A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.

Overview

Following her dead mother’s dream instructions, Fatima obtains a yellow calf from her uncle’s household. When addressed, one ear supplies food such as āsh and pulāu while the other supplies rose-water. Fatima feeds it the barley bran given by her stepmother and secretly eats its abundant provisions. Four Eyes keeps the secret after sharing a meal, but Four Stumps carries food home and exposes it.

The stepmother then feigns illness and bribes a religious practitioner to prescribe the calf’s meat. Fatima’s commands initially prevent the knife from cutting and the meat from cooking, but her father beats her until she revokes them, and the animal is killed and eaten. She gathers its bones before returning to her mother’s grave. The text does not identify this calf as her mother or describe its revival, unlike the explicitly maternal cow in the collection’s Kermani Fatima story.

Separate animal helper whose ears supply food and rose-waterSpecific Bakhtiari narrative witness
01

Origins & earliest records

Bakhtiari storytelling, Iran

02

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.

  1. 01

    Persian Tales

    D. L. R. Lorimer and E. O. Lorimer, collectors/translators · 1919

    Bakhtiari tales; XXXIX, How Fatima Killed Her Mother and What Came of It, pp. 256–268

Family & connections

A source-supported family tree or inspiration record has not yet been compiled for this profile. Related reading below indicates a connection in subject matter, not a proven lineage or creative influence.

Primary records and illustrations

Direct primary record

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.

Inspect the digitized plate · Source collection manifest

References

Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.

  1. 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.

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