The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1877-05-05
A Turkish Jest Book.

lteaCher ana preaoner) NaSr-Eddln.
This reverend wag has been called the
Turkish Eulenspiegel, but in Eulen-
spiegel there are no traces of the SIM
plicity and even stupidity which are
combined in Nasr-Eddin's case with wit
and humor, and which render him the
counterpart rather of the German Claus
Narr. According to some accounts he
was Bajazet's court jester. At all
events he seems to have been contem-
porary of Tamerlane, and his burial place
is pointed out in Ak-Shehr, the town
in which the defeated Ottoman Sultan
was secluded by his Mongol conqueror
after the battle of Angora in 1902.
Some writers, however, are incredulous
| as to his existence in the flesh, at least
as the author of the jokes which are
current as his, but which probably have
been fathered upon him, as many of our
own "merry jests" have been attributed
to a possibly humorless Joe Miller.
| There are 1875 anecdotes in the book, and
they are told in very curt and plain
spoken manner. Many of them are of
the nature of our Gotham stories, or of
the skits current among us on Irishmen.
Thus, on one occasion, having been told
| by his wife that GOODNESS in the eX-
tremities is a sign of death, and finding
his own hands and feet numbed by the
frost, the Hodja thought he was dead,
and lay down at the foot of a tree. cup
came the wolves and ate up his ass.
cts lucky for you" cried the PROSTATE
Hodja, that the ass owner is dead
| One night he shot out of the window at
what he thought was a robber, but it
| turned out next morning to he his own
caftan hanging up in the garden. Per-
ceiying that an arrow had pierced it,
Thanks, o Lord" he cried, " that
was not inside it, for otherwise I must
have been killed" Another night, seeing
the moon reflected in a well, he thought
it had tumbled in, so he lowered a
bucket to pull it out. The rope getting
entangled, he pulled so hard that he
broke it, and fell backward. When he
came to after the shock he saw that the
moon was all right in the sky Good
be praised and thankedw quoth he;
I've hurt myself, but at al events the
moon is put back in her place" An
other set of anecdotes illustrate the
Hodja's cleverness instead of his stupidi
ty. He was twice asked by people, who
wished to puzzle him, what became of
the old moons. On one occasion he
replied that they were minced into stars,
on the other that they were sliced into
| lightning. His opinions are shared by
many people. In the Island of Sylt, for
instance, it is believed that old maids
will be employed in the next world to
| n11tl old into A
once presented the Hodja with hare,
which was turned into soup. Next
week the peasant called, and was hos
pitably treated. A few days later came
several neighbors of the man who had
given the hare, and they also received
a meal. But when some fresh visitors
arrived, claiming hospitality on the
ground that they were neighbors of the
neighbors of the man who had given
the hare, all they got from the Hodja
was cup of water apiece, together with
the information that it was the sauce
| of the sauce of the hare" Some of the
! jokes will be recognized as very old
| friends, attributed to all manner of
alien sources. We find the Hodja, as
preacher, telling one-half of his congre-
cation, who said they knew what
he was going to tell them, to in
struct the other half who said they did
not. We see him, in domestic life,
| locking up his ak, and explaining to
his wife, who always laid the blame on
the cat when dainties disappeared, that
he was afraid the cat would eat it. And
We hear him cry to his pupil in
VOLTS hole, who wants to know what is
| going on, when the wolf is trying to get
in and the Hodja is holding it back by
its tail: If the VOLTS tail breaks, you'll
| soon find out" The well-known story
of the one-legged fowl, also, appears
under this historical form: The Hodja
once cooked goose, and set off to pre-
sent it to Tamerlane. But before he
reached that monarch he was so hungry
that he ate one of its legs. When the
| fowl was presented, Tamerlane COM
planned of its one-leggedness. "All
geese are one-legged," asserted Hodja,
and he pointed to flock of geese beside
a spring, each standing on one leg.
Thereupon Tamerlane ordered drum
to be beaten, which startled the geese
| into bipeds. According to our versions
of the story the Hodja should have told
Tamerlane that he ought to have a drum
beaten before the cooked goose. In the
Turkish variant the final repartee is:
so might you be made to go on tours"
an allusion to the force of the stick,
the drum being beaten thereby A few
of the stories are less familiar, turning
on points which are peculiar to Moham
medan lands. Here is one, for instance,
which is characteristic, though not over
exhilarating: Arriving one evening at
Sivri- Hissar, just at the moment when
the long fast of the Ramazan had ex-
pired and all the world was gazing
with rapture at the new moon, which
was bringing with it the feast of the
Bairam, the Hodja expressed his wonder
at the sight. Z" In our town." quoth he,
'nobody pays the slightest attention to
the moon, even when it is as big as
wheel, but here everybody comes out
to see it even when it is as thin as a
toothpickr- Nineteenth Century.