Yiddish Folktales

by Beatrice Weinreich

  “It’s because I have twelve daughters,” she said, “and we are so poor that not one of them has a dress. So I hide them in the cellar, and when God sends us anything to eat, I carry a part of it to them.”

  “In that case,” he said, “let me have your oldest daughter to be my son’s wife.”

  When they saw that he was not making fun of them but meant what he said, the old couple agreed. So the rich man took their oldest daughter away with him to be a bride for his son. As the girl was being led through the streets at her wedding, she heard people shouting, “She’s going to marry a snake.”

  “That’s strange,” she thought. “They must mean that his name is Snake.”

  When the ceremony was over and she was brought home to her father-in-law’s house, she was put into a fine room, and that night a handsome young man came to it. “Now, my bride,” he said, “what will you call me?”

  “Why, I’ll call you ‘Snake.’ Isn’t Snake your name?”

  For that, the handsome young man promptly strangled her.

  When her body was found in the morning, the rich man went back to the hut for a second daughter and married her to his son. But she too called him Snake and was killed. And the same thing happened to each of the other daughters.

  Finally it was the turn of the twelfth daughter. However, when the handsome young man came into her room and said, “Now, my bride, what will you call me?” she replied, “Why, what else shall I call you but ‘my dear husband’?”

  He smiled and said, “You, my dear, are my destined bride, and we shall live in happiness. One small thing I must ask you: never let firelight into our room.” The girl agreed gladly.

  Some time later the bride’s parents paid her a visit. They found her living in fine, clean rooms. The mother said, “I am really curious to see what your husband looks like.” And without her daughter’s knowledge, she hid in the young couple’s room when night fell.

  All at once, there he was. When he took off his serpent shirt, the mother could see how handsome he was. She snatched the shirt up and burned it with a lighted match. Then still holding the match, she tried to see his face.

  Furious, the young man turned to his wife. He broke his wedding ring in two, handed her half of it, and said, “Because of what she’s done, I must leave you. When the two halves of the ring are united again, I’ll return.” Then he was gone.

  Nine months later the young woman gave birth to a beautiful boy. When he was six she sent him to kheyder, where he turned out to be exceptionally bright. But the other children teased him, saying, “Your father is a snake, your father is a snake!”

  The boy asked his mother, “Why do the children say that my father is a snake?”

  “Never mind what they say,” she told him. “Your father is a tall, handsome man.”

  The next day when he came home from school, he found his mother weeping over her half of the broken ring. He asked why she was crying. She said, “Your father promised to come back to us when the two parts of the ring are united.”

  Hearing that, the boy said, “Then I’m going to look for my father.” He took his prayer book, put his mother’s half of the ring inside it, and started off.

  On his travels one evening, as he was reciting his prayers at an inn, he heard someone else saying prayers beneath the floorboards of the room.

  The next morning he left his room, and while he was gone, his father came out from under the floorboards. Seeing the boy’s prayer book, he looked into it and found the other half of his wedding ring. He closed the book and hid in a corner, and when the boy came back his father watched him wash his hands and heard him recite his prayers. Then the tall, handsome man stepped forward and said, “Tell me, my boy, where are you traveling?”

  “I’m searching for my father,” replied the boy. “See,” he said, showing his half of the ring, “my father promised to return to my mother when the two halves of this wedding ring are united.”

  The boy’s father said, “Watch.” And with that he took out his half of the ring and matched it with the boy’s, and the ring at once became whole.

  “You must be my father,” said the boy.

  “I am,” replied the man. “Now let’s go home.”

  And so they went home together, and when they arrived there was great rejoicing. And the father and the mother and their son lived happily from that day to this.

  37

  The Princess and Vanke, the Shoemaker’s Son

  Once upon a time there was a king and a shoemaker. Now the king had a daughter and the shoemaker had a son and the children went to the same school. As it happened, the princess was a very poor pupil and Vanke, the shoemaker’s son, was the best in the class. The two of them played together and studied together, the boy helping the princess with her studies, and in the course of time they fell in love.

  One day the king, wanting to see how his daughter spent her days, rode to the school. There the girls were playing with the girls and the boys with the boys, but his daughter was playing with Vanke. That seemed shameful to him, so the king sent the princess to another school. She still wanted Vanke to help her, however, and he soon transferred to her school.

  When the king next visited the princess at school, he found her playing with Vanke again. So he took her to a school in another city and left orders that no other children were to be admitted. But Vanke went to that city, applied to the school as a teacher, and was set in charge of her class.

  The king again visited her school to see who her friends were. As before, he found her with Vanke. So he decided to take her out of school and marry her off.

  The princess said to Vanke, “Though you and I love each other, my father is planning to marry me to someone else. Here, take this money to a sorceress and ask her to help us outwit my father.”

  Vanke rode away and found a sorceress, who gave him a ring. “Tell the princess to slip this halfway onto her finger,” she said. “It will make her slightly ill. Then let her slip it all the way on and she will fall dead. When she has been buried, dig her up and take the ring off her finger. She will come to life again.”

