Persian Tales - Volume I - Kermani Tales - Illustrated by Hilda Roberts: Illustrated by Hilda Roberts

I

THE STORY OF THE WOLF AND THE GOAT

Once upon a time there was a time

when there was no one but

GOD.

THERE was a goat who had four children, one was Alīl, one was Balīl, one was Ginger Stick, and the fourth was Black Eyes.

One day she said: Sit quietly here, children; I’m going off to bring grass for you. If the wolf should come and knock, don’t open the door for him. And if he says: ‘I am your mother,’ say: ‘Put your hand in at the crack of the door,’ and if you see that the hand is black, don’t open the door, but if you see a red hand you’ll know that it’s your mother back again.

Now the wolf had all the time been listening, and as soon as the goat was gone he dyed his hand with henna to make it red, and came and knocked at the door. They called out: Who’s that?

Open the door, I’ve brought grass for you, said he. Show us your hand. The wolf shoved his hand in at the crack of the door, and when they saw that it was red they opened the door and let him in. So he carried off Alīl and Balīl and Ginger Stick, but Black Eyes ran away and hid.

When the mother goat came back she saw there was no one in the house and she began to call. Then Black Eyes came out of his hiding-place and told his mother how the wolf had carried off his brothers. So they went together and climbed on to the roof of the wolf’s house. They saw that he was just cooking some āsh, and they threw down a handful of earth into it.

The wolf cried:

"Who are you on my roof up there?

You dare to throw earth in my āsh, you dare?

My āsh all salty and bad you’ve made,

My eyes all blind and sad you’ve made."

Then answered the goat:

"The goat, the goat so fleet am I,

The goat with bells on her feet am I.

I can dance with my feet so fleet,

Leaping about on my hinder-feet.

You have stolen Alīl of mine,

You have stolen Balīl of mine,

You have stolen my Ginger Stick."

And the wolf said: Yes, I’ve stolen them; and the goat said: Come, let’s go and fight.

The goat went and got a skin and filled it full of curds and butter to make a nice present, and carried it off to the knife-grinder and said: Come along and sharpen my horns.

The wolf went and got a skin too, but he was too stingy to put in butter or anything nice, so he blew it up with wind till it looked very full indeed, and took it for a gift to a man who was a tooth-puller, and he said: Come along and sharpen my teeth. The dentist wondered what his present was, and opened the top of the skin a little to peep in and see, but behold, there was only wind inside! And the air ran out puff, puff, puff.

He said nothing at all, but instead of sharpening the wolf’s teeth he pulled them all out, and in the holes he put little pointed twists of cotton-wool that looked like nice sharp, white teeth.

Then up came the goat and they went off to fight. First they came to a little stream of water. The goat said: Come, let’s first drink our fill, and she put her head down over the water, but she took care to drink none herself. The wolf drank and drank till he could drink no more.

Then the goat said: Come along, let’s jump across the stream, and with that she leaped over neatly. The wolf went to jump over too, but he was so swollen up with water that he fell in. Then the goat smote him in the stomach with one of her sharp horns and tore it right open, and so he died.

And off she carried Alīl and Balīl and Ginger Stick, and brought them home again to Black Eyes.

And now my story has come to an end,

but the sparrow never got

home.

II

THE STORY OF THE CITY OF

NOTHING-IN-THE-WORLD

Once upon a time there was a time

when there was no one but

GOD.

IN the town of Hīch ā Hīch, the city of Nothing-in-the-World, there was a girl who had fallen and scraped her shin very badly. After a few days, when the wound was a little better, she went to her aunt to get some cooling ointment for it. The old woman said: I’m sorry I haven’t any, but she gave her niece two eggs to take to the drug-seller in the bāzār, to see if he would give her some cooling ointment in exchange.

When the girl came back from the bāzār this is what she told her aunt:

I went to the bāzār, and on the way I lost the two eggs. I was very much upset, but I put my hand in my pocket and there I found a jinnū. I wanted to get my eggs back again, so I gave the jinnū to some people in the bāzār, who made me a minaret out of a needle.

I climbed and climbed right up to the top of the minaret, and I looked in every direction all round the town and saw that one of my eggs had turned into a hen and was in an old woman’s house, and the other had turned into a cock and was threshing corn far away in a village.

So I said to myself: First, I’ll go and get the cock, and I went out to the village and said to the peasants: Give me back my cock, and his wages too, for he’s been working for you. After a lot of bargaining we agreed that they should give me half a cow-load of their crop, which was rice. When they had weighed the crop my share was 25 manns, but I had no loading bags to put it in. So I killed a flea and skinned it and made myself a loading-bag out of the skin. Then I put my rice into it, and loaded it on my cock’s back and started off, for I wanted to bring my rice to market.

We were very far away from town, and when we got to the second-last halting-place, two days’ march out, the cock was sore-backed. I asked the people there: What’s to be done? Is there any remedy for this? They said: Burn the kernel of a walnut and rub it on his back and it will get well. So I half-burnt a walnut and put it on.

When I woke in the morning a large walnut tree had shot up and was growing from the cock’s back. The village children had gathered round the tree and were throwing stones and clods of earth at it. I climbed a branch and saw that the clods had accumulated and covered about 100 qasab. I got a clod-breaker to come and make the ground level, and I saw that it would be a good soil to plant musk- and water-melons in, so I sowed both kinds of melons.

Next morning I saw that the earth had produced very large melons. I broke a big water-melon, but when I was cutting it my knife got lost. I put a bathing-cloth round my waist and went into the hollow of the half-melon to hunt for my knife.

