Keloglan and the Golden Nightingale

Once upon a time, the sultan of a land fell into a deep sorrow. He stopped eating, stopped drinking and stopped laughing. The doctors could find no cure. At last an old doctor said, "Only the song of the Golden Nightingale can heal our sultan. The Golden Nightingale lives in the Land of Rose Gardens." The sultan's three sons set out to find the nightingale. But months went by, and none of them came back.

Keloglan was the palace gardener's helper. When he saw the sultan's sorrow, he was very sad. "Master, let me go too," he said to the head gardener. The gardener gave him a rose bush: "Take this with you. The nightingale loves the rose."

Keloglan put the rose bush on his back and set off. On the way he watered it every day and kept it in the shade. At an inn he saw the sultan's three sons; they had gambled with dice and run up debts, and the innkeeper would not let them go. With the last coins in his pockets, Keloglan paid the princes' debts. The princes thanked him, but deep down they looked down on Keloglan.

When he reached the Land of Rose Gardens, among the colourful roses Keloglan saw a tiny nightingale with gleaming golden feathers. It was singing on a branch, and its voice was so beautiful that even the stones seemed to be listening. Keloglan did not want to catch the nightingale. He planted the rose bush next to the nightingale's branch, watered it, and sat down to wait.

He waited for days. Every morning he watered the bush and sang songs to it. One morning a snow-white rose bloomed on the bush. The Golden Nightingale came and perched on the rose's branch and began to sing. Keloglan spoke: "Golden Nightingale, in a faraway land our sultan is wasting away with sorrow. Your song could heal him. I won't put you in a cage. If you come, come of your own free will, and go back whenever you like after you've sung."

The nightingale looked at Keloglan for a long time. "Those who came before you always came with a cage or a net. You came with a rose. I will come with you." The nightingale perched on Keloglan's shoulder, and they set off together.

On the way the princes caught up with them. When they saw the nightingale, they said jealously, "Let's say we found the nightingale." In the night, while Keloglan slept, they tried to take the nightingale, but it flew off and perched in a tree. The princes were left empty-handed. When Keloglan woke in the morning, the nightingale landed on his shoulder again.

When they reached the palace, the sultan lay pale in his bed. The nightingale perched on the windowsill and began to sing. Its voice echoed through the halls of the palace. Light came back into the sultan's eyes and colour filled his cheeks. The nightingale sang for seven days and seven nights; on the seventh day the sultan got out of bed, walked into the garden and laughed for the first time in years.

"Ask me for whatever you wish," said the sultan to Keloglan. "My sultan," said Keloglan, "set the nightingale free, so it can come and go as it pleases. And let's make a rose garden in the palace garden." The sultan agreed. He made Keloglan head gardener of the palace. And the princes were ashamed of what they had done and apologised to Keloglan.

Every spring the Golden Nightingale came to the palace rose garden and sang from morning till evening. The more the sultan listened, the more lovingly he ruled the land. Three apples fell from the sky: one for the one who told this tale, one for the one who listened, and one for Keloglan, who won the nightingale not with a cage but with a rose.