Leaves of Pearls () is an Iranian folktale first collected and published by the author Saiyed Abolqasem Angavi Shirazi.Персидские народные сказки. Сост. М.-Н. О. Османов, предисл. Д. С. Комиссарова. М., Главная редакция восточной литературы издательства «Наука», 1987. p. 479. It deals with a prince and his brothers sent on a quest to find a remedy for their ailing father; the cadet prince journeys on until only he finds the remedy from a princess in a distant land, and is betrayed by his elder brothers upon returning with the object; the princess then goes after the one that stole the remedy from her castle.
The tale contains similarities to two tale types of the international Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index, ATU 550, "Bird, Horse and Princess", and ATU 551, "The Water of Life".
Sources German scholar sourced the tale from Hamadan.Marzolph, Ulrich. Typologie des persischen Volksmärchens. Beirut: Orient-Inst. der Deutschen Morgenländischen Ges.; Wiesbaden: Steiner [in Komm.], 1984. pp. 114-115 (entry nr. 6).
Translation Professor translated the tale as "Жемчужный листок" ("Pearl Leaves"), wherein the third prince and hero is named Malek-Mohammed.Персидские народные сказки. Сост. М.-Н. О. Османов, предисл. Д. С. Комиссарова. М., Главная редакция восточной литературы издательства «Наука», 1987. pp. 52-56.
Summary The king of Shahres has three sons by three different wives, and one day starts to lose his sight. A dervish comes to him and says his only cure is the leaves of pearl, but there are three castles where the devs live. The king's three sons offer to go fetch their father's cure, and reach a crossroads where a tablet says that they will perish if they ride together. Warned by the writing on the tablet, the half-brothers decide to go their separate ways, and leave their rings as token of life in case any of them falls in their quest.
The elder two ride together to a city, where they find local work and stay there. As for the youngest, he reaches the castles of the Devs and subdues them, who promise to help him. They guide him to the next castle, and the third Dev offers to take him there: he provides him and the prince with to swift horses they ride to the entrance of the garden, from where the prince has to traverse alone. The prince climbs up a long staircase until he reaches the sleeping chambers of a maiden. He takes a branch of the leaves of pearl next to the maiden, kisses her face, and returns to the Dev.
He goes back through the three Dev castles, and the Devs' sisters go with him. The prince reaches the crossroads with the girls and the leaves of pearl, and decides to look for his elder half-brothers in the nearby city. He pays their debts and buys them finer clothes, and they convene at the crossroads. However, the elder princes, on seeing the girls and the leaves of pearl, comment that their father will favour him and decide to get rid of their cadet by throwing him down a well. Meanwhile, the maiden at the garden wakes up and notices her branch of leaves of pearls is gone, so she utters a magic command to have the garden teleport next to the person that stole her possession.
The next day, the king of Shahres sees the large palace near his city, and sends a slave to inquire about its master. The slave returns and tells the king that the mistress of the palace is the owner of the leaves of pearls, and wants it back. The king summons his elder sons to be questioned by the mistress of the palace, but they are unable to answer how they stole her leaves. The youngest prince appears and tells the whole story to the maiden, who agrees to marry him. The prince punishes his elder brothers and his father, and marries the three Devs' sisters and the owner of the leaves.Abū al-Qāsim Injavī Shīrāzī. "گل به صنوبر چه کرد: قصههاى ايرانى" [What the flower did to the poplar: Iranian stories]. انتشارات امير کبير،, 2003. pp. 125-128.
Analysis Tale type Professor Osmanov classified the tale as two tale types: AaTh 550, "Quest for the Golden Bird", and AaTh 551, "the Sons on a Quest for a Wonderful Remedy for their Father".Персидские народные сказки. Сост. М.-Н. О. Османов, предисл. Д. С. Комиссарова. М., Главная редакция восточной литературы издательства «Наука», 1987. p. 479.
Ulrich Marzolph, in his Catalogue of Persian Folktales, classified the tale as its own Iranian type 550, Die neidischen Brüder ("The Jealous Brothers"): the king sends his three sons on a quest either for a cure for his illness, or for a talking bird; the king's youngest son, the hero of the tale, finds the bird or remedy, kisses a sleeping maiden, and returns to his brothers; his elder brothers throw him in a ditch and steal the object to take the credit for the success of the quest; the sleeping maiden, owner of the object, wakes up and goes after the thief.Marzolph, Ulrich. Typologie des persischen Volksmärchens. Beirut: Orient-Inst. der Deutschen Morgenländischen Ges.; Wiesbaden: Steiner [in Komm.], 1984. p. 113. Marzolph listed 9 variants of his tale type across Iranian sources.Marzolph, Ulrich. Typologie des persischen Volksmärchens. Beirut: Orient-Inst. der Deutschen Morgenländischen Ges.; Wiesbaden: Steiner [in Komm.], 1984. pp. 113-115.
The tale contains similarities to two tale types of the international Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index: ATU 550, "Bird, Horse and Princess", and ATU 551, "Water of Life". Scholars Stith Thompson and Hans-Jörg Uther remarked on their similarity of plots and likeness of motifs, which makes it difficult to index as either one type or the other.
