Speak Bird Speak Again (30 page)

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 is 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.

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.

Now we
return to the king's son. When he awoke in the morning, he found his
bride missing. He told his father, and they started arguing with the
vizier, accusing him of having taken his daughter back in secret.
Another minister happened to be there, and he said, "I swear by
Allah, O king! Your son can have my daughter. Please don't get
upset!" They sent for the cadi and drew up the marriage
contract.

Instead
of wearing white like the last time, this time the old woman wore
green. Bringing a green bead with her, she said to the bride, "You
must forgive me, niece, but I don't have any money as a wedding
present. Please keep this bead to protect you from the evil eye."
Believing what the old woman said, the girl took the bead and hid it
in her dress. When all the guests had left, she brought it out and
put it on the table by her bed, along with her golden bracelets.

Just
before dawn the old woman came back to the bride's house. "Open
the door, beadling!" she said, "Beadling, open the door!"
The bead came down and opened the door, and the woman came in and
woke up the girl. "Don't let your husband know," she
whispered, "but your mother is on her deathbed." The girl
rose up to go with her. "Wear all your gold things,"
suggested the old woman. "The people expecting you know you're a
bride."

In the
morning the husband awoke to find that his wife had disappeared. He
had a fight with her father, accusing him of having taken his
daughter back. A third minister offered his daughter. This time,
however, they decided to patrol all the roads leading out of town.
They also stationed watchmen in all the streets. That evening the
groom went in to his bride.

The
old woman came wearing a blue dress and carrying a citron. "My
dear," said she to the bride, "I don't have any money to
give you as a present. Take this citron instead."

This
gift was cleverer than the others, who did not say anything to their
husbands.

"Keep
this citron for me," she said to her husband.

"Who
gave it to you?" he asked.

"It
was the woman in the blue dress."

"Ah,
yes!" he exclaimed. "This woman is a ghouleh."

He
stuck a knife in the citron, and they went to sleep. In the middle of
the night the old woman returned and knocked on the door.

"Little
citron! Little citron!" she called out, "Open the door for
me!"

"And
how can I open with a knife stuck in my heart?" answered the
citron.

The
newlyweds woke up. The bridegroom removed the knife from the citron,
and it came down and opened the door. When the ghouleh came in, they
pretended to be sleeping.

"My
dear niece," said the old woman to the bride, "you'd better
get up. Your only brother has just died."

Signaling
her husband, the bride got up and went with the woman. A little later
he, too, rose from bed and blew the whistle to alert the watchmen,
who followed the old woman the moment they saw her. She started
running, with the bride right behind her and the guards following,
until they caught up with her just before she reached her cave. With
a dagger they rent open her dress, and what did they find but that
she had a goat's tail and donkey's hooves? From the tail down she had
the shape of a donkey, with hair like a donkey's. And from the tail
up she looked exactly like a human being. When she entered her cave,
her eyes contracted and sparkled like flames. The small ghouleh and
the big ghoul started to bray. The guards entered the cave on the
heels of the ghouleh, along with the bridegroom and the ministers who
had lost their daughters. They killed all three ghouls and split
their bellies open with their daggers.

Then,
gathering up their daughters' clothes and the gold heaped in the
cave, they went home.

And
there we left them and came back.

20.

There
were three sisters, and each of them had a hen. The eldest killed her
hen and ate it. The second one did the same. After a while they
started pestering the young one: "Why don't you kill your hen
too? How long are you going to stay without meat?"

"How
am I going to slaughter it?" she responded. "And how much
[meat] will there be to eat? This way, she'll lay an egg every day,
and I'll eat the egg."

Becoming
envious, the sisters took the hen and dropped it into the well of the
ghoul while the young one was away. When she came back and asked
about her hen, she could not find it, and her sisters kept their
secret. Searching for her hen, the young one discovered it in the
well of the ghoul. When she went down into the well to bring back her
hen, she found the ghoul's house inside the well dirty and his
laundry piled up. She swept and mopped the floor, did the laundry and
the dishes, and left the house sparkling clean.

As she
was about to climb back out with her hen, the ghoul arrived. She hid
under the stairs. Looking around, the ghoul found his house clean and
everything in order.

"Who's
been cleaning my house?" asked the ghoul. "I smell a human
being!"

She
was afraid to come out, so she stayed in her hiding place.

"Whoever
cleaned my house like this," the ghoul said, "you may come
out safely. Just come out"

When
the girl heard this, she emerged from her hiding place.

"You
are my daughter," swore the ghoul. "I swear by Allah, and
may He betray me if I betray this oath!"

The
maiden lived in his house, comfortable and happy. Every day she would
sit in the sun by the mouth of the well and comb her hair. The king's
geese would come to visit, and they taunted her: "Hey! Ghoul's
daughter! Your father's fattening you up to make a feast of you!"

From
that day on the girl grew thinner. Noticing her condition, the ghoul
hid himself and found out what the story was.

"The
next time those geese come around," he said, "say to them,
'To - morrow the sultan is going to slaughter you, pluck your
feathers, have you cooked, and eat you.'"

When
she said that to them, all their feathers dropped off. Having seen
that, the sultan followed them the next day to find out what their
story was, why their feathers had fallen out in a night and a day.
Following them, he came upon the ghoul's daughter, and he found her
appealing. He asked her to marry him, but she said, "Ask for my
hand from my father, the ghoul."

The
sultan came and asked for her hand from the ghoul, and he gave his
consent. Before his daughter left his house for the sultan's palace,
the ghoul said to her, "Don't speak to him, not even one word,
until he says to you, 'O Lady Tatar, O Lady Tatar - her father the
sun, and the moon her mother!'"

She
went to live in her husband's palace. He would speak with her, but
she did not answer because he did not know the words taught her by
her father, the ghoul. When he saw that she was like that, the sultan
married another woman, thinking his wife was mute.

"By
Allah," said the second wife one day, "I want to go visit
my co-wife, the one who the sultan says is mute."

She
went, and the ghoul's daughter received her and welcomed her. It
turned out she could talk after all.

"What
shall I make for you?" she asked. "I'd like to make you
cheese pastry."

She
then commanded, "Get ready, oven!" and the oven set itself
up. "Come here, flour, water!" and they came. Then she
said, "Let the pastry become ready!" and it was done.
Taking the tray full of pastry, she carried it into the oven. When
she came back out again, the pastry in the tray was baked to a golden
brown, and she and her co-wife ate of it.

Her
co-wife became jealous, and when she went back home she said to her
husband, "Your other wife's not mute at all. She can talk!"
She related to him what had happened and said, "I'd like to make
for you what she made for me."

"Come
here, oven!" she commanded, but the oven did not obey. "Come
here, flour!" but the flour did not come. She then went and set
up the oven, brought the flour and the water herself. After she made
the pastry, she took hold of the tray and went into the oven to do as
her co-wife had done. She was burned in the oven, along with her
pastry, and died.

Meanwhile,
the king went back to the ghoul's daughter and talked with her, but
she would not speak with him. He then decided to marry another woman,
and this one too said, "I'd like to go visit my mute co-wife."

"What
shall I make for you?" wondered the ghoul's daughter. "Let
me prepare some fried fish." "Come here, kerosene stove!"
she commanded, and it came. "Come here, frying pan!" and it
came. Waiting until the oil in the pan was boiling hot, she put her
hands in the oil, palm to palm, saying, "Palm over my palm, let
the fried fish come!" The pan filled with frying fish, brown and
crispy. She ate of it with her co - wife. But when her co-wife tried
to imitate her, her hands were burned, the frying pan fell over on
her, and she died.