Favorite Folktales From Around the World

by Jane Yolen

  Meanwhile the tender child waited alone. From destiny there is no escape. It was his fate that a She-Ghoul, that monster of the wilderness who loves to feed on human flesh, should spy him as he stood unprotected. With one leap she sprang upon him and greedily devoured him.

  The father hunted long and far but could not catch a single deer. At last he resigned himself and returned without the game. Though the camel was kneeling where he had left it, he could not see his son. He looked on every side, but the boy was gone. Then on the ground he found dark drops of blood. “My son! My son is killed! My son is dead!” he shrieked. Yet what could he do but lead his camel home?

  On the way he rode past a cave, and there he saw the She-Ghoul dancing, fresh from her feast, her hanging breasts swinging from side to side like the empty sleeves of the women’s cloaks when they rock in mourning over the dead. The Beduin took careful aim and shot the She-Ghoul dead. He slashed open her belly, and in it he found his son. He laid the boy upon his cloak, pulled the woolen cloth around him tight, and so carried him home.

  When he reached his tent the Beduin called his wife and said, “I have brought you back a gazelle, dear wife, but as God is my witness, it can be cooked only in a cauldron that has never been used for a meal of sorrow.”

  The woman went from tent to tent for the loan of such a pot. But one neighbor said, “Sister, we used the large cauldron to cook the rice for the people who came to weep with us when my husband died.” And another told her, “We last heated our big cooking pot on the day of my son’s funeral.” She knocked at every door but did not find what she sought. So she returned to her husband emptyhanded.

  “Haven’t you found the right kind of cauldron?” asked the Beduin. “There is no household but has seen misfortune,” she answered. “There is no cauldron but has cooked a meal of mourning.” Only then did the Beduin fold back his woolen cloak and say to her, “They have all tasted their share of sorrow. Today the turn is ours. This is my gazelle.”

  Of such things and the like is the world made,

  But lucky is the soul that God loves and calls to Himself.

  THE HAPPY MAN’S SHIRT

  Italy

  A king had an only son that he thought the world of. But this prince was always unhappy. He would spend days on end at his window staring into space.

  “What on earth do you lack?” asked the king. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “I don’t even know myself, Father.”

  “Are you in love? If there’s a particular girl you fancy, tell me, and I’ll arrange for you to marry her, no matter whether she’s the daughter of the most powerful king on earth or the poorest peasant girl alive!”

  “No, Father, I’m not in love.”

  The king tried in every way imaginable to cheer him up, but theaters, balls, concerts, and singing were all useless, and day by day the rosy hue drained from the prince’s face.

  The king issued a decree, and from every corner of the earth came the most learned philosophers, doctors, and professors. The king showed them to the prince and asked for their advice. The wise men withdrew to think, then returned to the king. “Majesty, we have given the matter close thought and we have studied the stars. Here’s what you must do. Look for a happy man, a man who’s happy through and through, and exchange your son’s shirt for his.”

  That same day the king sent ambassadors to all parts of the world in search of the happy man.

  A priest was taken to the king. “Are you happy?” asked the king.

  “Yes, indeed, Majesty.”

  “Fine. How would you like to be my bishop?”

  “Oh, Majesty, if only it were so!”

  “Away with you! Get out of my sight! I’m seeking a man who’s happy just as he is, not one who’s trying to better his lot.”

  Thus the search resumed, and before long the king was told about a neighboring king, who everybody said was a truly happy man. He had a wife as good as she was beautiful and a whole slew of children. He had conquered all his enemies, and his country was at peace. Again hopeful, the king immediately sent ambassadors to him to ask for his shirt.

  The neighboring king received the ambassadors and said, “Yes, indeed, I have everything anybody could possibly want. But at the same time I worry because I’ll have to die one day and leave it all. I can’t sleep at night for worrying about that!” The ambassadors thought it wiser to go home without this man’s shirt.

