Reading Notes: Turkish Fairy Tales, Part B (Extra Credit Reading Notes)

Cover illustration of Forty-Four Turkish Fairy Tales by Willy Pogany.
Source: UN-Textbook

• Patience-Stone and Patience-Knife (Part 1, Part 2)
• A mother goes out washing while her daughter stays at home making embroidery
• One day a bird flew in her window and told her that she would find her kismet in a dead person then flew off, so she told her mother and her mother said to fasten the doors and windows
• The next day she did so but the bird still appeared and told her the same thing, so her mom said to fasten the doors and windows then to go into a cupboard to work by candlelight
• The next day she does so, but the bird still appeared and said the same, so her mother decides to stay home the next day, but the bird never shows up
• Out of fear, the mother and the daughter stay in the house incase the bird shows up, so after a few days, the daughter's friends come to ask her to play, so the mother consents, but is still fearful
• The girls go to a meadow and on their way back stop to get a drink from a spring, but when the girl is drinking, a huge wall of water blocks her off from the rest of the group, sending the other two into a state of panic and confusion
• They tell the mother and she immediately runs to the wall of water and her daughter and they both cry to each other
• The next day, the girl wakes up from exhaustion and notices a door in the wall of water which leads to a beautiful palace with forty keys hanging on a wall
• She used the keys to open doors in the palace, and each room was full of precious stone until the last one, where she saw a handsome corpse on a coffin with a note saying "whoever for forty days will fan me and pray by me shall find her kismet", which fulfilled the bird's promise, so she did so
• On the fortieth morning, she spots and Arab girl before the palace so she calls for her to come fan the corpse so she could wash herself and clean the room
• While the girl is cleaning up, the corpse wakes up, hugs the Arab girl, and claims her as his wife, which upsets the girl since the Arab girl drives her out of the room and sends her to the kitchen
• The feast of Bairam was approaching, so the boy asked each girl what they wanted, and the Arab girl wanted a new dress and the girl wanted a patience-stone and patience-knife
• The boy goes to get the girls what they want, but he cannot find the patience-stone or patience-knife, so he refuses to return without them and gets on a ship
• Halfway through the voyage, the ship stops suddenly and the captain says it can't go anywhere because someone on the ship has failed to keep his word
• The boy travels far until he comes to a garden where and Arab girl appears and asks what he wants
• He tells her he's trying to find a patience-stone and patience-knife, so she suddenly places them in his hands, so he returns to the vessel and sails home to the palace to give the women what they asked for
• He is curious to know what the girl wanted the knife and stone for, so that night he sits in the kitchen and waits to see
• The girl takes the knife and tells her story to the stone, which swells and foams as she describes her situation, and eventually it splits apart as she tells it about the boy not taking her as his wife
• She's about to stab herself with the knife since she sees that even a strong rock cannot take the pain, but the boy stops her and exclaims that she is his wife
• The boy puts the Arab to death and has the girl's mother brought to the palace so they can live happily
• The Imp of the Well (Part 1, Part 2)
• Narrator tells the story of a woodworker whose wife stole all of his money whenever he got paid or else she would scold and beat him
• One day the man puts aside some money to buy himself a rope, but his wife finds out and nearly kills them both, so the next day he sets out on a donkey to the mountains to cut wood
• The wife eventually notices he is gone, so she follows him on another donkey, which he eventually notices but pretends not to
• The wife is paying so much attention to what her husband is doing that she suddenly falls into a well
• The man checks on her, but decides it's not worth it and goes back home
• The next day he returns and looks into the well to check on her, but finds no sign of her being there, so he tosses his rope down and tells her to grab on
• The rope tightens, so he begins to pull it up, but he finds that he pulled an imp out of the well instead of his wife
• The imp tells the man not to be frightened because he will be rewarded for freeing him from the woman who fell down there
• As a reward, the imp gives the man three leaves and tells him that he is going to make the Sultan's daughter sick, and after all the physicians discover they can do nothing, he shall go to her with the leaves and heal her to get paid
• This scenario plays out, and the man is rewarded with the Sultan's daughter as a bride and his kingdom whenever he dies
• Soon, though, the imp does the same thing to the Sultan's daughter in the next kingdom over, so the man is sent to heal her as well
• Once he arrives, the imp tells the man that he has already repaid him and that he now is taking the sick girl for himself, but the man explains that he doesn't want the girl, but to tell the imp that his wife has escaped the well and is now following him everywhere (including the palace they were in)
• This is enough to scare the imp out of the girl and far away from town without any questions
• The man forgets about his wife and takes his bride and everyone lives happily
• The Soothsayer (Link)
