<P> "Open Sesame" (French: Sésame, ouvre - toi) is a magical phrase in the story of "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves" in One Thousand and One Nights . It opens the mouth of a cave in which forty thieves have hidden a treasure . </P> <P> The phrase first appears in writing in Antoine Galland's Les Mille et une nuits (1704--1717) as Sésame, ouvre - toi (English, "Sesame, open!"). No earlier oral or written version of the story is known in any language . </P> <P> Galland's phrase has been variously translated from the French into English as "Sesame, Open", "Open, Sesame" and "Open, O Simsim". </P>

Where does the phrase open sesame come from