Yiddish Folktales Read online

  “The platoon commander will be unhappy if I give you a hare,” said the shepherd, “but if you kiss him three times on the place beneath his tail, he will most likely agree.”

  The princess thought, “Well, the platoon commander won’t tell anyone. And if I get home with the hare, the shepherd will be a dead man, so I might as well kiss the place under the tail three times.” And so she did. And the shepherd gave her a hare.

  She got into her coach and they started off quickly. She was just reaching for the English salt when the shepherd sounded his whistle. The hare leaped out of her arms and ran back to its master. “Oh, dear,” she said to herself, “I kissed the place beneath the hare’s tail three times and still I have no hare. What excuse can I give?”

  Back at the palace she said that the shepherd had refused to give her a hare. Everyone sympathized, but the king and queen each guessed what had happened.

  So, the royal family and their courtiers were in a turmoil. “What’s to be done with this shepherd?” they asked. “How can we get rid of him?” And they devised another plan.

  The next day they sent for him and said, “There’s one more test before you can marry the princess. If you fail to perform it, you will be killed and that will be the end of you. Now listen. Tomorrow there will be a great banquet, and at its height we’ll tell you what you must do. Go now, and be at the banquet tomorrow.”

  The banquet took place the next day and there was a huge crowd there. At the height of the festivities, the king called the shepherd to the podium and announced: “Ladies and gentlemen. As his last task to fulfill before he can marry the princess, the shepherd here will fill this sack with words. If he fails, it’s off with his head.”

  The shepherd looked into the sack, then he looked at the audience and wondered, “How can a sack be filled with words?” Then turning to the audience, he said, “So you want a sack full of words. Well, let me put these words into it.” And he began to tell the story of his experiences with the royal family.

  “I thought,” he said, “that the king was honorable and his word was good. So I snatched the ring from the princess’s hand, but did I get the princess? Oh, no. I was given forty hares to tend, and threatened with death if I lost one. And so I tended them. I did what I was supposed to do. But did the king keep his word? No. He came to me in the forest and said he wanted to buy a hare …”

  Here the shepherd interrupted himself and turned to the king. “Will your royal highness look into the sack,” he said, “and tell me if it’s full yet?”

  The king started nervously forward and the shepherd resumed his story: “I say the king wanted to buy one of the hares. But I told him that I didn’t sell hares. If he wanted a hare, he would …”

  “Enough,” shouted the king, “enough. The sack is full. There are enough words in it.” So the king gave permission for the wedding, but the shepherd overthrew the king instead, and ruled long and well in his place.

  And that’s enough words for now.

  45

  The Merchant’s Son and the Demons

  Once upon a time there was a rich old man who had an only son. When the old man felt that he was dying, he sent for his son. “Dear child, I am leaving you well provided for,” he said, “but before I die, promise me that after I’m gone you will never travel anywhere by sea.”

  “I promise,” the son said, and with that the old man died.

  Well, time passed and the son lived on his father’s wealth, until one day a letter came to him from a merchant far across the sea. “Dear Sir,” the letter said, “Here in my country there is a fortune waiting for you, money that was owed to your father. It would be a pity for so much money to go to waste. Why don’t you come and get it?”

  Without a moment’s thought the merchant’s son left his wife and child, hurriedly boarded a ship for that land beyond the sea. He had not traveled far when a storm blew up. The winds howled, the waves tossed, and all at once there was a terrible shudder and the ship began to sink.

  It was then that the merchant’s son remembered the promise he had made to his father and began to repent from the bottom of his heart. Then suddenly he was assailed by a terrible dizziness and fainted dead away. As he lay there in a trance, his father appeared before him and said, “Well, my son, is this how you keep your promises?”

  “Father, father,” begged the son, “forgive me. Oh, forgive me. Take pity on me—if not for my sake, then for my wife and my only son.”

