Once upon a time, there was a time when all good stories began with that phraze but now its twice upon a time and we use another 2nd hand begining.
In a far of distant land of the great big sun there once lived an old and wise man,Nazeradin by name and Sufi by nature. He had spent most of his long life wandering the world, aimlessly seeking wisdom, encountering strange cultures and people and ignoring them as he muttered incoherantly to himself about the nature of foreigners.As the shadows of his life grew long Nazeradin thought
it was time for him to retire and become the gardener he had always wanted to be.
Placing one foot before the other he set out for the mountains of the moon where his home land use to be, and after many a weary mile he crossed the desert and arived at his destination.He spent the first few days locating an imperfect, leaky cold cave that was perfect for a hermit of his reputation and that was convieniently close to the land that he had choosen for his task. The Land was
inhospitable in the extreem, hot arid and unfit for man and most beasts except for some pritty scorpions and brightly colored snakes. It was the perfect place for his crops to grow and mature into rocks, boulders or maybe even little mountains in their own right. All it needed was a lot of work, hope and care or luck.
Early each day at noon Nazeradin would leave the comforts of his cave to sweep the ground between the rocks and wash each of them clean with water from a stream then spend the afternoon pulling out the green sage weed that continually sprouted in the open spaces.No matter how hard he worked, each morning he found fresh sage growing and covering his adolesent rocks with deep shadows.
As a young holy Idiot, Nazeradin had taken up vows of poverty and learned the value of hard work and so after many days of back breaking thought he relised that he was far too old, frail and lazy and lacked the tools necessery to compleat his task without help. He meditated for a long second and recived inspiration from a passing Diety that he should hire a young person to assist him
The next day or so Nazeradin set out for the nearby town of Nivarna and entering the market place he soon found a young man
who was in need of money so as to marry his childhood sweetheart and raise a family. Nazeradin of course had no money
but was told by a passing stranger that the town had no preacher for its mosque and that if Nazeradin took the position he could pass the donations over to the young man for his service. The young man agreed with this but then Nazeradin relized that they would both have to travlel many hours each day forward and back he suggested that the youth should take over the holy cave for the duration of the work, while Nazeradin would guard the young mans house for no charge.The young mans only objection to this was that his bride to be would have no protector during his absence. Nazeradin graciously agreed to allow the young virgin to live with him at the youths house for protection and religious instruction and that she would recive the money owed to her future husband,and invest it in stocks and bonds manufacturing for the local prison So signing a contract in the sand they departed to their respective responsibilities.
The next day at the mosque was a suprise to Nazeradin, for a crowd of angry worshipers had gathered outside, refusing to enter
and listen to the sermon.They were outraged and contemptiously
carried spindels as a sign of their ire."Only a fool would try to grow stones by watering rocks" they shouted"What kind of idiot would chaperone a virgin for no recompence" "There is nothing for us to learn from such an empty head". Dispite Nazeradin`s
protestations the crowed refused to enter the mosque and hear his sermons and only escaped harm himself because he was mad and therefore holy.
And so it was that only the pritty little scorpions and brightly colored snakes that had followed him from the mountain ever heard the lost and unknown words of The Mad Mullah`s sermon
"We dont weed no stinking sages" or "How to build houses by watering stones"
(copywriteOldSidhe2-2-01)
