Episode 191 – Sister Act – Myths Your Teacher Hated

Episode 191 Show Notes

Source: Syrian Folklore

This week on MYTH, we’ll voyage to Syria for a listener request story. You’ll see that sometimes you forget that you have a sister, that you should never gaslight women, and that you should help out with the chores. Then, in Gods and Monsters, two woodcutter friends will get into trouble. 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 191, “Sister Act”. As always, this episode is not safe for work.
This story was requested on Spotify by Princess Dream Actress, and I’m excited about it since it’s one I’ve never heard of before. The tale comes from Arab Folktales, collected by Inea Bushnaw in 1986; this specific story is from Syria. Once upon a time, a man lived with his ten children at the foot of a hill. The man was very poor, but he did his best to take care of his many children. And his wife, although she’s not mentioned in the story until later, which is kind of bullshit. Anyway, there weren’t a lot of options for earning a living, so the man pursued the only trade he could – cutting wood. It wasn’t a bad job, or it wouldn’t be if the only wood to be found wasn’t at the top of that hill. There aren’t all that many forests in Syria and they are indeed mostly in the mountainous parts of the country, so each morning, up the hill the man went. He’s been running up that road, been running up that hill and coming back down to sell the collected firewood in town.
At sunset each day, his family would be waiting, watching for his return. Each time, he would return from town with a loaf of bread for dinner and, if they were lucky, an onion or an olive to flavor it with. It was a simple life for a simple man. He was a diligent worker, but according to the story, he wasn’t burdened with an overabundance of brains. In fact, he had about as much cleverness as he did gold.
He had been gathering wood from the top of that same hill for some time but all good things must come to an end, and there was very little wood left there. On the plus side, from the top of the deforested hill, he could see another hill a ways off that was covered in fresh foliage. Once he’d cleaned this hill out entirely, he’d need to make the longer trek over there each day. It would be a hassle, but he didn’t have any other ideas.
As he was heading home that night with his usual load on his back, he met a woman he had never seen before. She was dressed in wonderfully fine clothes and her arms jangled with gold bangles and other expensive jewelry. He walked right past her with a polite nod, but she stepped in front of him with a hurt expression on her face. “Seriously? You’re gonna walk right past me without so much as a hello? Don’t you recognize your own sister?” The man stared at this woman in utter confusion without a glimmer of recognition. She put a hand to her chest in a show of injury. “You cut me to the quick, brother. I wait and wait and wait for you to come and visit me, but you never do. I guess not everyone can be as kind and as compassionate as I am. I’m cursed with a tender heart.”
It’s some real passive-aggressive bullshit, but the woodcutter was too basic to clock it. He was too busy thinking hard about his family tree. “I’m sorry but I’m pretty sure I don’t think I have a sister. I feel like that’s something I’d remember.” She gasped dramatically. “I can’t believe you’d deny me altogether like this! That’s so rude, but I forgive you. What were you up to out here?” He was confused by the exchange but it was easier to just move on with the conversation. “Oh, I’m heading home after a long day of cutting wood.” He nodded towards the wood piled on his back by way of explanation. “Oh you poor dear! That sounds dreadfully exhausting. You should take a break and let me care for you for once.” Her golden bangles jingled as she pleaded with him. “What do you say? Bring your wife and children along with you and come live in my big house with me. I have more than enough of the finer things to go around, enough to supply whatever fancy might strike you.”
The woodcutter still wasn’t sure he had a sister, but he was willing to reconsider. This sounded like an unbelievably lucky break and a really sweet gig. Something still seemed wrong but he couldn’t quite put a finger on what it was. “That does sound pretty awesome but I’m not sure…” “What, do you think I would lie to my brother? My own flesh and blood? Come and see for yourself. What’s the worst that could happen?” So saying, she grabbed the woodcutter by his hand and dragged him along, not giving him the option to keep thinking about it.
