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Told in the Coffee House: Turkish Tales

by Cyrus Adler and Allan Ramsay · 1898

Fantasy · Classics

Twenty-nine Turkish tales gathered by Cyrus Adler and Allan Ramsay from storytellers in the coffee houses of Constantinople in 1890 and 1891. A Hodja who saves Allah, a cobbler who becomes chief astrologer and a farmer who learns to cure his wife are among the characters.

Content note: Collected in the 1890s in the Ottoman capital by two Western visitors. Some tales use stereotypes of religions and peoples, and include cruelty and drinking, that are outdated today.

30 chapters

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Collected and done into English by CYRUS ADLER AND ALLAN RAMSAY

New York

The Macmillan Company

London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd. 1898 All rights reserved

Copyright, 1898, By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

Norwood Press J. S. Cushing & Co.—Berwick & Smith Norwood Mass. U.S.A.

PREFACE

In the course of a number of visits to Constantinople, I became much interested in the tales that are told in the coffee houses. These are usually little more than rooms, with walls made of small panes of glass. The furniture consists of a tripod with a contrivance for holding the kettle, and a fire to keep the coffee boiling. A carpeted bench traverses the entire length of the room. This is occupied by turbaned Turks, their legs folded under them, smoking nargilehs or chibooks or cigarettes, and sipping coffee. A few will be engaged in a game of backgammon, but the majority enter into conversation, at first only in syllables, which gradually gives rise to a general discussion. Finally, some sage of the neighborhood comes in, and the company appeals to him to settle the point at issue. This he usually does by telling a story to illustrate his opinion. Some of the stories told on these occasions are adaptations

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