The Young King & the Colorful Fish

This story holds particular significance for me because of the prominent role the colorful fish play—a pluralistic society in which religious and cultural differences can coexist and contribute to unity and mutual understanding rather than division.

Source
This tale is adapted from One Thousand and One Nights (The Arabian Nights), based on Abdol-Latif Tasuji’s edition (1843–1844 CE). One of its distinctive narrative features is its use of stories within stories, where one tale gives rise to another. The Fisherman and the Jinni—in which a fisherman who’d been transformed into a fish succeeds in trapping the jinni inside a jar—gives rise to this story. A lengthy tale, I drew inspiration from a portion of it for this version.

My telling of the story

One day, after several unsuccessful attempts, a poor fisherman catches four colorful fish in a mysterious lake, and brings them to the king. Each time the royal cook tries to prepare them, a mysterious woman appears, and the fish magically vanishes. Astonished, the king decides to solve this mystery.

His search leads him to that lake and an abandoned nearby city. There he discovers a young man whose body is half human and half stone. The young man explains he was once married to a powerful sorceress and was the king of that city. When his wife learned of his betrayal, she became enraged and cast a spell upon him. She also transformed all the city’s inhabitants into colorful fish—each color representing a different community.

Deeply moved by the young king’s misfortune, the king confronts the sorceress, defeats her, and breaks the enchantment. The young king is restored to full human form, and the people of the city are released from their spell and resume their ordinary lives.

Takeaways

The ideal ruler regards the suffering of others as his own, accepting responsibility for confronting injustice wherever it appears.
Power, when exercised without morality or responsibility, can destroy the lives of many innocent people.
Patience and perseverance become the path to eventual liberation.

The Duck & the Turtle