Trickster - Storytelling for Everyone

mullah nasruddin – Storytelling for Everyone

Three Sufi Tales

The Smell of Soup and the Sound of Money

A beggar was given a piece of bread, but nothing to put on it. Hoping to get something to go with his bread, he went to a nearby inn and asked for a handout. The innkeeper turned him away with nothing, but the beggar sneaked into the kitchen where he saw a large pot of soup cooking over the fire.

He held his piece of bread over the steaming pot, hoping to thus capture a bit of flavor from the good-smelling vapor.

Suddenly the innkeeper seized him by the arm and accused him of stealing soup.

“I took no soup,” said the beggar. “I was only smelling the vapor.”

“Then you must pay for the smell,” answered the innkeeper.

The poor beggar had no money, so the angry innkeeper dragged him before the qadi.

Now Nasreddin Hodja was at that time serving as qadi, and he heard the innkeeper’s complaint and the beggar’s explanation.

“So you demand payment for the smell of your soup?” summarized the Hodja after the hearing.

“Yes!” insisted the innkeeper.

“Then I myself will pay you,” said the Hodja, “and I will pay for the smell of your soup with the sound of money.”

Thus saying, the Hodja drew two coins from his pocket, rang them together loudly in his hands, put them back into his pocket, and sent the beggar and the innkeeper each on his own way.

The Slap

Nasreddin Hodja was standing in the marketplace when a stranger stepped up to him and slapped him in the face, but then said, “I beg your pardon. I thought that you were someone else.”

This explanation did not satisfy the Hodja, so he brought the stranger before the qadi and demanded compensation.

The Hodja soon perceived that the qadi and the defendant were friends. The latter admitted his guilt, and the judge pronounced the sentence: “The settlement for this offense is one piaster, to be paid to the plaintiff. If you do not have a piaster with you, then you may bring it here to the plaintiff at your convenience.”

Hearing this sentence, the defendant went on his way. The Hodja waited for him to return with the piaster. And he waited. And he waited.

Sometime later the Hodja said to the qadi, “Do I understand correctly that one piaster is sufficient payment for a slap?”

“Yes,” answered the qadi.

Hearing this answer, the Hodja slapped the judge in the face and said, “You may keep my piaster when the defendant returns with it,” then walked away.

A Close Call

One night Nasreddin awoke, thinking he had heard a strange noise outside his window. Looking out, he saw a suspicious white figure.

“Who goes there?” shouted the Hodja.

Hearing no reply, Nasreddin reached for his bow, set an arrow to the string, took aim, and shot in the direction of the mysterious figure. Satisfied that the intruder now would do him no harm, Nasreddin returned to bed and slept until dawn.

By morning’s light he examined the scene outside his window, only to discover his own white shirt hanging on the clothesline and pierced by the arrow that he had shot during the night.

“That was a close call,” murmured the Hodja. “My own shirt, shot through by an arrow! What if I had been wearing it at the time!”

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Source: Once the Hodja, Nasr-ed-Din: Turkish Jokes, Volume 9 of Asian folklore and social life monographs: Supplement by Alice Geer Kelsey, Orient Cultural Service, 1983.

Author adminPosted on August 17, 2022Categories Fables, Folktales, Fool, TricksterTags Hodja, jokes, mullah nasruddin, Muslim, Sufi, Turkey, wise fool Leave a comment on Once the Hodja, Nasr-ed-Din

A Sufi Tale

One day Nasreddin Hodja rode his donkey to the nearby town of Ak Shehir. The Imam there was away for three weeks and asked the Hodja to preach the Friday sermon at the mosque while he was gone.

For the first few days of his visit, the Hodja was as free as a butterfly. He could talk with friends in the market place. He could go hunting in the hills. He could lounge in the coffee house.

But it was one thing to swap stories with the men in the coffee house and quite another to stand alone in the high pulpit and talk to a mosque full of people. The men, each sitting on his own prayer rug would look up at him with solemn faces. Then there was the fluttering in the balcony behind the lattices: the women would be waiting too.

