Episode 180 – Til Death Do Us Part – Myths Your Teacher Hated

Episode 110 Show Notes

Source: Middle Eastern Folklore

This week on MYTH, we’re diving back into the 1001 Nights for the next Voyage of Sinbad the Sailor. You’ll learn that you should always read the fine print, that there are worse fates than being eaten by cannibals, and that kings make bad friends. Then, in Gods and Monsters, a brave traveler will try to outsmart a ghoul. This is the Myths Your Teacher Hated podcast, where I tell the stories of cultures from around the world in all of their original, bloody, uncensored glory. Modern tellings of these stories have become dry and dusty, but I’ll be trying to breathe new life into them. This is Episode 180, “Till Death Do Us Part”. As always, this episode is not safe for work.
Back in Episode 164, we followed up with the third part of Scheherazade’s tale of Sinbad the Sailor. In it, we followed poor Sinbad the porter as he met rich Sinbad the Sailor. The latter man, well into his twilight years by now, paid the former man quite handsomely to come back three days in a row to hear the tales of his first three great voyages at sea. As has become their way now, the elder Sinbad asked the younger Sinbad to come back again the next day for a fourth story of the fourth great voyage he had made to seek his fame and fortune on the open sea. As had happened to him during the first three voyages, Sinbad the Sailor had sworn off ever setting foot on a boat ever again, vowing to live a safe, boring life in Baghdad. And, as before, he proved to be a goddamned liar. Sinbad is many things, but boring simply isn’t one of them.
After three fantastical voyages which all involved near death experiences before returning home with vast riches, Sinbad was already quite a wealthy man. He had more than enough to set himself up successfully as a merchant living in the lap of luxury for the rest of his days. It probably would have been the smart thing to do. It definitely would have been the safe thing to do. Alas, Sinbad was cursed with a powerful case of wanderlust and he just couldn’t convince himself to keep his feet firmly planted at home. Sending his ships along the local trade routes and making deals satisfied him for a time but, in short order, his feet were itching for something grander once more. Sinbad loved the thrill of discovery, of beholding the wonder of the new and strange, and he simply couldn’t get that at home. And so Sinbad ordered goods at a number of distant ports to await his arrival as he prepared a ship for the journey.
Things went well initially. The goods arrived on the foreign shores where the sailor had ordered them, and he was able to trade these in other cities for large profits. One day, Sinbad and his crew were on the open sea when the weather turned decidedly stormy. The waves rose until they towered over the ship, driven by the howling winds that roared across the sea. In the moments where the ship balanced precariously atop one wave before crashing into the trough of the next, Sinbad spied something terrible on the horizon – the unmistakable tower of whirling clouds that marked a hurricane headed right for them.
The captain, being a wily old sea dog, rode out the storm for a time but the hurricane was simply too huge and destructive for the ship to survive. They steered too close to one wave and that was all she wrote. The boat was smashed to pieces, scattering the luckless crew into the ocean. Many perished there in the boiling seas but Sinbad and a few others managed to cling to the wreckage and float to shore. As the storm passed, the handful of survivors realized that they were marooned on an island – which is becoming a regular occurrence for old Sinbad the Sailor. They dragged themselves out of the water and above the high tide line, before collapsing into an exhausted slumber.
In the morning, the begdraggled sailors headed inland to look for any sign of civilization (or at least for breakfast). Much to their delight, they soon happened upon some huts and hurried towards them. And yeah, it’s about to get real racist. As the survivors shambled over, black natives swarmed out of the huts in large numbers, quickly surrounding Sinbad and his few companions. The small group was broken up further, apparently divided between the different groups though Sinbad could understand nothing of what the island’s inhabitants were saying. He and five others were herded into one of the huts and encouraged to sit. One approached with a salad made of fragrant herbs which, by pantomime, the black men indicated for the foreign visitors to eat. Having eaten nothing for almost a day after the exhausting ordeal of surviving the shipwreck, they devoured what was placed before them.
All except for Sinbad, that is. Having been the lone survivor of three different harrowing expeditions already, he was suspicious of this generosity, especially since none of their hosts took so much as a bite of the supposed food. It didn’t take long for Sinbad’s suspicions to be proven correct. The other five men were soon laughing and jabbering incoherently and incessantly, paying no attention whatsoever to Sinbad’s desperate attempts to speak with them. The natives soon produce heaping bowls of coconut rice. The drugged men had by now developed a wicked case of the munchies and devoured every grain placed before them. Sinbad on the other hand ate only a few mouthfuls, just enough to stave off starvation. He’d realized now what the plan was. He and his men were to be fattened up, then butchered and eaten. That’s right – the black natives are cannibals because of course they are. I warned you it was getting real racist.
