Speak Bird Speak Again

by Folktales

  She went running after them, following in their tracks. When Lolabe looked back, she spied the ghouleh and her bitch behind them.

  "My mother's following us," she said. "In a moment, she'll devour us."

  Taking hold of her comb, she cast it behind her. It turned into a fence of thorns, and they moved on, running away from there.

  "Chop, chop, my little bitch!" said the ghouleh, "and I'll chop with you till we open a path and follow him."

  They chopped and chopped until they cleared a path and then followed in pursuit.

  When she looked back, Lolabe saw the ghouleh still behind them.

  "She's catching up with us," said Lolabe, and she threw the kohl jar behind her. It turned into a wall of fire.

  "Pee, pee, my little bitch!" said the ghouleh, "and I'll pee too, till we clear a path and follow them."

  They pissed and pissed till they made a path, then followed in pursuit.

  When Lolabe looked behind her, the ghouleh was still following.

  "My mother's still on our heels," she said. "Now she'll devour us. We have only this mirror left."

  Taking hold of the mirror, she tossed it behind her, and it turned into a pool that blocked the way for the ghouleh and her bitch.

  "Lap it up, lap it up, my little bitch!" said the ghouleh to her helper, "and I'll lap it up too. If you burst, I'll sew you up; and if I burst, you'll sew me up again."

  But how much water were they going to lap from this pool? They licked and licked until they both burst and died.

  When Lolabe looked back, she found them dead.

  "It's all over," she said. "They're gone. Now we're free."

  Pulling themselves together, they traveled and traveled. If their village was 'Arrabe, they came, you might say, to the famous oak tree by Maslaxit. Leaving her there (he didn't think it proper to bring her home like that), he said, "Wait for me here till I go tell my family and come back for you with a proper wedding procession and the sultan's royal band." After he had gone, Lolabe climbed into the tree and sat down.

  Underneath the tree there was a well. The slavegirl of the king's household came to fill her jar from the well. Looking over into the water, she saw Lolabe's reflection there.

  "Alas!" she cried out. "Me with all this beauty in the well, and I'm a slave to a household of blacksmiths!"

  Smash! She hurled the water jug to the ground and went home, got another jar, and came back. Again looking into the water, she saw Lolabe's reflection. She thought her reflection beautiful.

  "What!" she exclaimed. "Me with all this beauty in the well, and I'm a slave to a household of blacksmiths!" Hurling her water jug to the ground, she was set to leave, when Lolabe laughed from the tree. Looking up, the slavegirl saw her.

  "So," she said. "It's you who's sitting up there, and I've been breaking my master's jars for nothing. Now they'll kill me. You'd better come down!"

  Lolabe climbed down.

  The slavegirl, it turned out, was a witch. Holding the bride in front of her, she stuck her full of pins. When she stuck a pin in her head, it would turn into a dove's head, and her arms into dove's wings. She stuck and stuck her with pins until she had changed Lolabe completely into a dove. She threw Lolabe into the air, put on her clothes, and sat in the tree waiting for the son of the king. Arriving with the sultan's band, the son of the king passed under the tree and prepared to bring her down. And how did he find her, but sitting there [like a princess]? "Climb down!" he said, and he brought her down from the tree.

  "Are you Lolabe?" he asked when she came down.

  "Yes."

  "Why are your eyes like that?"

  "Because I've been crying for you so much."

  "Why are your nostrils like that?"

  "Because I've been blowing my nose from crying so much."

  "And why is your face like that?"

  "Because I was slapping it so much, lamenting your absence."

  "She is my portion and my fate," he said to himself, covering her face before anybody could see her. He sat her on a horse, and the procession started for home. As soon as they arrived at the palace, he took her inside and lived with her. "It's settled!" he convinced himself. "She must be Lolabe." She herself kept insisting she was Lolabe.

  From that time the real Lolabe started coming to their house, the palace of the king. She would fly to the kitchen and perch on the wall.

