Folk Tales of Algeria — Part 2: Si Djeh'a and the Miller
Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices.
Nineteen pieces in Part Two. Sixteen anecdotes of Si Djeh'a, the Kabyle trickster, collected and translated by Auguste Mouliéras and published at Paris in 1892 in Les fourberies de Si Djeh'a (The Tricks of Si Djeh'a) — told to Mouliéras by a Kabyle teller of the Beni Jennad, in Kabylia. Then two animal tales from René Basset's Nouveaux contes berbères (New Berber Tales, 1897), from Ouargla and the Oued Righ, and a short treasure fragment from Basset's first collection of 1887, from Bou Semghoun. The borrowed pot that gave birth — and could therefore die; the nail that won a house back; the sauce of the hare served to the neighbour of a neighbour; a frog who would not be fetched home. Fresh in-house English translation from the French texts.
In this episode:
• Introduction — 0:35
• Si Djeh'a and the Miller — 1:33
• Si Djeh'a Wants to Buy an Ass — 2:42
• Si Djeh'a and the Hen — 3:58
• Si Djeh'a and the Meat — 5:19
• The Roast Kid — 6:24
• Si Djeh'a and His Visitors — 7:21
• Si Djeh'a and the Holed Pot — 8:12
• Si Djeh'a and the Men Who Were Eating — 8:58
• Si Djeh'a and His Guests — 9:49
• Si Djeh'a Divides the Sheep — 10:39
• Si Djeh'a at the Bath — 11:28
• Si Djeh'a and the Bread — 12:50
• Si Djeh'a and the Borrowed Pot — 13:43
• Si Djeh'a and the Sauce of the Hare — 15:11
• Si Djeh'a and the Nail — 16:45
• Si Djeh'a and the Man from His Own Village — 20:35
• The Frog and the Tortoise — 23:40
• The Cat and the Old Rat — 27:43
• The Treasure of Ghoundjaia — 29:05
Sources: Auguste Mouliéras, Les fourberies de Si Djeh'a — Contes kabyles (Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1892); René Basset, Nouveaux contes berbères (Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1897), Nos. 64 and 67; René Basset, Contes populaires berbères (Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1887), No. 44. These are the Algerian Kabyle tellings of Djeh'a, a cousin in wit to Nasreddin Hodja, billed by their own books — not a re-telling of the Nasreddin shelf. All texts are in the public domain.
A note on this episode: the pieces not told are not hidden. Every tale in the follow-on material named for this part was read in full and stands named in our catalogue record — some set aside by name (violent matter is left out, never softened), some held for a ruling, and the Zénaga-provenanced piece stands down from this shelf on provenance.
Narrated by Silas.
Opening and closing theme: "Ancient Canopy" — from Nick's own instrumental library.
A tipping disclosure plays inside this episode, in the programme's own voice: this podcast runs a strict no-money tipping policy — tip us with a like and a subscription; it costs you precisely nothing.
Cover art: Si Djeh'a carries the borrowed pot — with its little one inside — through a Kabyle mountain village, a frog and a tortoise at his feet, storybook style.
KacheliTV presents the world's folk tales in English — a new shelf of the library, built tale by tale.
