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him all that had befallen him and how she had flown away from him, saying, ‘An thou love me, come to me at the Castle of Jewels;’ at which the old man marvelled and said, ‘By Allah, O my son, I know not the Castle of Jewels, nor, by the virtue of our lord Solomon, have I ever in my life heard its name!’ ‘What shall I do?’ said Janshah. ‘I am dying of love and longing.’ Quoth Sheikh Nesr, ‘Take patience until the coming of the birds, when I will enquire at them of the Castle of Jewels.’
So Janshah’s heart was comforted and he abode with Sheikh Nesr, until the appointed day arrived, when the Sheikh said to him, ‘O my son, learn these names[1] and come with me to meet the birds.’ Presently, the birds came flying up and saluted Sheikh Nesr, kind after kind, and he asked them of the Castle of Jewels, but they all made answer that they had never heard of such a place. When Janshah heard this, he wept and lamented, till he swooned away, whereupon Sheikh Nesr called a huge bird and said to him, ‘Carry this youth to the land of Kabul,’ and described to him the land and the way thither. Then he set Janshah on the bird’s back, bidding him sit straight and beware of inclining to either side, or he would fall and be torn to pieces in the air, and to stop his ears from the wind, lest he be dazed by the noise of the revolving sphere and the roaring of the seas.
So the bird took flight and flew with him a day and a night, till he set him down by the King of the Beasts, whose name was Shah Bedra, and said to him, ‘We have gone astray.’ And he would have taken him up again and flown on with him; but Janshah said, ‘Go thy ways and leave me here, till I die or find the Castle of Jewels. I
- ↑ Apparently some magical formula, consisting of the hidden names of God (which are supposed by the Orientals to have a thaumaturgic power) or what not else enabling one to understand the speech of birds and beasts.
