Lazy Ahmet

Once upon a time, when there were many of God's servants, in a village an old woman had a son called Ahmet. Ahmet was so lazy that everyone in the village called him Lazy Ahmet. From morning till night he lay by the fire, too lazy even to lift a bite to his mouth. However much his mother told him and however much she begged, he would not lift a finger.

One day his mother said, "Son, there's no bread left in the house. Get up and find some work." Yawning, Ahmet said, "Mother, if bread comes by itself, I'll eat it." His mother, at her wits' end, borrowed a handful of flour from the neighbours, made a bun and set it in front of Ahmet. "Mother, why don't you put the bun in my mouth?" said Ahmet. His mother was so cross that she took the bun away and said, "From now on you'll earn your own bread!"

Just then a caravan was going to pass through the village. The caravan leader told the villagers, "We're going to a faraway city. Whoever wants something, give it to us, and we'll bring back something in exchange." Everyone gave the caravan leader something. Ahmet's mother took her last coin and held it out to her son: "Son, give this to the caravan leader, and he'll bring something back for it." "Mother, I'll get tired. Let the caravan leader come here," said Ahmet. But his mother insisted so much that Ahmet crawled to the door and gave the coin to the caravan leader.

The caravan reached the faraway city. They bought what everyone had asked for. The caravan leader forgot about Ahmet's coin and only remembered it on the way back. In the market a man was selling a cat. "I'll take Lazy Ahmet a cat," said the caravan leader, and he bought the cat for the coin. On the way home the caravan stopped in a country where there were no cats at all, and the palace was overrun with mice. The mice climbed onto the sultan's table, chewed his bed and riddled his treasury with holes.

The caravan leader showed the cat to the sultan. In a few days the cat caught every mouse in the palace. The sultan was overjoyed and gave the caravan leader forty mule-loads of gold for the cat. When the caravan leader got back to the village, he left the gold at Ahmet's door. In an instant Ahmet became the richest man in the village.

But Ahmet was still lazy. He put the gold in a chest and went on lying by the fire. One day the daughter of the sultan of that country heard the story. She was very clever and very hardworking. Her father wanted her to marry, but the girl said, "I'd like to see this Lazy Ahmet who became rich from the gold a cat earned." Her father was surprised, but he did not refuse his daughter's wish.

The sultan's daughter disguised herself and came to Ahmet's village. She saw Ahmet lying by the fire. "What a handsome young man, but what a pity he's so lazy," she thought. She talked with his mother and decided to stay with her for a while. Every morning she said to Ahmet, "Ahmet, there's an apple tree in the garden. Go and pick an apple and eat it." At first Ahmet was too lazy, but when he got hungry he got up and went. The next day the girl said, "Ahmet, if you plant a walnut tree next to the apple tree, next year you'll have walnuts to eat too." Ahmet planted a sapling.

In this way the girl had Ahmet do a little job every day. One day Ahmet chopped wood, another day he carried water, another day he sowed seeds in the field. And when he saw the result of each thing he did, he was glad. When the sapling he had planted and watered turned green, and the seeds he had sown sprouted, he began to feel a strange joy inside. One morning he got up early all by himself, and when he saw his mother carrying water from the fountain, he ran and took the jug from her hands. His mother wept with joy.

Day by day Ahmet changed. Now he was the most hardworking young man in the village. With his gold he had a mill built for the village, and a fountain, and he helped the poor. One day he asked the guest in their house: "Who are you? You taught me to work." The girl smiled and told him who she was: "I'm the daughter of the sultan of the country where the cat earned your gold."

Ahmet was astonished, and then he kissed the girl's hand: "You made me give up being lazy. Will you marry me?" "I will," said the girl, "because now you're not Lazy Ahmet, you're Hardworking Ahmet." The sultan agreed to the marriage too. The wedding lasted forty days and forty nights. Ahmet and the sultan's daughter lived happily in the village, and every year their fields gave the richest harvest.

Three apples fell from the sky: one for the one who told this tale, one for the one who listened, and one for Ahmet, who gave up being lazy and earned his own bread.