  The winds howled, the waves tossed, and the youth prayed. At last his father said more kindly, “Very well, listen to me. When you come to, you will find yourself clinging to a log. Just hold on, and it will keep you afloat until it drifts ashore. There you will find an eagle waiting for you. You must let the eagle take you where it will.” Having said that, his father disappeared.

  And lo and behold, that’s what happened. When the young man came to, the ship was nowhere to be seen and he found himself in the water clinging to a drifting log. It was sunset. Soon it would be dark. Just then the rich man’s son heard the cries of beasts nearby and realized that he was near shore. So he turned the log loose and swam toward the land.

  He dragged himself ashore, and suddenly there was a whoosh and a whirl and a spiral motion before his eyes. Before he knew what was happening, he was high in the sky, caught in an eagle’s beak and being carried higher and higher. When he looked down, he saw tiny trees in one place, in another, small streams. If he should chance to fall from such a height, there would not be an unbroken bone left in his body. “Oh Lord,” he cried, raising his eyes to heaven, “please don’t let me fall.”

  With that he felt the beat of the great eagle’s wings gradually slowing, and felt how they were descending lower and lower until the eagle landed. On the ground the creature opened its beak and flew away.

  “Where in the world am I?” said the rich man’s son as he looked around. At that moment he heard the voices of children in a kheyder, reciting their lessons. He followed the sounds until he came to a little house. He went in and saw a melamed sitting around a table with his pupils. He approached the teacher, put his hand out, and greeted him politely. To his dismay he was told by the teacher that he was in the land of the demons.

  The rich man’s son wept bitterly. Pitying him, the teacher said, “Stay here with me. I’ll hide you from them.”

  And so he did. But one day the rich man’s son had an impulse to go out for a walk. He had hardly taken two steps when a couple of demons seized him and took him to the court of Ashmodai, King of the Demons.

  “And who may you be?” said Ashmodai sternly.

  “A poor man who has been driven by misfortune into your country.”

  “A mortal, eh? A mortal!” roared Ashmodai, his eyes glowing so fiercely that the merchant’s son was certain he was about to be swallowed whole. “Your kind and my kind are not the best of friends. The question is, shall I kill you now or later?”

  The rich man’s son stood trembling while Ashmodai continued to mutter to himself. Finally the King of the Demons said, “Hmmm. Hmmm. Well … you seem a likely sort. In your case I think I’ll make an exception.” He added: “I’m going to need someone to take charge here when I go off to fight my new war.”

  And so, as the weeks passed and Ashmodai prepared to go off to war, the rich man’s son settled down in the demon’s kingdom. With each passing day Ashmodai grew fonder and fonder of the mortal and trusted him more and more.

  One day Ashmodai sent for the rich man’s son. “Well, sir, I’m off to war. Here, take these,” he said, handing over a great bunch of iron keys. “You can go anywhere you like except into the last room over there—the one that is opened by this key,” he said, clinking the smallest key in the bunch. “That room is forbidden,” he said grimly.

  The demon turned on his heel and marched his army off to war.

  Left alone, the rich man’s son wandered from room to room admiring the wealth and luxury he found everywhere. Finally he came to the
room into which he had been forbidden to go. He paused, terribly tempted to open the door with the little key, whose clink he seemed to be hearing once again.

  But it was not the sound of the key he heard. Oh, no. It was a sound much more beautiful. A sound so enchanting that he pressed himself against the door to hear it better. It was a woman singing. For a while he listened; then, overcome by the melody, he unlocked the door and went in.

  The woman turned, and he saw that she was as dazzlingly beautiful as her song. And she, the moment that she saw him, flung her arms around him and kissed him.

  Then, all at once, there was a dreadful racket. Suddenly Ashmodai stood in front of them, red and wrathful, his eyes flashing, his sword drawn, ready to kill. “You,” he raged, “you! Were you not warned to stay out? Were you not told this room was forbidden?”

  The young woman who, of course, was Ashmodai’s daughter, seized her father’s arm. “No, Father,” she cried. “Don’t kill him, for he will be my husband.”

