Abunuwas na Sufuria

Once Abunuwas bought a donkey, but, not having a drinking bowl for its water, he thought he would borrow one from his neighbour. The neighbour was happy to lend Abunuwas a large cooking pot of his, in which water could be placed, but was eager that it should be returned soon.

"For", said he "remember you have promised to only keep it for a few days, as I do not want to be without it for long."

So Abunuwas took the cooking pot, and sure enough, after two days had gone by, was back at his neighbour’s house, cooking pot in hand. "Ah! You are a very trustworthy person," cried his neighbour. "But what is this little cooking pot doing, inside my larger one?"

"That" replied Abunuwas, "belongs to you; when your cooking pot was in my house it gave birth to a child, and I thought that I really must return to you what is yours"! The neighbour was delighted, and took the two cooking pots back to his house.

However, after just a few days Abunuwas was back again at his neighbour’s house, and asked if he could borrow the large cooking pot for a second time. "You are most welcome to it," the neighbour replied, "keep it for as many days as you like".

"For," he thought, "when Abunuwas returns with it this time, maybe my cooking pot will have had twins!"

The months passed away, and there was no sign of Abunuwas or the cooking pot; at length the neighbour decided to find out what had happened, and went to the house of Abunuwas.

"Come in, come in," were Abunuwas’s first words, but what came next was more unexpected; "Your cooking pot? Ah! I was just on the point of coming to tell you – your cooking pot is, I am afraid, dead!". The neighbour called Abunuwas a cheat and a liar, and told him he would take him before the Sultan for robbing him of his property.

So, after a few days Abunuwas was required to go to the Sultan’s palace, to defend himself. The neighbour began by telling how he had lent his cooking pot to Abunuwas, in order that he could feed his donkey, but after having waited for over two months to have it back, was told that it had died – an impossible thing, as everyone knows, for a cooking pot!

"Great Sultan" said Abunuwas, "this is all true, but my neighbour seems to have forgotten the first half of the story. Two months before his cooking pot died, he had lent it to me a first time, when it happily gave birth to a child. I, seeing that it rightfully belonged to my neighbour, gave it to him, together with the larger cooking pot, and he accepted them both. Now I ask you – a cooking pot that gives birth to children, is it impossible that this same cooking pot could die?"

The elders of the court together with the Sultan all agreed that if the cooking pot had had children, then of course it could die also, so the neighbour was dismissed, and Abunuwas allowed to go back home, the new owner of a cooking pot with which he could give his donkey water.