Filek-Zelebi () is a modern Greek folktale from Crete, collected by Austrian consul Johann Georg von Hahn and published in the 19th century. The tale is related to the international cycle of the Animal as Bridegroom or The Search for the Lost Husband, where a heroine loses her husband and must search for him.
Summary
An old woman lives in poverty with her three daughters and earns her living by gathering and selling herbs. One day, when she is tired, she utters a sigh ("Oh"! or "Ah!"), and, suddenly, a Moor appears to her and asks why she summoned him. The old woman denies summoning him, but tells him about her three daughters. The Moor asks for the woman to bring her eldest to him; the elder goes to live with the Moor and is given a human head on a plate as her dinner. She throws the head away, and the Moor takes her back to her mother. The second daughter fares similarly, but with a human leg. When it the youngest's turn, she hides the cannibalistic delight (a human hand) under her clothes to trick the Moor.
The Moor accepts her as his mate and they live like husband and wife, but every night, the girl is given a sleeping potion, so that she cannot see who is really standing at her bedside. Some time later, her family pays her a visit, and she tells them about the mysterious person that comes in the night. Her sisters then convince her to pretend to drink the potion and to spy on her husband. That same night, she follows her sisters' suggestion; beside her, she notices a handsome youth with a golden padlock and a golden key on his chest. She opens the lock on his chest and sees a lush landscape, with a woman washing clothes in a river and a pig nearby. The girl raises her voice to warn the woman about the pig, and it wakes up her husband. The man tells his wife she is pregnant, and, when she gave birth, his curse would have been lifted, for his true form is Filek-Zelebi, not the Moor. He then tells her to wear three pairs of iron shoes, find three golden apples, climb a mountain and toss one of the apples down the mountain; she must follow the apple to his eldest sister's house.
She follows his instructions and pays a visit to her three sisters-in-law: in each house, they are weaving and preparing for the birth of their nephew. At the last house, the youngest sister-in-law welcomes the girl, who is now in labour, and she gives birth that same night to a boy with a golden lock on his chest. The sister-in-law recognizes that the boy is truly her nephew, the son of her brother, and Filek-Zelebi appears to them.
Analysis
Tale type
According to the Greek Folktale Catalogue, the tale is classified as subtype 425L. In this type, the heroine gives birth to a child that looks like her husband (e.g., with a padlock on his body), and they reconcile. In addition, Greek subtype 425L may begin with a father asking his three daughters what presents he can bring them from a trip and, not finding it, utters a sigh; the sigh summons an Arab or dark-skinned person, who is the enchanted husband's servant.
However, German folklorist Hans-Jörg Uther, in his 2004 revision of the international Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index, subsumed type AaTh 425L under new type ATU 425E. In type ATU 425E, the heroine's husband has a padlock on his body; after she betrays his trust and opens the padlock, she is expelled and takes shelter in a castle where she gives birth to their child.
Motifs
Scholar , in his monograph about Cupid and Psyche, remarked that the heroine's pregnancy was an "essential" trait of subtype AaTh 425L.
The mysterious servant
According to Richard MacGillivray Dawkins, in Greek variants, the mysterious servant may be a "blackamoor" or pasha, summoned by uttering an interjection ("Alas" or "Woe is me"). The mysterious servant may also subject the heroine and her sisters to a dish of rotten human flesh they must eat.
According to Luisa Rubini, the motif of the character uttering an interjection and accidentally summoning a mysterious servant with the same name is "typical" of Mediterranean tales (from Italy, the Balkans and Turkey).
The husband's name
In a study about the myth of Cupid and Psyche, Danish folklorist Inger Margrethe Boberg argues that the name "Zelebi" comes from Turkish tchélébi, which is a Persian loanword meaning 'gentleman'. In the same vein, Richard M. Dawkins suggested that the name Filek could be derived from the "Turco-Arabic" felek; thus, the husband's name may mean "Lord Sky".
Variants
Europe
Greece
According to the Greek Folktale Catalogue, type 425E is "popular" in Turkey and Greece, while type 425L is known across the Greek Agean Islands and in Asia Minor.