ONCE UPON A TIME IN DISTANT PERSIA there lived the son of a poor merchant. Alongside his father he had travelled till the furthest reaches of the Kingdom, from Mesopotamia all the way till India, looking to trade lamps, silverware and all sorts of precious objects which they carried in a chest. One cold winter night, however, and as they were both travelling with the camel through the desert of Khwarazm, the father happened to get sick and die. And so, the son was left alone, with only the fortune and belongings of his father.

Sad as he was, and seeing he had no other option, he rode with his camel through the desert. As the silverware were very heavy, however, and the camel was slow to move, he thought of throwing some of them away. A wizard then appeared out of the blue, who gave him a lamp, telling him: “You lost your father, yet you will be given a Kingdom”. No sooner had he finished uttering the words than he had disappeared in front of the young man’s eyes.

The young man then gathered the lamp and rubbed it. A genie appeared right in front of his very eyes, telling him: “Come with me my Lord”, then caught him from the shoulders and placed him on a flying carpet. Together they flew above Samarkand and the palaces of the city’s lords, then all the way to lake Aral.

After leaving him on the shores of the lake, the genie told him: “This is your own Palace now”. It then waved to the lake, and from its waters a magnificent, huge Palace emerged. No sooner had the young man uttered a word and the Genie took him inside the Palace, where it placed him on his new throne, telling him: “these are your servants”. From the Palace’s corridors appeared a thousand servants who kneeled before their master. Then the Genie told him: “And these are your riches”, and then two servants carrying a big chest with countless riches appeared, throwing them in front of his feet. The Genie then grabbed him for one more time and flew him to the Palace’s walls, where it told him: “And this is your army”. A huge crowd of soldiers with shining armor and spears appeared out of nowhere and moved into formation. The Genie then disappeared, leaving the young Prince to enjoy his new fate.

The young man’s camel then appeared on the horizon, carrying the chest that contained his father’s riches. The more she approached the Palace, the faster she ran, throwing the various silverware on the ground. The soldiers got so afraid by the dust that rose from the ground that they tried to capture the animal. As soon as the young man saw the camel, however, he ordered them to allow it inside the Palace and to gather all the riches it had accidentally thrown on the ground. He then gave the animal water to drink and ordered his guards to place the chest the camel was carrying alongside the riches of the Palace.

The wizard then appeared, who told him: “I gave you what your father couldn’t have possibly earned with his sweat all those years and more than you would have earned, as is often the case with honest, hard-working people. Yet you respected your father’s fortune till the end, and this is what really matters. The Palace is then rightfully yours”.