The man had maintained a faint but unspecified suspicion but, as it turned out, her house was everything her gold bangles had promised. The story doesn’t actually bother to describe said house so much as it lingers on the things inside it, the tangible proof of wealth. I don’t know if this is because that’s mostly what she had in the house, or if the poor man was just most impressed by the simple, useful things. Namely, expensive food. Inside were stacks of sacks of wheat, lentils, and dried broad beans. Beside that stood multiple rows of jars filled with pure olive oil and butterfat. To the poor woodcutter, this was obscene wealth the likes of which he had only ever imagined.
The woman invited her theoretical brother to dine with her, and the meal was everything he had dreamed and more. She cooked a suckling lamb just for him, a delicacy he had never tasted in his life. The woodcutter’s mouth was watering, having not had any meat for many months since it was extremely expensive. The woman smiled at his obvious interest in the succulent meal. “Now doesn’t that remind you of our days long ago?” He pounced on the food like a starving dog, devouring it ravenously. As he inhaled the perfectly seasoned meat, he thought over the whole bizarre interaction. “I could have sworn that I didn’t have a sister, but I guess I was wrong. Who else but family would take me and treat me with such hospitality for no reason whatsoever?”
After every last bite had been consumed and the plates practically licked clean, he thanked the sister he’d never known and headed home to his wife and children. He was so excited to tell them the news that he ran home as fast as his legs could carry him. It was a wonder that he didn’t trip over something in the dark and faceplant. He told her the whole impossible story, having by now been convinced that he must have a long lost sister he didn’t know about or else just didn’t remember. Somehow.
His wife, who was much more clever than her husband, was not so easily convinced that he had a sister he had just lost track of. “Love of my life, if I had a sister-in-law, wouldn’t I have heard literally anyone at all mention her existence even once in all the years we’ve been married? If not you, then someone else in your family surely.” Her husband opened his mouth to object, but she just shook her head and kept going. “She can’t be who she says she is. And if she’s not your sister, then what good and honest reason can she have for trying to get us to come and live with her?”
The wife tried to convince her husband that something screwy was going on, but the woodcutter refused to budge. He was hypnotized by the memory of that incredible food and he simply couldn’t conceive of a world where she could possibly be lying to him. What possible scheme could she be running? What, was she going to scam him out of his firewood? Despite all of the wife’s best efforts, she finally gave in and agreed to go with her husband. She gathered up her ten children and, leading their skinny cow by a rope, she followed her husband to his supposed sister’s house.
The woodcutter tried his best not to gloat as, over the next month, he and his family were showered with succulent meals. Feast after feast was prepared for them, with the poor family expected to do nothing but lie around, eating and drinking in the shade. It was a life of idle wealth that none of them could ever have hoped to obtain, and even the woodcutter’s wife had to admit that things seemed to be going well though she couldn’t shake her nagging doubts. The sight of her children’ s faces, which had been so thin that their bones had jutted from their skin like knives began filling out. There was far more laughter and playing amongst them than there had been in many years, maybe ever. The woodcutter’s heart was gladdened by the sight. He was thrilled at finally being able to give his family the life that they deserved, even if it had been by accident. “A curse on all back-breaking work! May Allah keep us from ever having to endure such exhausting toil ever again, but let us live this wonderful way forever! May we stay as fresh and cool as a bright spring morning!”
If you’ve listened to this show before, or even if you’ve just heard a single folktale in your life, then you know that things can’t possibly be this good forever. It would make for a boring story. And indeed, that very night, the woodcutter’s sister crept down the stairs in the middle of the night. She lived in the loft in the upper room while the woodcutter and his family lived on a lower floor of the house. Upper rooms were often prized for bedrooms since they picked up the breezes, keeping the rooms cool during hot nights.
She moved as silently as a stalking cat, each step placed carefully to avoid any creaking in the stairs. Reaching the bottom floor, the sister crept over towards the door to the family’s room, marked by the bony cow tethered outside the door. Under her breath, the woman muttered to herself. And because this is a folktale, she muttered in rhyme. “All my fat and flour eaten and gone, but now they are plump; I need not wait long.” And if you guessed that this was a Hansel and Gretel situation where we have an evil cannibal creature fattening up gullible humans for her own feast, then you win a prize. The prize is the satisfaction of having guessed correctly. If you’re a Dungeon Crawler Carl fan (I’ve become obsessed with those books of late, especially since they feature a lot of creatures that we’ve discussed here on MYTH over the years), then consider this your very own achievement.
