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Overview
In the Bakhtiari tale, Fatima is manipulated by a tattooer into causing her mother’s death. The mother later appears in dreams and directs her first to a yellow calf that supplies food, then to the div Alla Zingi. Fatima also speaks commands that temporarily prevent the calf’s killing and cooking, until her father forces her to reverse them. Her kindly responses to the div win a moon on her chin, a sun on her forehead and jeweled slippers. After a prince finds a lost slipper and marries her, her face lights their room without a lamp.
Her half-sister Four Stumps later binds her by the hair to a willow tree, takes her clothes and impersonates her. A tiger eats Fatima, but one fallen drop of blood grows into a reed. A shepherd makes it into a whistle whose voice tells the murder; the prince takes it home, where it gives flowers to him and their son but pricks the impostor with a needle.
Fatima eventually emerges from the whistle inside a grain jar, filling the room with light. Given clothes, she returns openly to her husband and child and relates her whole story. The reed and whistle are successive forms carrying her identity, not separate counted beings. This Bakhtiari telling is distinguished from Little Fatima in the Kermani section: here the mother remains a dream guide and the calf is obtained from relatives, rather than explicitly being the transformed mother.
Origins & earliest records
Bakhtiari storytelling, Iran
Records & interpretation
Complete XXXIX with all printed footnotes read in original-edition OCR.
Selected bibliography
Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.
- 01
Persian Tales
Bakhtiari tales; XXXIX, How Fatima Killed Her Mother and What Came of It, pp. 256–268
Family, evolution & connections
Fatima’s paternal family — Lorimer’s Bakhtiari tale XXXIX
Named daughters sharing one unnamed father, with Fatima’s unnamed son; this Bakhtiari telling only.
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- Unnamed father — children by two different mothers
- Unnamed son of Fatima and her prince husband
Explicit parentage and birth statements on pp. 256–258 and 264, within the complete pp. 256–268 tale. Fatima’s mother and the tattooer are different mothers. Both later daughters link to their collective profile; no extra individual profiles are invented. The text later calls them stepsisters despite its shared-father account. Fatima’s reed and whistle retain her identity. Alla Zingi’s affectionate child address is not biological parentage.
Four Eyes and Four Stumps (Char-te and Char-angila)
Fatima shares a father with Char-te and Char-angila, whose mother is the tattooer he marries after Fatima’s mother dies. The later “stepsister” wording does not erase that stated parentage.
Fatima’s unnamed father in Lorimer’s Bakhtiari tale
Fatima’s father remarries the tattooer and later consents to Fatima’s marriage. He is also father of the tattooer’s two daughters in this particular telling.
Fatima’s unnamed mother in Lorimer’s Bakhtiari tale
Fatima causes her mother’s death, then receives her guidance in dreams. The yellow calf is obtained from an uncle; the text does not identify it as her transformed mother.
Unnamed prince husband of Fatima
The prince finds Fatima’s jeweled slipper and marries her. Four Stumps later impersonates his wife; the impersonation does not create a second stated marriage.
Unnamed son of Fatima and the prince
Fatima bears the prince a son before her murder and reed transformation. The restored Fatima recognises and embraces that same child; the reed is not a new daughter or ancestor.
Primary records and illustrations
D. L. R. Lorimer and E. O. Lorimer, Persian Tales (London: Macmillan, 1919)
Bakhtiari tales. XXXIX, pp. 256–268
Whole tale and all footnotes read in two bounded portions. Mother and calf not equated; name glosses not made into extra anatomy; reed/whistle retain Fatima identity. Colonial generalizations in notes not adopted.
References
Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.
- Historical translated folktaleLorimer, Persian Tales (1919), Bakhtiari tales; XXXIX, How Fatima Killed Her Mother and What Came of It, pp. 256–268Research access: 2026-10-05
Image credits
A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.