Ramadan Kareem to all Egyptian Chronicles readers.
Before we continue our tale and discover what the brothers had done on each road in that year, we will have our little chit-chat.
*Spoiler alert*
Tonight, we travel to the City of the Giants — a recurring theme in folklore across much of the world.
Historically, one of the earliest recorded mentions of giant-like beings in literature appears in the Epic of Gilgamesh (c. 2100–1200 BCE) from ancient Mesopotamia. In the epic, Gilgamesh battles Humbaba, the monstrous guardian of the Cedar Forest, often interpreted as a giant-like being.
Centuries later, giants became prominent figures in Greek mythology and literature. But before turning to Greece, we must note that giants also appear in the Hebrew Bible — specifically in the Book of Genesis — and in the Book of Enoch as the Nephilim.
According to Hebrew biblical tradition, the Nephilim were ancient beings born from the forbidden union between fallen angels and human women in the pre-diluvian world.
After Noah’s Flood, the Nephilim are no longer clearly mentioned as a surviving race. However, the Israelites are described as encountering giant peoples in Canaan after leaving Egypt — including the Amalekites, King Og of Bashan, and later Goliath.
From a historical perspective, it is possible that ancient Hebrews encountered neighboring Levantine groups who were physically taller or culturally perceived as stronger, which over time evolved into traditions of “giant races.”
Enter Greek mythology: the Gigantes, the Titans, and the Cyclopes — colossal beings who battled the Olympian gods and were ultimately defeated. The earliest surviving Greek literary references to such giants appear in the works of Homer (8th century BCE) and Hesiod (c. 700 BCE).
Fast forward to the Islamic Golden Age during the Abbasid era. The historian and polymath Al-Tabari, in his famous History of the Prophets and Kings, recounts earlier biblical and pre-Islamic Arabian traditions, including references to giant figures such as King Og.
Then comes One Thousand and One Nights. Giants appear there as monstrous or cannibalistic beings, most famously in the voyages of Sindbad the Sailor, in stories that echo elements of Homeric myth.
Contrary to popular belief, giants were not alien to post-Greek Europe either. In Norse mythology, preserved in texts such as the Prose Edda and the Poetic Edda, we encounter the jötnar — primordial giants who predate the gods. Norse cosmology itself begins with the giant Ymir, from whose body the world is formed. (Yes — hello, Attack on Titan fans.)
Although these texts were written down in the 13th century, they preserve much older oral traditions.
Meanwhile, the Nephilim were well known throughout medieval Christendom via the Latin Bible. In 12th-century Britain, Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae describes Britain as originally inhabited by giants before the arrival of human kings. In Arthurian legend, King Arthur himself battles a giant.
So, when, in the 18th century, Jonathan Swift wrote Gulliver’s Travels, sending his hero to Brobdingnag — the land of giants — he was not inventing something new. He was drawing from a very old imaginative tradition.
Gulliver — and before him Sindbad — were not the first to visit a land of giants. Whether mythical, symbolic, or misunderstood, giants have roamed human imagination for millennia.
Now, without further delay, I present the fourth episode of our story—The Tale of Sajur and his sons, or the 198th night of One Thousand and One Nights, as broadcast by the Egyptian State Radio.
Ep.4 “The road of Safety to the city of the giants”
And when it was the One Hundred and Ninety-Eighth Night, and the night that followed, King Shahryar took his seat as on the evening before. Shahrazad came at the appointed hour, greeted him with grace, and sat beside him, touching his eager heart with the warmth and music of her voice.
Shahrazad: It has reached me, O fortunate King, wise in judgment and steadfast in resolve, that when the three brothers parted in search of the rarest of gifts with which to win their cousin’s hand, each entrusted himself to God and walked the path written for him by fate.
The days passed.
The year was fulfilled.
And the appointed hour of reunion arrived after long separation.
First came Firuz, swift and gentle as a dove returning by the Road of Safety. When he beheld the keeper of the khan, he hastened toward him and said:
“Good sir, do you remember me?”
“I remember,” replied the keeper. “Are you not Firuz?”
“I am. Have my brothers come?”
“Nairuz arrived this very day.”
Firuz entered, and scarcely had he crossed the threshold when the third brother, Ma‘zuz, appeared likewise. And so, the three embraced, rejoicing that none was absent.
Yet each, proud of his venture, began to boast of the marvel he had obtained.
“I have brought,” said one, “that which draws the distant near and sends the near afar.”
“And I,” said another, “have brought that which sets your beloved before your eyes before your feet can reach her.”
“And I,” said Firuz, smiling, “have brought the strangest gift my eyes have ever beheld.”
At last they agreed that each should recount his tale from the hour of parting.
And Firuz began.
“I journeyed alone,” said he, “believing that I should find myself where I had begun. I travelled until night overtook me. I pitched my tent, tethered my horse, and resolved to rest until dawn.
“But when morning broke, I stepped from my tent and saw before me a city that had not stood there the night before.
‘I did not behold this yesterday,’ I said. ‘Was I blind to it?’
“So I approached.”
Yet when he entered the city, he beheld a wonder beyond imagining.
Men towered like mountains.
Each was the height of a minaret.
Their limbs were like tree-trunks; their voices like thunder.
They pointed at him and roared with laughter.
“Seize him!” they cried. “See the tiny creature astride the fowl! See how small he runs!”
Firuz trembled.
“What are you?” he asked.
“And what are you?” they answered. “Are there beings so small as you?”
They lifted him in the crook of an arm and bore him in procession to their Sultan.
The Sultan marveled greatly.
“Blessed be the Creator!” he exclaimed. “It speaks!”
Firuz, regaining courage, said, “You wonder at me as I wonder at you.”
The Sultan laughed. “Did you see the bird you rode?”
“That is no bird,” replied Firuz. “It is a horse.”
“A horse!” cried the Sultan. “They call birds horses!”
The court roared with laughter.
Yet the Sultan’s curiosity turned to kindness. He commanded that Firuz be placed upon a high table so that they might speak eye to eye.
They conversed long. Firuz told of his homeland and of the quest for a wondrous gift.
At length the Sultan said:
“Since you are not pressed for time, remain among us.”
“My lord,” answered Firuz, “I must return to the khan where my brothers await me.”
“Then,” said the Sultan, “I shall grant you the gift worthy of your quest. Would you see your cousin now?”
Firuz stared in disbelief. “Between us lie days and months.”
“And yet,” said the Sultan, “you shall see her.”
He commanded that a casket of ebony be brought forth.
From it he took a pair of ivory spectacles and placed them in Firuz’s hands.
“Look through them,” he said, “and think upon whom you will.”
Firuz obeyed.
He gasped.
“Amira! Why does she weep? … My father! Why does sorrow cloud his face?”
The Sultan smiled. “These are spectacles of vision. Look through them and whatever you hold in thought shall appear before you.”
Firuz bowed deeply.
“Take them,” said the Sultan. “Let them be your gift — and may they win for you the hand you seek.”
Thus, Firuz mounted at once and crossed deserts and plains until he reached the khan and rejoined his brothers. He told them all that had befallen him and showed them the enchanted spectacles, revealing its marvels before their eyes.
Then Firuz withdrew, and Nairuz stepped forward to begin his tale and recount the perils he had faced.
He said:
“My lord—”
And before her tale was complete, the dawn overtook Shahrazad, and she fell silent until another night.
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