The Story of the Human Being, the Woodcutter:
the Anatomy of a Traditional Moroccan Oral Tale
Introduction
For the past several years, I have been
collecting oral tales in Morocco, to record a fast disappearing aspect of
Moroccan culture. One of these tales is translated here. It is annotated for
cultural clarity, and followed by a commentary in which I compare it with a
similar Tunisian story. The tale appears a rather simplistic fantasy at first
reading, but in reality it is tightly structured, with a central
fairy-tale-like series of events sandwiched between much more realistic opening
and closing sections.
The storyteller, a
professional taleteller about 70 years old, still made a meagre living in 2001
entertaining listeners in the central Moroccan city of Meknes. His language was
the central Moroccan dialect of Arabic[i] rich in idiomatic
expressions, proverbs and rhymes that would be easily understood by his
audience. I chose the title based on the storyteller’s opening and closing
sentences. I will discuss later the significance of the woodcutter as a human
being.
The Tale: The Human
Being, the Woodcutter
Now[ii] we will talk about
the story of the human being, the woodcutter. Every day, he goes to the forest
and cuts branches. He sells the wood and buys barley bread,[iii] olives and some
vegetables. If they eat breakfast, his family has no food for lunch. No matter
how much wood he cuts in a day, he can hardly make ends meet. He has six
children and his wife will soon give birth to the seventh. They live in a small
earthen hut.[iv] One day, the
weather was very bad. Thunder roared and lightening flashed. Rain poured down.
That day, the woman gave birth. After the birth, she turned to her husband and
said “Now I just gave birth and I need to eat something like chicken broth.”[v]
Of course there was
none in the house. The woodcutter answered, “Where will I find a chicken now?
The weather is very bad, the wood is wet, the entire forest is wet and nobody
will buy wet wood from me so I can buy you a chicken. Where will I find a
chicken for you? Be patient, when the weather is better, God will reward us.”
“As you wish,” she
said. “But you see these neighbours nearby, they didn’t come to visit me even
though they know I gave birth.”[vi]
“Well, trust God, do
not think of the neighbours. They are as poor as we are. All the people here
are the same as we are; they can’t even feed their own children.”
After awhile, the
weather got better, the sun came out and it got hot. The woodcutter went to the
forest and cut a huge log.[vii] His work made him
very hot and thirsty, so he went to the well.[viii] At the well, there
was no rope or bucket to reach the water, but he knew this and he had brought a
bowl and a piece of rope.
When he reached the
well, he was surprised to hear sounds from deep inside it. He leaned over the
well, and heard talking, so he didn’t throw his bowl in to fetch up water.
“Who is there?” he
cried into the well.[ix]
“God sent you to
us,” came the reply. “Save us from this well! If you do not help us, we will
die here! We were very thirsty, and we climbed down here to drink, but the
walls of the well are muddy and very slippery and we can’t get out! You must
help us!”
“But tell me,” he
called, “who are you?”
A voice answered, “I
am human like you, I am your brother. There is also a lion, a cobra and a mouse
here.”
When the woodcutter
heard about the lion[x] and the cobra,[xi] he grew frightened
for his life. But the lion reassured him, saying, “You are doing us a big
favour, we won’t hurt you if you help us.”
The cobra also
spoke. “A good act can only be rewarded by another good act.[xii] You will be safe,”
she said. “Everyone is alike, we each have a soul[xiii] and a home and our
children. We are trapped in this well, but you must not be afraid of us.”
“I will help you,”
he answered. He tied his bowl to the end of the rope and threw it into the
well.
The lion held onto
the rope and the bowl with his teeth and claws and the woodcutter hauled him
out of the well. The lion was very heavy and the woodcutter had a hard time
pulling him up. Once the lion was next to him, the woodcutter was very
frightened but once again the lion assured him that he was grateful for his
help, and told him that nobody in the forest would be able to hurt him now
because the lion, the king of the forest, would protect him.
“But take my
advice,” said the lion, “Don’t bring that human up.”
“Why not?” asked the
woodcutter.
“I can tell by
looking at his face that he is a bad man,” said the lion. “He doesn’t look like
you. Not all humans are alike.[xiv] You must understand
this. His face and his gestures show him to be evil. Bringing him up will only
bring you bad luck.”
The lion pulled out
six hairs[xv] from his ear, and
gave them to the woodcutter, saying, “Maybe someday you will need my help. If
you need me, burn these six hairs and I will come to you.” The woodcutter
wrapped the hairs in a small piece of cloth and tied it securely. The lion left
the woodcutter.
The woodcutter threw
the rope and the bowl back into the well. The human wanted to take hold of it,
but the cobra said, “Stay back, let me go first!”
The man in the well
was afraid, and drew back, and the cobra coiled into the bowl to be pulled up
out of the well. When she arrived at the surface, again the woodcutter was
afraid, but she assured him, saying “Here is a bit of my skin,[xvi] and if you are ever
in a terrible spot, burn this and I will come to you. I will save you even if I
must lay down my life for you.”
“Thank you,” said
the woodcutter.
“But listen,” said
the cobra, “I have one piece of advice for you. Did you see that human who is
in the well? He is your brother; you are both made of the same clay.[xvii] But everything
about that human tells me he is very bad. If I were not afraid of God who would
hold me responsible, I would have killed that human.[xviii] Don’t pull him up,
no good can come to you from him.” Then the cobra left the woodcutter.
The woodcutter threw
the bowl back into the well, and again the man tried to catch hold of it, but
the mouse told him, “No, let me go first, I am so small, God sent us this human
to save us, let me go first.”
The woodcutter
pulled the bowl back up and found the mouse in it. In gratitude, the mouse gave
the woodcutter one of his hairs, saying, “I am small but don’t think I am weak.
When you need something, burn this hair.”[xix]
The mouse also
advised the woodcutter, “Don’t bring that human up from the well, let him die
down there!” Then the mouse left.
The woodcutter began
to think about whether he should bring the human up or not. The man in the well
guessed what was going on, and cried out, saying “You’ve saved all the animals
and all of them are fierce and dangerous, and you’ve listened to them about me.
