Folk Tales of Malta — Part 1 (Golden-Ear · Leila and Keila · The Purse · The Bird Whose Song Made People a Year Younger)
Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices.
Part one — the premiere of a new shelf. Four folk tales of Malta, taken down by dictation on Malta and Gozo in the spring of 1903 and printed in Hans Stumme's Maltesische Märchen (Leipzig, 1904), heard in a fresh English translation made for KacheliTV from Stumme's German. In Golden-Ear, a little girl whose golden hair trails along the ground borrows a sorceress's magic wand — and pays one hair for every wish she makes, until the hair can be earned back by good works. In Leila and Keila, two devoted friends outwit the wicked governor who squeezed three hundred ounces of gold out of the poor carpenter, and win the money back from him — with interest. In The Purse, Zeppi finds a fortune and trades it away step by step — purse for house, house for garden, garden for ship, ship for horse, and so down to a dog that runs off — and goes back to his work as poor as he began. And in The Bird Whose Song Made People a Year Younger, Giuseppe buries a stranger's unburied corpse, wins his brothers back from the sorceress of the shining palace, and fetches the bird that stays silent for everyone but him. The second tale's scene is the Ottoman world of the Maltese storytellers' stock abroad; the collection itself is Malta's own, as Stumme's introduction records. The episode opens and closes with its theme, Imperial Violin Masquerade, heard also briefly between the stories.
Chapters
0:37 Golden-Ear
4:30 Leila and Keila
13:03 The Purse
18:53 The Bird Whose Song Made People a Year Younger
Twenty more of the book's tales are not read on this shelf, each excluded by name after a full reading: Little Ball · The Princess Who Slept a Hundred Years · The Golden Eagle · The Letter · The Fisherman's Son · Dschahan (the first) · Dschahan (the second) · The Ape That Carried Off a Girl · Angiolina · Sun and Moon · The Seven-Headed Serpent · The Seven Crooked Lemons · The Golden Lion · The Capuchins · The Gentleman in the Box · Caterina · The Schoolmistress · The Three Accusations · The Seven-Headed Dragon · The Man and His Sister. A twenty-first tale, The Seven Sleepers, is a saint legend and stands parked with the sacred texts. Seven further tales stand benched for a later ruling and are not read here: The Cat · The Three Wishes · Diamantina · The Priest Don Paulo · Margherita · Dschahan and the Chickpea (the fuller telling) · Of a Boy Who Fled from His Parents' House. Five clean tales are held on the bench for Part 2: Little Wrinkle-Rag · The Priest Don Isidoro · The Niece · The Jackal and the Hedgehog · Dschahan and the Chickpeas. The book's poems and riddles are not tales and are not read on this shelf. No claim of completeness for the book is made.
From Maltesische Märchen, Gedichte und Rätsel by Hans Stumme (Leipzig, 1904), public domain — complete and in book order, in a fresh English translation from Stumme's German made for KacheliTV. Narrated by Lulu. Theme: Imperial Violin Masquerade.
KacheliTV — world classics, read aloud.
