The Tale of Aftab (Azerbaijani folktale)

The Tale of Aftab (Azerbaijani: Aftabın nağılı) is an Azerbaijani fairy tale, about a maiden that marries a man under a snakeskin disguise, breaks the secret about his identity and has to search for him, eventually finding him at his mother's house, where she is forced to perform difficult tasks for her.

The tale is related to the international cycle of the Animal as Bridegroom or The Search for the Lost Husband, in that a heroine marries a supernatural husband in animal shape, loses him, and has to seek him out. It is also classified in the international Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index as tale type 425B, "Son of the Witch", thus distantly related to the Graeco-Roman myth of Cupid and Psyche.

Source

The tale was collected from an informant named Savalan Süleymanov, from Siyaqut village, in Şərur rayonu.

Summary

A brother and his sister, named Pəri, live together, with him hunting while she stays home. One day, he hunts some game and prepares its heart, when a snake appears, coils itself around the heart and demands the man's sister Pəri as his bride, lest the snake kills him. The snake stresses the truth of his threat, even if the youth hides in the depths of the earth or up in the sky. He returns home and explains the situation to Pəri, who decides to go with the snake. Pəri's brother delivers her to the snake by a spring. Ten days later, the youth pays a visit to his sister by the fountain, and enters the snake's castle. Pəri welcomes him and says Aftab is a human being under the snakeskin, so her brother asks her how can they destroy his snakeskin. He calls for other brothers and sisters and they prepare the tandoor to burn the animal disguise, but Aftab appears and warns them not to do it, since she will regret it. Aftab leaves for a month and Pəri's family burns the snakeskin in a tandoor. Aftab discovers the deed and admonishes his wife, saying that she will only find him again by wearing iron shoes and walking with an iron scepter.

Pəri follows after her husband in iron garments, and wanders the world until she reaches a spring, where a maidservant is fetching water. The maidservant explains she is bringing water to Aftab, since he fell in love with a human and now his body is burning after they burned his snakeskin. Pəri drops her ring into the jug, which the maidservant brings to Aftab. Aftab goes to drink water and finds the ring, then asks his mother if a human was to come to their house, would she devour them? His mother promises not to do it, and Aftab orders the maidservant to bring the person at the spring. It happens thus, and Aftab recognizes his human wife, Pəri. Despite his mother promising not to harm her, she devises ways to kill the girl: first, she gives Pəri a pair of scissors that do not cut and orders her to deliver it down the mountain. Aftab intercepts his wife and tells her to drop the scissors there, fetch some clothes and rush back up the mountain. Pəri does as instructed, steals the clothes and makes her way up the mountain, with some voices echoing threats at her. Aftab's mother suspects the task was not Pəri's doing, but her son's, and gives her an ax with an order to go into the forest and bring back forty camel loads of firewood. Aftab tells Pəri to enter the forest and shout that Aftab is getting married, and needs forty loads of firewood in camels. Pəri does as instructed and forty camels come from the forest carrying bundles of firewood on their backs.

Thirdly, Aftab's mother tells Pəri to go to her sister and ask for the dastarkhan ("dəstərxanı") and the frying pan ("tavasını") for the wedding. Aftab intercepts Pəri and advises her how to proceed: pass by a thornbush and compliment it, compliment a river of white water, compliment a pool of black water by saying she would bathe and swim in it, reach his aunt's house and ask for the dastarkhan and the pan; while she goes to another room to sharpen her teeth, Pəri is to steal the objects and rush back. Pəri follows his instructions to the letter and steals the dartarkhan and the pan, as his aunt commands her servants to stop the girl, to no avail. Finally, Aftab's mother arranges his wedding to his cousin, and places candles on Pəri's slippers, for the girl to illuminate the wedding couple. Pəri suffers for the burning on her feet, when Aftab beheads his cousin and throws her head across the room, takes his human wife and both escape from his mother's house. The next morning, Aftab's mother finds her niece dead and the couple gone, and sends her daughters after their brother. On the road, Aftab and Pəri transform themselves to trick their pursuers: first, into a chicken (him) with its chicks (her); then, into a Mollah (him) and a house (her); lastly, into a melon patch (her) and a garden keeper (him).

Analysis

Tale type

Azerbaijani scholarship indexes the tale as the Azerbaijani tale type 428, "Div qarısının qulluğunda" ("In the service of the Div woman"). In the Azeri type, the heroine marries a snake who is a human youth underneath it; convinced by her sisters, she burns his snakeskin and he vanishes; she dons iron shoes and goes after him, eventually finding him at the house of the Div woman, to whom she has to perform difficult tasks; with her husband's help, the heroine fulfills the tasks, then both flee in a transformation sequence, their third transformation a flower (the heroine) and a snake coiled around it (the snake husband).

In the Azerbaijani Folktale Index, Azeri type 428 corresponds to Turkish tale type 98. In the Typen türkischer Volksmärchen ("Turkish Folktale Catalogue"), by Wolfram Eberhard and Pertev Naili Boratav, Turkish type TTV 98, "Der Pferdemann" ("The Horse Man"), corresponded in the international classification to tale type AaTh 425.

In his monograph about Cupid and Psyche, Swedish scholar Jan-Öjvind Swahn acknowledged that Turkish type 98 was subtype 425A of his analysis, that is, "Cupid and Psyche", being the "oldest" and containing the episode of the witch's tasks. In the international index, however, Swahn's typing is indexed as type ATU 425B, "The Son of the Witch": the heroine marries a man in animal shape, betrays his secret and seeks his out; after a long journey, she finds him at his mother's house, where she is forced to perform difficult tasks for her, which she accomplishes with her husband's secret help.

