Keloglan and the Stingy Neighbour

Once upon a time, Keloglan went to a faraway village to look for work. When evening came, he knocked on the door of a house at the edge of the village. The door was opened by the stingiest woman in the village, Mistress Zubeyde. "What do you want?" "Auntie, I'm a traveller and I'm hungry. Do you have a bowl of soup?" asked Keloglan. Mistress Zubeyde frowned: "I have no soup, no bread, nothing at all. Go to another door."

Before she could shut the door, Keloglan smiled: "Never mind, Auntie. Let me make you some stone soup. We'll both have full bellies, and it costs nothing." Mistress Zubeyde was curious: "Stone soup? What's that?" Keloglan picked up a smooth, round stone from the ground and washed it: "Just give me a pot of water and light the stove."

Tempted by the idea of free soup, Mistress Zubeyde put the pot on the stove and filled it with water. Keloglan dropped the stone in the pot and began stirring with a wooden spoon. He sniffed it and tasted it: "Mmm, it's coming along nicely. But a pinch of salt would make it even better." "I have salt," said Mistress Zubeyde, and she brought a pinch of salt.

Keloglan kept stirring: "It smells wonderful. My mother used to add an onion to this soup, but it's fine without one too." "I have an onion," said Mistress Zubeyde, and she brought an onion, chopped it and threw it into the pot. Keloglan tasted it again: "If there were a carrot, the colour would be lovely too." The woman fetched a carrot from the cellar.

In this way potatoes, a handful of lentils, a little butter and a pinch of mint went into the pot. Each time Mistress Zubeyde brought one more thing, and before she knew it she was carrying the food from her storeroom into the pot. But she did not mind at all; in fact she was very excited. "What will stone soup taste like?" she wondered, waiting eagerly beside the pot.

When the soup was ready, such a lovely smell filled the kitchen that the neighbours gathered at the door. "Mistress Zubeyde, what is that smell?" For the first time Mistress Zubeyde smiled: "Stone soup! Come in and have some too." The neighbours came in with bowls in their hands, but nobody came empty-handed; one brought bread, one brought cheese, and one brought a tray of halva.

That evening Mistress Zubeyde's house was more crowded and cheerful than it had been for years. Everyone praised the soup, chatted and laughed. At the end of the night Mistress Zubeyde asked Keloglan: "My boy, will you sell me this stone? I want a stone that makes such lovely soup."

Keloglan took the stone out of the pot and put it in the woman's palm: "Auntie, I'll give you this stone for nothing. But let me tell you its secret too: the stone has no magic at all. What made the soup delicious was the salt, onion, carrot and butter you shared, and the bread your neighbours brought. When you share, the table is blessed."

Mistress Zubeyde put the stone on the shelf above the stove. From that day on she gave a bowl of soup to every traveller who knocked on her door. And every month she invited her neighbours and made stone soup. The villagers stopped calling her "stingy" and began calling her "Granny Zubeyde the Soup Maker".

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 gathered a whole village around one table with a stone.