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Gjizar the Nightingale
Once upon a time there was a king
who had three sons. The only thing the king cared about was praying
at the mosque. So he had a beautiful mosque built and when the
workers had finished it, he went there to pray. While he was
praying, a dervish entered and said to him, "The mosque
is indeed beautiful, but your prayers are in vain." When
the king heard this, he had the mosque razed to the ground and
had another more beautiful one built on another spot. When the
second mosque was finished, he went there to pray. The dervish
 entered
again and said the same thing as the first time: "The mosque
is indeed beautiful, but your prayers are in vain." The
king then had this mosque, too, razed to the ground and another
one built. He wasted so much of his money that his fortune was
all gone and the kingdom became poor. When the third mosque was
finished, he went there to pray. While he was praying, the dervish
entered again and repeated what he had said earlier. The king
got up and returned to his palace, where he sank into a state
of profound dejection. He had no more money to have the mosque
razed to the ground and another built, and yet when he went to
say his prayers, he knew that they were in vain.
His sons noticed that he was lost in
thought and worried, asking him, "What is wrong, father?
Why are you so sad? We have our fortune, we are royalty. Why
are you so lost in your thoughts?" The king replied, "I
have spent my whole fortune on building mosques and I cannot
even pray in them." "But why not?" the sons asked.
He answered, "Every time I say my prayers in the mosque,
a dervish comes by and tells me that my prayers are in vain."
The sons then replied, "Go to the mosque tomorrow morning
and pray. We will wait outside for the dervish to see what he
has to say." And so it happened. The dervish entered as
usual and said, "The mosque is indeed beautiful, but your
prayers are in vain." As the dervish was going out the door,
the sons took hold of him and asked him, "Why do you always
say, 'The mosque is indeed beautiful, but your prayers are in
vain?'" The dervish replied, "This mosque is indeed
beautiful, there is none more beautiful on earth. But it needs
Gjizar the nightingale to sing in it for the mosque to be one
of a kind on earth." The sons inquired, "Where is this
Gjizar the nightingale?" The dervish replied, "I have
simply heard of it, but I do not know where it is." Then
they let the dervish go, ran back to the palace and said to their
father, "The dervish told us that Gjizar the nightingale
is missing from the mosque, but he does not know where it is
to be found. Let us go and see if we can find it." So the
three sons set off to find Gjizar the nightingale. When they
had journeyed for about twenty days, they came to a spot where
the road divided into three. At every fork there was a stone
with an inscription on it. At two of the forks, the inscription
read, 'Whoever takes this road will return'. The third inscription
read, 'Whoever takes this road will never return'. The three
brothers stood there for a moment and took counsel. The youngest
of them said, "Let us separate here. Each of us will go
his own way. We'll leave our three rings here, and the first
one to get back will go and look for the others." So they
left their rings all under one stone, kissed one another and
separated. The youngest brother took the road with the inscription
'Whoever takes this road will never return' and the other two
took the roads on which one could come back. One of the two older
brothers reached a city and became a barber, the other reached
another city and opened a coffee house. There they remained and
looked after their businesses.
The youngest brother, who had taken the
road marked with the inscription saying that he would never come
back, got lost in a wilderness in which there were no villages,
inns or people, only wild animals and other savage beings. On
his way he met a savage woman who was combing her hair with the
branch of a gorse bush. The youth went up to her and combed her
hair with a comb, picking out all the lice. When he had got all
the lice out of her hair, she said to him, "What can I do
for you, now that you have done such a good deed and rid me of
the lice?" He replied, "I need nothing anything. I
would just like to ask you a question, and if you know the answer,
tell me." She replied, "What would you like to know?"
The youth said, "I am looking for Gjizar the nightingale.
You may have heard of it since you live here in the mountains."
She answered, "The bird you are looking for is not here.
Go back, for there are only wild animals here. Even I, a savage,
have never been over these mountains because the land beyond
is full of huge beasts." The youth replied, "I am going.
Whatever happens is God's will."
And so he left her and climbed up into
the mountains. There he saw a house. It was the house of a tiger.
