One of the most important works of Indian narrative fiction, passed down orally through the centuries and first recorded in medieval times, The Five-and-Twenty Tales of the Genie has at its center the half-mythical, heroic, and sagacious emperor Vikramaditya, widely regarded as India's greatest monarch. Begging a vetala—a genie who inhabits the body of a corpse—for help against a mighty necromancer, the emperor is told twenty-five tales, each of which culminates in a riddle. Only once he solves each riddle can he win the genie's help in destroying his powerful enemy.