Coming

Advent (from the Latin 'coming') was celebrated here when this fantastic calendar arrived, bang on time, a most generous gift from Roland and Kathleen in northern Germany.

This was most appropriate, not only for the teutonic punctuality, but also as that's where the tradition originated, the first one being printed in Hamburg in 1902.

Just to mix up our religious mythologies, this one links more to Islamic (at least Arabian) tradition, with a One Thousand and One Nights theme, which I remember as being something about Aladdin and Ali Baba - or was it Sinbad? (All wrong, as it turns out - whilst probably genuinely middle-eastern folk tales, apparently these were added into the collection later by European translators).

What I also didn't know what why the tales lasted 1,001 nights.

Apparently the jealous (and ever-so-slightly paranoid) Persian king was in the habit of marrying virgins and executing them the next day to avoid any chance of being betrayed.

Luckily the last bride has the wit to tell him a tale finishing on a cliffhanger - so the king gives her a reprieve so he can hear the ending - and cleverly manages to string the story out over endless nights.

She could see what was coming - and fortunately, he couldn't!