Speak Bird Speak Again

by Folktales

  "No, brother," she answered, "I did no such thing. I wouldn't dream of going into your place while you're out."

  Going to an elderly barber, he said, "Sir, I want to tell you a story. Yesterday, such and such happened to me."

  "Sir," answered the barber, "tomorrow, put the fish down and hide behind the window. Then you'll see who comes into your place and does them for you."

  Well, he went and caught a few fish and sold what he wanted to sell, leaving only as many as he could eat. Bringing them home, he covered them with the platter and said, "By Allah, I'm going out to the coffee-house for a cup of coffee, and when I come back I'll prepare them myself." Going out, he turned and stood guard behind the window. The board dropped, and three girls came down. And what girls they were! You might say they were nothing less than daughters of kings. One of them swept the house, the other scraped the fish, and the third put things in order. Quick as a wink, he did not wait for them to finish but opened the door. Two of them disappeared, and the youngest one remained.

  "It's settled," she said. "Fate has decreed I'm yours. Besides, I don't dare go back home now. My parents will kill me."

  Taking her in, he lived with her. He sent for the cadi, who drew up a marriage contract, and he married her and lived together with her. In two or three days he said, "Are we going to stay in this shack? You already know what I do for a living."

  "Don't worry," she answered. "Leave it to me!"

  She sent for people, put out a bid on a house, and had one built opposite the king's palace. When she took possession of the house, she furnished and arranged it, and then lived together with her husband.

  One day she got up early in the morning and went to the roof to hang out her laundry, when the king saw her.

  "To whom does this woman belong, people?"

  "This is So-and-So's wife."

  Sending for the fisherman, he said, "I want your wife."

  "O Ruler of the Age," begged the fisherman, "how can I give you my wife?"

  "I don't know how you're going to manage it," responded the king, "but I want her. I'll set an impossible task for you, and if you fail to do it, I'll cut off your head and take your wife."

  "What is it?"

  "I want you to bring me a grapevine, to be planted in the evening. And in the morning I want to get up and find one bunch of grapes on it. I want to eat from it with my whole army, and it should stay exactly as it is."

  The fisherman went crying to his wife.

  "It's finished," he lamented. "I'm going to die."

  "Don't be afraid," she said. "Go back to the shack we were in and call out, 'You whose height is two hand-spans and whose hat is two finger-lengths, come out? and a creature will appear. Say to him, 'My mistress Xadduj bids you tell my mistress Ayyus to give me a branch of the grapevine growing in front of her house.'"

  "All right," he said, and went to call out as she had taught him, bringing back with him a branch of the vine. He went and dug by the door of the palace, planted it, and then headed home.

  In the morning, it is said (and if the teller is to be trusted), the king came and found a full-grown grapevine with one duster of grapes on it. He cut it down and ate from it with all his army, and it stayed exactly as it. was. The king then excused the fisherman. But what was he to do? He wanted the fisherman's wife. Waiting a week or two, he sent for him again.

  "What do you want, my lord?"

  "I want your wife."

  "O Ruler of the Age! O son of worthy people! My wife?"

  "This time," said the king, "you must bring me a loaf of bread. I will eat from it with my army, and it should stay exactly as it is. Otherwise, I'll cut off your head and take your wife."

  Again he went crying to his wife, saying, "Such and such is the story."

  "Don't worry," she answered. "Go and call on the same one you called on last time, and say, 'Give me the loaf of bread sitting on the shelf in my family's house.'"

  The fisherman went, called out, and the creature came. "My mistress Xadduj," said he, "bids you tell my mistress Ayyus to give me the loaf of bread sitting on the shelf in her family's house." The creature disappeared and then came back with a loaf of bread and said, "Here, master!"

  Bringing the bread with him, the fisherman put it in front of the king, who ate from it with all his army, and it stayed exactly as it was. The fisherman then took the bread home with him.

  "It's no use," declared the king finally. "Whether it cracks, or whether it rings, I want the fisherman's wife."

  And again he sent for him, and said, "I want you to bring me an infant the moment he's born, naked and with his umbilical cord still attached. I want this infant to tell me a tale that's all lies, from beginning to end."

  "My lord," said the fisherman, "by the honor of your womenfolk, I beg you!"

  "No use," answered the king.

  Back to his wife went the fisherman, weeping.

  "What's the matter?" she asked.

  "Such and such is the story," he answered.

  "Fine," she said. "My sister's just now giving birth. Go stand by the door of the shack and call out again. Tell the creature to wait until she's given birth, then have him wrap the baby in a piece of cloth and bring it to you."

  The fisherman went and called the creature out, saying to him, "My mistress tells you to give me the baby her sister's giving birth to right now."

  "Wait until he's born," replied the creature.

  The fisherman waited by the door of the shack, and when she had given birth, the other wrapped the baby in a piece of cloth and brought him.

  "Hurry!" urged the fisherman's wife, "Take and put him in front of the king, and don't worry about anything!"

  The fisherman carried the baby in his arms to the king's palace.

  "Peace to you!" declared the infant the moment they came in.

