The Tale of Aftab
The Tale of Aftab is an Azerbaijani fairy tale, about a maiden that marries a man under a snakeskin disguise, breaks the secret about his identity and has to search for him, eventually finding him at his mother's house, where she is forced to perform difficult tasks for her.
The tale is related to the international cycle of the Animal as Bridegroom or The Search for the Lost Husband, in that a heroine marries a supernatural husband in animal shape, loses him, and has to seek him out. It is also classified in the international Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index as tale type 425B, "Son of the Witch", thus distantly related to the Graeco-Roman myth of Cupid and Psyche.
Summary
A brother and his sister, named Pəri, live together, with him hunting while she stays home. One day, he hunts some game and prepares its heart, when a snake appears, coils itself around the heart and demands the man's sister Pəri as his bride, lest the snake kills him. The snake stresses the truth of his threat, even if the youth hides in the depths of the earth or up in the sky. He returns home and explains the situation to Pəri, who decides to go with the snake. Pəri's brother delivers her to the snake by a spring. Ten days later, the youth pays a visit to his sister by the fountain, and enters the snake's castle. Pəri welcomes him and says Aftab is a human being under the snakeskin, so her brother asks her how can they destroy his snakeskin. He calls for other brothers and sisters and they prepare the tandoor to burn the animal disguise, but Aftab appears and warns them not to do it, since she will regret it. Aftab leaves for a month and Pəri's family burns the snakeskin in a tandoor. Aftab discovers the deed and admonishes his wife, saying that she will only find him again by wearing iron shoes and walking with an iron scepter.Pəri follows after her husband in iron garments, and wanders the world until she reaches a spring, where a maidservant is fetching water. The maidservant explains she is bringing water to Aftab, since he fell in love with a human and now his body is burning after they burned his snakeskin. Pəri drops her ring into the jug, which the maidservant brings to Aftab. Aftab goes to drink water and finds the ring, then asks his mother if a human was to come to their house, would she devour them? His mother promises not to do it, and Aftab orders the maidservant to bring the person at the spring. It happens thus, and Aftab recognizes his human wife, Pəri. Despite his mother promising not to harm her, she devises ways to kill the girl: first, she gives Pəri a pair of scissors that do not cut and orders her to deliver it down the mountain. Aftab intercepts his wife and tells her to drop the scissors there, fetch some clothes and rush back up the mountain. Pəri does as instructed, steals the clothes and makes her way up the mountain, with some voices echoing threats at her. Aftab's mother suspects the task was not Pəri's doing, but her son's, and gives her an ax with an order to go into the forest and bring back forty camel loads of firewood. Aftab tells Pəri to enter the forest and shout that Aftab is getting married, and needs forty loads of firewood in camels. Pəri does as instructed and forty camels come from the forest carrying bundles of firewood on their backs.
Thirdly, Aftab's mother tells Pəri to go to her sister and ask for the dastarkhan and the frying pan for the wedding. Aftab intercepts Pəri and advises her how to proceed: pass by a thornbush and compliment it, compliment a river of white water, compliment a pool of black water by saying she would bathe and swim in it, reach his aunt's house and ask for the dastarkhan and the pan; while she goes to another room to sharpen her teeth, Pəri is to steal the objects and rush back. Pəri follows his instructions to the letter and steals the dartarkhan and the pan, as his aunt commands her servants to stop the girl, to no avail. Finally, Aftab's mother arranges his wedding to his cousin, and places candles on Pəri's slippers, for the girl to illuminate the wedding couple. Pəri suffers for the burning on her feet, when Aftab beheads his cousin and throws her head across the room, takes his human wife and both escape from his mother's house. The next morning, Aftab's mother finds her niece dead and the couple gone, and sends her daughters after their brother. On the road, Aftab and Pəri transform themselves to trick their pursuers: first, into a chicken with its chicks ; then, into a Mollah and a house ; lastly, into a melon patch and a garden keeper.
Analysis
Tale type
Azerbaijani scholarship indexes the tale as the Azerbaijani tale type 428, "Div qarısının qulluğunda". In the Azeri type, the heroine marries a snake who is a human youth underneath it; convinced by her sisters, she burns his snakeskin and he vanishes; she dons iron shoes and goes after him, eventually finding him at the house of the Div woman, to whom she has to perform difficult tasks; with her husband's help, the heroine fulfills the tasks, then both flee in a transformation sequence, their third transformation a flower and a snake coiled around it.In the Azerbaijani Folktale Index, Azeri type 428 corresponds to Turkish tale type 98. In the Typen türkischer Volksmärchen, by Wolfram Eberhard and Pertev Naili Boratav, Turkish type TTV 98, "Der Pferdemann", corresponded in the international classification to tale type AaTh 425.
In his monograph about Cupid and Psyche, Swedish scholar acknowledged that Turkish type 98 was subtype 425A of his analysis, that is, "Cupid and Psyche", being the "oldest" and containing the episode of the witch's tasks. In the international index, however, Swahn's typing is indexed as type ATU 425B, "The Son of the Witch": the heroine marries a man in animal shape, betrays his secret and seeks his out; after a long journey, she finds him at his mother's house, where she is forced to perform difficult tasks for her, which she accomplishes with her husband's secret help.