The five men (and presumably all of the others taken into different huts) stayed drugged, happy, and hungry from then on, consuming all of the fattening food offered to them. Unable to do anything but sit and eat, they grew plump and tender. Sinbad, meanwhile, grew leaner and leaner. Partly, this was a deliberate choice to not overindulge and partly it was a result of his constant fear of what was surely to come. And sure enough, the day soon came when each of his companions was led outside and, still giggling and babbling, slaughtered. Sinbad did his best to ignore the horrifying sights and disturbingly delicious smells of roasting meat as he tried to figure out some way to escape.
Opportunity came, as it so often does, when luck met preparation. Since he was so lean and unappetizing looking, Sinbad was eventually allowed a looser rein in the village. He was able to wander more or less freely, presumably in the hopes that he would eventually get hungry enough to give in. One day, everyone in the village left on some expedition that Sinbad (still not understanding a word of the language) had no knowledge of. Only a single old man was left behind to guard their single remaining captive. When said old man was distracted, Sinbad bolted for the forest. He’d kept up his strength with his walking and the small amount of food he allowed himself, so he was easily able to outdistance his pursuer and lose him in the trees. He heard the old man’s cries grow fainter and more distant until eventually, he couldn’t hear them at all. Only then did the wandering sailor slow his steps. He was, yet again, the only survivor of this ill-fated expedition.
Of course, he hadn’t survived yet. He was still marooned on a strange island with a village of cannibals. The others would eventually return and, when they learned of his escape, they would most likely send out a search party. Sinbad needed to be far away by then so he picked a direction and headed out. For the next seven days, the intrepid adventurer spent his days traveling, stopping to rest only when darkness made it too dangerous to continue. He lived almost entirely on coconuts harvested on the move, which provided both food and drink. On the eighth, Sinbad reached a different seashore on this island.
In the distance, Sinbad spied movement, so he hid behind a tree and peered out carefully. As he looked more closely, the shapes resolved into white men (that’s the translation, but I’m not sure if that’s the original text or a translation choice) gathering pepper, which grew abundantly on this part of the island. It’s not clear whether they mean the vine that grows peppercorns or some other type of peppers, but it doesn’t really matter. Reassured by their peaceful activity (and, let’s be real, by their skin color because again, racism), Sinbad approached them cautiously. The strange men looked up at his approach and greeted him in Arabic, asking who he was and how he had come to be here. The exhausted wanderer was relieved to hear his native tongue on their lips, so he related the entire harrowing experience of the shipwreck and of being captured by the black natives. There was a collective gasp at that. “But those savages devour men!” they exclaimed (and yes, savage is a direct quote here because, you know, racism). “How did you escape their deadly clutches?”
Sinbad repeated the story that we have just heard up until right now. It’s a very Spaceballs kind of moment where we’re watching now now. If you haven’t seen the movie, you should and I promise that reference makes sense. His audience was astonished at his daring escape and were more than happy to let him stay with them as they finished gathering the pepper they had come for. These white men naturally didn’t live on this island because that would be uncivilized. No, they just came here to plunder the island’s natural resources solely for their own benefit, but it’s okay because the locals are savages who don’t really count as people. So much racism.
Anyway, they soon boarded their ships and took Sinbad along with them to their own unnamed country where he was promptly presented to the king. As one does. Being a courteous monarch, the king offered Sinbad his hospitality, which was gratefully accepted. In return, the sole survivor again related his harrowing experience of nearly certain death on this and his three previous expeditions. The king was duly impressed by the courage, initiative, and sheer pluck of this sailor as he listened. By the time the tale was finished (or at least, finished up until this point in the story), the king ordered Sinbad to be supplied with food and fine clothing and for him to be treated as an honored guest for the duration of his stay.
This country apparently lay on a different island full of more white, Arabic-speaking people. It was a bustling country with a fine capital city that abounded with any number of desirable goods. Life was good. It certainly didn’t hurt that word got around quickly that this foreigner was a special guest of the king and that they should all take special care to treat him well. It soon felt almost like home to Sinbad. There was just one detail that never stopped seeming odd to him. These people rode horses without bridle or stirrups. Given that these inventions had fundamentally changed the nature of warfare when invented by the Chinese in the 4th century, it was strange to see them completely absent from this otherwise advanced society.
Curious, Sinbad asked the king about this peculiarity, but the king had no idea what he was talking about. “I’ve never heard of any such thing before. What is this ‘stir up’?” Ever the prudent businessman, Sinbad saw an opportunity. He found a clever leatherworker to make a saddle under his direction, complete with bridle and stirrup. He then found a locksmith to forge a bit and a pair of spurs. This done, Sinbad took the whole collection and presented them to the king as a gift. To demonstrate its use, Sinbad had the king mount a horse and showed him how to use the new gadgets. The king quickly saw how much stability and maneuverability this granted him in the saddle, and he was duly awed by this great gift. The king showered his guest with riches in return and insisted that Sinbad have more of these made for all of the royal officers in the king’s court. They also showered their benefactor with large gifts, such that Sinbad was soon a very wealthy man in his new home as well as a very important person.
