As anthropologist Joe Pierce explains, Turkish folklore, mainly that in the Demirciler region, is broke into three categories: Hoca stories, which catalog the comedic tales of Nesreddin Hoca and typically center around some type of religious parable; Keloğlan stores, which chronicle the mythical adventures of a young man; and miscellaneous stories about animals who behave as humans and usually function as how-to manuals for the listener.[1] While Hoca and the miscellaneous stories deal with everyday human life, the Keloğlan stores center around the fantastical and supernatural. In these narratives, Keloğlan, a young man whose name translates into “the boy with no hair,” encounters a variety of mythological beings who lead him on fanciful journeys. In one, the youth encounters three magical horses who each give him a strand of hair and instruct him to burn them whenever he needs a wish, with Keloğlan using each one as a way to win the Sultan’s three daughters for him and his two ungrateful older brothers.[2] In another, Keloğlan is tricked by his brothers into finding gold at the bottom of a well and finds a hidden world tormented by a giant who demands a human sacrifice each year to keep the village’s water supply flowing. After defeating the monster, Keloğlan is granted anything he wants by the appreciative Sultan.[3] In another, Keloğlan defeats a snake threatening to attack the chicks of a magical bird, who, in gratitude, helps Keloğlan seek revenge on his two thankless brothers, with a truce finally drawn that ends in a feast lasting forty days and forty nights and Keloğlan’s marriage to the Sultan’s youngest and most beautiful daughter.[4] Interestingly, much of Turkish folklore commonly begins with the phrase Bir varmiş, bir yokmuş (one there was, one there was not), which is the equivalent of the English “Once upon a time.”[5]
Works Referenced
Pierce, Joe. Life in a Turkish Village. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964.
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[1] Pierce, 93.
[2] Pierce, 94-95.
[3] Pierce, 95-96.
[4] Pierce, 96.
[5] Pierce, 93.
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