Moorish Literature: Comprising Romantic Ballads, Tales of the Berbers, Stories of the Kabyles, Folk-Lore, and National Traditions
General
Moorish Literature: Comprising Romantic Ballads, Tales of the Berbers, Stories of the Kabyles, Folk-Lore, and National Traditions
Spanish literature -- Translations into English
The young man remained some time in the well where they had put him, until
one day a caravan passing that way stopped to draw water. While the people
were drinking they heard something moving at the bottom of the well. "Wait
a moment," they said; they let down a rope, the young man caught it and
climbed up. He was as black as a negro. The people took him away and sold
him to a man who conducted him to his house. He stayed there a month and
became white as snow. The wife of the man said:
"Come, let us go away together."
"Never!" he answered.
At evening the man returned and asked, "What is the negro doing?"
"Sell him," said the woman.
He said, "You are free. Go where you please."
The young man went away and came to a city where there was a fountain
inhabited by a serpent. They couldn't draw water from this fountain without
his eating a woman. This day it was the turn of the King's daughter to be
eaten. The young man asked her:
"Why do you weep?"
"Because it is my turn to be devoured to-day."
The stranger answered, "Courage, I will kill the serpent, if it please
God."
The young girl entered the fountain. The serpent darted toward her, but as
soon as he showed his head the young man struck it with his stick and made
it fly away. He did the same to the next head until the serpent was dead.
All the people of the city came to draw water. The King said:
"Who has done this?"
"It is he," they cried, "the stranger who arrived yesterday." The King gave
him his daughter and named him his lieutenant The wedding-feast lasted
seven days. My story is finished before my resources are exhausted.
* * * * *
HALF-A-COCK
In times past there was a man who had two wives, and one was wise and one
was foolish. They owned a cock in common. One day they quarrelled about the
cock, cut it in two, and each took half. The foolish wife cooked her part.
The wise one let her part live, and it walked on one foot and had only one
wing. Some days passed thus. Then the half-a-cock got up early, and started
on his pilgrimage. At the middle of the day he was tired and went toward a
brook to rest. A jackal came there to drink. Half-a-Cock jumped on his
back, stole one of his hairs, which it put under its wing and resumed its
journey. It proceeded until evening and stopped under a tree to pass the
night there. It had not rested long when it saw a lion pass near the tree
where it was lying. As soon as it perceived the lion it jumped on its back
and stole one of its hairs, which it put with that of the jackal. The next
morning it got up early and took up its journey again. Arrived at the
middle of a forest, it met a boar and said:
"Give me a hair from your back, as the king of the animals and the
trickiest of them have done--the jackal and the lion."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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