The Tale of the Ebony Horse
An illustration by John D. Batten showing Prince Qamar al-Aqma riding the Ebony Horse with his princess. Originally published in the book More Fairy Tales from the Arabian Nights by J.M. Dent & Co., London, 1895.
Pictured above is an illustration from The Tale of the Ebony Horse, which is a folk tale featured in the Arabian Nights. It tells the story of a mechanical horse that has the ability to fly. Throughout the tale, the horse bestows great power on those who know how to operate it, and it illustrates the power of verticality for the rest of us who cannot fly.
As the story goes, the King of Persia holds a yearly contest for anyone to build a mechanical object to impress him and his son, the Prince of Persia. One year, an Indian contestant enters the contest with a life-like horse made of ebony and ivory. The Indian shows the king how to fly it, and he flies up into the sky and back down again. He claims the horse can fly a year’s distance in only a day. The king loves it, declares the Indian the winner of the contest, and grants him one wish. The Indian asks to marry the king’s daughter, which the king agrees to. This is news to the princess, who doesn’t wish to marry the Indian. She confides in her brother the prince to prevent it. The Indian overhears this, and decides to sabotage the prince’s attempt to stop the wedding. The king then presents the horse to the prince, and the Indian teaches him to fly up, but doesn’t teach him how to come back down. The prince flies up and up and out of sight, much to the distress of the king, who throws the Indian in prison for the botched flight attempt.
After rising high into the sky, the prince figures out how to fully control the horse, and flies to Bengal, where he meets a princess and falls in love with her. He convinces her father, the King of Bengal, to let them wed by impressing him with his flying horse. The prince and the princess then fly back to Persia to meet the prince’s family, but the Indian, who was released from prison after the king learns his son is alive, manages to kidnap the princess and fly away with her on his horse.
This enrages the prince, who leaves Persia to wander the land in search of her. He ends up in Cashmere, where he finds the princess. The Indian had arrived with her and was captured, while the princess had caught the eye of the local king. She then pretended to be insane in order to avoid marrying him. The prince learned of all this when he arrived, and he devised a plan to escape with the princess. He posed as a man of medicine and claimed to be able to cure the princess’s madness. He convinced the king to let him use the horse in order to cure her, and the king agreed. The prince then escapes on the horse with the princess. The couple returns to Persia together and the story ends with them happily married.
A painting by Edmund Dulac showing Prince Qamar al-Aqmar riding his Ebony Horse. The painting was originally published in the book Sinbad the Sailor & Other Stories from the Arabian Nights by Hodder & Stoughton, 1914.
Throughout the tale, the horse’s ability to fly is used to great advantage by the characters. It provides a means of escape, it impresses royalty, and it’s a vehicle to exact revenge. The story uses verticality as a form of power, and whoever has control over the flying horse holds this power.
Elsewhere in the world of folklore, many variations of the the Tale of the Ebony Horse exist. The idea of an object that grants the ability to fly has appeared in many forms, which goes to show that the human need to fly is a timeless concept. In nearly every story that features it, the power of flight grants a considerable advantage to whoever has it.
Check out other myths and legends that deal with flight here.