Fairy Tale Friday--Rimonah of the Flashing Sword (North Africa or Egypt)

Hello and welcome to Fairy Tale Friday. Are you sitting comfortably? Good. Then I’ll begin.

This week we look at a tale called Rimonah of the Flashing Sword. It was adapted by Eric A. Kimmel (author of the Caldecott Honour Book Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins which was illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman.) Kimmel says he came upon the traditional version in Miriam's Tambourine by Howard Schwartz. There is some debate about the origins of this tale-- Kimmel says the tale is from North Africa and Schwartz says it came from Egypt.

This is another too good to pass up tale that I did not have the actual text for, but CRAFTY MOM's blog to the rescue! She summarises the tale in great detail.

This story begins just as Nourie Hadig did last week.  Nourie Hadig’s mother turned against her, but here Rimonah (which also means pomegranate) has the misfortune to have her mother die when she is seven. We learn later that her stepmother had something to do with it. On her deathbed, the mother gives Rimonah a vial with three drops of her blood that will liquify when she is in danger. This reminds me of a folktale I heard once at summer camp told by the great storyteller Lee Knight. I do not recall much of the tale, but a glass of milk left on the table would turn to blood if there was danger.

As in other tales, the wicked stepmother has a magical helper to ask if she is the most beautiful. Here it is a porcelain bowl she fills with water—like a scrying bowl—which lets her know she is less beautiful than her stepdaughter.  As in other tales, our protagonist is sent to be killed and her blood is replaced with the blood of an animal (in this case a gazelle). She escapes and joins a group of Bedouin who oppose the Queen. She learns how to fight and becomes quite skilled with a blade. I really loved this idea, as most fairy tale heroines are passive to the extreme. Her stepmother tracks her down and there is an exciting bit with a scorpion shaped necklace that becomes a real scorpion (another most unusual idea) but her mother’s blood warns her, and she escapes. This time she hides in a cave with not seven dwarfs, but forty thieves. Here we merge into Aladdin and Arabian Nights territory. It turns out the thieves were also all wronged by her stepmother and here she earns the nickname of Rimonah of the Flashing Sword for her weaponry skills. Her stepmother still manages to “kill” her with poison jewellery (not nearly as cool as the scorpion necklace but was made cooler by the fact that like Harry Potter’s mother, her mother's love protected her and made Rimonah sleep and not die) but a passing Prince kisses her awake which is slightly anticlimactic.  But instead of just passively abandoning all her friends and getting married, Rimonah insists that she will not leave without her forty companions. Rimonah’s tears help resurrect her father and together they kill the stepmother (more shades of Aladdin with a flying carpet) and the thieves all go work for the palace as guards. It is a hugely satisfying tale with a strong and fierce heroine, something we surely need more of.

I am sorry it is merely a summary, but that is all I could find.

source

Rimonah of the Flashing Sword source

 This story begins with a queen who is eating a pomegranate. She wishes to have a child with skin is as dark as the pomegranate, eyes as bright as its seeds and voice as sweet as the juice of the pomegranate. Soon she has a daughter with these qualities and she names her Rimonah which means pomegranate. Rimonah grows up in a loving household until her seventh birthday when her mother dies. Upon her deathbed, Rimonah's mother gives her a vial with three drops of her blood to wear around her neck. She tells her if they blood turns red and to liquid (after drying) then Rimonah is in danger. Then the mother dies.

The father who vows not to remarry ever, is married before his first wife is in the grave. The new wife is a sorceress who want to increase her power by becoming queen. She used her magic to kill the first queen and to make the king not have control of his mind. She keeps her special magic tools in a tower that only she is permitted to go in. She has a magic porcelain bowl that when she fills it with water, she can ask it any question and get a truthful answer. She asks if she is the fairest of all. One day it answers that Rimonah is fairer. She gets angry and orders a servant to go kill her.

The servant takes Rimonah out and pulls out his dagger, and Rimonah begs for her life. He tells her to go far away. Rimonah escapes leaving behind her cape which the huntsman uses as proof of her death. He covers it with blood of a gazelle first.

Rimonah finds a group of bedouin. Since they do not follow the rule of the king and queen she is welcomed. She learns to ride and use her sword with them. She becomes well known for her skill with the sword and dagger. One day the queen hears someone discussing Rimonah of the desert's sword skill. The queen is shocked to hear she is not dead. She goes to her bowl to check and learns that she is still alive. She uses a magic cape to dress as a bedouin prince and brings a magical scorpion necklace. It turns into a real scorpion at sunset. She leaves it at Rimonah's tent with the other suitors' gifts. Rimonah gives it to one of her friends but notices the blood in her necklace turn red and liquid. She grabs the necklace from her friend’s neck as the sun sets and kills the scorpion. At this point her friends urge her to leave since she has been found. 

Rimonah leaves and finds a cave with a huge stone blocking the entrance. She hides and sees its inhabitants, 40 thieves, enter using the words, "Open Sesame." She tries it and goes in. She leaves her horse in the stables and discovers a beautiful castle. She finds the forty beds and lies down for a quick rest but falls fast asleep. The thieves find her and want to kill her but bring her to their leader. They think she is a spy for the queen. She tells them how the queen has tried to kill her twice and they allow her to join them. They call her Rimonah of the Flashing Sword after seeing her skill. All of the thieves were honest men who were destroyed by the queen (all of their belongings taken by the queen's servants). 

The queen discovers that Rimonah is still alive and uses her magic to find her. This time she brings a poisonous ring. She convinces Rimonah to put it on after she rolls it under the locked castle door saying the leader of the thieves wanted her to have it. She falls to the ground instantly. However she does not die since her mother's love is protecting her.

The thieves find her and put her in a glass coffin thinking she is dead. One day a prince finds his way into the cave and falls in love with the beautiful woman in the coffin. Even though she is surrounded by forty men asleep with their swords out, he opens the coffin to kiss her. The thieves wake up and threaten to kill him until they hear Rimonah's voice saying to spare him since he is the prince of her dreams. They are so happy to have Rimonah alive, but sad that she and the prince are in love. Rimonah tells the prince she will not be happy without her forty men. He agrees. As they journey to the prince's kingdom, they find a coffin in the desert and the leader of the thieves discovers it is the king. Rimonah wants to see her father once more and asks them to open it for her. She cries at her father's death and her tears awaken her father. He tells them how the queen used her magic to control him and then kill him. They decide Rimonah will not be safe with the queen alive so all of them go to kill her. When her people see them coming, they abandon the queen. The queen having gotten knowledge that her end is near from the magic bowl tries to escape on her magic carpet, but leaves the bowl behind. Rimonah runs to the tower and throws the bowl at the queen. When the bowl hits the carpet and then the ground it breaks, and the carpet unwinds. The queen dies. Everyone is happy. The thieves become the guards of Rimonah and her prince.

That’s all for this week. Stay tuned next week for another tale with forty thieves.