‘Stone of Patience,’ she said, ‘I was the only child of a well-to-do family. My mother was very beautiful, but it was my misfortune to be even more beautiful than she. At every new moon my mother asked who was the most beautiful one in the world. And the new moon always answered that my mother was the most beautiful. One day my mother asked again, and the moon told her that Nourie Hadig was the most beautiful one in the whole world. My mother became very jealous and told my father to take me somewhere, to kill me and bring her my bloody shirt. My father could not do this, so he permitted me to go free,’ Nourie Hadig said. ‘Tell me, Stone of Patience, am I more patient or are you?’
The Stone of Patience began to swell.
The girl continued, ‘When my father left me, I walked until I saw this house in the distance. I walked toward it, and when I touched the door, it opened magically by itself. Once I was inside, the door closed behind me and never opened again until seven years later. Inside I found a handsome youth. A voice told me to prepare his food and take care of him. I did this for four years, day after day, night after night, living alone in a strange place, with no one to hear my voice. Stone of Patience tell me, am I more patient or are you?’
The Stone of Patience swelled a little more.
‘One day a group of gypsies camped right beneath my window. As I had been lonely all these years, I bought a gypsy girl and pulled her up on a rope to the place where I was confined. Now, she and I took turns in serving the young boy who was under a magic spell. One day she cooked for him and the next day I cooked for him. One day, three years later while the gypsy was fanning him, the youth awoke and saw her. He thought that she had served him through all those years and took her as his betrothed. And the gypsy, whom I had bought and considered my friend, did not say one word to him about me. Stone of Patience, tell me, am I more patient or are you?’
The Stone of Patience swelled and swelled and swelled. The prince, meanwhile, had heard this most unusual story and rushed in to keep the girl from bursting. But just as he stepped into the room, it was the Stone of Patience which burst.
‘Nourie Hadig,’ the prince said, ‘it is not my fault that I chose the gypsy for my wife instead of you. I didn’t know the whole story. You are to be my wife, and the gypsy will be our servant.’
‘No, since you are betrothed to her and all the preparations for the wedding are made, you must marry the gypsy,’ Nourie Hadig said.
‘That will not do. You must be my wife and her mistress.’ So Nourie Hadig and the prince were married.
Nourie Hadig’s mother, in the meanwhile, had never stopped searching for her daughter. One day she again asked the new moon, ‘New moon, am I the most beautiful or are you?’
‘I am not the most beautiful, nor are you. The princess of Adana is the most beautiful of all,’ the new moon said. The mother knew immediately that Nourie Hadig was now married and lived in Adana. So she had a very beautiful ring made, so beautiful and brilliant that no one could resist it. But she put a potion in the ring that would make the wearer sleep. When she had finished her work, she called an old witch who traveled on a broomstick. ‘Witch, if you will take this ring and give it to the princess of Adana as a gift from her devoted mother, I will grant you your heart’s desire.’
So the mother gave the ring to the witch, who set out for Adana immediately. The prince was not home when the witch arrived, and she was able to talk to Nourie Hadig and the gypsy alone. Said the witch, ‘Princess, this beautiful ring is a gift from your devoted mother. She was ill at the time you left home and said some angry words, but your father should not have paid attention to her since she was suffering from such pain.’ So she left the ring with Nourie Hadig and departed.
‘My mother does not want me to be happy. Why should she send me such a beautiful ring?’ Nourie Hadig asked the gypsy.
‘What harm can a ring do?’ the gypsy asked.
So Nourie Hadig slipped the ring on her finger. No sooner was it on her finger than she became unconscious. The gypsy put her in bed but could do nothing further.
Soon the prince came home and found his wife in a deep sleep. No matter how much they shook her, she would not awaken; yet she had a pleasant smile on her face, and anyone who looked at her could not believe that she was in a trance. She was breathing, yet she did not open her eyes. No one was successful in awakening her.
‘Nourie Hadig, you took care of me all those long years,’ the prince said. ‘Now I will look after you. I will not let them bury you. You are always to lie here, and the gypsy will guard you by night while I guard you by day,’ he said. So the prince stayed with her by day, and the gypsy guarded her by night. Nourie Hadig did not open her eyes once in three years. Healer after healer came and went, but none could help the beautiful girl.
