Flying horse tale from The Arabian Nights, 18th-century illustration. This scene depicts the magus Jaafar, sometimes taken to be the historical figure and Persian vizier Ja'far ibn Yahya. This illustration is from an 1839 edition of the first European translation of The Arabian Nights (also known as One Thousand and One Nights), by French orientalist Antoine Galland (1646-1715). The stories were told by the female storyteller Scheherazade to a Persian king who planned to behead her. She avoided this fate by telling stories each night that were left unfinished for the following night. Galland's original edition ('Les mille et une nuits') was published in 12 volumes between 1704 and 1717.