After thus ingratiating himself to the king and the populace and showing himself to be a man of character, he was summoned by the king one day. “Sinbad, you have proved to be a truly wonderful addition to our fair kingdom, so I have a favor to ask of you. Both I and my subjects hold you in the highest esteem and we wish you to be one of us for the rest of your days. I therefore ask that you marry a rich and beautiful noble lady that I will select for you and forget your old life. You’ll be much happier here, yes?” Given that he was, you know, the king, this was less of a request and more of being voluntold. Sinbad understood how things worked and so he gracefully accepted the king’s offer slash demand to find him a bride.
The woman that Sinbad soon thereafter married was everything the king had promised and more. He found it easy to enjoy his new life with his new bride. He did not, however, forget his homeland. Despite all of his outward pretense of having settled into married life in this island kingdom, the wanderer never stopped planning his escape. As soon as he found a foolproof way out, he would be off the island and headed back to Bagdad. Sinbad knew that he needed to be careful about this. He’d only get one shot. Once the king realized that he had lied and had never intended to stay, things could get very ugly very fast. Kings don’t generally like to be told ‘no’ and they certainly don’t like being tricked.
In the meantime however, Sinbad lived his best life. He made friends with the neighbors and increased his bridle fortune. Thus, when a neighbor whom he had befriended lost his wife to a sudden illness, the sailor went over to offer his condolences. As you might expect, the man was deeply depressed and unconsolable. “Heaven preserve you, my friend, and send you a long life!” The man looked up, eyes red and swollen from crying. “Alas, what is the point of that particular greeting when I have but an hour left to live!” Sinbad cocked his head like a confused dog. “It does you credit that you loved your wife so dearly that her absence feels like the end of all things, but I promise you that it is not. In time, the pain will ease and you will find joy again. I have every hope that you will live for many years yet.”
The man just shook his head sadly. “I trust that your life will be spared for many years yet to come, but it is a certainty that mine ends within the hour. I have set my house in order and settled my affairs. Tonight, I will be buried alongside my wife. This has been the law in our country since time immemorial. The living husband goes to his grave with his dead wife, and the living wife with her dead husband. So it was for our ancestors and so it must be for us as well. The law is the law, and we have no choice but to submit.” And with a quiet sob, he placed his head in his hands.
Looking around, Sinbad realized that the man’s friends and relations had been gathering in the house while the pair had been speaking. His wife’s body, dressed in rich robes and bedecked with many sparkling jewels, was laid in state on an open bier. The chosen pall bearers hoisted the bier upon their shoulders and began the procession out of the city. Mesmerized, Sinbad followed. They wound their way up the side of a towering mountain well beyond the city gates. The bejewelled corpse led and the soon-to-depart husband followed behind clothed all in mourning black.
They stopped beside a deep pit, which Sinbad realized must be the place of interment. Everyone gathered at the edge to watch the wife be lowered gently down into the lightless depths. The husband bid farewell to his friends and relatives, then lay himself down on a second bier beside his dead wife. Seven loaves of bread and a pitcher of water were placed carefully around him, and then he too was lowered down into the pit. Once both had reached the bottom, a massive stone was rolled over the top, sealing the living man entombed with the dead.
Sinbad was understandably moved by this strange and deadly custom. He was, of course, the only one. For everyone else at this double funeral, it was simply the way things were, the way they had always been. Of course the husband was sent to starve with the rotting corpse of his wife once his meager bread and water ran out. It was the only civilized thing to do. Sinbad was horrified though, and he felt so strongly about it that he felt he had no choice but to go to the king and express his dismay.
He told his royal friend about his experience watching this funeral and its unexpected twist ending. “Sire, I am more astonished and aghast than I can express to you at this macabre custom of your kingdom. Burying the living with the dead seems a cruel and horrible thing to do. I have never, in all my travels, encountered such a wicked and vicious law.” The king eyed his guest with confusion and concern. “And what exactly would you have me do, Sinbad? The law is the law. It is the same for everyone, myself included. If the Queen were to die before me, then I shall be buried alongside her exactly as your neighbor was. It’s simply the way things are.” Sinbad swallowed. “And, uh, may I ask sire…does the law apply to foreigners as well?” The king smiled in what our adventurer couldn’t help but find to be a very cold and distant manner. “Well of course it does. There can be no exceptions to the law or it is no law at all. Anyone married in this country is subject to this custom. Including you.”
