Seven Folktales From Central Europe

Here is a tale of Nasreddin Hoca, a trickster figure in Turkish folktales:

Hoca was often called upon to settle disputes. One day, three men quarreled over the division of a bag of walnuts, and came to ask Hoca to make the division. "Divide with absolute justice," one of them said. "Justice is not enough," said the second. And the third said, agreeing, "Yes--divide as Allah would divide!" And they all chorused: "Yes, yes, as Allah would divide!"

So Hoca shrugged. He dug his hand into the bag, tossed a single walnut into the first man's lap, pouring a handful into the second man's hands, and then gave all the remainder--almost the whole bag--to the third man. They were appalled, and protested. "This isn't what we wanted? Where is our equal division?"

"Fools!" said Hoca. "Since when did Allah divide anything equally among men? As He would have divided, so have I done."

Hitur Peter (or Sly Peter) is a brother of Nasreddin Hoca's: the Tyl Eulenspiegel of Bulgarian folktales. He scores off all his neighbors and particularly off the Turkish rulers of Bulgaria. Here are two Sly Peter stories:

1. In the village where Peter lived there was a shrewish woman, so malignant that her presence and her foul tongue poisoned the very air. One day Peter went to the cadi (Turkish magistrate) and said, "We must do something about that woman, her influence is poisoning us all."

"Every man for himself," said the cadi, "if she is lazy and sluttish, that's her own business."

So home went Sly Peter; he killed one of his goats and hooked it on the door. After a while it began to rot and his neighbors all went complaining to the cadi, upset because the stench of the goat fouled the air, and its flyblown corpse could spread disease. The cadi called Peter and ordered him to dispose of the carcase. "Every man for himself!" said Peter. "It's my goat, and my business what I do with it."

2. Once a rich man slapped Peter on the face for some slight offence. Peter went furiously to the cadi for justice, but the cadi said, "Don't complain, Peter, he's a wealthy man. Today he'll slap you in the face, and tomorrow he'll give you a piece of gold."

"Oho," said Peter, "so a slap on the face is worth a piece of gold. Well, here you are!" And he slapped the cadi on the face. "Now," he said, "I owe you a piece of gold, and as you are on such good terms with the rich man he'll pay you the piece of gold he also owes me. So we're quits, wouldn't you say?"

A folktale from Bulgaria:

Once two peasants were hauling a barrel of wine along in a cart. It was a hot day, they became thirsty. The wine tempted them more and more. At last one of them, after long thought, said, "It will be all right if I pay for the drink." He took a swig, and handed his companion of coin. The other peasant did the very same, handing back the coin he had just been given. Back and forth they passed the coin, getting tipsier and tipsier, until the barrel was empty.

Once upon a time in Istanbul, the Sultan's son fell in love with a gypsy girl. Hopelessly besotted, he begged his father to give her to him for a wife. The Sultan called his aide-de-camp, an elegant diplomat and officer; the aide-de-camp rode off on his sleekest horse, his retinue behind him, until he came to the camp of the girl's father--Achmed the Gypsy, Achmed the blacksmith, despised by the faithful who saw in him a heathen beggar and a mongrel dog.

"His Majesty," said the officer, "the Padishah, may Allah prolong his days, has sent me to beg the hand of your gracious daughter for his beloved son Hamid. Will you consent to his request, master Achmed?"

The gypsy, befuddled by this mode of address, snatched up his hammer and flung it straight at the aide-de-camp's head. "Be off with you," he shouted, "get out of here, you joker, and play no more tricks on me, if you want to save your life!" Shocked and frightened, the officer fled with all his foppish friends behind him. Off he rode to the Sultan, and told him the whole tale--adding that the gypsy was obviously possessed of a devil if he could make no better answer to such a princely offer.

The Sultan took thought upon the matter. Then he summoned the sergeant of his guard, a notorious brute named Ibrahim. "Go to Achmed the Gypsy," he commanded, "who has dared to insult my envoy. Bring me his worthless daughter. Hurry up, don't loiter!"

