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The Fisherman and the Jinni:
"There was an old, poor fisherman who cast his net five times a day and only five times. One day he went to the shore and cast his net. When he tried to pull it up, he found it to be heavy. When he dove in and pulled up the net, he found a dead donkey in it. Then he cast his net again and netted a pitcher full of dirt. Then he cast his net for a third time and netted shards of pottery and glass. On his fourth and final try, he called upon the name of God and cast his net. When he pulled it up he found a copper jar with a cap that had the seal of Solomon on it. The fisherman was overjoyed, since he could sell the jar for money. He was curious of what was inside the jar, and removed the cap with his knife. A plume of smoke came out of the jar and condensed into an Ifrit (powerful genie). The fisherman was frightened, although initially the Jinnee did not notice him. The Jinnee thought that Solomon had come to kill him. When the fisherman told him that Solomon had been dead for many centuries, the Jinnee was overjoyed and granted the fisherman a choice of the manner of his death. On the fifth try he pulled up a thousand fish.

The Jinnee explained that for the first hundred years of his imprisonment, he swore to enrich the person who freed him forever. For the second century of his imprisonment, he swore to grant his liberator great wealth, but nobody freed him. After another century, he swore to grant three wishes to the person who freed him, yet nobody did so. After four hundred years of imprisonment, the Jinnee became enraged and swore to grant the person who freed him a choice of deaths.

The fisherman pleaded for his life, but the Jinni would not concede. The fisherman decided to trick the Jinnee. He asked the Jinni how he managed to fit into the bottle. The Jinnee, eager to show off, shrank and placed himself back into the bottle to demonstrate his abilities. The fisherman quickly put the cap back on and threatened to throw it back to the sea. The Jinnee pleaded with the fisherman, who began to tell the story of "The Wazir and the Sage Duban" as an example of why the Jinnee should have spared him.

After the story, the Jinnee pleaded for mercy, and swore to help him in return for being released. The fisherman accepted the bargain, and released the Jinnee. The Jinnee then led the fisherman to a pond with many exotic fish, and the fisherman caught four. Before disappearing, the Jinnee told the fisherman to give the fish to the Sultan. The fisherman did so and was rewarded with money for presenting the fishes. Every time a fish was fried, a person would appear and question them, and the fish answered. When the fish would be flipped in the pan, it would be charred. Awed by the sight, the Sultan asked the fisherman where he got the fish and went to the pond to uncover their mystery. When he reached his destination, the Sultan found a young man who was half man and half stone. The young man recounted his story, as the story of "The Ensorcelled Prince". The Sultan then assisted the Prince in his liberation and revenge. They became close friends, and the fisherman who first found the fish was rewarded with his son being appointed the Sultan's treasurer, and the Sultan and the prince married the fisherman's two beautiful daughters."

The Flea:
"A king raised a flea until it was the size of a sheep. Then he had it skinned and promised his daughter in marriage to whoever could guess what the skin came from. An ogre guessed, and the king had to marry his daughter to him. The ogre took her to his house, decorated by the bones of men he had eaten, and brought her back men's bodies to eat. She wept by the window and told an old woman her plight. The old woman told her that she had seven marvelous sons who could help her. The next day, the old woman and her sons came and carried her off.

The oldest son heard the ogre whenever he approached, and each of his brothers put up an obstacle: one washed his hands and produced a sea of soapsuds, one transformed a piece of iron into a field of razors, one turned a little stick into a forest, and one turned a little water into a river. The last one turned a pebble into a tower where they could take refuge, but they were trapped there, and the ogre came with a ladder. The youngest son shot his eye out and cut his head off.

The sons brought her to her father and were richly rewarded. The princess was married to a suitable prince and lived happily."

The Flower Queen's Daughter:
"A prince helped an old woman who was caught in a ditch. She told him that the most beautiful woman in the world was the daughter of the Flower Queen, who had been kidnapped by dragons. He could save her and marry her. To help, she gave him a bell: to ring it once would bring the King of the Eagles; twice, the King of the Foxes; and thrice, King of the Fishes.