It was what Sinbad had expected to hear, but he’d still held out hope. That hope was now dashed to pieces and buried in the sunless depths along with his soon-to-be-dead friend. His heart sank but he could see that it was no use trying to convince the king to change this wicked law. He had grown up with this custom and could not see the evil in it. The sailor returned home feeling sick and depressed, and a new anxiety began to creep in at the edges of his days. If his wife’s finger ached, he became terrified that it presaged some terrible illness that would end in her death and his being buried alive. I would normally make a comment about how he’s being selfish worrying only about himself, but in this case I see his point. He didn’t know this woman or particularly want to be married to her, and he had no idea of the law he was placing himself under by going along with the king’s insistence.
Sinbad’s anxiety only grew worse when his wife did fall very ill. He did his very best to care for her (he had a great deal of motivation to do so), but it was all to no avail. A few days later, she breathed her last and the clock began ticking on Sinbad’s own life. Well, shit. The sailor began to wish that he had never escaped from the cannibals in his first days on this accursed island. Being butchered and eaten wasn’t anyone’s idea of a good time (and yes, the internet has made me aware that it is absolutely some people’s idea of a good time), but at least that would have been a quick death. Being buried alive seemed to him to be one of the most awful ways to go. Being claustrophobic, I find myself inclined to agree.
No sooner had his wife breathed her final breath than people began to show up to array the body in the traditional funereal finery. I can’t imagine that Sinbad would be the one to snitch about this, so I have to imagine that the healer or a neighbor did so but the story doesn’t say. There were far too many people crowded into a small space for him to try and make a run for it, so Sinbad dressed in his black garment and followed along behind his wife’s bier as it made its winding way up the mountain. The king and all his nobles had come to join said procession, making escape even more impossible.
As they reached the black pit, which had been opened to receive the couple, Sinbad made one last desperate appeal to the king. He begged the man he had considered a friend to lift this doom from over his head as he would never have agreed to marry had he known the price, but the king was unyielding. The law was the law. The king’s word was final, and everyone else gathered on the mountain seemed to treat Sinbad as already dead. They no longer spoke to him or even looked at him, hastening to their grisly task. Frozen in terror, Sinbad found himself lying on the bier and descending into the darkness with his own loaves and water though he couldn’t quite remember the sequence of events between talking to the king and now.
Almost before he had settled at the bottom, the great stone was being rolled back into place. The rock was there to prevent spouses without the dignity to die beside their loved one as was required from making a break for it after everyone left (and everyone knew that Sinbad was a significant flight risk). Only a small crack remained to allow a single feeble shaft of light to illuminate the gloom as he was abandoned to his awful fate. It took every ounce of courage he possessed to look around the dismal cavern that he was to end his days in. All around were scattered the rotted and decaying bodies of those who had been laid here before. Some lay peacefully on their biers. Many others did not. Beneath the echoes of his own panting breaths, Sinbad could almost have sworn that he heard the last sighs of those who, like himself, had been sent into this hell alive.
His emotions finally broke through his stupor and he began to shriek his rage and despair at this cruel turn of fate. He cursed himself for being so eager to seek fortune and adventure. He had vowed to never leave home again, and if he had simply adhered to that vow, he wouldn’t be about to die. He screamed himself hoarse but felt a little calmer at the end of it all. He considered the situation carefully, but it was no use. He felt around the edges of the charnel pit, but there were no hidden exits, no secret tunnels, nothing. He was stuck here. He gathered up his bread and water, wrapped his mourning mantle around his face, and headed towards one end of the cavern. It was hard to be sure, but the adventurer thought that the air smelled fresher in that direction. It wasn’t much, but it was all he had to go on.
Sinbad did his best to ration out his food and water, judging time by the change in the faint beam of light. Despite his best efforts though, he was soon starving and nearly delirious. He was surprised when the light suddenly brightened as the stone was rolled away to reveal the gaping pit far above. Soon, a man’s corpse was lowered down to lie amongst the bones, shortly followed by the second bier containing the man’s living wife. Sinbad had thought long and hard about this, and he had decided on a brutal course but he still had to convince himself to follow through as he watched the grieving woman descend. “Just kill her. It’ll be a mercy, really. She’s expecting a lingering death, so a quick smashed skull will be much better. Quicker at least. None of these people are even considering trying to escape. Just me. It’s not even really murder, right? She’s basically dead already and there’s no sense in both of us starving.”
Sinbad took up his weapon – a long, heavy leg bone – and positioned himself in a pool of shadows. As she sat there on her bier, frozen with her fresh terror at being amongst the rotting corpses that couldn’t be seen from above, Sinbad stepped up and bashed her skull in with a single mighty blow. After checking that she was indeed dead, the desperate sailor took her bread and water to stave off his own starvation. He had life and hope for a few more days. This proved to be one of the darkest times in Sinbad’s life, both literally and metaphorically. He spent weeks down there in the darkness, killing any living spouse who was lowered into the pit of the dead and taking their meager supplies.
