Popular Turkish Love Lyrics and Folk Legends

The Gourd Bowl That Went Ticktock

The Gourd Bowl That Went Ticktock 59 The Gourd Bowl That Went Ticktock The woodsman’s wife died, leaving him and their daughter Fatma behind. Some time later, the woodsman took a new wife, but she had a daughter by her previous marriage and wanted Fatma out of the house. The woodsman was a weak man—he let his new wife talk him into abandoning his own daughter. He took his beloved girl to the woods and told her to play by herself among the flowerbeds. Meanwhile, he said he would be cutting down trees: “I’ll be near enough. You can hear my axe.” He walked away. He tied a gourd bowl to the trunk of a tree in the distance and then disappeared. While Fatma played or lay on her back among all those lovely flowers, she felt secure—she thought her father was in the woods nearby chopping down trees. But all she heard was the gourd bowl banging against the tree in the wind. After a while, though, she sensed that there was no one around. She ran to the tree and realized what her father had done. Poor little Fatma was left all by herself: 62  Popular Turkish Love Lyrics & Folk Legends The little gourd bowl goes ticktock: It leaves me all alone, in shock. She did not know her way back. She was lost. She walked on and on till she came to another forest, where she saw a mansion owned by an old woman who lived there with her cats. The old woman took a liking to Fatma and hired her to look after the cats. Fatma did a wonderful job. As the years passed, Fatma grew smarter and came up with a plan to find her way back to her father’s house. She asked the old woman for permission to leave. The old woman wished her good luck. “But,” she said, “I’d better wash your hair before you leave.” As soon as she washed and dried Fatma’s hair, gold started to stream down on the right-hand side of her head and silver on the left-hand side. Fatma began to run in the direction she had figured out, until she was finally able to see her family home in the distance. Roosters standing on heaps of garbage crowed to announce her return. The stepmother ran outside and heard Fatma screaming: “We’re going to be rich! Rich!” At first, the stepmother didn’t believe her, but when Fatma washed her hair and the braids rained gold and silver . . . The stepmother was a very greedy woman. She said to Fatma, “I want you to take my daughter to that old woman at once!” Fatma took her stepsister to the mansion. The old woman gave the little girl the same task. 64  Popular Turkish Love Lyrics & Folk Legends But when she noticed that the girl was not taking care of the cats the way she was supposed to, she dismissed her. The girl nevertheless insisted on getting the magic secret. “By all means,” said the old woman, “it’s all yours.” The little girl ran home to her mother, who didn’t waste a moment in washing her hair. As water kept coming down on her head, the right braid turned into a snake, and the left braid into . . . a huge centipede. As the stepmother and her daughter stood there awestruck, the snake and the giant centipede attacked and killed them. With the stepmother and her daughter gone, Fatma and her father lived a life of peace and quiet, enjoying the beauty of the Anatolian soil and sky. ...