Yiddish Folktales Read online

  The prince took his coat off and wrapped the princess in it, then set her on the branch of a tree and started off to tell the king that he had found a bride. Meanwhile the princess sat on the branch of the tree.

  Now, the branch overhung a well, and a gypsy woman came to it for water. She looked into the water and cried out, “Oh, how lovely I am!”

  The princess on the branch cried, “A curse on you! You? Lovely? It’s I who am lovely.”

  The gypsy looked up and saw the princess sitting in the tree. So she dragged her out of it, took the coat, and threw her into the well, after which she donned the prince’s coat and perched herself in the tree.

  And now the joyful king and queen came running and looked up at the bride. “Oh my, a gypsy,” they thought. But they pitied the prince and said nothing to him. They sent for clothes and had the gypsy dressed and taken to the palace. And the gypsy with her spells made the prince believe that she was the beautiful princess, and preparations began for the wedding.

  One day the king’s cook went to the well to get a pail of water. As he pulled it up, he saw a golden fish swimming in the pail. He took it to the kitchen and cooked it, but he threw the scales outside. Now, the old woman who lived in the hut near the royal kitchen looked out and happened to see the scales. She gathered them up and sewed them together to make a little shoe. She hung it up on the wall of her hut before she went to bed that night.

  When she woke in the morning, she was astonished to see that the hut had been tidied, her breakfast had been cooked, and her bread was already baked. She sat down to spin flax. She spun and spun until she fell asleep. When she woke, she discovered that all her flax had been spun.

  She was curious to know who was helping her, so she decided to stay up all night and find out. She got into bed, closed her eyes, and pretended to be asleep. Late at night she opened her eyes and saw a princess lovely as the world come out of the golden shoe. The princess heated the oven, baked the bread, and tidied the hut.

  The old woman got silently out of her bed and stole over to the wall. She snatched the golden shoe and flung it into the fire. The princess, seeing this, set up a clamor. But it was too late. The little golden shoe had burned up, and the princess had to stay with the old woman.

  One day the princess said, “I’m very bored. Give me some work to do.” So the old woman went to the king and said, “I’m very bored. Give me some work to do.” So the king gave her some thread and told her to crochet a tablecloth out of it. The old woman took the thread back to her hut and gave it to the princess, who sat down and crocheted a tablecloth in the design of a garden. And in the middle of the garden she crocheted a portrait of her own face.

  The old woman took the tablecloth to the king, who liked it so much that he had it placed on the table at a banquet for the prince and his wife. As the company sat eating and drinking and having a pleasant time, the prince looked at the tablecloth and saw the picture of the garden and the princess’s portrait. “Who crocheted that tablecloth?” he asked. The king said, “The old woman who lives in the hut near the kitchen.” The prince commanded that she be brought at once. The old woman came and the prince said, “Was it you who crocheted this tablecloth?” “No,” she replied. “Not I, but the princess of the golden shoe.”

  The prince ordered her to bring the princess, so the old woman went home and came back leading her. The prince instantly recognized his betrothed, uniquely beautiful in all the world. He fell on her neck and wept as he embraced and kissed her. The gypsy bride, the false princess, was driven out of the palace, and the prince and princess were married and continue to live happily unto this day.

  43

  The Orphan Boy Who Won the Bride

  Once upon a time there was a man who lived in a nobleman’s domain. The man and his wife had been childless for many years so he went to a rabbi in a nearby town and said, “Rabbi, my wife and I want a son. Won’t you pray for us and ask the Lord to bless us?” The rabbi said, “Yes, I will.” So he prayed to the Lord and his prayers were answered: The man’s wife became pregnant and bore a son. Of course, the overjoyed parents invited the rabbi to the circumcision feast.

  When the boy was five years old, his parents died and there was no one to care for him. So the nobleman took the child into his own home and raised him himself.

  The boy, eager to make himself useful, learned how to build things. Using a saw and a plane and a hatchet, he made sleds and wagons. Several years went by in this way and by the time he was twelve years old he had quite forgotten how to speak Yiddish. One night the boy’s father appeared to the rabbi in a dream and said, “Rabbi, my son no longer knows what he is. Take him away from the nobleman and instruct him in Judaism.” The very next day the rabbi went to the nobleman and pleaded for the boy to be given to him, but the nobleman refused.

  Well, one way or another, the rabbi got the boy away from the nobleman and undertook to raise and instruct him. He taught him the rites of Judaism: when to wash his hands, how to make the blessing over bread, and so on.

  When the boy was seventeen, a letter came inviting the rabbi to a wedding in a distant land. The youth said, “Rabbi, take me with you. I want to go, too.”

  But the rabbi said, “How can I take you? You don’t have the right clothes. You can’t go traveling, ragged as you are.”

  “Never mind that,” replied the youth, “they’ll find out who I am soon enough.”

  The rabbi said, “You can’t come. I haven’t got enough money for both of us.” Then off he went on a ship, leaving the youth behind.

