Antar was ‘a dazzling and irresistible warrior and a poet of wonderful power’. So wrote Epiphanius Wilson in his book on Arabian literature, a volume which also includes the tales of Sinbad and Aladdin. He describes Antar as ‘more real’ than King Arthur of England, and ‘quite as real and historic’ as the Cid of Spain. The offspring of the son of a king and a ‘black woman of outstanding beauty’, Antar was a precocious child. At a very early age he fought and killed a dog over a piece of goat-meat, and at ten he slew a wolf. In later life he was to add slaves and a lion to this gruesome list of trophies. In the Romance of Antar, again according to Epiphanius Wilson, ‘natural passion has full play, but nobility of character is taken seriously, and generosity and sensibility of heart are portrayed with truthfulness and naivety’.