Protective Scorpion of the Mzab Charity Tale

Overview

A garden owner takes breakfast to his khammès, who has been harvesting barley. At a river he encounters a tortoise and a scorpion. The scorpion climbs onto the tortoise, crosses the water on it, and runs toward a palm while the tortoise returns. Beneath the palm a man is asleep with a serpent wound around his neck. Its mouth lies near his head, and the narrative says it is ready to bite when he wakes. The scorpion strikes the serpent’s head, injects venom and kills it. The garden owner watches in fear before waking the sleeper and directing him to look beside him.

The sleeper is the khammès, and at first he wants to flee. Asked what good deed he performed that day before God, he explains that he gave a little bread to an old woman. He identifies the animal rescue as the means God devised to save him from death, anticipates a long life and gives thanks. The story closes with this interpretation of the rescue rather than further action by the scorpion. Basset’s note 36 places collection at Mélika in 1885 without naming an individual contributor. His following comparative note describes a different, mediated account with a frog rather than a tortoise and a warning against drunkenness rather than this worker’s reward for charity; those substitutions do not belong to the inspected Mzab episode.

Origins & earliest records

René Basset, Contes populaires berbères (1887), no. 18, Le scorpion et le khammès, complete printed pp. 37–38, headed Mzab. Original note 36, p. 157, places collection at Mélika in 1885 and calls the Mzabi text unpublished; no individual narrator is named there.

Records & interpretation

Complete original narrative inspected in DjVu pages 75–76; notes 36–37 inspected on pages 195–196, printed pp. 157–158. The tortoise crossing, serpent’s neck position, actual killing and final charitable explanation are retained. The beneficiary’s providential explanation is attributed to him; comparative frog/drunkenness material remains separate.

Selected bibliography

Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.

1. 01

   Contes populaires berbères

   René Basset, collector, French translator and editor; Mzab contributor not named in the source note · 1887

   No. 18, complete pp. 37–38; source note 36, p. 157, with comparative note 37 distinguished.

Family & connections

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References

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

1. Primary collected narrative; original facsimiles inspectedOriginal edition, complete scorpion rescue and source noteResearch access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

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