Episode Details

The shelf opens where the old folk book opens — in the pulpit. Asked whether he knows what he is going to preach, the Hodja finds three different ways to say nothing at all; he sings in the bath and ruins the morning call to prayer; he gives thanks for a moon as big as a cartwheel and a palace built without pillars; he catches a thief by moonlight, and sits on his own cap to save the cushions. Twenty-two tales of the wisest fool in the world, in fresh English translations made for this show.

From Der Hodscha Nasreddin by Albert Wesselski (1911), public domain; told in a fresh in-house rendering.

KacheliTV — world classics, read aloud.

Chapters:

0:00 Opening

0:05 Do You Know What I Am Going to Say?

1:12 The Same Stars

1:39 The Voice in the Bath

2:28 The Stolen Savings

3:17 As Big as a Cartwheel

3:53 The Thief and the Moonbeams

4:35 Do Not Name Him Eyub

4:59 The Well, Turned Upside Down

5:22 Spectacles for the Ears

5:56 Six Months Old

7:49 The Law and the Custom

8:15 The Donkey on the Minaret

9:08 A Palace Without Pillars

9:30 Sitting on His Cap

10:07 The House That Was Carried Away

11:34 Once Is Enough

12:31 Quite Alone

13:05 Riding Backwards

13:34 The Calf with Its Eyes Shut

13:54 One Book Is Enough

14:28 The Book and Its Cover

15:03 Twenty More Patients