nights> and <Arabian Nights>?

The two titles are used interchangeably across the world, but <Arabian Nights> is used more frequently, as evident from the Google search results. The basis of the collection can be said to be the Persian work <Hezār Afsān>, meaning “a thousand tales.” The Arabian translation of the work, <Alf Laylah wa-Laylah>, likewise means “a tale of one thousand and one nights”. This translation was used by Antoine Galland, who titled the first translation of the stories in Eueope <Les mille et une nuits>. <Arabian Nights> comes from English translations done by William Lane and Richard Burton, who named the collection <Arabian Nights Entertainment> and <Arabian Nights> respectively. Because these collections became famous around the world, the two titles are used interchangeably today.

Richard Burton’s translation, <The Arabian Nights>, provided by Lee Jong-hwa

3. <The Thousand and One Nights> contains stories from beyond the Arab world.

Map of transmission for the stories featured in <The Thousand and One Nights>

The origins of <The Thousand and One Nights> are shrouded in mystery, but many scholars consider the collection to have been developed from myths and folk tales in India. Stories similar to that of animal myths found in <The Thousand and One Nights> were found in the Buddhist folk tale collection <Jakata>, while <The Story of Seyf ol-Molûk and Badî`ol-Jamâl>, included in <The Thousand and One Nights> in the 17th Century, has a Persian manuscript dating back to the 17th Century. This story is likewise considered to have originated from India. Some stories that began in India went over to Persia, the Arab world, Egypt, and after the 18th Century, Europe. European translators added and edited other stories collected in the Arab world as they published their collections, and famous stories on Sinbad the Sailor, the tale of Aladdin and the magic lamp, and Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves were included in the collection at this time.

《The Story of Seyf ol-Molûk and Badî`ol-Jamâl》

4. Aladdin is actually not ethnically Arab.

Because multiple editions emerged not only in the Arab world but also in Persia, Egypt, and Europe, 19th-Century editions depict Aladdin as Chinese or Egyptian. Antoine Galland’s edition describes Aladdin as the son of a Chinese textile merchant. Because of this, illustrations depicting Aladdin as Chinese can be found up until the early 20th Century. The popular imagery of Aladdin as a red fez-wearing character dates back to the American cultural industry, exemplified by Disney.

(Left) Frances Brundage (1898, New York Public Library collection)

(Right) LEGO Aladdin, Jasmine, Genie; Fez (early 20th Century, Türkiye, National Asian Culture Center collection)

5. <Yuogyeokjeon> and Bang Jeong-hwan

The first Korean translation of <The Thousand and One Nights> is <Yuogyeokjeon> of 1895. <Yuogyeokjeon> is often thought to be the first modern translation of a novel in Korean history, but not many know that it is actually a translation of <The Thousand and One Nights>. The translator is unknown, and it is a manuscript written in Hangeul. <Yuogyeokjeon> is actually a translation made from two Meiji-era works: The first being the <Arabiya monogatari : Kaikan kyōki (暴夜物語: 開巻驚奇)>, translated by Hideki Nagamine (永峰秀樹; two volumes in total, 1875), and <Zensekai ichidai kisho (全世界一大奇書)>, translated by Tsutomu Inoue (井上勤).

Another relatively obscure fact is that Bang Jeong-hwan, a well-known children’s activist, translated four stories, namely <Mangogidam Cheoniryahwa> and <Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves> (3 volumes in total), in the magazine <Children> from 1926 to 1927. One interesting story about Bang Jeong-hwan’s translation is that Bang adapted the phrase “Open sesame!” to “Open soybeans!” and “Close red beans!” for Korean children.

(Left) Title and the first page of <Yuogyeokjeon>, collection and image provided by The Academy of Korean Studies

(Right) Bang Jeong-hwan, <Mangogidam Cheoniryahwa> from <Children> (1926), collection and image provided by the National Museum of Korea

National Asian Culture Center’s Asia Culture Museum is currently hosting the exhibition <The Road of The Thousand and One Nights> from January 8, 2024. The exhibition is intended to overcome the Eurocentric understanding of <The Thousand and One Nights> and examines the classic text as the pinnacle of Asian oral literature, through its characteristics, pathways of its transmission, and lives and cultural contents captured in the stories. It also includes experience programs such as character coloring and access to multilingual translations of <The Thousand and One Nights>.