  When they had brought him a chair and the baby sat down in it in front of the king, he said, "O Ruler of the Age, I want to tell you a tale."

  "Please go ahead," responded the king, and the infant began his tale:

  "By Allah, O king, in the old days I used to go around selling olive oil loaded on a rooster. One day the rooster's back broke. I was going around wondering what to do for him, what to use on him, when someone much like yourself showed up.

  "'Young man,' said he, 'you've got no recourse but walnuts. Crush a walnut and rub it on the rooster's back, and it will heal.'

  "So I went, got hold of a walnut, and crushed and spread it on the rooster's back. In the morning I woke up and found a tree on his back, and it was loaded with walnuts. Even with forty pickers up in it, not one could see the other; and with forty gatherers under it, not one could reach out and touch another.

  "Well, I brought pickers and gatherers and had the tree picked and the nuts gathered. Then I looked up and saw one nut still hanging from the tip of the topmost branch. I reached for a handful of dirt and threw it to knock the walnut down, and that handful spread into a plain the size of Marj Ibn Amir on top of the tree. I hired a team of yoked oxen, and set to plowing the plain and planting it with sesame. A caravan passed by and said, 'Young man, what're you planting?'

  "'By Allah,' I answered, 'I'm planting sesame.'

  "'No,' they said. 'By Allah, it's a waste of this soil to plant sesame in it. It's better to plant watermelons.'

  "So I hired laborers and had the sesame seeds picked up, one by one. When they were finished, I counted the seeds and found one missing. As I was going around looking for it, I found it in an ant's mouth. With me pulling in one direction and the ant in the other, the seed split and the ant got away with one half and I with the other. I pressed it out, and it yielded a ton of sesame oil.

  "After that I started planting watermelons in the plain. I would no sooner plant the seed than the watermelon would grow behind me as large as a big jar. I wanted to cut open a watermelon, so I took hold of one and did like this with the knife, and what should happen but t
hat it slipped from my hand into the watermelon. Taking off my clothes, I jumped inside the watermelon and found I was in a market of butcher shops. As I was wandering around looking for the knife, I found it with one of the butchers. With me pulling in one direction and he in the other, we ended up fighting over the knife. Eventually, I snatched it away from him and struck him a blow that killed him. Then I pulled myself together and came out. And here I am, O Ruler of the Age! I came directly to see you. Whatever you want, I'm ready to do it."

  "Uncle," said the king to the fisherman, "take this boy away, and may Allah bless you and your wife! And never again will I claim her."

  The fisherman took the boy back to his family, and he lived with his wife in peace and comfort.

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

  Afterword

  These tales take for their theme the relationship between the individual and society, where family bonds and obligations do not necessarily dictate the standard of conduct. In this group the fabric of society in operation is shown, with the values of helping those in distress and of neighborliness present or assumed in all of them. The women in "Im Awwad" go to the spring to wash their clothes in groups, both for protection and because people like to be together. In "The Merchant's Daughter," the neighbor not only comes to the girl's rescue, but he also assumes the father's role in marrying her off. Pomegranate Seeds is helped by the shopkeepers, who, out of a sense of social (and moral) obligation to help the helpless, take her in for the night; and when their shops are turned upside down, the shopkeepers' neighbors in turn assist them by collecting money. In "The Woodcutter," the standards of honesty and fair dealing are broken only at the risk of severe and justified punishment. And in the last tale of this group, the fisherman's in-laws help him in a difficult situation, and his neighbor at the beginning of the tale cooks for him, taking pity on him because he is alone and has nobody.

  Yet in spite of the social harmony that is presumed to reign, the collectivity does break down. These tales show how disorder can arise when individuals attract negative forces simply by virtue of possessing things or qualities that the rest of society covets. Indeed, envy is considered an active force, its instrument the evil eye; and although the eye is not explicitly mentioned in any of the tales, its power is nevertheless present, symbolized in the first three tales by the actions of the destructive ghouls. As demonstrated in "Im Awwad," it is not easy to protect oneself from these forces, which are "supernatural" not in the sense of being beyond nature but rather in being beyond human control. Although presented in terms of ghoul and jinn imagery, the behavior of these forces resembles that of human beings - as seen in the modesty of the fisherman's jinn wife, which prevents her from returning home after having visited a man's house for fear of parental retribution; or in the greed of the ghouleh in "The Merchant's Daughter," who has amassed a large hoard of treasure but does not use it to benefit her family.

  Three broad categories of possessions - which accurately reflect the concerns of the society - attract these negative forces: children, wealth, and sexuality. In "Im Awwad," the simple fact of having a male child is the source of envy, for aside from their economic value to the family, sons are also its source of power in the society. Boy children are envied for their own sake, and parents frequently take precautions to protect them from the evil eye. The woodcutter's sudden acquisition of wealth is envied by his neighbors, whose greed resembles that of the ghouleh in "The Merchant's Daughter." And in "The Fisherman," the extreme beauty of the wife sets her apart from other women, thus drawing the power of envy to her, and her sexuality turns her into an object that the king wishes to possess. In "The Merchant's Daughter," the forces of evil converge upon a single girl living by herself without a male protector. Men would assume that someone in her position is easily available, and they would be eager to take advantage of her if they could. Pomegranate Seeds is made to suffer because she is a special creature. She is so special that her mother had a pair of golden slippers made for her, and she is envied for her beauty and her faithfulness. Her encounter with the schoolmaster/sheikh at the beginning of the tale carries clear sexual overtones, and her flight from one place to another may be seen as an attempt to escape the bad reputation that keeps following her. She must struggle for many years to regain her reputation and her honor in the face of strong public pressure, represented by the people who curse her children and urge the king to marry another woman at any cost.

