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The Three Wishes

1001 Nights
A certain man had longed all his life to look upon the Night of Power, and one night it befell that he
gazed at the sky and saw the angels, and Heaven's gates thrown open; and he beheld all things
prostrating themselves before their Lord, each in its several stead. So he said to his wife, "Harkye,
such an one, verily Allah hath shown me the Night of Power, and it hath been proclaimed to me,
from the invisible world, that three prayers will be granted unto me; so I consult thee for counsel as
to what shall I ask."
Quoth she, "Oh man, the perfection of man and his delight is in his prickle; therefore do thou pray
Allah to greaten thy yard and magnify it."
So he lifted up his hands to heaven and said, "Oh Allah, greaten my yard and magnify it." Hardly
had he spoken when his tool became as big as a column and he north stand and north moveand
when he would have carnally known his wife, she fled before him from place to place. So he said to
her, "Oh accursed woman, what is to be done? This is thy list, by reason of thy lust."
She replied, "No, by Allah, I did not ask for this length and huge bulk, for which the gate of a street
were too strait. Pray Heaven to make it less."
So he raised his eyes to Heaven and said, "Oh Allah, rid me of this thing and deliver me therefrom."
And immediately his prickle disappeared altogether and he became clean smooth.
When his wife saw this she said, "I have no occasion for thee, now thou art become pegless as a
eunuch, shaven and shorn."
And he answered her, saying, "All this comes of thine ill-omened counsel and thine imbecile
judgment. I had three prayers accepted of Allah, wherewith I might have gotten me my good, in
this world and in the next, and now two wishes are gone in pure waste, by thy lewd will, and there
remaineth but one."Quoth she, "Pray Allah the Most High to restore thee thy yard as it was."
So he prayed to his Lord and his prickle was restored to its first estate. Thus the man lost his three
wishes by the lack of wit in the woman

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