READING NOTES: FOURTY-FOUR TURKISH FAIRY TALES (PART B)
Bibliography: Fourty-Four Turkish Fairy Tales (Part B) by Ignacz Kunos
- Patience-Stone and Patience-Knife -
A bird kept visiting a young lady, telling her that beside a dead person would be her fate. One day, the girl went out with friends, and while getting a drink at a stream, a giant wall rose up and blocked her from the other girls. It was so high and wide that it could not be passed. The other girls wept and told the mother what had happened. While the girl was trapped, a door appeared, and inside was a huge palace. There was a long hallway with lots of doors, and through each door was a room filled with jewels. One room was gold, another diamonds, another emeralds, and so on. And in one room was a good looking young man laying down, a note on his chest saying 'whoever fans me for 40 days will know their fate.'
- Patience-Stone and Patience-Knife cont. -
So the girl fanned him for 40 days, and on the 40th day saw an Arab girl and asked her to take over for a few minutes while she washed up. While the girl was away, the prince awoke and declared the Arab girl his wife, and the wife declared the young girl the cook. A feast was approaching, and the prince wanted to give everyone, including the servants, gifts. The wife wanted fancy clothing, and the cook wanted a patience-stone and patience-knife. The prince had to board a ship and explore foreign towns for those items, but he found them and brought them to her. He hid in the kitchen to see what she would use them for. The girl poured out her story to the stone until finally, the stone broke, indicating it couldn't handle the grief of the story. The girl, seeing that a stone couldn't handle it, asked how then could she? And she was about to kill herself with the knife, but the prince stopped her and understood that she was supposed to be his wife, not the Arab girl. So they married and the Arab girl was put to death.
- The Imp of the Well -
A woodcutter's wife took all his earnings and treated him harshly. One day he saddled a donkey and left to the woods and began woodcutting, but his wife had followed him, and not seeing the well, fell into it. The man was glad to be rid of his wife and he went back home. The next day he went back, feeling guilty, to check on his wife, but he couldn't see her in the well. He let down a rope and felt something climbing up, but it was an imp. The imp was so grateful for the woodcutter helping him out of there and away from the woman that he gave him three leaves and planned to make the Princess very ill to where only the woodcutter and his leaves could heal her, so that the woodcutter would receive a big reward.
- The Imp of the Well cont. -
Soon the Princess was ill just like the Imp said she would be, and the woodcutter came to the palace to heal her. He moistened the leaves and laid them on her head and she was healed, and the king declared for them to marry. Later, the princess of a nearby kingdom fell to the same affliction, so the king requested that the woodcutter heal her too. When the woodcutter approached, the Imp accused him of taking what is not his, after the gift the Imp gave to him, but the woodcutter insisted that wasn't the case, he was just trying to do as the king ordered. Then, the woodcutter played a trick on the Imp, telling him that he can have his wife too (the one in the well), and he said that the old wife had been following him everywhere, that she was even on the other side of the door. The Imp, afraid of that woman, left immediately and never returned. So the woodcutter kept the princess as his wife and the other princess was healed.
- The Soothsayer -
There was once a man who was poor but had a beautiful wife. One day, a well-known soothsayer's wife came to the town and was admired by all the local women. The man's wife, jealous of her admiration, told her husband he was to either become a soothsayer or she would leave him. In sadness, he went to a coffeehouse and told his friend his problem. His friend then told the bath-woman this, and she arranged for the soothsayer's wife's ring to be missing, to be placed in the mud, and for the man to declare where it would be. When all this was done, the soothsayer's wife found the ring and rewarded him. Then, the queen's ring was stolen by a slave and could not be found. The queen requested the man to find out where it was or he'd die. In the dungeon, he despaired because he didn't know where the ring was. The slave told him what she had done, and he told her to make a goose swallow it and then break its leg. The next day, the man told the queen to gather all the animals together. Then, the one with the broken leg was the one with the ring. When they found the goose, they killed it and the ring was there in its stomach. So the man was promoted to Chief Soothsayer, and his wife was happy.
- The Wizard and his Pupil -
Once upon a time a boy refused all the schools his mother brought him to, until one day he requested to be trained by a wizard, and the wizard agreed. After awhile of training, the boy had learned all he could from the wizard, and the wizard said he would transform himself into a sheep for the boy to sell at the market, but that he needed to keep the rope. The boy sold the sheep at the market, kept the rope, and later that day the wizard escaped from the buyer and transformed himself back into the wizard. They did this several times until one day, after selling the wizard as a horse, the boy went home to his mother and told her his similar plan: he would transform into a bath-place, and she would sell him but not give away the key. The wizard, returning home to no pupil, went to market and knew what he was doing, so he outbid everyone else for the bath-place, and the mother, after much convincing, gave him the key. But the boy transformed into something else and the wizard did the same, chasing him. Eventually they reached the king: the boy turned into a pile of seed, the wizard into a chicken who ate the seeds except for one, and the one leftover seed turned into the boy who then killed the chicken, thereby killing the wizard. The king was impressed with this chain of events, married the boy to his daughter the princess, and promoted him to Grand Vezir.
- The Liver -
A girl's mom wanted some liver, so the girl went to market and got her some, but while she was washing it in the pond a stork came and took it from her. The stork wouldn't give it back unless the girl gave her some barley. She asked the farmer for barley, but he wouldn't give it without rain. She asked Allah for rain, but Allah doesn't hear you without incense. She asked the merchant for incense, but he wouldn't give it unless she gave him shoes. She asked the shoemaker for shoes, but he needed leather. She asked the tanner for leather, but he needed hide. She asked the ox for hide, but it needed straw. The girl then asked a peasant for straw, and he said he would for a kiss. So she gave him a kiss, got the straw, then got the hide, then got the leather, then got the shoes, then got the incense, then got the rain, then got the barley, and finally got the liver back from the stork so she could give the liver to her mother.
- Madjun -
A young, bald man fell in love with the sight of the princess, but when he asked the king to marry her, the king told him he could only if he could put all the birds in the world in one place. The son told his circumstance to a dervish, who advised him to go under a certain cypress tree, and when the birds landed there to say "Madjun!" The man did this, and all the birds froze in one place. The king was not impressed and ordered him to grow hair if he was to marry the princess. The man went out searching for a solution, but in the meantime the princess was to be wed to the Vezir's son. The man, before the two could enter their bedroom, said "Madjun!" and they froze to the spot. Then, as people came to inquire of their whereabouts, they froze in place too. Eventually, the king himself had to figure out what was going on, and his advisor told him it was the bald man because he'd been promised to wed the princess. So the king's servants went to the house of the bald man's mother inquiring for him, but she followed her son's instructions and said she didn't know where he was, but for 1,000 gold pieces she'd search. They gave her the money and had also informed her that the king needed him to marry the princess. The bald man showed up, the king was delighted to see him, the bald man unfroze everyone, and him and the princess married.
- Kunterbunt -
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