Indeed, the fake sister was actually a ghoul, a terrible monster who we’ve met a few times on this podcast. Their most recent appearance was in the Gods and Monsters segment of Episode 180. The most important things to remember from past appearances is that they are vicious, strong, and terribly hungry creatures who prefer human flesh and are able to change their shape to appear human. This whole charade as the woodcutter’s sister (he of course had no sister as he had originally said) was purely a ruse to fatten them up for the slaughter. And she would have gotten away with it right then and there if it weren’t for their meddling cow.
You heard right, the family’s cow saved them. And I don’t mean that it mooed loudly and woke everyone up or anything. It went full folklore hero, stepping in front of the door and speaking to the ghoul. “My eyes can burn you like a flame; my tail can whip you till you’re lame; my horns can tear and gore and main.” Why can the cow speak? The same reason that it can apparently tail whip and shoot fucking scorching rays from its eyes. Because fuck you, that’s why.
Maybe the cow was bluffing, but it was already a talking cow so who knew what other batshit powers it might have. The ghoul decided that it wasn’t worth risking the potential wrath of this maybe-super cow and crept back upstairs. She could always eat the family another night. I mean, the cow’s not likely to go anywhere any time soon and there’s no real reason she couldn’t just tell the family about the sneaking ghoul living upstairs with murder plans, but whatever. For reasons that are not explained, the cow doesn’t reveal this crucial information to the family. Maybe it’s not a speaking cow but ghouls can understand that language? There’s nothing I’ve ever come across that indicates they can speak with animals, but they can certainly transform into them so it’s not the most impossible explanation out there.
Anywho, the ghoul crept back downstairs the next night, once again muttering her little rhyme about the woodcutter’s family eating her out of house and home but it being fine because they were now fat enough for her to eat them back. And, as before, the cow stood before the door and warned about laser eyes, tail weapons, and deadly horns (the last of which is a deadly threat no matter what else is going on). Frustrated for a second night, though I honestly don’t know why she expected it to go any differently this time, the ghoul again headed back upstairs without devouring anyone.
On the third night, the ghoul pretending to be the woodcutter’s sister crept down the stairs yet again and yet again, the cow stood before the door to bar her way. Maybe the cow had expected the ghoul to give up after seeing that the family had a bovine bodyguard, and since she hadn’t, it decided to up the ante. As it moved into position that night, it kicked the wood door with its hoof. The woodcutter slept like a log, but his wife woke up to the unexpected sound. Thus, she was able to hear the rap battle exchange between the ghoul and the cow. Which means that the cow is indeed speaking human language.
The wife had never stopped being suspicious about this too-lucky situation and that obviously evil muttering outside her door was enough for her to put the pieces together. Ghouls were a well-known risk, especially in a folklore setting, so she wasn’t nearly as surprised to discover that her host was a man-eating monster as I would be. She tried to wake up her husband to hear this with his own ears, but he just snored a little and turned over. He’d eaten too much as he had every day for the last month and was in a full-on food coma from which there was no waking him.
I don’t know if the wife was able to get any sleep for the rest of the night, but I suspect not. As soon as the woodcutter finally roused himself, his wife told him everything she had heard the night before. The overly-trusting man had unfortunately completely convinced himself that he did indeed have a sister and had always had a sister that he definitely remembered growing up with, so he refused to be convinced. “Don’t worry your little head about it, my love. You had a bad dream, that’s all. I know that nightmares can be scary, but there’s nothing to be scared about. Now let’s go get breakfast.”
The day went the same as every day before until noon, when the ghoul, once more in the disguise of the woodcutter’s wealthy sister, came to him. “Did you sleep well, oh brother of mine? I hope so. Listen, I woke up today with just an insatiable craving for beef. You can see that I have a lot of fine and delicious foods in my house, but beef is one of the only delicacies I don’t have. I can’t help but notice that you have a perfectly healthy if slightly bony cow right there by your room that’s been grazing on my grass and grain. What do you say? A little beef for dinner? Surely you wouldn’t begrudge your dear, sweet, neglected sister that bony beast of yours, especially after all I’ve done for you.”