What are you going to say to God on Judgment Day?[xx] Don’t believe the
animals! As the proverb tells us, “Even if I’m mean to you, I won’t really hurt
you!”[xxi] Save me from here!
If you do a good act, you do it for God; it doesn’t matter if I am good or
bad.”
The woodcutter was
convinced, and brought the man up out of the well. The man thanked him and
left.
The woodcutter went
to sell the wood he had cut and bought half a pound of chicken. But even so,
his children were crying from hunger. His wife asked him to go see one of the
rich neighbours and let him know that his wife had just gave birth and they had
nothing to eat. The woodcutter refused to go ask for charity.
He told his wife,
“Only God gives.[xxii] What if I go ask
this neighbour and he tells me ‘My wife just gave birth too and I don’t have
anything’? I have already gone to see this neighbour several times and he never
gave me anything.”[xxiii]
During this
discussion, the woodcutter remembered the animals. He took the mouse hair and
said to himself, “What can this mouse do for me? He is such a tiny animal. I am
so big and I am in trouble, what can one who only weighs a few grams do to help
me?”
After thinking about
it for a long time, he remembered the proverb that says, “A small twig can
blind you.”[xxiv] He decided to burn
the mouse hair and ask for his help. The mouse came right away, greeting him
with the question, “How can I help you? What’s the problem?”
The woodcutter
answered, “My wife just gave birth and now I have seven children[xxv] and we have
nothing, no food at all, we are really poor. I said to myself, ‘You, small
mouse, what can you do for me?’”
The mouse laughed
and said, “We find in the river what we do not find in the sea.”[xxvi] He added, “It would
be a mistake to call either the lion or the cobra, they are too big, they would
scare all your neighbours to death. But tell me, do you have another room
here?”
The woodcutter said
yes, there was another room.
It turned out the
mouse was the king of all mice, and he called all his subjects to him. The mice
came, asking the king, “What do you want? What should we do for you?”
The mouse answered,
“I already told you the story of the woodcutter who saved me from the well.”
“Yes,” they said,
“You told us the story.”
“Shall I reward him
or not?”
They answered, “Of
course.”
“Well,” he said,
“the woodcutter doesn’t have anything, his children are hungry and his wife
doesn’t have any milk to suckle the new baby. I want to give him something, but
it should be worthy of him.”
The mouse king
started pacing back and forth with his paw to his forehead, thinking. Suddenly,
he said to the other mice, “What do you think of the human king’s treasure?”[xxvii]
They agreed, and
they all went and dug a hole to the storeroom where the king kept his treasure.
They found trunks full of gold. This gold was in the form of thin leaves that
the women used to put in their hair or on their clothes as decoration.[xxviii]
The mice thought for
a moment about how they could carry all of these heavy trunks. They decided to
cover themselves with tar, and then when they went into the trunks and rolled
around, the gold leaves stuck to them and each mouse was able to carry a lot of
gold. They glowed as they walked!
The woodcutter and
his wife and children pulled the gold from the mice. In a few minutes, the mice
had carried all the gold to the woodcutter’s house. The mouse king came and
said to the woodcutter, “What do you think?”
The woodcutter said,
“What do I think? Everyone knows I am very poor, I don’t even have a safety pin[xxix] to my name!”
The mice said,
“Well, whatever we do is not enough for you. Who will know that you are rich?
Nobody comes to see you. Everyone knows you are poor, living in this miserable
hut. You must sell this gold piece by piece and nobody will know.”
The woodcutter used
the gold to buy clothes for his children and furniture for his house and a lot
of chicken every day. No longer just one chicken at a time for him! He sang
happily as he walked along.
He told his wife,
“This house is no longer good enough for us.”
The wife answered,
“This is what the mouse told you, as the proverb says ‘Your louse is warm.’”[xxx] Let’s just stay
here and as the proverb says “don’t wake the crazy one by throwing stones at
him.”[xxxi]
When the woodcutter
went into his second room, he was continually surprised to find it still full
of gold. But the guard responsible for the king’s treasure opened the storeroom
and found it empty. He tore at his clothes in despair, saying, “What will I
tell the king?”
He went to the king,
crying, “Oh king, there is no longer so much as a single piece of gold in your
storeroom.”
The king and his
court hurried to the storeroom and found it empty. The king asked the guard,
“Are the locks broken?”
“No, sire, they are
not broken.”
The king called an
expert to inspect the room; this expert discovered a hole the size of a mouse.
But nobody thought that mice could steal all this gold from the storeroom. The
king arrested the expert and accused him of either lying or of being an
accomplice. The king said to the expert “you did as the proverb says,
you collected clothes and straw”.[xxxii] The king ordered
guards posted at the city gates,[xxxiii] to search anyone
coming or going.
One day, the
woodcutter ran into the man he had saved from the well. This man was wearing
beautiful clothes: a new djelleba and a lovely big turban.[xxxiv] They greeted one
another warmly, and the man reminded the woodcutter that he appreciated what he
did for him, saving him from the well, and told him what an unusual man he was.
The woodcutter was embarrassed, and invited the man for lunch.[xxxv] As soon as the man
entered the woodcutter’s house, he noticed the new furniture. He saw that the
children were very clean and wearing expensive clothes. He said to the
woodcutter, “The king’s guards searched almost all the houses in the city, did
they search yours?”
“No,” said the
woodcutter, “Everyone knows I don’t have anything and I just live in this
miserable hut. As the proverb says, ‘The innocent one should not be afraid.’”[xxxvi]
The man ate the
meal, but the whole time he was looking around the house, observing the wife’s
dresses, telling himself, “This is not possible. Something is going on. And I
haven’t seen the woodcutter recently in the forest!”
After he finished
eating, he said to the woodcutter, “May God reward you![xxxvii] One day I will
invite you and your children and your wife to my place.”
He left the
woodcutter’s home, and went straight to see the palace guards. When he saw
them, he asked for an audience with the king.[xxxviii]
“Why?” asked the
guards.
“That is a secret,”
he answered, “But if you don’t take me to the king you will be sorry.” The
guards told the king that somebody wanted to see him but would not give his
reason. The king received the man, saying, “What’s on your mind?”
