Ramadan Arabian Nights 2022: Tale of Al-Ashkeef “The Ebony horse” Ep.9

Ramadan Kareem

Here is our ninth night of Ramadan Arabian nights.

As you can guess from the title tonight, we will have a special appearance of the Flying horse or the Ebony horse. The flying horse is another recurring theme in the One Thousand- and One-nights book and our Radio show as well.

We met the ebony horse previously in our show in 2018’s The Amazing tales challenge and 2021’s King Mohrab tale.

Prince Qamar El-Din on his ebony horse by Edmund Dulac in 1914

Unlike what is mentioned in the Wikipedia entry, I believe the Ebony horse has its trace in Islam too as in Al-Burqa.

Back to our tale for this year.

First, you can refresh your memory and listen to last night’s episode.

Now, here is the ninth episode of our tale tonight. It was episode no.591 of our favourite show.

It is Negm El-Din, the third old man’s turn, and he presents to King Rihan an amazing thing and as you guess it an ebony horse, unlike any other horse.

The ebony horse is outside the palace’s court and so Rihan and his son prince Zaafran go to see it. The old man tells them that the ebony horse is also enchanted, and it flies after rubbing its neck and pulling its right ear while saying “C’mon pretty one”.

Prince Zaafran does not wait and decides to try this right away. He jumps on the ebony horse and rubs his ear then pulls its right ear and says, “C’mon pretty one”. The horse moves indeed and flies leaving behind King Rihan scared of his only son’s life.

The old man tells him that Zaafran has not even waited to know how to make the horse come down and that’s it is the prince’s mistake. The old men do not know where the horse is going or what happens next.

Angry King Rihan decides to imprison them while Zaafran is flying away and does not know how to make the horse stop and come down.

Rihan summons the three men to the court and orders them to tell their tale and why they came with such strange stuff to his kingdom. The three old men begin to share their stories.

Here is the ninth episode of the tale televised.

Next night inshallah we will know the story of the three strange old men.