Tales from the Islamic Golden Age: Sinbad

The Islamic Golden Age produced far more than the science and mathematics you may have studied elsewhere -- it also produced some of the most enduring adventure tales in world literature, gathered into a collection often called One Thousand and One Nights. Among its most famous threads are the seven voyages of Sinbad, a merchant of Baghdad who repeatedly sets out to sea seeking his fortune, survives extraordinary dangers, and returns home each time wealthier but no less restless.

On his second voyage, Sinbad is accidentally left behind on a deserted island, where he discovers the massive egg of a roc, a legendary bird large enough to carry off an elephant. When the roc returns and takes flight, Sinbad ties himself to its leg and is carried to a valley floored with diamonds but guarded by serpents -- and escapes only by using a trick he observes local merchants using: they throw meat into the valley so diamonds stick to it, then let birds of prey carry the meat, diamonds and all, up to a ledge they can reach. Sinbad straps meat to himself and lets a bird carry him to safety instead. These tales are told inside a frame narrative -- a story about a storyteller (Scheherazade, telling tales night after night) containing the individual voyages -- a structure that lets many separate adventures live inside one larger story.