I have an old copy of the Arabian Nights written for children, and I read it a few times. I always loved the one with Periezade best. (She's so cool!) However, some stories left me with questions. There is one line in the story of Aladdin that has always mystified me. So, the original story is much longer and more complicated than the Disney version. It even takes place in China! Well, sort of. It's called China but none of the names or settings seem particularly Chinese. It reads more like a name tacked on to say "oh, this story took place far away." Aladdin is not one of the original Thousand and One Nights, but a story added in the 18th century by French translator Antoine Galland. He claimed to have heard it himself from a monk from Aleppo. There are two genies. And there are two villains - the sorcerer who's after the lamp in the first place, and then his brother, who comes in to avenge him. The brother is legitimately terrifying. He kills an old lady, dresses up as her, and gains the princess's confidence, filling her with greed for . . . the egg of a roc, so that she can hang it up in her house, as you do. Just as planned, the princess asks Aladdin for one, and he promises to wish one up for her. Here's where things take an unusual turn - for the first time, the genie refuses a wish. Not just refuses, but screams in Aladdin's face.
Where did this come from? I thought rocs were just giant birds that threw rocks at Sinbad. Now the roc's egg is the genie's master? Even holding the lamp, we learn, does not make Aladdin the true master of the genie. There is a higher, sacred authority. So, in the story of Aladdin, the genie's master is apparently a roc's egg. This is something that sorcerers know, but ordinary citizens are ignorant of. One thing that muddles this for me is that Aladdin was likely, at least in part, invented by Galland. So there's a chance he made up that exchange with the genie and had no idea what he was talking about. However, after a little bit of thought, I think there is a logical rationale behind it. The reason goes back to the simurgh. There are giant birds like the roc in many mythologies. One tale of the Arabian Nights, "The Story of Damir and al-‘Anqa,’" features a female djinn named Al-Anqa - that being the name of another Arabic monster-bird, the anqa or anka. The phoenix, a symbol of rebirth, also routinely shows up in these lists, along with the Egyptian bennu, the Jewish ziz, and the Greek gryphon.
The Persian equivalent is the simurgh, which like the roc is described as big enough to carry off elephants. Iranian legends say that the bird is so old that it has seen the world destroyed three times over, and is nearly all-knowing. In some stories, like the Phoenix, it plunges itself voluntarily into flames. The simurgh is a being of healing and purity which purifies things, bestows fertility, in one story taught humans to do Cesarean sections, and represents the union between the Earth and sky. It nests in the Tre of Life, the source of all kinds of plants and healing medicine. A similar bird, the Hōm, is a healer and messenger which represents the divine right of kings. In Sufi mysticism, the Simurgh would later become a metaphor for God; it was the king of the birds in the 12th-century work "The Conference of the Birds." In the Arabic-speaking world, the Simurgh was combined with other birds of myth like the Ghoghnus, and became the Roc or Rukh. Like the Simurgh, the Roc is a huge bird big enough to carry off elephants. Eating the fertilized egg of a Roc was said to grant eternal youth - hearkening back to the Simurgh's powers of healing and life. (Sinbad's companions try to eat a Roc's egg in one story.) So here you have a birdlike creature that heals and purifies; its flesh grants eternal youth; it connects Earth and Sky and has been used as a metaphor for God and royalty. Eggs themselves are symbols of new life. Djinn are mysterious creatures of flame, more akin to angels and demons than to humans. Many seem to have powers beyond human comprehension. They may be evil or good, but fall under the dominion of Allah. Many served King Solomon. The name of the female genie Al-Anqa suggest a further connection between djinn and large birds. In Muruj al-dhahab, by Al-Mas'udi (c. 896–956), the first iblises, marids and ghouls are all described as hatching from eggs laid by a jann lady - these all being different types of djinn. Some writers have taken notice of this scene. One source, somewhat fancifully, describes an embryonic Roc as the "Prince of Djins." Another talks about a Voldemort-style "Lord of the Lamp" that has enslaved these genies. I don't know where the author got that interpretation from. Others have the roc's egg described in feminine terms, as the genie's "Liege Lady" or "mistress." However, I haven't been able to find any real in-depth discourse or adaptations. SOURCES
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When I researched Tom Thumb weddings a while back, there was one thing that mystified me - and that was the name Jennie June. This was the name used in the Baker's play published in 1898, and in the majority of advertisements and reviews found as my research. It was clear how the Tom Thumb name had been inherited from General Tom Thumb and thence from the fairytale, but who was Jennie June? Wouldn't it have made more sense to call the bride Lavinia, after Mrs. Stratton? Another skit gave the bride the thematically appropriate name Lilly Putian. Maybe I'm overthinking it and it's just a random name that they threw in thinking it sounded good. Maybe, as I initially guessed, there's a connection to the tradition of June weddings. There have been plenty of women with this name. Anyway, I set out to create a timeline, seeking out possible inspirations for the name of Tom's bride. 1853: A book of poems by Benjamin Franklin Taylor, "January and June." I'm not sure of the original date of publication of these poems; they may have been previously published in the Evening Journal. Anyway, one poem is titled Jenny June/The Beautiful River. In a twilight like that, Jenny June for a bride, Oh ! what more of the world could one wish for beside, Jennie June (Jane Cunningham Croly): A very famous journalist who founded the Sorosis club for women in 1868. Wikipedia mentions that she may have first used the pen name of Jennie June as early as 1855. Whenever she first used it, she seems to have used a few at first before settling on that one and starting a trend of alliterative pen names. Her pen name soon became a household name, with her columns and clubs gaining popularity. In the 1880's, she edited a series of manuals for ladies, including an American Cookery Book and several books on needlework and sewing. I found many different accounts of what inspired her name.