Within the hour, Ibrahim was hammering on Achmed's door. He roared, "Are you that son of a bitch, Achmed the bastard?"

"Yes, my lord," said the gypsy, bowing to the ground. His reward was a rain of blows from Ibrahim's horsewhip.

"I'll teach you how to treat the envoys of his Majesty! Take that, you dog!"

Achmed submitted to every blow and insult, for these he was accustomed to. "May Allah bless our great Sultan, who sends me a man who knows how to talk to me, in place of that imbecile who treated me as a gentleman! Take Fatima, and my thanks with her!"

(Source: Balkan Firebrand, by Kosta Todorov.)

A true story:

A Bulgarian patriot was imprisoned by the fascists and sentenced to death. In the depths of Sofia prison, he awaited execution the next morning. A sentry stood guard before his cell, but the other prisoners (they were radicals, communist dissidents, publishers of free newpapers, and so forth along with criminals) decided to save him. That evening, they all went down together to shower; the showers were in the dungeon of the prison. Two criminals, let in on the plan, brought down a skeleton key and also vodka, a big ham, and a huge loaf of bread. One took the food and drink and sauntered up to the sentry, swigging vodka and tearing off chunks of fresh bread, which he stuffed greedily into his mouth. The sentry, who like all the prison's soldiers was miserably fed on coarse rations, drooled at the sight of this food and eyed the criminal jealously.

"It's better to be in prison than in the army!" he complained.

"Well," said the criminal, "how about joining me, then? Come on, sit down."

"I can't leave my post--"

"The door's locked tight, isn't it?" laughed the criminal, gesturing with his bottle of vodka.

Convinced, the sentry followed the prisoner to an empty cell, where they sat down together at a table and feasted. Meanwhile the other criminal promptly opened the convicted man's cell, released him and pushed him into the shower room. Soon, swathed with sheets, all the prisoners trooped upstairs . . . taking the condemned man with them. From the political section of the prison they got easily into the prison office, whose windows were unbarred. Down into the courtyard the condemned man climbed. It was dark, the sky starless. A ladder was waiting at the outer wall. Not until the man was atop the wall did the guards see him and open fire; he leaped down and vanished, and the authorities never solved the mystery of his escape from the locked cell.

(Source: Balkan Firebrand, by Kosta Todorov.)

A second true story from Bulgaria:

Another good Bulgarian soldier and patriot was sentenced to death in the heart of a freezing-cold December. At eight o'clock in the wintry morning, the prisoner was led to the gallows in the prison courtyard. His hands were bound behind his back, his spirit was broken and he made no protest. A priest blessed him, a guard handed him a glass of cognac. He gulped it down without tasting it. No last cigarette. The military prosecutor read out the sentence. Guards and officials--the prison wardens, the priest, the doctor--were there to witness the execution; the executioner was a gypsy named Djemal. Djemal hooded the condemned man, lifted him onto a stool beneath the noose, slipped the noose around his throat. Then he kicked the stool out from under his feet.

Moments passed. The doctor felt the hanged man's pulse. Djemal jumped onto the stool, cut the body down and laid it stretched-out in the snow. Two guards loaded the corpse onto a stretcher and trudged away to the prison cemetery.

Half an hour later, the entire prison rocked with laughter. On the way to the cemetery, the dead man had suddenly come back to life. He sat bolt upright on the stretcher, and the guards dropped him in the snow and ran off for fear of their souls. When the police arrived and pulled off the 'corpse's' hood, they found him speechless but definitely alive. Stymied, they escorted him back to the prison.

There was nothing supernatural about this particular miracle: the hang-rope, as always, had been well greased with soap and water (to make certain it would slip into a fine, tight noose) and the extreme cold had covered the rope with a slick of ice. When the noose closed, it grasped the condemned man's jaw but did not catch around his neck. He fainted out of fear, while naturally the onlookers assumed he had died of a broken spine. And under Bulgarian law, he could not be hanged again.

He recovered slowly, but never remembered the details of that dreadful day, and for six months he was unable to utter a single word.

(Source: Balkan Firebrand, by Kosta Todorov.)

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