  "Cook! O cook!" she would cry. "The son of the king, your master - is he happy or sad? Is lie in the company of whites or blacks? Come, let us cry together tears of coral and pearl!" Perching on the wall, she would then weep, and pearls and coral would pour from her eyes. The cook would rush out to pick them up, and the food would burn. The first day, the food burned; the second day also. On the third day, the son of the sultan said [to his servants], "Tell the cook to come see me! I want to see what's the matter with him, why for the past two or three days the food's been burned so badly we haven't been able to eat it." They sent for him, and he came.

  "Come here!" said the son of the sultan. "Why for the past two or three days have you been doing that to the food? Are you new at this trade?"

  "Master, let me explain!" replied the cook. "Every day a dove comes, perches on the wall, and cries out, 'Cook, O cook! The son of the sultan, your master - is he happy or sad? Is he in the company of whites or blacks? Come, let us cry together tears of coral and pearl!' She stands on the edge of the wall and weeps and weeps, and coral and pearls pour down. Look how much I've already collected from what she's left behind? "When does she usually come?"

  "She comes when I start to cook," he answered. "I go out to collect the coral and pearls. I get distracted, and the food burns."

  "All right, this time you're forgiven. Tomorrow, take good care of the food!"

  Going up to the roof, the son of the king lay in wait for her. When the dove came, she landed on the wall. "Cook, O cook!" she called out. "The son of the king, your master - is he happy or sad? Is he in the company of whites or blacks? Come, let us cry together tears of coral and pearl!" She was distracted, crying, when he crept up from behind, reached out his hand, and caught her. Taking her inside, he put her in his lap. As he stroked her, he found the pins planted in her body. Pull, pull! The first pin - her arm came back as it was. The second pin and the third - he kept feeling around, removing pins from her body, until Lolabe appeared again.

  "What's going on?" he asked. "Who did this to you?"

  "A slavegirl came upon me," she answered. "Such and such happened to me, and she was the one who did this."

  Now the other (she was a witch after all!) outwitted him. She caught him, changed him into a dove, and made him fly away. She then started to lord it over Lolabe, making her sleep on a straw mat. He, too, would come flying around her window, land on the sill, and cry out, "O Lolabe, Lolabe! How are you faring in my father's house?"

  "Mats under me and mats over me," she would answer. "It is the sleep of hardship, O my Yusuf!"

  Perched on her window, he would weep and weep till his eyes went blind, and then he would fly away. Coming back the next day, he cried out, "Lolabe, O Lolabe! How are you faring in my father's house?"

  "Bedding under me and bedding over me," she answered. "It is the sleep of comfort, O my Yusuf!"

  Standing there, he cried, and she cried with him. When his eyes went nearly blind, he gathered himself and flew away. On the third day he came back, calling, "Lolabe, O Lolabe! How are you faring in my father's house?"

  "Silk under me and silk over me," she answered. "It is the sleep of a vizier, O my Yusuf!"

  Standing in the window, he cried and cried. Meanwhile, she had been waiting behind the window, and, reaching out her hand, she caught hold of him and removed the pins from his body.

  They began their wedding celebrations all over again, holding a feast and making merry for many an evening. He married her. It was then announced in the city, "He who loves the sultan must bring a load of wood and
some burning coals!" They burned the witch and scattered her ashes to the wind.

  This is my tale, I've told it, and in your hands I leave it.

  Afterword

  In contrast to the tales in the previous group, which explore subjective feelings associated with sexuality, the quest tales here concern the search for a bride as a public affair circumscribed by preexisting conditions. The interplay of social forces in the quest situation is similar in all three tales, receiving its clearest expression in "The Brave Lad." The very realistic narration in this tale, the absence of magic and the supernatural, itself gives a meaningful cultural context to the quest pattern. The teller relates this tale without distancing herself from the action, as if the events narrated came, or could come, from actual life. It seems perfectly natural for a lad to desire the king's daughter but be too poor to propose (see Tale 16, n. 2). His quest is realistically motivated, as is the girl's desire to help him. The tale's sense of realism is heightened for an Arab audience when the teller says the girl wanted to marry her cousin, whom she loved, and the ghoul had taken her against her will. From this tale we see the basic elements of the quest clearly: a male in search of a mate, a female receptive to his approach and willing to help him, and an authority figure who must be overcome before the maiden can be won.

