Tales Arab Tribes by Buckland

Author:Buckland [Buckland]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781138996724
Google: 63GbjgEACAAJ
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group
Published: 2016-01-31T04:40:18+00:00

The Story of Khalid, The Coppersmith of Nasiriya

Let the name of Mohammed Hassan be written, that he is the teller of this story.

ONCE, in the days when the Turks ruled Iraq, there was a coppersmith of Basra, and Khalid was his name. He was born in Nasiriya, and lived there until the sixteenth year of his life. Then, when his father died, he took his mother and went to Basra and he worked as a coppersmith in the bazaar of Umm el Brum, that he might earn enough with which to live. Now, the amount he earned each month from the owner of the coppershop was only enough for food and rent and clothes for his mother and himself, nor could he save money enough to buy a shop of his own or to marry a wife. And Khalid and his mother lived in a poor house, and she did the cooking and all the work of the house was in her hands.

There came a day that the mother of Khalid fell sick and died and he was left alone in the house, nor was there anyone to do the cooking and the work of the house. As for Khalid, he had to go to work from the rising of the sun until its setting, so he could not go to the bazaar to buy vegetables and meat, nor could he cook his food. He therefore thought: Since I do not earn enough to keep a servant it is necessary that I marry a wife, and this course I would surely take if I had the money, since it is incumbent on a man to take to himself a wife. But since I have little money, let me seek out one who is less desired by men for some reason, that she may be cheap, and though she may not be perfect in all the requirements of a wife, she will at least buy the supplies from the market and cook them and clean the house.

Then Khalid sent for a wise woman who acted as a gobetween for those about to marry, and he said to her: Know you that my income is small and my capital is none and I desire to marry a wife. Therefore seek out one whose father will not require of me more than one gold lira, and if she is lame or has only one eye, it matters not, but let her be able to cook. And the wise woman replied and said: I already know of such a one. Her father requires only a date stone. She is perfect in figure and in her face she has the beauty of the moon, she can recite poetry, and as for her cooking, verily it is said that there is a commotion in the heavens, for it is necessary to restrain the angels that they come not down to partake of it whenever she cooks a dish.

Khalid then said to the wise woman: If she

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