A39 The Adventures of Ashur
Yonan Petrus من ⁺Muyšava في Fresno, California
There was, there was not, there was a king. This king had three sons. The name of the youngest son was Ashur. The king had a very beautiful garden, in which there was an apple tree. It used to bear one single apple a year. Whoever ate that apple, from that apple, if he was old, he became young. He would return again to the life of his youth, youth. The king became old. He became old. As I said, he had three sons. To the older son he said ‘My son, go and guard that apple until it ripens so that I can eat it and become young.’ That son of his—an animal would always come, it would come from the air, eat the apple and go away; it would not allow it to remain. That older son of his went—(the animal) used to come at night—his elder son went—it used to come at night—his elder son went at the time that the apple became ripe, he lay down his head and slept. The animal came, ate the apple and went away. It ate the apple and went away. His son got up and went back home, very sad. He told his father, he said ‘Well I went to sleep. That animal came at night, it ate the apple and went away. A year passed. After a year he sent his second son. His second son went. He also at night, at the time that the apple matured, put down his head—I am shortening (the story) slightly, it is long. He also goes to sleep, the animal comes, it eats the apple and goes away. The year after, when an apple, it had again borne an apple, his youngest son says ‘Father,’ Ashur says ‘Father, I would like to go.’ He says ‘But what did your older brothers achieve? What will you achieve? Why should you go?’ He said ‘May I, let me also go.’ He said ‘Go.’ He had a bow and arrow. He took his bow and arrow and went off. He went. When it became the time of the ripening of the apple and he felt like sleeping, he cut his finger and put salt on it. He put salt on it and it smarted. He was uncomfortable and did not sleep. At night, at midnight, he looked (and saw) a very large black animal come to sit on the apple, eat it and go, and he shot it with the bow and arrow. He shot it, though the animal did not fall, but, with its blood dripping and dripping, it went away. He came back in the morning, bringing back the apple for his father. He gave it to his father. He said to his brothers. I have shot that animal. They said ‘Where have you shot him?’ He said ‘Believe me I have shot him.’ They came and looked in the garden. There is a lot of blood that has dripped like this and gone away. Then in Azeri they narrate ‘They went a little. They went a long way. They went straight over vale and hill’ and arrived at a well, over which there was a very large stone, over a well. The blood was flowing there into the well and stopped there. So they knew that the animal had descended into the well. There was a very large stone over it. They take away the stone. They send for and bring very long ropes. The elder brother says ‘Send me (down there).’ But they stretch their heads like this into the well and heat comes out of the well. The well was very hot. The elder brother says ‘When you send me down, as soon as I say “I am burning, I am cooking”, take me out. Do not let me stay there.’ They send him down. He descends a little and says ‘I am burning, I am cooking, take me out.’ They send the other down, the second one. He goes (and says) ‘I am burning, I am cooking,’ and they take him out. The third one says ‘However much I say “I am burning, I am cooking” do not take me out,’ send me further down. They send Ashur down. He goes and goes and hits the bottom of the well very hard. His sword is by his side. He takes his sword and holds it like this in front, in front so that his head does not bang somewhere. He holds his sword like this and goes along with his sword like that, after his sword. He reaches a place and scratches and look, he reaches a wall, (something) like a wall. He scratches with his sword and so forth, he sees a slight light and he sees a door. He opens the door and enters. He goes in and sees that there is a garden, which is so beautiful, with roses on this side and that side, with paths in the garden, from this side and that side. A path goes to a very beautiful apartment. He goes there. He goes and arrives at the door of the apartment and opens it. He goes in and sees that a nymph, a very beautiful woman, is sitting there. But a monster, one of those monsters, has put his head on her knee, a huge monster. He goes forward and the woman say to him ‘Please, my brother, do not stand here. He will right now get up and eat you. Quickly return to wherever you have come from.’ He says ‘No, I have come to take his life. I have come to kill him.’ In short he pierces him with his sword, he jumps. He is a monster. He jumps and looks, he says ‘Oh, this tooth of mine, my tooth was aching. Now that you have come I shall eat you and my tooth will heal.’ He said ‘Yes, I have come to take your life.’ He gets up and says ‘Show your strength.’ To the lad, to Ashur he says ‘Show your strength.’ Ashur says ‘I always give the opportunity to my enemy, for my enemy first to show his strength, then I show my strength.’ His enemy comes and takes one of these millstones—at that time in the villages there were watermills, in which they used to grind wheat and so forth for flour, for people to eat, to eat food. He gets up and ties two of them, one on this eyelash of his, one of them on that eyelash of his. He swings them round like this in the air, he strikes them, he throws them at him in order for him to be between them. Ashur jumps in the air and comes down. He says ‘Ah, man, are you still alive?’ He says ‘Yes, I am alive. I have come here to take your life. He says ‘Very well, you strike your blow.’ He raises his sword, he strikes a straight blow from here in the middle of his head and slices it into two parts. His sword descends from … to the bottom. He says ‘Ah, human, how good your sword is. Strike again.’ If he were to strike again, he would live. He says ‘No, I shall not strike at once. Dance a little. After you have danced and come back, I shall strike again.’ As soon as he wants to dance, one half of him falls on one side and the other on the other side. He dies—I used to tell these (stories) to my children, I used to tell them all of them. He falls down and dies. He dies, the nymph, the beautiful woman, says ‘That is enough, no more. Come, let us go. But from here to the other side there are two other monsters. They have taken my two sisters. They are more beautiful even than me. They have also great riches.’ He says ‘No, I shall go, I must rescue them too.’ He goes and kills the other one and he kills also the third one. I do not want to prolong it (the story) too much—now they all gather up their belongings and so forth and come to the well where he had descended. He calls his brothers saying ‘Send your rope!’ They send him a rope. First he sends the one whom he had reached first. She was the eldest among the girls. He says to his elder brother ‘Brother, send your rope!’ He sends his rope saying ‘Brother, this is for you.’ He raises her up and sees she is very beautiful, a nymph. He is very happy, but does not realise that those that are coming after her are more beautiful than her. He sends his belongings and says to the second brother ‘Brother, send your rope.’ He sends them and sends the other nymph. As for the third, he says ‘Send (the rope).’ They send it and she ascends. They see that indeed she is very beautiful. She is more beautiful that the others. They become angry saying ‘Why has he not given us the most beautiful one and kept her for himself? They bring her up. They send down the rope for him to come up. They see it is him, they cut the rope and he falls to the bottom of the well. He falls to the bottom of the well. In short, he goes and searches with the rope and with his sword again in the dark, here and there. A way opens up. He goes and enters it. He ends up in a desert. He ends up in a desert and reaches a place, he reaches a place (and sees) something that is like a village, full of people, and everybody is weeping, the people are weeping. He asks ‘Why are you weeping?’ A girl says to him ‘We have here a dragon. There is a dragon that blocks access to the river. It always drinks all the water of the river and the water does not reach us. Every time it blocks the river, we must go and throw one or two children onto the river bank. He comes out to eat them then the water flows and comes from beneath him and we drink the water. Now he has blocked it. It is like that.’ ‘Where is that dragon?’ She says ‘In such-and-such a place.’ He gets up, takes his sword and so forth and goes. He goes against the dragon. He says (to) that girl, he says ‘You yourself come and sit there’—(he says) to the girl who is telling him these things—‘You sit there and I shall stand beside you.’ They put her there. The snake comes out of there. When he comes to eat her, he strikes the snake with the sword, from its mouth, from here and kills it. He kills the snake and takes the girl. He cuts it up for a week. For a week blood is flowing in the river, so big is the snake. After he kills the snake, water flows again. After he has killed it and chopped it into pieces, water flows and carries it away. The people drink water and live. He comes back. Afterwards he says ‘I have come from another world. I have come from the world above.’ They say ‘Whatever you want’—the inhabitants of the village (say)—‘whatever you want, we shall do for you.’ He says ‘Believe me, I do not intend to stay here. I have only one wish (to ask) from you (namely) that there is a way that you can return me to the world above.’ They say ‘We cannot do this thing here. But there is here a ⁺simaxur bird.’ They say ‘There is a ⁺simaxur bird here. The ⁺simaxur every year lays some eggs. It wants to produce young, but a snake comes and eats its young, its eggs. The ⁺simaxur bird has now begun to age from its sorrow and distress. It gets very distressed. It is not able to raise a single offspring.’ He says ‘Very well, take me to the ⁺simaxur bird for me to see what it is.’ He goes there. He sleeps under the nest of the ⁺simaxur bird. The ⁺simaxur bird thinks he is the monster, or the thing, the man who is coming to break and eat her eggs. It wants to raise its wing to strike him. He says ‘No, no, do not strike. I have come to rescue you.’ In short, it does not strike him. It does not strike him. He stands and says ‘I have come to rescue you so that this year you will have young.’ He sits for a little under her nest and sees that a snake is coming, very long and big, and it wants to move from off the trees and go up to the nest of the ⁺simaxur bird to eat her eggs again. He strikes and kills the snake. He kills the snake. The ⁺simaxur bird has young, young issue from her eggs. They grow up. It is very happy and says ‘What do you want now?’ I, who after so many years have been trying to have young, have not been able to have young. Now I shall do for you whatever you want.’ He says ‘I only want to go out into the world above.’ It stops and thinks, then says ‘I have grown very old, but still we shall try.’ It says ‘But to do this task you must go seven (stages)—from here to your world there are seven stages. At each stage we have to stop and rest a little, (going) to the next, to the next, until we reach your world. But before we reach these seven stages, each stage, I (suggest) you give a sheep for them to prepare, slaughter, cook and fry well, a large jar of wine and a kneading tray of bread. Whenever I say “Throw,” you must first throw the bread, then throw a sheep, which you have fried, throw it. After that goes and I say “Throw,” pour a jar of wine into my throat. I shall gain strength and go up.’ He does this task. He goes and tells the people of the village. He says ‘It is like this, the course (of events) is like this. You took me to the ⁺simaxur bird. The ⁺simaxur now has its young. I have done something and she has young. And she wants to take me out to the world of light, but has asked me for these things.’ They said ‘Do not worry. We shall prepare all these things for you.’ They immediately prepared these things. He went and they took them to the ⁺simaxur. He said ‘I am ready.’ It said ‘Very good. Bring ropes and so forth, tie them all onto my back. You sit among them.’ At every stage that they reached, it said ‘Throw one of each of them.’ He throws them. In short, it ascends until it reached … it brought him into the light. It brought him into the world of light. He went back and reached the house of his father. He reached the house of his father and looked (and saw) that the house of his father was completely broken up. There was nobody remaining in the house. But he went to a corner and found one of his brothers. He found one of his brothers and said ‘Where are the others?’ He said ‘That sister of mine,’ he said ‘We had a sister, do you remember? They used to call her “the eater of the town of her father.” That sister of mine,’ he said ‘has eaten them all. All the inhabitants of this town, its people, its cattle, its horses, its monsters, she has eaten them all. Only I am left. I am constantly running away from her clutches. As soon as she comes here, I go there, from there. I am running away from her from this place to that place.’ He said ‘Where is she?’ He said ‘I shall stand with you.’ He said ‘She will come now, do not worry, she will now come.’ She comes. He has come on a horse and has put his horse in the stable. She comes to him, each time, and says ‘Brother, did your horse have three legs when you came?’ She has eaten one of its legs. Then she goes and comes back saying ‘Two of its legs are left.’ She eats also the third one, she eats also the fourth one. He knows that now she will eat his horse and attack him. He gets up and flees. He flees. He leaves the town and flees. He goes a long way. He has with him a big bag of razors, a big bag of salt and a big bag of nails. He runs and she runs after him. She comes close to reaching him and he throws down the nails. Some stick into her feet. She is rather uncomfortable. He goes forward a little, but she runs after him. She runs after him again. He throws down the razors. He throws down the razors and all the fields become (covered with) razors. They slice up all her feet, but she again runs after him. He throws down the salt, and it turns into a sea of salt. She enters the sea, her feet sting and she becomes uncomfortable. But again she also comes out of that and runs after him. She runs after him and he climbs up a tree in the forest. He climbs up a tree and she comes. Just as she climbs after him to kill him, to eat him, he strikes with his sword from above onto her head. In short, he kills her. He comes down and rips open her stomach. He looks (and sees) that there is a worm in her stomach. It is this worm that is eating all these things, it is so huge. He kills that also. He kills it. He is very far from his brother’s home, from his father’s home. In one place he sees a house on a corner. He goes. He goes to the house. He looks in the house (and sees) that there is woman who is old, (though) not very (old), an old woman is sitting there in the house. She says ‘My son, why have you come to this house? Now the blind giant will come and eat you.’ The blind giant is her husband. He is a monster. ‘The blind giant will come and eat you. He will come and eat you.’ He says ‘No, I shall say that I am his son.’ She said ‘No, alas, he will eat you. He does not know such a thing.’ He says ‘It does not matter. I shall say I am his son. In the end we shall fix this thing.’ The blind giant comes back in the evening, ‘ho, ho, ho, ho.’ He has gone to graze sheep. He has sheep. He brings back his many sheep and so forth and puts them in the thing. He comes. As soon as he opens the door and comes inside, he says to his wife ‘Wife there is a smell of a human.’ She says ‘Why, did you not know that we have a son?’ He says ‘No, I did not have a son.’ She says ‘But yes, we did have a son.’ He says ‘If I had a son, very good. Now I shall go up upon the roof and urinate on him. I shall urinate upon him from the roof. If he does not melt, he is my son. If he melts, he is not my son. He goes up and urinates. He does not melt. He comes back and says ‘He is my son.’ He is very happy. Now his son comes to him and says ‘Daddy, well I am your son and you are my father. You are an old man.’ He was also blind, blind, the blind monster. ‘How do you deal with these sheep? You are so stressed. Even if they get lost now, you would indeed not know. I shall go and graze them.’ He says ‘Very good, you go and graze them. But there is that mountain over there, on this side, it is rather high, and many trees are on it—do not go to that mountain. There is a demon monster. She blinded my eyes. Do not go there. She is a very … monster, frightening. He says ‘Very well, I shall not go (there).’ He goes and grazes them, for a few days he grazes the sheep, then brings them back and comes back. Then he says ‘Well, let me go and climb onto that mountain and see what on earth there is there, and what she says.’ He goes and arrives at the mountain. He is grazing his sheep there and is sitting. After a while, suddenly he notices that a woman with tangled hair, the demon monster, her hair tangled, ugly, has come. ‘Heh, my son, welcome to this mountain of ours. This mountain is yours,’ and I don’t know what. He says ‘Thank you, ma’am. How are you? You are very beautiful, you are very comely.’ She is a monster, but he praises her in order to see what she would do. She comes and sits by his side. She puts her head on his knee and goes to sleep. She puts her head on his side. After a while—he had sandals. You know what ‘sandals’ are? He had sandals. He notices that she is gradually taking his sandals off in order to begin to eat him. With the same sword that he had he strikes on her head and she becomes rather faint. She wakes up. She wakes up and she says ‘Let’s gamble. If you win against me, however many sheep you have, I shall give you half as many sheep. If I win, you will give me half of your sheep.’ He says ‘Very well.’ They gamble and he wins. He wins half his sheep. Consider he had one hundred, he wins fifty. He mixes them with his sheep and goes down. He comes back and arrives. The blind giant comes out in front of the house. The blind giant comes out and says ‘Let me count my sheep lest you have lost any of them.’ He says ‘This one is mine, this one is mine, this one is not mine.’ Well, half of them. ‘This one is mine, this one is mine, this one is not mine. This one is mine, this one is mine, this one is not mine.’ He notices that there are fifty extra among the sheep. He says ‘Have I not told you not to go up to that mountain? Why have you gone up there? She comes up with these games, but in the end she will make you blind and she will eat you.’ He says ‘All right, father, I shall not go again.’ Again, the next day he again drives (the sheep) and goes there. Again she says ‘Let us play for fifty.’ They play and he wins also those. Now he has won from her as many sheep as (the original number of) his sheep. In the evening he comes back. The blind giant again says ‘I shall count them.’ He says ‘This is mine, this is not mine. This is mine, this is not mine. This is mine, this is not mine.’ They are equivalent (in number). ‘Now, again, my son, I beg you, I implore you, It is a shame for you (to be in danger), do not go there, she will do this (to you).’ He goes again. He goes the next day. She says again ‘Let us play for half of your sheep,’ that is a hundred more. He plays and again wins them. In the evening he comes back. The blind giant counts them and says ‘This is mine, this is not mine, this is not mine. This is mine, this is not mine, this is not mine.’ That is he has won them twofold. He says ‘Do not go my son! Do not go!’ The next day he goes. He goes and says ‘This time I shall take my father’s eyes from her.’ He goes, he arrives there, plays with her and wins. She flees. She flees and he runs after her. He runs after her, he catches her and kills her. He goes and notices that she has three daughters like herself. They are all demon monsters. No, excuse me, he does not kill her. He sees her three daughters. He says ‘I shall kill these daughters of yours if you do not give me the eyes of my father. I shall kill the three daughters of yours if you do not give me the eyes of my father.’ She says ‘I have not seen the eyes of your father. Your father is lying. Your father’s eyes are not with me.’ He says ‘No, they are with you. You must speak.’ She says ‘No, they are not with me.’ He says ‘Look, I shall put these three daughters of yours in cauldrons and boil them in hot water. It is up to you.’ Well, her daughters know where the eyes of the blind giant are. She herself does not know. She has brought them and given them to them. They have taken them and put them in a thing. Then he brings—she does not give them, they do not give his eyes. He brings water and boils it. He puts one of them in the water. He puts gum in her mouth. (While) she is boiling and gum is in her mouth, the others say ‘We too want gum.’ He says ‘You too sit there.’ He puts them (there), he strips the three of them and cooks them. ‘Now,’ he says ‘you must tell me where the eyes of my father are.’ She says ‘The eyes of your father are in such-and-such a place.’ She brings the eyes of his father and gives them to him. He kills her also. He takes them, goes down and comes back (home). He says to his father ‘Father, come here.’ His father comes. His father comes near him. He puts his eyes (into their sockets), gives them a knock, and his eyes go into their place. His father sees. He says ‘My son, thank you very much.’ He says ‘You have finished.’ ‘I now have to return to save my brother also.’ ‘Oh woe!’ He goes to his brother. He reaches his brother but the other brothers are present. They come and say ‘This (is the one) who took the girl who was beautiful out of the thing—what is it?—who was (intended) for himself.’ They are making a wedding in order for one of them to marry her. He arrives and says ‘Oh well’ and goes. As soon as he gets close, his brothers recognize him. They are the sons of the king and have an army. They say to their army ‘Follow him and kill him! He is our enemy.’ They follow him. He goes to a goldsmith. He enters a goldsmith’s house. He enters there and tells him the whole story saying what had happened saying ‘I am the son of a king. These are my brothers. (The story of) them is like this. That girl that they want to marry is my betrothed.’ ‘What should we do?’ He says ‘Every day and every evening I shall go out with a different horse. I shall go out with a different colour horse. I shall kill a part of the troops, who are coming to kill me. I shall flee and leave the town at night. I shall return to you and come back. But at night we should gather walnuts, you should bring many walnuts and we should break them, so that they will say that the goldsmith is working. We shall bang and bang so that they (would say) that the goldsmith is working. We shall eat walnuts at night.’ He does this every night. In short on the third night he holds the shirt front of one of his brothers and says ‘Well, you know that I am so-and-so. I do not want to kill you. Why are you doing this?’ In the end, they give the girl to him. He holds a wedding for seven days and seven nights.