Juha waited until one day his father bought new slippers.  And when Friday came, his father said, “Juha, bring me my new slippers.  I want to go to the mosque.”

Juha ran inside to his stepmother and said, “My father ordered me to sleep with you.”

Of course, she didn’t believe him; she said, “What? May your day be cursed!”

So Juha called out the door of the house, “Father, did you say the new or the old?”

His father answered angrily, “I told you a hundred times, the new!”

And the woman had to let Juha do what he said he would do.

                                                                       *****

Many of the trickster-fool tales are like fables in that they pose moral and ethical questions through the narrative situation.  “Juha’s Deathbed” shows up Juha’s cowardice and selfishness, frequently portrayed traits of the trickster-fool, and his foolishness in attempting to escape death.  The motif of a wife dying to postpone her husband’s death is well known in folklore.

                                                                       *****

Once upon a time, Juha became very ill and knew he was going to die.  He called his wife and said to her, “Beloved wife, dress yourself in your best clothes, and put on your perfume, and fix your hair—please, do everything you can to look as beautiful as you can be!”

She answered him, sobbing, “Don’t talk that way!  How can I fuss over myself when you are dying?  I’ll never think of those things again after you die!”

But Juha insisted, saying “Do it for me, and then come and sit beside me on my bed.”

So his wife did her best to make herself beautiful, and then came and sat down beside him.  She asked him, “Did you want to look at my beauty once more before you die?”