Galilee has been a crossroads of cultures, religions, and languages for centuries, as illustrated in these fascinating Bedouin folktales, which offer excellent examples of the Arabic narrative tradition of the Middle East.
Bedouin Folktales from the North of Israel collects nearly 60 traditional folktales, told mostly by women, that have been carefully translated in the same colloquial style in which they were told. These stories are grouped into themes of love and devotion, ghouls and demons, and animal stories. The work also includes phonetic transcription and linguistic annotation. Accompanying each folktale is a comprehensive ethnographic, folkloristic, and linguistic commentary, placing the tales in context with details on Galilee Bedouin dialects and the tribes themselves.
A rich, multifaceted collection, Bedouin Folktales from the North of Israel is an invaluable resource for linguists, folklorists, anthropologists, and any reader interested in a tradition of storytelling handed down through the centuries.
Table of Content
Foreword
Transcription and Abbreviations
Part I—Stories of love, loyalty, and devotion
1. Between the Sun and the Moon
2. The Princess on the Island
3. The Girl who Fell into a Well
4. The ā’s Daughter and the Orator
5. A Woman’s Loyalty
6. The King’s Wife and the Poor Man
7. uā and the Queen
8. The Doe
9. The Woman from the Sea
10. The Raindrop Bubbles Will Testify
a. The Man and his Neighbor
b. āeq Anāf (Tasting Justice)
11. The Coffee Server
12. The Old Man and the Girl, the Old Woman and the Young Man
13. The Girl and her Brother who Became a Deer
14. Do Good and Throw it to the Sea
15. The Transposed Heads
16. The Son Who Obeyed his Mother
17. The Silent Princess and Smart Muammad
18. The Two Notes (Smart Hassan)
19. The Kidnapped Bride
20. The Prince and his Two Wives
21. In the Family
a. Between a Brother and his Sister
b. Between a Bride and her Mother-in-law
22. The Replaced Bride
23. The Dangerous Night-Watch
a. Šāer asan and his Nine Brothers
b. Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
24. My Mother Slew Me; My Father Ate Me
a. The Green Bird
b. The Yellow Cow
25. The Boy, the Uncle and the Lover
26. The Inheritance Case
Part II—Stories about Ġouls and Demons
27. The Giant
28. Frē Rummān (Snow White)
29. The Man Who Delivered a Daughter
30. The Girl and her Seven Brothers
31. The Sickle Hand
32. Bells Sound
a. bēna and the Jujube Tree
b. The inn and the Girl in Dog Clothes
33. The Golden Palm Tree
34. The Children and the Ogre
a. The Girls and the Ġūla
b. Grē’a, mēda and daydūn
c. Nu-Nē
35. The Emīr’s Daughter who Flew to Switzerland
36. The Golden Children
a. The Three Siblings and the Talking Birds
b. The Wicked Old Woman
c. The Emīr and the Slave
37. The Ġūla, the Mallow Gatherer and his daughter
38. The Two Brothers and the Ġūla
39. Personal Narratives about Meetings with Ġūls
a. The Young Man and the Ġūla
b. The Ġūla Who Posed as a Tribe Member
c. The Groom and the Ġūla
d. The Ġūla in the Waterhole
e. Abu Xier and the Ġūla
40. The Old Woman and the ūt
Part III—Animal stories
41. The Man and the Wounded Snake
a. The Snake Story
b. The Shepherd and the Snake
42. The Goat, the Kid and the Ġūla
43. The Lion Who Wanted to Know Man’s Nature
44. The Two Hunters
Epilogue
Bedouin Dialects in the North of Israel / Judith Rosenhouse
Bedouin Tribes in the Galilee—Historical and Settlement Background / Arnon Medzini
Maps
Index of Tale Types
Index of Motifs
Narrators List
Subject Index
Bibliography
About the author
Yoel Shalom Perez is Retired Lecturer of Folklore at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and Director of the Center of Folktales and Folklore. He is author of the preamble in King Solomon and the Golden Fish: Tales from the Sephardic Tradition.
Judith Rosenhouse is Retired Faculty Member and Former Head of the Department of Humanities and Arts at Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. She is a linguist specializing in many aspects of Arabic, including phonetics, child language, and sociolinguistics in the dialects and Modern Standard Arabic, modern Hebrew, and Hungarian-Hebrew language contacts. In 2022, she was elected president of the Israeli Linguistics Society in Honor of Haiim Rosén.
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