The woodcutter loved that cow, but he was in a bit of a pickle. It was in fact entirely reasonable for his sister to ask him to pitch in with the house in the small way that he was able. Besides, how could a man refuse his sister such a simple request? And so he took the cow outside, slaughtered it, and butchered its body. Despite being able to talk and claiming superpowers, the cow did literally nothing to stop this from happening, which blows my mind. Who wouldn’t want a magical talking cow with badass powers? Why didn’t she just tell him she was a magical talking cow with badass powers?
Once the meat had been stripped from the cow’s bones, the woodcutter gave it to his wife to cook for dinner. She was the only one who had heard the cow talk and knew that it had saved their lives, so she wasn’t exactly thrilled with this turn of events. Alas the cow was already dead, so at this point, not eating it would be a waste and an insult. It still feels wrong and vaguely cannibalistic, but maybe that’s just me not wanting to eat anything capable of protecting you from supernatural evil with sick rhymes.
The wife carved the juiciest, choicest portion, laid it on a plate, and sent it up to the ghoul sister with her eldest daughter. When the girl entered into her supposed aunt’s room though, she didn’t see the rich woman she was expecting, but the foul demon’s true form. Her hair was a wild, ragged mane and her eyes blazed with evil red fire. The corpses of men and women were strung up from the rafters to age for the ghoul’s meals. Fortunately, the ghoul hadn’t seen the daughter enter, and so she was able to slowly back away from the terrifying visage and escape without notice. At least until she tripped on the stairs, unwilling to take her eyes off the room where the thing pretending to be her aunt dwelt. The poor girl tumbled down the stairs, dropping the steak off the plate and onto the floor during her fall.
Her mother scurried in and opened her mouth to scold her daughter for being so clumsy with the meat from their precious cow, but the daughter’s terrified expression gave her pause. “What happened? Why do you look like you’ve seen a ghost?” And the daughter relayed every horrifying thing she’d seen, which further cemented the woman’s suspicions about their host. As she’d insisted, last night had been no mere nightmare. She and her family were living with a deadly monster that meant to devour them, and they had now murdered their only defender.
The woman brought her daughter with her to speak with the woodcutter about this new evidence, but this too he dismissed out of hand. “Don’t be such a little baby, my daughter. You’re just unused to living in a strange place, especially one so nice, and you’re jumping at shadows. How could you want to toss such comfort into the trash? You should be thanking Allah for providing us with such blessings, praying with all your heart that they should continue.” And so once again the man dismissed the very valid concerns of the women based on nothing but his own arrogance. He couldn’t admit now that he’d been fooled when he’d been the one to convince them that no, he did actually have a sister that he just hadn’t thought of before. It would hurt his pride too much, so it couldn’t be true.
The day passed and at night, the family went to bed without their trusty cow standing guard at their door. Surely nothing bad can possibly happen, right? Yeah, no obviously the ghoul returned to their door again that night once she was sure everyone was asleep. With no Supercow body guard, there was nothing to stop her from creeping right on inside. Of course, the woodcutter’s wife was far less gullible than her husband and so she was only pretending to sleep. As the ghoul entered, she watched through slitted eyes as the foul demon pinched and squeezed each of the children in their beds, trying to determine which was the plumpest and juiciest. “All my fat and my flour eaten and gone, but now they are plump; I need not wait long.”
Unable to contain her terror any longer, the woodcutter’s wife sat up in bed as though she had only just startled awake. “Oh hello there, my sweet sister-in-law. What brings you to our bedchamber so late?” The ghoul immediately went back into the wealthy human act. I don’t think she’s been letting her disguise drop outside of her private quarters, and even that may have been because of the eldest daughter’s perceptiveness. There is a trend in stories about ghouls of men being ensnared by the glamours of the ghoul, but their female relatives seeing the truth and warning them (though the men often do not believe the women). That may be what is playing out here as well, rather than a letting down of the ghoul’s disguise. Regardless, the ghoul played the part of the sister perfectly, as always. “It’s quite cold tonight, so I wanted to come down and make sure my nieces and nephews were properly covered up and warm.” Thwarted, the ghoul puttered around for a few moments more before returning upstairs.
