Notable Characters
- The fisherman
- The demon
- The king
- The enchanted king
- The wife of the enchanted king
Plot Summary
The fisherman cast his net one day and pulled in a jar that contained a demon. When he released the demon, the demon vowed to kill him because he had been locked in that small prison too long, and he no longer felt the need to reward the person who set him free.
The fisherman, outraged at this turn of events, tricks the demon into entering the jar again. The demon tries to convince the fisherman to release him, but the fisherman no longer trusts him. The fisherman tells the demon the Tale of King Yunan and the Sage Duban to explain that their situation is similar.
Eventually, the fisherman releases the demon, and the demon provides him with instructions for catching fish and earning money from the king to feed his family. The fisherman follows these instructions, and is requested by the king to do so several more times.
The fisherman is unaware of what happens with the fish after he sells them to the king. Whenever the kitchen staff try to cook the fish, a demon appears, speaks of a vow and promise, and the fish burn to a crisp and are dropped into the fire. After the king witnesses this, he asks the fisherman where he catches these fish.
The king travels to the place where the fisherman goes, and he discovers a man whose lower half is turned to stone. After hearing his tale, The Tale of the Enchanted King, he helps the enchanted king trick his wife into releasing the spell placed on this village and the lake. The enchanted king is no longer stone, and the fish in the lake become the people they once were before the spell was placed on them.
The king travels back to his kingdom, but now that the spell has been lifted, it takes him a full year to return. The king rewarded the fisherman for his part in discovering this place and the spell placed on it, and every lived happily ever after.
The World of the Arabian Nights 