He told his father he meant to rescue the daughter and set out. After a year, he met a very old man, who did not know where the dragon was, but if he traveled a year, the prince might meet his father who might know. At the end, the father could not tell him, but directed him on to his father. That man told him that the dragon had just gone to sleep -- it slept one year and woke the next -- but the princess was held by his mother in the next mountain, and the Mother Dragon held a ball every night, at which the daughter would be.

He entered the Mother Dragon's service, saying that he had heard of her beauty and goodness. She was an ugly woman with three heads. She told him that he had to take her mare out to pasture for three days and always return with it. The first day, it vanished, and he rang the bell. The king of the eagles found the mare racing among the clouds and brought it back. He brought it back to the Mother Dragon, who, as a reward, gave him a cloak of copper and let him come to the ball, where he-dragons and she-dragons were dancing. He met the Flower Queen's daughter, who told him to ask for the mare's foal as reward.

The second day, the mare vanished again, he rang the bell twice, and the king of foxes brought the mare back from the hill; the Mother Dragon gave him a silver cloak and let him go to the ball again.

The third day, the mare vanished again, he rang the bell thrice, and the king of the fishes brought the mare back from the river. The Mother Dragon gave him a golden cloak, said she would make him her body servant, and when he asked for the foal, gave it; she was pleased with him because he had flattered her beauty. The Flower Queen's daughter told him they would meet in the meadow if he succeeded.

The Mother Dragon let him go to the ball, but he went to the stables instead. At midnight, he and the Flower Queen's daughter fled on the foal. The dragons woke their brother, but they got to the Flower Queen, who protected them.

The queen agreed to a wedding, as long as her daughter came and lived with her in the winter. The prince agreed, and despite it, was happy with his bride their entire lives."

The Fool of the World and the Flying Ship:
"A couple had three sons, and the youngest was a fool. One day, the Tsar declared that whoever made him a ship that could sail through the air would marry his daughter. The older two set out, with everything their parents could give them; then the youngest set out as well, despite their ridicule and being given less fine food. He met a little man and, when the man asked to share, he hesitated only because it was not fit. But when he opened it, the food had become fine.

The man told him how to strike a tree with an axe; then, he was not to look at it but fall to his knees. When he was lifted up, he would find the tree had been turned into a boat, and could fly it to the Tsar's palace, but he should give anyone who asked a lift. He obeyed.

On the way, he met and gave a lift to a man who was listening to everything in the world, a man who hopped on one leg so that he would not reach the end of the world in one bound, a man who could shoot a bird at a hundred miles, a man who needed a great basket of bread for his breakfast, a man whose thirst could not be sated by a lake, a man with a bundle of wood that would become soldiers, and a man with straw that would make everything cold.

At the Tsar's place, the Tsar did not want to marry the princess to a peasant. He decided to send him to the end of the world to get healing water, before the Tsar finished his dinner. But the man who could hear heard him and told the youngest son, who lamented his fate. The fleet-footed man went after it. He fell asleep by the spring, and the huntsman shot the tree he was leaning against to wake him up, and he brought back the water in time. The Tsar then ordered him to eat twelve oxen and twelve tons of bread, but the glutton ate them all. The Tsar then ordered him to drink forty casks of wine, with forty gallons each, but the thirsty man drank them all.

The Tsar said that the betrothal would be announced after the youngest son bathed, and went to have him stifled in the bath by heat. The straw cooled it, saving him.

The King demanded that he present him with an army on the spot, and with the wood, the youngest son had it and threatened to attack if the Tsar did not agree. The Tsar had him dressed in fine clothing, and the princess fell in love with him on sight. They were married, and even the glutton and the thirsty man had enough to eat and drink at the feast."

