The Colour of Magic

17

Death and Rincewind are replaying their own version of the well-known folktale Appointment in Samarra. Terry says:

"My mother told me the ‘Appointment in Samarra’ story when I was very young, and it remained. She says she read it somewhere, or maybe heard it…

I’d always thought it was from the 1001 Nights, although I never went looking for it. It’s one of those stories that a lot of people vaguely know, without quite knowing why…"

For those who aren’t familiar with the story, it concerns a servant to a rich Baghdad merchant who goes to the market and encounters Death there, who gestures at him. Convinced that this is a very bad omen indeed, the servant rushes back to his master in a great panic and begs him for a horse, so that he can ride to Samarra and escape whatever calamity will befall him should he stay in Baghdad. The kind master gives the servant a horse, and goes out to investigate for himself. When the merchant finds Death and asks him why he frightened the servant so, Death replies: “I wasn’t trying to scare him, it is just that I was so very surprised to meet him here, because I have an appointment with him tonight in Samarra!”

Over the centuries, countless versions and re-tellings of this story have appeared in books, plays and poems in all languages and cultures. One of my correspondents was so intrigued by the tale that with the help of alt.fan.pratchett he set out to find the original, or at least the earliest known version. After much research, he now believes this to be When Death Came to Baghdad, an old ninth century Middle Eastern Sufi teaching story, told by Fudail ibn Ayad in his Hikayat-i-Naqshia (‘Tales formed according to a design’).

If anyone has a reference to an even earlier version, we would love to hear about it.