Part Two of the Palestine shelf: more folk tales 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. With this part, Hanauer's book has been read through in full for this shelf. As in Part One, only its secular folk tales and anecdotes of wit and kindness are read aloud, in the order they stand in the book; the book's legends of saints, prophets and miracles are set aside under the shelf's standing rule, and every tale set aside stands named, with its reason, in the shelf register — nothing is silently dropped, and no completeness is claimed. One tale, "The Emperor
Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices.of China's Pig," stands held by name and is not read here.
The Ring — a shopkeeper misses a valuable ring and can prove nothing, until a rabbi's one question, asked "in Hebrew, in tones of excited pleading," makes the thief confess himself. Thaljiyeh, the Snow-Maiden — the Palestinian Cinderella: a motherless drudge, a jinniyeh in the cistern who fills her bucket with jewels, a lost shoe of red Damascus leather, and a sheykh's son who swears thrice to marry its owner. The Ill-Used Camels — Haj Ahmad Izreyk of Damascus cannot die until he is forgiven, and the camels forgive him everything except being made to follow a wretched little donkey. The Dog and the Cat — the charter of exemption, the envious rat, and how the friendship ended; with the second telling, of the dogs who borrowed the jackals' place and would not give it back. The Dog That Left a Will — a Moslem buries his beloved Slugi with honour, and disarms the Kadi with the dog's last bequest. The Fox Feigning Dead — a fox plays corpse three times on the market road, and a peasant-woman's fowls pay for her second thoughts.
Chapters:
0:00 Introduction
2:19 The Ring
4:20 Thaljiyeh, the Snow-Maiden
14:15 The Ill-Used Camels
17:51 The Dog and the Cat
20:21 The Dog That Left a Will
21:33 The Fox Feigning Dead
J. E. Hanauer, Folk-Lore of the Holy Land (Duckworth & Co., 1907) — public domain.
Narrated by Magnolia. Music: opening and closing theme, "Blazing Fire," also heard as a short separator between the stories — the tales themselves are read dry.
KacheliTV — world classics, read aloud.