• Describes a man in his forties that looks much older thanks to his gray hairs who has a beautiful wife that he supports thanks to his skillfulness
• One day his wife is going to bathe, but sees a large group of people and hears that a soothsayer's wife is coming to bathe
• Soon music is heard in the distance and the woman offers praise to the wife and begs her to stay at her house upon seeing how respected she is
• As soon as the woman returns home, she tells her husband to become a soothsayer or else she would leave him
• He explains that he can barely provide their daily bread let alone make time to study and become a soothsayer, but she stands her ground
• He doesn't want to lose his wife, but he knows he cannot become a soothsayer, so he goes to a coffeehouse to think and tells his friend there about his situation
• His friend is also intimate with his wife, so he tells her that her request is ridiculous, and she tells him that if her husband can show up at her bath gate the next day with paper and a writing utensil to write like a soothsayer, she would stay
• The man does so the next day even though he cannot read or write, and everyone at the bath mistook him for a hodja
• The soothsayer's wife shows up to bathe and while the people there are paying attention to her, the man's wife takes a ring from her finger and hides it in the mud, telling her husband
• The soothsayer's wife was very upset and had everyone looking for her ring then the woman exclaimed that a hodja was at the gate and could describe where missing stuff went, so the wife went to him and he told her where the ring was in the mud, and was rewarded once it was found
• Days later, the Sultana lost her ring and believed a slave had taken it, so the soothsayer's wife suggested that the hojda from the bath would know where it could be found
• He is brought to the palace and the Sultana tells him that he has until the next morning to find the ring or else his head would be cut off, then is locked in a room where he prays to Allah
• The slave who stole the ring was also in great fear that she would be found of committing the crime, so she decided to risk telling the hodja
• He is happy to see the ring and thanks Allah, then decides to also help the slave so as to not be caught by telling her to have a goose swallow the ring then break its leg
• The next morning, the man tells the Padishah to gather all the poultry and birds in the garden
• This is done, and the man acts like he is thinking and writing, then tells the monarch which goose it is inside, and they find the ring
• The man was promoted to chief soothsayer and became famous
• The Wizard and his Pupil (Link)
• Introduces a woman with a son who runs away from any school that she puts him in, so she asks him where she should send him
• He replies saying to take him with her where she goes and if he likes the place they go to, he wouldn't run away, so she takes him with her to market and he sees men working along with a wizard
• The boy is fascinated and asks his mom to apprentice him to the wizard, which she agrees to, and he was then set to become a wizard
• One day the man says that he's going to turn himself into a ram and for the boy to sell him at market, but keep his rope, so this happened and the wizard turned back into a human and ran away from his master while the boy held onto the money made by selling him
• The same thing happens but the wizard turns himself into a horse and the boy decides to try the trick himself while the wizard is still away
• He goes to his mother and tells her that he's going to turn himself into a bathing establishment which she can sell, but she must keep the key
• During this, the wizard returns home and finds his pupil missing and becomes angry, so he sets out to find him the next morning
• The boy follows through and becomes a bathing establishment and his mother auctions it off, but the wizard in the crowd could tell that it was his pupil, so he wins the auction
• When the wizard went to the boy's mother, she explained that she couldn't give him the key, but the wizard showed her how much money he had and said he couldn't give her the money without the key, so she caved and gave it to the wizard
• Feeling that his time had come, the boy turns himself into a bird and flies away when the mother hands over the key, and the wizard turns himself into a falcon to chase him down
• They flew far to another town where its Padishah was in the palace garden, so the boy changed into a rose and fell to the man's feet, who decided that it was a gift from Allah
• The wizard then also resumed his human form and began playing a lute for the Padishah to call him over and have him sing, and in his song he asked for the rose, which made the king mad
• The wizard then explained that he had fallen in love with the rose and has been seeking it for many years, and that if he doesn't get it he would kill himself, so the king gives him the rose
• Before the wizard received the rose, it fell to the ground as millet pulp, which the wizard changed himself into a chicken to eat, but he missed a single grain which the boy became human through and killed the wizard
• The king was confused and told the boy to explain, which he did, so he made the boy Grand Vezir and gave him his daughter in marriage
• The boy could now provide for his mother and everyone lived happily
• The Liver (Link)
• Old woman wants to eat some liver, so she gives her daughter money to get some and tells her to wash it in the pond then bring it inside
• The daughter does so, but when she pulls the liver out of the pond water, a stork takes it from her, so she begs it to give the liver back or else she'll be beaten by her mother
