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Sinbad goes adventuring again, but his ship is blown by a storm to the faraway Sea of the Clime of the King, where King Solomon is buried. They are then wrecked and Sinbad rides on a plank of wood for two days. He lands on an island, makes a raft, and sets out again, winding up in a city where his host, a Shaykh, buys the raft and gives Sinbad his daughter's hand in marriage.

One day the Shaykh dies. Sinbad learns that the men of the town become birds once a month. He asks to accompany them, and they reluctantly agree. They fly up to heaven, where he hears the angels glorifying God, but interrupts. The group has to flee the bolt of fire from heaven, and they angrily abandon Sinbad on a mountain. Sinbad repents and goes down from the mountain, where he saves a man from a serpent. The man promises to be Sinbad's servant. He goes back to the city, apologizing to the people who left him on the mountain, and finds his wife. She tells him the people are devils, and asks him to take her back to his country with him. They arrive in Bassorah and he learns that he has been away twenty-seven years, and vows never to travel again.

With the end of the story, he tells Sinbad the Landsman that his good life had a cost, and Sinbad the Landsman apologizes for being jealous. They remain friends all their lives.

Alternate Version[]

Richard F. Burton's Arabian Nights includes a very different version of the seventh voyage, stemming from the Calcutta Edition. The Caliph Harun al-Rashid summons Sinbad, who tells him his adventures, and orders him to deliver a present and letter to the King of Sarandib. Sinbad reluctantly obeys and reaches the island of Sarandib in good time, and the king there welcomes him. However, when Sinbad begins his voyage home, his ship is attacked by pirates in canoes who capture the ship and sell Sinbad and the crew as slaves. Sinbad is bought by a wealthy man who takes him hunting elephants. He leaves Sinbad in a tree to shoot them, and Sinbad successfully slays one and his master takes the tusks. This continues for many days until one day there is a huge stampede of elephants and one knocks down Sinbad's tree. The elephant who knocked down the tree picks him up and carries him to the elephants' burial grounds. Sinbad takes his master there and they sell many of the tusks. Sinbad's master sends him with the merchants and Sinbad returns to Baghdad and the Caliph.

Parent Tale:[]

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