Genii
Author: Virginia MarinPublished on: Oct 6, 2000
Genius is from the Latin. Its plural form is genii which may sound more familiar. A genius was present from a man's birth to his death and responsible for overseeing all aspects of one's life--including wealth and character formation. A common belief held that man actually had two genii, one good and one evil.
Genius in its plural spelling, genii, is often confused with the jinni of Persian folklore, where the spelling genii is also found. To further confuse the genii is not difficult. In fact, the genii have already confused you, which is a function of the jinn. Oh, my. Where in the world did that one come from? The word may be more readily recognized with our modern spelling of genie.
Well, what is a jeannie? Actually, nothing. Just remove the article a and the common noun becomes a proper noun--like Jeannie, in the long-running television sitcom, I Dream of Jeannie, who was, or would it be which was, a female genie which, or who, was Persian and not Roman! Are you there? Or, are you here?
Bad luck was attributed to the evil genius. Good fortune came from the other which, according to some comparisons, was similar to a Christian's guardian angel.
Only Roman males were fortunate enough to have genii. Females had beings known as a Juno.
In Arabic and Islamic folklore, the jinni (genie in the English form) was a spirit or demon lower in hierarchy than an angel. Genies were popular characters in the folklore of Egypt, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Turkey and North Africa. You know, the ones that live in a bottle, as compared to the others who don't.
The most well known genie bottle tale is Aladdin. Others are Sinbad the Sailor and Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, all separate tales from A Thousand and One Nights which depict jinns and sorcerers.
The tales were told by Scheherezade, one of the wives of the king, who devised a new story each night to prevent the king from killing her the next morning.
Tales from A Thousand and One Nights can contain bawdiness. One of the best books for children age six and up is by a Canadian writer, Ludmila Zeman. An excerpt from her book appears in the first link below.
Oriental folklore also entertained genies. Tales from the Orient came full-force into France in the 1800's and were immediately popular, being inspired by the tales from A Thousand and One Nights.
Prior to that, however, the French fairy tale, Cinderella, retold by the great Charles Perrault in 1697, was actually a redo of an Oriental tale. The story originated in China where a small foot was a sign of beauty. Small-foot-binding, a widely accepted though painful practice, performed on female infants was later forbidden by Chinese law. The original version of this classic tale was Yeh-hsien and dates from the 9th-century AD. This stellar tale was splendid with all of the imagery with which Eastern legends contained.
Arabic and Oriental legends were known for palaces, magic lamps, Arabic names and customs, genies, sultans, flying carpets, fabulous jewels, monstrous birds, exotic adventures, and magic words. Open Sesame is but one example of a phrase which, to this day, conveys a sense of awe--the magical opening of the cave's door in that wonderful tale of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.
A symbol which probably had its origin in Chinese legend is that of the flying carpet. The tale of The Wonderful Brocade tells how a widow wove a beautiful brocade cloth only to take it outside where it flew away on the wind.
The life span of a Persian genie could be thousands of years but they were not considered to be immortal. Genies were fearful but not entirely fearless beings. Fertile Crescent genies were afraid of only one thing--the falling stars which legend holds that Allah hurled at them for their evil ways.
Persian genies are divided into five classes: Marid; Afreet; Sheitan; Ghilan; and Jann.
The Marid are the most powerful, while the Afreet possess vast intelligence. The Sheitan are the demons and Ghilan are shape-changing Ghouls, which often present themselves on All Hallow's Eve. Jann are known for disturbing the peace and stealing cows.
But the one genie known to all of us is that bottle imp who vapories out of a magic lamp or container of some type. One warning says that the owner of a bottle will be condemned to hell; another says a genie bottle is indestructible and if it is purposefully lost, it will return itself to the present owner; yet another warning says that the only way to rid one's self of a genie bottle is to sell it for half the price paid for it. Who among us is a bottle collector?
Whether genie, jinni, jinn, genii or genius these beings were thought of as all-powerful. They had great natural and inventive ability. They were smart and possessed great mental capacity--each was a genius, err, genie.
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