  At these words Ashmodai calmed down and sheathed his sword. The very next day the demon’s daughter and the merchant’s son were married, and within a year she gave birth to a son, whom they called Shloyme.

  One day as the couple were playing with their child, the rich man’s son heaved a deep sigh.

  “Why are you sighing?” asked Ashmodai’s daughter.

  “I’m sighing for the wife and son I left in the country I came from,” he answered.

  “Poor man,” said Ashmodai’s daughter. “Would you like to pay them a visit?”

  “Oh yes,” he replied.

  “Well,” she said, “why don’t you go? But you must promise not to stay longer than three months.”

  “All right,” he said. “But how will I get there?”

  “No problem,” said Ashmodai’s daughter. And with that she sent for an old demoness to take her husband back to his home. The old demoness seized the merchant’s son and flew with him through the air so swiftly that he was back in his own country within hours. And there she left him.

  His wife and child were delighted to see him, and he was so overjoyed to be there that he completely forgot his promise to return after three months. When the time was up, demons appeared in his dreams. They bore letters from Ashmodai’s daughter, letters which he ignored. “You disregard your promise at your peril,” the letters warned, but he continued to stay where he was.

  Finally his son Shloyme appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Father: Mother and a pack of devils are at the town gate. If you don’t come home, she will destroy the town.” Frightened awake, the rich man’s son hurried off to the rabbi and told him the whole story. The rabbi convened a rabbinical court to deliberate over the matter. After several hours the court decreed that it was forbidden for a mortal and a demoness to marry. “And so,” said the rabbi, “Ashmodai’s daughter must give you a divorce.”

  When Ashmodai’s daughter heard this news, she appeared before the rabbinical court and said, “Very well. What must be, must be. I will give him the divorce. But I want one thing before we part: I want to give him one last kiss.”

  The rabbinical court granted her request, and the rich man’s son, poor fellow, suspecting nothing, stepped up to her and offered his face to be kissed. But Ashmodai’s daughter put her hands to his throat, and when he lay dead at her feet, she cried, “If I can’t have him, she can’t have him!” And with that she disappeared.

  46

  The Ram, the Basket, and the Stick

  There was a poor man who had many children and couldn’t give them anything to eat. One day he was walking along looking for food when he came to a magic forest. He rested there and then went on his way. Before long he met four forest people. When they saw him, one of them said, “Let’s kill him,” but the others said, “No, he deserves to be helped in any way we can.”

  They gave him a ram and told him, “If you say to the ram, ‘Serve me,’ it will give you whatever you want.”

  The man took the ram home and said to his children, “Take your places at the table.” The children sat down and the man told the ram, “Serve us a meal.” And at once they all had whatever they liked and as much as they wanted.

  Now, the poor man had a rich brother. When the rich man learned that his poor brother had such a wonderful ram, he came to him and said, “Here, I’ll give you a pair of oxen and wheat. Plow your land with the oxen, then sow the wheat, and you’ll have food for your children and money left over to heat your house.” The poor man gave his brother the ram for the oxen. But when he got home, he realized that there was nothing for his children to eat, so he killed the oxen and fed the meat to them. When the meat was gone, he and the children were left with nothing.

  He started off once more to look for food. Again he came to the magic forest where he had rested, and this time he met five forest people. Seeing him, one said, “Let’s kill him,” but the other four said, “No, let’s help him in any way we can.”

  And so they gave the poor man a basket and told him, “Whenever you need food, say ‘Basket, fill up,’ and the basket will provide what you need.”

  The poor man took the basket home, and when he got there he said, “Basket, fill up.” And the basket filled up with all sorts of good things, so once again there was plenty to eat.

  When his rich brother heard about the wonderful basket, he crept into the poor man’s house and stole it from him. Again the poor brother and his children were left with nothing to eat.

