So, the king contented himself with inspecting farms and orchards. He had all the food and clothes he wished; he could ride around the countryside all day, or he could sail in his royal sloop. He could watch the women weaving colorful designs and listen to the lute players who accompanied the elegant dancing girls. And he could wonder why he had been warned against that door….

The second door. One day the queen received word from the frontier guards that the country had been attacked. “I shall have to ride out with my army of ten thousand women to defend our country,” she declared. Of course, in Happyland, warfare, like government, was the work of women. So the queen assembled her women and said good-bye to her husband with tender kisses. Before leaving, she handed him the keys of the kingdom, saying: “You can enter any room in our palace, but never go through the door whose lock fits this key.”

Then she gave her commands to her army of women warriors and rode out on her robust steed. Her husband watched them disappear. In his hand he felt the key to the forbidden door. He fondled it, remembering the happiness he had received by ignoring the warning of the old gentleman. Suppose that behind this second door there waited even greater happiness? Surely those who warned him wanted to keep it all to themselves? They knew the bliss behind their secret doors. The old man had not wanted him to become king, that was why!

So the king dismissed his servants and tried to fit the small key to all the doors of his palace. One after another he tried. At last, in a dark corner, he found a small door. When he turned the key in the lock, the door opened. He stepped inside and was at once seized by a whirlwind. An instant later he found himself back in the old house, but the key to its secret door now lay in Happyland. He slowly turned round and faced a mirror: His hair was white, his skin wrinkled, a long white beard hung down on his chest. He was an old man, just like the old men who had died in this house. And like them, he began to wail and lament. …

And we must leave him at it, for we cannot help him.

The miraculous catch

One day a poor fisherman went out fishing with his eldest son, Ali. First they caught the skeleton of a donkey, then a heavy stone that tore their net. “There is no strength and no protection except from Allah!” exclaimed the fisherman. He mended his net and cast it out again. Probably that prayer helped him, for it pleased the Almighty to grant him success.