The road of ‘Went-and-Returned not’ (1)

Summary
From Drower’s collection of Iraqi folktales.

Text
There is a description of a difficult road in the Iraqi folktale “The Blind Sultan”. In this story the hero seeks for his two brothers-in-law, who have been lost during accomplishing a mission of finding a cure for their father’s blindness. There are two types of roads for him to choose in order to search for his brothers and save them. The first road is “He Went and Returned”, while the second is “Went-and-Returned-Not”, ṣadd u mā radd in Iraqi Arabic. There is an old man teaching to the hero how to use that road: “’If you take the road ‘Went-and-Returned-Not’ which is perilous, you may perish. You are pleasant-spoken and intelligent, I should be sorry if you came to harm.’ Replied the youth, ‘Nevertheless, I choose the Road ‘Went-and-Returned not’.

Then the old man said, ‘My son, you are kind-hearted and soft-spoken, and clever too, so I will tell you what you must do. When you go along the road you will be attacked on all sides, and beaten, and hit with stones, but you must not turn round, or you will die. Go straight on, looking neither to left nor right, and at the end of the road you will find a large castle surrounded by a wall, in which are seven gates, each guarded by a deywa. These deywāt are fierce and will eat you, should you try to enter, but I will give you seven hairs from my beard, and you must make nooses with them, to draw from the mouth of each deywa the gum which she is chewing. As soon as the gum is removed she will fall asleep, and will not harm you. When all the seven deywāt are asleep, you can enter the courtyard of the castle, in which you will find lionesses in plenty. They will not harm you, for a lioness does not eat the children of Adam, it is only the male which does this. Kill and skin one beast, and milk another, then place the skin of milk on the back of a cub, and return by the road by which you came, taking care that you look neither to the right nor left when you are beaten and stoned.’ Then he plucked out seven hairs from his beard and gave them to the young man, who set off on the road ‘Went-and-Returned-Not’.

It was just as the old man said: and the young man was thumped and dumped, and beaten and shaken, but he took no notice, nor glanced to right nor left, but went on, straight as a mile, dī, dī, dī, dī, until he came to the great castle. There it was, and round it a high wall, with seven gates. He went to the first” … etc. The name of the road is reminiscent of the ancient Sumerian and Akkadian literary descriptions of the netherworld - “the land of no return,” or “the road whose journey has no return”.

Source (list of abbreviations)
Iraqi folktales

Bibliography

Amar Annus

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