2
[A version from Sinigaglia was very like the last. It only took up the story, however, after the husband and wife are married. The first silly thing the wife does is the feat of the ‘brocoli strascinati,’ as in ‘La Sposa Cece,’ No. 2. Some variety is always thrown in in the way of telling. This wife was represented as having a very sweet voice, and saying, ‘Si, si, marito mio!’ in the gentlest and tenderest way in the world, to everything her husband tells her, though she mismanages everything so. After the brocoli affair he tells her to cook some beans for dinner. ‘Si, si, marito mio,’ she says in her sweet tone, but takes four beans only and boils them in a pot of water. When he comes in and asks if the beans are done, she says, ‘Si, si, marito mio!’ She says she has cooked two beans apiece, but one has boiled away, so she will only take one for her share.
He finds it impossible to live with her, and goes away, but she in her simplicity says if he goes away she will go with him! When he finds he can’t prevent this he tells her to pull the door after her, and the story has the same ending as the last.
After tales of simple wives come similar tales of simple boys. Compare ‘Russian Folktales,’ pp. 10 and 49. An analogous incident to the selling of the linen to a statue in the following is told of a grown-up peasant in Grimm’s ‘Der gute Handel,’ p. 30, which story is not unlike one called ‘How the poorest became the richest’ I have given from the German-Tirolese province of Vorarlberg at the end of ‘Household Stories from the Land of Höfer,’ a close counterpart of which I have met in a Roman periodical, told as collected at Modena. The Italian-Tirolese counterpart bears the name of ‘Turlulù,’ and resembles the Roman very closely. There is a place in German Tirol where they not only tell the story, but point out the Bildstocklein (the wayside image), to which the simple boy sold his linen; I cannot recall the place now, though I remember having occasion to mention it in ‘Traditions of Tirol’ in the ‘Monthly Packet.’ In the German there is also ‘Der gescheidte Hans,’ which is somewhat different in structure; but Scheible, ‘Schaltjahr,’ i. 493, gives a story which contains both ways of telling.]
[1] ‘La Donna Mattarella.’ ‘Matto’ is simply ‘mad,’ with the diminutive ‘ella’ it comes to mean ‘slightly mad,’ ‘simple.’ [↑]
THE BOOBY.[1]
They say there was once a widow woman who had a very simple son. Whatever she set him to do he muddled in some way or other.
‘What am I to do?’ said the poor mother to a neighbour one day. ‘The boy eats and drinks, and has to be clothed; what am I to do if I am to make no profit of him?’
‘You have kept him at home long enough;’ answered the neighbour. ‘Try sending him out, now; maybe that will answer better.’
The mother took the advice, and the next time she had got a piece of linen spun she called her boy, and said to him:
‘If I send you out to sell this piece of linen, do you think you can manage to do it without committing any folly?’
‘Yes, mama,’ answered the booby.
‘You always say “yes mama,” but you do contrive to muddle everything all the same,’ replied the mother. ‘Now, listen attentively to all I say. Walk straight along the road without turning to right or left; don’t take less than such and such a price for it. Don’t have anything to say to women who chatter; whether you sell it to anyone you meet by the way, or carry it into the market, offer it only to some quiet sort of body whom you may see standing apart, and not gossiping and prating, for such as they will persuade you to take some sort of a price that won’t suit me at all.’
The booby promised to follow these directions very exactly, and started on his way.
On he walked, turning neither to the right hand nor to the left, thus passing the turnings which led to the villages, to one or other of which he ought to have gone. But his mother had only meant that he was not to turn off the pathway and lose himself.
Presently he met the wife of the syndic of the next town, who was driving out with her maids, but had got out to walk a little stretch of the way, as the day was fine. The syndic’s wife was talking cheerfully with her maids, and when one of them caught sight of the simpleton, she said to her mistress:
‘Here is the simple son of the poor widow by the brook.’
‘What are you going to do, my good lad?’ said the syndic’s wife kindly.
‘Not going to tell you, because you were chattering and gossiping,’ replied the booby boorishly, and tried to pass on.
The syndic’s wife forgave his boorishness, and added:
‘I see your mother has sent you to sell this piece of linen. I will buy it of you, and that will save you walking further; put it in the carriage, and I’ll give you so much for it.’
Though she had offered him twice as much as his mother had told him to get for it, he would only answer:
‘Can’t sell it to you, because you were chattering and gossiping.’
Nor could they prevail on him to stop a moment longer.
Further along he came to a statue by the roadside.
‘Here’s one who stands apart and doesn’t chatter,’ said the booby to himself. ‘This is the one to sell the linen to.’ Then aloud to the statue, ‘Will you buy my linen, good friend?’ Then to himself. ‘She doesn’t speak, so it’s all right.’ Then to the statue, ‘The price is so-and-so; have the money ready against I come back, as I have to go on and buy some yarn for mother.’
On he went and bought the yarn, and then came back to the statue. Some one passing by meanwhile, and seeing the linen lie there had picked it up and walked off with it.
Finding it gone, the booby said to himself, ‘It’s all right, she’s taken it.’ Then to the statue, ‘Where’s the money I told you to have ready against I came back?’ As the statue remained silent, the booby began to get uneasy. ‘My mother will be finely angry if I go back without the linen or the money,’ he said to himself. Then to the statue, ‘If you don’t give me the money directly I’ll hit you on the head.’
The booby was as good as his word; lifting his thick rough walking-stick, he gave the statue such a blow that he knocked the head off.
But the statue was hollow, and filled with gold coin.
