Thursday 18 March 2010

Prince Camaralzaman & the Princess of China

I read a fragment of this myth/fairy tale within Joseph Campbell's "Hero with a Thousand Faces"Campbell only covered the story up until the point where the Djin return the Princess to China, I liked this at the time, gave the tale a great deal of mystery, I really enjoyed the conversation between the Djin and the visualisation I had of them. I found the version used in Campbell's book had a slightly more sophisticated writing style, and was more consistent in its description of the Djin, I also feel it was much more detailed in its various descriptions of the characters and the events. I also believe that the princess was bitten on the naval to inspire lust... or something in the version that I first read.
I mention this because I really did like this story. Campbell explains it as an example of how Heroes can refuse the call to adventure, which can often end in tragedy for the characters but in this case only postpones it for a greater call to adventure later on.
I imagined, when I didn't know the ending, that they were either permanently separated from each other, their efforts to find each other would cause a greater incident of fate or that the heavens themselves, the Djin, would have a greater involvement in the tale.

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