Turkish folklore

[1] He generally appears as a person who, though seeming somewhat stupid to those who must deal with him, actually proves to have a special wisdom all his own: One day, Nasreddin's neighbor asked him, "Teacher, do you have any forty-year-old vinegar?"

Popular legend has it that the two characters are actually based on two real persons who worked for Orhan I—the son of founder of the Ottoman dynasty—in the construction of a mosque at Bursa in the early 14th century CE.

Like the Oghuz Book of Dede Korkut, an older and anonymous Central Asian epic, the Turkish folklore that inspired Yunus Emre in his occasional use of tekerlemeler as a poetic device had been handed down orally to him and his contemporaries.

The poetry of Yunus Emre — despite being fairly simple on the surface — evidences his skill in describing quite abstruse mystical concepts in a clear way.

He remains a popular figure in a number of countries, stretching from Azerbaijan to the Balkans, with seven different and widely dispersed localities disputing the privilege of having his tomb within their boundaries.

In Çarşıbaşı town, near Trabzon, there is a way of testing whether a marriage is propitious: when the new bride enters the house, she is asked to break a vine into three pieces, which are then planted in the ground.

In the Eastern Black Sea Region (Giresun, Trabzon, Rize, Artvin), it is believed that there is an invisible lace between the feet of those children who have trouble walking when they're young.

In this tradition, which is a sequel to the paganist beliefs before the monotheist religions, the Moon cures the patient or takes his/her life.

In Black Sea coast of Turkey's folklore (Trabzon, Rize, Giresun, Ordu, Artvin, Samsun) 1. v. To ensure a bridegroom is bewitched and impotent so as to be unable to have sexual intercourse with bride.

Generally, an amulet is prepared by a hodja and buried in the places where the flock grazes or in the corner of sown field.

Şakir Şevket says that Akçaabat society believed in an idol and worshipped a tree called platana, and that is how the city was given this name.

It was an example of Colchis culture that can be seen today which was mixed with Islam in Trabzon under the name of saint and common before one God religions that people used to believe in nature.