Tales from the Arabic/Story of the Journeyman and the Girl

by Unknown

STORY OF THE JOURNEYMAN AND THE GIRL.

There was once, of old time, in one of the tribes of the Arabs, a woman great with child by her husband, and they had a hired servant, a man of excellent understanding. When the woman came to [the time of her] delivery, she gave birth to a maid-child in the night and they sought fire of the neighbours. So the journeyman went in quest of fire.

Now there was in the camp a wise woman,^[1] and she questioned him of the new-born child, if it was male or female. Quoth he, ‘It is a girl;’ and she said, ‘She shall do whoredom with a hundred men and a journeyman shall marry her and a spider shall slay her.’ When the journeyman heard this, he returned upon his steps and going in to the woman, took the child from her by wile and slit its paunch. Then he fled forth into the desert at a venture and abode in strangerhood what [while] God willed.

He gained him wealth and returning to his native land, after twenty years’ absence, alighted in the neighbourhood of an old woman, whom he bespoke fair and entreated with liberality, requiring of her a wench whom he might lie withal. Quoth she, ‘I know none but a certain fair woman, who is renowned for this fashion.’^[2] Then she described her charms to him and made him lust after her, and he said, ‘Hasten to her forthright and lavish unto her that which she asketh, [in exchange for her favours].’ So the old woman betook herself to the damsel and discovered to her the man’s wishes and bade her to him; but she answered, saying, ‘It is true that I was on this [fashion of] whoredom [aforetime]; but now I have repented to God the Most High and hanker no more after this; nay, I desire lawful marriage; so, if he be content with that which is lawful, I am at his service.’

The old woman returned to the man and told him what the damsel said; and he lusted after her, by reason of her beauty and her repentance; so he took her to wife, and when he went in to her, he loved her and she also loved him. On this wise they abode a great while, till one day he questioned her of the cause of a mark^[3] he espied on her body, and she said, ‘I know nought thereof save that my mother told me a marvellous thing concerning it.’ ‘What was that?’ asked he, and she answered, ‘She avouched that she gave birth to me one night of the nights of the winter and despatched a hired man, who was with us, in quest of fire for her. He was absent a little while and presently returning, took me and slit my belly and fled. When my mother saw this, affliction overcame her and compassion possessed her; so she sewed up my belly and tended me till, by the ordinance of God (to whom belong might and majesty), the wound healed up.’

When her husband heard this, he said to her, ‘What is thy name and what are the names of thy father and mother?’ She told him their names and her own, whereby he knew that it was she whose belly he had slit and said to her, ‘And where are thy father and mother?’ ‘They are both dead,’ answered she, and he said, ‘I am that journeyman who slit thy belly.’ Quoth she, ‘Why didst thou that?’ And he replied, ‘Because of a saying I heard from the wise woman.’ ‘What was it?’ asked his wife, and he said, ‘She avouched that thou wouldst play the harlot with a hundred men and that I should after take thee to wife.’ Quoth she, ‘Ay, I have whored it with a hundred men, no more and no less, and behold, thou hast married me.’ ‘Moreover,’ continued her husband, ‘the wise woman foresaid, also, that thou shouldst die, at the last of thy life, of the bite of a spider. Indeed, her saying hath been verified of the harlotry and the marriage, and I fear lest her word come true no less in the matter of thy death.’

Then they betook themselves to a place without the city, where he builded him a mansion of solid stone and white plaster and stopped its inner [walls] and stuccoed them; yea, he left not therein cranny nor crevice and set in it two serving-women to sweep and wipe, for fear of spiders. Here he abode with his wife a great while, till one day he espied a spider on the ceiling and beat it down. When his wife saw it, she said, ‘This is that which the wise woman avouched would kill me; so, by thy life [I conjure thee], suffer me to slay it with mine own hand.’ Her husband forbade her from this, but she conjured him to let her kill the spider; then, of her fear and her eagerness, she took a piece of wood and smote it. The wood broke in sunder, of the force of the blow, and a splinter from it entered her hand and wrought upon it, so that it swelled. Then her arm swelled also and the swelling spread to her side and thence grew till it reached her heart and she died.

Return to King Shah Bekht and His Vizier Er Rehwan.

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1. Or divineress (kahineh).
2. i.e. whoredom.
3. Or “scar” (athr).