The Three Spinners: A Syrian Folktale

I was born in one of the oldest cities in the world to an American mother and a Syrian father who enriched my life and exposed me to different worlds at an early age. Perhaps this helped me become aware of how folk tales reflect in a simple fashion the customs, habits and beliefs of different cultures.

Though grandmother Tete’s bedroom was very small, furnished modestly compared to our comfortable Western-style apartment above, her sweet wrinkled face, warm smile, and twinkling blue eyes seemed to illuminate the room.

I would sit at the foot of her bed intent on her gentle voice as she told me stories and I would be carried to faraway lands. Those special evenings spent on Tete’s bed wrapped in the warmth of her love were the seeds of my love of stories, which were nurtured by the folk tales in English my American mother read to me.

Of course, Tete’s tales were part of an oral tradition that had never been written down, while the stories my mother read to me had been collected and gathered into books many years ago. Grandmothers were traditionally the ones who kept these folktales alive in Syria.

Later on, as a teacher of English to young Syrian children, I sadly realized the big gap between my generation and that of my students. In one of my conversation classes I asked the children to talk about the important role of grandmothers in their lives, and was struck by what they said.

Syrian “Tetes” seemed to have lost their importance – along with their stories – to computers, cell phones, and electronic games. The warm special relationship shared by grandchildren and their grandmothers in my generation seemed to have been replaced by cold technology. In an attempt to bring these stories – which had meant so much to me as a child – into their lives, I asked each student to bring a folktale and a recipe from the region of Syria where their family had lived and share it with the class. It surprised me that even the mothers of my students had to go back to the oldest woman in the family to get a folktale.

In time, my students grew fond of folktales and were proud of their rich Syrian heritage. I even received phone calls from some of my students’ grandmothers thanking me for renewing their relationship with their grandchildren. Some of these grandmothers felt challenged enough to make special trips back to their provinces in order to gather more folktales, while others refreshed their memories and started telling stories to their grandchildren.

All this made me aware that our oral heritage was being lost, that our Syrian folktales were disappearing and might soon be lost forever. It broke my heart to see how carefully Western folktales have been collected and carefully compiled in books while our own Syrian tales are neglected and forgotte.

I promised myself that the least I could do would be to collect and write down some of these folktales in a book. Along with my students’ folktales, I interviewed women from all walks of life and from many different provinces of the country. I gathered one story from a woman I met on a bus, another from a Syrian woman in neighboring Turkey who happened to be on the same tour with me.

Wherever I went, I managed to find women ready and willing to share the stories they knew with me. They became enthusiastic to help when I told them I was collecting the stories for a book in order to save the stories for future generations. They combed through their memories, recalled half-forgotten stories and generously contributed what they remembered. I am grateful to all these women who helped make my book possible. Now, more than ever, with the ongoing tragic destruction of our Syrian heritage, I think it is important to hold on to what we can of our past.

Muna Imady and her students

The Three Spinners

I can still close my eyes and see Tete sitting on her bed in her white nightgown which matched her white wavy hair, telling the story in her soft, but animated, voice. Perhaps it was the way Tete told the story that made it so special for me. Perhaps it was the catchy tune in the story, so typical of many Syrian folktales, that mesmerized me as it was repeated over and over.

Some readers have told me they were surprised that not all of my folktales ended “happily ever after”. However, folktales usually mirror the social and the historical background of their people and this folktale was popular in Syria during the grim years of World War One. Widespread famine and disease made this a very difficult time. No matter how hard people worked, they couldn’t earn enough money to eat nor were they always able to enjoy the fruit of their work. Tete was a young mother at the time, and recalled seeing people eat the peels of potatoes and watermelons out of garbage cans. Perhaps this accounts for the sad ending of this folktale. I’ll leave this for the reader to decide.

The Three Spinners

Once upon a time there lived three sisters who were very poor. Their father and mother had died, leaving them only the little house they lived in. To earn money, they spun wool into yarn and then sold it in the market.

One day, the oldest sister said, “How I wish I could eat a roasted sheep stuffed with spicy rice and almonds!”

The middle sister closed her eyes and drew a long breath and said, “How lovely the stuffed roasted sheep would taste with green onions!”

The younger sister added enthusiastically, “It would taste even better with some red radishes!”

The three sisters laughed and decided to save their money to buy a sheep and cook it stuffed with spicy rice and almonds.

Time passed, the three sisters worked hard spinning the yarn into thread and dreaming of their roasted stuffed sheep.

As they spun they sang joyfully:

How very tasty and how very nice

Is roasted sheep stuffed with almonds and rice!

Green onions and radishes would also be nice

With the sheep stuffed with almonds and spicy rice!

Finally, the three sisters saved enough money to fulfill their dream. They went down to the market, bought a sheep and cooked it with rice and almonds. They set the roasted sheep on a large tray decorated with almonds and pistachios.

Then the three sisters happily sat down to eat, but the older sister suddenly called out, “Oh my God, we have forgotten to get green onions!”

Then the youngest sister said, “We have forgotten to get red radishes!”

The three sisters ran out of their house towards the nearby fields. They were in such a rush that they forgot to close the door of their house. As they ran they sang joyfully:

How very tasty and how very nice

Is roasted sheep stuffed with almonds and rice!

Green onions and radishes would also be nice

With the sheep stuffed with almonds and spicy

rice!

As they ran through their neighborhood towards the fields, the garbage man saw them. He patiently waited for them to disappear, then slipped into their house and carried out the tray of roasted sheep to his poor old mother.

They both hadn’t tasted meat for such a long time that they ate everything on the tray.

When the three sisters reached their house, they couldn’t believe their bad luck. They cried and screamed and hit each other with the green onions and red radishes.

Their sorrow and grief was so deep that they died shortly after their roasted stuffed sheep had been stolen.

The moral of the story: Even though you might think you are poor, there are people in this world who are poorer than you. Share the little you have and God will bless you.

Excerpted from Syrian Folktales.  Reprinted with permisssion of the author. To learn more about the book, click here: Folktales.