One day the prince brought another healer to see Nourie Hadig, and although he could not help her in the least, he did not want to say so. When he was alone with the enchanted girl, he noticed her beautiful ring. ‘She is wearing so many rings and necklaces that no one will notice if I take this ring to my wife,’ he said to himself. As he slipped the ring off her finger, she opened her eyes and sat up. The healer immediately returned the ring to her finger. ‘Aha! I have discovered the secret!’
The next day he exacted many promises of wealth from the prince for his wife’s cure. ‘I will give you anything you want if you can cure my wife,’ the prince said.
The healer, the prince and the gypsy went to the side of Nourie Hadig. ‘What are all those necklaces and ornaments? Is it fitting that a sick woman should wear such finery? Quick,’ he said to the gypsy, ‘remove them!’ The gypsy removed all the jewelry except the ring, ‘Take that ring off, too,’ the healer ordered.
‘But that ring was sent to her by her mother, and it is a dear remembrance,’ the gypsy said.
‘What do you say? When did her mother send her a ring?’ asked the prince. Before the gypsy could answer him, the healer took the ring off Nourie Hadig’s finger. The princess immediately sat up and began to talk. They were all very happy: the healer, the prince, the princess and the gypsy, who was now a real friend of Nourie Hadig.
Meanwhile, during all these years, whenever the mother had asked the moon her eternal question, it had replied, ‘You are the most beautiful!’ But when Nourie Hadig was well again, the moon said, ‘I am not the most beautiful, neither are you. The father’s and mother’s only daughter, Nourie Hadig, the princess of Adana, is the most beautiful of all.’ The mother was so surprised and so angry that her daughter was alive that she died of rage there and then.
From the sky fell three apples: one to me, one to the storyteller and one to the person who has entertained you.
BEAUTY AND POCK FACE
(CHINESE)
here were once two sisters; the eldest was very beautiful and everyone called her ‘Beauty’, but the younger had a face covered with pock marks, and everyone called her ‘Pock Face’. She was the daughter of the second wife, and was very spoilt, and had a bad character. Beauty’s mother had died when her daughter was very small, and after her death she had turned into a yellow cow, which lived in the garden. Beauty adored the yellow cow, but it had a miserable existence, because the stepmother treated it so badly.
One day, the stepmother took the ugly daughter to the theatre and left the elder one at home. She wanted to accompany them, but her stepmother said: ‘I will take you tomorrow, if you tidy the hemp in my room.’
Beauty went off and sat down in front of the stack of hemp but after a long time she had only divided half. Bursting into tears, she took it off to the yellow cow, who swallowed the whole mass and then spat it out again all clearly arranged bit by bit. Beauty dried her tears, and gave the hemp to her mother on her return home: ‘Mother, here is the hemp. I can go to the theatre tomorrow, can’t I?’
But when the next day came, her stepmother again refused to take her, saying: ‘You can go when you have separated the sesame seeds from the beans.’ The poor girl had to divide
them seed by seed, until the exhausting task made her eyes ache. Again she went to the yellow cow, who said to her: ‘You stupid girl, you must separate them with a fan.’ Now she understood, and the sesame and beans were soon divided. When she brought the seeds all nicely separated, her stepmother knew that she could no longer prevent her going to the theatre, but she asked her: ‘How can a servant girl be so clever? Who helped you?’ And Beauty had to admit that the yellow cow had advised her, which made the stepmother very angry. Without, therefore, saying a word, she killed and ate the cow, but Beauty had loved the cow so dearly that she could not eat its flesh. Instead, she put the bones in an earthenware pot and hid them in her bedroom.
Day after day, the stepmother did not take her to the theatre, and one evening, when she had gone there herself with Pock Face, Beauty was so cross that she smashed everything in the house including the earthenware pot. Whereupon there was a crack, and a white horse, a new dress, and a pair of embroidered shoes came out. The sudden appearance of these things gave her a terrible fright, but she soon saw that they were real objects and, quickly pulling on the new dress and the shoes, she jumped on to the horse and rode out of the gate.
