My used book with Arabian fairy tales arrived at last, shipped from Germany with snail mail.
I could not find the Afrikaans edition online — the one that had I read in bed fifty years ago as a youngster! — but I found the German translation that offers the same gorgeous water paint illustrations, on Abebooks.com.
The tales inside are as follows: How the Story of the Thousand-and-one Nights Started Little Kadi Sinbad the Sailor Prince Sayn Al Asnam and the King of Spirits Aladdin and the Wonder Lamp Ali Baba and the Forty Robbers The Magic Horse The Envious Sisters How the Story of the Thousand-and-one Nights Ends
Sinbad the Sailor This is the stuff that nightmares are made of. Big trouble for Sinbad and his mates on their third voyage, ship-wrecked on an island with one-eyed man-eating giants. The captain was eaten first because he was the fattest! I bet he could not run as fast as his crew. Yikes. (I don’t believe these are technically Cyclopes. The Cyclopes come from Greek mythology. Arabians were students of Greek literature, and Homer’s epic poem Odyssey probably inspired this fairy tale). [Illustration by Janusz Grabianski].The Magic Horse Ah yes: the prince undoubtedly proposing to the princess with some servants looking on. (I confess that I don’t recall the details of this fairy tale. I will have to read the German, and report back). Got to love those lovely light blue veils worn by the servants, looking exactly like 2021 pandemic surgical masks! [Illustration by Janusz Grabianski].
