35.
Pomegranate Seeds[1]
There was once a woman who had no children except an only daughter whom she indulged.[2] She had a pair of golden slippers made for her. The mother loved her daughter very much and would send her to the sheikh for lessons. (In the old days there were no schools; the sheikhs were the teachers.)[3] Early one morning the girl went to the house of the sheikh and found him skinning a little boy and devouring him.[4]
She gathered herself and ran away, not returning to her mother. "If I return to my mother," she thought, "she'll want to take me back to him,
[1] "Pomegranate Seeds" is not actually used as a girl's name. Because pomegranates are deep red when ripe, the name is meant to convey health and beauty (cf. Tale 21, n. 3). "The bride is often compared to a pomegranate for beauty," say Crowfoot and Baldensperger (Cedar : 111) in an account of Palestinian lore about the pomegranate (pp. 111-112). Canaan says it is generally believed that "every pomegranate has one seed which has come from heaven" ("The Child": 166). Elsewhere ("Plant-lore": 160) he adds that city Muslims "take great care not to drop or lose any of the seeds, since that might be just the one which came from paradise," citing the following proverb: Ir-rumman bi-malli l-qalb 'iman " ("Pomegranates fill the heart with faith"). See n. 19, below.
[2] Through this detail the teller intimates that the girl will inevitably get into some kind of trouble. See Tale 8, n. 3; Tale 12, n. 2.
[3] For a definition of sheikh , see Tale 22, n. 7. In the old days sheikhs were responsible for the education of children whose parents could afford to send them to school (see Granqvist, Birth : 140-155; Grant, People : 171; Sirhan, Mawsu`at V: 12-14). It was not, however, a common practice to send girls to school (see Granqvist, Birth : 276).
[4] The sheikh is never explicitly stated to be a ghoul, although his ghoulishness is implied throughout.
and he'll devour me. I'd rather not stay in this place at all." She ran away in fear, leaving one of her golden slippers by the doorstep. One slipper fell off, while 'the other remained on her foot as she ran. She came to a shopkeeper.
"O uncle!" she pleaded, "It's now evening, and I'm a stranger in town. Won't you let me sleep here tonight, in your shop?"
"Yes, my daughter,"[5] he replied, "why not?"
He left her in his shop and went home. Who came to her? The sheikh. He said to her:
"Tell me, Pomegranate Seeds!
What strange sights did you see,
When by the doorstep of the master
You forgot your golden slipper?"
She answered:
"I saw him praying and fasting,
The eternal Lord worshipping."
The sheikh tore up all the cloth, turning the big shop upside down, and left. When the owner came to open his shop and check on the girl, he found it all torn up. "Oh! My son!"[6] he cried out. "Help, people, help!" The townspeople felt sorry for him. They brought a tray and collected money for the goods he had lost.[7] He beat the gift until he nearly killed her. "Have pity? they reproached him. "Why are you beating her?[8] Could she have torn up your shop?"
Eventually the girl made her escape to another town. She came to a grocer who sold ghee, sesame oil, sugar, and olive oil.
"O uncle!" she begged him, "Won't you let me sleep here tonight?"
"Yes, my daughter," he replied, "why not?"
The sheikh came to her at night, and he said:
[5] The shopkeeper, we note, calls the girl "my daughter" (ya binti ); if he were actually her uncle, he would address her with the same form she uses for him—ya `ammi ("O my paternal uncle!"). See n. 11, below.
[6] "Oh! My son!"—a literal translation of ya waladi (meaning, "Oh! My [poor] son!"), which is a common exclamation expressing a sense of loss and not a call for the son to help.
[7] The custom of relatives and neighbors collecting money for a family in distress is still practiced. Cf. Tale 43, n. 6.
[8] The translation here attempts to convey the emotional complexity of the common expression Haram ! (literally, "It is forbidden!"), which, aside from its literal meaning, also combines the idea of having mercy with the notion of guilt for wrongdoing ("Why are you beating her?").
"Tell me, Pomegranate Seeds!
What strange sights did you see,
When by the doorstep of the
master You forgot your golden slipper?"
She answered:
"I saw him praying and fasting,
The eternal Lord worshipping."
The sheikh poured the olive oil into the sesame oil, mixing them together with the ghee, the rice, and the sugar. Then, turning his back, he left.
In the morning the owner opened his shop. "Oh! My son!" he lamented, beating his breast. As they had done for the other one, the people collected money for this one.
