A Teaching Story from the tradition of Eastern folklore, this tale by seeks to divert the mind with entertainment while allowing a deeper didactic level to be received.

Its author, Tahir Shah - one of the foremost writers of his generation - was himself raised in the ancient tradition of instructive stories and storytelling.

The son of the prominent Sufi writer and thinker Idries Shah, Tahir was weaned from early childhood on folktales and folklore, drawn from all points of the cultural compass.

Encouraged from a young age to write stories of his own, he was trained to draw both perception and entertainment from the celebrated story treasuries of the East - such as The Thousand and One Nights.

Tahir asserts that the simplest tales can contain complex interwoven layers of meaning, knowledge, and acuity - instructional material that is frequently invisible to the reader. By learning to recognize the subtleties, it's possible to mine a treasure trove of wisdom from the tales that surround our lives.