  GROUP IV

  ENVIRONMENT

  38.

  The Little She-Goat T

  TELLER: Testify that Allah is One!

  AUDIENCE: There is no god but God.

  Once there was a she-goat who had three kids. She used to say to them, "You stay here. I'm going to bring you some grass." Every day she went grazing until she was full, then she came home with grass for them and said:

  "O my kids! O my kids!

  Open the door for me!

  The grass is on my horns

  And the milk is in my teats."

  They would then open the door for her.

  One day the hyena saw her as she was leaving and discovered where her kids were. "By Allah," he said to himself, "I'm going to eat them." Now, the she-goat, before going out, would caution her kids, "If anyone should come and say, 'Let me in,' be careful not to open the door." Because the mother's tail had been chopped off, she said to the kids, "If someone should come and say to you, 'Open for me, I'm your mother,' check first if the tail is chopped off or not. If not, then it can't be me. Don't open the door!"

  The hyena went to the cave where the kids were and called out:

  "O my kids! O my kids!

  Open the door for me!

  The grass is on my horns

  And the milk is in my teats."

  "Turn around," they bleated, "and let us see your tail."

  Turning around, he displayed his tail, and lo! it was not chopped off.

  "Go away!" they said. "You're not our mother."

  What was he to do? He wanted to trick them so he could eat them. To the ant he then went and said, "Chop off my tail so I can eat the kids of the little she-goat."

  "No," answered the ant, "I won't chop off your tail unless you go to the threshing floor and bring me a measure of wheat."

  So to the threshing floor he went and said, "O threshing floor, give me a measure of wheat so I can give it to the ant, and the ant will then chop off my tail so I can eat the kids of the little she-goat."

  "I won't give it to you," replied the threshing floor, "unless you bring a team of oxen to tread the wheat on me."

  The hyena then went to the oxen and said, "Yoked team, come tread the wheat on the threshing floor, and the threshing floor will give me a measure of wheat, and the measure of wheat I'll give to the ant, and the ant will then chop off my tail so I can eat the kids of the little she-goat."

  "We won't go treading," replied the oxen, "unless you tell the spring to give us water to drink."

  Going to the pool by the spring, the hyena said, "O pool, let the team of oxen come and drink so that they will tread the wheat on the threshing floor, and the threshing floor will give me a measure of wheat, and the measure of wheat I'll give to the ant, and the ant will then chop off my tail so I can eat the kids of the little she-goat."

  "Let the team come and drink," said the pool.

  So the team of oxen went and drank at the spring, then they trod the wheat on the threshing floor, and the threshing floor gave a measure of wheat to the ant, and the ant chopped off the hyena's tail.

  Back he went to the kids of the little she-goat and called out:

  "O my kids! O my kids!

  Open the door for me!

  The grass is on my horns

  And the milk is in my teats."

  "Show us your tail," they bleated again.

  He showed it to them, and, seeing that it was chopped off, they opened the door for him. In he came and
gobbled them all up.

  When the little she-goat came home, she discovered the hyena had eaten all her kids. To the blacksmith she then went and said, "Make me iron horns, and make them so sharp I can stab the hyena and get my kids back from his stomach."

  The blacksmith made her a pair of iron horns as sharp as knives. The little she-goat put them on, rushed to the house of the hyena, and stomped on the roof.

  "Who's pounding on my roof?" roared the hyena. "You've shattered my jars of oil."

  "I'm the little she-goat of the twisted horns," announced the goat. "Come on out and let's fight!"

  The hyena came out. Piercing him this way and that with her horns, the little she-goat ripped open his stomach and pulled her kids free.

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

  39.

  The Old Woman and Her Cat

  Once there was an old woman who had a cat. One day she brought some milk home, and the cat came and lapped it up. Feeling angry, she cut off his tail.

  "Meow! Meow!" he cried. "Give me back my tail."

  "Give me back my milk," demanded the old woman.

  "And how am I going to bring back the milk for you?" he asked.

  "Go bring it from that ewe over there," she answered.

  Going to the ewe, the cat said, "Ewe, give me some milk, and the milk is for the old woman, and the old woman will then sew my tail back on."

  "Bring me a branch from that tree over there," said the ewe, "and I'll give you the milk."

  So to the tree he went and said, "O tree, give me a branch, and the branch is for the ewe, and the ewe will give me some milk, and the milk is for the old woman, and the old woman will then sew my tail back on."

  "Go tell that plowman over there to come plow under me," replied the tree.