Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves

このストーリーについて

Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves is one of the best-known Arabian Nights stories, yet no older Arabic manuscript of it is known. The French scholar Antoine Galland added it to his translation, Les Mille et Une Nuits, in the 1710s, most likely from tales told to him by Hanna Diyab, a storyteller from Aleppo in Syria. This bedtime version keeps every turn of the plot, from the magic password to Morgiana's dance, but nobody dies: in Galland, Cassim is killed in the cave and Morgiana scalds the hidden robbers with boiling oil.

読み聞かせのコツ

• Let your child shout Open, Sesame! with the captain, then whisper it with Ali Baba.
• Count Morgiana's three rescues on your fingers: the chalk mark, the oil jars and the dagger.
• Ask why Cassim forgot the word, and what Ali Baba did differently with the gold.

よくある質問

What does 'open sesame' mean?

It is the password that opens the robbers' cave in Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (in Galland's French, Sésame, ouvre-toi). Today open sesame means anything that gives easy access to something hard to get into. Nobody knows for sure why sesame was chosen; one popular idea is that ripe sesame pods burst open.

Is Ali Baba in the original Arabian Nights?

Not in the oldest manuscripts. Antoine Galland added it to his French translation in the 1710s, most likely from stories told to him in Paris by Hanna Diyab of Aleppo. Aladdin entered the Nights the same way.

Who is the real hero of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves?

Ali Baba finds the treasure, but the real hero is Morgiana, his clever servant. She outwits the thieves three times and is rewarded with her freedom and marriage to Ali Baba's son.