In the ancient times of legend, where the whispers of the wind carried the secrets of the mountains, there lived a humble woodcutter named Khalid. He was a man of sturdy frame and a heart once full of joy, though his pockets were perpetually light. Khalid was blessed with seven daughters, each as radiant as a different phase of the moon. His first wife, a woman of grace who spun wool into silver-white threads, had been the pillar of their home. But fate is often a cruel weaver; she fell ill and passed away, leaving Khalid in a shroud of grief.
After a year of mourning, Khalid married a distant relative named Afaf. She was a widow with a son she doted upon, but her heart was a withered root, devoid of kindness. Afaf was miserly and gluttonous, craving only rest and the finest meats. She fed her son the choicest morsels while the seven daughters were left with crusts of dry bread and the steam from the pot.
The Stepmother’s Treacherous Scheme
As the daughters grew, Afaf’s resentment deepened. She saw them not as children, but as seven mouths develling the wealth she desired for her own son. She began a campaign of lies. Every evening, when Khalid returned from the forest, he found the cooking pot empty.
"Where is the meat I brought?" he would ask, his stomach growling.
Afaf would wipe her greasy mouth and sigh. "Your daughters, Khalid! They are like locusts. They eat everything before the sun sets, leaving nothing for us. They do nothing but idle away the day."
In truth, the girls worked until their hands were blistered, fetching water from the distant well and scrubbing the floors until they shone. But Khalid, weary and manipulated, believed his wife. One night, Afaf whispered into his ear, "How long will we suffer? They are a burden. Cast them into the forest; let them learn to survive or let the earth claim them."
Khalid hesitated, his conscience flickering like a dying candle. "Only if your son goes with them," he countered. "If we are to save food, let it be for just the two of us."
Afaf agreed, but secretly she instructed her son: "Once you reach the heart of the woods, slip away. I will hide you in a basket when you return, and your father will be none the wiser."
Lost in the Forest of Whispers
The next morning, Khalid led his daughters and his stepson deep into the Forest of Birds. To deceive them into thinking he was nearby, he tied a heavy branch to a rope on a high limb. As the wind blew, the branch struck the trunk—thwack, thwack, thwack—mimicking the sound of an axe.
"Stay here and gather wood," Khalid commanded, his voice trembling. He handed them a box of matches, a knife, and a clay water jug. "I go further to find the thicker trees."
The girls worked diligently, comforted by the rhythmic thud of the "axe." However, the stepson seized a moment of distraction and vanished into the undergrowth. Meanwhile, Afaf followed from a distance, watching her plan unfold. But as the shadows lengthened, she realized her son had truly disappeared. Panicked, she cursed the girls and fled back to the village, hoping to find her son there.
As night fell, the girls returned to the great tree, only to find the swinging branch and a hollow silence. The eldest sister, wise beyond her years, realized the truth. "Our father has forsaken us for that woman," she wept. "We must find shelter, or the wolves will find us first."
The Ogress of the Mountain
Hungry and shivering, they saw a flicker of light in the distance. They followed it to a wooden shack with an adjacent stable. Inside the stable, they found a fat cow. They milked her gently, the warm milk reviving their spirits, and fell asleep in the golden hay.
The shack belonged to a terrifying Ogress named Douja. When her son told her the cow had no milk, Douja stormed into the stable. There, she found the seven girls. "A feast for seven nights!" she hissed to herself.
She feigned kindness, inviting them inside. The table was laden with the boiled heads of sheep, swarming with flies. Only the youngest daughter, driven by a hunger she couldn't control, ate. Douja watched with a sickening grin, cracking the skulls and sucking the marrow with her grey, taloned fingers.
To mark her prey, Douja placed a red woollen cap on the youngest girl’s head and put her own son to sleep among them. But the sisters were alert. They knew the legends of the Ogress. They asked the Ogress's son, "When does your mother sleep?"
"When she snores, she is awake," the boy whispered. "She only sleeps when the owl hoots three times."
In the dead of night, as the owl shrieked, the sisters swapped the red cap from the youngest sister to the Ogress's son. In the pitch black, Douja crept in, felt the woollen cap, and—believing it to be the girl—dragged her own son away and devoured him.
The Silver Bracelet and the Deceitful Dervish
The girls fled into the night, the youngest snatching a silver bracelet from a chest as they ran. By dawn, they reached a well. As they washed, the youngest realized she had left the silver bracelet back at the well after they had already walked a distance. Despite her sisters' pleas, she ran back alone.
At the well, she met an old man dressed as a Dervish. He wasn't a man of God, but a predator of the road. He bound her hands and threw her onto his donkey. "A gift from the heavens!" he cackled. He took her to the city, forcing her to beg.
"Cry, you little wretch!" he would shout, beating her with his staff. But the girl would only chant: "We entered the Ogress's hut and emerged alive, My sisters will come, and our joy will revive. How many innocents does this world deprive?"
The Spirit of the Forest and the Golden Jar
Meanwhile, the six sisters encountered a trapped gazelle in the woods. They freed it and tended its wounds. The gazelle, revealed to be the daughter of the King of the Jinn, spoke: "I shall lead you home, and I shall give you the means to survive."
She led them to a great tree and told them to dig. There, they found a jar overflowing with ancient gold coins. "Take only a third," the gazelle warned. "Hide the rest from your stepmother’s greed."
The girls returned home with meat, sweets, and new clothes. Khalid wept with joy but mourned for his lost youngest. Afaf, seeing the wealth, grew mad with envy. She stole the hidden gold from the garden, but the sisters, expecting her treachery, led her into a trap in the deepest part of the forest—the land of the Ogre-folk. There, Afaf encountered a creature that looked like her lost son, but his eyes were red and wild. He bit her neck; he had become an Ogress-spawn, forgetting his humanity.
The Reunion and the New Beginning
Months later, Khalid and his six daughters went to the city to sell wool. They stopped at a bakery owned by a kind woman named Rahma.
"I have seen a girl who looks like you," Rahma said. "She wanders with a cruel Dervish, chanting a sad poem."
The sisters screamed in realization. Following Rahma's lead, they found the youngest sister. In a whirlwind of justice, Khalid and the sisters fell upon the Dervish, beating him away with their shoes until he fled.
Khalid, moved by Rahma’s kindness and beauty—which reminded him of his late wife—asked for her hand in marriage. "Come to the village," the girls begged. "We have no mother, and you have no children."
Rahma agreed, and they returned to a house that was now a palace of stone and light.
Back in the dark forest, Afaf’s son—now a monster—realized who his mother was. Together with the disgraced Dervish, they plotted a final revenge. They crept toward Khalid’s home at night, intending to burn it down. But the youngest daughter's pet calf sensed the evil. It kicked the gates open, and a stampede of cattle trampled the villains into the dust. Khalid buried them in a deep pit, proving that those who dig a hole for others shall surely fall into it themselves.
Peace finally settled over the woodcutter’s home, where the scent of baking bread and the sound of seven sisters laughing filled the air forevermore.
Keywords: Woodcutter, Seven Sisters, Stepmother, Ogress, Dervish, Magic Gazelle, Folklore, Justice, Middle Eastern Tales, Adventure, Transformation.
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