All the Birds Stuck to One Tree (Madjun) by George Hodan
Patience-Stone and Patience-Knife (cont.): The girl fanned the man and prayed over him. She then saw a girl, who she told to take over her job while she washed herself and cleaned the room. Of course while she was gone, the man woke up and declared the stranger to be his wife. She was livid, and sent the girl away like a peasant. When a feast came to time, the man asked the girls what present they wanted. So he went off, but couldn't find the girl's request. He searched and searched until a man gave him the knife and stone she requested. When he came back, he was curious of the odd request and decided to spy on the girl. She spoke to the stone and told it of her story, and how the other girl was not the true wife. When the stone exploded, she was ready to kill herself with the knife, but the man shouted in confession and the couple ended up together after all.
The Imp of the Well: A woodcutter and his less than ideal wife would get in many arguments about food, and money. One day, he got so sick of her after a fight over him buying a rope, that he left on a donkey. Of course the wife followed him, but he found out that she was spying on him. He went to work woodcutting, and even shouted at his wife when she was near a well. But she fell into the well, and he just went home! The next day he came back to save her with rope but pulled out a trapped imp instead. To thank the man, he gave him three leaves to heal the Sultan's daughter so that he may be rewarded with riches.
The Imp of the Well (cont.): Soon the day came in which the poor daughter did become ill. So the woodcutter did as he was told and was rewarded with marriage to her. All was fine and dandy until a friend of the Sultan's daughter was sick as well. The Imp was with said princess, and didn't want the woodcutter to gain any more glory. The man decided to tell the imp that the wife in the well had escaped and followed him. This scared the imp so bad that he was never heard of again and the woodcutter lived on a happy life.
The Soothsayer: When a great soothsayer's wife came to visit the area of a couple, the wife decided that she wanted her husband to be a soothsayer as well. The husband didn't want to lose her, but was perplexed on what to do. His friend helped him by recruiting some of the bath-women and so they set up a plan. A stolen ring was planted by one of the women, and in looking for it, the man acted as if he could predict where it was. He was praised for finding it and went home happily. Later, the ring was lost again, and when he was told to find it or he would die, he didn't know what to do. Fortunately, the women who stole it was feeling guilty and decided to tell the man what she did. He told her to leave and have a goose swallow the ring. Then when he pointed out the goose having the ring in it's stomach, he was praised even more and became something out of nothing.
The Wizard and his Pupil: When a boy refused to go to school without running away, his mother took him to a market where there were many different jobs to observe. The boy was particularly interested in a wizard. He grew to learn all the tricks, including how to swindle people out of money by transforming himself into something of value. But when he learned this, he ran off to his mother in order to make them money, not the wizard. The wizard was angry about this and tried to be the one to "buy" the boy in his different form. When he succeeded, the boy turned himself into a bird to fly away. But, the wizard did the same and chased him. After much changing and chasing, the boy tricked the wizard and was able to kill him in front of a Sultan. He then was wed to the Sultan's daughter and had no more money problems for him or is mom.
The Liver: When a girl's mother wanted liver to eat one day, she had to keep "borrowing from Peter to pay Paul" so to speak. In the end, she had to kiss a peasant, to get straw from him, in order to feed an ox, to get his hide, to take to the tanner, to get leather for shoes for the incense man, in order to pray for rain, to get barley from the farmer, to give to the stork who stole the liver from the girl in the first place.
Madjun: There once was a mother who had basically a deadbeat son. The son did nothing but still wanted his mother to go and beg for the hand of the princess. When she did this, the king called for him and when he saw that the boy was bald, he gave him an unrealistic task of getting all of the birds in the world in one place. The boy went to figure out what to do and ran into a dervish who gave him advice on how to capture the birds. He did so and the king was still not pleased, charging him to grow hair. The boy was defeated and decided to just freeze everyone with the word Madjun like he did with the birds. Word spread that it was the boy causing this, and the king had no choice but to give the boy his daughter. The boy released everyone from the freeze and the couple lived happily.
Kunterbunt: This story was super confusing and weird. Basically there were three silly brothers who couldn't help but always find things in groups of three. There was always something wrong or different about two of the tree items such as death or brokenness. Then the story shifts to just one of the three men and describes his strange journey to find his knife, and running away from robbers. The story ends with the man falling off of a building to his death... but it is really all just a dream!
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