While riding along, one of her shoes slipped off into the ditch. She wanted to dismount and fetch it, but could not do so; at the same time she did not want to leave it lying there. She was in a real quandary, when a fishmonger appeared. ‘Brother fishmonger! Please pick up my shoe,’ she said to him. He answered with a grin: ‘With great pleasure, if you will marry me.’ ‘Who could marry you?’ she said crossly. ‘Fishmongers always stink.’ And seeing that he had no chance, the fishmonger went on his way. Next, an assistant of a rice shop went by, and she said to him: ‘Brother rice broker, please give me my shoe.’ ‘Certainly, if you will marry me,’ said the young man. ‘Marry a rice broker! Their bodies are all covered with dust.’ The rice broker departed, and soon an oil merchant came by, whom she also asked to pick up her shoe. ‘I will pick it up if you consent to marry me,’ he replied. ‘Who could want to marry you?’ Beauty said with a sigh. ‘Oil merchants are always so greasy.’ Shortly after a scholar came by, whom she also asked to pick up her shoe. The scholar turned to look at her, and then said: ‘I will do so at once if you promise to marry me.’ The scholar was very handsome, so she nodded her head in agreement, and he picked up the shoe and put it on her foot. Then he took her back to his house and made her his wife.
Three days later, Beauty went with her husband to pay the necessary respects to her parents. Her stepmother and sister had quite changed their manner and treated them both in the most friendly and attentive fashion. In the evening, they wanted to keep Beauty at home, and she, thinking they meant it kindly, agreed to stay and to follow her husband in a few days. The next morning her sister took her by the hand and said to her with a laugh: ‘Sister, come and look into the well. We will see which of us is the more beautiful.’ Suspecting nothing, Beauty went to the well and leant over to look down, but at this moment her sister gave her a shove and pushed her into the well, which she quickly covered up with a basket. Poor Beauty lost consciousness and was drowned.
After ten days, the scholar began to wonder why his wife had still not returned. He sent a messenger to inquire, and the stepmother sent back a message that his wife was suffering from a bad attack of smallpox and was not well enough to return for the moment. The scholar believed this, and every day he sent over salted eggs and other sickbed delicacies, all of which found their way into the stomach of the ugly sister.
After two months, the stepmother was irritated by the continual messages from the scholar and made up her mind to practise a deception, and to send back her own daughter as his wife. The scholar was horrified when he saw her and said: ‘Goodness! How changed you are! Surely you are not Beauty. My wife was never such a monster. Good Heavens!’ Pock Face replied seriously: ‘If I am not Beauty, whom do you think I am then? You know perfectly well I was very ill with smallpox, and now you want to disown me. I shall die! I shall die!’ And she began to howl. The tender-hearted scholar could not bear to see her weeping, and although he still had some doubts, he begged her forgiveness and tried to console her, so that gradually she stopped weeping.
Beauty, however, had been transformed into a sparrow, and she used to come and call out when Pock Face was combing her hair: ‘Comb once, peep; comb twice, peep; comb thrice, up to the spine of Pock Face.’ And the wicked wife answered: ‘Comb once, comb twice, comb thrice, to the spine of Beauty.’ The scholar was very mystified by this conversation, and he said to the sparrow: ‘Why do you sing like that? Are you by any chance my wife? If you are, call three times, and I will put you in a golden cage and keep you as a pet.’ The sparrow called out three times, and the scholar bought a golden cage to keep it in. The ugly sister was very angry when she saw that her husband kept the sparrow in a cage, and she secretly killed it and threw it into the garden, where it was once more transformed into a bamboo with many shoots. When Pock Face ate them, an ulcer formed on her tongue, but the scholar found them excellent. The wicked woman became suspicious again and had the bamboo cut down and made into a bed, but when she lay on it, innumerable needles pricked her, while the scholar found it extremely comfortable. Again she became very cross and threw the bed away.
