HIKAYAT SA1F-AL-YEZAN. 251 



32. This talisman, which is to play so large a part in the 

 subsequent adventures of the hero, seems to have been a tablet 

 with an inscription upon it. The attendant Jin was summon- 

 ed by the reading of what was written, as the ministering spirit 

 of Ala-ed-din (Aladdin) was brought on the scene by rubbing 

 the magical lamp. 



33. LobaiKj cjoa. This is another example, noticed by 

 Lane, of resemblance between incidents in this story and in the 

 Arabian Nights. In the sixth voyage of Es Sindibad of the Sea 

 the hero is swept through an underground river. See Lane, 

 Thousand and one Nights, ch. xxiv, note 3. 



There is a remarkable instance of such a subterranean 

 river in the territory of Sarawak in Borneo. The river Lim- 

 iting flows for a long distance below the surface of the ground. 



31. Lautan ycmg bcsar-bc-sar. This probably means the 

 river getting broader as it approaches its mouth. 



35. Ya Satir. O Protector! an appeal to the protection 

 of God frequently uttered when incurring danger. 



3G. Moiiathi Nafus, the Swan Maiden. This is the 

 last example which Lane remarks upon of incidents in the 

 Thousand and One Nights which may have been borrowed 

 from this story. He compares Saif-al-Yezan's adventure with 

 the experience of Hasan of El Basrah. (See Lane's Thousand 

 and One Nights ch. xxv, note 16.) 



But the myth of the Swan Maidens is much older than 

 either the one or the other: it is one of the most popular and 

 most widely spread of all Folk Tales. As Baring-Gould has 

 pointed out, it is found in Greece, in Germany, and in Iceland 

 and other Scandinavian outposts of the world. Probably all 

 the forms of the story are variants of an early Aryan original, 

 suggested by fleecy clouds floating over a lake and reflected in 

 its waters. (See Baring-Gould, 'Myths of the Middle Ages,' 

 Article 'Swan Maidens.') Some readers may like to be re- 

 ferred, for a modern English version of the myth, to the 

 charming poem called " The Land East of the Sun and 

 West of the Moon : " in William Morris's " Earthly 

 Paradise." 



R. A. Soc, No. 58, lyu. 



