Keloglan and Whoever Gets Angry Loses

Once upon a time there was a very stingy agha in a village. He hired his workers on one condition: "You'll work for me for a year. During that year, whoever gets angry loses. If I get angry, I'll give you a purse of gold. If you get angry, your year's work is wasted and you go home empty-handed." Then he gave his workers such jobs and said such things that sooner or later everyone got angry. And so the agha got a year's work done for nothing.

Keloglan's older brother Hasan went to work for this agha. The agha told him, "Eat your bread this morning, but keep the loaf whole." Hasan was baffled. In the evening the agha gave him no supper and said, "Bring the sheep down from the mountain, but without walking." In the end Hasan could not stand it and shouted, "What kind of work is this!" The agha grinned: "You got angry! You lose!" Hasan went home empty-handed and in tears.

When Keloglan saw his brother like that, he said, "Now it's my turn," and knocked on the agha's door. "Agha, do you have any work for me? I'll work on the same terms. But I have one more condition: if you get angry, you'll give me two purses of gold." The agha agreed confidently: "This bald boy won't last a week."

The next morning the agha said, "Keloglan, eat your bread, but keep the loaf whole." Keloglan made a small hole in the loaf and ate the soft inside, leaving the crust whole. "My loaf is whole, Agha," he said. The agha could say nothing. "Bring the sheep down from the mountain, but without walking." Keloglan rode the agha's horse up the mountain and brought the sheep down. "I didn't walk a step, Agha." The agha's face went red, but he held his temper.

Next the agha said, "Plough the field, but plough it straight. Plough wherever my dog goes." The dog bounded from one end of the field to the other and finally ran in among the rose bushes in the agha's garden. Keloglan followed the dog with his plough and ploughed up the agha's whole rose garden. The agha came running: "What have you done?" Keloglan asked calmly: "Agha, are you angry?" The agha swallowed hard: "No, no, I'm not angry. The roses needed pruning anyway."

One day the agha said, "Keloglan, clean the stable, but without taking anything out." Keloglan knocked down the stable wall and opened it to the wind, and the inside became spotless. The agha was about to explode again. "Agha, are you angry?" asked Keloglan. "No. It's good for the stable to get some air."

The agha no longer knew what to do. He talked it over with his wife: "This bald boy will ruin us. We have to get rid of him." They made a plan. In their agreement there was a saying: "When the cuckoo sings, the year is over." So at night they would sing like a cuckoo, and Keloglan would think the year was up and leave. That night the agha's wife climbed a tree and began calling, "Cuckoo! Cuckoo!"

Keloglan understood, but he did not let it show. "What a lovely song this bird sings. I'd love to see its wings too," he said, and he gave the branch a gentle shake. The agha's wife clung to the branch in fright, then slowly slid down. When the agha saw this, he could not hold back any longer: "Enough, you bald rascal! You're driving me mad!" he shouted.

Keloglan smiled: "Agha, you got angry. A condition is a condition. Two purses of gold." The agha had no choice but to hand over two purses of gold. Keloglan gave one purse to his brother, and shared the other among the workers who had worked for the agha for years without pay and gone home empty-handed. And he said to the agha: "Agha, whoever gets angry loses, but the real loser is the one who steals other people's labour."

From that day on the agha never set an unfair condition for anyone again, and he paid his workers what they were owed. 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 through patience.