Speak Bird Speak Again

by Folktales

  One day Nayyis came up, bringing her three candles, and said, "During the call to prayer on Thursday evening, light these candles." On Thursday evening, she did just as he had said, putting one boy on this side of her, the other on the other side, with the girl in the middle, and lit the three candles. When the jinn wife saw her, she cried out, "Alas! Alas! The human woman has done me in!" And she exploded and died.

  "May you never rise again!" Nayyis cursed her, tearing down the palace over her and coming back up again.

  "Master, come see Nayyis!" shouted the spinner girl. "Mistress, come see Nayyis! Hurry! Hurry!"

  When they rushed down to see their son, he said, "I was married to a jinn woman, and these children of mine are from her. But if it weren't for this girl here, by Allah, I would never have come back. I want to marry her."

  They had a wedding celebration that lasted seven days and seven nights. Music was playing and people were dancing. Our master married our mistress - and may every year find you in good health!

  AUDIENCE : And may Allah save your tongue!

  Afterword

  The general theme that unites the tales in this group is that of conflicting • loyalties. The conflict usually centers on the male and arises out of his responsibilities as the head of his own household or as a member of an

  extended family. In the last tale in the group, "Nayyis," the source of the conflict is not so much the responsibility a mature man must shoulder but rather the duty a young son owes his parents by remaining within the fold of the extended family.

  "Chick Eggs" and "Bear-Cub of the Kitchen" demonstrate the potential for divided loyalties in a polygynous situation. In the first the man must attend both to his present wife and to his daughter, who represents her own mother in the household. In the second the aging king's loyalty is divided between his older wives, who unite to fight the beautiful new wife; she in turn protects herself by taking revenge ahead of time. In both tales the husband is emotionally manipulated by the wife, either through the children ("Chick Eggs") or by pretended sickness ("Bear-Cub"). And here again, as in all the other tales embodying a polygynous situation (Tales 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 20, and 35), the first wife, either directly or through her children, is vindicated against those who follow her.

  In "The Ghouleh of Trans-Jordan" and "The Woman Whose Hands Were Cut Off" the source of the conflict is the extended family. The man in the first tale is caught between his conjugal family (his wife) and his natal family (his supposed aunt), and he chooses at his peril to align himself with the latter against the former. In "The Woman Whose Hands Were Cut Off," somewhat the reverse situation obtains, with the man choosing to believe his wife over his sister. In either case the male is in a difficult situation vis-à-vis the females for whom he is responsible. Predictably, however (cf. Tales 7, 8, 9), the sister in the latter tale is honest and kind to her brother, forgiving him even before he asks for forgiveness and welcoming him into her own family.

  Despite the supernatural machinery, the conflict in "Nayyis" is also between natal and conjugal families. In this tale, as in "Lolabe" (Tale 18), the parents have an only son who is torn from them by supernatural forces, and in both cases these forces are overcome so that the son may return to his family. In "Bear-Cub," the teller presents the beautiful woman who wrests the king from his wives and his three sons in the metaphorical guise of the jinn. In "Nayyis," however, no transitional devices are provided to help mediate the connection between jinn and human in the mind of the listener; the teller endows the jinn wife with an absolute existence, separate from that of the human domain, and the listener must make the imaginative leap between the two domains unaided.

  We may therefore conclude that the jinn wife in "Nayyis" is a very beautiful woman who captivated the son to such an extent that she made him renounce his parents. The implicit moral to be drawn from all three tales is that the bond between the son and his parents (particularly when he is an only child) is, or should be, so strong that it would take a supernatural power to break it.

  GROUP III

  SOCIETY

  33.

  Im Awwad and the Ghouleh

  Once upon a time there were some women who agreed to meet on a certain day to go wash their clothes at the spring on the edge of town. As they were discussing the matter, a ghouleh who had hidden herself behind a retaining wall nearby heard what they agreed to do that day. On the appointed night, toward dawn, she came to the one among them whose house was on the outskirts of town and made as if she were one of the women who had promised to go to the spring. The woman to whose house she had come was called Im Awwad. Calling out from the outside door of the house, the ghouleh said, "Hey! Im Awwad! Let's go! Tie your dirty clothes in a bundle, and let's go do the laundry!"

