The King of the Black Islands and the Myth of the Waste Land

Abstract

Without going into all the details of a very complicated set of narratives, we will remind the reader that the continuation of the Fisherman and the Genie is the tale of the Young King of the Black Islands. This story deals with a sultan who, in the course of his quest, first passes by a lake full of white, red, yellow or blue fishes, next finds in a deserted palace this enchanted king. The victim of his wife, a wicked and depraved sorceress, he has been turned to black marble from the waist downwards. Having detected her in an amour with a hideous black, the king had attacked this negro, rendering him apparently dead, though in fact speechless and unable to move. The wicked queen then went into mourning and erected a magnificent monument in which after a year she installed her lover, whom she tended and nursed. Finally outraged by this behaviour, the king threatened her with his drawn sword. The queen now recognised her lover’s assailant, and revenged herself by reducing him to this semi-petrified state. Furthermore, she changed his kingdom of four islands into as many mountains, withdrawing the water that surrounded them into the lake already mentioned.