He lost track of time down there. Days flowed together with hunger keeping him on the edge of madness much of the time. He didn’t have any idea how long he had been surviving off killing the living sacrifices to matrimony, but he knew he’d killed more than a few of them. One day, he heard the sound of loud breathing down in the depths with him, could almost feel another presence. Reality seemed thin and twisted, so he couldn’t be sure that any of it was real but he didn’t take any chances. Sinbad whirled toward his fellow pit dweller and saw a shadowy form against the wall. It startled at his sudden movement and fled, squeezing itself into a narrow crack that Sinbad hadn’t seen before.
The explorer had looked through the cavern for an exit in his first days here, but he had overlooked this small passage, which had seemed like a dead end. Seeing the shade disappear into it made him rethink his previous estimation. This could all be a figment of his imagination of course, and if so, following it would be suicide. If it was real though, this might be his only hope of escape. He needed to follow now though. If there were any branching passages, Sinbad knew that he would become hopelessly lost without a guide. Thus, he plunged in after the mysterious figure, scraping his skin bloody on his way in.
He followed the sounds of its passage through the utter blackness of the narrow tunnels for what felt like many miles. At last, the quality of the darkness changed, growing slightly gray. Hope bloomed in Sinbad’s chest. There was light up ahead! He struggled through the narrow passages faster than ever, heedless of the pain. He soon emerged from a narrow crack in the base of the mountain on the sea shore. Shouting with joy, Sinbad flopped down onto the sand to bask in the sun and pray that this wasn’t simply madness, that he wasn’t still trapped in that sunless pit and imagining that he was free. Once he had convinced himself that he had truly escaped, he climbed back to his feet. There were faint animal tracks in the sand with him, but no other human footprints. Clearly, some animal must have found its way into the charnel pit to scavenge a meal from the banquet of fresh corpses there. It had fled when startled by Sinbad not quite being dead yet and had revealed a way out that he never would have found on his own.
The beach was on the other side of the mountain range from the city, so Sinbad didn’t think he had to worry about pursuit from the town. They probably all assumed he was long dead after so long down there with his wife’s corpse. The mountains dropped off into the sea in a sheer cliff with no roads running along the peaks. Now that he knew the way (and that there even was a way at all), Sinbad steeled himself to journey back into the pit. He made several trips, piling up the rich treasure of diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and all other manner of finely cut gems that were buried with the dead. They no longer needed it and he felt entitled to some recompense for being tricked into a fatal marriage and then buried alive against his wishes. I mean, it’s still grave robbery, but I don’t really disagree with his logic here.
Once he had looted the place bare, Sinbad bundled his treasure into well-packed bundles and stashed them safely on the beach above the high tide line. That done, the sailor fished for lunch and began watching for a ship to take him away from this accursed island. He only had to wait for two days before he spied a ship passing quite near to where he was stuck on his little beach. Sinbad leapt and yelled and waved his arms, succeeding in getting the ship’s attention. They dropped anchor and sent out a longboat to retrieve him. “What happened, man? How’d you end up on this tiny little beach?” Sinbad gave a very, very partial truth. “I was shipwrecked here two days ago. I managed to swim to shore with a lot of the bales that were our cargo, but I haven’t seen any other survivors.
The boatmen had no reason to doubt Sinbad’s story, so they loaded him aboard with all of his bales without investigating any further. They all rowed back to the ship, which had no plans to stop at this island until they saw the marooned Sinbad. The captain was far too busy with the difficult navigation through this stretch of ocean to care about one more passenger. He was more than happy to accept the handful of jewels offered as payment for passage though. The wandering trader accompanied the ship on the rest of its journey through many ports, trading his jewels for new goods to trade at high profits, making himself yet another fortune by the time he finally landed in Baghdad once more. As he had done every other time, Sinbad gave large sums of money to the city’s poor and to the many mosques in thanks for his safe return. The rest he invested wisely and settled into the joy of feasting and celebrating his return with family and friends. And of course he vowed to never leave shore ever again. We know he’s lying because there are still three voyages left to go.
But by this time, it was getting late back in the present day. The elder Sinbad bestowed another 100 gold pieces on the younger porter and once again invited him to come back the next day for the story of the fifth voyage. Four days of being an attentive audience for an engaging if unbelievable story had already made him more money than lugging and hauling for the rich ever had. His long years of scrimping and saving and slaving away were already beginning to fade away and feel like a bad dream.
He hurried home once more to deliver the money to his wife, who of course agreed that he had to stay on this gravy train as long as possible. They’d made 400 gold so far, which was an increasingly less-small fortune. Thus it was that, early the next day, Sinbad the porter rose and went again to the home of Sinbad the Sailor. But alas you and I will have to wait until some other time to hear of the fifth voyage. But while we wait for the ever-restless sailor to set sail once more, it’s time for Gods and Monsters. This is a segment where I get into a little more detail about the personalities and history of one of the gods or monsters from this week’s pantheon that was not discussed in the main story. This week’s brave traveler is Ameen Beg.