The first Friday he walked slowly through the cobblestone streets of Ak Shehir. He saw the veiled women slipping silently past him on their way to the latticed balcony. He saw the men hurrying by to hear his sermon.

But what sermon? He stopped at the mosque door to leave his shoes. He walked with the other men across the soft thick rugs. His head was as empty as his donkey’s as he climbed the steps to the pulpit.

He gazed at the blues and reds of the tracery on the ceiling, but not a thought came. He looked at the mosaics on the walls, but there was no message there. He saw the men’s faces staring up at him. He heard tittering in the balcony.

He must say something.

“Oh, people of Ak Shehir!” He leaned on the pulpit and eyed them squarely. “Do you know what I am about to say to you?”

“No!” boomed the men.

“No!” floated down in soft whispers from the balcony.

“You do not know?” said Nasreddin Hodja, shaking his head and looking from one face to another. “You are sure you do not know? Then what use would it be to talk to people who know nothing at all about this important subject. My words would be wasted on such ignorance.”

With that, the Hodja turned and climbed slowly down the pulpit steps. He slipped on his shoes at the mosque door, and was out in the sunshine—free until next Friday.

That day came all too soon. The Hodja mingled with the crowds going to the mosque. He climbed the steps to the high pulpit. He looked down at the sea of solemn faces. He heard the rustling behind the lattices of the balcony. He had hoped that this week he would think of a sermon, but nothing had come to mind.

Still, he must say something.

“Oh, people of Ak Shehir!” intoned the Hodja, gesturing with both hands. “Do you know what I am about to say to you?”

“Yes,” boomed the men who remembered what had happened when they said “No” last week.

“Yes,” echoed in soft whispers from the balcony.

“You know what I am going to say?” said the Hodja. “You are certain you know what I am going to say? Then I need not say it. It would he a useless waste of my golden words if I told you something that you already knew.”

The Hodja turned and again climbed down the pulpit steps. He scuffed into his shoes and escaped into the sunshine. Another free week was ahead of him.

But the best of weeks end. The third Friday found him once more climbing the pulpit steps, with not a word worth saying. Even the Koran’s pages in front of him might have been blank instead of its Arabic script and illuminated borders. Men’s faces looked up at him expectantly. Bright eyes peered through the lattices of the women’s balcony.

The time had come again when he must speak.

“Oh, people of Ak Shehir!” demanded the Hodja. “Do you know what I am about to say to you?”

“No, no” came from those who were thinking of the last Friday.

“Yes, yes” came from those who were thinking of the Friday before that.

“Some of you know and some of you do not know!” The Hodja rubbed his hands together. “Wonderful! Now let those who know tell those who do not!”

The Hodja gathered his robes about him, humming to himself as he came down from the pulpit, two steps at a time. He nodded and smiled as he left the mosque.

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Source: Retold by Kate Farrell, based on the version in Once A Hodja by Alice Kelsey, David McKay Co, 1943.

Note: Nasreddin Hodja, also called Mullah Nasreddin, is the archetypal wise fool, a legend—several Muslim countries claim to be his birthplace.

Nasreddin (/næsˈrɛdɪn/ or Nasreddin Hodja (other variants include: Mullah Nasreddin Hooja, Mullah Nasruddin, Mullah Nasriddin, Khoja Nasriddin) is a fictional character in the folklore of the Muslim world from the Balkans to China, and a hero of humorous short stories and satirical anecdotes.

Author adminPosted on August 15, 2022Categories Fables, Folktales, LegendsTags Hodja, mosque, mullah, mullah nasruddin, Muslim, wise fool Leave a comment on Once the Hodja…

OH, how hot my poor head is!” Nasred-Din Hodja sat alone under a walnut tree. He fanned himself with a pumpkin leaf that he had picked from the vine sprawling at his feet.

“I wonder if I dare take off this hot turban.” The Hodja looked to the right, to the left, behind him, before him. “There’s not a soul in sight. And for once, I can take off my turban without anyone laughing at my baldness!”

He unwound his turban and wiped his dripping hot head with it. He threw the turban down on the ground beside him, and he sighed contentedly as the breeze from the pumpkin-leaf fan blew on his smooth glistening head.