The man prostrated
himself and said, “Sire, I see the city is turned upside down. What has
happened?”
“The treasure has
been stolen,” said the king. “We are poor now. And we don’t know who is
guilty.”
The man asked the
king to guarantee his safety if he told him something.[xxxix] The king agreed.
“I am just
guessing,” said the man, “But if it’s true, I know who is guilty, and if it’s
not true, no harm done.”
“Tell me what you
know,” ordered the king.
“I went to the house
of a man who was hungry and dirty and poor only a few weeks ago and now his
wife and children are wearing silk and he has many djellebas and robes. His
turbans are as new[xl] as if he just
returned from the pilgrimage to Mecca.[xli] You must search his
house. If you find nothing, remember you already gave me your word that no harm
will come to me.”
The king ordered the
guards to search the woodcutter’s house. When they arrived, they broke down the
door of the house and surrounded the woodcutter. They opened the second room
and found it full of gold. The guards said to themselves, “We searched all the
houses except this one, we thought he was so poor we didn’t bother. Several
times we came past his door without thinking of searching here.”
The guards put the
woodcutter in irons. The head guard looked at the woodcutter and told him, “You
are evil. Everyone who saw you every day going to the forest to cut wood
thought you were poor. How did you bring all this gold to your house?”
The woodcutter was
speechless. His words had dried up. The guards took him to the king and
returned the gold to the royal storeroom. The king said to the woodcutter,
“Tell us how you stole all this gold, the locks have not been broken, the walls
of the storeroom are solid. I want you to show me how you managed to take all
this gold to your house!”
The woodcutter
answered, “If I tell you, you will not believe me, you will think I am crazy.”
“Tell me,” said the
king. “I will believe you.”
“I did not come to
your palace,” said the woodcutter. He told the king the story of the mouse.
The king didn’t
believe him and insulted him for lying to him. “How could mice carry all of
this gold!” he cried.
One of the king’s
counsellors said, “Sire, you need not question this man further. He is guilty;
we found the gold in his house. This man is very dangerous; he could make
everyone poor by stealing their wealth! His story is unbelievable, he is guilty.
You can’t expect him to tell you the truth. You have to judge him.”
The king ordered the
woodcutter to be put in jail and on the third day, to be beheaded.[xlii]
They took him to a
jail so secure that not even an ant could enter or escape. There were four
strong guards. The woodcutter knew the head guard, who looked at him and said,
“You little devil! You stole the whole treasure. What did you think you would
do with all that gold? The proverb says, “If you live a simple life minding
your own business, you will live long.[xliii] If you wanted to
steal, why didn’t you steal two dirhams, or a hundred dirhams or a thousand
dirhams, or even twenty thousand dirhams, but not the whole treasure?” The
woodcutter answered, “This is my destiny.[xliv] It is God’s will.”
The first night he
spent in the jail, the weather was very cold and rainy. He started thinking
about his children and his wife who would have nothing now. He said to himself,
“It is my fault for listening to the mouse. How could anyone with any sense
listen to a mouse? How can anyone who listens to a mouse get ahead in life? I
wish I had never seen that well and I wish I had not been thirsty.”
The guards came to
ask if he had any last requests before dying. He asked them for fire to warm
himself against the night’s cold. The guards refused, except one who said, “If
not, he will die from the cold. What danger could come from a fire? And the
king ordered us to give him anything he wants, since he will die soon anyway.”
They brought him a
fire and from time to time they opened the door to check on him. The woodcutter
thought for awhile and then said to himself, “This is a job for the cobra; the
lion is too big to come. I will try my luck with the cobra and see if she can
save me.” He burned the snake’s skin.
As soon as he burned
the skin, he heard the snake moving on the roof. She came into the jail and
asked him, “What do you need?”
He said, “Don’t you
see I am chained up? You can see for yourself the answer to your question.”[xlv]
She assured him and
said, “I will make the king kiss your head,[xlvi] but you must follow
my instructions.”
The cobra left him.
The king had a very
pretty and well-educated daughter. When she woke up the next morning, the cobra
was coiled around her, with its mouth poised in front of the daughter’s mouth.
The princess could hardly breathe. She didn’t move, terrified. When the
servants came to wake her, they saw the cobra and ran off in terror. They
hurried to the king to tell him what they had seen. The king ran to his
daughter’s chamber without even taking the time to put on his shoes.
When he reached her
room, the cobra looked at him and said, “If you cross the threshold, I will
kill her and I will kill you too!” The king drew back. He ordered his minister
to bring a musical group[xlvii] to the palace. When
they arrived, he said to them, “Now we will see if you have the real powers of
the cIsawa or if you are impostors. My daughter is in the grip of a
cobra.”
The head of the
group drank boiling water directly from the cooking pot.[xlviii] But he didn’t take
the cobra seriously, and told her, “Quiet, you!” He drew near her and the cobra
attacked, killing him instantly. As soon as their leader was killed, the rest
of the cIsawa group trembled in fear.
“And you call
yourselves cIsawa?” said the king scornfully.
“The snakes we use
when we perform have no poison in them,” they explained. “This cobra is
something else! The man she just killed is our leader and if he couldn’t
release your daughter, nobody can! What can we do, sire? We are helpless.”
In the meantime the
guards had been checking on the woodcutter regularly. They told him, “You are
really bad news.[xlix] Your feet only
carry bad things to our city! The king is in trouble. We don’t think you will
die tomorrow. He will forget you. You are here in jail and you don’t know
what’s going on outside, but the king’s daughter may die.”
When the woodcutter
heard this, he said to the guard, “Go to the king and tell him I am a real cIsawi.[l] I can help him. I
will die anyway, let me try to save the princess.”
The guards answered,
“You are condemned to die tomorrow anyway and you just want to show off and
waste our time.”
“If you don’t carry
my message to the king, you will regret it,” said the woodcutter.
One of the guards
went to see the king and told him that the prisoner claimed to be a master cIsawi and said he
knew every detail about snakes, scorpions and all poisonous things. The king
ordered the guards to bring the woodcutter before him. They brought the
woodcutter to the king.
