a handpicked few from the one thousand and one night stories

The One Thousand And One Nights Stories which have roots in Persia have been transmitted orally for centuries until they were gathered in books. The reason behind the lasting of the tales, apart from the beauty of the storyteller's imagination and the usage of the engaging story-within-a-story device, is the stories' ability to adapt themselves to the present time. For centuries people from different eras have found the events, thoughts, beliefs and the characteristics of their period in these tales. For instance in the story of Three Sisters, the Talking Bird, which is aware of all secrets, is like a computer with numerous files saved on its vast memory. Such is the charisma of The One Thousand And One Nights Stories that writers and filmmakers across the world have employed them frequently in their works. The Dream, a story in this collection which has been used as the backdrop for Paulo Coelho's successful novel The Alchemist, is an example.