“There, I feel like myself,” said the Hodja, comfortable and contented again. “That was a good day’s work I did in the vineyard today. I have earned a good supper. Fatima said she was going to cook goat’s-milk soup for supper. I’ll just rest here a minute to cool off, then go home to a good big bowl to fill me up.”

With the sense of well-being, the Hodja always felt the urge to talk to someone – to tell of his exploits or to give advice. But he had already made sure that not a soul was in sight. He could hear the tinkle of sheep bells and the reedy whine of a shepherd’s flute on the distant hillside, but not a person could he see.

The pumpkin-leaf fan waved more slowly, as Nasr-ed-Din Hodja sat erect. The fan dropped to the ground. The Hodja was wide awake again. He had discovered something that really should be changed.

“You silly old tree!” Nasr-ed-Din Hodja shook an accusing finger at the walnut tree that was shielding him. “Is that the best you can do? And that? And that?” The Hodja pointed scornfully at the walnuts growing on the tree.”Look at the size of you!” The Hodja shook his fist at the tree.

He was working up a pleasant excitement. “You rise up so proud and high, but what do you have to brag about – just some little walnuts no bigger than my two thumbs. Take a lesson from your neighbor, the pumpkin vine. It lies along the ground, feeling so humble and unimportant but see what good reason it has to brag.” The Hodja pointed at the huge golden pumpkins, snuggled among the dark green leaves of the pumpkin vine.

The more he thought about it, the more disgusted the Hodja became with a scheme of things which made little walnuts grow on a noble tree and huge pumpkins grow on a groveling vine.

“Now, if I had been planning it,” cried the Hodja to his audience of walnuts and pumpkins, “it would have been very different! The big important pumpkins would be waving proudly on the strong branches of this big important tree. The little unimportant walnuts could cling without any trouble to the spineless pumpkin vine. The vine might even hold up its head a little, if it had something the right size growing on it.”

Unnoticed by him, a gentle breeze had sprung up and was swaying the branches above his bald bare head.

“Yes, yes,” he went on, “if I had been planning the trees and the vines, you -“

The Hodja never finished his sentence. There was a little snap on the branch above his head. There was a little crackle as something rushed through the leaves. There was a resounding smack as something hit the Hodja’s bald bare head.

For a minute the Hodja swayed. He saw little bright lights where none had been before. With his left hand he picked up a walnut, small, to be sure, but hard, oh, very hard. With his right hand he rubbed his poor head where a lump the size of a walnut was quickly rising.

The Hodja bowed apologetically toward the sacred city of Mecca in the east.

“Oh, Allah!” It was a meek and humble Hodja who spoke. “Forgive me for saying you were wrong to have pumpkins grow on vines and walnuts grow on trees. You were wiser than I. Suppose it had been a pumpkin that fell from that tree onto my poor head!”

Rubbing his bruised and aching head, the Hodja sat under the walnut tree. He was thinking how beautiful the golden pumpkins looked on their graceful twining vine. They were so close to the good brown earth that they could not possibly fall anywhere. Allah was wise. Allah be praised.

Source: Once the Hodja by Alice Geer Kelsey, illustrated by Frank Dobias, published by David McKay Company Inc, New York (first edition 1943).

Author adminPosted on September 10, 2019Categories Fables, FolktalesTags Hodja, Middle East, mullah nasruddin, Muslim, Persian, Turkey, wise fool

The Little Shoe – Storytelling for Everyone

Irish Folktale

“Now tell me, Molly,” said Mr. Coote to Molly Cogan, as he met her on the road one day, close to one of the old gateways of Kilmallock. “Did you ever hear of the Cluricaune?”

“Is it the Cluricaune? Why, then, sure I did, often and often; many’s the time I heard my father, rest his soul! tell about, ’em over and over again.”

“But did you ever see one, Molly—did you ever see one yourself?”

“Och! no, I never see one in my life; but my grandfather, that’s my father’s father, you know, he see one, one time, and caught him too.”