“Save my daughter,”
the king ordered. The guards removed the woodcutter’s chains but he was still
heavily guarded. The king repeated, “Now save my daughter!”
“If I save your
daughter who will save me?” asked the woodcutter.
“If you save my
daughter, we[li] will forget about
what happened and we will reward you. I will know that you are a powerful man
and that I can count on you and I will admit that you are noble.[lii] You must save my
daughter. If she dies, I will die of sadness and her mother will also. But if
you don’t save her, you will die today.”
The woodcutter
replied, “If I save her, will you give me her hand in marriage?”
The king promised
him that he would. The woodcutter went into the princess’s room to see the
cobra, but worrying, “What if the cobra changes her mind and kills me? It is in
God’s hands.”[liii]
When he reached the
daughter’s room, he said to the cobra, “Talk! Could you bite me, knowing I am
blessed by God?”
The cobra answered
only by swaying her head back and forth to make him understand that she would
not strike him. When the king saw the cobra answer the woodcutter in this way,
he turned to the people surrounding him, and said, “You see, this man is really
blessed by God. Did you see how the cobra answered him saying ‘no, I will not
strike you?’”
They all nodded and
murmured in agreement and surprise.
The woodcutter said
to the cobra, “You know I can overpower you even if you try to bite me? Leave
the princess!”
The cobra uncoiled
and slid away.
Everyone in the
palace was overjoyed. The princess was saved. The king ordered his servants to
take the woodcutter to the bath and then to dress him in the finest clothes, in
the king’s own clothes. God is great![liv]
The woodcutter went
to the bath[lv] where they washed
him with soap made of the finest perfumes, not ordinary laundry soap[lvi] or black soap[lvii] used by country
people. They scrubbed him till he was as white as a peeled radish.
The people bowed
down before him and kissed his hand.[lviii] The king kissed his
cheeks[lix] and said, “Now we
believe your story about the mouse! Today you will marry my daughter.”
The marriage
festivities lasted for twenty days,[lx] with all the finest
decorations, even candles in the walls, and everything glowed with light.
The woodcutter had
forgotten about his wife and children. His wife and seven children with nothing
to eat! He forgot and thought no more of them. Everyday he lived a life of
luxury. After awhile, the king sent for him and said, “We are organising other
festivities outside the city, to share our joy with the whole kingdom.” The
king ordered his servants to carry carpets and furniture to the forest, as well
as animals to be killed for the feast, drinks and perfumes. The king and his
entourage went to the forest to begin the festivities. As soon as the animals
of the forest smelled the meat grilling, they came to attack the people and eat
the meat. The people ran off in fear, but the woodcutter threw the lion’s hairs
into the fire.
The lion appeared
before him, and said, “What do you want?”
The woodcutter said,
“You can see all these animals attacking us!”
The lion turned to
the other animals and said, “Do you remember what I told you about the
woodcutter who saved me from the well? This is that woodcutter. Don’t attack
him and his guests!”
The king observed
from a safe place that the woodcutter was talking to the lion and the lion
seemed to be listening to him. He said himself, “This man is really blessed by
God!”[lxi]
When the animals
left, all the guests came back, surrounded the woodcutter and kissed his hand.
Later, one night the
woodcutter heard the sound of the cobra. He lit a lamp and the cobra came to
him. He greeted her, “welcome.”[lxii]
But she replied, “no
welcome to you and may your way be difficult”
“Why?” asked the
woodcutter.
“You are a very bad
man,” said the cobra. “I saw your children but I couldn’t stand it, they were
so miserable. They are hungry, dressed in rags, crying all day. You are
heartless, you who call yourself human! What did your children and your wife do
to deserve this? I have come to kill you to punish you.”
The woodcutter tried
to excuse himself and to reason with the cobra, but she said, “You must be
punished. We are the ones who gave you your blessings. Don’t believe you are a
saint! You are worse than the man who betrayed you to the king; he is not as
low as you! Your children would make someone cry even if his heart was made of
stone!”[lxiii]
The woodcutter
begged the cobra, “Give me one more chance and you will see in the future I
will be good!”
The cobra ordered
him not to spend the night in the palace but to go to his children. “You have
abandoned your seven children just to follow your desires!”
“You are right,”
answered the woodcutter, “I will not do it again.”
“The next time there
will be no discussion,” the cobra warned him. “If you are not good, I will come
and kill you immediately.”
The cobra left. The
woodcutter went to see the king and told him he had seven children and a wife.
The king thought for a moment and then said, “Why did you marry my daughter
then? If I had known you had a family, I would not have permitted my daughter
to marry you. You are the one who asked for her hand.”
The king gave the
woodcutter a very nice house and some money to start his life over and let him
go. “If you want to come here to the palace to see the princess, you may,” the
king told him, “but do as you wish.”
The woodcutter went
to take his wife and children to the new house. They were not happy to see him,
but when they saw the new house they felt better. He told them, “No human is
perfect.[lxiv] I made a mistake
and you yourselves will make mistakes in your own lives.”
They moved into the
beautiful new house where the woodcutter lived a good life with his wife and
his children.
This is the story of
the human being, the woodcutter.
Tale Type and Motifs
The tale corresponds closely to AT type 160,[lxv] “Grateful animals;
ungrateful man. The rescue from the pit.” In the Aarne and Thompson tale, a
traveller saves a monkey, a snake, a tiger and a jeweller from a pit. Each of the
animals rewards the man but the jeweller accuses him before the king. In our
story, the pit is a well, and the AT traveller is equivalent to the woodcutter.
The three animals are lion, cobra and mouse rather than tiger, snake and
monkey. The profession of the man in the
well in our tale is not specified, but the pattern of the animals rewarding the
rescuer while the human betrays him is identical.
