The Stone of Patience

Once there was a poor woman who had a daughter. The woman went out to wash other people's laundry, and her daughter stayed at home at her sewing table. One day, as the girl was sitting by the window as usual, a little bird landed on the sewing table and said: "Girl, girl, poor girl! Your fate is with the dead!" Then it flew away.

From that moment the girl had no peace. In the evening she told her mother what the bird had said. "Close the door and the window and sit at your work as usual," said her mother. The next morning the girl closed the door and the window and sat down at her work. But suddenly there came a "whirr!" and the bird was on the sewing table again: "Girl, girl, poor girl! Your fate is with the dead!" Then it flew away again.

The girl was even more frightened by these words. Her mother comforted her again: "Tomorrow close the door and the window tight and get into the cupboard. Light a candle there and go on with your work." As soon as her mother left at dawn, the girl shut everything, lit the candle and locked herself in the cupboard with her sewing table. But she had not made two stitches when the bird was in front of her again: "Girl, girl, poor girl! Your fate is with the dead!" and whirr, away it flew.

The girl was in such distress that she hardly knew where she was. She threw her work aside and kept wondering what the words could mean. Her mother could not make sense of it either. The next day she stayed at home to see the bird, but the bird did not come again. The mother's and daughter's worries never ended; all the joy had gone out of their lives. They never left the house, but waited and waited in case the bird should come again.

One day the neighbour's daughters came and asked the woman to let her daughter come out with them. "If she has a little outing, she'll forget her trouble," they said. The woman did not want to let her go, but they promised to take good care of her and never take their eyes off her, and at last the woman agreed. The girls went into the fields and played and had fun until the day turned to evening. On the way home they sat down by a well and began to drink.

When the poor woman's daughter went to drink, a wall suddenly rose between her and her friends, such a wall as human eyes had never seen. It was so high that no voice could pass over it, and so hard that no one could get through it. How frightened the poor girl was, and how her friends wept and wailed! "What shall we tell her mother?" "It's your fault, you asked her!" "No, you did!" And so they stood looking at the great wall and blaming each other.

Her mother was waiting for her daughter at the door. She saw the girls coming back in tears. The girls could hardly tell her what had happened. The woman ran to the great wall; her daughter was inside and she was outside, and they wept until there were no tears left in their eyes. In the middle of all this weeping the girl fell asleep, and when she woke the next morning she saw a great door beside the wall. "Whatever happens to me, I'm going to open this door," she said, and she opened it.

Beyond the door was a palace more beautiful than anything seen even in dreams. It had a great hall, and on the wall of the hall hung forty keys. The girl took the keys and began to open the doors of all the rooms around her. The first rooms were full of silver, the next of gold, the next of diamonds, the next of emeralds; each room was full of stones more precious than the one before, and the girl's eyes were dazzled by the sparkle.

She went into the fortieth room. There a handsome bey lay stretched out on the floor. Beside him was a fan decorated with pearls, and on his chest a piece of paper. On the paper was written: "Whoever fans me for forty days and prays beside me all that time will find her fate." The girl remembered the bird. So her fate was beside this sleeping bey! The "dead" the bird had spoken of was this bey in his deep sleep. She washed for prayer, took the fan in her hand and sat down beside the bey. Day and night she fanned him and prayed without ceasing, and at last the fortieth day came.

On the morning of the last day she looked out of the window and saw a girl in front of the palace. She called this girl in for a moment to pray beside the bey while she herself washed and rested a little. She sat the girl beside the bey. Then she ran to wash and dress herself in her best, so that when the bey woke he would see his fate at her loveliest and be glad.

Meanwhile the other girl read the paper. Just then the bey woke. He looked around, and when he opened his eyes and saw the girl in front of him, he said, "It is you who waited forty days for me; you are my fate," and chose her as his wife. When the poor girl came into the room she could not believe her eyes. But the jealous girl said to the bey: "I am a sultan's daughter, and I am not ashamed to go about just as I am. Yet this serving girl dares to come before me dressed up like this!" Then she drove her out of the room and sent her to the kitchen to cook. The bey was surprised but said nothing, because he believed the other girl was his fate.

Around that time the Bayram festival came. As is the custom at Bayram, the bey wanted to give presents to his household. He went to his wife and asked what she wanted for Bayram. She asked for a dress that no needle had sewn and no scissors had cut. Then the bey went down to the kitchen and asked the girl what she wanted. "Bring me a yellow stone of patience and a brown-handled knife of patience," said the girl.

The bey set off and found his wife's dress, but the stone of patience and the knife of patience he could not find anywhere. He could not go home without the presents. He boarded a ship. Halfway there the ship suddenly stopped; it would go neither forwards nor backwards. The captain was frightened and said there was someone on board who had not kept his word, and that was why they could not go on. The bey stepped forward and said that he was the one who had not kept his word. They put him ashore so that he could keep his promise and then come back to the ship.

The bey walked along the shore, from the shore into a great valley, and walking on and on he came to a large spring. As soon as he stepped on the stones around the spring, a giant spirit of the spring appeared before him and asked what he wanted. "Bring me the yellow stone of patience and the brown-handled knife of patience!" said the bey. In an instant both the stone and the knife were in his hand. He returned to the ship and went home. He gave the dress to his wife, and put the stone and the knife in the kitchen.

But the bey was very curious to know what the girl would do with them. One evening he crept down to the kitchen and watched her. When night came, the girl took the knife in her hand, put the stone in front of her and began to tell them her story. She told how the bird had spoken to her three times and how she and her mother had been seized with terror. As the girl looked at the stone, it suddenly began to swell, and its yellow colour bubbled as if there were life inside it.

Then the girl told how she had come to the bey's palace, how she had prayed beside him for forty days, and how she had left another girl at his side so that she could wash and dress. The yellow stone swelled again, bubbled and foamed as if it were about to burst. Then the girl told how the other girl had deceived her, and how the bey had chosen her as his wife instead. All this time the yellow stone swelled, bubbled and foamed as if there were a real heart inside it, and suddenly it cracked and turned to ashes.

The girl held the handle of the knife and said, weeping: "O yellow stone of patience! You were only a stone, and yet you could not bear to see a poor girl like me shut out. How can I go on carrying this sorrow?" As she wept, the bey rushed in, took the knife from her hand, put it aside and wiped her tears. "You are my true fate!" he cried, and he took the girl up to the rooms upstairs in place of the other.

The lying girl had to answer for her trick and was driven from the palace. They sent for the girl's mother too, and all of them lived together in great joy. And the little bird came now and then to perch on the palace window and sing its happy song. This was its song: "Girl, girl, happy girl! You have found your fate!" Three apples fell from the sky: one for the one who told the tale, one for the one who listened, and one for the girl who was patient enough to tell her sorrow to a stone.