  "Who is it?" asked Im Awwad.

  "I'm Im So-and-So," answered the ghouleh.

  "All fight," said Im Awwad.

  It was the middle of the month, and the moon was bright. Thinking it was daylight already, she put her laundry in a tub and lifted it.

  "Bring your son with you," suggested the ghouleh. "We might be a while."

  She brought her soft with her, and the two women walked, with the ghouleh in front. When they had gone just beyond the last houses in town, Im Awwad looked and saw that the feet of the woman walking in front of her were making sparks. Realizing the woman was a ghouleh, Im Awwad was afraid.

  "I want to go back," she said.

  "Why?"

  "I forgot my husband's tunic," she replied, "and he'll kill me if I don't wash it. Here! Take this boy and go ahead, and I'll catch up with you."

  Putting down the washtub, and the boy by its side, she went running back to her husband.

  "Heat up the oil, you whose house is in ruins!" she cried out, knocking on the door. "Now she'll come and eat us before anyone can come to our help."

  By the time the ghouleh had finished eating the boy, she came back to eat Im Awwad and her husband.

  "O Im Awwad!" she cried out from behind the outside door. "Here's Awwad's little prick! Make it into a little wick!"

  When the man heard this, he said to his wife, "What you've been saying is true, damn your parents! This is a ghouleh!"

  The ghouleh dug under the door until she could stick her head and neck inside, and Abu Awwad poured the boiling oil over her head.

  "Do it again!" she cried out, and he answered, "My mother didn't teach me how."

  The ghouleh's head exploded, and she died.

  Its dust has scattered, and now for another one!

  34.

  The Merchant's Daughter

  TELLER: Once upon a time ... O my listeners, let him who loves the Virgin hail her with blessings of peace!

  AUDIENCE: Peace. be with her!

  Once there was a merchant, a big merchant, the biggest of all the merchants, and he had an only daughter. He did not have a wife; she had died. He used to pamper his daughter very much, and she spent her days at home with no one to keep her company. When the time came for pilgrimage, he thought, "I'd like to go on the hajj." He made preparations, but his daughter asked, "And how can you leave me all by myself?"

  "Don't worry," he answered. "I'll have all the daughters of my fellow merchants come visit you, and they'll stay with you every night. You have nothing to worry about during the day."

  "Fine," she agreed, and he went to ask the other merchants to send their daughters over.

  "Of course, " they said.

  Every day after that the girls came in the evening, one after the other, until they had all arrived. One night, as they were sitting around chatting, they craved something.

  "Yee! By Allah," they said, "we'd like to have some dried figs, some raisins, and some dates from the cellar below. Who'll go get them?"

  This one said, "I'm afraid," and another said she too was afraid. Finally one of them said, "I'll go down." So down she went, and she was reaching for things when lo! she came upon a ghoul in the cellar.
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br />   "Hmmm!" he hummed. "You keep quiet, or I'll eat you!"

  "Yes," she said. "I'll keep quiet."

  Pulling herself away, she went home to her family.

  "What's become of her?" asked the other girls. "She's been gone a long time. Why don't you, So-and-So, go see what happened to her."

  So, down to the cellar she went, and lo! there was the ghoul.

  "You keep quiet, or I'll eat you!"

  "Yes, I'll keep quiet."

  She too went home. So did the third and the fourth one, until the merchant's daughter was all by herself. What was she to do, poor girl? Where

  was she to turn? "Why don't I go down," she told herself, "and see what the matter is. Why those girls went and didn't come back."

  So down she went to see, and she came upon the ghoul.

  "Listen here," he said. "You keep quiet, or I'll eat you!"

  "Yes," she answered, "I'll keep quiet."

  What am I going to do, Lord, and where will I turn? She found, you might say, a bit of wheat in the cellar - and in the old days they used to grind the wheat by hand.

