An introduction to the epic of the Bani Hilal
In relation to the previous post, I am showing here two screenshots from the book Heroic Poets, Poetic Heroes: The Ethnography of Performance in an Arabic Oral Epic Tradition, by Dwight Fletcher Reynolds (Cornell University, 1995). They provide a good introduction to the epic of the Bani Hilal.
Something to add to my never-shrinking reading list, I see. Thank you for sharing!
There is in this epic of Banu Hilal, and in Arab epic tales in general, enough material for a hundred Netflix series.
Someone needs to pitch a series, clearly!
Was skimming through articles on the Sira Banu Hilal, and came across a reference in one of them that caught my eye:
“Hakmun marshalled his forces, leaving only women and boys at home. Zir was, of course, not considered capable of fighting; but the King’s daughter saw him seated on a wall with a pole in his hand, dashing his bare heels against the stone till they bled, and brandishing his pole like a lance. This having happened thrice, the Princess told the King of the strange behaviour of his groom, who was at once brought in and asked the meaning of his folly. He replied that he wanted to go and fight with the rest, and was trying to imagine himself on horse back in battle. The King, pleased by such eagerness for war, took Zir at once to the stable, and bade him choose a horse; but it was then discovered that no beast was able to bear the extraordinary weight of the champion, save one heroic horse, a foal by the immortal sea horse of an Arab mare.”
There was that legendary sea horse mentioned in Guarmani’s recounting of the origins of Arabian horses as well, and one of the stories about Solomon has him distracted from his prayers by horses from the sea. How common is the motif of the horse-from-the-sea/sea horse in Arabic literature?
(It also made me think of a Russian (maybe?) folktale I read when small, where the hero’s heavy hand made all the horses he touched buckle at the knee, except for one, who may have been a sea horse, or half sea horse.)
During her February 1881 visit to the Tarabin Bedouins of the Sinai and Negev/Naqab deserts on the North Western fringes of Arabia, on her way from Cairo to Jerusalem, Lady Anne Blunt reported this very interesting Bedouin tale:
” Story of the horse that came out of the sea. Its son from a Dahmeh Kehileh mare Meshur belonged to Arar and from him 5 mares, the originals of the strains of (1) Kebeyshan, (2) Seglawi, (3) Makludi [Mukhalladi], (4) Jaythani (Jeytani) (5) Tueyfi [Trayfi]. Dahman Shahwan is better than Em Amr of Ranat [Banat] el Awaj, he spoke as of awaj el araqib (crooked hooks) whence ‘Om Argub’ — he never heard of Doheymeh Nejib. […] Maneqy and Jilfan are by themselves.”
also a legend narrated by Ibn al-Kalbi (early 9th century AD) about the horse that came out of the sea. It’s a topos in Arab mythology.
Thank you! Wonder if the Phoenician hippocampus is distantly connected, via some common mythological ancestor way back in time.
Maybe. Jacqueline Pirenne (I think it was her or was it Gonzague Ryckmans I forget) associated it to Greece.
Huh, that’s interesting. It doesn’t appear to have been a motif in Geometric Period art, that I am aware of, and by the time hippokampoi appear in Greek art, it’s well into the Orientalising period, with animal motifs, both real and fantastical hybrids, clearly borrowed from eastern sources. The art style doesn’t necessarily dictate the origin of the subject matter, but I don’t recall hippokampoi in Mycenaean art, nor in even in the Minoan marine style. Think I need to go do some more digging.
Also, I am almost finished this book, and it has been very interesting. Thank you for the reference!
which one? the one on the epic of the Banu Hilal?
Yes, the Dwight Fletcher Reynolds one. Really interesting read; definitely enjoyed the emphasis on interaction with the audience, and the discussion of how the text could be reframed as context. It has given me a lot to think about!