The Honey Drum: Seven Tales from Arab Lands

Priscilla Galloway was an English consultant in Willowdale, Ontario.

Two of the seven tales in The Honey Drum are original pieces; the other five are derived from oral and written folk-tales as familiar in Arabic-speaking countries, MacEwen tells us, as “Cinderella” is in the West.

The title story is the amusing tale of Ahmed’s plan to give the king a worthy gift, a drum filled with honey. Everybody agrees to put one cup of honey in the drum. Ahmed, however, puts in a cup of water; it will never be noticed among the thousands of cups of honey. Unfortunately, everyone thinks the way Ahmed does, and the king is enraged when his subjects present him with a drum full of nothing but water.

In the second story, Abdullah is granted the gift of great wealth, but he blinds himself through seeking more than has been given. In “The Black Goat,” Sayed lives as a human being for five years before returning to his own non-human land. In “The Ghoul,” MacEwen’s second original story, a shape-changing female horror delights in luring men to death. “The Sleepers” is based on a story in the Koran, an Islamic “Rip Van Winkle,” where the seven holy men sleep for three hundred years.

“Four Ways to Fortune” is the most complex of these brief tales, when labourer, merchant, nobleman, and prince each in turn sets out to supply dinner. Hard work earns only a single coin; intelligence and beauty do much better; however, total acceptance of fate brings a kingdom, and the king’s son shares his riches with his three companions: “Whatever will be will be.”

The strangeness of these tales is their most appealing feature. They don’t have a resolution, or not the kind we are used to. The values shown here are not ours. These stories apparently come from a highly male-dominant culture; there is only one important female character among the seven, and she is not seen, nor does she speak, except briefly and in disguise: the Ghoul. Ideas of virtue and reward are not what we might expect. Hard work is not rewarded; acceptance of fate is. An elderly couple lavish love on a non-human creature who leaves them without a word of farewell. One animal cheats others and is shown as clever because he has outwitted them.

MacEwen’s strong poetic voice is not much in evidence here, although her spare prose is appropriate to the genre. Collectors of folklore will want this book.