Welcome to our new storytelling series on Yagnob.org!
This is where we give life to the voices of the past—through the folktales that have been whispered by firelight, passed from elder to child, and carried through centuries of wind, stone, and survival. These stories, recorded in the Yaghnobi language by linguist N. Khromov and local speakers, are not just for children. They are cultural maps, filled with humor, wisdom, memory, and mystery.
Today, we begin with a small tale from the snowy highlands—a story of fear, courage, and quick wit.
The Demon and the Widow
Once upon a winter long ago, a widow lived in a stone hut at the edge of a forest. She had no husband, only a young son to care for, and a hearth that burned low most nights. Her life was hard, quiet, and ordinary.
But the mountains in Yaghnob never sleep easily. That winter night, beneath a moon hung like bone over the cliffs, something stirred from the high passes—a dev, a mountain demon with long claws, hungry breath, and eyes like coals.
Drawn by the scent of fire and flesh, the dev crept down the slope and peered through the chimney into the widow’s house.
Inside, the woman was stirring a small pot of barley. Her son slept curled beside her feet.
“I smell something,” the dev growled through the wind. “Who lives here? Who stirs the pot?”
The widow did not look up. She picked up a handful of hot ash from the fire and answered calmly, “If you are a spirit, then be gone. If you are a man, come eat these coals.”
The demon blinked. Spirits do not eat ash. Men do not challenge monsters with ash.
“I said,” the demon snarled louder, “show yourself, woman!”
But the widow remained by the hearth. With one hand, she tucked her son behind the stove. With the other, she took her cooking knife and said, even louder:
“I already fed one demon tonight. If you are another, your turn is next.”
A silence fell. Was there already a demon inside? The dev, confused and slightly shaken, backed away from the chimney. His great foot slipped on the snow-covered stones, and before he could look back again, he was gone—vanished into the forest with only his growl left behind.
The widow stirred the pot one last time and whispered to her son, now awake and watching:
“Fear listens more than it speaks. Feed it lies, and it runs.”
This story was collected in the Yaghnob Valley in the mid-20th century and recorded in the original Yaghnobi language by the Soviet-era linguist N. Khromov. It survives as part of a larger collection of folk texts that preserve the oral traditions of the region.
On its surface, The Demon and the Widow is a simple tale of courage and cleverness. But like many traditional mountain stories, it reflects a deep cultural logic:
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Widows, though vulnerable, are often cast as wise and spiritually strong.
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The dev is not evil in the Christian sense, but a natural force to be outwitted—like storms, wolves, or winter itself.
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Ash, knives, and words are symbolic tools of protection—not weapons, but defenses.
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And most of all, fear itself is seen as something malleable. The clever know how to trick it.
Folktales like this were traditionally told in winter, when families gathered around the hearth for warmth and memory. They weren’t merely entertainment—they were instructional, emotional, and often communal. In the Yaghnob Valley, memory and imagination are intertwined.
This story, and others like it, remind us how language and culture survive not just in books, but in breath—in the telling, in the listening, and in the silence that follows.
Source:
Khromov, N. Yaghnobi Texts, Text I — “Деву хӯрчазан” (The Demon and the Widow)