Variants Iran The Bird Called Flower Trill In an Iranian tale collected by Iranist Arthur Christensen with the title Der Vogel Blumentriller (translated as The Bird Called Flower Trill), a king has three sons, Malik Muhammad, Malik Djamsheed and Malik Ibrahim, the last of which he loves more than the elder two. One day, the king goes blind, and a physician suggests they catch a green fish in the ocean with a golden ring inside it, then cut it into pieces and place them over the king's heart. Some divers catch the fish and deliver it to Malik Ibrahim, who, however, releases the fish back into the sea after seeing a religious inscription on its head. The elder princes use the situation in their benefit, and the king deprives the young prince of his title. Later, the royal physician suggests they find the bird named Flower Trill, which can produce flowers with its songs; if one of its flowers is placed on the king's heart, he shall recover. The three princes reach a crossroads, and go their separate ways in their quest. Malek Ibrahim follows a path fraught with dangers, defeats some beautiful, yet dangerous sorceresses, and rescues a princess of the Peris named Maimune Khatun, whom he marries. After the marriage, Malek Ibrahim continues on his journey to get the bird. With the help of divs, he reaches the garden of Tarfe Banu, the daughter of the Peri King of the Mountain of Qaf. He enters her chambers, steals the bird in its cage, then makes his way with the div's help, and marches back to his kingdom. When he reaches the crossroads, he places the cage up a tree and sleeps for a while. While he rests, his elder brothers return empty-handed from the journey, see the cage and decide to take it with them, stealing the credit for the success of the quest. However, the bird does not chirp on reaching the kingdom, only when Malik Ibrahim returns to the city and goes to the king's presence. The king is cured and crowns the third prince as his heir. One month later, Tarfe Banu sets up a tent outside the city and demands to see who stole her bird. Malik Ibrahim meets up with her, and she declares she will marry him, for he was the one who defeated the witches and made himself master over the bird. Malik Ibrahim marries Tarfe Banu, and sends for his first wife, Maimune Khatun, and they live and rule together.Persian folktales. London: G. Bell, 1971. pp. 13-26.
Leaves from the Tutia Tree In a tale from Isfahan, translated into Russian as "Листья дерева тутии" ("Leaves from the Tutia Tree"), the padishah of Chin (a term for "China"), Malek Faghfur, is losing his sight, and his only remedy is the leaves from the Tutia tree that grows on the land of Misr, in the garden of the daughter of the Shah of the Peris. The three princes, Malek Jamshid, Malek Shamshir and Malek Ibrahim, begin the quest: the first two princes stop by a city and play games against a beautiful lady, lose, and are turned into servants; Malek Ibrahim beats the same lady at her game, ousts a cruel ruler, then goes to Misr to find the leaves. He enters the palace of the Shah of the Peris and sees his daughter, deep in sleep, and falls in love with her. Malek Ibrahim takes the leaves with him and goes back to rescue his elder brothers, but they betray him, steal the leaves and throw him inside a well to die.
Later, Ibrahim is rescued by a shepherd and his dog and goes back to Chin, where he discovers his elder brothers have been crowned padishah and vizier, and is tossed in the dungeons. Meanwhile, back in Misr, the Peri princess notices her room has been ransacked and tries to remember the one that did it, since she has seen his visage in a dream, and consulted with the Peri elders about it. The elders foretold her the human prince would come to steal the leaves from the Tutia tree. The princess remembers the elders' prophecy and realizes her beloved was there. She writes a letter to her father to report the situation, and he declares that the human should be punished and Chin reduced to ashes. The princess takes the opportunity to lead her father's army to Chin to see the prince again and punish the one who plucked the leaves from the Tutia tree.
Thus, she takes an army of ghouls, divs and other creatures and stations herself just outside of Chin, and demands to see the thief that stole the leaves from her garden and she will spare the kingdom, lest she reduces everything to cinders. Malek Faghfur asks his son Jamshid to placate the stranger, and he goes to meet the peri princess. He claims to be the one that did it, but cannot produce any evidence of his deed and the princess promptly quarters him and hangs his pieces from the city's walls. The king sends his middle son, Shamshir, to placate the leader of the invading army, and also cannot produce evidence to substantiate his claims, and suffers the same fate. Desperate, Malek Faghfur is convinced to send for his cadet, Ibrahim, who is in the dungeons.
Out of pride, Ibrahim refuses to leave his cell, and is dragged back to the surface. He writes a letter to the peri princess, who is glad to receive it, since she suspects this prince was the one responsible. The peri princess welcomes Ibrahim and asks him if he stole the leaves from the Tutia tree; he admits he did it, and shows her evidence of his presence in her chambers: he mentions a stick, some misplaced shoes, a nightcap, food and drink he touched while he was there, a knot he did on her belt, and a beauty spot on the princess's face. The princess confirms the story and declares she wants to have the knot untied and the beauty spot removed, which Ibrahim agrees to do after they marry. The Shah of the Peris lets his daughter decide about her marriage, and gives his blessings to the couple. Prince Ibrahim and the peri princess marry in a grand celebration, and the human prince inherits both his father's kingdom and the Shah of the Peris'."Сказки Исфахана" [Tales from Isfahan]. Moskva: Наука, 1967. pp. 109-130.
Leaves of Darkness