Persian Tales - Volume II - Bakhtiari Tales - Illustrated by Hilda Roberts. D. L. Lorimer
must have been listening and have taken fright and run away. Then she scratched her face and cut off her hair and cried out: “My sons are lost! Do you see what misfortune has fallen on my head? The old woman deceived me. I killed the bird, and my sons have run away for good. I fell in love with a strange man, and I haven’t even got what I wanted!”
Now. old Father Thorn - gatherer came back from wherever he had been to, and saw his wife mourning with her hair cut off and her face all scratched. “Woman,” said he, “whatever has happened to you?” “Ashes on my head!” she replied, “my sons have disappeared!” So the Thorn-cutter fell to weeping too, and from grief for their sons both of them became blind.
Now hear what befell the boys. They travelled along together for several days, and every night there was a hundred tumāns under the pillow of Mahmad, who had the bird’s liver round his neck. At last they came to where the road divided into two, and they saw inscribed on a stone that if any two persons both went along one road they would die, and that one of them must take the left-hand road and one the right. The one who went to the left, after many hardships, would attain his desire, and the one who went to the right would likewise secure his, but more easily. They sat down and threw their arms round each other’s neck and wept. Then said Ahmad: “O Brother, what good will come crying? Let us get up and be off.” So they rose up, and Ahmad held to the right and Mahmad to the left, and they started off on their different ways.
Wherever Mahmad spent the night a hundred tumāns turned up under his pillow. As he approached a certain village a Castle came into view, and as he went along the road he saw a number of people sitting in the midst of dust and ashes. He went up and inquired of them: “Why are you sitting like this?” “Friend,” said they, “we are all sons of a merchant and khān, and we owned great possessions. Now there is a Lady who lives in this Castle, and she takes a hundred tumāns a night to let a man spend the night in it. In this way we have spent every penny we had, and now we haven’t the face to go back to our own country, nor have we anything more to give the woman. So we have no choice but to stay here.”
“This is the very place for me,” thought Mahmad to himself, and he went up to the Castle and said: “I have a hundred tumāns, may I stay for the night?” “By all means,” said they, and he paid the money and stayed. Now the Lady of the Castle had several slave-girls who were like herself; no one could escape from them. One of these slave-girls came and sat down with him, and they kept each other company till morning.
When it was daylight the slave-girl said: “Be off with you,” but he said: “I am going to stay here to-night too.” “Very well,” said she. He stayed for several nights, and the woman said to herself: “Where is he getting all this money from? We saw that he came here without any animals or property, and now he gives us a hundred tumāns every day. I must watch what he does.” One day she watched, and saw that he put his hand under his head and brought out a hundred tumāns and handed it over. Then she understood that he must have the liver of the mountain bird as a talisman, and she came and told her mistress.
Thereupon the Lady of the Castle came and gave him some old wine with a drug in it which threw him into a deep sleep. When he was unconscious she took the amulet from him and hung it round her own neck. Then she beat him on the back of the head and turned him out, and she sent a man with him saying: “Take him and turn him out, and then come back yourself.” The man did so, and Mahmad went his way.
Night overtook him, and he lay down and slept just where he was, and when morning came he found there was no hundred tumāns under his pillow nor anything else, and his amulet was gone. He pursued his way over a wide desert till he came to a flat open space, where he found three men sitting together quarrelling. He went up to them and said: Friends, who are you, and why are you quarrelling?” “We are the sons of Malik Ahmad, merchant of Bīdābād,” said they, “and we have come into our father’s estate, for he himself has died. Now all the estate has been dissipated and only these three articles remain to us, and we cannot agree how to divide them peaceably.” Then they asked: “Who are you?”
“I am the son of the Qāzī of a town,” said he. “Excellent,” replied they. “Now, Qāzī, just apportion these things for us.” “Bring them here, then,” said he. Now he perceived that these men were the sons of the very man who had been his mother’s companion, and from whom he and Ahmad had fled.
They brought the articles, and he saw that they were a bag, a carpet, and an antimony vial. “Very good,” said he, “now what is the particular virtue of each of these?” “The peculiarity of the bag,” said they, “is that if you put your hand into it and pray you will find in it whatsoever you wish for; and if you sit on the carpet and say: ‘O Your Majesty King Sulémān, carry me off,’ it will bear you off to wheresoever you wish; and as for the antimony vial, when you paint the antimony on your eyelids, then wherever you may choose to go no one will be able to see you.”
“Very good,” said Mahmad, “now do you know what you must do?” “No,” said they.
“Well,” said he, “I have a bow and arrow here; I will shoot the arrow and you three will run after it, and whoever first brings it back will be the owner of all three articles. The brothers all agreed to this, saying: “Let them all belong to one; it will be better so.” Mahmad then placed the arrow against the string of his bow and shot it with all his strength, and all three started off at full speed, each jealous of the other, and each thinking: “I must get back first and win all three things.”
But while they ran off after the arrow, Mahmad sat down on the carpet and rose up into the air, saying: “Take me to the Castle of the Lady,” and he sped away through the air. When the three brothers saw him flying off they beat their heads and said: “Now, do you see what we’ve gone and done? We have told the fellow the peculiar properties of the bag, the carpet, and the vial, and now he has gone off and taken them with him!” But from up in the air Mahmad shouted to them: “Don’t beat yourselves! The right man has come to his rights. It was your father who forced my brother and me to flee for our lives.”
Straightway he arrived at the foot of the Castle and hid away the things and went up to the gate. The Lady of the Castle saw him coming and said: “So you’ve come back, have you?” “Yes,” said he, “and I’ve brought something for you. It wasn’t possible to bring it here; we must go and look for it together.” The woman’s greed was awakened, so she got up and went with him, and they took their seats on the carpet. Mahmad prayed: “Take us to the foot of the Haur Tree1 in the middle of the sea.” Immediately they rose up and travelled through the air till they came to the Haur Tree in the middle of the sea; God alone knows how many years’ journey it was distant.
When the Lady of the Castle found herself beneath the tree in the middle of the ocean she said: “This is all very well, but I have nothing with me here.” Mahmad promptly answered: “I’ll marry you. You belong to me now.” “Very good,” said she, and he married her. They remained there some days, and everything they had need of they obtained from the bag.
“Well,” said she, “now that I belong to you, tell me what is the special property of these things.” And Mahmad so lost his common sense that he behaved like a fool and told her all about each of the things. “That’s splendid,” said his wife, but to herself she said: “May my woes descend on your head! I must escape and leave you here until you die.” Presently Mahmad went down a well, and took off his clothes to have a wash. As soon as he had disappeared into the well the woman sat down on the carpet and said: “Take me back to my own Castle!” and up she went into the air.
Mahmad sat down on the carpet and rose up into the air.
Now when Mahmad looked up and saw her, he beat his head and cried out: “Why did I tell her?” “By the soul of your father,” answered his wife, “you will stay where you now are till you die, for you brought me here by craft!” Straightway she arrived at her own Castle, but Mahmad remained