Fortunée:
"A poor labourer, dying, wished to divide his goods between his son and daughter. Once, a great lady had visited him, and gave him a pot of pinks and a silver ring for his daughter; he left them to her, and two stools, a straw mattress, and a hen, for her brother. Soon after he died, the brother forbad his sister to sit on his stool and ate the eggs the hen laid, giving her only the shells. She went to her own room, which she found filled with a delicious scent from the pinks. She realized they were dry and watered them at the stream. There, she saw a great lady. The queen saw and summoned her. The girl told her that she did not fear robbers because she had nothing to steal; the queen asked whether they could steal her heart; the girl said that without her heart, she would die, which she did fear. The queen fed her. Then she said she had to water her pinks, and found that her pitcher had been turned to gold. The queen told her to remember that the Queen of the Woods was her friend. The girl offered her the pinks as half of what she owned, but when she went back, she found her brother had stolen them. She returned and offered her ring instead.

She went back and kicked the cabbage. It rebuked her, and then said if she would only plant it again, it would tell her what her brother had done with the pinks: hid them in his bed. She replanted it, but did not know how to retrieve the pinks. Then she went to wring the hen's neck in revenge. It told her that she was not the peasant's daughter but a princess. Her mother had already had six daughters, and her husband and father-in-law had threatened to kill her if she did not have a son. Her fairy sister sent her own baby, a son, to replace her new daughter, but the princess had already fled to this cottage. There she met the hen, who was the labourer's wife. A lady had come, and the woman had told the princess's story, and the lady had turned her into a hen. The same lady had returned to give the labourer the ring and the pinks, and also to turn into cabbages some of the soldiers sent for the girl. One of those cabbages had spoken to her earlier.

She went to get the pinks and found an army of rats and mice to defend it. She thought of the pitcher, and the water from it dispelled the army. The pinks spoke to her, and she fainted.

Her brother returned and threw her out. The Queen of the Woods offered to avenge her, and she refused, and then refused to claim to be a princess, when she had no evidence. A handsome young man arrived. The queen explained that when she sent her son to her sister, an enemy had taken advantage of it and turn him into a pot of pinks. She had brought them to this cottage so that he would fall in love with her. If she married him with the ring she had been given, she would be happy.

She made her brother rich and restored the hen and the cabbages. The girl consented to marry the prince."

The Fountain of Youth:
"An old couple lived in the mountains. The man cut wood, and the woman wove, every day. One day, the man found a spring and drank from it. He became a young man. Delighted, he ran home. His wife said a young man needed a young wife, so she would go and drink, but they should not both be away, so he should wait. He did wait, but when she did not come back, he went after her. He found a baby by the spring; his wife had drunk too eagerly. Saddened, he carried her back."

The Fox Sister:
"A man had three sons and no daughter. He prayed for a daughter, even if she was a fox. His wife gave birth to a daughter, but when the girl was six, one of their cows died every night. He set his oldest son to watch. The boy watched, and told him that his sister did it, by pulling the liver out of the cow and eating it. His father accused him of having fallen asleep and having a nightmare. He threw his son out. The second son was set to watch over the cows, and nothing happened until the moon was full again, but then the sister struck, and the second son was also thrown out. When the youngest son was set to watch, and claimed that their sister had gone to the outhouse, he claimed that the cows must have died from seeing the moon.

The older brothers wandered until they met a Buddhist monk, who sent them back with three magical bottles. They found their sister living alone; she told them their parents and brother had died, and implored them to stay. Finally, she persuaded them to stay the night and somehow made a rich meal for them. In the night, the older brother was woken by the sounds of chewing. He rolled over, saw the meal, and realized that they had been eating corpses. The sister stood over his dead brother, eating his liver. She told him that she needed only one more to become a human.

He fled. He threw the white bottle behind him, and it became a thicket of thorns. As a fox, she made her way through it. He threw the blue bottle behind him, and trapped her in a river, but as a fox, she swam ashore. He threw the red bottle behind, and she was trapped in fire. It burned her until she was no more than a mosquito."