The wish might have been highly indiscreet and have exposed the wisher to the resentment of the two other brothers. In parts of Europe it is still the belief of the vulgar that men who use telescopes can see even with the naked eye objects which are better kept hidden; and I have heard of troubles in the South of France because the villagers would not suffer the secret charms of their women to become as it were the public property of the lighthouse employés.
“Jám-i-Jamshíd” is a well worn commonplace in Moslem folk-lore; but commentators cannot agree whether “Jám” be = a mirror or a cup. In the latter sense it would represent the Cyathomantic cup of the Patriarch Joseph and the symbolic bowl of Nestor. Jamshíd may be translated either Jam the Bright or the Cup of the Sun: this ancient King is the Solomon of the grand old Guebres.
This passage may have suggested to Walter Scott one of his descriptions in “The Monastery.”
In the text “Lájawardí,” for which see vols. iii. 33, and ix. 190.
In Galland and the H.V. “Prince Husayn’s.”
This is the “Gandharba-lagana” (fairy wedding) of the Hindus; a marriage which lacked only the normal ceremonies. For the Gandharbas = heavenly choristers see Moor’s “Hindú Pantheon,” p. 237, etc.
“Perfumed with amber” (-gris?) says Galland.
The Hind. term for the royal levée, as “Selám” is the Persian.
Arab. “’Ilm al-Ghayb” = the Science of Hidden Things which, says the Hadis, belongeth only to the Lord. Yet amongst Moslems, as with other faiths, the instinctive longing to pry into the Future has produced a host of pseudo-sciences, Geomancy, Astrology, Prophecy and others which serve only to prove that such knowledge, in the present condition of human nature, is absolutely unattainable.
In folk-lore and fairy tales the youngest son of mostly three brothers is generally Fortune’s favourite: at times also he is the fool or the unlucky one of the family, Cinderella being his counterpart (Mr. Clouston, i. 321).
The parasang (Gr. παρασάγγης), which Ibn Khall. (iii. 315) reduces to three miles, has been derived wildly enough from Fars or Pars (Persia proper) sang = (mile) stone. Chardin supports the etymology, “because leagues are marked out with great tall stones in the East as well as the West, _e.g._ ad primam (vel secundam) lapidem.”