Yiddish Folktales Page 4

  Naturally every eligible young man wanted to marry her. For in addition to brilliance and birth, she had extraordinary beauty. So the first of her suitors were well-educated, important young men who thought themselves her equal. But one and all were unsuccessful. She listened to what they had to say and made no reply. The suitors, one and all, had their heads chopped off.

  Hearing about the princess, the tailor’s apprentice decided that he would seek to win her hand. “I’ll find a way to make her talk,” he said. “Anyhow what do I have to lose, sad and poor as I am?”

  He went to the king’s palace and asked to be admitted. “I’ve come to talk with the princess,” he said, “and get her to talk to me.”

  He was led into the room where the princess sat, but he acted as if he had not seen her. Instead, he looked around the room and, catching sight of a candelabrum, addressed it: “Good morning, Candelabrum. I have something to tell you, and I’d like your opinion about it when I’m done.” With that he launched into a tale.

  “Once upon a time, dear Candelabrum, there were three men who lived in a village: a woodcarver, a tailor, and a teacher. But there was not enough work in their village, so they decided to take their tools and go out into the wide world to look for employment.

  “They traveled on and on until they came to a forest, where night soon fell. They had to sleep where they were, but because they were afraid of wild animals, they agreed that each of them would stand guard for two hours.

  “The first watch was taken by the woodcarver. It was not long before he looked about for something to while away the time. He examined the pieces of wood lying around and found a fine log, which he carved into the form of a woman. He finished the statue just as his two hours were up, so he woke the tailor and went to sleep.

  “The tailor, like the woodworker, looked about for something to do. His eye fell on the statue of the naked woman, so he took his scissors and needles and several yards of cloth and sat down to sew a dress. When it was finished, he clothed the statue in it. Just then his two hours were up, so he woke the teacher and went to sleep.

  “The teacher too looked about for something to do. Suddenly he saw a lovely woman in a beautiful dress, but when he spoke to her, she remained still and silent. It seemed too bad that so splendid a woman should be unable to talk. So he sat down beside her and undertook to teach her to speak. And he was so skillful and patient that she began to learn.

  “Meanwhile the dawn came and his companions awoke and saw him in conversation with a beautiful, well-dressed woman. When each of them recognized his handiwork, he wanted her for himself. So of course all three men quarreled. The woodcarver said, ‘I carved her out of wood, so she belongs to me.’ The tailor said, ‘What? She was nothing but a naked piece of wood when I found her. I clothed her, so she belongs to me.’ The teacher said, ‘What good is a beautifully clothed dummy? I taught her to speak, so she belongs to me.’ And they went round and round. Now, dear Candelabrum, what do you think? To whom does she belong?”

  The princess, who had naturally listened to the whole story and admired the boy’s cleverness, spoke up: “Of course she belongs to the man who made her talk.”

  The youth, however, was cleverer than he was lucky. Servants had been posted in the room to report whether the boy made the princess talk and they simply didn’t hear her when she spoke. So they concluded that the boy had failed like all the others. Nor were they surprised, since he was after all so poor. And without delay they led him off to the executioner.

  Just as the sword was raised to behead the boy, Luck turned to Wisdom and said, “Well, see what you’ve accomplished with your wisdom. You did your best, but when it comes right down to it, without me you can do nothing. So let’s trade places; in a few minutes I’ll get more done than you’ve accomplished in the boy’s whole lifetime.”

  No sooner had Luck entered into him than the princess chanced to walk out onto her balcony. Seeing that the clever boy was being led to execution, she halted the procession and sent word to the king. This, she informed him, was the young man who had provoked a reply from her, and this was the one she would marry.

  The king commanded that the servants who had been about to behead the youth should themselves be executed. And the princess married the tailor’s apprentice and they lived happily ever after.

  And that was how Luck proved that he was stronger than Wisdom.

  8

  Pleasing All the World

  An old man and his ten-year-old son were leading a camel through the desert. Their way was long, the sun was hot, and they were tired. They met a man who looked at them amazed. “How foolish that you both go on foot,” he said, “when the camel was created to carry people.”

