Turkish Fairy Tales for Kids: Classic Stories to Read Aloud at Bedtime

Bir varmış, bir yokmuş. "Once there was, once there wasn't." This is how many Turkish fairy tales begin, and for families far from Türkiye these four words can turn an ordinary bedtime into a short trip home. Here are the classic heroes of Turkish tales, three short Nasreddin Hoca stories to retell tonight, and a simple bedtime ritual to wrap around them.

How a Turkish fairy tale begins and ends

A fairy tale in Turkish is a masal. Many storytellers open with a playful rhyme that tells the listener that none of this is quite real. One well-known version goes:

Bir varmış, bir yokmuş. Evvel zaman içinde, kalbur saman içinde, develer tellal iken, pireler berber iken, ben annemin beşiğini tıngır mıngır sallar iken…

"Once there was, once there wasn't. Long, long ago, when the sieve was in the hay, when camels were town criers and fleas were barbers, when I was rocking my own mother's cradle…" Children often laugh at the last line: how can you rock your own mother's cradle?

The ending has its own words too. Onlar ermiş muradına, biz çıkalım kerevetine means "They got their wish, so let's climb onto our bench." Then comes a gift: Gökten üç elma düşmüş, "Three apples fell from the sky." One is for the storyteller and one is for the listener. The third goes to someone different in every family, so ask a grandparent who gets it in theirs.

Keloğlan, the bald boy who wins by thinking

Keloğlan means "bald boy". He is one of the best-loved heroes of Turkish folk tales: poor, a little lazy at the start, and much cleverer than anyone expects. In many tales he lives with his mother in a small village and sets out with nothing but his wits. Along the way he meets a dev (a giant), a greedy rich man or a padişah (a sultan) with an impossible task, and he wins by thinking, not by fighting.

There is no single official version. Retellings for children differ a lot, so read one yourself first and pick the one that suits your child. Many families stop at the moment Keloğlan faces his problem and ask, "What would you do?"

Three short Nasreddin Hoca stories

Nasreddin Hoca is the wise fool of Turkish humor, a man in a huge turban called a kavuk, often riding his donkey. His stories are a minute long and end with a twist. Here are three, told in our own words.

Eat, my coat, eat. The Hoca goes to a wedding feast in his old work clothes. Nobody offers him a seat. He goes home, puts on his best fur coat and comes back. Now everyone makes room and serves him soup. The Hoca dips his sleeve in the bowl and says, "Ye kürküm ye!", "Eat, my coat, eat! It was you they invited, not me."

But what if it works? One day the Hoca is seen by a lake, stirring a spoonful of yogurt into the water. "What are you doing?" people ask. "Making yogurt out of the lake." "That will never work!" The Hoca smiles: "Ya tutarsa!", "But what if it does?"

Backwards on the donkey. The Hoca rides his donkey facing backwards, with his pupils walking behind him. People ask why. "If I sat facing forward, I would turn my back on my pupils. If they walked in front, they would turn their backs on me. This way, we can all see each other."

Tell the twist and stop there. Children love to retell these stories the next day, often to someone who has never heard them.

Dede Korkut for younger listeners

The Book of Dede Korkut is a collection of old stories of the Oghuz Turks, full of heroes, horses and families. Dede Korkut himself is a wise old storyteller who plays the kopuz, a lute, and gives the young heroes their names. In one story, a boy who stops a raging bull is named Boğaç, from boğa, "bull". In another, the hero Basat faces Tepegöz, a one-eyed giant.

The original is not written for small children, so choose a retelling for young readers and share one story at a time.

A bedtime ritual with Turkish tales

• Same start every night. Lights low, then Bir varmış, bir yokmuş. Soon your child may say it with you.
• One story, short. A Hoca story on tired nights, a Keloğlan tale on weekends.
• Keep a few Turkish words. Tell the story in the language your child follows best, but keep dev, padişah or kavuk in Turkish.
• Three apples at the end. Hand out the apples from the sky. Your child decides who gets the third one.
• Expect "one more". Sooner or later you will hear Bir masal daha!, "One more story!" Decide together what tomorrow's story will be.

For more ideas, see Turkish bedtime stories and Turkish lullabies (ninni). Fairy-tale openings are also a kind of rhyme, explained in our post on Turkish tongue twisters (tekerleme).

Story picks from Roots & Talks

A chest full of tales. In The Lost Fairytale Chest / Kayıp Masal Sandığı, children find a magic dowry chest in Grandma's attic in İzmir. In every chapter a treasure of Turkish culture flies out, among them a Nasreddin Hoca tale and Karagöz and Hacivat. Seven chapters for ages 4 to 10, with a 16-page illustrated PDF and MP3 files in Turkish and in English.

Hoca and Keloğlan in one book. Hello, My Roots! (Merhaba, Köklerim!) is a bilingual picture e-book in 12 short chapters, with stops at Nasreddin Hoca, Keloğlan and shadow puppets. It also has 5 short Nasreddin Hoca jokes in Turkish and English.

Five stories for sleep. The Good Night, My Türkiye bundle has five bedtime stories for ages 4 to 9, told in Turkish with gentle English echoes. Each one slows down at the end for sleep.

For the "one more story" moment. The Bir Masal Daha pillow shows Eylül, one of the Roots & Talks characters, with the words a child says when a story ends too soon.

More listening is in our Turkish audio stories and bedtime audio books and our bilingual Turkish–English stories.

Three apples for tonight

A Turkish fairy tale needs no book on the first night. Start with Bir varmış, bir yokmuş, tell the coat story, and finish with three apples from the sky. The rest your child will ask for.