Nasruddin’s Wager

Mullah Nasruddin

I found this tale in Ioan Tenner’s splendid resource This Reminds Me of a Story, 111 Teaching Stories of Nasreddin Hodja, the Wise Fool of the East (search in the blog for “wager”). The story would not let me rest until I had recorded it. 

The tale was used as the basis of a From Page to Stage workshop at the Lübeck Storytelling Festival, March 2025. Tenner’s text provides the story, but requires considerable work to transmute it into a stage performance – the fundamental work of the storyteller.

In the 800 years since Nasruddin’s death, countless tales have become associated with the much-loved figure of the Hodja. As is to be expected in folk lore, the stories range from being suitable for children to being very much adult material.

Storytell contributor Mary Grace Ketner once posted: I have heard it said that if you tell one Hodja story, you must tell seven. I’ve also heard that if you hear seven, you have taken one step toward enlightenment.
So below are some links to ensure your spiritual progress.

More tales of Nasruddin and Birbal (a similar figure from India), and some resources

On my website:

• further tales of Nasruddin
• further tales of Birbal

Internet:

• Wikipedia page on Hodja Nasruddin
• Wikipedia page on Birbal
• Ioan Tenner’s extensive Bibliography of Nasruddin story books and publications
• Another wonderful Nasruddin collection, which in the publisher’s words is “For Mature Readers only”: Extraordinary Adventures of Mullah Nasruddin: Naughty, unexpurgated tales of the beloved wise fool from the Middle & Far East (Revised Edition ~ collected & retold by Ron J. Suresha)
• Not surprisingly, many of the over 2000 stories at the Turkish Oral Narrative Tales archive feature the Hodja.