The tale of 'Aladdin and the Magic Lamp' in Balochi oral tradition (Translation, Pakistan)

This article discusses three variants of the tale of "Aladdin and the magic lamp," one of the most famous tales from the "Arabian Nights". The variants, collected from Makran in Pakistani Balochistan in 1996, 1997 and 2003 from two illiterate non-professional storytellers, are compared with the tale as it appears in the "Nights" in order to show how a highly popular tale with a strong written tradition is transformed in oral tradition, and how oral storytellers fell free to creatively modify such a famous tale.