The wife was now officially Over This Shit, but she also realized that her golden doodle of a husband was exactly as useless as, well, a golden doodle. She woke up early and prepared a ground lentil soup for her children. When it was ready, she gave them each bowls and watched silently as they splattered that delicious mush everywhere, getting it all over their clothes. Once everyone was good and filthy, she went to her “sister-in-law”. “My children managed to get more of their breakfast on their clothes than in their mouths, so I need to go to the stream to wash them. Can I borrow your big copper pot? That way, I can heat the water and bathe the children at the same time. Two birds, one stone and all that.” The disguised ghoul saw no reason not to agree to this reasonable request, and so the mother and her children were soon tramping off to the stream with the pot in tow.
They soon reached the wadi, a dry riverbed that generally only flows with water after a heavy rainfall. There, the woman built a fire beneath the pot with all of the wet, green wood she could find heaped on top. It gave off a thick cloud of smoke that obscured everything around the pot. The woman then hung a few rags where the wind would catch them and gathered her children to her. “Oh great Allah, open for us a spacious gate of protection!” Gathering up her skirts in her teeth, she took her children in a long chain, five from either hand, and fled as fast as the group could manage back to their own home. It was smaller and plainer than the great house they had lived in for the last month, but it also didn’t have a monstrous ghoul that wanted to murder and eat them all living in the attic. All in all, definitely the wise move on the woman’s part.
Back in the mansion, the ghoul was puttering around the house, just killing time until her dreamt of feast that night. From time to time, she would glance out the window down the valley towards the wadi. She could see thick smoke rising from the bottom and cloth flapping in the breeze, presumably hung up to dry. Each time she would shake her head. “There she is, still hard at work washing her children’s clothes. Looks exhausting. I hope she doesn’t lose too much of her plumpness out there.” And then she would return to whatever it is that monsters pretending to be the idle rich do all day. Probably the same things that the regular idle rich do all day.
It wasn’t until the day had run its course and the sun was beginning to set that the ghoul started to sense that something was off. She’s never washed clothes nor children in her life, and certainly not ten of them so she had no earthly idea how long it was supposed to take. Surely the eleven of them would have to come back soon; it wasn’t like they could do much in the dark. Concerned, she hurried down to the wadi herself to see what the holdup was. As she waded into the thinning smoke, she realized that the entire valley was deserted, abandoned by mother and children. She had been fooled, and the lion’s share of her feast had escaped. The ghoul howled her rage and hunger to the heavens, her cries so ear-shattering that the very hills rang with their fury. “Why did I fatten and fatten them when by now I might have eaten them!”
And what about the woodcutter, who had gotten them into this whole bloody mess in the first place? On the one hand, it’s pretty harsh to just take off with all of your children while abandoning your husband to the clutches of a very hungry ghoul. On the other hand, she and her eldest daughter had both done their best to convince said husband about the existence of said very hungry ghoul and been rebuffed and gaslit at every turn. Overall, I’m gonna side with the wife here. If she’d warned her husband, he might have done something monumentally foolish like warn his “sister” about what was coming, or at least made enough of a ruckus trying to stop them that they were caught in the act.
He had actually slept through the entire ordeal since he hadn’t been assed to lift a finger to help his wife care for his ten children. She hadn’t asked for or wanted his help to be sure, but I doubt very much that it ever occurred to him to even offer. At the sound of the ghoul’s screaming, he woke up from his nap beneath the grape arbor outside the door. Her blood-curdling shriek was, well, blood-curdling and it was enough to give even the happy-go-lucky woodcutter pause. Maybe his wife and daughter had been onto something after all. He began looking for a place to hide. There is no indication that he knows that his wife and children are safely away from here, and he doesn’t seem to spare even a single thought for them at the sound of this monstrous danger. What an asshole.
Off in the distance, he could see the ghoul making her way back from the valley and he could at last see what she truly was. He also saw her carrying a wicked-looking knife, and he knew in his heart that it had been heated and sharpened especially for his flesh. Terrified but useless, the only hiding spot he could see from the exact spot that he was standing was the garbage heap, so he dove into it face-first and buried himself inside. I want you to understand how unbelievably disgusting this garbage heap must be. It’s full of all kinds of rotting meat (at least both cow and human), human shit, and all kinds of other awful things.