  And so the poor brother went to the magic forest where he had rested twice before. This time he met three forest people, one of whom said, “Let’s kill him.” But the other two said, “No, let’s help him all we can.”

  Then they gave the poor brother a stick and told him, “If anyone harms you, say ‘Stick, strike!’ and the stick will obey your command.”

  He thanked them and went home, taking the stick. Not long afterward he invited the whole town to a big celebration. His rich brother was there, showing off the ram and the basket. Seeing this, the poor man went up to the balcony of the banquet hall, took out the stick the three men had given him, and called, “Stick, strike my brother!” And the stick flew down and beat the rich brother until he cried out, “Take the ram; take the basket. They belong to you.”

  Then the poor man said, “Stick, stop beating.” And the stick stopped.

  So the poor man took back his ram and basket and became the richest man in town.

  47

  The Golden Feather

  Once upon a time there was a well-to-do householder who had twelve sons, eleven of whom were clever while one was a fool. The same man owned a mare that had twelve colts, eleven of which were handsome while one was ugly.

  The father lined up the twelve horses before his sons, and the eleven clever sons chose the eleven handsome horses. The ugly horse was left for the fool, and at this the fool began to cry.

  But the ugly horse said to him, “If you’ll stop crying and do everything I ask, I’ll tell you how to turn me into a handsome horse.”

  “All right,” said the fool, “I’ll do everything you ask.”

  “First wash me and comb me,” the horse said. “Then I’ll be handsomer than any of the other horses.”

  So the fool washed and combed him, and the horse turned very handsome. “Now,” said the horse, “harness me up and we’ll take a drive.”

  The fool harnessed him up and they drove off. As they went along they saw something glistening in the roadway. The fool said, “Stop. I want to know what that is.” The horse stopped and the fool saw that the bright thing was a golden feather from some sort of golden bird.

  The fool wanted to pick the feather up, but the horse said, “Don’t do it. I didn’t tell you to pick it up. If you do, you’re only asking for trouble.”

  The fool said, “I’m not listening to you. I want the golden feather.”

  “But,” said the horse, “you promised you’d obey me, and I tell you that if you take it, you’ll have more tro
ubles than you ever dreamed.”

  But the fool wouldn’t listen. He picked the feather up, and they went on their way into a dense forest, where they became lost. And the darker it grew, the brighter the feather glowed. The fool was delighted.

  “Go on,” said the horse, “be happy. Your troubles will come soon enough.” But the fool ignored him.

  They went deeper into the woods, until all at once they saw a hut. The fool said, “Stop here, horse. Let’s go to the hut and spend the night there.”

  “No,” said the horse, “don’t do that.”

  But the fool ignored him and went into the hut, where he found three young peasant women sitting. “Can we spend the night?” he asked.

  “We can’t say,” they replied. “Our mother is a witch whose name is Bobe Ha. She’ll be home soon and you can ask her yourself.”

  The fool showed them the golden feather, which lighted up the entire hut. The peasant women shivered with pleasure and said, “It’s a truly beautiful feather, but we can’t give you permission to spend the night. You’ll have to wait until Bobe Ha comes back.”

  Just then Bobe Ha showed up with a great noise—rat-a-tat-tat, rat-a-tat-tat—for one of her feet was made of iron.

  The young women said, “They want to spend the night.” Then they showed Bobe Ha the golden feather, and she said to the fool and his horse, “Yes, you may spend the night. But you’ll have to sleep on the floor with your heads at the threshold.”

  The fool said, “That’s all right, we’ll sleep on the floor with our heads at the threshold.” Then Bobe Ha ran off once again to the woods.

  The household settled down to go to sleep. The three young peasant women lay in their usual places, while the fool and his horse lay down on the floor with their heads at the threshold.

  A little while later the horse said, “Ah, we’re in trouble. I warned you not to pick up the golden feather. I said it would get us into trouble. Bobe Ha would never have let us pass the night if we hadn’t had the feather.”