FISH LIVER OIL
"Then the maiden bade him cast off his robes and cover his body with fishliver oil, that he might safely follow her into the sea'
The 1001 Arabian Nights
The 1001 Arabian Nights is a collection of stories from the Dar al-Islam (‘House of Islam’, an archaic term which refers to all of the regions of the world with a majority muslim population and under the rule of a Caliphate) that were compiled by various scholars from different regions over a course of several hundred years. The first mention of ‘The Thousand Stories‘ in the scholarship of the Islamic world is in reference to a translation of a lost Persian work, ‘Hazar Afsan’, dated to the 9th century CE. The scholar Ibn al-Nadim, writing in the 10th century CE, relates that the Persian ‘Thousand Stories‘ is framed by the tale of a mad king executing a succession of brides after deflowering them, with the heroine Schaharazade delaying her own execution and eventually winning the king’s heart by telling him stories. Ibn al-Nadim tells us that the Persian ‘Hazar Afsan‘ contained two hundred stories, and that these were ‘truly coarse..[] without warmth in the telling’.
The first reference to a work written in arabic and titled ‘The One Thousand and One Nights‘ appears in Cairo in the 12th century CE. There are two manuscript traditions; The Syrian Tradition is based on the Galland Manuscript, dated from the 14th or 15th centuries, while the Egyptian Tradition was still taking shape as late as the 19th century. These two manuscript traditions share a common core of only seven stories; The Merchant and The Genie, The Fisherman and The Genie, The Porter and The Three Ladies, The Three Apples, Nur al-Din Ali and Shams al-Din, Nur al-Din Ali and Anis al-Jalis, and Ali Ibn Bakkar and Shams al Nahar.
The 1001 Arabian Nights as we know it today is a dense work with roots that may very well reach down to the earliest layer of human literary output; the framing story of a clever concubine who out-manuevers mortal danger by telling stories can be traced back to ancient Sanskrit literature. The work has an intricate story-within-a-story-within-a-story structure; it isn’t uncommon for the reader to lose count of how many stories deep they actually are, and this is paralleled in the convolutions of history that the collection of stories reflects.
One cluster of stories centers around the historical personages of caliph Harun-al-Rashid, his vizier Jafar al-Barmaki, and the poet Abu Nuwas, who all died in the early years of the 8th century CE. The voyages of Sinbad, a cycle of tales added to the by European editors, may relate to the earliest years of the Abbasid Caliphate, which dominated Arabia from 750 to 1280 CE. The Nur al-Din cycle deals with a prominent leader of the muslim counter-crusades who lived in the early 11th century. Stories which originated with the Mongols who toppled the Abbasid Caliphate have also been identitified. There is even an early modern layer, which may have been added solely to meet the demands of a European audience who took the title of the work literally.
The medieval layer deals heavily with sex, magic, and the low life, but these themes pervade the whole of the work. The earliest ‘complete’ editions of the 1001 Nights printed in the west were considered taboo, and excercised an incredible mystique. Sir Richard Burton’s fixation on eastern sexual practices balked against the strict moral code of the Victorian public, which was admittedly lop-sided; ‘you can work children to death, but dont talk about sex’.
‘The 1001 Arabian Nights‘ was adapted in 1993 as one of the earliest expansion sets for the Magic: The Gathering card game. It was the only expansion to be directly adapted from a real-world literary work until the 2023 Universes Beyond: Middle Earth set, based on J.R.R. Tolkiens ‘Lord of The Rings’.
From nights 940-946, Shaharazadhe, the young bride and the voice of The 1001 Arabian Nights, tells the story of ‘Abdullah the Fisherman and Abdullah the Merman’. The flavor text on ‘Fishliver Oil’ draws on this story, though the writers at Wizards of The Coast appear to have taken liberties. I am going to fast-forward to the passage in question, from the Richard Burton Translation, Volume 9, dated 1885:
“I have a trust to give thee; so come thou with me into the sea, that I may carry thee to my city and entertain thee in my house and give thee a deposit; which when thou takest thy station by the Prophet’s tomb, do thou lay thereon, saying, ‘O apostle of Allah, Abdullah the Merman saluteth thee, and sendeth thee this present, imploring thine intercession to save him from the Fire.'” Said the fisherman, “O my brother, thou wast created in the water and water is thy abiding-place and doth thee no hurt, but, if thou shouldst come forth to the land, would any harm betide thee?” The Merman replied, “Yes; my body would dry up and the breezes of the land would blow upon me and I should die.” Rejoined the fisherman, “And I, in like manner, was created on the land and the land is my abiding-place; but, an I went down into the sea, the water would enter my belly and choke me and I should die.” Retorted the other, “Have no fear for that, for I will bring thee an ointment, wherewith when thou hast anointed thy body, the water will do thee no hurt, though thou shouldst pass the lave of thy life going about in the great deep: and thou shalt lie down and rise up in the sea and naught shall harm thee.” Quoth the fisherman, “An the case by thus, well and good; but bring me the ointment, so that I may make trial of it;” and quoth the Merman, “So be it;” then, taking the fish-basket disappeared in the depths. He was absent awhile, and presently returned with an unguent as it were the fat of beef, yellow as gold and sweet of savour. Asked the fisherman, “What is this, O my brother?”; and answered the Merman, “‘Tis the liver-fat of a kind of fish called the Dandan, which is the biggest of all fishes and the fiercest of our foes. His bulk is greater than that of any beast of the land, and were he to meet a camel or an elephant, he would swallow it at a single mouthful.”
Quoth the fisherman, "I put my trust in Allah;" and, doffing his clothes, buried them in a hole which he dug in the beach; after which he rubbed his body from head to heels with that ointment. Then he descended into the water and diving, opened his eyes and the brine did him no hurt.
A miraculous voyage to the bottom of the ocean appears in The Epic of Gilgamesh, the Sumerian epic poem. Here, Gilgamesh is shocked at the death of his friend Enkidu. Becoming cognizant of his own mortality, the hero goes in search of a magical item which will restore his youth. In some versions of the telling, the item in question is a plant growing at the bottom of the ocean. In others, the item is a magic pearl, which is again to be found at the bottom of the ocean. While I do not claim identity between the underwater voyage of Gilgamesh and that of Abdullah the Fisherman, this will serve as a nice backdrop for our discussion of Fishliver Oil, an ancient medicine that remains controversial. Is it the closest that ancient man could hope to get to the Pearl of Gilgamesh, or it as spurious as the Dandan Fish? Stay tuned as Dungeonposting investigates.