  At his wit’s end, the king went hunting. He fired at a hare but only wounded it, and the hare scampered away on three legs. The king pursued it, leaving the hunting party far behind him. Out in the open field he heard a man singing a refrain. The king stopped in his tracks. “Whoever sings like that is bound to be happy!” The song led him into a vineyard, where he found a young man singing and pruning the vines.

  “Good day, Majesty,” said the youth. “So early and already out in the country?”

  “Bless you! Would you like me to take you to the capital? You will be my friend.”

  “Much obliged, Majesty, but I wouldn’t even consider it. I wouldn’t even change places with the Pope.”

  “Why not? Such a fine young man like you …”

  “No, no, I tell you. I’m content with just what I have and want nothing more.”

  “A happy man at last!” thought the king. “Listen, young man. Do me a favor.”

  “With all my heart, Majesty, if I can.”

  “Wait just a minute,” said the king, who, unable to contain his joy any longer, ran to get his retinue. “Come with me! My son is saved! My son is saved!” And he took them to the young man. “My dear lad,” he began, “I’ll give you whatever you want! But give me … give me …”

  “What, Majesty?”

  “My son is dying! Only you can save him. Come here!”

  The king grabbed him and started unbuttoning the youth’s jacket. All of a sudden he stopped, and his arms fell to his sides.

  The happy man wore no shirt.

  According to Stith Thompson, “the living tradition and active faith of nearly all countries abound in ghost legends. Not only may thousands of people be found who testify to having seen ghosts, but practices are all but universal which assume for their justification a substratum of such belief.”

  The varieties and types of ghosts seem to be infinite. Some ghosts are insubstantial mists, some walking bones, and some are as substantial as Tabb’s man in white who carries him away in a fierce hold. Some are angry, some are sad, and some are still in love. Some return for vengeance, some for pleasure, and some to earn their way into heaven, like the ghost in the Chinese “Drinking Companions.”

  Likewise, stories of ghosts and revenants inspire varying reactions in the listener. Some tales cause the hearer to shiver, even blanch. A few, like “One Night in Paradise” or “The Spirit-Wife,” make us sigh, or even shed a tear. Some are delicious surprises, like the Irish story “The Dream House.” And some, like “The Ostler and the Grave Robbers,” make an audience laugh out loud.

  There is something about ghost stories that causes the listener to look around warily. And that, so we learned long ago in the ever-young story of Orpheus and Eurydice, may dispel the following spirit—whether we want to or not.

  ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE

  Greece

  Orpheus was the son of Apollo and the Muse Calliope. He was presented by his father with a lyre and taught to play upon it, which he did to such perfection that nothing could withstand the charm of his music. Not only his fellow mortals but wild beasts were softened by his strains, and gathering round him laid by their fierceness, and stood entranced with his lay. Nay, the very trees and rocks were sensible to the charm. The former crowded round him and the latter relaxed somewhat of their hardness, softened by his notes.

  Hymen had been called to bless with his presence the nuptials of Orpheus with Eurydice; but though he attended, he brought no happy omens with him. His very torch smoked and brought tears into their eyes.

  In coin
cidence with such prognostics, Eurydice, shortly after her marriage, while wandering with the nymphs, her companions, was seen by the shepherd Aristaeus, who was stuck by her beauty and made advances to her. She fled, and in flying trod upon a snake in the grass, was bitten in the foot, and died.

  Orpheus sang his grief to all who breathed the upper air, both gods and men, and finding it all unavailing resolved to seek his wife in the regions of the dead. He descended by a cave situated on the side of the promontory of Taenarus and arrived at the Stygian realm. He passed through crowds of ghosts and presented himself before the throne of Pluto and Proserpine.