• The stork replies saying that if she gives it barley, she can get the liver back
• The girl goes to a farmer and explains her situation, so the farmer says that if she prays to Allah for rain, he'll give her barley
• The girls prays to Allah for rain, but a man tells her that her prayer is useless without incense, so she goes to a merchant and asks for some, but the merchant says he'll only give her incense if she brings him shoes
• The girl then goes to a shoemaker to ask for shoes, but he says she must bring him ox-leather
• The girl goes to a tanner and asks for the leather, but the tanner says she must bring him an ox hide
• The girl goes to an ox to ask for his hide, but he says he requires straw
• The girl then goes to a peasant asking for straw and he says he will if the girl kisses him, so she did
• The girl then got everything she needed to get the liver back from the stork and takes it home for her mother to cook
• Madjun (Link)
• Bald-headed young man whose old mother wanted him to learn a trade, but he always ran away from it
• The man sees the Sultan's daughter one day and can't stop thinking about her, so he tells his mother to ask the Padishah for his daughter, but his mother tells him there's no way he would agree to it for the boy had no trade or money, then eventually agrees after he asks her enough to drive her mad
• She goes to the Sultan and asks him to either give the boy his daughter or to kill her because she can't take it, so the Sultan says to send her son
• The son then goes to the palace and the Sultan sees that he is bald, so he says that he can have his daughter if he can gather all the birds in the world
• Fearing that the Sultan might put him to death, the boy sets out to travel and runs into a dervish in the wilderness
• The dervish listened to the boys problems and told him to go to a tall cypress tree and sit beneath it where all the birds in the world will gather and to say 'madjun' for them to stick to the tree so he can collect them and bring them back to the Sultan's palace
• The young boy did this and brought them to the Sultan, but still not wanting to give his daughter to the boy, he said to grow hair and he would give him his daughter
• The boy goes away thinking of how to accomplish this, but while he is gone, the Sultan betroths his daughter to the son of his Vezir
• The boy hears this and goes to the serai, hiding himself on the roof above where the Vezir's son and the Sultan's daughter were to sleep
• Upon seeing them both enter the room, he said the word 'madjun' and they were both frozen
• The next morning when the couple was nowhere to be seen, a slave went to check on them and was soon frozen by the boy yelling 'madjun' at him, and this continued with every new person who entered the room
• The Sultan then sent for a hodja to help fix the situation while the boy went after the Sultan's messengers at a butcher's shop, freezing them and making them unable to call for a hodja
• Eventually the Sultan got tired of waiting and went after the messengers to find them frozen in the butcher's shop, so he cried to Allah and went to get the hodja himself
• When the hodja arrived, he told him that he promised his daughter to the boy and was not fulfilling his word, so the boy was doing this to him, and that the only way to fix it was to give the boy his daughter
• The Sultan called for the boy, but when the boy heard this he ran to his mother's and told her to tell the king's servants that she had not seen him in days and if they ask where he is at, she would require payment
• The servants came and his mother said so and got money, then was told to bring him to the Sultan if she finds him and she'll get more money
• Days later the boy went to the palace and explained he was wondering about since the king did not give him his daughter, so they arranged for them to marry and the boy unfroze the people he froze before, and the Vezir's son ran away
• Kunterbunt (Link)
• Tells story of three brothers from the point-of-view of one who explains that two of them were silly with no sense
• They went to a bow-maker and bought two broken bows and one without a string
• They came across a dry stream with three ducks, two of which were dead and they shot the third one to take up a hill until they got to three houses, two of which were in ruins and one of which had no foundation
• There were also three men laying there, two dead and one without life
• The brothers asked the dead men for something to cook their duck in and they showed them three cupboards, two of which were broken and one of which with no sides
• In them they found two plates with lots of holes and one without a bottom, which they cooked the duck in
• One of the brothers said he was full because he ate the whole duck, the second said he had no appetite because he ate all the bones, and the last one asked for no more, got angry, and ran to a melon-field
• The one who ran away cut a melon and lost his knife, then asked a caravan where it went, but they said they had been looking for their camels for forty years so they could not find his knife
• The man ran away in anger to a tree and found a basket with a murdered man inside, and while looking at him he was chased by forty thieves
• The man reached a place of worship and sat down to rest in the court, but the thieves caught up and chased him until he climbed up the pinnacle of the minaret
• One of the thieves drew his knife and went to attack the brother, causing him to scream and fall, when he woke up suddenly and realized it had all been a dream