Every village has its storyteller—and sometimes, its liar.
In this third tale from the Yaghnobi oral tradition, we meet one such man: the Ҳиёлбоз—the Trickster. He is not a villain, but neither is he a saint. He belongs to a long tradition of characters found across Central Asia, the Caucasus, and beyond: the clever peasant, the sly neighbor, the man who knows how to bend truth like a willow twig.
There was once a man known across the valley not for his strength or his wealth—but for his stories.
He was called Ҳиёлбоз, which means something like “the crafty one” or “he who plays with thoughts.” Every day he had a new tale. One day he was a merchant returning from India. The next, he had survived a tiger in the forest. Sometimes he said he spoke ten languages. Once, he claimed he had met the Emir of Bukhara while picking onions.
The people in the village would laugh, then sigh. “Ҳиёлбоз,” they’d say, “you lie like a stream after rain—fast, loud, and never the same twice.”
But one day, his lies went too far.
He told an old woman that her cow had wandered down to the river and been eaten by wolves. She ran down the slope in panic, only to find her cow calmly chewing grass beside the water.
Humiliated, she returned and shouted, “You have no shame!”
The Trickster smiled and said, “But didn’t your heart beat faster? At least now you know it still works!”
That evening, the village elders gathered.
They did not punish him—there were no laws against lying with style. But they passed a new rule: the next time Ҳиёлбоз told a story, he would have to prove it. He could still speak, but only if he brought witnesses.
The next day, he stood in the square and said nothing.
The silence lasted a week.
Then one morning, he returned, holding a piece of charcoal.
“This,” he said, “is the tooth of a fire demon I defeated on the mountain.”
The elders laughed, and so did the children. They didn’t believe him. But they were glad the stories were back.
This tale of Ҳиёлбоз (literally “one who plays tricks”) captures a humorous and slightly satirical side of Yaghnobi storytelling. It’s not a morality tale in the traditional sense—no one is punished, and the trickster is not banished. Instead, it reflects a cultural space where cunning, wit, and exaggeration are part of social play.
Characters like Ҳиёлбоз serve several functions:
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They test the limits of community tolerance.
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They provoke laughter, even when bending the truth.
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And they often force people to examine what they believe—and why.
This tale also suggests that in Yaghnob, as in so many places, even liars can be loved—if their lies are good stories.
Source:
Khromov, N. Yaghnobi Texts, Text VI — “Ҳиёлбоз”