Skip to main content

Reading Notes: The Voyages of Sinbad, Part A

The Voyages of Sinbad from The Arabian Nights' Entertainments by Andrew Lang

This tale was within the Arabian Nights story which I had already read. In it, Sinbad the sailor, who has met another Sinbad, is telling his story. He began as an idle rich man but decided to become a merchant. On his first trip, they had stopped at an island which turned out to be a whale. He was plunged into the ocean and the ship left without him. He managed to float to a real island where he found some grooms which took him to their king. He was accepted into the country and meets with the arriving merchants to find passage back to his homeland. 
He by chance meets with the captain of the ship he was originally on and once he convinces the captain who he is, he gets his original merchandise back. He gives some of it to the king, who gives him gifts in return, and sells the rest. When he gets home, he is even richer than before and lives contentedly for a while but then sets sail again. 
This time, he falls asleep when they stop at an island and is left behind. He finds a giant egg and sees a roc return to it. The next morning, he ties himself to the rocs foot and when it flies, he goes with it. It lands on an island with giant snakes, which Sinbad manages to avoid. The land is also scattered with diamonds. 
Natives throw pieces of meat down, hoping an eagle will pick it up and take it to their nest where the native will go to see if any diamonds came with it. Sinbad collects some diamonds, ties the meat to himself and waits until an eagle picks him up. He gives some of the diamonds to the natives and after selling them, he eventually returns home with his profits. 
However, he is soon restless and leaves again. This time he is swept up by a storm. The ships is carried to an island where it is captured by savages who leave the crew on an island with a one-eyed giant who begins to eat them one by one. Like Odysseus in the Odyssey, Sinbad stabs the giant in the eye, blinding it, Then he and his crew leave on rafts they made, however, the giant, with some friends, throw rocks and kill all but one raft. 
Sinbad and two crewmen make it to a new island but his companions are promptly killed by a giant snake. Sinbad manages to stay alive and hails a passing ship. It is the same one from his second voyage. He receives his original wares which he sells for immense profits. 
On the fourth voyage, his crew is taken by black cannibals who drug his companions and eat them. Sinbad escapes and finds himself in a city where the king accepts him. He teaches them to ride with saddles and bridle and in return he is given riches and esteemed. However, as is custom, when his wife dies, Sinbad is lowered into the grave with her with a little food. He manages to kill other spouses being lowered down and gets their food so he survives for a while until he finds a way out. He takes some of the riches the people were buried with and manages to again hail a ship and sell what he has taken for great profit. 

Photo Credits: flikr

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Week 3 Wikipedia Trail

For this assignment, I started with the article about the Canterbury Tales, since that is what I am working on for my project. First article:  The_Canterbury_Tales This one is very intensive and covers not only a premise of the story but also a historical context, the themes, and the style of the writing. I imagine I am going to use this article a lot when I begin working on my project. From this article, there are links to all the other sections and a bunch of pictures of the different pilgrims. Second article:  General_Prologue This is the prologue and the beginning of the story. It not only gives a premise to the storytelling competition, it gives a background of the pilgrims and their destination. I am going to use a similar premise in my project and will refer to this article when I am working on my introduction. One thing I am debating is whether I will have a "Geoffrey Chaucer" character in my story. In the original, the author inserted himself into the tale, I d...

Reading Notes: Ozaki, Part A

Japenese Fairytales,  Ozaki  by Yei Theodora Ozaki In this unit, there have been three stories so far: My Lord Bag of Rice In this story the name of Tawara Toda, which means "My Lord Bag of Rice" is explained. He was a brave warrior who came across a large dragon on a bridge. Instead of running away, he just climbed over the dragon and continued going, however, someone called out to him and when he looked back he discovered a person where the dragon had been. It was the Dragon King whose family was being killed by a giant centipede every night and he begged for the warrior's help. The warrior agreed and went to wait for the centipede. As it came down a mountain, he shot it with an arrow tipped in saliva which killed the centipede. The Dragon King was so grateful, he gave the warrior, among other things, a sack of rice which never ran out. The Adventures of Kintaro A warrior married a woman, however, he died and his wife ran away to the wilderness in fear of his e...

Week 10 Lab: Research

This week I researched potential topics for my project's second story. I mainly browsed different urban legend articles on Snoops. I still haven't completely nailed down what my story will be about but I have a few ideas and even if urban legends aren't the primary topic, given my characters, I think they might come up. And to be honest, I am never super clear about how my story will go when I begin so I think I'll be fine.  Here are a few links to articles I looked at:  Scary Urban Legends 25 Hottest Urban Legends Most Popular Urban Legends of 2015      <- this one was mostly just funny. I didn't know most of them so I guess I am out of the loop when it comes to Urban Legends.  I looked up "Confused" on google and this came up. It does not portray my feelings but it did make me confused as to why it was a result so here you go:  Photo Credit: maxpixel