Combinations

According to the Azerbaijani Folktale Index, Azeri type 428 can be found in combination with another type, Azeri type 433*, "Şahzadə qıza aşiq olmuş ilan" ("A snake in love with a princess"): a poor man finds an egg in a tree that hatches a snake; the snake is adopted by the man and fulfills the king's suitor's tasks; the snake marries the princess and removes his snakeskin at night, becoming a handsome youth.

Motifs

According to Swedish scholar Jan Öjvind Swahn's study on Animal as Bridegroom tales, a characteristic motif that occurs in the "Indo-Persian" area is the heroine using a ring to signal her arrival to her husband, when she finds his location.

The heroes' Magic Flight

According to Christine Goldberg, some variants of the type 425B show as a closing episode "The Magic Flight" sequence, a combination that appears "sporadically in Europe", but "traditionally in Turkey". Although this episode is more characteristic of tale type ATU 313, "The Magic Flight", some variants of type ATU 425B also show it as a closing episode. German literary critic Walter Puchner argues that the motif attached itself to type 425B, as a Wandermotiv ("Wandering motif").

Variants

Shamsi-Kamar

Azeri folklorist Hənəfi Zeynallı published an Azeri tale titled "Шамси-Камар" ("Shamsi-Kamar" or "Sun-Moon"). In this tale, three daughters of a king arrange for their marriages: they should cast three arrows at random, see where they land and marry the man that lives wherever the arrows land on. The two elders marry the son of a vizier and the son of a "vekila", while the youngest's arrow lands on a bush, where she waits next to. A snake comes out of it and invites her to a house, where he takes out his snakeskin to reveal he is a human named Shamsi-Kamar, alwo warning she must not tell anyone his secret, lest she will have to wear down a pair of iron shoes and walk with an iron cane until she finds him again. Upon a visit from her family, the princess tells her mother about the snakeskin, which her mother burns in a fire. Shamsi-Kamar enters the room, admonishes his wife and disappears. The princess follows his instructions and wanders the world for seven years, until her pair of iron shoes is worn out. Nearby, she sees some servant girls fetching water for their master, Shamsi-Kamar. The princess drops her ring on a jug that is taken to her husband, and he notices it. He brings her home on the pretense of having her as a maid. His father, then, orders her to fetch firewood in the forest. Her husband teaches her how to perform it: she must go to the woods and shout out that Shamsi-Kamar has died, and the firewood is for his pyre. That night, his father marries Shamsi-Kamar to another girl, but the prince goes to the kitchen, heats up two cauldrons of water, takes them and pours the scalding hot water on his second wife. He and the princess then escape on horses back to her kingdom. At the end of the tale, his family runs after them, but, on not finding them, return home empty-handed. The compiler classified the tale as type 425, and located its source as collected in 1930, in Nakhkray (Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic).

The Woodcutter's Daughter

In an Azeri tale from Nakhchivan with the title Odunçu qızı ("The Woodcutter's Daughter"), a poor man has three daughters and gathers firewood to sell. One day, a snake appears on a bundle and demands one of the man's daughters. Despite promising to fulfill the snake's request, he ignores it and takes another route for firewood the next day. However, the same snake meets the man and repeats his demand. The man returns home and explains the situation to his daughters: the elder two refuse to go with the snake, save the youngest. The girl is guided to the place of the snake, and a man appears to take her to a large house, the palace of the divs. The snake, in human form, brings the girl with him to the palace. The tale explains he is the son of a div (a giantess) and her been betrothed to his aunt's daughter. He gives her a broom and advises her to agree to do whatever his mother asks of her, but to call on him. The div mother orders the girl to bring the broom with her, and orders the girl to sweep the floor for her son's wedding, in a way that no place is wet and no place is dry in equal measure - the snake man uses his powers to summon a light rain and a gust of wind to fulfill the task. The dev mother suspects her son did it, but accepts the result of the task. Later, she writes a letter to her dev sister with a message to eat the human girl when she arrives there, then sends the girl with the letter to the dev sister, to also ask for a tambourine. The snake man intercepts the girl, reads the letter, and advises her to deliver the letter and, when his aunt is distracted sharpening her teeth, she is to take the tambourine from a shelf and rush back. The girl does as instructed, and the dev aunt shouts at her to return. Finally, the dev mother arranges her son's wedding to his cousin: she pins the human girl to the wall, casts a spell to hold her in that position and places a candle between her fingers, so that the candle melts and the girl burns. The dev family brings the snake man's cousin and they marry. At night, the snake man undoes his mother's spell on the human girl, pins his cousin to the wall and makes her hold the candle, then escapes with the girl. The next morning, the dev family finds the couple gone and the cousin burnt to cinders, and chase after them. On the road, the snake man and the girl realize they are being pursued and transform into other objects to deceive them: first, into a stump (the girl) and a snake coiled around it (the man); next, into a pool (him) and a flower floating on it (the girl). His dev family fails to find them, and the couple make their way through the desert into a locked castle. The girl utters aloud "let me be dead", and enters the castle, the snake man remaining outside. The tale then continues as another tale type.

See also

• Grünkappe
• Habrmani
• The Princess Who Could Not Keep a Secret
• The Snake-Prince Sleepy-Head
• Yasmin and the Serpent Prince