'Once upon a time". It is a phrase as old as storytelling itself. A phrase that when uttered at the beginning of a fairy tale, or "jinn-tale" in this region, continues to enchant listeners, young and old, across the ages.
This week, as I interviewed an oral history and folk tales expert for heritage week at a coffee shop, I noticed how often random people would stop near our table and curiously listen in on our conversation. Some even went as far as to ask us if we don't mind them joining us.
"Go on, tell me another one," I kept asking the Emirati man, who appeared and spoke quite seriously except when telling a story. He refused to share anymore unless I told him a story.
"I love listening to stories too you know," said the 60-year-old. So I told him one about a faraway place, that if he so wished, he could visit to this day.
"Once upon a time, hundreds of years ago, in the land where I was born, lived a dragon," I started. "It wasn't a very nice dragon. It would destroy and pillage the nearby villages and devour their livestock. It had a particular sweet tooth for young maidens. To appease the dragon, the villagers left a young maiden at the front of its cave as a peace offering each month, until there were none left but the king's daughter.
And as in most tales, that is when something different had to take place.
"A hero appeared on the scene, called Krakus or Krac, a prince or a shoe maker, depending on different versions, who tricked the dragon into eating sheep skin that was smeared with a paste of sulphur," I continued. "The inextinguishable fire that raged inside the dragon drove it to drink desperately from the river until its belly burst. Krakus then married the king's daughter and became the ruler, and of course, as with all tales, everyone lived happily ever after."
This dragon's cave exists to this day on Wawel Hill in Kraków, Poland, on the bank of the Vistula River. The dragon is known as The Dragon of Kraków or Wawel Dragon.
The most common of fairy tales have a damsel in distress who is eventually rescued by a prince. Some heros are common men, but more often, they are a version of Prince Charming. This is also the case with most Arabic fairy-tales.
We discussed the many versions of Cinderella, particularly her looks and how they tend to be a reflection of what is considered beautiful in a particular culture.
She is plump and the daughter of a farmer when told in Egypt. Here, she is the daughter of a fisherman with dark eyes and long dark hair. In Iraq and Iran, Cinderella has some magic powers. Interestingly, the animal characters in the stories were often those indigenous to a particular land. Camels, snakes, and horses are common in Emirati and Gulf fairy-tales, while sheep, large birds, cats and dogs are common in European tales. The frog prince is a snake prince in the Emirati version.
There is no doubt that bedtime stories are therapeutic and help children bond with their parents. I am sure everyone has a set of tales, or perhaps one favourite tale, safely tucked away somewhere in the memory bank from their childhood.
One personal favourite my grandmother told me when I was just five was how animals were forbidden from speaking the human language except for one hour sometime after midnight and before sunrise.
For years afterwards, whenever I was anywhere near a farm or had access to animals, I would make a point of at least trying to wake up after midnight and sneaking around to try and catch the animals "speaking". I even got several of my Saudi childhood friends to believe in this, and they too would try to catch their sheep or goats talking in the late hours of the night.
When I told this story to the old Emirati man and a Spanish woman and her daughter, who had joined us, they didn't laugh at me. Instead they shared their own stories of how they, inspired by childhood bedtime stories, also tried to capture the elusive "jinn" or a "fairy". Every child, or adult, around the world, would have a similar story to tell.
