I’ve been collecting and telling stories for a couple of decades now, having had several of my own fictional works published in recent years. My particularly focus is on short story writing in the realms of magical realities and science fiction fantasies.
I’ve always drawn heavily on traditional folk and fairy tales, and in so doing have amassed a digital collection of many thousands of these tales from around the world. It has been one of my long-standing ambitions to gather these stories together and to create a library of tales that tell the stories of places and peoples around the world.
One of the main motivations for me in undertaking the project is to collect and tell stories that otherwise might be lost or, at best, be forgotten by predominantly English-speaking readers. Given that a lot of my sources are from early collectors, particularly covering works produced in the late eighteenth century, throughout the nineteenth century, and in the early years of the twentieth century, I do make every effort to adapt stories for a modern reader. Early collectors had a different world view to many of us today, and often expressed views about race and gender, for example, that we find difficult to reconcile in the early years of the twenty-first century. I try, although with varying degrees of success, to update these stories with sensitivity while trying to stay as true to the original spirit of each story as I can.
I also want to assure readers that I try hard not to comment on or appropriate originating cultures. It is almost certainly true that the early collectors of these tales, with their then prevalent world views, have made assumptions about the originating cultures that have given us these tales. I hope that you’ll accept my mission to preserve these tales, however and wherever I find them, as just that. I have, therefore, made sure that every story has a full attribution, covering both the original collector / writer and the collection title that this version has been adapted from, as well as having notes about publishers and other relevant and, I hope, interesting source data. Wherever possible I have added a cultural or indigenous attribution as well, although for some of the titles, the country-based theme is obvious.
This volume, Tales from the Meddahs, is the first in a set of collections covering indigenous tales from what we in Europe know now as The Middle East. Tales from the Meddahs covers a wide range of sources and tales that have emerged from the post-Byzantine traditions of the Turkish peoples.
These collections will grow over coming years to tell lost and forgotten tales from every continent, and even then, I’ll just be scratching the surface of the world’s lore and love. That’s the great gift in storytelling. Since the first of our ancestors sat around in a cave, contemplating an ape’s place in the world, we have, as a species, continued to tell each other stories of magic and cunning and caution and love. All those years ago, when I began to read through tales from the Celts, tales from Indonesia, tales from Africa and the Far East, tales from everywhere, one of the things that struck me clearly was just how similar are our roots. We share characters and characteristics. The nature of these tales is so similar underneath the local camouflage. Human beings clearly share a storytelling heritage so much deeper than the world that we see superficially as always having been just as it is now.
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Preface
Madschun
The Gardener And His Wife
How The Hodja Saved Allah
The Widow And Her Friend
Better Is The Folly Of Woman Than The Wisdom Of Man
The Old Man And His Son
The Hanoum And The Unjust Cadi
What Happened To Hadji, A Merchant Of The Bezestan
The Lion And The Man
How The Junkman Travelled To Find Treasure In His Own Backyard
The Shark
How Chapkin Halid Became Chief Detective
The Clown Turned First Soldier, Then Merchant
The Ghost Of The Spring And The Shrew
The Boy Who Found Fear At LAst
The River And Its Source
Stone-Patience And Knife-Patience
How Cobbler Ahmet Became The Chief Astrologer
The Lamb And The wolf
The Serpent-Peri And The Magic Mirror
The Wise Son Of Ali Pasha
The Insects, The Bee, And The Ant
The Merciful Khan
The Padishah Of The Forty Peris
The Fox And The Crab
The Prayer Rug And The Dishonest Steward
The World’s Most Beauteous Damsel
The Goats And The Wolves
The Goose, The Eye, The Daughter, And The Arm
The Forty Princes And The Seven-Headed Dragon
The Lion, The Wolf, And The Fox
The Forty Wise Men
The Crow-Peri
The Fox And The Sparrow
How The Priest Knew That It Would Snow
The Syrian Priest And The Young Man
The Wind-Demon
Who Was The Thirteenth Son
The Converted Cat
The Magic Turban, The Magic Whip, And The Magic Carpet
Paradise Sold By The Yard
The Horse And His Rider
The Piece Of Liver
The Archer And The Trumpeter
The Metamorphosis
The Wolf, The Fox, And The Shepherd’s Dog
The Calif Omar
The Cinder-Youth
Kalaidji Avram Of Balata
How Mehmet Ali Pasha Of Egypt Administered Justice
The Horse-Devil And The Witch
How The Farmer Learned To Cure His Wife-A Turkish Æsop
The Silent Princess
The Golden-Haired Children
The Language Of Birds
The Swallow’s Advice
Mad Mehmed
We Know Not What The Dawn May Bring Forth
Old Men Made Young
The Rose-Beauty
The Bribe
The Three Orange-Peris
How The Devil Lost His Wager
The Stag-Prince
The Effects Of Raki
Historical Notes
About The Editor