The motifs[lxvi] in the Moroccan
tale include: A1432.2 acquisition of gold; A1853 mouse; B211.2.2 speaking lion;
B211.2.8 speaking mouse; B361 animals grateful for rescue from pit; B431.2 and
B443 helpful lion; B491.1 helpful serpent; B501 animal gives part of its body
as talisman for summoning its aid; B520 animals save a person’s life; B522.1
serpent shows condemned man how to save prince’s life[lxvii]; B560 animals
advise man; B580 animals help man to wealth and greatness; D1390.1 hairs of the
lion, when burnt, get owner out of difficulty; D2074.2.2 summoning by burning
hair; L101 and 161 lowly hero marries princess; L113.5 woodcutter hero; Q53
reward for rescuer; Q485.1 princess married to lowly hero; R100 rescues; R211
escape from prison[lxviii]; T136.1 wedding
feast; W154 ingratitude; W154.8 grateful animals, ungrateful man.
Regional Parallelism
The tale of the woodcutter is very similar to a
Tunisian story called “The Human Being” collected by Mohammed Al-Juwili.[lxix] In this story, a
passing man saves a snake, a wolf, a lion and a man from a well. Each animal
gives the rescuer its hair or skin as a gift and advises him not to save the
man. He ignores this advice and saves the man. The two men then proceed
together, but they have no money, so the rescuer burns the wolf hair. The wolf
appears; the rescuer tells him they have no money and the wolf brings them a
flock of sheep, which they sell. After a while, they reach a kingdom guarded by
soldiers and the rescuer burns the lion’s hair. The lion appears; the soldiers
take fright and fall back, and the men enter the kingdom. The two travelers
continue till they reach a small town, where they open a shop. The man who had
been in the well worked in the shop while the rescuer spent his time procuring the
goods for the shop. One day, the rescuer suggested they do the accounting to
see if they were making any money. “What do you mean?” replied the other man,
“The store is mine!” The rescuer protested, “Aren’t we partners? Have you
forgotten I saved you?” The shopkeeper went to the king to accuse the rescuer
of having forced his way into the kingdom and the king has the rescuer
arrested. He throws him into prison and condemns him to death. In jail, the man
burns the snake’s skin. The snake appears and when he learns of the problem,
goes to wrap himself around the king’s neck until the king’s tongue hangs out
and his eyes bulge out. Everything was tried, cIsawa were sent for,
but nobody could free the king until the prisoner was brought. Before freeing
the king, he told him his whole story. The king put the man who accused the
rescuer in jail and the story ends.
The general pattern
of the two stories is very similar; the Tunisian story is also type AT 160. The
Moroccan version is longer and develops more details, but the first part of the
two tales is nearly identical, as is shown in the following chart:
|
Tunisian |
Moroccan |
|
|
• rescuer = passer-by |
• rescuer = woodcutter |
|
|
• rescued = lion, snake, wolf, man |
• rescued = lion, cobra, mouse, man |
|
|
• animals warn rescuer against rescuing man |
||
|
• grateful animals give rescuer bit of hair or skin |
||
The next section is
still very similar:
|
Tunisian |
Moroccan |
|
• rescued man continues with rescuer |
• rescued man goes his own way |
|
• rescuer burns wolf hair, needs money |
• woodcutter burns mouse hair because children
hungry and he has no money |
|
• wolf appears, brings sheep; men sell sheep
for money |
• mouse appears, brings king’s gold to the
woodcutter |
From this point, the
stories diverge somewhat. In the Tunisian story, the two men encounter soldiers
and the lion is called to help them pass. Inside the kingdom guarded by the
soldiers, they open a shop. Then once again, the stories run parallel:
|
Tunisian |
Moroccan |
|
|
• rescued man denounces rescuer |
||
|
• rescuer imprisoned and condemned to death by the king |
||
|
• rescuer burns snake skin, snake saves man
from prison |
• woodcutter burns cobra skin, cobra saves him
from prison |
|
Then in the Tunisian
tale, the accuser is jailed and the story ends. The Moroccan tale, however, continues.
The woodcutter marries the princess and a feast is held in the forest where the
party is threatened by wild animals. The woodcutter burns the lion’s hairs, and
the lion appears and tells the other animals to leave. The woodcutter goes to
live in the luxury of the palace till the cobra appears to remind him of his
true responsibilities. He returns to his family.
Despite the
similarities between the two tales, there are important differences. The most
significant difference is the stated theme of the story. The Moroccan tale
begins with the storyteller saying “This is the story of the human being, the
woodcutter” and he ends his story with the same words, “This is the story of
the human being, the woodcutter.” Although the animals in the well refer to the
human being trapped with them, it is clear that the storyteller is linking the
term “human being” to the woodcutter and not to the man in the well. This is
important because it is the opposite of the Tunisian tale. The Tunisian
taleteller says, “This is the story of the human being, the snake, the monkey
and the lion, and all of them are in a well.” At the end of the story, it is
still clear that the “human being” in the Tunisian story is the man in the well
and not his rescuer, because the latter quotes the animals’ advice, “Be
careful, you’ll regret it if you bring that human being up.”
Although the
Moroccan storyteller emphasises the woodcutter’s humanity, he does not ignore
the humanity of the man in the well. The animals that advise the woodcutter
against saving this man also refer to him as “a human being.” The cobra even
points out that the man is the woodcutter’s brother, “made of the same clay”.
But the animals remind the woodcutter that not all human beings are alike.
In both stories, the
good man, the rescuer, brings the other man up from the well and lives to
regret it. In the Tunisian story the rescued man
betrays the rescuer and justice is only done thanks to the magic intervention
of the animals. The juxtaposition of good man/bad man is unambiguous.
The Moroccan tale,
however, is less clear-cut. The rescued man betrays his rescuer, but for
something he has in fact done, the theft of the king’s treasure. Indeed, the
woodcutter, although portrayed as a better man than the one in the well, is far
from perfect. Once he is out of jail, he marries the princess and forgets all
about his family, thinking only of himself. The other human characters in the
tale share this imperfection: the neighbours don’t come to visit the woman who
has just given birth, the king’s guards brutally break down the woodcutter’s
door without knocking first, the king’s counsellor refuses to listen to the
woodcutter’s side of the story, the man in the well meddles in the woodcutter’s
affairs and causes him trouble. This lack of perfection is the point of the
story, for at the end, when the woodcutter returns to his family, he tells
them, “No human is perfect. I made a mistake and you yourselves will make
mistakes in your own lives.”
