With news of “Once Upon A Time”, casting Sinbad, I deemed it appropriate to do a tribute based on his voyages.

The FIRST VOYAGE began after dissipating the wealth left to his by his father. Thats when our hero sets to sea to repair his fortune. He sets ashore on what appears to be an island. The island proves to be a gigantic sleeping whale on which trees have taken root ever since the world was young. Of course, many archetypal heroes have been connected with whales.

Awakened by a fire kindle by the many Navtes (=sailors), the whale dives into the depths. The ship departs without Sinbad. However, the hero is saved by the chance of a passing wooden trough sent by the grace of God (Allah).

He is then found to be washed ashore on a densely wooded island. While exploring the deserted island he comes across one of the king’s grooms. When Sinbad helps save the King’s mare from being drowned by a sea horse – meaning not a sea horse as we know it, but rather a supernatural horse that lives underwater. That is when the groom brings Sinbad to the King. The King befriends the hero and that interaction makes Sinbad his trusted courtier.

One day, the very ship on which Sinbad sets sail docks at the island, and he reclaims his goods. Sinbad gives the king his goods and in returns the king rewards him with riches. However, Sinbad sells these presents for a great profit. He later returns to Baghdad, where he resumes a life of ease and pleasure. With the ending of the voyage, Sinbad the Sailor makes himself, the porter of a gift of a hundred gold pieces, and returns the next day for more adventures.

During the SECOND VOYAGE, Sinbad grows restless of his life and leisure, and sets to sea again possessed by the thoughts of traveling about the world of men and seeing their cities and islands. Accidentally, he is abandoned by his shipmates and finds himself stranded on an island that contains Roc eggs. He attaches himself to one of the Rocs, and is transported to a valley of giant snakes which can swallow elephants known as the Bashe. These serve as the Rocs natural prey.

Sinbad acknowledges that the floor of the valley is carpeted with diamonds, and that merchants would harvest these lands by throwing huge chunks of meat into the valley: the birds would carry the meat back to their nests, while the men would drive the birds away and would collect the diamonds stuck to the meat. The wily Sinbad would strap one of the pieces of meat to his back and would be carried back to the nest along with a large sack full of precious gems. At the end of the 2nd voyage, he would be rescued by the nest from the merchants where he would return to Baghdad with a fortune of diamonds seeing many marvels along the way.

During his THIRD VOYAGE, he grows restless again for travel and adventure and sets sail again but this time from Basra. By ill chance he and his companions are cast up on an island where they are captured by a huge creature in the likeness of man, possibly black of colour with eyes like coals of fire, and large canine boar tusks and a vast big gape like the mouth of a well. The creature has long loose lips like camel’s, hanging down upon his breast, and his ears look like two Jarms falling over his shoulder-blades. The nails of his hands were like the claws of a lion. This monster begins eating the crew beginning with the Reis (Captain), who is the fattest. This of course parallels a lot with the history of Odysseus with the Cyclops during Homeric times.

Sinbad then devises a plan to blind the beast with two red-hot iron spits with which the monster has been kebabing and roasting the ship’s company. Sinbad and the remaining men escape on a raft that they constructed the day before. However, the Gian’ts mate hits most of the escaping men with rocks and they are killed.After further adventures that include a gigantic python from which Sinbad escapes using his quick wits, he returns to Baghdad, wealthier than ever.

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