The Story of the Husband and the Parrot

From The Arabian Nights Entertainments, collected by Andrew Lang

This tale comes from The Arabian Nights (also called One Thousand and One Nights), a collection of Middle Eastern folktales compiled over many centuries and translated into English in the nineteenth century. Andrew Lang published this version in his collection of tales from the Nights. The story is structured as a frame tale—a story within a story—where each narrator tells a story to persuade or warn another character. This layered structure reflects the literary tradition of the Arabian Nights, where storytelling itself becomes a tool of survival and wisdom. The story examines trust, deception, and the tragic consequences of acting on suspicion without seeking the full truth. This text reflects its era; a few period terms have been modernised.

Band

Blue · Independent readers, confident, about 10 to 12

Length

long · about 1080 words in 5 sections · 2 pictures

Source

The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Andrew Lang · Project Gutenberg

First published

see the About page in the reader

Regions

Canada · United States

Included formats

• · Web reader and PDF
• · EPUB for e-readers
• · Home-print sheet
• · Folded booklet
• · Binder edition (8.5 × 11)
• · Worksheet
• · Quick Check (10 questions) with answer key
• · Read-aloud script

Readers are engineered from the original public-domain text with AI under HummingRead’s published canon and Content Philosophy, checked by automated audit and sampled by a person. Pictures are made with AI to HummingRead’s brief for each story. How a reader is made.