#marjana

This week’s Mythological Throwback Thursday comes from the Middle East: a slave turned crimelord-slaying badass.

Marjana is known for her role in the story of Ali Baba. Though associated with Scherezade’s Thousand and One Nights, it was originally a separate story until collated for Western readers. Ali Baba was the second son of a poor merchant, who found himself collecting firewood to make ends meet. He stumbled across the secret cave of the Forty Thieves, and managed to sneak out a single bag of gold coins, though when he told his wealthy brother Cassim of the cave, his brother attempted to steal too much and was caught, slain, and cut into four pieces. Ali Baba was able to reclaim Cassim’s body parts and the gold he had attempted to steal, but brought the attentions of the Thieves on himself.

This is where Marjana comes in. She cleverly blindfolded the tailor who was commissioned to sew Cassim’s body back together, so that he never knew who his employers were. When a spy from the Thieves came to town, asking around about recent deaths, he was soon directed to Cassim’s fine house, that Ali Baba had moved into. However, when he marked the door, Marjana saw it and deduced what it meant. She quickly marked all of the other doors in the neighbourhood with the same mark, to confuse the Thieves. The spy was killed for his failure, and Ali Baba and his household were saved.

Another spy was sent to investigate, and when he followed the clues that led him to Ali Baba’s house, he made a cut in the doorstep, to mark it for later. But cunning Marjana was forewarned by the previous mark, and on seeing it, made the same cut on all the other doorsteps in the neighbourhood. The second spy was also killed for his failure. The king of the Forty Thieves came alone, and on finding Ali Baba’s house, memorised its location and went back to his Thieves. He had a cunning plan.

The King of Thieves disguised himself as an oil merchant, with nineteen mules laden with oil jars. Only one of the jars actually contained oil, however. The other thirty-seven contained the Thieves, who were armed and armoured to kill Ali Baba when the time was right. He ingratiated himself with the guileless Ali Baba, who invited him into his home, and allowed him to stable his mules. Marjana went looking for oil to light the lamps at night, and overheard the King of Thieves talking to his men in the jars about the right time to kill Ali Baba. Rather than flee, Marjana waited until the coast was clear then took the oil from the first jar, heated it, and poured it into each of the other jars, painfully killing each and every one of the thirty-seven Thieves. That’s cold, Marjana. So to speak.

Even then, she wasn’t done. Having secured her freedom from Ali Baba by killing his foes, she continued to live in his household. The King of Thieves later returned, disguised as another merchant. This time he befriended Ali Baba’s son. Only Marjana recognised him, and performed a sword dance during dinner as entertainment for the guests, planting her dagger in the King of Thieves’ chest as her finale. Ali Baba was outraged until she explained what she had done, upon which he offered her his son’s hand in thanks. Ali returned to the cave to retrieve more of the Thieves’ riches, and they all lived prosperously and happily ever after.