Once upon a time…

There was a woodcutter named Ali Baba who found a cave full of gold owned by thieves. He told his brother about it, who went there and got murdered.

Well, Ali Baba found his brother’s body in the cave. It’d be impolite to leave him there, so he picked up the four pieces, put them in his donkey’s baskets (eew), and went home.

When he got home, his wife Morgiana saw the dismembered corpse and was like “...yeah, this won’t work.”

She knew the thieves would immediately notice the lack of ex-Kasim in their cave, and would come into town looking for whoever’d taken him. A corpse cut into four parts would cause a stir at the morgue (or whatever they had back then), so they had to fix it. But there was another problem: Kasim had a wife and house and job. If he suddenly vanished, people would ask questions.

But! She had a plan!

That night, they took the body parts to Kasim’s house. Ali Baba and Kasim’s wife started telling people that Kasim was super, super sick. With what? Who cares, medicine wasn’t an exact science back then. He had a fever, which meant death was probably iminent.

Meanwhile, Morgiana went to an old tailor she knew of. She was like “hey, so, I’m going to give you an absurd amount of money to ask no questions and sew something up for me, ok?”

And the tailor was like “absurd amount of money, you say? I’ve never asked a question in my life!”

So, she blindfolded him and led him to Kasim’s house, where the body parts were laid out on the table. The tailor, seeing the dismembered corpse, decided having no questions was good for his health. He got to work. After a couple hours, Kasim was (kinda) back in one piece. At least, enough of one piece that when he had clothes on, no one would notice the thread stitching him together.

Morgiana blindfolded the tailor again, and led him back to his shop. Where she gave him a bag full of gold.

Over the next couple days, Ali Baba and Kasim’s wife went from “oh yeah, Kasim is super sick” to “Kasim died nooo”, and started the funeral arrangements.

None of the neighbors suspected anything.

The thieves, meanwhile, had come home and noticed the lack of ex-Kasim. They knew someone had been into their cave, but not who. The closest city was their best bet for finding the intruder, so the leader sent a couple men in to ask around about a dismembered corpse.

But, subtly.

It took a couple days, but finally one of the thieves found the old tailor. The tailor had been spending his new riches at the bar, and after wine bottle #3 started telling people about how he’d gotten the money. The thief offered the tailor a couple extra gold pieces if he could show him the house where he’d sewed up a dead guy.

The tailor agreed, was blindfolded, and led the thief to Kasim’s house. Well, Ali Baba’s house now. The thief, to make sure he didn’t mistake the house, put a mark on the door. And then they left.

The thief went back to the cave. He told the leader all about the tailor, and how he’d cunningly put a mark on the door. The leader praised him, and set up Ali Baba’s murder for that night.

Meanwhile, Morgiana got home from her daily shopping and noticed a weird mark on the door. She knew strange marks on doors were never a good thing, and that something had to be done.

So she grabbed a piece of chalk and went up and down the street, marking all the doors in the same way.

Then she went home and made dinner.

At midnight, the thieves strolled into the city. The thief who’d found the tailor led them down to Ali Baba’s street, spotted a mark, and announced this was the place.

Before they broke in and murdered everyone, one of the thieves at the back of the group noticed a mark on the door across the street. He called to the leader, pointing it out.

The leader saw the mark, and sent his men to check the other doors on the street. Yep, they all had marks.

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The thief who’d made the original mark couldn’t remember which house it was, since he’d been relying on the mark to identify it.

So the leader marched his group back to their cave, and they became the 39 thieves.

The next day, a slightly smarter thief was sent out. He found the tailor, gave him gold and a blindfold, and was soon standing in front of Ali Baba’s house.

He took his scimitar and made a notch in the doorframe. Confident that would be enough, he went back to the cave.

Morgiana came home, and this time looked for anything different about her door. She found the notch.

So she took a cleaver and went around the block, notching all the doorframes.

That done, she went home and made dinner.

At midnight, the thieves made their way to Ali Baba’s street. The leader looked around, saw that all the doorframes had notches, and…

Yeah, the next morning they were down to 38 thieves.

This time, the leader himself went and found the old tailor. When they got to Ali Baba’s house, he pulled out a notebook and wrote down all the details of what it looked like. Two stories, big yard for donkeys to sleep in, yellow bricks making a path to the door, all that good stuff.

