The Story of the Three Apples

Notable Characters

  • The caliph
  • Ja’far
  • The young man
  • The old man
  • The murdered woman
  • The slave

Plot Summary

The caliph and Ja’far go out on the town one morning and come across a fisherman, who pulls a chest out of the water. Inside the chest is a young woman who has been cut into 19 pieces. The caliph charges Ja’far with the task of finding the person who did this, but Ja’far just sits around for three days instead.

Miraculously, it still works out for him, and two men come forward to claim that they killed the young woman. One man, the older one, says that he is her father and that he killed her. Another man, the younger one, says that the old man is his uncle, the young woman is his wife (and cousin), and that the old man is only confessing to spare the young man’s life.

The young man explained that he traveled a long way to get three apples for his wife because she requested them. By the time he returned, she no longer wanted the apples. The next day, he saw a slave walking by with one of the apples, and the slave told him that he got it from his mistress and insulted her husband. In a fit of rage, the young man killed his wife and put her in the chest that the fisherman later found.

Upon returning to his house, he discovered that his son was crying because he had taken one of the apples. A slave had stolen it from his son, and the son explained to the slave where the apple had come from in order to convince him to return it, but it didn’t work. The young man realized his mistake and wanted to take the punishment for his act of rage.

The caliph again orders Ja’far to find the slave who caused this misunderstanding. Again, Ja’far did absolutely nothing during the three days. When it came time for his own execution, he discovered that the slave who had stolen the apple was one of his own slaves.

The caliph was amazed by this turn of events and promised to spare the life of Ja’far’s slave if Ja’far told him a story even more amazing than their own. Ja’far told him The Story of the Two Viziers, and the caliph freed the slave and gave one of his concubines to the young man because why not.

Tales within this Story