Folktales of the Jews, Volume 1: Tales from the Sephardic Dispersion

31. The Pregnant King (IFA 14043)

31 The Pregnant King T O L D B Y M O S H E S A R A N O T O M A T I L D A K O E N - S A R A N O Once there was a king who had weak eyes. Their condition worsened from day to day, and he kept calling in the very best physicians to be found in his city. One day a new physician arrived in town and was soon summoned to the royal court. The physician examined the king and noticed that he kept touching his eyes with his hands. At the end of the examination the physician addressed the king. “Your Majesty, I have to tell you something bizarre: You’re pregnant.” The king was astonished. “What are you saying? Is that possible?” “Your Majesty!” replied the physician. “If I, a medical doctor, say so, you must believe me. In another nine months you will give birth.” The physician went away. The king forgot all about his weak eyes. He started watching his belly and touching it, to check whether it was starting to swell. After the nine months had passed, the king, expecting to give birth any day, summoned the physician again. “How can I be pregnant? If I were, I should have given birth already.” The physician examined him again. “Your Majesty, nine months ago you summoned me to heal your eyes. I told you then that you were pregnant so that you would think about your belly and stop thinking about your weak eyes. This made you stop touching them all the time and gave them a chance to heal. And it worked! Aren’t they healthy now?” The king understood the physician’s good intentions. He was so grateful that he appointed him his court physician. 221 COMMENTARY FOR TALE 31 (IFA 14043) Told by Moshe Sarano to Matilda Koen-Sarano in the 1950s in Milan, Italy, and written down from memory in 1979.1 Cultural, Historical, and Literary Background Motif J2321 “Man made to believe that he is pregnant” occurs not as a ruse but as a claim by the king of the fictional country Torelore, in the thirteenth-century French cantefable Aucassin et Nicolete.2 Torelore is an inverted world in which the king is pregnant and his wife, the queen, leads the army on the battlefield.3 Similarities to Other IFA Tales Other tales in the IFA about the diagnosis of pregnancy as a curative distraction are as follows: • IFA 2413: The King Who Picked His Nose in Public (Eretz Yisra’el, Sephardic). • IFA 3759: How Was the King Cured from Nose-Picking? (Eretz Yisra’el, Sephardic). • IFA 6000: The King Who Became Pregnant (Iraq). • IFA 7876: Even to the Half of the Kingdom (Iraqi Kurdistan). • IFA 11698: Behold a Wonder (Bulgaria). Folktale Types • 1543C*–*A (IFA) “The Clever Doctor.” • 1543C*–*A (Haboucha) “A Healing by Distracting Attention.” • 1543C*–*A (Jason) “Clever Doctor Cures Bad Habits and Diseases by Distraction” or “Healing by Distracting Attention.” Folklore Motifs • F956 “Extraordinary diagnosis.” • J1115.2 “Clever physician.” • J2300 “Gullible fools.” • J2321 “Man made to believe that he is pregnant.”4 • cf. N648 “King accidentally cured by doctor’s ruse and excuses, pretended inability to cure him.” • P10 “Kings.” • P424 “Physician.” • Q94 “Reward for cure.” • Q113.0.1 “High honors as reward.” • *Q113.5 “Appointment as a royal physician as reward.” • T570 “Pregnancy.” • T578 “Pregnant man.”  222  Folktales of the Jews: Volume 1 31 / The Pregnant King  223  __________ Notes __________ 1. First published in Koen-Sarano, Kuentos del folklor de la famiya DjudeoEspanyola , 46–47. 2. Bourdillon, Aucassin et Nicolete, 63–65, 141–143 nos. 29–30. For analytical comments , see R. Pensom, Aucassin et Nicolet, 105–113. 3. See Pensom, op. cit., 105–113. 4. F. Hoffmann, Analytical Survey of Anglo-American Traditional Erotica, 213. ...