  "Why don't I take some of this wheat," she thought, "and sit down to grind it?" Bringing the wheat, she prepared the grinder and sat down to grind. The ghoul sat opposite, grinding with her.

  Now, they had a neighbor whose name was Abu Xalil. "Why don't I tell our neighbor," she thought. "Why don't I call him over without the ghoul knowing I'm calling?" Now, in the old days they used to sit and grind, singing and chatting. She then sang:

  "Sharpen your long sword, sharpen!

  O neighbor, Abu Xalil,

  Black he is, with a crest.

  Together we're grinding meal."

  And the ghoul sang back:

  "Grind, my father's daughter, grind!

  The night ahead is long,

  The amount of grain is small.

  When the wheat's ground up

  I'll suck the meat off your bones."

  Im Xalil and Abu Xalil were still up, sitting around talking, when all of a sudden he said, "Listen! Listen, Im Xalil!"

  "What?" she asked.

  "Our neighbor's daughter," he whispered. "I wonder what's happening with her." They listened a while, and lo! she was singing again:

  "Sharpen your long sword, sharpen!

  O neighbor, Abu Xalil,

  Black he is, with a crest.

  Together we're grinding meal."

  Whereupon came the response:

  "Grind, my father's daughter, grind!

  The night ahead is long,

  The amount of grain is small.

  When the wheat's ground up

  I'll suck the meat off your bones."

  "By Allah," said Abu Xalil. "I'm going over to see what the story is." Having sharpened his sword, he jumped over the wall between the houses and went to his neighbor's. Looking in, he found her at the grinding stone with the ghoul facing her. He rushed upon him with the sword and killed him. He died, poor fellow!

  The girl then told him her story. "It was like this," she said. "The girls went down to the cellar, and each of them in turn went home, leaving me all by myself." She told him the whole story. "It's all right now," said Abu Xalil, going to look out the door. He saw (May it be far from you!) a donkey with its saddlebags still on it. Bringing them over, he stuffed the ghoul's head in one bag and the body in the other and loaded them back on the donkey.

  The donkey already knew the way home, and when he got there the ghoul's mother said, "Yee! How good my son is! Allah bless him! Here, he's sent us a feast, but who knows what else he went to do?" Taking the feast he had sent out of the panniers, she removed its clothes, dipped it in hot water and skinned it, and put it in a caldron on the fire. Then she went and invited her paternal and maternal aunts and her other relatives, and they sat down to the feast. As they were eating, behold! his ring came into her hand. "Yee!" she screamed (the distant one!). It's her son!

  She got up from the table. What was she to do? How was she to find out who had done that to her? She bought rings, bracelets, and earrings and went around calling out, "Girls! I have rings! I have bracelets and earrings!" As she passed in front of the merchant's house, the girl saw her.

  "Come over!" she called out.

  "What do you want?"

  "I want to buy something from you," said the girl.

  Coming over, the woman said, "Listen, I don't sell things for money, but only for a new story."

  "Well," said the girl, "sit down while I tell you a story."

  Then she told her the story of the ghoul, what she had done with him, how the girls had all gone home, and how they had loaded him on the donkey. Now (the distant one!), the mother's heart was boiling over.

  "Yee!" quavered the girl. "You're scaring me."

  "Don't worry!" said the woman. "It's only because I've eaten raluxxiyye and lava beans, and my stomach's upset."

  Anyway, she gave her earrings, bracelets, rings, and whatever else she wanted for nothing, and went on her way. What was she to do? She then went home and talked it over with her relatives. "What are we to do?" they asked, "now that we know who his murderers are?"

  "Well," she said, "we're going to ask for her hand. We'll say I have a son, and we want her as a bride for him."

  "Fine," they agreed. "Let's do it."

  Taking two or three men with her, they set out. Who is her guardian, now that her father is in the hajj? Told that it was Abu Xalil, they went to see him.

  "O Abu Xalil," they said. "We want this girl. We want, we'd like to be, in-laws to you." What else they said, I don't know.

