The Fisherman and the Genie

There was once a fisherman so old and so poor that he could scarcely support his wife and three children. Each day he went out very early and made a rule never to cast his nets more than four times. One morning by moonlight he came to the shore, undressed, and threw his nets. Drawing them in he felt a great weight and thought he had a large fish—but found only the carcass of a donkey. Disappointed, he mended the torn meshes and cast a second time. Again a heavy pull—only a basket of rubbish. “O Fortune,” he cried, “do not trifle with a poor fisherman who can hardly feed his family!” He washed the nets and cast a third time, drawing only stones, shells, and mud. Almost in despair he cast a fourth time. When he thought he had a fish he drew the nets in with great trouble. There was no fish, but he found a yellow copper pot that by its weight seemed full, fastened and sealed with lead stamped with a seal. Delighted, he said he would sell it to the founder and buy a measure of wheat. He examined it on all sides and shook it to hear a rattle, but heard nothing. Judging by the seal that something precious must be inside, he took his knife and with a little trouble opened it. He turned it upside down; nothing came out, which surprised him. He set it before him and watched—then such thick smoke poured out that he had to step back a pace or two. The smoke rose to the clouds, stretched over sea and shore, then gathered into a mass, and there stood a genie twice as large as the largest giant.

“Great king of the genii,” cried the monster, “I will not disobey you any longer!” The fisherman took courage and asked how he came to be shut in the vase. The genie looked down haughtily and told him to speak more civilly before he killed him. The fisherman cried that he had just freed him—had he forgotten? “No,” said the genie, but that would not stop the killing; he would grant only the favour of choosing the manner of death. He explained: he had rebelled against the king of the genii and been sealed in copper with enchanted lead and thrown into the sea. In the first hundred years of captivity he vowed to enrich his freer even after death—no one came. In the second he vowed all the treasures of the world—no one came. In the third he vowed to make his freer a king, stay near him, and grant three wishes a day—still no one. At last, furious, he vowed that whoever released him he would kill, allowing only the choice of death. So now, choose.

The fisherman begged for his life in vain. Then he laid a plot. “Since I must die,” he said, “before I choose, swear on your honour—were you really in that vase? I cannot believe it. That jar could not hold one of your feet; how could your whole body go in? I will not believe unless I see you do it.” The genie, to prove it, turned again to smoke and crept back into the jar. At once the fisherman clapped on the leaden cover and the seal. “Now choose your own way to die!” he cried, and made ready to throw the jar back into the sea. The genie begged and promised riches. The fisherman answered that he feared being treated as the Greek king had treated the physician Douban, and told that cautionary story. Its nested episodes are not reproduced here. The fisherman held firm at first, then, hoping to escape poverty, made the genie swear by the name of God that he would not harm him and would repay him well. Only then did he open the jar.

Smoke poured out; the genie stood free, kicked the empty jar into the waves, and told the fisherman to follow. He led him over mountains to a wide lake among four hills, bade him cast his nets, and draw. The fisherman pulled out four fish, each of a different colour—white, red, blue, and yellow. “Take these to the Sultan,” said the genie; “he will pay you more than you have ever had. Come every day to fish in this lake, but cast only once each day, or harm will follow. Follow my advice and you will find it good.” He struck the ground with his foot; the earth opened, swallowed him, and closed. The fisherman resolved to obey exactly, so he did not cast a second time, but walked into town to sell the fish at the palace. When the Sultan saw them he was astonished; he looked at each in turn, and when he had admired them long enough he told his first vizir to take them to the clever cook the Emperor of the Greeks had sent him—they must be as good as they were beautiful. Then he ordered the vizir to give the fisherman four hundred gold pieces. The fisherman, who had never before possessed so large a sum at once, could hardly believe his good fortune. He went straight home, relieved the needs of his family, and made good use of the money.

Meanwhile, in the palace kitchen, something very strange was happening. The cook scaled the four fish, laid them in a pan of hot oil and fried them on one side. The moment she turned them over, the kitchen wall split open and a beautiful young woman stepped out. She wore an Egyptian gown of flowered satin, pearl earrings and a pearl necklace, and gold bracelets set with rubies, and in her hand she carried a wand of myrtle.

The cook could not move. The young woman walked straight to the pan, tapped one of the fish with her wand and asked, “Fish, fish, are you doing your duty?” The fish said nothing. She asked again, and this time all four lifted their heads from the oil and answered clearly, “Yes, yes. If you count, we count. If you pay what you owe, we pay what we owe. If you run, we win, and we are satisfied.”

At that she tipped the pan over, stepped back through the opening, and the wall closed behind her as if it had never moved.

When the cook came to her senses she picked the fish out of the ashes, but they were burnt as black as charcoal. She burst into tears. “What can I tell the Sultan? He will be furious, and he will never believe me.”

Just then the grand vizier came in to ask whether the fish were ready. The cook told him everything. He was amazed, and he sent for the fisherman at once. “Bring me four more fish like the first ones,” he said. “Something has happened to those, and they cannot go to the Sultan’s table.”

The fisherman kept the genie’s warning to himself. He said the lake was too far to reach again that day and promised to come back in the morning. That night he walked to the lake, threw his net once, and pulled up four fish, white, red, blue and yellow, exactly like the others. He carried them straight to the vizier.