  Heeding the stranger’s words, the old man mounted the camel and his son followed on foot. A while later they met a second traveler, who said, “Have you no pity on your son? He’s still a child with tender feet; look at them, cut to ribbons. How can a father allow his own child to suffer like that?”

  The father, ashamed, dismounted and set his son upon the camel. But a while later they met a third traveler, who cried, “For shame —and in the heat of the day, too! A child has no right to ride while his old father walks.”

  So the old man hit on another idea: He and his son both mounted the camel, making themselves comfortable while the camel went on. But then they met a fourth traveler who threw up his hands in horror. “Abusing a dumb creature! Making him carry a double load! Have you no pity in your hearts?”

  The father and son quickly dismounted. The father said, “Well, there’s no help for it, we’ll just have to carry the camel ourselves. Though someone will probably come along and say that it’s stupid. No matter what we do, we can’t please all the world.”

  9

  Poverty Grows and Grows

  Once upon a time a poor man noticed that there was a naked stranger in his house. “Hey,” he shouted, “you get out of my house, do you hear?”

  “Dear sir,” said the stranger, “just look at me. How can you bring yourself to drive a naked man into the street?”

  “You’re right,” said the poor man, “that would be a sin. But tell me, who are you?”

  “You don’t recognize me? Well, to tell the truth, my name is Poverty.”

  When the poor man realized that he had Poverty living in his house, he was deeply distressed. He racked his brains for a way to get rid of him. Finally he went to a tailor’s shop, described Poverty, and ordered a suit to fit. The tailor wrote down Poverty’s measurements and went to work.

  To pay for the suit the tailor was making, the poor man had to sell everything he owned. But he gritted his teeth and bore it, because anything was better than having Poverty as a permanent guest.

  Finally the tailor delivered the suit, and Poverty put it on. “Sorry.” Poverty smiled, “It doesn’t fit.”

  The poor man turned on the tailor and cried, “How could you do this to me? I paid you good money, how come you made the suit too small?”

  “Don’t scold the tailor,” said Poverty, “it’s not his fault. It’s just that while you were spending the last of your money, I grew bigger.”

  10

  The Sacrifice of Isaac and

  the Caretaker of Brisk

  The story is told that the leading men of the community were unsatisfied with the work of the caretaker of Rabbi Yoshe-Ber’s rabbinical court in Brisk. They held a meeting and decided to fire the caretaker. Then they gave the task of dismissing him to Rabbi Yoshe-Ber, but he refused.

  “Why not, Rabbi?” the community leaders asked. “You’re the rabbi and he’s your employee.”

  “I’ll tell you,” Rabbi Yoshe-Ber replied. “Since you read and know the story of the sacrifice of Isaac, you know that when the Blessed Name commanded Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, we find that it is written that He Himself spoke as follows: ‘Take now thy son, thine only son …’ But when He commanded Abraham to spare Isaac, God sent an angel, as it is written, ‘And th
e angel called unto Abraham …’

  “This poses a question. Why was it that the Blessed Name did not send an angel at the beginning? The answer is that He knew very well that no angel would have accepted the assignment. Each of them would have said, ‘If You want to command death, You had better do it Yourself.’ ”

  11

  The Treasure at Home

  The Rebbe of Aleksander used to say, “Many people think that when they come to the rebbe, they will be helped,” And he liked to tell this tale to young people who came to see him for the first time.

  One night, Ayzik, the son of Reb Yekl, dreamed that there was a treasure hidden under the Praga side of the Warsaw bridge. So he traveled to Warsaw. At the bridge he tried to reach the spot, but a soldier was standing guard there. So he paced back and forth as he waited for the soldier to go away. The soldier meanwhile became aware of someone on the bridge, so he went up to Ayzik and asked what he wanted. Ayzik told him the truth: that he had dreamed about a treasure buried under the bridge. The soldier said, “Aw, go on. Just because I dreamed about a treasure in the oven at the home of Ayzik, Reb Yekl’s son in Cracow, doesn’t mean I have to go there.”