“Caught him! Oh! Molly, tell me how was that?”

“Why, then, I’ll tell you:”

My grandfather, you see, was out there above in the bog, drawing home turf, and the poor old mare was tired after her day’s work, and the old man went out to the stable to look after her, and to see if she was eating her hay.

When he came to the stable door there, my dear, he heard something hammering, hammering, hammering, just for all the world like a shoemaker making a shoe, and whistling all the time the prettiest tune he ever heard in his whole life before.

Well, my grandfather, he thought it was the Cluricaune, and he said to himself, says he, “I’ll catch you, if I can, and then I’ll have money enough always.”

So he opened the door very quietly, and didn’t make a bit of noise in the world that ever was heard; and he looked all about, but the never a bit of the little man he could see anywhere, but he heard him hammering and whistling, and so he looked and looked, till at last he see the little fellow.

And where was he, do you think, but in the girth under the mare; and there he was with his little bit of an apron on him, and his hammer in his hand, and a little red nightcap on his head, and he making a shoe.

He was so busy with his work, and he was hammering and whistling so loud, that he never minded my grandfather till he caught him fast in his hand.

“Faith, I have you now,” says he, “and I’ll never let you go till I get your purse—that’s what I won’t; so give it here to me at once, now.”

“Stop, stop,” says the Cluricaune, “stop, stop, says he, till I get it for you.”

So my grandfather, like a fool, you see, opened his hand a little, and the little fellow jumped away laughing, and he never saw him any more, and the never a bit of the purse did he get, only the Cluricaune left his little shoe that he was making.

My grandfather was mad enough, angry with himself for letting him go; but he had the shoe all his life, and my own mother told me she often see it, and had it in her hand, and ’twas the prettiest little shoe she ever saw.

“And did you see it yourself, Molly?”

“Oh! no, my dear, it was lost long afore I was born; but my mother told me about it often and often enough.”

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And if you don’t believe the tale….

There is nothing very strange in the circumstance of Molly’s grandfather becoming the possessor of a Cluricaune’s shoe, for even in the present century, when these little people are supposed to have grown more shy and cautious of letting themselves be seen or heard, persons have been fortunate enough to get their shoes, though the purse still eludes them.

In a Kilkenny paper, published not more than three years ago, there was a paragraph (which paragraph was copied into most of the Irish papers) stating that a peasant returning home in the dusk of the evening, discovered one of these little folk at work, and as the workman, as usual, contrived to make his escape, the peasant secured the shoe to bear witness of the fact, which shoe, to satisfy public curiosity, lay for inspection at the office of the said paper. It is therefore not impossible that this specimen of Cluricaune cordwainry may still exist.

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Source: Thomas Crofton Croker, Researches in the South of Ireland, Illustrative of the Scenery, Architectural Remains, and the Manners and Superstitions of the Peasantry (London: John Murray, 1824).

Note: Cluricaune or Leprehaune is the name given to the Irish Puck. The character of this goblin is a compound of that of the Scotch Brownie and the English Robin Goodfellow. He is depicted (for engraved portraits of the Irish Leprehaune are in existence) as a small and withered old man, completely equipped in the costume of a cobler, and employed in repairing a shoe.

A paragraph recently appeared in a Kilkenny paper stating, that a labourer, returning home in the dusk of the evening, discovered a Leprehaune at work, from whom he bore away the shoe which he was mending; as a proof of the veracity of his story it was further stated, that the shoe lay for the inspection of the curious at the newspaper office.

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Mashpee Ghost Story – Storytelling for Everyone

As the holiday season approaches, and we celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Day, enjoy a ghost story from one of the first North American tribes to greet the Pilgrims. It appears to be a terrifying tale in some ways, but it might contain a ghostly moral. What message could it have for us today, in our shared country?

One night on Cape Cod at Gay Head, a Mashpee woman and her children were alone in their wigwam. The children were sound asleep in their blankets and their mother sat knitting beside her central fire-pit. As customary, her door-flap was wide open. Suddenly she became aware of someone approaching her doorway, and went to see who it might be.

