The Ash Boy

Once, in the times when time was not time, when God's servants were many and people's troubles were great, there was a poor woman who had three sons and a daughter. The youngest boy seemed a little simple; all day long he rolled about in the warm ashes of the hearth. That is why everyone called him the Ash Boy.

One day the two elder brothers went to plough the field. They said to their mother, "Cook us a meal and send it to the field with our sister." Near that field a three-faced giant had pitched his tent. The giant laid a trick to lead the girl astray. The mother cooked the meal, and the girl took it and set out for the field; but the giant made her lose her way. Instead of reaching the field she wandered further and further off. At last the giant's wife came out to meet her and lured her into her home. The house was the giant's house, and the giant swallowed the girl in one gulp.

The brothers waited for their meal until evening, but neither the girl nor the meal came. When they went home and learned from their mother that the girl had set out early in the morning, they knew it was the giant's doing. At once the eldest brother set out to look for his sister. On the way he came to an oven; an old man sat beside it. The man said, "You cannot beat the giant unless you eat bread baked in this oven." The young man bit into a loaf, but the mouthful swelled so much in his belly that he nearly burst, and the oven and the old man vanished.

A little further on there was a huge cauldron full of wine. The man beside it said, "You cannot deal with the giant unless you drink this wine." The young man drank and his belly ached. Then he saw two bridges, one of wood and one of iron. Beyond the bridges were two apple trees; one bore sour, unripe apples and the other sweet, ripe ones. The giant was watching from afar. The young man crossed the iron bridge, because the wooden one might break, and ate the sweet apples, because the sour ones were bitter. That was just what the giant wanted; he sent his mother to invite the young man into his house too, and swallowed him as well. The same thing happened to the middle brother.

Only the Ash Boy was left at home. His mother begged him: "My son, if you go too, what will I do?" But the Ash Boy said, "I will not rest until I find my sister and my brothers and defeat that giant." He got up from the hearth and shook off the ashes so hard that a great storm broke out; the people working in the fields dropped their ploughs and ran. The Ash Boy gathered up all the ploughshares and took them to the blacksmith: "Make me a lance so strong that when I throw it into the air it falls back into my hand and its point doesn't break."

The blacksmith made the lance. The Ash Boy threw it into the air, but when it landed on the tip of his little finger it broke. He shook himself again, an even bigger storm broke out, and he gathered even more ploughshares. The second lance broke too. The third time he shook himself so hard that not a single ploughshare was left in the whole land. The blacksmith made the third lance with great difficulty, and when this lance fell on the tip of the Ash Boy's finger it did not break. "This one will do," said the Ash Boy, and set out.

When he came to the oven he ate all the bread in it and drank all the wine in the cauldron, and nothing happened to him. When he came to the bridges he said, "Any fool can cross the iron bridge," and crossed the wooden one; and because eating sweet apples is easy, he ate the sour ones. When the giant saw this he said, "This one is no joke," and got his lance ready.

The giant roared: "If you don't bow to me I'll swallow you!" The Ash Boy said, "If you don't bow to me I'll bring you down with my lance!" The giant threw his lance, but with a flick of his finger the Ash Boy shattered it to pieces. Then he threw his own lance and the giant crashed to the ground. "Strike again!" the giant cried. "No," said the Ash Boy, "my mother bore me only once." The giant never rose again. The Ash Boy also caught the giant's wife. Once the giant's power was broken, his sister and his two brothers came out safe and sound.

On the way back his brothers were very thirsty. By the roadside they saw a well. They tied their sashes together and lowered the eldest brother down, but halfway he shouted, "Pull me up!" So did the middle one. The Ash Boy said, "However much I shout, don't pull me up." He went down to the bottom of the well and found a door. Behind the door were three girls shining like the moon. They were the daughters of a sultan, held captive for seven years by another giant. The Ash Boy defeated that giant too and set the girls free.

He set aside the two elder girls for his brothers, and the youngest and most beautiful for himself. He sent the girls up one by one. The youngest girl said, "You go up first; your brothers will be jealous and leave you in the well." But the Ash Boy would not listen. The girl gave him a box: "There is a flint inside. If you strike it once, a jinni will appear and do whatever you wish. If you are left in the well, two rams will come, one white and one black. If you ride the white one you will come out to the upper world; if you ride the black one you will go down seven layers beneath the earth."

Sure enough, his brothers were jealous and left him in the well. The two rams came; instead of jumping on the white one, the Ash Boy mounted the black one by mistake and went down seven layers beneath the earth. As he walked there he saw a snake climbing the trunk of a great tree; the snake was going to eat the baby birds in the tree. The Ash Boy cut the snake in two with his lance and fell asleep at the foot of the tree. The Simurgh came, and her chicks told her that the Ash Boy had saved them. The Simurgh shaded him from the sun with her wings, and when he woke she granted him a wish.

The Ash Boy wished to go up to the upper world. The Simurgh asked for forty batmans of meat and forty jugs of water. The Ash Boy struck the flint, and the jinni brought them all. Each time the Simurgh said "gık" he gave her meat, and each time she said "gak" he gave her water. When they reached the upper world he ordered the jinni to find the three girls. With the girls he mounted the Simurgh again and flew to the girls' land. On the way, when the meat ran out, the Ash Boy cut a piece from his own leg and gave it to the bird. The bird kept it under her tongue and later put it back in place and healed him.

When the sultan, the girls' father, saw his daughters he wept for joy and gave his whole kingdom to the Ash Boy. The Ash Boy sent for his mother and his sister. He married his sister to the vizier's son and married the youngest girl himself. He forgave his brothers too, but he never trusted them again. There was a wedding of forty days and forty nights. Three apples fell from the sky: one for the one who told the tale, one for the one who listened, and one for the Ash Boy, who rose from the ashes and saved his family.