This story comes from Folklore and Legends: Oriental, collected by Charles John Tibbitts in 1889. According to legend, there is a terrible place in Persia known as the Valley of the Angel of Death. Names are often meant to be evocative but, in this case, it’s totally literal. It is said that the actual Angel of Death from the Book of Genesis has resting places all over the earth, and this valley is one of his favorites. Like hyenas following a lion, this valley is also inhabited by ghouls, who feast upon the carcasses once the Angel is done with them and they are bereft of life. We met the awful ghoul way, way back in Episode 22A, but the short version is that they are a terrible monster that lives in cemeteries or uninhabited places. They are not above desecrating graves to eat the dead, but a favorite hobby of theirs is luring travelers into the desert where they can be slain and devoured.
You might think it easy to just avoid this twisted humanoid but, naturally, they can shapeshift. They can appear as common animals, such as cows or camels, but they can also appear as a person’s friends or relatives. Now, the city of Isfahan lay near to this dreaded valley and though they were not overly brave, they were quite clever. An inhabitant of this city, one Ameen Beg, found himself in a situation where he would have to leave the safety of the walls to travel through the deadly valley alone at night. The story doesn’t explain why he had to do this but, given the risks, I assume he had a very good reason.
Ameen had heard the stories of the Valley of the Angel of Death, so he didn’t take preparations lightly. It was supposed to be full of ghouls, so he figured the odds of him meeting one during his trip were very, very high. Thus, he put an egg and a lump of salt in his pocket and set out. I’m not sure what I was expecting in terms of preparation for a hazardous journey, but a light breakfast wasn’t it. Ameen hadn’t gone far into the rocks of the desert before he heard a voice crying on the wind. “Hello there, Ameen Beg of Isfahan! You’re headed the wrong way, following the wrong road and will soon lose yourself. I’ll show you the way. Don’t you recognize me, friend? It’s me, Kerreem Beg. Come on, Ameen, it’s really me. I know your father and I can tell you the street that you live on if you need proof.”
Now, our hero did indeed have a friend named Kerreem Beg, and this was indeed his voice, but he was suspicious all the same. Kerreem had no reason to be out in the desert alone in the middle of the night (even though Ameen himself was doing exactly that) and he was aware of how cleverly ghouls could change their shapes and voices. They apparently were also amateur genealogists, learning who was related to who in any nearby towns as well as their general layout. That knowledge made for a more effective trap, after all. He felt fairly confident that this was indeed such a demonic creature in disguise hoping to murder him, but on the off chance he was wrong he decided to go along with it. He was curious, having never met a ghoul before, and he trusted in his preparation to allow him to escape when the time came.
“Wait up, my friend! Thanks for your timely warning.” He hurried over, smiling at ‘Kerreem’. “Okay, I just want you to know that you’re not fooling anyone. I know good and well that you’re a ghoul, but that’s perfect because I was hoping to run into one of you tonight.” He stretched out slowly as though warming up. “I’ve tested my strength against all of the men and beasts in the natural world, but none have been a match for me. It’s quite frustrating, really. I came to this valley in the hopes of meeting one of the legendary ghouls to test my prowess against you. What do you say? Up for a challenge?”
The ghoul (because of course it’s a ghoul) was shocked at being addressed so. It was used to people either being totally fooled or running the other way. This was a totally new tactic and it wasn’t sure how to deal. It looked Ameen up and down. “Son of Adam, you do not appear as strong as you say.” “You of all creatures should know that appearances can be deceiving. It’s totally fair for you to be doubtful though, so how about I give you a little proof.” He reached down into a small rivulet that was flowing with the barest trickle of water and pulled out a smooth stone. “Here. This stone is full of water. Try to give it a squeeze and see if you can’t get that water out.
Confused but game, the ghoul took the stone and squeezed with all its might. As you would expect, nothing at all happened. It handed the stone back. “It’s impossible. No one could squeeze water from this stone.” Ameen took it with a smile. “That’s what you think.” Ameen palmed the rock and gave it a squeeze. Of course, while the ghoul had been distracted, he’d palmed the egg in the same hand. From the ghoul’s perspective he saw Ameen squeeze and heard a distinct crack followed by goop flowing down the man’s fingers. Egg yolks (and even egg whites) don’t look anything like water, but ghouls are not the cleverest monsters out there. The darkness of the desert night helped, but still.
Smiling, Ameen dropped the stone back into the stream and picked up a darker one. “And this one clearly contains salt. If you crumble it with your fingers, you’ll see that for yourself.” The ghoul took the offered stone but again couldn’t crush it in his hand and was forced to hand it back. “You can tell just by looking at these rocks if they have water or salt? I’ve never learned that trick.” “It just takes practice. I’ll show you.” Naturally, he had already palmed his chunk of salt and took the rock in the same hand. He was easily able to crumble the salt into his other hand and hold it out to the ghoul to taste. It was indeed salt.