A sailor stood outside. She asked him, “What do you want?” He replied, “I’d like to come inside and warm myself by your fire, because my clothes are wet and I feel chilled to the bone.”

She invited him inside and offered a place for him to sit beside the fire to dry out and warm himself. She placed another log on her fire, then resumed her knitting. As she watched the fire, she noticed that she could see the fire right through the sailor’s legs, which were stretched out between her and the fire–as if he were a ghost!

Her fear of him increased, but since she was a brave woman, she kept on with her knitting while keeping a suspicious eye toward the visitor. Finally the sailor turned to the Indian woman and said, “Do you want any money?”

Her first thought was not to answer his question. Then he repeated, “Do you want any money?” She replied, “Yes.”

The sailor explained, “If you really want a large amount of money, all you have to do is go outdoors behind your wigwam. Beside a rock there you will find buried a kettle full of money. I thank you for your hospitality. Good night.” He went away.

The Mashpee woman did not go outdoors immediately, as she wanted to think about the sailor’s proposal. She sat and knitted and thought for a while longer. Still, she felt frightened from the evening’s experience and was reluctant to leave her wigwam. More knitting time elapsed.

Then she thought, “I might as well go out and see if the sailor spoke the truth–to see if there really is a kettle of money out there.”

She took her hoe and went outside to the back of her wigwam, and easily saw the place described by the sailor. She began to dig with her hoe. She realized that every time she struck her hoe into the ground, she heard her children cry out loudly, as if in great pain. She rushed indoors to see what was their trouble. They were soundly sleeping in their blankets.

Again and again she dug with her hoe; each time her children cried out loudly to her; each time she rushed in to comfort them, only to find them soundly asleep as she had left them.

After these episodes had occurred several times, the mother decided to give up digging for the night. She thought she would try again early next morning after bright daylight and her children were awake.

Morning came, but she wondered if she had only dreamed last night’s happenings. Her children were eating their breakfast when she went out to the digging place. There was her hoe, standing where she had left it. But she could see that someone else had been there in the meantime and had finished digging while she slept.

Before her, she saw a big round hole. She knew someone had dug up the hidden treasure. She was too late for the pot of gold promised by the ghostly sailor. But again she thought and wondered, “But was I really too late?”

Again she thought, “That sailor may have been the Evil Spirit in disguise—or even a real ghost. Perhaps he was tempting me to see whether I cared more for my children, or more for the gold?”

Nevertheless, the Mashpee woman and her children continued to live in their village for a long, long time, even without the benefit of the ghost’s kettle of gold.

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Note: The Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, also known as the People of the First Light, has inhabited present day Massachusetts and Eastern Rhode Island for more than 12,000 years. They are often called, the “Thanksgiving Tribe,” one that greeted the Pilgrims. After an arduous process lasting more than three decades, the Mashpee Wampanoag were re-acknowledged as a federally recognized tribe in 2007.

Source: Indigenous Peoples Literature is a non-profit educational resource and collaboration dedicated to the indigenous peoples of the world and to the enrichment it can bring to all people.

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How Coyote Stole Fire – Storytelling for Everyone

Northwest Shoshone Tale

Long ago, when the world and human beings were new, there were times of great happiness: when spring danced across the forests and cool breezes nodded flowers heads and rippled streams, when summer embraced the earth as though the Sun were enfolding it in its arms, when trees were ablaze with autumn fire and made a canopy of colors across the sky.

But always the autumn leaves fell and the earth froze. Winter made people very sad and also very afraid, for in the winter many, many died of the cold and food was scarce. The oldest and newest humans suffered the most, but fear and sadness for them made the others suffer all the more.

Coyote was one of the wisest animals and a sly trickster but also a friend of the people. One morning in early spring, he heard the women of the village singing in voices so low and sad that he paused to listen. They were singing for the old and new ones who had died in the winter. Their deep moans were so filled with despair that it made the hair on Coyote’s back freeze like upside down icicles.

“The sun! The sun!” Coyote heard one of the women say. “If we just had a piece of it to carry with us through the winter it would end the great suffering of our people.”

