The Donkey's Head (Turkish folktale)

The Donkey's Head (Turkish: Eşek-Kafası)^[1] is a Turkish folktale collected by Turkish folklorist Pertev Naili Boratav from his mother. The tale is related to the international cycle of the Animal as Bridegroom or The Search for the Lost Husband, in that a human princess marries a supernatural or enchanted husband in animal form, breaks his trust and he disappears, having to search for him. Specifically, the tale belongs to a subtype of the cycle, classified in the international Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index as tale type ATU 425D, "Vanished Husband learned of by keeping inn".

Boratav collected the tale from his own mother, Sidika Boratav, who first heard the story in Gemlik, when she was 12 years old.^[2][3] The tale was translated to German as Der Eselskopf ("The Donkey's Head")^[4] and to Russian as "Ослиная голова" ("Donkey's Head").^[5]

An old couple have no sons. One day, the man is ploughing the fields and mutters to himself that Allah did not give him sons. Suddenly, a black man (or dervish) appears to him and gives him an apple, for the man to eat half and his wife to eat the other half. The man doubts the effectiveness of the apple and eats it whole. Nine months later, a donkey's head bursts out of his body. The man digs up a hole, buries the donkey's head, and returns home. Soon after, they hear the donkey's head voice shouting for them. The couple decide to take the creature, wrap it and throw it in the sea. The donkey's head survives and the couple, resigning themselves, raise it as their son.

Some twenty years later, the donkey's head tells them he wants to marry the padishah's daughter. The donkey's head magically produces a lavish carriage to take his mother to the padishah to ask for her hand in marriage in her son's stead. The padishah agrees to it, but orders first a palace to be built next to his. The donkey's head also creates the palace, and sets a condition for his bride: she is to come alone. The padishah's daughter goes to the bridegroom's palace and enters a room. She sees a tray nearby with a cloth on it. The girl takes off the cloth and sees the donkey's head. The creature falls on the ground and becomes a handsome man. He tells his bride not to reveal the secret to anyone, not even the slaves that serve their palace. One day, however, the padishah's daughter's nanny spies on her ward and sees the donkey's head. She screams. The donkey's head laments the fact, and tells his wife that he will leave, then vanishes. The padishah's daughter grieves for her lost husband and asks her father to build a bath house for her, where everyone can take a bath, in exchange for telling their stories.

One day, a boy named Keloglan asks his mother to go to the bathhouse. Keloglan goes to the river and dozes off. By moonlight, he wakes up and thinks it is daylight, then sees a strange sight unfold before him: two men come with forty mules, one chops firewood and the other loads the firewood on the mules. Keloglan follows the mules and reaches an underground chamber. The mules disappear and boiling cauldrons appear. Keloglan wanders a bit more and enters another room: donkey's head comes, turns into a man and sits at a table; a dove flies in, takes a bath and becomes a maiden; the maiden tries to comfort the man, but he rebuffs her; the maiden turns back into a dove and flies away. Keloglan returns to his mother and suggests they tell the padishah's daughter in the bath house. The padishah's daughter listens to the boy's tale and asks to be taken there.

The padishah's daughter follows the same trail and reaches the underground chamber. She hides in a closet and sees donkey's head and the dove come to the room. After the dove maiden leaves, donkey's head notices his human wife's presence and tells her the daughter of the padishah of the peris made him her prisoner. Donkey's head tells his wife to build a large cage with outward spikes: the couple is to enter it, so that the daughter of the padishah of the peris and her flying army will try to kill them, but will instead destroy themselves in the spikes. It happens thus; donkey's head is freed from his captor, and returns with his human wife to her kingdom.^[6][7]

Boratav classified the tale as types AT 425A and AT 425D.^[8][9] The tale is related to the cycle of the Animal as Bridegroom or the Search for the Lost Husband, and classified in the international Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index as type ATU 425D, "The Vanished Husband". This type refers to a human girl marrying a supernatural husband in animal form; she betrays his secret and he disappears. In order to find him, she builds an inn, hospital or bath house to listen to passers-by's stories. One day, she listens to a person's narration about a flock of birds transforming into men in a place somewhere. The heroine recognizes it is about her husband and asks to be taken there.^[10][11]

In the Typen türkischer Volksmärchen ("Turkish Folktale Catalogue"), by Wolfram Eberhard and Pertev Naili Boratav, both scholars catalogued a similar tale type to ATU 425D, indexed as TTV, EB, or EbBo 92, "Der Affenmann" ("The Monkey Husband").^[a] In this tale, a supernatural husband in simian form makes a princess laugh and marries her; the heroine betrays his secret and he disappears; the heroine then asks her father to build a bath house, where people can bath for free; one day, a Keloglan and his mother visit the princess's bath house and tell her about a lovelorn man somewhere, whom the princess recognizes as his husband and asks to be taken there.^[13] Boratav and Eberhard also noted that Turkish type TTV 93 was also "closely linked" to type TTV 98, "Der Pferdemann" ("The Horse Husband"), since the motifs of the open bath house and the Keloglan appear in some variants of the latter.^[14][b]

According to Georgios A. Megas, the main motif of the tale type is H11.1.1, "Recognition at inn [hospital, etc.], where all must tell their life histories".^[16][17] In the same vein, Swedish scholar Jan-Öjvind Swahn [sv] identified among the "motifs characteristic of subtype D" the bath-house, the inn, or places where the heroine goes to hear stories or news about her husband.^[18]