  Accompanying the words with the lyre, he sung, “O deities of the underworld, to whom all we who live must come, hear my words, for they are true. I come not to spy out the secrets of Tartarus, nor to try my strength against the three-headed dog with snaky hair who guards the entrance. I come to seek my wife, whose opening years the poisonous viper’s fang has brought to an untimely end. Love has led me here, Love, a god all powerful with us who dwell on the earth, and, if old traditions say true, not less so here. I implore you by these abodes full of terror, these realms of silence and uncreated things, unite again the thread of Eurydice’s life. We all are destined to you, and sooner or later must pass to your domain. She too, when she shall have filled her term of life, will rightly be yours. But till then grant her to me, I beseech you. If you deny me, I cannot return alone; you shall triumph in the death of us both.”

  As he sang these tender strains, the very ghosts shed tears. Tantalus, in spite of his thirst, stopped for a moment his efforts for water, Ixion’s wheel stood still, the vulture ceased to tear the giant’s liver, the daughters of Danaus rested from their task of drawing water in a sieve, and Sisyphus sat on his rock to listen. Then for the first time, it is said, the cheeks of the Furies were wet with tears. Proserpine could not resist, and Pluto himself gave way.

  Eurydice was called. She came from among the new-arrived ghosts, limping with her wounded foot. Orpheus was permitted to take her away with him on one condition, that he should not turn around to look at her till they should have reached the upper air.

  Under this condition they proceeded on their way, he leading, she following, through passages dark and steep, in total silence, till they had nearly reached the outlet into the cheerful upper world, when Orpheus, in a moment of forgetfulness, to assure himself that she was still following him, cast a glance behind him, when she was instantly borne away. Stretching out their arms to embrace each other, they grasped only the air!

  Dying now a second time, she yet cannot reproach her husband, for how can she blame his impatience to behold her? “Farewell,” she said, “a last farewell”—and was hurried away, so fast that the sound hardly reached his ears.

  THE SPIRIT-WIFE

  American Indian (Zuni)

  A young man was grieving because the beautiful young wife whom he loved was dead. As he sat at the graveside weeping, he decided to follow her to the land of the dead. He made many prayer sticks and sprinkled sacred corn pollen. He took a downy eagle plume and colored it with red earth color. He waited until nightfall, when the spirit of his departed wife came out of the grave and sat beside him. She was not sad, but smiling. The spirit-woman told her husband, “I am just leaving one life for another. Therefore do not weep for me.”

  “I cannot let you go,” said the young man. “I love you so much that I will go with you to the land of the dead.”

  The spirit-wife tried to dissuade him, but could not overcome his determination. So at last she gave in to his wishes, saying, “If you must follow me, know that I shall be invisible to you as long as the sun shines. You must tie this red eagle plume to my hair. It will be visible in daylight, and if you want to come with me, you must follow the plume.”

  The young husband tied the red plume to his wife’s hair, and at daybreak, as the sun slowly began to light up the world, bathing the mountaintops in a pale pink light, the spirit-wife started to fade from his view. The lighter it became, the more the form of his wife dissolved and grew transparent, until at last it vanished altogether. But the red plume did not disappear. It waved before the young man, a mere arm’s length away, and then, as if rising and falling on a dancer’s head, began leading the way out of the village, moving through the streets out into the cornfields, moving through a shallow stream, moving into the foothills of the mountains, leading the young husband ever westward toward the land of the evening.

  The red plume moved swiftly, evenly, floating without effort over the roughest trails, and soon the young man had trouble following it. He grew tireder and tireder, and finally was totally exhausted as the plume left him farther behind. Then he called out, panting, “Beloved wife, wait for me. I can’t run any longer.”

  The red plume stopped, waiting for him to catch up, and when he did so, hastened on. For many days the young man traveled, following the plume by day, resting during the nights, when his spirit-bride would sometimes appear to him, speaking encouraging words. Most of the time, however, he was merely aware of her presence in some mysterious way. Day by day the trail became rougher and rougher. The days were long, the nights short, and the young man grew wearier and wearier, until at last he had hardly enough strength to set one foot before the other.