He went in. The tiger was not at home, but his wife was there
baking bread. The youth addressed her and she answered, "What
are you doing here? My husband will be returning any moment now
and will devour you." He replied, "Well, since I am
already here, do whatever you want with me." When the moment
came for the tiger's wife to put the bread into the oven, she
had to fan the embers of the fire with her breasts. Each time
she did this, she burned herself and was sick for ten days. When
the youth saw what she was doing, he said to her, "Let me
do it." He took some leaves and fanned the embers with them.
When the wife saw that she could bake bread without getting sick,
she was very happy. But she was sorry for the youth, because
her husband would come and devour him. When she took the bread
out of the oven, she gave some to the youth and then hid him
in a trunk.
Presently, the tiger came home and saw
that his wife was not sick, but up and about, and snarled, "Why
didn't you bake any bread today?" "I did," she
replied. He retorted, "You used to get sick when you baked
bread. Why aren't you sick now?" She replied, "I found
a way of baking bread without burning myself." She showed
him how. She fanned the embers with the leaves and said, "If
there were a human being here who had shown me how to do it,
what would you do with him?" The tiger replied, "I
would make friends with the human being." So she let the
youth out of the trunk and said to her husband, "This is
the one who taught me how to fan the embers." The youth
and the tiger kissed one another and became friends. The tiger
asked him, "Why have you come here?" "I am looking
for a bird called Gjizar the nightingale," the youth replied.
"Have you ever heard of it?" The tiger said, "There
is no bird like that here, but I have a brother who is very old.
His eyelids have fallen down over his eyes so he no longer sees
anything. Go and pay him a visit." He showed the youth the
road to the house, saying, "When you get close to the house,
you'll see the wife of my brother the lion. She is old and has
just turned around and is looking towards the house. You must
go there backwards and take her breast into your mouth. She will
then ask you, 'Who are you sucking at my breast,' and you must
answer, 'I am your son. I recognize you as my mother.' Then my
brother inside the house will ask who is there. You must reply
immediately, 'I am a friend of your brother the tiger who has
sent me to you with a problem,' and he will say, 'Come in then'.
You go inside and raise his eyelids so he can see you. He might
know where Gjizar the nightingale is. If he does not know, you
must not go any farther, but come back here." Then the tiger
and the youth kissed one another and separated. The youth arrived
at the lion's house and did as the tiger had told him, asking
the lion if he knew where Gjizar the nightingale was. The lion
replied, "The bird is nowhere to be found. Go back because
from here on, there are only savage creatures from the realm
of the jinns. Even I do not go there, though I am king of the
wild animals."
But despite what the lion had said, the
youth did not go back. He said good bye to the lion and set off
down the road which the lion had told him not to take. After
he had gone quite aways, three eagles flew over him, opening
up their beaks to devour him. But the youth simply drew his sabre
and chopped off the wing of one eagle, the leg of another and
the beak of the third. The birds flew off and the youth was able
to continue down the road. After he had gone a bit farther, he
saw a house in the middle of a wide field and walked up to it.
There he met an old woman who had just put a cake in the oven
to bake. When she saw the youth, she cried out, "What are
you doing here, my son? My daughters will be back any moment
now and devour you." The youth replied, "Well, since
I am already in your hands, do whatever you want with me."
The old woman took the cake out of the oven and gave some to
the youth to eat. Then she set the table in the middle of the
room, placed a bowl of water in the middle of the table, brought
out some food and locked the youth in a closet which had a hole
in it, so that he could see what was happening. After a short
while, the youth saw an eagle approaching, the one whose wing
he had chopped off. It flew in through the window to the bowl
of water on the table, bathed in it and turned into a maiden.
Soon after this, the other eagles he had wounded flew in, bathed
and turned into maidens. Then they said to their mother, the
old woman, "It smells like a human being here." The
old woman replied, "You've just come from the humans, that's
why it smells of them." After the maidens had eaten, the
old woman asked them, "If I had a man here, what would you
do with him?" The eldest maiden replied, "By the soul
of the man who chopped off my wing, I swear I would do him no
harm." The second said, "By the soul of the man who
chopped off my leg, I swear I would do him no harm." The
youngest maiden also made the same promise, so the old woman
let the youth out of the closet and he said, "I am the one
who wounded you all." But they were pleased to see the youth
again and asked him, "What are you doing here?" He
replied, "I am in search of Gjizar the nightingale and no
one I've asked up to now has known anything about it." They
replied, "We know where Gjizar the nightingale is. If you
are walking, you'll never get there, and even if you did, it
would take three years." He then said, "Well, what
should I do?" "We want you to do a good deed,"
they answered, "and then we'll take you there in an hour
and you can find the nightingale." The youth replied, "What
is it you want; what is the good deed I can do for you?"
