Part One of a new shelf: folk tales of Palestine, from Folk-Lore of the Holy Land: Moslem, Christian and Jewish (London: Duckworth & Co., 1907) by J. E. Hanauer (1850–1938), Canon of St. George's Cathedral in Jerusalem and a member of the Palestine Exploration Fund, who lived most of his life in the land whose stories he gathered; the volume was edited by Marmaduke Pickthall. Billed by collector and book, as the tales Hanauer collected; not a survey of all Palestinian tradition, and no completeness is claimed. Much of Hanauer's book is given to saints, prophets and miracles, and those legends are set aside under this shelf's standing rule; what is read here are its secular folk tales and anecdotes of wit and kindness, taken in the order they stand in the book — every tale set aside stands named, with its reason, in the shelf register.
Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices.
Johha the Jester — the famous trickster counts his twelve donkeys and keeps finding eleven, keeps one peg of his sold house and hangs his rights upon it, and lends a saucepan that gives birth and a cauldron that dies. Ibrahim Pasha and the Door — the governor of Jaffa has a burgled goldsmith's door flogged, twice, until it whispers the thief's name. The Two Wazirs — a sultan's two wazirs dispute birth against education, with a trained cat, a mouse, and two answers about the dawn. Stretch Your Legs According to Your Coverlet — a merchant feigns illness to test his three sons, and the youngest cures him with a proverb. He Only Moved the Tent-Peg — a young devil on pilgrimage swears to harm no living thing, and keeps his oath, after a fashion. The Two Beggars — two roast fowls, one stuffed with gold, are sold twice over for a single small coin. The Upright Judge — the Kadi Abdallah el Mustakim fills a sack with a widow's stolen earth, and asks the Caliph who seized her land to lift it.
Chapters:
0:00 Introduction
2:30 Johha the Jester
9:36 Ibrahim Pasha and the Door
12:58 The Two Wazirs
16:11 Stretch Your Legs According to Your Coverlet
20:11 He Only Moved the Tent-Peg
22:47 The Two Beggars
25:51 The Upright Judge
J. E. Hanauer, Folk-Lore of the Holy Land (Duckworth & Co., 1907) — public domain.
Narrated by Madame de Pamplemousse. Music: opening and closing theme, "The Cello's Unfinished Promise 2," also heard as a short separator between the stories — the tales themselves are read dry.
KacheliTV — world classics, read aloud.
Palestine folk tales · Holy Land folklore · J. E. Hanauer · Folk-Lore of the Holy Land · Johha · Juha tales · Arabic folk tales · world folk tales · free audiobook