  So Vanke returned home and gave the ring to the princess. On the day that was set for her wedding, she slipped the ring halfway onto her finger and became slightly ill. The doctors advised her to drink a little wine. Then she pushed the ring all the way down on her finger and fell dead. The doctors waited for five days, and when she still showed no signs of life, they buried her.

  Afterward Vanke, fortified by a great deal of brandy, went to the cemetery and dug the princess up. As the sorceress had promised, she came back to life when he removed the ring from her finger. She lay ill in his house for several days, then recovered.

  Now Vanke and the princess opened a shop to earn their bread. One day the king came in to buy some of the fine cloth that they sold. “You know,” he said to Vanke, weeping, “your assistant looks just like my daughter. Oh, how I miss her!”

  Vanke said, “Your highness must stop grieving. Why don’t you hold a feast for the people of the town? It might lift your spirits.”

  The king took up this idea, and everyone came to the party except Vanke’s shop assistant. The king looked everywhere for her and wept when he couldn’t find her.

  In the meantime Vanke set all the guests to telling stories. When it was his turn, he began, “Listen, my friends. Here’s a problem for you to solve: A rich man had a vineyard, and one day its finest vine withered. Some visitors said to him, ‘You have such a lovely vineyard, but that one withered vine mars its beauty.’ So the rich man tore up the withered vine and threw it into the street.

  “A poor man going by saw the vine and took it home. He planted it and tended it carefully. One day the rich man came along and, recognizing the now flourishing plant, said, ‘Give me back my vine.’

  “Now, people, what I want to know is this: to whom does the vine properly belong?”

  “Why, to the poor man,” everyone said. “To the poor man.”


  Then Vanke gave a signal and the princess came in. First she embraced Vanke, then the king, then her mother. “Now,” said Vanke, “to whom does she belong? To me, who rescued her from death, or to somebody else?” Everyone said she belonged to him. So they were married and lived happily ever after.

  38

  The Foolish Youth and Elijah the Prophet

  Once there was a couple who had an only son. He was a foolish youth—not at all gifted. Day after day he sat around on top of the oven doing nothing.

  Well, nobody lives forever. The youth’s father died. And the mother, it goes without saying, couldn’t chop wood in the forest, so she begged her son, “Please, dear. Go into the forest. Cut wood. Earn something.”

  But it was as if she was talking to someone else. He kept sitting on the oven. But hunger accomplished what past pleadings couldn’t. When, finally, there was nothing to eat, he took an ax and a saw and went off to the forest.

  The youth cut wood and packed it up and carried it off to sell, the way everyone else did. As it turned out, his customers were very pleased with him, because no matter what the size of his bundle, he didn’t charge more than one gildn for it. He wouldn’t take more; that’s how foolish he was.

  One day when he went into the forest, there was no more wood to be found. He was leaning sadly against a tree when a poor old man went by. The man was Elijah the Prophet.

  Elijah thought, “I really ought to give him something to bring him luck and make him happy.” So he pronounced: “May whatever the boy says come to pass.” Then the Prophet went on his way.

  The foolish youth standing beside his tree said, “Ah me. If only this tree were to fall.” He had no sooner spoken than the tree fell. The boy looked about. “As I live and breathe, the tree has fallen.” Then he said, “If only I had a strong rope.” He had hardly spoken than a strong rope fell over his shoulder. Fingering it, he said, “How nice it would be if I could carry the tree into town.” At once the tree was properly tied and on his back, and he was on his way to the city to sell the wood.

  As he walked past the royal palace, the king’s daughter, a magnificent young woman, was standing on the balcony. She saw a man dragging a huge tree, roots, branches, and all. She burst into laughter and cried out to her father, the king, “What sort of creature is that, who can drag such an enormous tree?”

  Irritated, the fool called up to her, “May you know as little about why you are carrying a child as I know about why I can carry this tree.” And he went on to the market, where he sold the truly enormous tree for—again—just one gildn. A fool.

  But let’s leave him now and talk about the princess. Not long after the foolish youth went by with the tree, she discovered that she was pregnant. She was beside herself. How could such a thing have happened? Then she thought that perhaps she was imagining it. So she went to the royal physician, who said, “It’s not your imagination. You’re pregnant, my dear.” She swore that she had no notion how—or by whom—that could be. The physician replied, “A fact is a fact. You’re pregnant.”

  When the queen and the king learned about it—oh my, what a stir. But a fact is a fact. At the end of nine months the princess had a son.

  Her parents studied the child’s face, and it was clear that he did not resemble the queen, or the king, or any of the king’s ministers, or his generals. Who was the father?

  So the senate had a portrait painted of the child and hung in the great hall. Then they gave a great ball, invited everyone in the city, and searched the faces of all the guests. But the child resembled nobody at all. Too bad.

  Now what? Well, one of the senators had an idea. He said, “Perhaps there’s someone who didn’t come to the ball.” And it turned out that there was such a person: the foolish youth. So they looked for him and found him on top of the oven.

  “We’re having another ball,” they said. “Please come.”

  “I don’t care for dances,” he said.

  So they brought him back by force to the palace, where the king and queen looked closely into his face. He was just like the child.

