FIVE GOLD COINS STORYBOARDS

The bedouin people of Sinai have an ancient tradition of story telling that has been passed down orally from generation to generation. On cold nights in the desert by the fire under the stars my friend Farag Soliman, a bedouin man from the Muziena tribe, would tell countless stories. These stories were folk tales, meant to impart wisdom and the traditions of the tribe to the young.

Five Gold Coins is such a tale, it tells the story of a young man whose elderly father tells him to set out and make his own way in the world. He gives him all the wealth he has; five gold coins, and reminds him to stand by those in need, be they a friend or a stranger. The young man takes the coins with a heavy heart and sets out on his journey. He befriends an old man who serves as his companion and protector and they make their way to a kingdom, a kingdom home to a cursed princess. Whoever the princess marries, does not live to see the next morning. The young man is intrigued by the story and after glimpsing the princess going through the streets of the city he feels in his heart a knowing that he will be the one to break the curse. His old friend and protector warns him of what he is about to do but the young man has faith in his conviction and lets his intuition guide him. The curse comes for him that night but his old friend is there to protect him and wards off the danger.

The King rewards the young man for breaking the curse with a kingly gift of fifty camels and fifty horses all carrying sacks of gold filled to the brim. The young man leaves with his new wife and old companion. On their way back they stop at the place where they met and agreed to divide the riches of their journey. The young man hands over half the gold, the camels and the horses but the old trusted companion looks to his new bride and asks the young man “what about her? I am owed half of her too.” The young man and princess are shocked, the young man looks to the man he thought was his friend and tells him “and how does one split a person in two?”

“Like this” replies the old man waving his hand, the young woman splits open and a blackness that was festering inside her breaks free. The old man gets rid of the evil infecting his young friend’s wife. The young man, shocked to his bones looks to the old man and asks him “who are you?”

The old man tells him he is the spirit of the father of a family that the young man helped bury on his first night alone in the desert. He helped his family dig the grave and paid off a money lender who disrupted the funeral demanding he be repaid his debt of five gold coins. Having repaid his debt and helped his young friend defeat the curse once and for all, the old man fades away into the wind. The young man journeys home to greet his father, with a new bride, a host of camels and horses all carrying their weight in gold.

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