Notable Characters
- King Yunan
- Sage Duban
- The King’s vizier
Plot Summary
The sage Duban heard that the king was ill and that no one had been able to cure him. He approached the king and gave him a way to cure his illness without taking any medicine or applying any ointments. The king recovered and was amazed, so he gave the sage Duban a place of honor in his court and trusted him greatly.
The king’s vizier grew envious of the status given to the sage, and he tried to turn the king against him by telling him not to trust him. The king correctly suspects that his vizier is telling him this out of envy, so he shares The Tale of the Husband and the Parrot to explain why he cannot trust his vizier over the sage just based on word alone and no evidence.
To counter that tale, the vizier told the king The Tale of the King’s Son and the She-Ghoul. He wanted to explain that if the king could not trust him, he may as well kill him.
The king began to suspect that the sage could not be trusted, so he put him on trial and had him killed. he realized afterwards that he had made a mistake, the same way the husband did with the parrot in the tale he told his vizier. The sage got his revenge by casting a curse on the king and killing him for this betrayal.
Tales within this Tale
- The Tale of the Husband and the Parrot
- The Tale of the King’s Son and the She-Ghoul
The World of the Arabian Nights 