Next door to the scholar lived an old woman who sold moneybags. One day, on her way home, she saw the bed and thought to herself: ‘No one has died here, why have they thrown the bed away? I shall take it,’ and she took the bed into her house and passed a very comfortable night. The next day, she saw that the food in the kitchen was ready cooked. She ate it up, but naturally she felt a little nervous, not having any idea who could have prepared it. Thus for several days she found she could have dinner the moment she came home, but finally, being no longer able to contain her anxiety, she came back early one afternoon and went into the kitchen, where she saw a dark shadow washing rice. She ran up quickly and clasped the shadow round the waist. ‘Who are you?’ she asked, ‘and why do you cook food for me?’ The shadow replied: ‘I will tell you everything. I am the wife of your neighbour the scholar and am called “Beauty”. My sister threw me into the well and I was drowned, but my soul was not dispersed. Please give me a rice-pot as head, a stick as hand, a dish-cloth as entrails, firehooks as feet, and then I can assume my former shape again.’ The old woman gave her what she asked for, and in a moment a beautiful girl appeared, and the old woman was so delighted at seeing such a charming girl, that she questioned her very closely. She told the old woman everything, and then said: ‘Old woman, I have got a bag, which you must offer for sale outside the scholar’s house. If he comes out, you must sell it to him.’ And she gave her an embroidered bag.
The next day the old woman stood outside the scholar’s house and shouted that she had a bag for sale. Maddened by the noise, he came out to ask what kind of bags she sold, and she showed him Beauty’s embroidered bag. ‘Where did you get this bag?’ he asked. ‘I gave it to my wife.’ The old woman then told the whole story to the scholar, who was overjoyed to hear that his wife was still alive. He arranged everything with the old woman, laid down a red cloth on the ground, and brought Beauty back to his house.
When Pock Face saw her sister return, she gave her no peace. She began to grumble and say that the woman was only pretending to be Beauty, and that in point of fact she was a spirit. She wanted to have a trial to see which was the genuine wife. Beauty, also, would not admit herself in the wrong, and said: ‘Good. We will have a test.’ Pock Face suggested that they should walk on eggs, and whoever broke the shells would be the loser, but although she broke all the eggs, and Beauty none, she refused to admit her loss and insisted on another trial. This time they were to walk up a ladder made of knives. Beauty went up and down first without receiving the tiniest scratch, but before Pock Face had gone two steps her feet were cut to the bone. Although she had lost again, she insisted on another test, that of jumping into a cauldron of hot oil. She hoped that Beauty, who would have t
o jump in first, would be burnt. Beauty, however, was quite unharmed by the boiling oil, but the wicked sister fell into it and did not appear again.
Beauty put the roasted bones of the wicked sister into a box and sent them over to her stepmother by a stuttering old servant woman, who was told to say: ‘Your daughter’s flesh.’ But the stepmother loved carp and understood ‘carp flesh’ instead of ‘your daughter’s flesh’. She thought her daughter had sent her over some carp and opened the box in a state of great excitement; but when she saw the charred bones of her daughter lying inside, she let out a piercing scream and fell down dead.
OLD AGE
(INNUIT)
here was woman who was old, blind and likewise unable to walk. Once she asked her daughter for a drink of water. The daughter was so bored with her old mother that she gave her a bowl of her own piss. The old woman drank it all up, then said: ‘You’re a nice one, daughter. Tell me – which would you prefer as a lover, a louse or a sea scorpion?’
‘Oh, a sea scorpion,’ laughed the daughter, ‘because he would not be crushed so easily when I slept with him.’
Whereupon the old woman proceeded to pull sea scorpions out of her vagina, one after another, until she fell over dead.
PART SEVEN
MORAL TALES
LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD
(FRENCH)
nce upon a time, there lived a pretty little girl whose mother adored her, and her grandmother adored her even more. This good woman made her a red hood like the ones that fine ladies wear when they go riding. The hood suited the child so much that soon everybody was calling her Little Red Riding Hood.
One day, her mother baked some cakes on the griddle and said to Little Red Riding Hood:
Angela Carter's Book Of Fairy Tales Page 21