7Berkeh: Every year, on February 21st , people around the world celebrate “International Mother Language Day”. This day has been recognized by UNESCO since 1999. On this occasion, we read the old story of “Malek Mammad[1] and His Foal”, which is one of the folktales of the people of Gerash, still recounted by generations as a piece of our literary heritage.
See the Persian and Gerashi translations here. This story is a translation from a Persian version by Fatemeh Abaziyan.
The Tale of Malek Mammad and His Foal
Once upon a time, there was a little boy called Malek Mammad who lived with his father in a small village. Malek Mammad did not have a mother, and the place of his mother was taken by his father’s malicious wife, who did not like Malek Mammad. Malek Mammad had a foal. He kept it in the barn. The foal could talk with Malek Mammad, its owner. Every day, Malek Mammad went to maktab. When he got home, the first thing he did was to go to his horse that was always in the barn. The barn was next to Malek Mammad’s home and the foal kept him informed about the events that occurred in the house when he was away.
“You need to kick your son out of the house. I really can’t stand him. This place is either mine or his,” Malek Mammad’s stepmother told her husband one day. “No. Impossible! If you are my wife, he is my son. I won’t,” her husband answered. When the stepmother found out that her husband will not kick his son out, she planned to kill Malek Mammad.
One day, she poured poison into Malek Mammad’s jar of water so that when he came home from maktab, he would drink the poisoned water and die. The foal could see Malek Mammad’s home from the hole of its barn and heard the plot. When Malek Mammad came back, the foal asked him not to drink of his water jar that day. It recounted the tale for its owner. The next day, the stepmother poured poison into his food. Again, the foal discovered it and frustrated the stepmother who wished Malek Mammad dead. The woman wondered why her plan was not working and said to herself, “Malek Mammad’s father doesn’t know about my plans, so who’s telling him all this?!”
One day, when Malek Mammad came to the barn from maktab, the stepmother chased him slowly to find out what was going on. Malek Mammad went to the barn and she overheard him next to the barn and sneaked a glance. When she saw that Malek Mammad was talking with his foal, her eyes were about to pop out in astonishment. “Whatever is going on, it’s because of this horse,” she thought to herself. This time she plotted to kill the horse. She pretended to be sick and went to a doctor, gave him bribes and asked him to tell a lie to her husband that she is sick and that the medicine for her pain is the meat of Malek Mammad’s horse. The doctor brought the issue up with the husband and he agreed and said: “all right. So, when Malek Mammad is at maktab, we will cut off the foal’s head so he will be less upset.”
That day, when Malek Mammad came back from maktab, the foal recounted him the plot of its head going to be cut off. The next day arrived, and it was time for Malek Mammad to go to maktab, and by noon, his horse was going to be secretly slaughtered out of his sight. Before he left, he put some tobacco in his pocket and some dry dates in his other pocket and went to maktab. It was not noon yet when he ran in the yard to escape from maktab. Mollah caught him to prevent his escape. Malek Mammad poured some tobacco in Mollah’s face and left him as he shouted, “ouch, my eyes! … ouch, my eyes!” He kept running. The other children who saw Mollah like this, chased Malek Mammad to catch him. He scattered some dry dates for them to get busy eating them and to leave him alone.
He escaped from maktab and arrived home and saw that they were ready to cut the horse’s head off. He asked his father to let him ride his foal for the last time and to turn around the yard a few times. His father allowed this. Malek Mammad turned around the yard on his horse. He turned and turned and turned on his horse until the horse flew and rose into the air.
The foal went higher and higher and higher until it disappeared and arrived over a small village and landed there. “I can’t come with you anymore. You have to go alone and enter the city. Let’s just do something to lessen your beauty. Because you’re so beautiful and I’m afraid someone will envy you. By the way, you saved my life. Cut off some strands of my hair and whenever you get into trouble, set them on fire. I’ll come and help you.”
Malek Mammad accepted the offer and took some strands of his horse’s hair and promised to do something to lessen his beauty. On his way, he found an animal’s skin, made a hat out of it and put it on, hoping that the ugliness of the hat would hide his beauty. He entered the city and arrived at a mosque. “Don’t you want a servant for the mosque?”, he asked the locals. “We need one, but you are so young”, they said. “I’ll work like an adult man,” he answered, so they accepted him as a servant and gave him a room next to the mosque as his resort at nights.
Across from the mosque was the palace of the king of the city. The king had seven daughters, but no son. The window of the seventh daughter’s room was exactly across from the window of Malek Mammad’s room. King’s daughter looked at Malek Mammad every night, when he came back from the mosque. He had even seen how beautiful Malek Mammad is without that ugly hat.
Days passed by one after another and the king’s daughters grew up. It was time for them to get married. It was announced in the city that every noble boy who loved to be the king’s son-in-law could come to the palace. All gathered in the palace and the king called his daughters. “Every one of you choose one of these boys as your husband,” he said. They began from the oldest daughter until they reached the king’s youngest daughter. “I don’t want any of them,” she said. “But apart from these, there is no handsome young man worthy of being the king’s son-in-law,” everyone said.
The princess sent some people after Malek Mammad and so she introduced her husband to her family. When the daughter’s sisters saw him with his ridiculous hat, they mocked the daughter and tried to stop her, but she did not listen to them at all. The king did not oppose too, but said, “from now on, you have to live out of the palace,” and gave her a lame horse and a rusty sword as dowry, which caused the young princess to be mocked by her sisters; however, she still loved Malek Mammad and did not pay attention to them at all.
The days passed and the news arrived that the king was gravely ill, and the cure for his pain was the meat of the head of a deer. Of course, hunting a deer was very difficult. So, the king said, “each one of my sons-in-law who could hunt a deer, would be my successor.”
The news reached Malek Mammad. “Now it’s the best time to prove myself”, he thought to himself. However, hunting a deer was very difficult. He remembered his horse and some strands of its hair that he had. He set the hairs on fire and the horse came to his help. They thought a lot together until they came up with a plan. Malek Mammad went on a mountain that had deer and set up a green tent to attract the attention of the deer. His trick worked and the deer gathered around the tent one after another. Malek Mammad took his hat off and sat in the tent.
On the other hand, six of the king’s sons-in-law were looking for a deer hopelessly until they arrived at Malek Mammad’s tent. They had not seen him without the hat before and so they did not recognize him. They asked him to sell them some of his deer. Malek Mammad agreed, but told them that he had two conditions. “Firstly, I would not give the head of the deer to anyone. Secondly, instead of money, I want to mark a spot under your shoulder blades with a hot ladle,” he said. They had no choice but to accept Malek Mammad’s conditions, and they made a promise among themselves not to say a word about the incident to their wives. Malek Mammad came home with the heads of the deer and asked his wife to cook them and take them to her father. He also said to his wife that if her sisters mocked her again, she could mock their husbands in revenge and tell them the story.
When she arrived at the palace, they teased her as usual and she mocked their husbands conversely. Her sisters went to their husbands and they asked them to recount the incident. The husbands told the wives about the day of hunting. “But that young man who sat in the tent was not your sister’s husband. He was a very handsome man. How does your sister know?” they said. The sisters returned to their younger sister and asked her to tell how she knew the story. The princess talked about the beauty of Malek Mammad and the hat he wore to hide his beauty. As such, the king’s seventh daughter returned to the palace with her husband and Malek Mammad ruled as the king’s successor in the palace.
[1] It is “Malek Mohammad” in its Persian name. “Malek Mammad” is pronounced in local accent. “Malek” also means “king” in Persian.