The girl meanwhile pulled herself together and left. "Where am I to go?" she wondered. "I've nowhere left except this tall tree here. Live or die, I'm going to climb it. He won't see me up there."[9] She climbed and sat up in the tree, looking like the full moon, like a doll.[10]
In a while the king came to water his horse by the pool under the tree, but the animal shied. The king looked up and saw a maiden like the full moon sitting in the tree.
"Young woman!"[11] he called out, "Are you human or jinn?"
"By Allah, I'm human," she answered. "From the choicest of the race."
"Come down and ride behind me!"
She was hungry. She had not eaten in two days (and of course the Son
[9] In the folk imagination, wood appears to offer protection against the forces of evil. Cf. the English folk expression "Knock on wood," and Tale 34, where the merchant's daughter escapes the clutches of the ghouleh by hiding in a wooden dress; see also Tale 8, n. 6; Tale 34, n. 9.
[10] On the moon and feminine beauty, see Tale 2, n. 1.
[11] Bint , in the expression ya bint , "Young woman!" means either "girl" or "daughter." We thus note an important but subtle difference in the forms of address used by the shopkeeper and by the king. The possessive pronoun in the shopkeeper's address, ya binti ("my daughter"), eliminates in the minds of the listeners any possibility of sexual reference, whereas the king's address leaves that possibility distinctly open. The storyteller's apology—"She was hungry ... (and of course the Son of Adam cannot live if he does not eat)"—immediately before the girl's agreeing to ride behind the king on the horse confirms this observation.
of Adam cannot live if he does not eat). She collected herself, came down, and rode behind him. He took her to his mother and said, "Mother!"
"Yes, son."
"I've captured a treasure. If you like me, you must like her. And if you love me, you must love her."
"Of course, son," she said. "Like my own eyes." The mother brought the girl up until she became a young woman, lovely like the moon.
"Mother!" said the king when the maiden came of age, "I want to marry her."
"Marry her," said the mother.
The king married her, and she became pregnant and gave birth to a boy. When she had given birth to her first son, the sheikh came to her in the night. He said:
"Tell me, Pomegranate Seeds!
What strange sights did you see,
When by the doorstep of the master
You forgot your golden slipper?"
And she answered:
"I saw him praying and fasting,
The eternal Lord worshipping."
Snatching her son away from her, he smeared her hands and mouth with blood and disappeared.
In the morning the servant went up to the master's quarters: "O Master, she's all bloody!"
"Don't worry about it," the king said.
The next time, the sheikh did with the second son as he had done with the first and disappeared. The king questioned his wife, but she would not say a word, neither yes nor no. She was afraid to speak.
The third time, she gave birth to a girl. The sheikh came, seized the baby, and disappeared.
"That's it!" announced the king. "She's hereby deserted! Put her in a separate house!"[12]
"But," protested the servants and his mother, "tomorrow she'll devour us and our children!"
[12] Huttuha b-bet il-hijran —literally, "Put her in the house of desertion." See Tale 10, n. 8, on desertion as an institutionalized status for women.
"No!" insisted the king, "I won't get rid of her. I'll leave her in separate quarters." And every day after that he himself came to give her food through the window.[13]
One day the king decided to go on the hajj.[14] He said to himself, "I might as well go see what Pomegranate Seeds wants."
"Pomegranate Seeds!" he said, "What do you want from the Hijaz?"
"I only want the box of myrrh[15] and seven switches of pomegranate wood," she answered. "And if you don't bring them, may your camels start dropping blood and pus, and stop you from coming back!"
He traveled and traveled. He bought the whole world but forgot the box of myrrh. Halfway home, the men were going to leave the camels behind. They had collapsed, and not one of them was able to move.
"Boys!" said the king, "I've forgotten something." He went back and started asking around, "O Uncle, do you happen to have the box of myrrh and seven whips of pomegranate wood?" People laughed at him, snickering, "What's with you, uncle? Are you crazy? Are you in your right mind? By Allah, this thing you mention, we've never heard of it before."
He asked a second person, and a third. Finally, he came upon a clever one, who said, "What are you looking for, O hajj?"[16]
"I want the seven whips of pomegranate wood and the box of myrrh," replied the king. "How much do they cost?"
"Fifty dinars."
"Here! Take a hundred, and let's finish with this business!"
Taking the money, the other went to an orchard and cut seven switches of pomegranate wood. He then went back to the market and bought a
[13] In all the tales in this collection in which the husband becomes estranged from his wife (cf. Tales 10, 20), he still loves her regardless of her supposed fault.