  Ayzik turned around and went home, where he took his oven apart and found a treasure that made him a very rich man.

  12

  A Fable of a Bird and Her Chicks

  Once upon a time a mother bird who had three chicks wanted to cross a river. She put the first one under her wing and started flying across. As she flew she said, “Tell me, child, when I’m old, will you carry me under your wing the way I’m carrying you now?”

  “Of course,” replied the chick. “What a question!”

  “Ah,” said the mother bird, “you’re lying.” With that she let the chick slip, and it fell into the river and drowned.

  The mother went back for the second chick, which she took under her wing. Once more as she was flying across the river, she said, “Tell me, child, when I’m old, will you carry me under your wing the way I’m carrying you now?”

  “Of course,” replied the chick. “What a question!”

  “Ah,” said the mother bird, “you’re lying.” With that she let the second chick slip, and it also drowned.

  Then the mother went back for the third chick, which she took under her wing. Once more she asked in mid-flight, “Tell me, child, when I am old, will you carry me under your wing the way I’m carrying you now?”

  “No, mother,” replied the third chick. “How could I? By then I’ll have chicks of my own to carry.”

  “Ah, my dearest child,” said the mother bird, “you’re the one who tells the truth.” With that she carried the third chick to the other bank of the river.

  13

  Letting In the Light

  The Rebbe of Apt once asked the Rebbe of Pshiskhe why he did not watch his disciples to make sure that they obeyed all the precepts and prayed piously. The Rebbe of Pshiskhe replied, “Let me tell you a tale.”

  Once three men were confined in a pitch-dark prison. Two of the men were intelligent, but one of them was a simpleton who knew nothing at all: he couldn’t put his clothes on, he didn’t know how to eat; nothing. One of the intelligent men worked hard to teach the simpleton to dress himself, to eat, to hold a spoon, and so on. The other intelligent man did nothing at all. One day the hardworking man asked the indifferent one, “Why don’t you make some effort to help teach the simpleton?” The other replied, “In this darkness you’ll teach him nothing, no matter how many years you spend. I use my time thinking of ways to break a hole in the wall to let in the light. When that happens, he’ll learn on his own what he needs to know.”

  14

  Bad Luck

  Once upon a time there were two brothers, one rich, the other poor. The rich brother supported the poor one, but there came a day when the rich man’s wife said, “Enough. You’ve given him enough. No more.”

  Well, what was the poor brother to do? Then he thought, “It might be a good thing to take my family and move to another town. Who knows? A change of place, a change of luck.”

  He gathered his household goods, put them and his wife and children into a wagon, and drove off. When he had gone some distance, he remembered that he had forgotten a pot. He stopped the wagon and ran back to his house for it, and inside he found a tall stranger leaning against a pillar.

  The stranger seemed very pleased to see him, which frightened the poor man. He snatched up the pot and ran off to the wagon, but looking back, he saw the stranger running after him. “Sir,” said the poor man, “what do you want from me?”

  “Don’t you know who I am?” said the stranger. “I’m your bad luck. Where you go, I go.” And he climbed into the wagon.

  Well, there was nothing to be done. So the poor man drove on with a heavy heart until they entered a forest. There he had an idea. He took his ax and went up to a huge tree and began to chop away. He swung the ax so hard that it stuck deep in the wood and wouldn’t budge.

  “See here,” he said to the tall man, “it’s true you’re my bad luck. But that doesn’t mean you can’t help me out a little. Put your fingers into the crack so I can get my ax out and we can go on our way.”

  And that’s what the tall man did. He put both his hands into the crack, and the poor man pulled out his ax and left the tall man standing there with his hands caught.

  The poor man and his wife and children drove off until they came to a city. There he went into business and, with God’s help, prospered and became rich and happy.

  When the rich brother heard the news that his poor brother was now rich, he thought, “Let’s see if I can find out what changed his luck.” So he set off on the same road his brother had taken and came to the place where the tall man was still standing with his fingers caught in the tree.

  The tall stranger wept and pleaded, “Please, please help me.”