Coyote had an idea. He knew a place, far away on a mountain top, where three Fire Spirits lived. They tended a piece of the sun but guarded it with their very lives, because they did not want human beings to have it. They were afraid that, if they did, they’d be as strong as the Fire Spirits and that would place them at a decided disadvantage.

They had eyes that burned black and red like hot coals and sharp talons like an eagle’s for hands but Coyote wasn’t afraid of them. In fact, he not only didn’t like them, but he longed for an excuse to play a trick on them for their selfishness. He set out that day to the mountain of the Fire Spirits to steal their secret and help the human beings.

The Fire Spirits thought he was just a regular old coyote sniffing through the woods, so he had little trouble getting close to them and their fire. He sat patiently and watched, to learn how to tend and keep it himself. He learned that they fed the fire wood and bits from trees like pine cones. He learned that when flames stretched out and threatened dry grass nearby they stomped it out, keeping the fire.

He learned that at night the Fire Spirits took turns sitting beside the fire, guarding it and keeping it alive. Coyote saw that it was not only because they didn’t want someone to steal the fire that the Fire Spirits guarded it so closely but also because Fire was something that could not and should not be left alone.

Coyote also learned that there was one part of the day that the Fire Spirits were not completely consumed with tending their fire. Early each morning, the Spirit on watch at night had a difficult time waking the Spirit who’s turn it was next up. Sometimes, in his impatience to go to sleep, he left before the next Spirt took her place.

After studying all of this, Coyote went down the mountain to the village. He told the people and the animals about the Fire Spirits and how they tended a piece of the Sun. All agreed that they wanted fire and that they would help Coyote get it for them.

Coyote again went to the mountain-top. Again the Fire Spirits feared a thief in their midst but found only a coyote. Thinking he was just an ordinary coyote, they ignored him and went about their business as usual.

Coyote waited through the day and through the night until the dawn. The night guard Fire Spirit tried, as usual in vain, to wake his sister up to watch the fire. When she was slow in coming out and he’d just walked away in frustration,

Coyote lept forward, grabbed a flaming stick and took off down the mountain.

The Fire Spirits pursued him, screeching and hissing as they flew. Their coal black eyes burned and gleamed fiendishly with red. Their sharp talons grabbed and snatched, hurling branches, small birds and whatever else they could fling at Coyote. He ran like the wind but they were fast as flame and caught up to him.

One stretched out a formidable talon and, though she was only able to grab the tip of his tale, managed to hold it long enough that it turned the hairs white. That is why the tip of Coyote’s tail is white to this day.

Badly hurt, Coyote flung the fire away from him. Squirrel caught it and put it on her back. She too was burned, so badly that her tail curled up, as it still does today. Squirrel threw the fire to Chipmunk. She froze in her tracks with fear and one of the Fire Spirits clawed her, leaving three stripes from his talon down her back, which are still there today.

Chipmunk threw the fire to Frog, and one of the Spirits grabbed his tail, trying desperately to take back the fire. Frog leapt away but left his tale in the hand of the Fire Spirit. And frogs have not had tails since.

Frog flung the fire into Wood and Wood would not let the fire go. Even the Fire Spirits couldn’t get the fire from Wood. They promised gifts, they sang, they danced, they struck Wood and hacked it with their knives. But Wood would not give up fire. Defeated, the Fire Spirits went back to their home on the mountain top. They never again left the fire unattended but it was too late, human beings already had their secret.

Coyote, because he was so clever, had been able to trick wood into telling him how to get the fire out of it. He then showed the people how to rub two dry sticks together, and how to spin a sharpened stick in a hole made in another piece of wood. Doing this drew fire out of Wood in a way the Fire Spirits had not had the patience or presence of mind to accomplish.

So, thanks to Coyote, Squirrel, Chipmunk and Frog, human beings were able to keep a piece of the sun to keep them warm in the winter. And we keep it still.

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Source: One Who Gathers Tribes shared with love and respect from my sister, Darlene: https://elementsofspirit.net/wisdom-keepers/f/how-coyote-stole-fire