However, Croly would have been twelve in 1841, and the earliest I can find proof of Taylor's poem is 1853. At seventy, when she is supposed to have been interviewed about this, Croly may have had trouble remembering the real specifics. However, the varying accounts, as well as the overly flowery style in the Oshkosh paper, make me think that there was some significant embellishment going on. Also, the first-person account in the New England Magazine never mentions Taylor. 1863: – “Jennie June” appears in Beadle's Dime Song Book, copied by permission of Firth, Son & Co. “Did you see dear Jennie June . . .” Also in 1863, General Tom Thumb got married, and the wedding was a huge media spectacle. In following years, other small performers, like Francis Joseph Flynn/General Mite in 1884, would also have widely publicized weddings. In 1892, of performer Admiral Dot and his wife Lottie Swartwood, it was said that "in their wedding garments they looked more like pretty little children than like a man and woman about to embark on the uncertain sea of matrimony." Perhaps it wasn't just the Strattons who inspired the wedding pageant. 1875-1876: The McLoughlin Brothers Paper Dolls includes a doll named Jennie June - a small girl with several different outfits, sold alongside characters like Polly Prim and Gerty Good for 8 cents; these were part of a series of smaller paper dolls, 5 5/8 " inches tall. I don't know exactly when this paper doll first appeared; the Uniform Trade List Circular has a mention of the name dated in 1866. Interestingly, there were also McLoughlin paper doll versions of General Tom Thumb, Lavinia Stratton, and their companions. 1891: The absolute earliest mention I've found of a Tom Thumb wedding in print - hosted by the First African Presbyterian Church. William Dorsey’s Philadelphia cites the Leon Gardiner Collection of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
1892: A song called “Little Jennie June” is printed in Album Melodies by Richard Ferber. 1896: “Sweet Jennie June,” a song by Henry J. Sayers 1898: Thirty-five years after the Stratton wedding, The Walter H. Baker & Co. of Boston put out a play 35 years later called, 'The Tom Thumb Wedding" - “as originally performed at the Union Tabernacle Church, Philadelphia, PA”. From this, we know that there was already a pageant tradition forming; it was just that now people were creating scripts. Here, the bride is named Jennie June, and this was the name I found most often browsing through old newspapers and photos. This was the name that kicked off a burning question that would only ever torment one single person in history. However, at the time, there were other scripts bopping around. Jennie June's chief rival seems to have been Lillian Putian Midget or simply Miss Midget. Again, this name seems less random than Jennie June. People would have gotten the reference to Gulliver's Travels; Tom Thumb was often compared to the people of Lilliput, and at their wedding, General Tom Thumb and his bride were headlined as "The Loving Lilliputians." (Speaking of General Tom Thumb, in Ohio in 1957, there was a "Mock Marriage of Tom Thumb and Miss Lavinia Warren." The earliest mention of Lillian I could find dates to 1901 in the Oklahoman, with a facetious wedding announcement. The writer was clearly having fun with references, as there's a mention of their address at "Gullivar Avenue." In 1911, a copyright was issued for "The Marriage of Miss Midget," or "The Marriage of the Midgets, or The Tom Thumb Wedding," written by May Burnworth. It was renewed in 1914. This was the Lillian Putian version - not the Bakers Plays version, though it usually bore the same name. Here, in a brochure filled with glowing reviews, at the end there is a stern "WARNING!!" All public performances must be under the direction of C. A. Rose, of the Baxter Printing Company, Kansas City, MO. (Incidentally, I found a mention in an 1914 Illinois Newspaper -
Still, that warning is pretty strong. In this reprint of their play, Bakers' puts up a bit of a defense.
In the meantime, there were some odd blends of the two brides' names. In an announcement in 1915, Mr. and Mrs. Lyttle Smalle Lilliput announced their daughter Jennie June's wedding. And in 1926, the bride was Miss Jennie June Midget. However, ultimately it seems to me that the Baker play and Jennie June have lasted longer. At least, in this day and age, I can easily track down the Baker play online, while I'm at a loss for finding any others. And references abound - for instance, there was a skit called "Tom Thumb's First Wedding Anniversary" by Donald V. Hock, published in 1934, with Jennie as the wife. Anyway, back to the mystery at hand. Namely - who is Jennie June? Maybe the writers thought of the little paper doll; maybe it was inspired by someone's copy of a Jennie June manual for ladies; perhaps they remembered Taylor's poem with the line "Jennie June for a bride." But I'm guessing it was just a random name that the writer found cute - most likely something born in the original Union Tabernacle Church skit cited by Baker's Plays. |
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