A Tatar tale

Long, long ago two mullahs and a peasant set off on the road. They went along and stopped at an inn. Once they had stopped, they cooked porridge. They made a hole in the porridge and set a great deal of butter in it. When they sat down to eat, one of the mullahs picked up his spoon.

"The path of shariah law goes this way," he said, and scooped the butter in the middle onto his own portion. The second mullah watched him do this.

"Our father’s mill used to turn in this direction," the second mullah said, and he scooped the butter onto his portion.

The peasant sat watching this and said:

"The world, mullahs, is constantly changing," he said. "In the future, the world might turn upside down like so," and he mixed the bowl of porridge up. The mullahs couldn’t fool the peasant.

Well then, on the second day they again stopped somewhere to spend the night. They had cooked a goose. In the evening as they laid down to sleep, they said to themselves:

"Whoever has the best dream can eat the goose tomorrow."

In the morning they got up and began to tell each other about their dreams. One of the mullahs went first:

"In my dream I was wearing a green robe and a pure white turban, and I had set off on the hajj," he said.

They thought this dream was pretty good. Then the second mullah spoke:

"I was a great swan," he said. "And I flew off towards the Qiblah."

This dream was also pretty good, they thought. Then they turned to the peasant.

"One of you wore a green robe and a pure white turban and set off on the hajj," said the peasant. "The other flew off as a swan. So I thought, well, they’re not going to come back right away, and I was afraid the goose was just going to spoil, so I ate it and that was that."