The story of the first old man
The story of the first old man is a fairy tale from a thousand and one nights . It is in Claudia Otts translation as The story of the first old man (Nights 4–5), in Max Henning as the story of the first sheikh with the gazelle , in Gustav Weil as the story of the first old man with the gazelle .
content
The narrator has a son from a lover because his wife, who is his cousin, did not have a child. While traveling, his wife bewitches them into a cow and a calf. She says the mistress died and the son ran away. During the holidays the shepherd brings him to slaughter the cow that is crying, but the woman insists. The cow has no meat, so the calf is supposed to die, but the man spares it. The shepherd's daughter, who understands witchcraft, recognizes the son in his form. She redeems him, is allowed to marry him and transforms the evil woman into a gazelle, which the narrator now takes with him.
classification
The old man tells the fairy tale to the ghost in The Merchant and the Dschinni . The story of the second old follows .
Cf. Grimms Der Krautesel .
literature
- Claudia Ott (Ed.): A thousand and one nights. How it all started Based on the oldest Arabic manuscript in the edition by Muhsin Mahdi, first translated into German and appended by Claudia Ott. Title of the original Arabic edition: The Thousand And One Nights (Alf Layla wa-Layla). dtv, Munich 2017, ISBN 978-3-423-14611-1 , pp. 38–43 (first CH Beck, Munich 2006).
Individual evidence