I saw there was a town there, and it was very big and full of crowds and noise and traffic. I went to the door of a cook-shop and gave them a jinnū and bought a little halīm for myself and began to eat it. It tasted so very good that when I had eaten it all up I licked the bottom of the bowl so hard that it nearly broke.

I saw a hair at the bottom of the bowl and tried to catch hold of it to throw it away, but at the end of the hair there appeared a camel’s leading-rope, and behind the rope there came seven strings of seven camels, all in a row, one behind the other, and each complete with all its gear.

They came out one after the other, and my knife was tied on to the tail of the last camel.

And now my story has come to an end,

but the sparrow never got

home.

III

THE STORY OF THE FORTUNE-TELLER

Once upon a time there was a time

when there was no one but

GOD.

THERE was a man who had a wife, and one day she went to the public baths. While she was at the bath she saw a lady of very high rank arrive who gave orders that every one else should be turned out so that she might have the bath to herself. The woman was very much annoyed, and when she came out she asked: Whose wife was that? That, they said, is the wife of the King’s Chief Fortune-Teller.

She went home, caught her husband by the collar of his coat, and said: Come, go you and become a Fortune-Teller! But, said he, I can’t become a Fortune-Teller; I don’t know how to divine or to tell fortunes. I can’t help that, retorted she, either you become a Fortune-Teller or you give me a divorce. So the husband went off to the bāzār and bought a divining-board and dice and went and sat in the street near the door of the public baths, and put the divining-board in front of him.

Now it chanced that on that very day the King’s Daughter had gone to the bath, and when she was undressing she had given a ring to one of her slave-women to keep for her. For safety the woman had put it in a hole in the wall and had put a little wisp of hair at the mouth of the hole.

When the King’s Daughter came out of her bath she asked for the ring, but the poor slave-woman had meanwhile quite forgotten where she had hidden it and was at her wits’ end. The Princess was very angry, and said: If you don’t find the ring I’ll have you beaten. The slave-woman, in terror of a beating, ran out of the baths, and her eye fell on the Fortune-Teller. She was delighted, and went up to him and sat down and told him all about the affair, and said: Divine now for me and see where the ring is.

Now the unhappy Fortune-Teller hadn’t the least idea how to divine, and he began to nod his head and cast the dice, and he looked at the board and wondered and wondered what he should say. As he looked about his eye fell on the woman, and he saw a little rent in her cloak, and through the hole he caught sight of a piece of her hair, so he muttered:

"I see a little hole there,

And in the hole a little hair."

No sooner had he uttered these words than the woman remembered where she had put the ring, and she ran in immediately and found it. And the news of this wonderful Fortune-Teller reached the ears of the King’s Daughter, and she told the whole story to her father.

Then the King sent and bade them bring the man, and said: You shall be my Fortune-Teller in Chief, and he gave him money and a horse and a robe of honour.

Not long after this the King’s Treasury was broken into and robbed. Then the King sent for his Fortune-Teller, and said: You must find me the thieves. The poor man asked for forty days’ grace, and came home to his wife and said: See now what you have done. You have put me in danger of my life, for how am I to find out the thieves? There is nothing for us but to fly at the end of the forty days.

Divine now for me

Then, in order not to lose count of the time, he put forty dates into a vessel, and said to his wife: Bring me one of these dates each evening; when they are exhausted, that very night we shall fly.

Now the thieves heard that the Chief Fortune-Teller had promised the King to find them out. There were forty thieves, and they were very much afraid. The leader said to one of them: Go to the house of the Chief Fortune-Teller and see what he is doing. The thief came to the Fortune-Teller’s house and crept up on the roof and began to listen. Now it happened that at that very moment the wife brought one of the dates and gave it to her husband, and he said: The first of the forty, my dear. And the thief, when he heard these words, thought the Fortune-Teller meant to say: The first of the forty thieves has come, and he was terrified, and fled and brought the news to his leader.

Next evening he sent two men together to find out what was happening, and just as before they heard the Fortune-Teller say to his wife: "Two of the forty, my dear,’ and, in short, so it went on each evening till the fortieth.

On the last day the leader of the thieves said: I’ll go myself to-night. At the very moment that he got on to the roof and began to listen it happened that the wife brought her husband the last of the dates, which was also the biggest of them all, and gave it into his hand. And he said: Well, well, to-night it’s the last and the biggest of the lot. When the thief heard these words he thought the Fortune-Teller meant to say: To-night the leader of the thieves has come. He was greatly frightened, and came down quickly and went in and began to beg and implore the Fortune-Teller, saying: We’ll give back the whole treasure safely into your hands for you to restore to the King on condition that you do not reveal our names.

The Chief Fortune-Teller was extremely delighted, and took all the moneys and treasures and precious stones, and went early in the morning and brought them to the King. And the King gave him money and presents and robes of honour.

Now after some time the King went out hunting one day. While he was hunting he saw a locust and tried to catch it, but it escaped. A second time he tried, again it leaped away. The third time, however, he caught it and held it tight in the hollow of his fist. He came up to the Fortune-Teller and asked: What is it I’ve got in my hand? The unfortunate man turned yellow with fear and began to cast his dice, and, thinking of his own history, began to mutter:

"You hopped off safely once, little locust,

You hopped off safely twice, little locust,

The third time you are caught in a man’s hand."

The King naturally imagined that the Fortune-Teller was answering his question and was greatly pleased, and gave him gifts in plenty. But the Chief Fortune-Teller thought within himself that he must do something to prevent their setting him any more problems.

One day he was sitting in the bath, and he thought to