Folktales of Joha, Jewish Trickster

4: Joha and the animals

4 JOHA and the animals “Don’t die, donkey, until the new grass grows.” C H A P T E R 69 F o l k t a l e s o f J o h a 70 A Fish Recipe Once Joha’s mother sent him to buy fish. Joha went to the grocer with a little basket and said to the man working there: “Look, my mother sent me to buy her fish. But my mother doesn’t know how to cook it. She said that you would tell me.” The man put the fish into a newspaper and handed it to Joha. Then he said to him: “Look, first of all you must clean it . . . you have to put lemon . . . and salt . . . and you have to cook it.” Joha went dizzy in the head with all this. The man said: “Look, perhaps you should write it down.” “But where should I write it ?” “Write it on your fingernail,” the man said. Joha stretched out his finger, and the man wrote a few notes on the nail: Lemon, salt, do this, do that. Joha left very happy. But he left the basket he had brought from home at the grocer’s and went out with the fish in his hand, wrapped in a newspaper. Joha walked along happily, thinking: “Now I will go home and give the fish to my mother. We will eat it on Friday night, like kings.” He walked along, and behind him was a dog—God forbid!— a big dog. Joha began to run and the dog followed behind him. He ran, and the dog ran after him. In a moment the dog had opened its mouth, grrr . . . and swallowed all the fish. Joha stood there, empty-handed. Only the newspaper remained in his hand. He said: “Son of a mamzer!* Now look at my finger. . . .” He put his finger in his mouth and with his tongue rubbed out all that was written on the fingernail, saying to the dog: “Look, I won’t tell you how to cook it!” NARRATED BY HAYIM TSUR – 1992 * bastard J o h a a n d t h e A n i m a l s 71 If You Wash a Cat Early one morning, Joha took his cat to the riverside and began to wash it. A neighbor passed and said to him: “Joha, what are you doing!? You don’t wash a cat! It washes itself by itself. You are harming it!” But Joha continued washing it. A little later, another neighbor passed by and said to him: “Joha, look here, you don’t wash a cat! Don’t you know that if you wash it, the cat will die?” But all Joha did was let out a snort. A little later another neighbor passed by and said to him: “You silly thing, Joha. Are you crazy? You mustn’t wash the cat; it will die!” Joha didn’t answer him. In the afternoon, three neighbors passed by the riverside and saw Joha, sitting and crying. They asked: “Joha,why are you crying ? What happened to you?” Joha said to them: “My cat has died!” “You see!” the three neighbors said. “Didn’t we tell you this morning that if you washed your cat, it would die?” “Ah, no!” Joha said to them. “When I washed it, nothing happened to it. But when I squeezed it out to dry, it died!” NARRATED BY VITTORIA (VITTO) ESKENAZI – 1992 The Six Donkeys Joha was going to the market on foot to sell six donkeys. On the way he grew tired and climbed onto one of them. As they went along he began to count the donkeys: “One, F o l k t a l e s o f J o h a 72 two, three, four , five. . . . Why only five?” But he wasn’t counting the donkey on which he was sitting. Joha got down from the donkey and went to look for the sixth one. He walked and walked and didn’t find it. He went back, counted the donkeys: Now there were six of them! “Ah, so you came back?” Joha said to him, and very content , he got up on the donkey and continued on his way. A little time passed, and Joha once again began to count the donkeys: “One, two, three, four, five. . . . Son of a mamzer, the donkey has...