The Tunisian story,
on the other hand, has an implied moral of “justice will be done.”
There are two other
important differences between the two tales. The first is that in the Moroccan
story, the woodcutter’s social existence is clear throughout the story, whereas
the rescuer in the Tunisian story seems to exist outside any social context. In
the Moroccan story, we know not only the woodcutter’s profession, but also that
he is a married man with a family, and later he becomes part of the king’s
family with his marriage to the princess. The presence of women in the story
helps define the woodcutter’s place in society. Both his first and his second
wife define him as a married man and each represents a level of social status,
the first wife representing poverty and the second, wealth. Throughout the
story, there is a concern with social interaction. The woodcutter’s wife
complains that the neighbours don’t visit her, and when the woodcutter becomes
rich, he worries about the neighbours noticing his sudden change of fortune. The
description of the woodcutter’s second meeting with the man from the well
includes a detailed description of the man’s clothing. The quality of the
clothing indicates his status and situates him in a social context. The
woodcutter invites him to eat with the family out of social obligation rather
than desire. When the man accuses the woodcutter to the king, there is again
question of fine clothes, silk and other finery, the external appearance by
which people are judged by society. When the woodcutter returns to his family
at the end of the story, he raises them to a higher, more comfortable social
status than they enjoyed at the beginning, and he himself would be welcome at
the palace should he choose to go visit the princess there. During the story,
his social status has improved considerably.
The last important
difference between the two tales is the awareness, in the Moroccan tale, of an
urban or semi-urban setting. The Tunisian tale gives far fewer hints about the
physical setting of the story. All we know is the two men have a shop “in a
town”. But in the Moroccan tale, the storyteller says the woodcutter sells his
wood to buy bread, olives and vegetables. Such commercial exchanges imply a
city—or at least a town—in which there would be a market. The awareness of the
city grows when the mice steal the gold from the king’s palace, for
traditionally, Moroccan kings located their palaces in important cities.
Furthermore, the storyteller mentions the corridors and the baths in the
palace, giving an impression of wealth, which in turn implies a large palace
which would be located in a city. The Moroccan tale provides a context that we
do not find in the Tunisian tale. The additional detail in the Moroccan tale
may simply be a function of its greater length, or of the personality of the
storyteller.
The Structure of the Tale
Let us briefly consider the Moroccan tale of the
woodcutter in light of Vladimir Propp’s (1895-1970)[lxx] and A.J. Greimas’
(1917-1992) structuralist theories. If we correlate the elements in the tale
with Propp’s spheres of activity, we find that the villain is the man in the
well, the donor and helper are the trio of animals; the sought-for person or
thing is material wealth; the hero is the woodcutter who succeeds in improving
his family’s life. Among Propp’s functions,[lxxi] we find the
following in the tale of the woodcutter:
1. One of the family members leaves home [the
woodcutter goes to the well].
2. The hero is forbidden to do something [the
animals tell the woodcutter not to bring the man up from the well].
3. The hero transgresses the interdiction [the
woodcutter brings the man up].
4. The aggressor tries to get information [the
man in the well tries to understand how the woodcutter got so rich; he asks if
the king’s men have searched the woodcutter’s house].
5. The aggressor gets information about his
victim [the man in the well learns no one suspects the woodcutter].
8.[lxxii] The aggressor harms
one of the family members [the man denounces the woodcutter to the king who
puts the woodcutter in jail].
9. News of the wrong is revealed and the hero is
called upon [the king calls in the woodcutter to save his daughter].
10. The hero decides to act [the woodcutter goes
to save the princess].
11. The hero leaves home [the woodcutter marries
the princess and forgets his home and family].
14. The magic object is at the hero’s disposal
[the woodcutter uses the magic hair or skin the animals gave him to get out of
difficulties].
15. The hero is led to the place where he will
find the object of his quest [the woodcutter goes to the palace to live in
luxury].
19. The original lack is repaired [the
woodcutter becomes wealthy].
20. The hero returns [the woodcutter returns to
his family] .
The rest of the 31
functions are not applicable to this tale; the total present in the tale of the
woodcutter is 13 functions.
If we consider the
story along the lines of Greimas’ more encompassing terminology, we can
construct the following figure:
The initial
misfortune of the woodcutter in the story is his situation of poverty. His
unfortunate initial state gives rise to the story; had the woodcutter not been
poor, he would not have called upon the mice and none of the rest of the story
would have taken place. The end of the story solves the problem of the initial
situation; the woodcutter becomes wealthy. Thus we have, as the above diagram
shows, the subject (the woodcutter) desiring the object (material gain), aided
or opposed in his quest for the object and receiving the object from the sender
(the animals). Everything in the story is organised in relation to this
narrative schema, with the animals helping the woodcutter, the man from the
well opposing him, the king opposing him at first and later helping him.
If we consider other
aspects of the tale’s structure, we find that as is typically the case in
Moroccan oral tales, it has an introductory section followed by a central set
of events and a closing section. In the tale of the woodcutter, the first
section covers the time up till the woodcutter encounters the animals and man
in the well. In this introductory section, we learn a great deal about our
subject as well as his relationship to those around him, his wife and
neighbours. During this time, the woodcutter’s movements take him from home to
forest and back again, a cycle he can expect to repeat all his life. The first
stage of the story can thus be represented:
However, one day
this cycle is broken by the events at the well between the forest and his home:
This encounter will
change his life completely. The episode at the well introduces the central
magical events, which begin with the woodcutter’s summoning the magic mouse
that makes him wealthy, and in turn leads to his being dragged to the palace
and thrown into jail:
With the help of his
second magic instrument (the cobra’s skin), he returns to the palace, and then
he and his new royal friends go to the forest for a feast:
When the lion saves
them from the other animals, the woodcutter returns to the palace:
The cobra’s final
appearance ends the magical central section of the tale. She reminds the
woodcutter of his family and his responsibilities to them, and in the
concluding section of the tale, the woodcutter returns to his home:
We thus have a
series of comings and goings, which contribute to the story’s tight structure
and leads the listener from one stage of the story to the next. Back and forth
from home to forest, back and forth to the palace and finally a definitive
return home. The narrative evolution follows the standard pattern[lxxiii]: a break in the
expected order, a testing, and re-establishment of order. In other words, the
woodcutter’s orderly life of home, forest, home, etc. is broken by the episode
at the well. His devotion to his family is tested and found wanting in the
central section of the story. In the end, thanks to the cobra’s chiding, order
in his life is restored when the woodcutter returns to his family.
