Reading Notes: Turkish Fairy Tales, Part B

The second story that I enjoyed from this unit was The Wizard and his Pupil. As for many people, magic is an item of intrigue. This was what began the series of events for the main boy's story. He was drawn to a wizard and wished to be this wizard's apprentice. The wizard teaches the boy a good deal and then teaches him his best trick. This is the trick that is really a con. The wizard turns himself into an object to be sold. The boy sells the object and transforms himself back into a human and leaves wherever he was taken after being bought. This way, the cunning wizard is able to make a lot of money with the only cost of it being transforming himself. The only catch is that the boy must keep watch over a specific item each time the wizard transforms to make sure the wizard is not lost forever as that object. 

The young boy left the wizard's house after the wizard had changed into a horse that was sold and went home to his mother. Here at his mother's house, the boy convinced his mom to help him pull off this same trick that the wizard had shown him. This all went well until the wizard showed up to buy the boy, in his house form, that was for sell. The wizard was upset because the boy abandoned him. Once the wizard bought the home and took the key which was the boy's way back to himself, the boy transformed into a bird and flew away. This led to a series of transformations that I thought were clever whilst the wizard was chasing the boy trying to be undetected. At one point, the boy even changed into a rose. I would like to incorporate magic into my stories, and maybe characters that can transform are a nice way to do so. By the end of this chase, the apprentice had outperformed his master, and the apprentice lived to see another day whereas the master did not. I can understand why the master was upset, but this tale expresses that sometimes it is better to leave things alone than try to get revenge.

Bibliography

The Wizard and his Pupil, Forty-four Turkish Fairy Tales by Ignacz Kunos, with illustrations by Willy Pogany (1913).


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