This time the vizier locked himself in the kitchen with the cook and watched. Everything happened again. As soon as the fish were turned, the wall opened, the young woman appeared, asked her question, heard the same strange answer, overturned the pan and vanished. “I must tell the Sultan about this,” said the vizier, and he did.

The Sultan was so astonished that he wanted to see the wonder with his own eyes. He sent for the fisherman and asked for four more fish. The fisherman asked for three days, went to the lake, made his single cast, and came back with four fish of the four colours. The Sultan was delighted and gave him another four hundred gold pieces.

The Sultan had the fish brought to his own room with everything needed to cook them, and he shut himself in there with the grand vizier, who fried them himself. When they were turned, the wall opened again, but this time it was not the young woman who came out. It was a huge, towering servant carrying a thick green staff. He touched the fish and roared, “Fish, fish, are you doing your duty?” The fish lifted their heads and gave the same reply. The servant flung the pan into the middle of the floor, the fish burned to cinders, and he strode back into the wall, which shut around him.

“After this I cannot rest,” said the Sultan. “These fish hide some secret, and I mean to find it.” He called the fisherman and asked where he had caught them. “Sire,” said the fisherman, “in a lake that lies between four hills, beyond the mountain you can see from here.” The vizier had hunted all around that mountain and had never heard of any lake. But the fisherman said it was only three hours away, so the Sultan ordered the whole court to ride there, with the fisherman showing the way.

They crossed the mountain and found the lake just as he had described it, so clear that they could see the four colours of fish swimming in it. The Sultan had his camp set up on the shore. That night he called the vizier to his tent. “I am going out alone to solve this mystery,” he said. “Stay in my tent. When my ministers come tomorrow, tell them I am unwell and cannot see anyone, and do the same every day until I come back.” The vizier begged him not to go, but it was no use. The Sultan took off his robes of state, buckled on his sword, and slipped out of the sleeping camp.

He climbed one of the hills and crossed a wide plain, and as the sun came up he saw a great building far ahead. It was a palace of polished black marble, covered with steel as smooth as a mirror. The gate stood half open. He knocked, but no one came, so he walked in. He crossed a splendid courtyard and called out again and again, but there was no answer.

He passed through halls laid with silk carpets, with couches covered in tapestry and curtains of Indian cloth woven with gold and silver. In one room a fountain rose from the mouths of golden lions, and the water turned to diamonds and pearls as it fell, leaping almost to the painted dome. Around the palace lay gardens, little lakes and woods, and birds sang in the trees under nets that kept them there.

Still there was no one. Then the Sultan heard a sad cry: “Oh, if only I could die! I am too unhappy to go on living.” He followed the voice and found a handsome young man in rich clothes, sitting on a low throne. His face was full of sorrow. The Sultan bowed to him. The young man bowed his head very low but did not stand up. “Sire,” he said, “forgive me. I cannot rise to greet you as your rank deserves.”

“I am sure you have a good reason,” said the Sultan. “I heard your cry and I have come to help you. Whose palace is this, and why is it empty?”

For answer, the young man lifted the hem of his robe. From the waist down he was solid black marble. The Sultan was horrified and begged him to tell how this had happened. “Willingly,” said the young man, and he began his sad story.

Where this story comes from

“The Story of the Fisherman” appears in Andrew Lang’s The Arabian Nights Entertainments (Gutenberg 128)—four casts, a sealed copper jar, and a genie who learns what a sealed lid feels like from the outside.

This selection follows the fisherman’s main adventure, omitting the full Douban story and its nested tales. It continues from the four casts to the cook’s kitchen, where the fish talk back, and on to the black marble palace, ending at Lang’s transition to the next story, at the moment the young prince, turned to stone from the waist down, begins his own story. His tale, the story of the Black Isles, is told next in the Nights. The towering servant with the green staff is described in Lang by his skin colour; this page leaves that out.

Read the original: Andrew Lang, The Arabian Nights Entertainments (Project Gutenberg)

Suggested for ages 9–12 with an adult: includes threats of death and a distressed prince wishing to die; his story continues in the Black Isles episode.

The jar changes who must persuade whom

Before the genie re-enters the jar, the fisherman can only plead. After sealing it, he can demand a binding assurance. The genie’s pride supplies the opening: he would rather prove the fisherman wrong than consider why he is being challenged.

The fish episodes then move through three witnesses: cook, vizier and Sultan. Repetition lets the powerful see what a frightened worker first reported. The mystery broadens beyond the fisherman’s reward rather than ending at his escape.

Track who believes whom

Make one row for each fish-cooking scene. Record who sees the event and what action follows. Compare that growing evidence with the fisherman’s earlier deliberate expression of disbelief about the jar.

Talk about it

• What does the fisherman pull up on each of his four casts?
• How does he trick the genie back into the jar?
• What reward does the genie finally give him?
• Why do you think the Sultan wanted to solve the mystery himself, alone?

Related stories

• Scheherazade and the Sultan — the nights that frame this tale
• Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves — another Arabian Nights turn of fortune
• The Blue Light — a trapped helper who must serve