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Overview

A woodcutter strikes a trunk and hears a being inside appeal for protection and ask what debt it owes him. Stumme’s German translation first calls it a being, then a spirit. The woodcutter asks for food in exchange for leaving the tree alone. The spirit gives him a hand-mill that produces flour when addressed. His wife uses it to feed their household and an old woman who asks for food. The visitor returns carrying an ordinary matching mill, substitutes it under her cloak and steals the working one. When the substitute fails, the woodcutter breaks it and goes back to strike the same tree.

The spirit next supplies a bowl that fills with couscous and meat. The old woman gains access to this gift in the same way and exchanges it for an ordinary bowl, which the woodcutter also smashes. A third return produces a cat that excretes gold. A bathhouse keeper steals it by substituting another cat after testing its power. The household discards the ordinary cat and the woodcutter again confronts the tree. This time the spirit supplies three small sticks. Their power is demonstrated upon the woodcutter himself: they beat him until the spirit explains how to stop them.

The sticks subsequently beat the woodcutter’s wife during a test, then the returning old woman. He makes release conditional on recovering the mill and bowl, retrieves them from her house and allows the beating to stop. At the baths, the keeper ignores a warning and tests the sticks; the woodcutter demands his real cat before releasing him. The tale ends with the recovered cat and sticks taken home. The spirit remains a voice within the tree throughout these encounters; the account gives it no separate bodily appearance. Its gifts furnish the whole theft-and-recovery sequence, rather than a single unexplained act of tree magic.

Voice within a treeFood-making giftsGold-producing catPunitive sticksRecovery of stolen property
01

Origins & earliest records

Hans Stumme, Märchen der Schluḥ von Tázerwalt (Leipzig, 1895), tale 2, Die Geschichte vom Holzfäller: complete German translation pp. 73–77; original Tashelhit transcription pp. 2–4. Preface pp. v–vi names Abdulla Ben Mhammed as dictating contributor and describes Leipzig collection.

02

Records & interpretation

Entire German tale read from the first tree encounter through recovery and final return home, including both domestic thefts and the bathhouse substitution. The German translation is the language witness used here; the Tashelhit transcription is not independently retranslated. Contributor and recording context checked against original Preface pixels.

Selected bibliography

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  1. 01

    Märchen der Schluḥ von Tázerwalt

    Abdulla Ben Mhammed, dictating contributor; Hans Stumme, recorder and German translator · 1895

    Tale 2, whole German pp. 73–77; original transcription pp. 2–4; Preface v–vi.

Family & connections

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References

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  1. Primary collected Tashelhit transcription with German translationOriginal 1895 bilingual collection: The WoodcutterResearch access: 2026-10-05

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