  One day the trail led to a deep, almost bottomless chasm, and as the husband came to its edge, the red plume began to float away from him into nothingness. He reached out to seize it, but the plume was already beyond his reach, floating straight across the canyon, because spirits can fly through the air.

  The young man called across the chasm, “Dear wife of mine, I love you. Wait!”

  He tried to descend one side of the canyon, hoping to climb up the opposite side, but the rock walls were sheer, with nothing to hold on to. Soon he found himself on a ledge barely wider than a thumb, from which he could go neither forward nor back. It seemed that he must fall into the abyss and be dashed into pieces. His foot had already begun to slip, when a tiny striped squirrel scooted up the cliff, chattering, “You young fool, do you think you have the wings of a bird or the feet of a spirit? Hold on for just a little while and I’ll help you.” The little creature reached into its cheek pouch and brought out a little seed, which it moistened with saliva and stuck into a crack in the wall. With its tiny feet the squirrel danced above the crack, singing, “Tsithl, tsithl, tsithl, tall stalk, tall stalk, tall stalk, sprout, sprout quickly.” Out of the crack sprouted a long, slender stalk, growing quickly in length and breadth, sprouting leaves and tendrils, spanning the chasm so that the young man could cross over without any trouble.

  On the other side of the canyon, the young man found the red plume waiting, dancing before him as ever. Again he followed it at a pace so fast that it often seemed that his heart would burst. At last the plume led him to a large, dark, deep lake, and the plume plunged into the water to disappear below the surface. Then the husband knew that the spirit land lay at the bottom of the lake. He was in despair because he could not follow the plume into the deep. In vain did he call for his spirit-wife to come back. The surface of the lake remained undisturbed and unruffled like a sheet of mica. Not even at night did his spirit-wife reappear. The lake, the land of the dead, had swallowed her up. As the sun rose above the mountains, the young man buried his face in his hands and wept.

  Then he heard someone gently calling, “Hu-hu-hu,” and felt the soft beating of wings on his back and shoulders. He looked up and saw an owl hovering above him. The owl said, “Young man, why are you weeping?”

  He pointed to the lake saying, “My beloved wife is down there in the land of the dead, where I cannot follow her.”

  “I know, poor man,” said the owl. “Follow me to my house in the mountains, where I will tell you what to do. If you follow my advice, all will be well and you will be reunited with the one you love.”

  The owl led the husband to a cave in the mountains and, as they entered, the young man found himself in a large room full of o
wl-men and owl-women. The owls greeted him warmly, inviting him to sit down and rest, to eat and drink. Gratefully he took his seat.

  The old owl who had brought him took his owl clothing off, hanging it on an antler jutting out from the wall, and revealed himself as a manlike spirit. From a bundle in the wall this mysterious being took a small bag, showing it to the young man, telling him, “I will give this to you, but first I must instruct you in what you must do and must not do.”

  The young man eagerly stretched out his hand to grasp the medicine bag, but the owl drew back. “Foolish fellow, suffering from the impatience of youth! If you cannot curb your eagerness and your youthful desires, then even this medicine will be of no help to you.”

  “I promise to be patient,” said the husband.

  “Well then,” said the owl-man, “this is sleep medicine. It will make you fall into a deep sleep and transport you to some other place. When you awake, you will walk toward the Morning Star. Following the trail to the middle anthill, you will find your spirit-wife there. As the sun rises, so she will rise and smile at you, rise in the flesh, a spirit no more, and so you will live happily.

  “But remember to be patient; remember to curb your eagerness. Let not your desire to touch and embrace her get the better of you, for if you touch her before bringing her safely home to the village of your birth, she will be lost to you forever.”

  Having finished this speech, the old owl-man blew some of the medicine on the face of the young husband, who instantly fell into a deep sleep. Then all the strange owl-men put on their owl coats and, lifting the sleeper, flew with him to a place at the beginning of the trail to the middle anthill. There thay laid him down underneath some trees.