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father, son, and donkey: when they carry the donkey, it falls off the bridge

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Earlier this week I shared an Egyptian version of "you can't please everyone," a Middle Eastern Nasruddin story that later became popular in Europe where it was considered an Aesop's fable. You can read different Aesopic versions here... there's even a limerick with an illustration by Walter Crane in The Baby's Own Aesop:

Through the town this good Man and his Son

Strove to ride as to please every one:

Self, Son or both tried,

Then the Ass had a ride;

While the world, at their efforts, poked fun.

YOU CANNOT HOPE TO PLEASE ALL: DON'T TRY.

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Goha carrying a basket while riding on a donkey

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Here's another Goha story... this time from a beautiful book with EMBROIDERED illustrations for 15 different Goha tales: Goha the Wise Fool by Denys Johnson-Davies.The needlework artists are the "Fattouh Sons," Hag Hamdy and Hany, who have their shop in the Street of the Tentmakers in Cairo's old Islamic quarter; I hope they are still there (the book was published in 2005). You can read more about the Fattouh Sons in the book. If you did Readers Theater with us this week, you will recognize this story as a variation on the story of Nasruddin carrying wood on his head to help the donkey: Goha and the Basket (that link will take you directly to the page with that story).

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a man carries a donkey on his shoulder while a boy holds the halter

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In Egypt, there are stories told about the wise-fool Goha which resemble the stories told about Nasruddin, as in this children's book: Goha and His Donkey: An Egyptian Folktale retold by Amany Hassanein with art by Valeri Gorbachev. Maybe when you see the final illustration (above) you will be able to guess which folktale this is! (It is a famous one that also became incorporated into the Aesopic tradition in Europe later on.)

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"Innocent Thief" shows a thief stealing the donkey

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In this book from Turkey, Nasreddin Hodja by Alpay Kabacalı, with art by Fatih Durmus, you will find some classic Nasruddin stories involving his donkey... and the art is wonderful!

Why Did He Ride on the Donkey Backwards

You Believe the Donkey

Innocent Thief

Do As You Please

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You can read this book at the Internet Archive: A Donkey Reads, adapted from a Turkish folktale by Muriel Mandell with art by André Letria. This is a story about Nasruddin set in the time of the Mongolian ruler Tamerlane, a historical ruler of the 14th century; you can read more about Tamerlane at Wikipedia.

(Heather, I think you will like how this story is set up!)

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A donkey reads : adapted from a Turkish folktale : Mandell, Muriel;Letria, André, illustrator : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

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To learn about "The Merry Pranks of Till Eulenspiegel," click on the PDF preview above.

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This is a folktale from Russia, with some beautiful illustrations. Click on the PDF preview to learn more.

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This a children's book about Juan Bob that is available both in English and in Spanish at the Internet Archive. Click on the PDF preview to learn more.

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This is a very inventive retelling of one of my favorite stories about the "fools" of Chelm. Click the PDF preview above to learn more.

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I enjoyed reading the short stories about Pedro in Pedro Fools the Gringo. I especially liked how Pedro made fools out of greedy individuals, sometimes multiple times. (Heather)

#LoveIt #BookBrowsing

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Pedro fools the gringo and other tales of a Latin American trickster : María Cristina Brusca : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

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A line drawing of the Internet Archive headquarters building façade.

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From Heather Kretschmer

#100WordStory #OldJoke

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#Limerick

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woman watches while child tightly closes eyes

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A limerick from Laura:

Nasruddin — sometimes fool, sometimes wise —

At a mirror he stared with closed eyes,

His wife says to him, "Hey,

What can you see that way?"

"How I look when I sleep!" he replies.

I based this limerick on a famous story told about Nasruddin and other fools who stare at a mirror with their eyes closed because they want to see what they look like when they are asleep. Yes, it's foolish, of course, but I think it can also have a hidden message for us about mindfulness and how hard it is to "see" ourselves fully, even if we do have a mirror.

I couldn't find a good picture of a man staring into a mirror with closed eyes that was CC-licensed, but then I found this lovely picture at Flickr that even has a woman laughing in the background... and in many ways, Nasruddin has a child's pure curiosity about the world; it's one of the best features of the wise fools. So that is the picture I chose. :-)

Thanks to Heather for inspiring me with her limerick!

#Limerick

Photo: "Eyes Wide Shut" by Nikky Stephen at Flickr.

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From Heather Kretschmer

Today's Daily Create showed the cover of a book that had some old-fashioned keys under the title, "Life: A User's Manual." The Daily Create prompt instructed people to "create a poem that might describe a nugget of advice inside" the book. As I'm sure wise fools have plenty of nuggets of advice about keeping track of keys, I wrote a wise fool limerick.

There once was a man called Lee

who recklessly tossed his key.

He looked up and down

all over the town

to find it in his vitamin C.

#Limerick

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The photo shows something splashing into a glass of orange juice. Some cut-up citrus fruit and a jug with juice are nearby.

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(from Laura G.) I wrote this 100-word story inspired by one of my favorite Zen parables; you can comment at the GoogleDoc, or open the PDF here in the post by clicking on the thumbnail above. To see the animated gif, I think you need to open the GoogleDoc. :-)

#KoanStory #100WordStory

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by Mark Corbett Wilson

In 1852 Joshua Norton gambled a large part of his fortune on a shipment of rice from Peru to take advantage of wildly fluctuating prices in San Francisco and lost not only his money, but his sanity as well.

#MeetAFool

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I read some of Laura Gibb's 100-word Nasruddin stories 🩷 and thought about what Nasruddin might do if he worked as a teacher today. That inspired me to write my own 100-word story, which I uploaded here as a Word document.

- Heather Kretschmer

#100WordStory #Pedagogy

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This is an export of my Google Doc file as a PDF, uploaded here to the Padlet. If you want to make comments at the Google Doc, you can do that, or you can comment here at the Padlet; just click on the thumbnail above to open the PDF. Thank you for your feedback!

#100WordStory #OldJoke

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By Heather Kretschmer

I hope you enjoy this story about Till Eulenspiegel visiting the townspeople of Schilda. This is the first readers theater script I've ever written, and I'm looking forward to people trying it out at one of our MYFest readers theater sessions. Any feedback about the script is very welcome, so feel free to add comments to this post. 😊

#ReadersTheater

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gif by Mark Corbett Wilson

Steamboat Willie is now in the public domain!

https://archive.org/details/steamboat-willie-mickey

#WiseFool

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(from Laura G.) I wrote this story about an optimistic wise fool from Tamil folklore. You can comment here (click on the thumbnail above to open the document) or you can comment at the GoogleDoc. I hope you enjoy the story! :-)

#Optimism

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Click on the thumbnail to view the PDF.

#OldJoke

retold by Laura :-)

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From Laura :-)

Click on the thumbnail view to access the PDF.

#100WordStory #OldJoke

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For the month of June, we featured a new story each day, MTWThF, with a wrap-up on Saturday and a break on Sunday.

Maybe you will be inspired to write YOUR OWN STORIES this summer and share them at the Gallery. You can find storytelling prompts and ideas at the Activities Padlet, with hundreds of stories ready to re-tell at the Resources Padlet.

Have fun!