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The Bear and the Dervish
Once upon a time there was a shepherd
who tended a flock of sheep. He was bothered day after day by
a bear who would come along and steal five or six of his sheep.
One day, a dervish came by. The shepherd greeted him  and told him his tale of woe about the
thievish bear. "I'll slay him for you," said the dervish.
"I just need three pieces of goat's cheese." The shepherd
gave him the cheese and the dervish went off to meet the bear
who was on his way as usual to steal some sheep. The dervish
pretended that he wanted to make a bet with the bear to find
out who was the stronger of the two. The bear said that he was
the stronger but the dervish replied, "I can crush you like
this rock," put his hand into the basket and took out the
first piece of cheese, then the second, and then the third, crushing
them all until they were nothing but crumbs. The bear was amazed,
picked up a white stone but couldn't crush it as the dervish
had done, so the two decided to make friends.
After a while, the bear became hungry
and asked the dervish to bring him an ox while he cut wood in
the forest. The dervish replied, "You go ahead and get your
ox, that's nothing for me. I want a lion." With this trick,
the dervish succeeded in not having to get the ox, and went into
the forest to cut wood. The bear sauntered off to a herd, seized
an ox and heaved it over his shoulder. The dervish went into
the forest, took a rope and tied all the trees up into one as
if he wanted to pull them all out together. The bear waited for
the dervish, but the dervish didn't come, so he went into the
forest himself and came upon the dervish who was pretending to
pull out all the trees at once. The bear was astounded and thought
to himself that the dervish must be a thousand times stronger
than he was. He said to the dervish, "What are you going
to do with all the trees you're pulling out?" A couple of
branches would be enough." The dervish replied: "I'm
not the sort of person to take just two pieces of wood. You take
them if you want them." The bear immediately broke off two
branches and returned to his ox.
Now the ox had to be roasted. The dervish
said to the bear, "I'll go and fetch some water. You turn
the meat on the spit, but don't weary yourself." The dervish
only said this because he couldn't turn such a huge ox on the
spit himself. He took a goatskin bag and went off to the spring
at the foot of a cliff. There he filled the goatskin bag and
wanted to heave it over his shoulder, but it was so heavy that
he couldn't even lift it. The bear waited for an hour, two hours,
and finally set off for the spring. When he arrived, he found
the dervish and asked, "What are you waiting for?"
The dervish replied, "I keep wondering whether I shouldn't
bring the whole spring with the cliff, because it fills up so
slowly. I would be ashamed of myself to bring back just the goatskin
bag, so you carry it." The bear heaved the goatskin bag
over his shoulder and they set off. On their way back, the bear
said to the dervish, "Let's have a wrestle!" The dervish
replied, "What? You can't match your strength with mine."
But they wrestled nevertheless. The bear hugged the dervish with
such strength that the dervish's eyes bulged out of his head.
When the bear saw the dervish's blood red face and his bulging
eyes he asked what was wrong. The dervish replied, "Oh nothing,
I just don't know what to do. If I throw you to one side, it
would cut you to pieces. If I throw you to the other side, it
would be even worse." The bear then said to him, "Take
pity on me, let me go!" And the dervish let him go.
They carried on to the place where the
ox was roasting and sat down to eat. After a couple of bites,
the dervish was full and the bear asked why he ate so little.
The dervish replied that he had just eaten a huge mutton on leaving
to get the water. Once they had finished their meal, the bear
said, "Let's go to my place because we are friends now."
When they arrived, the bear ordered his mother and sister to
sharpen the axe because he wanted to kill his new friend to get
away from him, since the dervish was stronger than he was.
But the bear's sister overheard everything
and warned the dervish. After they had finished dinner, they
all went off to sleep. But the dervish just pretended to go with
them to the place where they slept and instead hid under a donkey's
saddle. At midnight the bear got up, took the axe and struck
the dervish three or four times with it. Thinking he had killed
the dervish, he returned to bed and went back to sleep. At the
crack of dawn, the bear went out to gather wood. When he returned
he saw the dervish coming out of the house. His eyes opened wide
in astonishment and he asked the dervish how he had slept. The
dervish declared, "I slept very well, except for a couple
of fleas that bit me at midnight."
The bear was astounded once again that
the dervish had felt the axe as if it were a fleabite. It was
all too much for him, so he told the dervish what he had done
in the middle of the night. He then begged the dervish to make
him just as strong as he was. "That's easy," said the
dervish, "All I need is some milk." The bear went off
to the herd of the shepherd who was sorry indeed to see him come
back alive. The bear returned with a goatskin bag full of milk,
and on the orders of the dervish he lit a fire and placed a cauldron
of milk on it. When the milk began to boil, the dervish said,
"Stick your head into it and you'll be strong." The
bear stuck his head into the cauldron a first time and burned
himself; he stuck his head in a second time and then a third
time, whereupon the dervish gave him a kick and he fell into
the cauldron and boiled to death.
Thereafter, the dervish return to the
shepherd and told him that he had slain the bear. The shepherd
didn't know how to repay the dervish and asked him what he would
like. But the dervish wanted only a little kid goat and taking
it with him, he departed. He spent the night in a valley of wolves.
While the dervish was sleeping, a wolf seized the kid goat and
gobbled it up. Furious, the dervish took off his trousers and
hung them in front of the wolf's den. When the wolf then tried
to leave his den, he tangled himself in the trousers. The dervish
wrapped the wolf up in the trousers and set off with his bundle.
He arrived in a village on a Sunday.
The priest was just coming out of the church when he saw the
stranger and asked him where he had come from and what he wanted.
The dervish replied, "I have come here to sell a shepherd.
He is very good. He just eats too much. But aside from food,
he asks for no wages." The priest asked where he had the
shepherd. "Here in my trousers," replied the dervish
and gave the trousers to the priest who took them home. The dervish
departed leaving the priest his shepherd. The next morning the
priest opened his window to see if the new shepherd had already
taken the sheep out to pasture. But there was nothing to be seen,
because the shepherd, who was of course a wolf, had not left
behind a single sheep. The priest went out to the pen where he
kept his animals, but there were no more sheep there either.
He slung a rifle over his shoulder and set off in search of the
dervish.
On his way, the dervish had met up with
some thieves who were fighting over how to divide the money they
had stolen. When they saw the dervish, they gave him the money
to divide. The dervish declared, "I don't like squabbling,
so I am going to tie you all to a tree." He took the first
thief's money and put it in his pocket, then he took the second
thief's money and put it in his pocket, and then he took the
money of all the other thieves, put it in his pocket and fled.
A short while later, the priest arrived
at the place where the dervish had tied up the thieves. "Has
a dervish passed by on this road?" he inquired. "He
sold me a shepherd who ate all my sheep." The thieves replied,
"He was just here and tied us all up." So they set
off with the priest in search of the dervish, but he was nowhere
to be found. Finally they went to his house and surprised him
there. When the dervish saw them coming, he called all the people
in the village. As soon as the villagers heard that the dervish
was being attacked, they rushed forth, seized the thieves and
the priest and thrashed them to bits.
[Source: Manuel de la
langue chkipe ou albanaise par Auguste Dozon, consul de France.
Grammaire, vocabulaire, chrestomathie (Paris: Ernest Leroux,
1879), reprinted in Folklor shqiptar 1, Proza popullore (Tirana
1963). Translated from the Albanian by Robert Elsie.]
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Albanian Literature in Translation
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