267
the manners and customs described, allowing for the extreme licence and looseness of Galland’s version, do not seem essentially to differ from those pourtrayed in tales of unquestioned authenticity, such as Camaralzaman or Beder. It may also be observed that there is a considerable resemblance between the plan and details of the story, as given by Galland, and those of Jouder and his brothers (Vol. VI.) and Marouf (in the present volume) and that Scott’s meagre abstract (published in 1811) of a few of the unknown tales contained in the Wortley Montague MS. of the Thousand Nights and One Night includes the skeleton of a story (“The Fisherman’s Son”), which bears some resemblance to Aladdin and a still greater one to the well-known German Mährchen of the White Stone; but, in my opinion, this story is a modern fabrication and has no connection with the original work. The Wortley Montague MS., indeed, appears to be, as a whole, of doubtful authenticity, if we may judge from Scott’s translations from it and the detailed account given (in Ouseley’s Oriental Collections) of its contents by the translator himself, who states that it bears at end a note to the effect that it was written (or transcribed) in the year 1178 of the Hegira (A.D. 1766[1]) by Omar es Sufti (Sufta). Sufta (popularly Softa) signifies, in Turkish, a divinity student, and this, together with the evidently modern style of the copy, the incoherent jumble of adventure of which the stories (as rendered by Scott) appear to consist and which is much more characteristic of modern Turkish
- ↑ A.D. 1764?