  “How can I help you?” the rich brother asked. “What do you want me to do?”

  The tall man told him the whole story: “I’m your brother’s bad luck, and he’s run away from me. I beg you, get an ax and drive it into the crack of the tree so I can get my fingers out.”

  “If I do, will you go back to my brother?” asked the rich man.

  “Of course,” said the tall man.

  When the rich man drove the ax into the crack, the tall man pulled out his hands. Then he leaped and danced for joy and kissed the rich man. “What a good fellow!” he said. “From now on I live with you. You’re so rich that I’ll be well taken care of, and it was always a hard life with your brother.”

  And that’s what happened: the poor brother was rich, and the rich brother grew poor.

  . . .

  I never heard a maysele from my grandfather. He was always engrossed in the study of Talmudic law, in pious acts, in prayer, and in the Torah. But my grandmother—it was she who told me a maysele, or asked me a riddle. At twilight on shabes, as it got dark outside and long evening shadows fell over our ill-constructed little house, my grandmother Khane would sit me on her lap near the large clay oven and tell me a story.

  —Memoir from Pumpyan, Lithuania, ca. 1920

  Almost everyone’s experience with folktales begins in childhood. The tales in this section are for young children, and often about them too. They were told throughout the Yiddish-speaking world, and traveled to America as well. I can recall sitting in my grandmother’s lap while she combed my hair and related “Stones and Bones Rattle in My Belly” in her Ukrainian-Yiddish dialect. My children in turn remember my mother telling the same tale to them. Their favorite, though, was an adventure story about a very young hero named Bebele, Little Bean, that their grandfather, zeyde Maks, told them at bedtime.

  Some of these tales are simple and consist of a single incident, while others have a more complex plot. Rhymed verses may be part of a story, as in “Moyshele and Sheyndele,” and rhymed endings commonly recur. One favorite is:

  A hun un a hon A rooster and a hen

  D
os maysele heybt zikh on. Now my story’s begun.

  A kats un a moyz A cat and a mouse

  Dos maysele lozt zikh oys. Now my story is done.

  And another:

  A flekl arayn, a flekl aroys One spot out, one spot in

  Dos maysele iz oys. My little tale is done.

  The beginning of these tales is almost always Amol iz geven … or, “Once upon a time …” Many open with “Once upon a time there was a rabbi and his wife …” The abundant use of diminutives—the suffix -ele (“little”) is attached to many of the nouns—is a clear indicator of a tale for little folk. Indeed, the genre itself is called the maysele in Yiddish, literally, “little tale”—or kinder-maysele, “little tale for children.”

  There are several categories of kinder-mayselekh. Didactic tales such as “The Naughty Little Girl” teach the lesson of obedience to one’s parents. In “A Tale of Two Brothers” the lessons to be learned are kindness to animals and respect for nature, while the importance of good manners is dramatized in “Next Time That’s What I’ll Say.” These tales warn of what may happen to a child who is impolite or disobedient.

  Tales told from a child’s point of view make up another group. Some, like “Clever Khashinke and Foolish Bashinke,” tell of parental favoritism, of the consequent rivalry between the goody-goody and the bumbling child, and of justice restored. Others, like “Stones and Bones Rattle in My Belly,” evoke common childhood terrors, such as the fear of being left alone. Yet others, like “Moyshele and Sheyndele,” test the limits of disobedience, sometimes with drastic consequences. “Next Time That’s What I’ll Say,” and “Little Bean” are tales told by children.

  Finally there are the nonsense tales that form part of the humorous repertoire of and for the very young. They are called lign-mayselekh“little fibbing tales,” or tales that are nisht geshtoygn, nisht gefloygn—far-fetched; literally, “that neither ascend nor fly.” Their humor lies in a continuous flow of contradictions, nonsequitors, and strange juxtapositions of people and events. They were especially popular at Purim, the holiday that celebrates the defeat of Haman in his plans to destroy the Jews of Persia during the reign of King Ahaseurus. A carnival mood pervades this holiday, and nonsense tales were part of the revelry.