  Or so he thought. But just before the ship weighed anchor, the boy, ragged as he was, slipped aboard and the ship sailed away. They were in mid-ocean before they knew it, and a great storm came up and blew the ship far out of its course until it came to rest, becalmed in the Congealed Sea.

  Days went by and they stayed in the Congealed Sea, where there was nothing but derelict ships to be seen, and nothing to eat. Then one day a great storm blew up and broke the ship free and drove it across the ocean until it came to an island where they dropped anchor.

  The hungry passengers decided to explore the island hoping to find berries and fruit to eat. The youth came upon an apple tree, which he climbed. He ate some apples and threw some down for the others who ate the fruit and then fell asleep beneath the tree. Meanwhile the youth, too, dozed up in the branches where, a little while later, he was awakened by the stirring of a breeze.

  Startled, he looked around, then he called excitedly, “Rabbi, rabbi, you should see the stones that are up here.”

  The rabbi called back, “What do you see on the stones?”

  “I hardly know,” the youth called down, “it looks like very beautiful writing.”

  “Copy down what you see on a piece of paper and throw it down to me,” said the rabbi.

  The youth did what he was bidden. He copied down what he saw on a piece of paper and threw it down to the rabbi, but just then the rabbi and the other passengers went aboard the ship and sailed off, leaving the youth behind in the tree.

  Well, he made himself as comfortable as he could and settled down to wait. That night a rabbi appeared beside him in the tree and taught him all of the Torah—and all the commentaries as well—so that he became a great scholar.

  At daybreak, he spotted a ship passing by. He stood up in the tree and waved his hands and shouted, “Help, help, help!” Fortunately, the people on the ship saw him and sent a boat that took him off the island and brought him back to the ship which, as it happened, was also going to the town where the wedding was to take place.

  When he arrived there, the youth took up lodgings in a poor man’s hut. He passed himself off as a merchant looking for goods to buy, and the poor man who owned the hut said to him, “I’ve been invited to a wedding. Why don’t you come with me?”

  “How can I go to a wedding?” said the youth. “Look how ragged I am.”

  “Never mind,” said his landlord, “I’ll find you some clothes.
”

  The landlord kept his word. He found the youth some clothes and they went to the wedding together.

  At the reception before the wedding, even the rabbi who had raised the youth was unable to recognize him in his new clothes. The youth stood near a circle of rabbis and learned folk who were discussing and arguing various deep points of Torah commentary. At one point the prospective bridegroom gave a learned address to the assembled guests. The youth stood by silently, an enigmatic smile on his face.

  The discussion, the disputation, the arguments went on and the youth, all the while, stood by with an enigmatic smile on his face. Finally, one of the rabbis was affronted and said angrily, “You, young man. You, with the grin on your face. If you have something to say, say it.”

  The youth then put such subtle, such profound questions to the company that no one was able to answer them. Everyone was so delighted with his performance that the mother of the bride-to-be said to the father, “Now that’s the sort of husband our daughter should have.”

  “You’re right,” her husband replied. With that they canceled the betrothal on the spot and engaged their daughter to the learned stranger.

  When the time came for the wedding, the youth insisted that it be celebrated in the poor man’s hut where he was staying.

  “How can that be?” he was asked. “It’s such a tiny place.”

  “Never mind,” he said. “Everyone will fit.”

  The preparations were made. The hut was decorated as well as it could be. When the musicians arrived, the youth said, “Don’t play yet. We won’t have music until twelve o’clock.”

  Meanwhile more and more people came, and lo and behold, no matter how many entered the hut, there was always room for more. The entire population of the town came in, and the hut simply grew larger and larger.

  Then all at once the sky turned dark and a gale blew up. The wedding guests ran outside and saw an enormous cloud descending from the heavens. When it reached the ground, the youth’s father and mother stepped down from the cloud, and they were followed by King David and all his musicians.

  “Now play!” cried the youth to his musicians.

  And they did, and the food was served, and the dancing began, and I too was there and had a good little glass of brandy.

  From my beard it dripped,

  But none I sipped.

  As for the island—it was ganeydn, the Garden of Eden.

  44

  Forty Hares and a Princess

  Once upon a time there was a king who had an only daughter. A great many officers and generals wanted to marry her, but the king said to himself, “If I give her to one of them, all the others will be angry.” So he thought of a plan: he would put a gold ring on her finger and set her up in a high place, and whoever could snatch the ring would become her husband. So that’s what he did. And men came from all over the world to try and snatch the ring from her finger, but none succeeded.

  One day a shepherd boy in ragged clothes showed up. He approached the princess sitting on her high perch, and with a great bound he snatched the ring from her finger. The king and the courtiers, seeing how shabbily he was dressed, were unwilling to let him marry her. But what was to be done?

  “Well,” they said, “to tell the truth, there’s another test you must pass. You see these hutches? Inside are forty hares. We want you to drive them into the woods each day and bring them home at night. But be warned: not a single hare must be missing. If you fail the test, you’re a dead man.”