When he was sure he’d recognize the house, he went back to the cave.

Now, remember how Kasim had rented a bunch of donkeys to cart off the gold with? Well, the thieves still had those donkeys. So the leader came up with a plan: he’d put two giant jars on each one, and have his men get in the jars. Then he’d fill the remaining jar with oil and pretend to be an oil merchant who traded with Kasim. He’d act super sorry about Kasim’s death, and ask to spend the night with Ali Baba. Then at midnight he’d alert his men, who would break out of the jars, and they’d kill Ali Baba.

…This seems overly complicated and like a mean thing to do to innocent donkeys, but I didn’t make it up.

Anyways, the next day they put their plan into motion. They spent the morning arranging themselves, and after lunch the leader herded 19 donkeys into the city.

When he got to Ali Baba’s house, he was like “heyyy my business buddy, how’s it- wait, you’re not my business buddy! What happened?”

And Ali Baba was like “yeah, sorry, my brother Kasim died. I’m in charge of his business now.”

The leader nodded sadly. “Kasim, right, good guy, he’ll be missed. Well, I have all this oil with me, and don’t want to make the donkeys walk further, would you mind if I stayed here for the night like I was planning to? You get free oil out of the deal!”

Ali Baba, being a nice person who cared for donkeys, agreed to let the man stay.

Ah, I hear no one ask, but what about Kasim’s wife? Wouldn’t she have said she didn’t recognize him? …Excellent question! I have no idea! She’s kinda never mentioned again after Kasim’s funeral, so I presume she went off to live with her mom or something. Or she died of a broken heart, who knows.

Anyways, at some point during the evening Morgiana realized the lamps were about to run out of oil. The leader of the thieves had said they’d get free oil, so she snuck into the courtyard and started to take the top off one of the oil jars.

The thief inside heard movement and whispered “boss, is it time yet?”

Morgiana, after a mild panic attack, put on her manliest voice and whispered back “No.”

She tried a couple more jars, and finally found the one that contained actual oil. She filled her lamp, went inside, and freaked out slightly.

Morgiana knew these must be the thieves. They must have been here to kill them. So… she had to kill them first.

She took a couple potfuls of oil into the kitchen and got them nice and boiling. Then she took them into the courtyard, yanked open a jar, and poured in the boiling oil. Then she slammed the lid back on to muffle the screaming and yanked open the next one. Rinse and repeat, 37 times.

I’m not quite sure how no one heard all the screaming, but that’s a minor detail.

Anyways, at midnight the leader strolled out into the courtyard and knocked on the first jar. There was no response. So he knocked a bit harder, in case the man inside was sleeping. Still no response. So he opened the lid, and-

AAAAAAAAAAGH

Yeah, he noped the heck out of that place. Didn’t even bother checking the other 36 jars.

(After this there’s a whole other part about the leader coming back wearing a fake moustache or something, Ali Baba doesn’t recognize him, then Morgiana does a sexy dance and stabs him. Ali Baba freaks out, the moustache is removed, and everyone agrees Morgiana is super smart. But that leaves a couple questions open about what they do with the very dead men in the courtyard, and if anyone ever suffers consequences for mass murder. So I’m gonna change the ending to one that makes more sense to me. Ok? Ok.)

In the morning, Ali Baba got up and was like “huh, where’d my guest go?”

Morgiana took him to the courtyard and explained what had happened. Ali Baba was horrified about all the very dead men in jars, and knew he had to dispose of them in a way that wouldn’t alarm any police. So, somewhere out of the city… In, say, a cave no one knew how to open…

He put the jars back on the donkeys, and took them to the boulder. He laid the jars down around the boulder, then took the donkeys back to wherever Kasim had rented them from.

That night, the only remaining thief came out of the cave. He found himself surrounded by jars full of his dead friends.

Properly horrified, the thief stuffed as much gold into his horse’s saddlebags as would fit, and ran off to a distant land to rethink his life choices.

He was never seen again.

Ali Baba, after a week or so, moved the jars into the cave and moved all the gold into his house. He and his wife lived happily ever after.

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Moral: Don’t hide people in jars.