  In all three tales the initiation of the quest is constrained by the requirements of the social system. In "The Brave Lad" the fulfillment of the lad's private desire for the king's daughter is made contingent on the performance of a public duty - killing the ghoul. The same holds true for "Gazelle," where, in the process of obtaining the soul of the jinni from the tiger's kneebone, the hero rescues the town from the ravages of four other monsters. And in "Lolabe" as well, the boy's quest is tied to a public function, namely, the fulfillment of a vow - an act that benefits everyone in the city, especially the poor and the destitute.

  The purpose of the quest, it would appear, is to demonstrate the necessity of cooperation between the partners in order to ensure their success. Left to his or her own resources, neither partner would succeed. The girl in "The Brave Lad" did not know the secret of the three hairs before the young man came into the cave, and he in turn would not have been able to pluck them from the ghoul's head as she did. The boy in "Lolabe" would not have been able to cast the magic spells on his own, and without him Lolabe would not have risked the perilous journey out of the wilderness castle. And the young man in "Gazelle" would not have been able to move the mountain without Gazelle's help, nor would she have been finally able to kill her arch foe without his aid. Similarly, cooperation is necessary in the face of the hostility the young couple faces from their parents and from society. It affirms the breaking of the parental bond of authority and the creation of a new bond based on mutual love and partnership.

  Yet within the framework of cooperation the roles are not equal. That of the female is more complex than that of the male, reflecting perhaps the complexity of her actual role in society, with marriage being for her a transition from one authority figure (the father) to another (the husband). The role of the male is to go looking for a mate, but beyond his needing the courage to start the quest, not much else is asked of him. In "Gazelle," even the quest itself is not initiated by the young man alone; Gazelle's role in it is substantial. She not only guides him to the right places where he can obtain help to move the mountain, but she also helps him in the task itself by overcoming the guardian jinni. Similarly in the other two tales: once the quest is initiated, the responsibility of seeing it through to completion fills to the women. The complexity of the female role is dear in "Lolabe." After Lolabe exerts her utmost to save the young man and herself from the clutches of her mother, he abandons her in the tree while he goes to obtain his parents' consent to bring home his bride - consent that apparently was not forthcoming, for the couple must suffer still further hardship before their marriage can be celebrated openly.

  Seen in its cultural context, the quest itself appears as the price that young people who wish to select their own mates must pay for the freedom to make their own choice. The authority figure functions to preserve tradition by putting obstacles in the path of personal freedom for both sexes. In "Gazelle," the dying father instructs his sons to give their sisters to any suitors who come seeking marriage. Although exaggerated, this situation represents the practice even today. Because in traditional Palestinian and Arab culture the choice of a mate is of vital importance to the community, it cannot be left entirely up to the individual; the interests of the whole family must be taken into account as well. Those who insist on choosing for themselves, then, must be willing to make sacrifices to achieve their goals. In "The Brave Lad," the young hero must have enough courage to face the ghoul; and in "Gazelle," he must at least have the courage to face the tiger. In "Lolabe," the successful union at the end must be earned by overcoming two sets of obstacles, one from the mother ghouleh, and the other (though not explicitly) from the boy's own parents.