  “Hmm,” said the boy to himself, “forty hares aren’t easy to control. And even if I drive them into the woods, how can I drive them back? Yet if a single hare is missing, I’ll pay with my life.

  “Still, if I want to marry the princess I’ll have to try.” So he turned the hares loose and managed, one way or another, to get them all into the woods, but there they ran off in all directions. “Ah,” he thought sadly, “I’m a fool … and a dead man. I’ll never be able to round them up.”

  As he walked gloomily through the woods, he chanced to look down and saw a whistle lying on the ground. He picked it up and blew on it. Immediately all forty hares came running to him. “Hmm,” he thought, “a fool with a little luck is only half a fool. Let’s see. I wonder if they’ll follow me to an open field.”

  So he started off piping on his whistle, and the hares all followed him to the field. “Well, they seem obedient,” he said. “Let’s see if I can turn them into soldiers. Hey, there,” he called to one of the hares, “you can be a sergeant. And you,” he said, pointing to another, “you can be a platoon leader.” He pointed to a third and said, “And you can be a squad leader.”

  Then he shouted, “Fall in.” And when they had lined up, he taught the hares how to march in formation.

  Back at the king’s court, a huge crowd gathered to wait for the execution. But lo and behold, there was the shepherd boy, marching at the head of his hares, like a military troop. He marched them to their hutches and cried, “Fall out!” and all forty went into the hutches and settled down for the night.

  The king and his courtiers counted all the hares and found that not one was missing. But they didn’t want this ragamuffin to marry the princess, so what were they to do? By hook or by crook, they decided they had to make him lose a hare.

  The next day when the shepherd had marched the hares out of the palace, the king himself, wearing a disguise, followed him to the woods. There he said to the boy (who recognized him at once), “Who owns these marching hares?”

  “They are the king’s,” replied the shepherd.

  “Sell me one.”

  “I won’t sell any. I don’t need the money.”

  “Well, what do you want?”

  “If you’ll kiss the place beneath the sergeant’s tail,” said the shepherd, “I’ll give you a hare.”

  So the king agreed. And when he had kissed the place beneath the sergeant rabbit’s tail, the shepherd gave him a hare.

  The king started off with his animal, feeling pleased because now they could kill this upstart.

  Meanwhile, that very same thought had occurred to the shepherd. “Well,” he said to himself, “let’s see what my whistle can do.” He blew on it and lo and behold, the king’s hare leaped out of his arms and ran back to the shepherd.

  When the king returned to the palace empty-handed, he was too embarrassed to confess that he had lost the hare. So he said, “That shepherd refused to sell me one.”

  Hearing this, the queen said, “I’ll go tomorrow; he’ll sell me a hare.”

  The next morning the shepherd gathered his army of hares and marched off to the woods, where he passed the time by drilling them. He beat on a drum and the hares marched to its beat.

  Meanwhile the queen in her coach rode into the forest, approached the shepherd, and said, “Sell me a hare.” He replied, “I won’t sell any of my hares. But if you’ll kiss the place beneath the tail of my platoon commander, I’ll give you one.”

  Well, she was the queen, after all, but she was determined to cheat him out of one of his hares. And though the place beneath the hare’s tail was soiled, she kissed it.

  The shepherd said, “That hare is a platoon commander. You’ll have to do better than that. Give him a really good kiss.” And so she kissed the place again. Then he said, “Which of my hares do you want?”

  “Whichever hare you say,” she replied.

  “Choose one for yourself.”

  She tried to pick one up, but it wouldn’t allow itself to be caught. The shepherd said to the hare, “Come here.” And the hare came obediently. The shepherd said, “Lie down.” The hare lay down and the queen caught him. “Hold him tight so he won’t run away,” said the shepherd.

  The queen got into her coach and commanded the coachman, “Drive as fast as you can, before the shepherd changes his mind.”

  The coachman said, “If you had some powdered English salt to put on the hare’s tail, it wouldn’t run away.”

  “Well, I do
n’t,” she said, “so let’s get moving.”

  As they sped away, the shepherd sounded a note on his whistle and the hare tore itself from the queen’s grasp and ran back to him. The queen sat stunned, and when she got home, she too lied. “The shepherd won’t sell any of his hares. Nor will he give them away.”

  That night the king and queen and their courtiers talked and talked and decided to send the princess to him the next morning. Since the shepherd wanted to marry her, they reasoned, he would surely give her a hare. And if he came home missing a hare, he was a dead man.

  In the morning the shepherd got up and went to the forest to drill his army of hares.

  The princess, his bride-to-be, started off carrying preserves and other delicacies, as well as a bottle of brandy to make the shepherd tipsy. In addition, the queen had given the princess some powdered English salt to sprinkle on a hare’s tail.

  The princess arrived in the forest and said to the shepherd, “See, I’ve brought you some preserves and a little bit of brandy. Eat, drink; let’s be jolly together.”

  The shepherd had a little glass of brandy and ate some of the preserves. A while later the princess said, “I have to go now. But it would be so nice if you gave me a hare. I’d love to have one to play with at home.”