We can divide the
spaces among which the woodcutter moves into positive and negative places. At the
beginning of the story, the forest is a positive place, where the woodcutter
earns his living; and his home is a negative place, described as “a small
earthen hut” and full of his wife’s complaints and his crushing
responsibilities for his many children. The unpleasantness is emphasised by the
terrible weather.
The well, normally a
positive place, a life-giving source of water, becomes a prison for the animals
that tried to drink there. It is the source of the woodcutter’s good and bad
fortune later in the story.
In the next section,
the jail is a negative place whereas the palace (except for the initial
encounter) is a positive place, filled with sensual delights. At this point in
the tale, the forest too becomes a negative place. It is full of danger for the
party from the palace when wild animals attack them there. Finally, when the
woodcutter returns to his family, this new more comfortable home is a positive
space, symbolised by the man’s tolerance: “nobody is perfect”.
Furthermore,
embedded in this structure of coming and going, we discover an internal
parallelism. The same character experiences different but parallel things: the
woodcutter gets into difficulty and calls on the animals three different times
in the story—once at the beginning of the central events, once in the middle
and once at the end of the central events. The magic intervention of the
animals is confined to this central part of the story. Indeed, the central part
of the story is set off from the beginning by the encounter with the animals in
the well, and from the end by the wise cobra’s reproach of the woodcutter for
having forgotten his family. This magical-filled part of the story takes place
entirely outside the context of the woodcutter’s “real” life, where there are
no magic events, no princesses, and no talking animals. But the woodcutter’s
passage through the magical central portion of the story considerably improves
his status outside this magic space, and in the end, he and his family are no
longer poor and hungry, but happily well-fed and sheltered.
Proverbs
Proverbs are, by definition, expressions of
obvious truths or familiar experiences and as such may be cross-cultural or
culturally specific. The Moroccan proverb[lxxiv] “elli dar al-khir
yelqah” is equivalent to the “golden rule” in English, whereas an English
speaker does not so easily understand an expression like “gemla dyalek
sakhnat”. There are numerous proverbs in the tale of the woodcutter and they
serve to universalise the story, filling it with expressions or ideas that are
seen as universal truths by the storyteller’s audience. The mixture of the two
genres, tale and proverbs, strengthens the tale and tends to reinforce its
legitimacy. By recognising so many accepted truths, its own lesson is presented
as a truth as well and benefits by association. The proverbs also serve to connect
what is in large part a tale of magic to the reality of daily life. The
proverbs in the tale are constantly heard in Morocco in the course of daily
activities, but not in the mouths of mice or lions. Furthermore, the proverbs
in the tale are not limited to specific characters: the cobra, the mouse, the
man in the well, the king and the king’s guard each give one; the woodcutter’s
wife gives two and the woodcutter himself three. It is interesting, too, that
characters of every social class in the story use proverbs. The king and his
guard (1 proverb each) represent the upper classes; the poorer classes are
represented by the woodcutter and his wife (a total of five proverbs) and the
totally dependent animals and man in the well, begging for help, are attributed
three proverbs. This distribution emphasises the social universality of the
proverbs in the culture. Although the poorer classes use them more often, all
Moroccan social classes use proverbs.
The tale of the
woodcutter, unlike stories whose goal is to explain a proverb (such as
Lafontaine’s fables) uses proverbs to elucidate important points in the story
and to emphasise the lessons that can be taken from those points. All the
proverbs occur in the central magical part of the story, and generally appear
at turning points. For example, the cobra uses a proverb to convince the
woodcutter to bring the animals up out of the well. The man in the well uses a
proverb to persuade the woodcutter to bring him up as well. A proverb signals
the important moment when the woodcutter decides to call upon the animals for
help and there are two proverbs in quick succession when he contacts the mouse.
There is another burst of four proverbs in a row at the critical point in the
story when the woodcutter is just about to be arrested for having acquired the
king’s gold. Finally, there is a proverb just before the woodcutter calls upon
the cobra to help him get out of jail, a decision that will not only save his
life but also better his social status. The proverbs call attention to key
moments in the story, and with their familiar language and accepted truths,
anchor those moments in the realm of the possible, within the listener’s
perception of reality. This “reinforcement” of reality is not necessary in the
opening and closing sections of the story, since those parts are devoid of
magical elements.
Formulae
As Maarten Kossmann[lxxv] pointed out in his
recent study, formulae are fixed, invariable phrases similar in nature to songs
and proverbs. Kossmann stresses the importance of formulae in Moroccan fairy
tales. Although the tale of the woodcutter does not begin with an opening
formula or salutation, many Moroccan tales do. There are a number of common
ones such as “It was said”. The opening most readily translated into English as
“Once upon a time” is “Kan ya ma kan hetta kan allah fi kull-mkan wa kan lahbeq
wa al-susan fi hjar al-nabi al-cadnan”, literally
“it was and it was not, and Allah was everywhere and basil and thyme grew under
the Prophet’s feet”. A variant of this is “Kan ya makan hetta kan fi-qadim
al-zaman, wahed al-malik”: which translates as “it was and it was not in
ancient times, there was a king....” Another similar opening is “Kan hetta kan,
kan fi qadim al-zaman”: which translates as “there was until there was, there
was in ancient times...” Other formula openings include “Hajitek wa ma jitek”
or “Hayjitkum wa ma jitkum” of which the first is singular and the second
plural, with the same English translation for both, “I have told you, I have
not come to you.” The meaning of this phrase is as obscure in Arabic as it is
in English, but the expression is immediately understood as a tale
introduction, and not subjected to scrutiny by the storyteller’s audience.