  Arrayed against the young couple in their struggle are the supernatural forces of the jinn, the subhuman forces of the ghouls, and the black forces of magic. What is the function of these forces, and why do they occur here? We notice, on closer examination, that only the authority figures are presented as ghouls or jinn. In "The Brave Lad" the ghoul is the husband, in "Lolabe" the ghouleh is the mother, and in "Gazelle" the guardian of the mountain is a jinni - and, we presume, an agent of or surrogate for Gazelle's father as well. (The situation in this tale is complicated by the fact that Gazelle herself is said to be of the jinn.) Earlier (see Tale 6, n. 13; Tale 8, n. 8), we suggested that ghouls might represent exaggerated human appetites - hunger or sexuality - gone to excess. Here, the human appetite presented in ghoulish aspect is parental possessiveness, a force that aims to keep a son or a daughter in a state of perpetual childhood. Thus the parents at the beginning of "Lolabe" forget about fulfilling their vow: they do not want to admit to themselves that their son has grown up. The love of a ghoul for his children is in fact proverbial in Palestinian folk speech. A person's excessive love for his or her children is said to be "like the love of a ghoul for his child" (zayy, imhabt il-gul la-'ibno).

  We therefore see that the behavior of the authority figure is part of a cultural pattern as well. Although in each tale the couple are ready for each other and for the match, the parents are reluctant to let go of their children. The image of Lolabe, imprisoned by her mother in a wilderness castle, represents most poignantly the situation of marriageable girls. And the behavior of the fathers in "The Brave Lad" and "Gazelle" is not very different from that of Lolabe's mother; they, too, keep their daughters beyond the reach of suitors, setting nearly impossible conditions for winning their hands. The situation in "The Brave Lad," moreover, underscores the point by presenting a second authority figure, a man who marries a girl against her will, as a ghoul. Thus the ghouls and jinn are imaginative representations of the obstructing forces as seen by the intending couple. In order for the couple to achieve their aim, these forces must be eliminated. Gazelle hangs her rival jinni by his hair, being unable to get his soul and kill him; as long as he remains alive, her relationship with her husband remains insecure. The necessity of overcoming the authority figures, then, is the very source of the narrative logic that turns them into monsters or ghouls, thereby justifying the couple's killing them with impunity.

  Finally, the significant role that hair plays as a unifying image for the source of power in all three tales must be mentioned. In "The Brave Lad," the ghoul is killed by removing three hairs from his head. (Cf. the story of Samson, Judges 16.) By rubbing his magic hairs, the young man in "Gazelle" is able to summon the jinn; and Gazelle herself disables his rival when she hangs him up by his hair. Although these instances, which spring from ancient Semitic folklore, are, like Lolabe's hair, removed from the domain of ordinary experience, the cultural context nevertheless helps to explain the significance of hair in the folk imagination. In Palestinian culture, hair i
s thought of almost as if it were a private part of the body, and both women and men, especially among the fellahin, cover their heads. Women with long hair, which is considered a mark of feminine beauty and a source of attraction to men, tie it in a bun and cover it. Indeed, a woman who lets her hair down in front of strangers is considered immodest, such behavior being interpreted as an act of allurement. In Tale 20, the king happens upon a girl combing her long hair and immediately falls in love with her; perhaps, then, Lolabe's long hair, which has the power to attract a young man from a distant land, is the source of her magic power as well.

  GROUP II

  FAMILY

  BRIDES AND BRIDEGROOMS

  19.

  The Old Woman Ghouleh

  TELLER: We are blessed with plenty!

  AUDIENCE: Blessings abound, Allah willing!

  The son of the king took the daughter of one of his father's viziers for his wife. As the girl was sitting in the bridal seat receiving congratulations, an old woman came in and said, "Niece, may your wedding be blessed!"

  "And may Allah bless you too, aunty!" responded the bride.

  "I'm sorry, my dear," the old woman said, "but I don't have any money to give you as a wedding present. Would you accept these glass bracelets?"

  The old woman then went home, waited until midnight, and returned. "Little bracelets, little bracelets!" she said, tapping on the door, "Open the door!"

  The bracelets fell from the girl's wrists as she slept, and they opened the door. The old woman came into the house and woke up the bride. "Hush," she whispered, "don't let your husband know what's going on. Your father has just died." Immediately, the bride jumped out of bed and went with the old woman. If, you might say, their house was on the south side of town, the old woman took her in an easterly direction, until they arrived at a cave. When she came into the cave, the girl was met by a small ghouleh and a big ghoul, who took away her clothes and her jewelry and devoured her.