Fairy Tale Friday--More Beautiful Than the Moon--Algeria

Hello and welcome to Fairy Tale Friday. Are you sitting comfortably? Good. Then I’ll begin.

Last week we looked at a tale featuring seven ghouls and this week we look at a tale with seven ogres. This story is from Algeria and is entitled More Beautiful Than the Moon. It was originally featured in a book called Tales Arab Women Tell collected by Hasan M. El-Shamy who is a folklorist and ethnologist . Wikipedia says: Some of his research interests include religion, myth and ritual, narrative folk poetry, typology and classification, kinship and folklore, which he has analysed through comparative, ethnographic and psychological approaches. He has published several books about Egyptian and Arabian folklore.

I was not able to find the actual source for this story, but was able to find two different summaries of it from HERE and HERE which I am going to amalgamate into one tale since both summaries focused on different details from the original.

This is one like others we have looked at where the moon acts as the magic mirror. But this mirror forces the mother to murder her daughter Lalla or the moon will kill her. The mother is more than happy to do this and not under any duress in any way. It reminds me of a short story by Chris Priestly in his Tales of Terror series where a girl thinks a painting is telling her to do evil things, but it turns out to be a mirror and all of those things were her own desire.

Her mother pays the butcher in jewellery to kill her and bring her a flask of her blood to drink. But as in all these tales, the man lets the poor child go because she is beautiful and innocent. Lalla hides in a cave with some ogres who smell human blood and search for her, but cannot find her but no doubt would eat her if they could because they are ogres. When they do find her, her beauty stuns them and they begin to fall in love with her. In an interesting twist of fate the story says  she cleaned them up and discovered they became human again. Whereas in the last story she DOES want to marry a ghoul because he is kind and gentle, these humans who were formerly ogres are still not her type. She likes them as brothers but definitely wants to keep them all safely in the "friend-zone." She gently tricks them so she doesn’t have to marry any of them and can continue to live as their sister. I like this bit because it showed her having choices. She likes the ogres but does not “like-like” them and isn’t forced to marry any against her will.

As in last week’s tale, a neighbour causes trouble for our heroine and kills her. A prince sees her dead body and falls in love, but his father insists she be buried because she is DEAD. The story then says:  The undertaker discovered the needles and removed them and Lalla woke up but was unable to talk. The prince insisted on marrying her. Soon Lalla became pregnant and gave birth to a son. Being dead has robbed her of her voice and ability to choose. HE insisted on marrying her and impregnating her, but she was unable to voice her consent for this.

It does end happily in that her voice is restored when she is able to speak about her past and the seven “brothers” she is missing and has missed for the last seven years. For seven years her husband has never asked her about her family or where she came from and she had nothing to say--only when her son asks about her past is she able to find her voice again.  They are all reunited and in a perverse “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers” twist, after killing the Ogress who tried to murder Lalla, the seven ogres marry the seven daughters of the ogress who they just killed. Huzzah!

 

source

More Beautiful than the Moon

The story is about a beautiful woman who was very vain. She would talk to the moon each night and ask, "Oh, moon is there someone prettier than me?" The moon would answer, "I am pretty but you are prettier than everyone." Then the woman became pregnant and gave birth to a daughter who was named Lalla Ayshah el-Khdrah. The daughter was very beautiful and grew more so every day.

The mother went to the top of her house and asked the moon her question. This time the moon answered, "I am pretty and you are pretty, but Lalla Ayshah el-Khdrah is prettier than everyone.” The mother was filled with jealousy and asked the moon if she should kill her. The moon told her to wait until she was weaned from breast milk. When this happened, the mother again asked the moon her questions getting the same answer. The moon told her to wait for another milestone and this continued until Lalla Ayshah el-Khdrah knew how to cook, clean and sew and was old enough to get married and have children. The moon then told the mother to kill her or the moon would kill the mother.

The mother paid the butcher in jewellery to kill her daughter. The butcher took the jewellery but could not kill the innocent girl. He left her in the woods to let God decide what would happen to her. Then he killed an ewe and filled a flask with its blood for the mother. She drank the blood.  Meanwhile, Lalla found a cave to hide in away from all the animals. When the mother asked the moon, it replied, "I am pretty and you are pretty, but no one is prettier than you." The moon answered this way since Lalla was sleeping in the cave--underground.

When Lalla woke up, she heard seven ogres eating meat from a carcass of an animal. She remained hiding. One of the ogres said he smelled human blood. They searched but could not find anyone. When they were all asleep, Lalla snuck out for a little food and drink and then went back into her hiding space.

When the ogres awoke the brother again said he smelled human blood and noticed some of his food and drink was gone. They searched again but could not find anyone. Then they yelled that if someone was there, they would not harm the person. When Lalla came out they were stunned by her beauty and said she was their sister. She would cook and clean for them and they would give her whatever her heart desired. She cleaned them up and discovered they became human again. They moved into the forest and she was very dear to them all. In fact they all began to fall in love with her.

Meanwhile, her mother asked the moon again her questions. She was in shock to learn Lalla was still alive.  She was so angry and jealous the mother dropped dead.

The ogres had all fallen in love with Lalla and each wanted to marry her. She found a trick to not marry any of them. To decide which one she would marry, she put henna on their hands, covered them in cloth, and told them she would marry the one whose henna turned the reddest. In the morning, none of the ogres’ hands were red at all, as she had tricked them by using another herb, so she remained unmarried as their sister.

Then the cat and Lalla got into a fight and the cat put the fire out. She had to go to an ogress house to get a flame. The ogress gave her a flame but also ashes that dropped so she could follow the girl home. While Lalla was sleeping and the brothers were not home, the ogress went in and put seven needles into Lalla's head. The brothers returned thinking she was dead. They put her body on a horse and let it carry her through the forest. A prince was out hunting and found her. He fell in love with the beautiful dead girl, but the king insisted she must be buried. The undertaker discovered the needles and removed them and Lalla woke up but was unable to talk. The prince insisted on marrying her. Soon Lalla became pregnant and gave birth to a son.

Years passed, and the boy grew up and was playing in the garden. Some of his friends teased him about his mother having no relations and he went to his mother and cried about it. For the first time she was able to speak and told her son to tell his father that he wants to see his seven maternal uncles. This happened and Lalla, her son and soldiers and servants went to look for her brothers. She glimpsed the seven walking in sorrow and sent the soldiers to get them. She invited the brothers to dinner. At dinner her son asked her tell him a story and she told him the story of her life. Her brothers realized who she was and embraced her. They visited the house of the ogress that had stuck her with needles and set her on fire. They discovered the ogress had seven daughters, to which the ogres were married, and lived happily ever after with the Prince and Lalla.

Stay tuned next week for the tale of the Stone of Patience.