  They turned angrily to the princess. “Is this the fellow you’ve been with?”

  She said, “Who? What? I have no idea who he is.”

  To make a long story short, the king would not believe her and he condemned her to be exiled. She and her child were put on board a ship together with the foolish youth, though he was shut off from them by a stout wall. The ship was supplied with food for a year, towed out to open sea, and set loose—with no helmsman, no sailors, no one.

  The ship drifted for a year, and the fool just sat where he had been put. He had food, after all. But when there was nothing more to eat and he grew hungry, he looked about and saw that there was a thick wall enclosing him. “Oh,” he said. “If only there was a hole in the wall.” Even as he spoke, a hole appeared. He looked through it and saw the princess.

  She asked, “How did you manage to make that hole?”

  He said, “What makes you think I know how I did it?”

  She said, “Well, if you make the hole larger, you can come over to me.”

  He said, “I don’t mind. Let the hole be larger.” And the hole enlarged and he climbed through it.

  Now, the princess was nobody’s fool. She knew that a youth who could make a hole with words instead of tools was no ordinary man. And she had been thinking about her pregnancy, about the youth with the tree who had passed by and about his words to her. She was beginning to understand. So she suggested, “Why don’t you say, ‘Let’s land on the shore’?”

  He said, “Well, why not? Let’s land on the shore.” And as soon as he had spoken, the ship pulled up to shore. After they had debarked, she suggested, “Why not say that you want a palace exactly like my father’s?” So he did, and at once a palace exactly like her father’s stood before them. Then she told him to say that he wanted costly furnishings, and soon they lacked for nothing.

  And so the princess and the foolish youth lived as happily as birds for a while. One day she suggested, “Why don’t you say that you want a bridge leading from here to my father’s palace?” The moment he spoke the words, a bridge extended across the ocean right to the king’s palace.

  The king, when he learned of the bridge, commanded his servants to harness horses to his coach. “Let’s see where this bridge leads,” he said. So four horses were harnessed and all the ministers, generals, and servants got into the coach with the king and queen. And they rode off across the bridge. They rode and rode until they arrived at the other shore. There they got out of the coach and saw what looked exactly like the king’s palace.

  The king thought, “What’s this? Have we turned ourselves around? Are we back where we started?”

  Now, the princess and the youth had disguised themselves. So when the king saw them standing on the shore, he asked, “Who are you? And what are you doing here?”

  They replied, “We’re fisher folk.” Then they added, “It’s nice that you’ve come, since we’re about to celebrate our marriage. Won’t you be our guests?”

  And so the marriage was celebrated. Do you think there was anything lacking? It was all exactly as if the richest of kings had arranged it. Golden dishes; golden spoons. And the wonderful foods that were served are impossible to describe.

  A golden goblet set with gemstones was placed before the king, such a goblet that the king couldn’t take his eyes from it.

  Everyone ate and drank for a day and a night. Then, as the guests were leaving, the princess suggested to the fool, “Why not say that you want the goblet to fall into the king’s pocket?” So the youth did, and the goblet did.

  Well, the king and queen and their entourage drove off, and after a while the princess and her husband pursued and overtook them. “Don’t take it ill,” the princess said to the king, “but one of your people has gone off with the goblet.”

  Hearing this, the king grew angry and said, “Who would dare? I’ll see that whoever has your goblet is
put to death.”

  Well, they started to search everyone. The king, putting his hands into his own pockets, cried out, “Oh dear! Look, I have the goblet.” Everyone turned to stare. The king could not possibly have taken the goblet. And yet he had it!

  The princess said to the king, “Do you see? Just as you have no idea how the goblet got into your pocket, so I have no idea how I got pregnant.”

  At first the king did not understand, but when the princess and her husband removed their disguises, the king flung himself into her arms and they embraced. Oh, what jubilation there was! They all got into the coach and rode home to the king’s palace.

  As for her husband, the fool, the king and queen had him educated and he turned into a proper man. And so from that time on they all lived happily ever after.

  39

  The King’s Lost Daughter

  Once upon a time there were two kings, one German and one Polish, and they always lived in peace.

  It happened one day that the daughter of the Polish king disappeared. She was nowhere to be found, and the king had notices put up announcing that whoever could locate his daughter and bring her home could become her husband.

  The German king’s son went walking one day with his friend, a fisherman’s son. When they saw the notices, the fisherman’s son said to the German king’s son, “Shall we look for the king’s daughter?”

  “Agreed,” said the king’s son, and off they rode.

  They rode on and on until suddenly their horses stopped and refused to go any further. They beat them with whips and then with rods, but the horses would not budge. Then they heard a voice from on high saying, “Beat not your horses. They may not go any farther.”

  How were they to go on? This was a matter in which God was involved. Heaven itself. So they decided to send for a rabbi. When the rabbi came and learned what had happened, he bade them dig where the horses were standing. They dug and they dug until they uncovered a door. The fisherman’s son and the rabbi opened the door and the youths descended through it into a cellar where they found a man wearing a talis, a prayer shawl, over his head and standing before a pair of black candles.