In a Turkish tale collected by Umay Günay from a source in Elazığ with the title Ahmet Ağa ("Mr. Ahmet"), Mr. Ahmet laments the fact that he has no children, and prays to Allah to give one to his wife. One day, a snake slithers down the chimney and introduces itself as their son, sent by Allah as answer to their prayers. Later, the snake son asks Mr. Ahmet to court the local sultan's daughter. Mr. Ahmet questions the idea of the sultan simply betrothing his daughter to the reptile, but the snake insists. However, Mr. Ahmet has a change of heart and does not go to the sultan. The snake son knows his adoptive father did not did as asked and bids him go for real this time. The sultan listens to Mr. Ahmet's courtship on the snake son's behalf, and the ruler demands the prospective bridegroom fulfills his conditions first, on penalty of death. Mr. Ahmet tells the snake son, who says he is to go to a place named Murat with stones, take three rocks and knock on the stone, give them the snake son's regards and bring a handful of earth and some seeds back home. Mr. Ahmet takes the earth and seeds and presents them to the snake, who does a circling motion with them. The next morning, a large palace appears with a lush garden in front. The sultan is surprised by the palace, and orders the groom to provide a retinue of a hundred riders in identical clothes and horses. The snake son provides the retinue, who come to take the bride to Mr. Ahmet's newly built palace. Nearing the man's palace, the princess tries to flee from the snake, but the snake says he is human under the snakeskin, a secret that must stay between them. In the wedding chambers, the snake takes off the snake disguise and becomes a handsome youth, so handsome the princess faints.

Later, the sultan's other child, a prince, is set to be married, and everyone is invited, even the princess and her snake husband. The princess goes ahead of him, while the snake hides behind a rock, turns into a human youth, and rides to the celebration. He rides into the gathering and defeats some javelin throwers, to the female attendees' delight, who mock the princess for her snake husband and sigh over the mysterious knight. The princess, fed up with the mockery, says the knight is her snake husband; he turns into a dove and flies away. The princess mourns for his vanishing, and asks her father to give her male garments, some gold coins, and a horse. She then goes on a long journey and reaches another land, where she asks people where is the best restaurant located. The princess gets her answer and announces she will open a restaurant where people can tell stories and drink and eat for free. The place's reputation reaches a distant country, where an old man and grandson pair decide to go there. On the road, the old man stops to rest, while the boy gathers some flowers upwards a mountain; atop the mountain, a large pool where birds become humans and take a bath, with an opening nearby with nice furniture inside. The boy and the grandfather reach the princess's eating establishment and report what they saw. The princess relinquishes the establishment to the boy and his grandfather and asks to be taken to the pool. After reaching the pool, she recognizes her husband, who asks what is she doing there, and she replies she will not leave without him. The now human snake husband takes the princess and both ride a horse back to the princess's kingdom, when the youth warns they will pass by a large-lipped Arap, his mother, whom she is to pet thrice and say to not touch them. The princess does as instructed and the Arap says her son taught her that. The princess and her husband return home and celebrate a new wedding.^[19]

In a Turkish tale collected from a source in Manisa with the title Gül Ali, an old couple suffers for not having children. One day, the husband prays for a son, even if he is a snake. Thus one is born to them. They raise the snake as their son, but hide him on the upper floor of their house, and the snake accompanies his father in fetching firewood. One day, the snake son slithers away from home and sights a beautiful girl taking a bath, falling in love with her. He returns home and his parents ask him what is the matter. The snake son says he is in love with the padishah's daughter, and their parents remark he is a snake. Still, he asks his father to woo her on his behalf. The father goes to talk to the padishah, who agrees to the marriage, but orders him to prepare a large garden of roses and flowers, like a sea, between their houses. The snake asks his father to go to a certain rock he used to slither on and say that Gül Ali sends his regards, with some oil and bread. The father does and brings the oil with bread, which he is advised to dip in the oil, and a palace appears overnight. The padishah then orders a palace to be built for his daughter. The snake son sends his father to the same rock and asks him to find four sticks, which he uses to build the palace. Lastly, the padishah asks for a large wedding procession with forty horses, which the snake son, called Gül Ali, also provides with the help from the rock. The snake son is brought to the princess on the wedding night and begins to talk. The princess faints, but regains her consciousness. The snake son asks the princess to keep his secret, which the princess agrees to do, and removes his snakeskin to become a handsome youth. As time goes on, the padishah visits his daughter and wants to see his son-in-law, but the princess dismissively says he is elsewhere. Thus, the padishah organizes a tournament in hopes of him coming. Gül Ali, in snake form, tells his wife not to tell he will come as a contestant on a white horse. At the tournament, the princess is asked about her husband, and points to the white knights, saying he is her husband. On doing this, the ground shakes, Gül Ali vanishes, and so does everything he provided. Meanwhile, elsewhere, a man is preparing to take his elderly father to see a doctor. The princess asks her father to build a hospital, where people can attend and give news of her husband. Back to the father and son duo, they stop to rest on a fountain and see a bird entering a rock. After the third time, the man leaves his father by the fountain and enters the rock, where he hears that "Gül Ali still has fourteen scars out of fifteen to be healed". The man takes his father to the princess's hospital in search of a doctor and tell her about the fountain and the rock where he heard the name Gül Ali. The princess asks to be taken there, and leaves the hospital to the duo. The princess and the man go by the fountain, but they must wait a hundred years. After the elapsed time, they see a person with a raven entering a rock; after the third time, the princess enter the rock and hears about Gül Ali waiting for three of his four scars to be healed. The princess says she has come for Gül Ali and he appears to her. Upon reuniting, the palace and the garden of roses reappear.^[20]

• The Golden Crab
• Princess Himal and Nagaray
• The Tale of the Woodcutter and his Daughters
• The Donkey's Head