The ghoul was now regretting getting involved with this strange human. He’d never met anyone strong enough to crush water or salt from a stone, and he was terrified at what that man would do to him. Even its usual last resort of transforming into a beast would do no good. Ameen had already claimed to have tested himself against every beast on the earth and won. He had no doubt that if he tried, Ameen would slay him for his treachery. The ghoul did not want to die. They are exceptionally long-lived monsters, but they are not immortal. Since fighting wasn’t an option, the ghoul decided to try trickery instead. It would pretend to be friends with this son of Adam until it saw an opportunity for a sucker punch.
“It has been an honor to meet you, human. Would you do me the honor of coming to my abode? It is very close by, and it is well after dark. You can get some food there and then rest in comfort until morning to resume your journey.” Ameen shrugged. “I have no objection to your offer, friend ghoul. Two friendly words of warning though. First, I am a very passionate man and have something of a hair-trigger. The slightest act of aggression or disrespect can set me off into a blinding rage. Second, I have incredible eyes and, as I have already demonstrated, I can see through any schemes or tricks as easily as I saw through those rocks to find water and salt. Make sure that all your thoughts are pure, gentle ones and we won’t have any problems. Otherwise, I will make you suffer.”
The ghoul, duly terrified, declared that he understood. “I swear by the head of my liege lord, the Angel of Death himself, that I will faithfully respect the rights of hospitality and friendship. You are my guest in my home.” As we’ve mentioned many times before, the rules of hospitality were a big deal in the ancient world. Satisfied by the ghoul’s promise, Ameen followed after it. The path to its home wound through a number of small, crooked paths along jagged cliffs and deep ravines. Eventually, they came to a large cave which was dimly lit from within. “Here is where I lay my bones and here is where my new friend will find refreshment and repose.”
It gave Ameen the tour of the many different rooms, all stuffed with grains, jewels, and other merchandise looted from travelers it had slain over the years. If Ameen hadn’t been able to guess at the source of this ill-gotten lucre, the gnawed-on human bones and half-eaten corpses scattered around would have been clue enough. The smell was absolutely horrifying, though the ghoul of course was unfazed by it. It pulled out a large bag of rice for Ameen. “I trust this will be satisfactory for your meal? A man of your prowess must have an appetite to match.” The man nodded. “You are correct, but I wasn’t expecting to meet anyone out here so I ate an entire sheep and a bag of rice as large as this one right before I set out. I’m not hungry as you can imagine, but I’ll still take a little for the sake of hospitality. I wouldn’t want to offend my host.”
The ghoul accepted this explanation and most of the rice back. “You’ll still need me to boil water for you though, right? I know that your kind do not eat your grain or meat raw as I do. I’ve got a kettle here that you can use. I’ll go get wood for the fire and you can fetch water.” The ghoul pulled a kettle from a pile of plunder and then a water bag made of the hides of six oxen. It was enormous, well beyond the ability of any human to carry, but he had a reputation to maintain at this point. Ameen waited until his host had tottered out of sight before dragging the enormous waterskin over to the bank of a dark stream. “Okay, think Ameen. How do you pull this off without him realizing you don’t actually have super strength? This beast would take twenty men to carry back full and if I fail, that horrid creature will devour me.”
After a few minutes of frantic thought, he began to dig from the stream back towards the ghoul’s cave. In time, the critter came looking for him. “Where the hell did you go, son of Adam? I sent you to fetch water an hour ago! Is this simple bag too much for you to lift?” “Of course not. I could lift the entire stream and carry it back if you had a bag big enough, but I wanted to repay your hospitality with a little gift.” He gestured to the incomplete channel. “When I’ve finished, this canal will carry water to your cave. I’ll build a dam there that you can open and shut at your leisure. That way, you never have to go and fetch water again. It’s an annoying daily task, so I figured some human ingenuity would benefit you. I’ll be along as soon as I finish digging.” The ghoul rolled its eyes, seizing the filled waterbag itself. “Forget it. I’m hungry now. I’ll take this back and get dinner started. If you can’t finish your ‘canal’ by the time it’s ready, leave it for later. You can sleep tonight and finish in the morning.”
Ameen dusted his hands off and followed his host, pleased with his trick. “You’re right, I was being rude. I’ll be along shortly.” He arrived back at the cave just as the smell of cooking rice was wafting out of the kettle, and they ate heartily of the prepared meal. Once they were finished, the ghoul showed the human to a bed piled with the richest sheets and softest pillows, also taken from its plundered goods. The ghoul wandered over to its own bed, every bit as luxurious but much filthier and stained with old blood, and promptly fell asleep. Taking a page out of any number of trickster books (including old Jack the Giant Killer), Ameen didn’t go to sleep. Once the snoring began, he climbed carefully out of bed and stuffed it with pillows to make it look like he was still in it. That done, he found a secluded corner to hide and watch.
