Folktales of Joha, Jewish Trickster

5: Joha and the bride

5 JOHA and the bride “Don’t look at the bride or the cloth by candlelight.” C H A P T E R 85 F o l k t a l e s o f J o h a 86 The Wishes Joha was left an orphan, without father or mother, and he grew up with a grandmother. One day his grandmother said: “Look, I am going to die. This is the way of the whole world. And this child . . . who will look after it? Who will protect it?” Then she said: “We will get him betrothed. . . . We will marry him off, so that he should have a family,” because Joha was an innocent one. No sooner said than done. They found a young girl, and they made a match. Everything was fine. Two, three months passed, and his grandmother said: “Joha, did you cast an eye* on your bride-tobe ?” And he said, “No!” The grandmother said: “You didn’t cast an eye on her? You must cast an eye! What kind of thing is this?” Well, Joha went off to do as his grandmother had said, and what did he do? He slaughtered a cow, took its eyes, came to the house of his bride-to-be, threw the eyes in her face, and returned home running, saying to his grandmother: “Look, grandmother, you told me to throw her one eye. I threw her two!” The grandmother said: “What did you do?” He said to her: “I slaughtered a cow, I took both its eyes, I threw them at the bride-to-be. But,” he said, “they all looked at me so peculiarly.” Said the grandmother: “And the bride-to-be?” Said he: “She began to cry. . . .” Said the grandmother: “Uhhh . . . ! Now this is what you must do: Wait a few weeks, until her rage should pass, and then *In Judeo-Spanish, echar un ojo (literally, “throw an eye”) means “to glance at,” “take a look at.” J o h a a n d t h e B r i d e 87 go there again. And you must make her laugh, that she should be happy.” Well, two, three weeks passed. Joha went again and told her jokes, but the bride-to-be . . . not a sound from her, not a word. Then he returned to his grandmother, crying. The grandmother said: “What happened?” Said he: “Look, I did what you told me to do. I told her jokes, that she should be happy, but she did not look at me or answer me or greet me, nothing. . . . ” Said the grandmother: “And the others? What did the others do?” He said: “All the others were crying.” “Crying?” “Yes!” “Why?” “How why?” said he. “Because the grandfather died!” “Look, son,” said his grandmother, “if the grandfather died, you shouldn’t have gone telling jokes. You should go and say to her: ‘May he attain the World to Come; may God forgive him; may his soul rest in the Garden of Eden. May you have a long life. . . .’” Two, three weeks passed. Joha went there, knocked on the door, said to the bride-to-be: “May God forgive him! May his soul rest in the Garden of Eden! May you have a long life!” But no one greeted him, no one wanted to see him. Once again Joha went running away from there and came to his grandmother, crying. Said the grandmother: “What happened?” Joha said: “Look, I did exactly as you told me, and nobody, nobody, nobody greeted me.” Said the grandmother: “And the others, what did they do?” Said Joha: “They were singing, dancing.” Said the grandmother: “For what?” F o l k t a l e s o f J o h a 88 “How for what?” said Joha. “They were celebrating a brit mila!”* Said the grandmother: “Look, if they were celebrating a brit mila, you should not have said to them ‘May you have the world to come,’ and all the rest.You should have said: ‘He was born in a good time! May he grow big and strong! May he become great!’” Well, two, three weeks passed—as Joha wanted the bride-tobe to calm down and her anger to pass—and then Joha went there. And the father of the bride-to-be was standing in the garden with a big wart on his chin. Approaching him, Joha said, just as...