  "Uncles," he responded, "I'm not related to her. I'm not her paternal or maternal uncle. I'm only her neighbor, and her father has entrusted her to my care. And the Prophet himself bade us take care of our neighbor, and our neighbor's neighbor, down to the seventh neighbor."

  "We'll take care of her," they said. "We'll provide for her, we'll buy her things." They dazzled him.

  "That's fine," he said. "But what am I to say to her father when he returns?"

  "Don't worry," they answered. "He won't say anything when he sees all that we've brought for her. He won't say anything."

  "All fight," he agreed. "It's nothing unusual. Everyone gets married."

  After buying the trousseau, they came and prepared the bride. The ghouleh then came with a few people, claimed the bride, and left.

  When the bride arrived at her new home, the ghouleh's house, she found it poverty stricken. It was the house of poor peasants. The ghouleh also had a daughter (May it be distant from you!) who was ugly and lame, her body twisted and deformed all over.

  Now, the ghoul's mother lit the fire and put a huge caldron on it, filling it with water. "In a moment," she thought, "I'm going to slaughter her and cook her on the fire. But first, until the water boils, I might as well go invite my relatives." Then, forcing the bride into a burlap sack, she sewed it shut over her.

  The poor girl sat in the sack. She happened to have some gum, so she started chewing: "Chew, chew, white gum! Chew, chew, red gum! Chew, chew, blue gum! Chew, chew, yellow gum!" Her sister-in-law, the pitiful one, called out to her, "Hey, sisten-in-law!" (She couldn't talk properly.)

  "What do you want?" asked the other.

  "Give me some gum!"

  "And how can I give you anything? I can't stretch out my hand. Make an opening in the mouth of the sack so I can give you some."

  "I'm afraid you might nun away" (that is, "run away").

  "Don't worry," the girl reassured her. "I won't run away."

  The ghouleh's daughter fetched a knife and cut away a stitch, while the girl inside loosened a few more stitches, then reached out her hand and gave her a bit of gum. The ghouleh's daughter chewed and chewed, while the other was making a wider opening in the mouth of the sack until she was able to pull herself out of it. Now that she was out, what was she to do? How was she to act? Dragging the dim-witted girl over, sh
e slaughtered her, put her in the caldron, and fled. And what did she do then? She went up to the roof and waited.

  Meanwhile, the ghouleh arrived with her guests. "Yee!" she exclaimed. "It looks like my daughter (Allah bless her!) has already slaughtered her and put her on the fire. And here, she's almost done. Allah bless my daughter!"

  The food served, they sat down to eat, but the daughter's scalp came into the mother's hand and she recognized it. "Yee!" she screamed. This is her daughter (the distant one!).

  Now, the bride, while they were eating, sneaked into a room and found it full of money and treasure. Filling her pockets, the front and other parts of her dress, she pulled herself together and got out of there. She walked and walked, until she came to a carpenter's shop.

  "Listen, uncle!" she said.

  "Yes."

  "Won't you make me a dress of wood? I'll pay you as much as you want."

  "Yes," he answered, "I'll make you one."

  "In that case," she suggested, "hide me here in your shop until you finish it. And if someone should come by, beware of telling them you've seer me!"

  He hid her behind the planks of wood and set to making her dress. Now (the distant one!), the ghouleh, her insides burning (her daughter and son were gone!) Came chasing the girl. She ran here and there, and whomever she saw she asked, "O uncle, haven't you seen a bride all decked out and perfumed?"

  "No."

  "O uncle, haven't you seen a bride all decked out and perfumed?"

  "Not at all. We haven't seen anyone like that."

  She kept running from one direction to another, always returning to the carpenter and asking him, and he always answered her, "Not at all," until he had finished the dress. The dress finished, the girl put it on and walked away.

  "What's your name, niece?" those who saw her on the road asked, and she answered, "My name is Little Woodling." The ghouleh too, running back and forth, asked her, "Little Woodling, have you seen a bride all decked out and bustling?"