[14] As we have already seen (cf. Tales 7, 12, 34), going on the hajj is the standard method in the tales for sending a man on a journey; cf. Tale 7, n. 7.
[15] The Arabic word sabr carries several meanings, among which are "patience," "prickly pear," "aloe," and "myrrh." It is unclear which of the last two meanings is appropriate here, as both of the substances referred to are quite bitter. We opted for "myrrh," first because the word itself is derived from the Arabic murr ("bitter") and second because the aloe plant is not native to Arabia, whereas myrrh is. Cf. Tale 45, n. 8.
[16] The word hajj refers both to the act of pilgrimage (its usual meaning in English) and to the pilgrim himself (sometimes rendered in English as "hajji"). As a form of address (ya hajjl ; fem., hajje ) it indicates respect for the person thus addressed, whether he or she has been on the hajj or not. It is, however, the preferred form of address for those who have in fact performed the religious duty of pilgrimage, taking precedence even over Abu Flan (Father of So-and-So) and Imm Iflan (Mother of So-and-So).
small amount of bitter myrrh, put it in a box, and brought it, along with the whips of pomegranate wood, saying, "Please accept these!"
Before the king had even reached them, the camels were running.
"Here you are!" he said to his wife.
A short time after the hajj, the king wanted to marry again. It was the unveiling of the bride[17] (people everywhere!), and the king was about to remarry. Pomegranate Seeds started whipping the box of myrrh with the pomegranate switches, crying out:
"O box of myrrh, give me patience![18]
To his school I went and found him
Devouring a boy. I ran away,
Dropped my slipper thereto
O box of myrrh, give me patience!
Then I climbed the tree,
And the king married me.
I gave birth to the first ones—
O box of myrrh, give me patience!
Then I gave birth to the girl,
And they told him I was a ghouleh—
O box of myrrh, give me patience!"
She had not finished, when lo! the wall split open[19] and she saw her children walking out of it. Children of kings, like full moons they were! And what were they like? Well behaved and very, very handsome.
[17] The unveiling (jalwe ) refers to the part of the wedding ceremony at which the bridegroom unveils the bride, a custom that is practiced differently in different parts of the country (cf. Tale 15, n. 22). It is a particularly important part of the ceremony, because it may be the first time a bridegroom sees his bride, as is presumed to be the case in our tale. Granqvist (Marriage II: 115-119) gives a complete and vivid description of this ritual; see also `Arnitah, Al-Funun : 138. For a sample of a jalwe song, see Dalman, Diwan : 254-261.
[18] Because sabr means both "myrrh" and "patience," it is obvious that the tale, through a form of sympathetic magic, relies on the power residing in words—specifically, their ability to carry more than one meaning—to effect the exorcism. See n. 15, above.
[19] On exorcism, see Tale 32, n. 7.
Concerning the efficacy of pomegranate switches, Crowfoot and Baldensperger (Cedar : 112) offer the following account: "Now because the pomegranate tree had power over evil spirits, in the days when madness was believed to be caused by possession and beating in vogue as a cure, a beating with pomegranate branches was considered peculiarly efficacious. This appears in the oft told tale of the lunatics who lost their feet. The poor madmen, let out for the day, went to bathe their feet in a pool and got them so mixed that they could not sort them out.... At last a wise sheikh came by, to whom they told their trouble. He, bringing a pomegranate rod, then gave each of them a good beating on his feet. Each madman as he felt the pain knew his feet for his own and took them out of the water."
"Children!" she said to them. "Your father's getting married, and tonight's the night of the unveiling. Go there, and walk right in! When people stop you to ask who you are, say to them, 'This is our father's house, and you, the strangers, are going to kick us out?'[20] Don't listen to anyone! The girl will sit in her father's lap, and you boys one on each side of him."
They went and entered the bridal room. When the king beheld them, what a sight they were! He stopped looking at his bride, to see what she was like.
"Get out of here!" the people around shouted at them. "What a disaster you are! Damn your father and the fathers of those who gave birth to you!"
"This is our father's house," they answered, "and you, the strangers, are going to kick us out?"
"Where's your father from?" the king asked them, taken by surprise. "Who are you? Who's your mother?"[21]
"We're the children of the One who lives in the house of desertion," they answered.
"Speak again," he said, "and tell me the truth!"
"That's the way it is," they answered.
"What's the bride's name?" asked the king, and they told him it was Salha.
"Salha's hereby 'divorced as of last night!" announced the king. "Seven servants are to go escort the queen here!"
They went and accompanied the queen, and the celebration turned out to be for him and his children.
Hail! Hail! Finished is our tale!