Alright everybody and for our last guest of the day, well, we're
actually going to have two guests! A young man named Adam and his
beautiful wife Layla!
(The audience claps excitedly as the stunning couple walks on stage.)
Adam: Hey, Jerry! How ya doin'?
(Some audience members visibly swoon over Adam.)
Jerry: Ha! I'm very well! Thank you, Adam! And Layla, how are you?
Layla: Great! Glad to be here!
Jerry: I'm glad you guys are here too! Why don't you tell the audience
exactly why you're here, huh?
Adam: I would love to have the honor of telling this story. Layla, you
mind?
Layla: Go ahead.
Adam: Alright! Where to start? Well, a long time ago, I was actually a
horse in Layla's father's stable. Layla's father commanded her to marry
me because she was the only one I would react favorably to. Her elder
sisters married rich merchants from the city, who loved to play
basketball for fun. Well, her sisters' husbands would always hold
basketball tournaments, and they were very good. They beat all the
other men! Layla's sisters mocked her endlessly because she had married
a horse, so one day, I showed Layla my true human form. She was shocked
and happy, and I made her swear never to tell anyone, or else we would
have to cease being together. So taking my human form, I beat her
sister's husbands in basketball and then vanished without a trace.
Layla was so happy that she couldn't help but brag to her sisters that
the
strange man was her husband.
Layla: Sooorrrry again about that, love.
Adam: I'm well over it! Anyway, the second she uttered the words, I was
immediately returned to my evil witch mother's house atop a high
mountain. Afraid this might happen some day, I had left Layla a cell
phone with a limited number of calls to reach me at if she ever needed
anything. When I had disappeared and was nowhere to be found, Layla
called me and I magically whisked her to my house since my mother was
away at work. However, if my mother saw Layla, she would be sure to eat
her. We decided to run away before my mom could find my bride.
Layla: We should have run faster. That old hag was on to us from the
start.
Adam: Yeah, unfortunately my mom had quite the nose on her. She smelled
human flesh and set out on our tail.
Layla: We tried to trick her several times, and at first it worked, but
then she'd realized she'd been tricked, get even more mad, and chase us
with even more vigor and stamina than before! She was scary, man!
Adam: Yeeeah, tricking my mom may not have been the best idea. First, I
turned Layla into a well and myself into an old man drawing water. When
my mom came upon us, she asked if we had seen a young man and a young
maiden. Of course, being the old man in disguise, I said no and mumbled
something incoherent. She took me for being dumb, and ran off on
another course. Soon after though, she realized her mistake, and she
was close behind us again.
Layla: This time, Adam turned me into a fire-pit, and himself a young
Boy Scout roasting marshmallows! His mom didn't even bother asking what
she thought was a young boy whether he had seen us or not.
Adam: Right. But after she figured us out this time, she was so furious
that she caught up to us, and demanded I give over Layla. I turned
Layla into a tree so my mom couldn't eat her, but I accidentally forgot
to transform her pinky finger. My mom told me that if she could just
eat Layla's pinky, she would leave us in peace.
Layla; So he let his mom eat my freakin' pinky.
(The audience laughs as Layla holds up her hand... with only four
fingers!)
Adam: Yeah, but it worked, right?! What else was I supposed to do? You
know I love you, Layla!
Layla: I know, I know. I just like giving you a hard time. It saved us,
and now we live happily, so I don't mind.
Adam; But no more magic for us! After my mom disowned me, I lost all my
magical powers. We don't mind though. It makes life much less
complicated.
Author's note: I had to change so
much in this story! First of all, Layla knew the first night she
married the horse that he was a man, because every night he took his
human form and his stable transformed into a palace. I just thought it
was easier to leave that part out, because it wasn't really relevant,
and I needed to cut down my word count. And then, instead of basketball
games, Layla's sister's husbands held jousting tournaments. Her husband
competed in these several times, always to win and then vanish away,
until Layla finally blurted out the truth. Layla's husband had
given her three of his horse hairs to burn whenever she was in danger
or needed his help, and this is how she found him. When Layla arrived
at Adam's house, he turned her into an apple so his mom couldn't find
her. She could smell the human flesh, however, so Adam revealed her
true form. At first, his mom pretended this was okay, but she
eventually tried to destroy her with tedious and dangerous chores until
Adam decided that he and Layla had to make a run for it. The witch then
sends her sisters to find them, but the sisters come across them in
various shape-shifting forms, and are too stupid to realize it, so
finally the witch goes herself. The rest of the story is pretty much
the same. She eats Layla's pinky and leaves them alone. Yum.
Kunos, Ignacz (1913). Forty-four
Turkish Fairy Tales. The Horse-Dew
and the Witch.