The ghoul came storming into her yard, snorting in rage as she breathed and biting her fingers from hunger and frustration. There was only one fatted calf left and she wasn’t about to let him escape too. From the pigeon houses on the roof to the chicken coop under the stairs, the ghoul searched every room for her pretend brother, but he was nowhere to be found. You know, cause he’s pulling an Arnold from Predator, only using the worst mud imaginable.
Frustrated, the ghoul climbed on top of the rubbish heap to get a better view of the area and try to spot somewhere she had forgotten to look. As her weight settled onto him, the woodcutter let out a devastatingly loud belch. Confused by the noise with no apparent source, the ghoul patted her head. “Was that you sighing, headcloth?” She took it off and tossed it in the trash at her feet to avoid further distraction. Not sure how a cloth burps, but if a cow can have laser eyes, then I guess a cloth can have digestive issues.
The ghoul stood on her tippy toes to peer off into the distance, concentrating all of her weight into a smaller area. The additional pressure compacted the woodcutter, forcing out a loud fart this time. He’s been eating too much rich food for his own good. Again the ghoul looked around for the source of the rude sound but saw nothing. “Was that you complaining, robe?” And so she shucked that off as well and tossed it at her feet. She’d already abandoned her human disguise (which is why the woodcutter saw her in all her monstrous glory before), so now she stood there atop the pile of garbage in her own naked, hairy, skin. If there had been anyone there to see her who wasn’t currently buried in awfulness, they would have run away screaming.
The ghoul turned in a circle atop the rubbish pile, this time eliciting a groan from the woodcutter, who was slowly being crushed beneath her feet. Naked and horrifying, there was nothing left to make such a sound except for the nastiness beneath her. “Huh. It seems like it’s the garbage pit making all that noise. Let’s find out why.” With a huge, wicked grin, she flung half the rubbish away with her left claw and the other half away with her right, leaving the woodcutter completely exposed. Before he could try to crawl away, she seized him and held him before her. “Hello, brother. Fancy seeing you here. I’m guessing you know what’s about to happen, so I’ll let you in on the fun. You can pick where I bite you first.”
The woodcutter was weeping with despair now, deeply regretting not believing his wife when he had the chance. “Start with my ears, so deaf to my wife’s fears.” This is a really odd time for the woodcutter to start rapping. Maybe he’s hoping he can win his life in a rap battle? The demon just smiled wider and, with a sickening crunch, she did so. “That’s a good start. And now?” “Then go to my arms which dragged her into such harm.” With a savage twist, the ghoul ripped off one arm and then the other, sucking the flesh from the bone like a chicken wing. “Delectable. And what should I eat now that you have no arms, brother?” “Then go on to my two legs which did not go where she begged.”
She held him above her head, blood flowing from the ragged stumps of his arms and the jagged ruin of his ears. One by one, she bit his legs off with a crack of shattering bone. The woodcutter wasn’t in any kind of shape to answer questions at that point, so she devoured the rest of him at her leisure until there was nothing left to even ask questions of. And thus was the lazy man punished for letting his desire for a life of ease convince him to ignore reality and, more importantly, to ignore the fears and warnings of his very clever wife.
And so it often goes with these types of tales. The men in them never see the danger coming until much too late, but their wives or female relatives often spy the disguised ghoul much earlier. If the men give heed to the women in their lives and listen to their concerns and opinions, then they are spared, escaping to safety when the women do. If, like our woodcutter, they let arrogance and baseless self-confidence convince them that they know better than some silly women, then they are eaten. Slowly. They almost always have enough time to realize that they could have avoided their death by just listening to women. It’s a very old lesson that lots of people still refuse to learn.
And so with the woodcutter dead and his family escaped to make a life without him, it’s time for Gods and Monsters. This is a segment where I get into a little more detail about one of the gods or monsters from this week’s pantheon that was not discussed in the main story. This week’s unfortunate fellow is the brainless woodcutter.