Sure enough, the ghoul woke up just before dawn. It looked over at Ameen’s bed, smiling when there was no sign of stirring. It crept over to the bed, taking up a walking stick the size of a small tree along the way. Raising it high, the ghoul brought it down on where the head should be with a snarl. It was a blow that, had he still been in bed, would have crushed Ameen’s head as easily as he had crushed that egg. The ghoul had been convinced of its guest’s prowess though, and so it struck seven more vicious blows to make sure he was dead. Smiling wickedly, the ghoul slunk back to its own bed and lay back down to sleep again.
Ameen took the opportunity to creep over to the bed and sit up with a groan. “Friend ghoul, do you have a bug problem in your cave? I swear I felt some insect buzzing around my bed and flapping its wings on me seven or eight times. It’s little more than a nuisance to be sure, but it does make it damnably hard to sleep!” The ghoul was utterly dismayed at hearing the most destructive blows it could manage, each of which could have felled an elephant, be likened to the flaps of an insect wing. It had known the man was dangerous, but this was ridiculous! There could be no safety around such a man, especially with the temper it had been warned about. If Ameen ever realized what the ghoul had tried, it would surely end his life. Terrified, it crawled out of the cave and ran the fuck away as fast as it could. The cave and all its riches now belonged to Ameen. Possession is nine tenths of the law and all that.
The man searched the cave until he found a matchlock rifle which had belonged to some poor sod who hadn’t realized the danger in time to use it. Taking it across his shoulders, Ameen went out to survey the roads around the cave. It wasn’t long before he spied the ghoul returning with a large club in its hand and a fox at its heels. Ghouls may not be all that clever, but as we’ve seen, foxes very much are. Ameen guessed that the ghoul had related the story of its misfortune and the little fox had revealed how the man had tricked it. They had clearly returned for revenge.
Thinking quickly, Ameen aimed not for the ghoul but for the fox. He fired, and the shot flew true right through the fox’s skull. “Take that, you little fucker, for not keeping up your end of the bargain. You were supposed to bring me seven ghouls so that I could chain them up and bring them back to Isfahan, but you only brought one and that one’s already my captive!” The ghoul immediately decided that the fox had been lying and the man was exactly as dangerous as he said. Before Ameen was done shouting at the dead fox, it was already fleeing for the hills once more. This time, it had no intention of ever coming back.
Having thus secured the area, Ameen returned back to the city, marking the path to the cave as he went. It took time to bring all the good out and back home, but he did so. To those who were still alive to prove a claim on their stolen goods, he returned them. Most of the ghoul’s victims had become dinner though, so the remainder was more than enough to make Ameen a very rich man. He doesn’t seem to have ever accomplished whatever important task had originally set him out on that dangerous road, unless he had just been looking for the ghoul (but we have every reason to believe that there are plenty more lurking in the Valley of the Angel of Death). Regardless, Ameen told this story for the rest of his life as evidence that cleverness was far more important than brute strength.
That’s it for this episode of Myths Your Teacher Hated. Keep up with new episodes on our Facebook page, on iTunes, on TuneIn, on Vurbl, and on Spotify, or you can follow us on Instagram as MythsYourTeacherHatedPod, on Tumblr as MythsYourTeacherHated, and on Bluesky as MythsPodcast. You can also find news and episodes on our website at myths your teacher hated dot com. If you have any questions, any gods or monsters you’d want to learn about, or any ideas for future stories that you’d like to hear, feel free to drop me a line. I’m trying to pull as much material from as many different cultures as possible, but there are all sorts of stories I’ve never heard, so suggestions are appreciated. The theme music is by Tiny Cheese Puff.
Episode 9 of Saturday Morning Roleplay is out now, the first part in a new story about a plucky group of friendly critters known as the Love Bugs who, like the Care Bears before them, try to help people be nicer to each other something we could all use more of in this day and age. As a reminder, this show is an actual-play tabletop roleplaying podcast using a variety of game systems to tell stories inspired by our favorite cartoons. All episodes are safe for work, rated TVPG for cartoon violence and rare mild language. Check it out on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. And if you could, please leave a positive review or comment on your app of choice and tell your friends about us. This is still a very new show, so reviews and word of mouth recommendations make all the difference.
Next time, we’ll visit Korea for a cautionary tale about volcanoes and wildfires. You’ll see that art is important, that you should never let kaiju fight in your city, and that monsters have favorite meals. Then, in Gods and Monsters, Mr. Bunny will have to think fast to escape the jaws of Old White Whiskers. That’s all for now. Thanks for listening.