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PodCastle 619: The Tale of Mahliya and Mauhub and the White-Footed Gazelle

03.24.2020 - By Escape Artists, IncPlay

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* Author : Sofia Samatar

* Narrator : C. L. Clark

* Host : Peter Adrian Behravesh

* Audio Producer : Peter Adrian Behravesh

*

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Originally published in The Starlit Wood.

Rated PG-13.

The Tale of Mahliya and Mauhub and the White-Footed Gazelle

By Sofia Samatar

This story is at least a thousand years old. Its complete title is “The Tale of Mahliya and Mauhub and the White-Footed Gazelle: It Contains Strange and Marvelous Things.” A single copy, probably produced in Egypt or Syria, survives in Istanbul; the first English translation appeared in 2015. This is not the right way to start a fairy tale, but it’s better than sitting here in silence waiting for Mahliya, who takes forever to get ready. She’s upstairs staining her cheeks with antimony, her lips with a lipstick called Black Sauce. Vainest crone in Cairo.

She leaves her window open for the birds to fly in and out. If you listen closely, you’ll hear the bigger ones thump their wings against the sash. The most famous, of course, is the flying featherless ostrich. A monstrous creature, like something boiled. Mahliya adores it. She lets it eat out of her mouth.

While we’re waiting, why don’t I tell you the Tale of the White-Footed Gazelle? I’m only a retainer, but I do know all the stories, for that’s the definition of a servant, especially one in my position, the head servant, and indeed, in these lean times, the only one. Once I presided over a staff of hundreds; now instead of directing many people, I direct many things: I purchase shoes and bedding, I keep up with all the fashions, with advances in medicine, tax laws, satellite TV. If your purpose, as you say, is to produce a monograph on the newly translated Tales of the Marvelous and News of the Strange, including versions of the stories as told by people who experienced them, why not begin with me? I am perfectly familiar with the Tale of the White-Footed Gazelle, which lies enclosed in the Tale of Mahliya and Mauhub. You will be familiar with this narrative structure from A Thousand and One Nights, a collection of tales whose fate has been very different from that of Mahliya’s story. One might ask: Why? Why should A Thousand and One Nights rise to such prominence, performed on stages in Japan and animated by Disney, while the very similar collection containing the Tale of Mahliya and Mauhub has moldered in a library for centuries? Well! No doubt all that is about to change. Just close the window for me, if you would; my bald head feels every draft. When I was a younger man — but that’s not the story you came to hear! Listen, then, and I shall spin you a marvelous tale.

The Tale of the White-Footed Gazelle

I have condensed it for you because you are a researcher. In this story you will find:

* Haifa’, daughter of a Persian king, also a gazelle

* The White-Footed Gazelle, also a prince of the jinn

* Ostrich King

* Snake King

* Crow Queen

* Lion

A love story. Haifa’ and the White-Footed Gazelle fall in love, then separate, then move toward each other again, then apart, as if in a cosmic dance. We learn that the Ostrich King unites hearts while the Crow Queen divides lovers. These movements of attraction and repulsion also characterize the Tale of Mahliya and Mauhub.

An animal story.

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