Nasruddin’s Wager
How the Hodja lost a bet – and won
Video not yet publicly available
This tale has been recorded. It is not yet available as the story will be used in a From Page to Stage workshop on 22nd March – part of the Norden erzählt storytelling festival.
It will then be uploaded to the video gallery on 8th April 2025, where it will be available to watch for free – together with many, many other tales.
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If you have a particular reason for wanting to watch the recording before it is publicly available, send a mail and we can discuss this.
Last week 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. It will be officially released on the video gallery in early 2025.
In the 800 years since his death, countless tales have become associated with the much-loved figure of Hodja Nasruddin. 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:
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.
More comic tales
The video gallery has become very extensive. So if you would enjoy more tales like this, here are a few suggestions.
The video clips here are all amateur quality, shot in various theatres or, as here, in my home studio.
Their intention is just to show the range of my storytelling and give a flavour of a live performance.
Permission is granted for use in non-commercial educational contexts.
The videos are © Richard Martin.
Professionally recorded CDs and DVDs are available here.
Go here for tales to watch
Go here for a list of all tales included on this site
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Permission to tell outlines my views on copyright
For those who are teachers: Telling stories in the classroom: basing language teaching on storytelling