Underground Rivers - University of New Mexico

Chapter 17 -- Underground Rivers in Continental Fiction
CHAPTER 17
UNDERGROUND RIVERS IN CONTINENTAL FICTION
The previous chapter dealt with contributions to English literature; this chapter deals with writings
in other languages.
We'll begin with a collection of Persian tales from times long past -- the legend of Sinbad the
Sailor, popularized as part of Richard Burton's (not the actor of the same name) 1885 translation
of 1,001 Arabian Nights, the number 1,001 being Burton's embellishment.
According to Christa A. Tuczay, "Motifs in the Arabian Nights and in Ancient and Medieval
European Literature, a Comparison," Folklore, December 2005, seven motifs from 1,001 Arabian
Nights made their way into the fabric of Western sensibilities.
The Magnetic Mountain
The Congealed Sea
The Flying Griffins
The Automaton and the Genie in the Bottle
The Walled City and the World's Vanities
The Living Island
The Subterranean River, our precise interest.
In Sinbad's sixth voyage he is shipwrecked once again -- our adventurer has a propensity for
such misfortune, it seems -- and from his raft he discovers a subterranean waterway emerging
from a rocky archway beneath the cliffs of a mysterious island.
Sinbad falls asleep as he drifts into the
channel -- it is not clear why he floats
upstream, but this is Sinbad -- to awaken in
the Kingdom of Serendib (modern-day Sri
Lanka) where "diamonds are in its rivers and
pearls are in its valleys."
The illustration of Sinbad emerging is from a
German publication of the 1930s. We can
blame the Nazis for the racial stereotypes, but
we'd have given it little thought back then.
In the medieval German saga Herzog Ernst (c. 1180), the protagonist
travels through the Orient in search of the Holy Grave, encountering
such wonders as creatures with human bodies and crane's heads and
as a nod to Odysseus, a Cyclops. After escaping from a magnetic
mountain, Ernst follows a river too broad and swift to cross which
carries him into another mountain. From the channel wall, our hero
breaks off the "orphan" jewel destined to adorn the German imperial
crown.
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