This story also comes from Arab Folktales, collected by Inea Bushnaw, though this one is from Morocco. One day, two woodcutters were walking through a thicket when they spotted a very bad sign – fresh lion shit in the middle of the road. About the only thing worse than seeing recent signs of a lion in the area would be running into the lion itself. The two woodcutters stopped dead and peered around, hoping desperately not to find anything. “A lion has been here. Recently. This is bad, man. What do we do?” His friend considered for a moment. “The way I see it, we can go back, head off the road, or head on the way we were going. Option 1 doesn’t help us get the firewood we need and Option 2 gets us killed for sure, so I say Option 3: we keep going along the road.”
Neither man was totally at ease with this decision, but they agreed that it was the only real option. Keeping their eyes peeled for any sign of movement, they continued on down the road to the grove where they could cut a load of firewood. Once they were both ready to return, a fresh debate began. “We should take this other road home instead of the one we took here.” His friend shook his head. “Absolutely not. That path is much, much longer and I’m already tired. I’ll take the road we always take, the short path,” said his friend. The first man stared at the second incredulously. “Do you not remember the lion shit on that road? The beast that left it was probably napping away the heat, but it’ll be waiting for us with its teeth and claws now. Take the short way if you want, but I’m taking the safer route.” Leaving his friend behind, the first man headed up a rocky path that wound higher up into the mountains.
The second woodcutter watched him go, wondering for a moment if he was making a mistake. His aching feet made the decision for him, and he started for home along the route he’d taken in the morning. He slowed down as he neared the place where they had seen the lion shit, looking around for the beast itself. The man saw nothing on either side of the road and took another step forward in relief before stopping dead. The lion was now sitting in the middle of the road, tail swishing the way a cat does when it sights prey that it can play with. It had crept out of the shadows silently while the woodcutter had been looking the wrong way.
When all else fails, try courtesy. It works surprisingly often, both in folklore and in the real world. “Peace and good day, uncle lion.” The great cat smiled toothily. “Peace, son of Adam.” “So, uh, what’s up? How’s life?” The lion shook its mane and tried to look pitiful. “Not great, actually. I’m sick.” “Oh that’s terrible.” “It is, thank you. Fortunately, I know what I need to get better, but I don’t think you’re going to like it. I need a brain taken from the head of a son of Adam to cure my affliction.” His gaze suddenly intensified. “I can’t help but notice that you are a son of Adam. In his mercy, Allah has led me to you so that I might be cured, praised be his name.”
The man thought quicker than he ever had in his entire life. He leaned in conspiratorily. “You’ve been an absolute delight to talk to, so I’m gonna level with you, uncle lion. Listen up, because I swear that this is the absolute truth. I am an utterly brainless fellow. Full on Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz levels of lacking any brain. If I had even a few brain cells to my name, I would never have come waltzing back along the road where my friend and I saw lion shit just hours before. I would have known that I would certainly be walking into a hungry lion. I mean, I was even straight up warned that this would happen and I still did it. What more proof do you need that I have no brain? Nah, the one with the brain is up on the mountain road beyond the rocks. He’s smart enough to try and avoid you. His brain will be a much better cure, I promise you.” The lion thought about it, then bowed gracefully. “Thank you for your good advice, son of Adam. May Allah grant you happiness.” And with that, the lion slunk away, climbing the rocks towards the high road.
I don’t know what to make of this story. On the one hand, it’s a very clever bit of quick thinking and trickery for the woodcutter to pull out of his ass. He’s clearly smarter than the one from the main tale. On the other hand, he just doomed his supposed friend to a bloody, painful death for doing the right thing. It was probably the only way for him to save his own ass, but the guilt is going to weigh on him for the rest of his life if he has even a shred of decency. I guess the moral of the story is not to befriend lazy, selfish people who will literally throw you to the lions to save themselves? I dunno. This was a weird one.
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.
Next time, we’ll head to London back when it was still Logres to catch up with King Arthur. You’ll discover that winning one battle isn’t enough to create peace, that knights become bandits super quickly, and that it’s not polite to start a war without a proper challenge. Then, in Gods and Monsters, a young man with a strange name will end up in trouble with a giant. That’s all for now. Thanks for listening.