Whenever there is an opening formula, its purpose is to situate the tale long
ago in the past, implying that it contains ancient transmitted wisdom.
Some tales also
close with formulae. The tale of the woodcutter does not, for the storyteller
simply repeats his opening reference to a human being, using the last sentence
to universalise the story further, applying the tale to human beings in
general: “this is the way human beings are”. However, a tale may end with such
expressions as “Hajitna mshat al-wad al-wad wa hena beqina mca l-jwad” (our story
left river to river and here we remained behind with the generous ones); “Iewa
hada huwwa al-kalam” (and these are the words that were spoken); “Hada ma galu
el-jwad wa allah calem” (this is what the generous ones said and
God knows [all]).
Both opening and
closing formulae, when present, situate the tale in a larger context than
simply the storyteller’s personal experience. Setting it long ago places the
storyteller in the role of transmitting ancient wisdom. Notice, however, the
difference between the formulae employing “kan ya ma kan” and “hajitek” or
“hajitkum”. In the former, the storyteller distances himself from the tale
whereas in the latter, he emphasises his role as tale-teller, “I am telling
you.”
Other Story Elements
The grateful animals in the tale of the
woodcutter reward their rescuer not with gifts that he can use immediately, but
with gifts that represent future help from them. This has an important effect
on keeping the tale moving into the future, but it also has other implications.
The contrast between the animals’ gratitude and the human being’s ingratitude
is striking. The man in the well not only does not give the woodcutter a gift
but reappears later in the story only to denounce him. Because of his
intervention, the woodcutter is nearly executed. The animals, in contrast, each
give the woodcutter a part of his or her own body as a pledge of future aid.
These gifts of themselves are gifts of transformation, which, when burned,
bring the animal in question to the woodcutter’s aid. The woodcutter’s good
deed is thereby rewarded with a good deed from the animal. This concept of the
exchange of equal favours is very important in Moroccan life and great offence
is taken if a person for whom one has done a favour refuses to do a similar
sort of favour in return. So it is natural that the woodcutter’s good deed
cannot be properly rewarded except by a similar good deed on the animals’ part.
The fact that fire
is the medium of communication of the woodcutter’s need is significant. In the
tale, the woodcutter burns the animals’ hair or skin, destroying it in the process
and conjuring up the animal that can then repay the debt he owes the
woodcutter. The fire is both a medium of destruction and salvation. During the
episode in the jail, fire is doubly beneficial. The guard allows the
woodcutter—despite his being condemned to death—a fire so he will not die of
cold overnight. The fire that keeps him warm and prevents his immediate death
also allows him to summon the cobra’s help and escape from prison and avoid
execution.
The cobra goes
beyond repayment of her debt to the woodcutter, and acts as his conscience at
the end of the story, reminding him of his family and his responsibilities.
This is not what we would expect, given the Moroccan cultural attitude toward
serpents, but such a positive interaction between cobra and human is not
unknown in Moroccan tales.[lxxvi] In the tale of the
woodcutter, it is significant that the cobra is feminine, for she plays the
role of reinforcing the family structure.
The cobra is,
indeed, the most influential feminine character in the tale. The other women
are the woodcutter’s first poor wife and second royal wife, the princess. Of
the princess we hear nothing at all, and even the first wife appears only in
relationship to the woodcutter, defined by her role of wife. She is not a
particularly attractive character, spending most of her time complaining to her
husband—about not having enough to eat, about the failure of the neighbours to
visit, about his excessive ambition when the mice make him rich. One might
sympathise with the woodcutter’s temptation to exchange her for the silent,
presumably lovely—and patently rich—princess. The princess is barely a person
in the tale, but serves as a means for the woodcutter to escape from prison and
take up residence in the palace. When the woodcutter returns to his family, the
king tells him he can come to the palace to visit the princess if he wishes;
she herself is not called upon to express an opinion on this husband who comes
and goes. The cobra not only plays an active part in the story, but is
responsible for the way the tale ends.
Conclusion
The tale of the woodcutter is understandably
appealing in a culture where most of the people are poor, with little hope of
improving their lot through their own efforts. Here, they find hope that things
may change by chance, through a stroke of good luck; by finally stumbling upon
the well that harbours a treasure. The tale contains a moral as well: even if
one should be so lucky as to come upon that hoped-for treasure, one must not
forget one’s responsibilities. The family is the primary focus of Moroccan
life, taking precedence over all else. The fact that the woodcutter so quickly
forgot his wife and children in the face of wealth and luxury is a human
failing but he recognizes his mistake. At the end of the tale, he passes the
lesson he learned on to his children, “no human being is perfect,” he reminds
us, “and you too will make mistakes in your own lives.” What is important is
rectifying the mistakes, doing the right thing in the end.
The tale that
conveys this message has elements of a fairy tale, with talking animals that
magically appear when summoned, a setting that could be anywhere and in any
era. But it touches as well on subjects of daily concern to many Moroccans, the
question of poverty, uncertainty about future income, the difficulty of
supporting a large family, concern when social systems such as neighbourly
visiting and gift-giving break down. The tale’s attitude toward the man in the
well is also important. We see that the woodcutter can trust the animals far
more than he can trust the man, even though the latter is “his brother, made of
the same clay.” This reflects an attitude common in Moroccan culture—distrust
of strangers, people from other neighbourhoods or who are not part of their own
extended families. The motives of strangers may be suspect, and unpleasant
happenings are still sometimes blamed on the evil eye or on someone’s jealousy.
The tale does nothing to dispel such mistrust; in fact, the man in the well is
a source of problems for the woodcutter.
By weaving fantastic magical elements in with more realistic concerns, the tale remains relevant to its audience, interesting to both children and adults. We have seen the mixing of proverbs into the magic-laden central portion of the story. Throughout, the tone of the tale is conversational. The storyteller is taking his audience into his confidence and asking them to trust him, for he is going to tell them a profound truth about human beings. This is announced in the opening phrase and repeated in the closing sentence. He keeps his promise. Nobody is perfect, but life is an exercise in optimism; this duality is a truth of Moroccan life.