They answered, "We want you to stay with us for three months
and sleep with each of us for one month."
After the three months were over, they
took him to the place where Gjizar the nightingale was. In that
region the Earthly Beauty reigned as queen. She had five hundred
guardsmen at her court. A wolf kept watch at the outer door,
a tiger at the second door and a lion at the door to her chamber.
The three maidens took the youth there and left him in the courtyard
just after all the guardsmen, the wolf, the tiger, the lion and
the Earthly Beauty had gone to sleep. The youth went straight
to the chamber of the Earthly Beauty. In her chamber she had
four lighted candles and another four unlit on the table. The
lighted candles were just about to go out. When the youth entered
the chamber, he lit the four new candles and put out the burning
ones, took the cage with Gjizar the nightingale in it and left.
When he went out the door, everyone woke up. But before they
could catch him, the three maidens grabbed him and took him off
to their house.
There they remained together for quite
a while, until the youth said, "Take me back to my country
now," and they took him back to the place where he had left
his brothers. He went over to the stone where they had left their
rings, found his brothers' rings and set off down the roads they
had taken. He found one brother working as a barber and the other
in his coffee house and said to them, "Come, let us go back
to our father. I have found Gjizar the nightingale and brought
it back." And so the three brothers set out to find their
father.
On their way they got thirsty. Though
they could find no spring to drink from, they did come across
a well, but had nothing to draw water with. The two older brothers
said to the youngest, "You climb down into the well and
draw some water so that we can drink." Then they attached
a rope to him, lowered him into the well, cut the rope and ran
off. At that moment, Gjizar the nightingale stopped singing.
The water in the well was not very deep, however, so the youth
did not drown. It only reached up to his neck and his head remained
above the surface. The two brothers took the bird and brought
it to their father. He asked about the youngest son, "What
have you done with your brother?" They replied, "He
has turned into a scoundrel and makes trouble everywhere from
town to town."
Now the queen, the Earthly Beauty, set
out to do battle with the king and to find the man who had taken
the bird. The eldest brother went to see her and she asked him,
"Did you take Gjizar the nightingale?" He replied,
"Yes, I did." "Where did you find it?" she
asked. "In a cypress tree," he replied. So she had
him flung to the ground and ordered her servants to beat him
with a cane until he died. Then she had her cannons set up to
fire at the city and had destroyed half the king's palace, when
the second brother, hearing that she had killed the first, became
afraid. He ran off to his father and told him the truth that
they had thrown the youngest brother into a well. The king sent
his servants out immediately and they pulled the youth, half
dead, out of the well. He could still breathe, but was unable
to speak.
A few days later he was feeling better
and was able to speak again. The moment he spoke, Gjizar the
nightingale began to sing and indeed sang so beautifully that
everyone marvelled. When the Earthly Beauty heard the nightingale's
song, she sent her servants to lay out a red cloth from the palace
gate all the way to her ship. Then the king's son mounted a horse,
took the nightingale in his hand and rode out on the cloth. When
the people saw him riding, they were very frightened and thought
to themselves, "Now the Earthly Beauty is going to turn
the city inside out." But they were wrong. When the king's
son approached the ship, the Earthly Beauty came out and welcomed
him. As they boarded the ship she asked him, "Where did
you take the nightingale?" He told her exactly how he had
found the bird, and so they became friends and got married.
And that is how the king's son won the
Earthly Beauty and lived happily ever after.
[Source: Holgar Pedersen,
Albanesische Texte mit Glossar. Abhandlungen der philologisch-historischen
Classe der Königl. Sächsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften.
Vol. 15 (Leipzig: Hirzel 1895), reprinted in Folklor shqiptar
1, Proza popullore (Tirana 1963). Translated from the Albanian
by Robert Elsie.]
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