Thoughts on Madura Kris

[A. G. Maisey]

My understanding is this, and my understanding could well be wrong, it has been formed from comments & the opinions of other people over a long period of time, it is not something i have ever researched.

Kuda Sembrani is a Javanese folk tale that was drawn from Middle Eastern stories of flying horses --- apparently there are many such stories --- for example, "The Thousand Nights & One Night". Over time the original ME stories congealed into one story that gained a Javanese setting.

These ME stories probably had their origin in Al Buraq, Mohammed's flying horse, or maybe it was the other way around.

In any case, there are a lot of flying horse stories in history, Pegasus is a Euro one, even the Chinese people have a flying horse.

The Si/Ki Mega flying horse came out of the Jokotole story, & this story had elements that echoed the Kuda Sembrani tale that had come from the ME, maybe Persia.

At the present time it seems that in the public understanding all these flying horses have merged into one, so different people use different names for different horses that have all become the same horse. The whole thing seems to be very confused.

Original story:- Middle East, this story gets to Jawa & is given a Javanese character & setting, it gets integrated into the Jokotole yarn.

Probably somebody with an in depth knowledge & understanding of Javanese/Madurese folk stories could unravel all of this.