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C. F. F Center of Folktales and Folklore |
The Folktale Corner The prophet
Issa (Jesus), son of Miriam) Mary) A Jewish
folktale from Yemen Issa the prophet walked one day in the
forest. He sees a little child on the ground, crying. This child – he had no
father. His mother threw him away – a bastard. The child cried – he is a
little child. He is crying. He does not know how to talk yet. Issa prayed to
God to make the child talk. Issa asks him: "The son of whom you are? What are you doing in
the forest?" The child stood up and answered him:
"I have no father and I don't know who threw me like that." Said Issa: "I’ll
take you with me, but you have to listen to me (to obey me)." Said the child:
"All right, Sir, I'll listen to you." Issa brought him to
a nice place, magnificent palace, and said to the child:
"There are seven rooms in this house. Watch them, but you aloud to open
only six rooms. The seventh room you should not open." The child played for a while. At last he began to open the rooms. He opened six. The
seventh one he did not open. Days passed like this. At last
the child thought in his heart: 'what will happen if I open the last room?' I'll take nothing from there, I'll only look'. And he opened and saw a whole world: town, streets,
fields. And he saw a man walking. After him a camel goes and it wants to eat this man. The child thinks: 'The man does not know that a camel follows him
and wants to eat him. I'll say (warn him) – that he
will go aside [=run away]. He thought and said. And
he just finished the talking – everything vanished, and he is in the forest
as it was in the beginning. Issa came once more to the forest,
changed his face so that the child will not recognize him, and he asks the child: "What are you doing here?" The boy answered: "I was in a nice
place. I did good, and I don't know why one threw me
out of there." Said Issa:
"Because you opened the seventh room." Said the boy:
"Yes, but if someone takes me there once more, I'll not open any
more." Said
Issa: "I'll take you once more, but if you open, it will not be
good." The child in the nice palace plays in
six rooms. One day he did not resist, he opened the seventh room too. He
thought in his heart: 'This time I'll just look and
say not a word'. He opened the room and he sees: butchers stand, sell good
meat – fresh lamb meat – one kilo for lira, and on the side one sells camel
meat, stinky, dirty, one kilo for five liras. And
people buy spitefully the bad and expensive meat and not the good [meat]. The
child was wandering a lot and he talks with his heart (=talks to himself)
'May be they do not know about the bad meat?' and he said in a loud voice: "Good people, why you buy the bad and stinky
meat? There is right there good and cheap meat!" The child just said these words and
already he is back again in the forest. Issa comes to him, asks him: "Who left you in this forest?" The child answered: "I am really
blameless, I wanted only good. I'll explain to
you." Said issa: "I know everything.
I'll take you third time to my house, but you watch over not to open." The child promised and they went
(there). The child thinks in his heart: 'if I open this time, I'll not talk – what ever will
be!' He opened and saw a man chops wood,
makes a bundle and tries to put it on his back, but it is too heavy, he
cannot pick it up, so he adds (more) wood and tries again. He does like this
all day long. The child wanders: 'what a crazy!
Instead of decrease he increases! I must tell and
help him.' And so he says
to the man what to do and he is once more in the forest. Issa came to him and asked him: "Why did not you listen to me? You were in nice
place and now you are in the forest!" The child answers: "I am not guilty,
I'll explain to you and we shall see who is to be blamed." Says Issa:
"What? You are guilty!" The child asks:
"In what?" Issa answers:
"The place where you have been was the next world. What did you see at
the first time?" The child answers: "I saw a poor
man that a camel wanted to eat him, and I told him to be careful." Issa answered: "You should know:
the camel is the angel of death. If son of Adam knew that the angel of death
follows him he would do no work, he would not take a wife." The child answered: "Forgive me
sir, I did not know." Issa asked:
"What did you see at the second time?" The child answered: "I saw butchers
sell good and clean meat and for cheap price and one butcher sells bad and
stinky meat and for expensive price and people bought spitefully the bad
meat." Issa said:
"The good meat it is the women at home, the clean ones. And people run instead to the stinky meat, to the stinky
prostitutes and pay high price. They know they do wrong, and one should not
tell it to them. And what did you see at the third time?" The child answered: "I saw a man
tries to lift a bundle of wood and it is heavy. And so he added more wood
instead of decreasing from the load, and he could not lift it." Issa said:
"This is man and his sin. Every day man collects new sins and if at the
morning he knew that he has a bundle of sins from yesterday, he would do
nothing from fearing that he will sin anew and he would only cry about the
pass sins." The child said: "Forgive me Sir, I did not know all this. Now really I'll not open the
door anymore." Issa said:
"Now you don't have atonement, only if you die!" "All right", said the child
"I will die." Issa prayed to God and the child died
and arrived to the Garden of Eden. _____________________ I think that it is quite interesting and
unusual combination: a Jewish story about Christian hero, told
in a Moslem country. Issa is the Moslem name of Jesus Christ. Yehuda
Yefet Shvili, a Yemen Jew, was one of the most productive traditional
storytellers that recorded in the IAF (The Israel Folktale Archives named in
honor of Dov Noy in Haifa University). The story is listed
as IFA 72 in the archive. The repertoire of
Yehuda Yefet Shvili is very impressive: 243 of his stories were
written down in the archive. This story is one of about 20 stories
that were written down during a storytelling event, where about half of the
stories were confrontation stories (between Jews and their neighbors). The story was written down by Heda Yazon in 1957. Prof. Div Noy published a whole book
dedicated to the stories of Yehuda Yefet Shvili in German:
Jefet Schwili erzahlt, Hundertneunundsechzig
jemenitische Volkserzahlungen aufgezeichnet in Israel, (hrsg. von Dov
Noy, 1957-1960), Berlin, W. de Gruyter, 1963. Instead of retelling the story, I chose
to bring it in a literally translation, exactly as it was told by the
storyteller |