Reading Notes: Persian Tales, Part B - The Story of the Wolf-Bride

The Story of the Wolf-Bride

Notes:

This is a short story, but one with a powerful message. A man has a son, and goes to an akhund (an Islamic cleric or mullah) to get the boy's fortune. The akhund tells the man that his son is fated to be torn to pieces by a wolf. The man, to prevent this from happening, goes home and builds an underground room for his son and puts him in there presumably forever. He gets a cleric to teach his son, and the boy goes on to live underground like that for a while.

The boy grew up, and his family decided it was time for the son to get married. He married his uncle's daughter, and after the wedding celebrations, the girl was sent underground to go live with the boy (who I guess is also her cousin, but that's another thing). They were left alone, and as soon as the boy touched the girl, she turned into a wolf and ripped him apart. When that was done, she turned back into a girl to be found by the women of the family in the morning. She claimed she didn't know how or why it had happened. They buried the body, and "men" (I don't know who this is referring to, to be honest) essentially said: "whatever fate wills, will come to pass." 

A she-wolf and her cub (Source: My Exotic World)

So there's surprisingly a lot to unpack here with such a short story. One, I don't understand how the girl turned into a wolf, was it really the power of fate transforming her just long enough to enact the boy's destiny? I don't know. And the message, which is essentially that you can't escape fate, and whatever is meant to happen will happen. I don't know how much I subscribe to that. 

One of the biggest cultural hurdles I encountered when I started dating my boyfriend was the more prevalent belief in his society that whatever happens must be God's will. To me, there's an element of shrugging off responsibility for our actions in that kind of mentality. I'm of the belief that if you really want something for yourself or your loved ones, you have to make a decision and take some kind of action to make that happen as best you can. I don't know if I even believe in fate, or destiny, or the general idea that there are certain things that are meant to happen that we can't stop. That isn't to say I completely reject that idea, it could be the truth of the world, I just think that it is important to take into account the power of our own agency and our own abilities. Whatever you all may feel about that, the message in this story is powerful and thought-provoking.

Bibliography: Persian Tales, translated by D.L.R. Lorimer and E.O. Lorimer and illustrated by Hilda Roberts (1919)