A local sweet bread or cake made from dough, dates and oil; the daughter’s first wish.
Kerman · 1395 SH / 2016–17 · Persian re-edition
The story returns to Kerman
Nearly a century after Lorimer’s English publication, the Kerman material appeared in Persian in its place of collection. This is not a second early witness, but another remarkable stage in the life of the same source.
A source trail, not a newly discovered variant
The 1395 SH publication is attributed to D. L. R. Lorimer and presented through the Persian translation and editorial work of Fereydoun Vahman. Its close correspondence with the 1919 text means that it should not be counted as independent evidence for the earlier tradition.
Bibliographic record
The Kerman edition
- Work
- Farhang-e Mardom-e Kerman (فرهنگ مردم کرمان)
- Source material
- D. L. R. Lorimer
- Persian edition
- Translation and editorial work by Fereydoun Vahman
- Publisher
- Markaz-e Kerman-shenasi / Kerman Studies Center
- Edition
- First Kerman Studies edition, 1395 SH (2016/17)
- Story
- Qesse-ye Mushkil Gusha (قصه مشکلگشا), pp. 160–167
- Material examined
- Complete photographs of the relevant pages supplied by the Central Public Library of Kerman in September 2026
Transmission
The long way home
- An oral telling in KermanThe ritual note places the story among poor and pious women and traces this particular text indirectly to one of their tellings.
- An unnamed intermediaryLorimer’s note indicates that an informant wrote down or transmitted the woman’s words. The teller and the intermediary have not yet been identified.
- Lorimer’s Kerman materialNotes and linguistic work transformed the oral event into material that could be edited and translated.
- English publication, 1919The complete story appeared as Tale IX in D. L. R. and E. O. Lorimer’s Persian Tales.
- Persian re-edition, 1395 SHFereydoun Vahman returned the material to Persian in a modern Kerman publication.
- Library photographs, 2026The Central Public Library of Kerman supplied the Institute with a complete photographic record of the story pages.
- A new English research translationThe Institute translated the photographed Persian text closely in order to compare what had been preserved, reformulated or omitted.
Continuity
What the Persian edition preserves
The entire Lorimer narrative structure remains recognisable: the thorn-gatherer, his wife and daughter; the wish for chaymal; three days of hunger; seven and three salawāt; the horseman and the pebbles; jewels and sudden wealth; the princess and the necklace; imprisonment after a false accusation; the forgotten Friday Eve observance; chickpeas and raisins; the refusing rider; the father of a dying child; the reflection in the water, the sneeze and final restoration.
The accompanying note likewise preserves the complex of fasting, telling to a child, using a mirror when no child is available, breaking the fast with chickpeas and raisins or dates, and giving the remainder as charity.
Language
Kerman remains audible
The edition includes lexical glosses and colloquial forms that keep the regional setting visible. These details matter even when the publication is not an independent narrative witness.
Thorn-gatherer. The occupation is more specific than the “woodcutter” familiar from later versions.
Equal or matching; used when the daughter asks for a palace equal to that of the princess.
Clothing, sacks, roof openings, vessels and household objects retain the texture of the Kerman setting.
Editorial difference
A different final sound
The photographed Persian edition ends with a blessing addressed to all creation:
خداوند همتو که مراد خارکش داد مراد تموم خلایق بدا! یا مشکل گشا!May God, just as He granted the thorn-gatherer his desire, grant the desires of all creation! O Mushkil Gusha!
It does not reproduce the additional comic formula about the sparrow that closes Lorimer’s 1919 English printing. The omission is real, but its cause remains uncertain: it may reflect translation, editorial choice or the form of the source used by Vahman.
Why the edition matters
Not another branch — a completed circle
- It documents the afterlife of material collected in Kerman and first made widely available in English.
- It shows how a text can return to its place of collection through translation and local scholarly publication.
- It allows the English printing and a modern Persian rendering to be compared word by word.
- It raises questions about cultural return, editorial mediation and the preservation of regional speech.
- It prevents a methodological error: the 1919 and 1395 SH publications must not be treated as two independent confirmations of the same early tradition.
Institute source work
From the Central Public Library of Kerman
In September 2026, the Central Public Library of Kerman responded to the Institute’s enquiry by providing a complete photographic record of pages 160–167.
The photographs made it possible to produce a close working translation and to establish the relationship between this Persian edition and Lorimer’s earlier publication. The page images themselves are not reproduced here.
Questions remaining
What the circle does not yet tell us
- Which exact Lorimer text or manuscript did Vahman use?
- Did the Persian editor consult Lorimer’s surviving Kermani notes as well as the 1919 English printing?
- Which lexical notes derive from Lorimer and which from the modern editor?
- Why was the English sparrow formula omitted?
- Does the volume’s introduction describe the translation and editorial method in greater detail?
- Can a living Kerman tradition independent of the published Lorimer line still be documented?
Related archive notes
Read both stages
The value of the 1395 SH edition lies not in multiplying witnesses, but in revealing movement: a woman’s story leaves Kerman, enters English print, returns in Persian, and becomes available for comparison in Kerman once again.