The Arabian Nights: One Thousand and One Nights

Usually, a character finds success in these stories through some rare stroke of good luck. Ali Baba just happened to be in the vicinity of the robbers when they opened the cave, so he knew how to access it and take treasure. The vizier Ja'far in "The Three Apples" happened to find the slave who was responsible, therefore avoiding his own execution. In these stories, the power of luck and fate is explored very often, because people everywhere love to believe that good fortune can befall anyone. And yet most of the stories add one twist to the theme - in most of these cases, the characters have to capitalize on the luck in order to succeed. For instance, Aladdin falls into good luck several times, but has to use his cleverness and perseverance to eventually come out on top. Luck (good or bad) affects us all, but the most successful of us know take advantage of whatever befalls us.