Throughout my childhood, my mother would often tell my sisters, my brother and me stories. The stories were not part of any book. They were told to us from memory. My mother had been told these tales by her parents who had learned the stories from their parents, who had learned the stories from their parents, and so on down the line into ancestral history. In Palestinian society, especially before television and radio, the telling of tales was a main source of entertainment and a way to help pass the time. My mother can recall sitting among other children from her village while doing chores such as cooking or knitting, and being told tales by an elder woman. In the village she lived in, and in all Palestinian towns, there was a designated guest house, called madhafah in Arabic, which was where visitors would be welcomed. At the madhafah, men sat together and told stories as the women did. However, at the madhafah, the story teller (hakawaty) usually told his stories while playing a tune on a string instrument. The tales may have been a humorous tale of marriage, a scary tale about war or ghouls, a farmers tale about the destruction of his crops, or a shepherds tale about the loss of his love.
Whether the tales were meant to be humorous, to teach history, or to provide a moral lesson, they were always meant to entertain. However, for me, the fascination of folk tales lies not only in their ability to provide entertainment, but also in their antiquity, and their ability to provide a sense of unity and identity in a family. Indeed, there is something truly exciting about hearing a tale that was once told by a great grandparent and passed down from the generations before. Story telling in the Arab culture is a family activity, and an age old practice. Tales about the fictitious and humorous character called Juha, and romantic love stories like that of Antar and Abla, have been related from individual to individual in most , if not all, Arab families and have spanned generations. Their long existence is a testament to the importance of family and tradition in the Arab culture. From grandfather to grandchild, from uncle to nephew, or from mother to child, the telling of tales was done in all parts of society and all across the Arab world. Below are some samples of Arabian folk tales and the countries they come from. The first two are lessons on nature and are, presumably, tales for children. The last tale teaches a moral lesson.