‘That’s where you keep your money, is it?’ said the booby, ‘all right, I can pay myself.’ So he filled his pockets with money and went back to his mother.
‘Look, mama! here’s the price of the piece of linen.’
‘All right!’ said the mother out loud; but to herself she said, ‘where can I ever hide all this lot of money? I have got no place to hide it but in this earthen jar, and if he knows how much it is worth, he will be letting out the secret to other people, and I shall be robbed.’
So she put the money in the earthen jar, and said to the boy:
‘They’ve cheated you in making you think that was coin; it’s nothing but a lot of rusty nails;[2] but never mind, you’ll know better next time.’ And she went out to her work.
While she was gone out to her work there came by an old rag-merchant.
‘Ho! here, rag-merchant!’ said the booby, who had acquired a taste for trading. ‘What will you give me for this lot of rusty nails?’ and he showed him the jar full of gold coin.
The rag-merchant saw that he had to do with an idiot, so he said:
‘Well, old nails are not worth very much; but as I’m a good-natured old chap, I’ll give you twelve pauls for them,’ because he knew he must offer enough to seem a prize to the idiot.
‘You may have them at that,’ said the booby. And the rag-merchant poured the coin out into his sack, and gave the fool the twelve pauls.
‘Look mama, look! I’ve sold that lot of old rusty worthless nails for twelve pauls. Isn’t that a good bargain?’
‘Sold them for twelve pauls!’ cried the widow, tearing her hair, ‘Why, it was a fortune all in gold coin.’
‘Can’t help it, mama,’ replied the booby; ‘you told me they were rusty nails.’
Another day she told him to shut the door of the cottage; but as he went to do it he lifted the door off its hinges. His mother called after him in an angry voice, which so frightened him that he ran away, carrying the door on his back.
As he went along, some one to tease him, said, ‘Where did you steal that door?’ which frightened him still more, and he climbed up in a tree with it to hide it.
At night there came a band of robbers under the tree, and counted out all their gains in large bags of money. The booby was so frightened at the sight of so many fierce-looking robbers, that he began to tremble and let go of the door.
The door fell with a bang in the midst of the robbers, who thinking it must be that the police were upon them, decamped, leaving all their money behind.
The booby came down from the tree and carried the money home to his mother, and they became so rich that she was able to appoint a servant to attend to him, and keep him from doing any more mischief.
[After the boys, the girls come in for their share of hard jokes; here is one who figures both as a daughter and a wife. Grimm has the same, with a slight variation, as ‘Rumpelstilzchen,’ p. 219, and the Italian-Tirol Tales give it as ‘Tarandandò;’ the incident on which these two hinge of a supernatural being giving his help on condition of the person he favours remembering his name, is of frequent occurrence. I have met it in two German-Tirolese stories, ‘The Wilder Jäger and the Baroness,’ and in ‘Klein-Else’ in ‘Household Stories,’ and in a local tradition told me at Salzburg, which I have given in ‘Traditions of Tirol,’ No. XVI. in ‘Monthly Packet,’ each time the sprite gets a new name; in this one it was ‘Hahnenzuckerl.’ The supernatural helper delivering the girl from future as well as present labour occurs in the Spanish equivalent, ‘What Ana saw in the Sunbeam,’ in ‘Patrañas,’ but in favour of a good, instead of a lazy or greedy girl; and so with the girl in the Norse tale of ‘The Three Aunts.’ ‘Die faule Spinnerin,’ Grimm, p. 495, helps herself to the same end without supernatural aid.]
[2] ‘Chiodacci;’ ‘chiodi,’ nails; ‘chiodacci,’ old rusty nails. [↑]
THE GLUTTONOUS GIRL.[1]
There was a poor woman who went out to work by the day. She had one idle, good-for-nothing daughter, who would never do any work, and cared for nothing but eating, always taking the best of everything for herself, and not caring how her mother fared.
One day the mother, when she went out to her work, left the girl some beans to cook for dinner, and some pieces of bacon-rind[2] to stew along with them. When the pieces of bacon-rind were nicely done, she took them out and ate them herself, and then found a pair of dirty old shoe-soles, which she pared in slices, and put them into the stew for her mother.
When the poor mother came home, not only were there no pieces of bacon which she could eat, but the beans themselves were rendered so nasty by the shoe-soles that she could not eat them either. Determined to give her daughter a good lesson, once for all, on this occasion, she took her outside her cottage door, and beat her well with a stick.
Just as she was administering this chastisement, a farmer[3] came by.
‘What are you beating this pretty lass for?’ asked the man.
‘Because she will work so hard at her household duties that she works on Sundays and holidays the same as common days,’ answered the mother, who, bad as her daughter was, yet had not the heart to give her a bad character.
‘That is the first time I ever heard of a mother beating her child for doing too much work; the general complaint is that they do too little. Will you let me have her for a wife? I should like such a wife as that.’
‘Impossible!’ replied the mother, in order to enhance her daughter’s value; ‘she does all the work of the house, I can’t spare her; what shall I do without her?’
‘I must give you something to make up for the loss,’ replied the merchant; ‘but such a notable wife as this I have long been in search of, and I must not miss the chance.’
‘But I cannot spare such a notable daughter, either,’ persisted the mother.
‘What do you say if I give you five hundred scudi?’
‘If I let her go, it is not because of the five hundred scudi,’ said the mother; ‘it is because you seem a husband, who will really appreciate her; though I don’t say five hundred scudi will not be a help to a poor lone widow.’
‘Let it be agreed then. I am going now to the fair; when I come back let the girl be ready, and I’ll take her back with me.’
Accordingly, when the farmer returned from the fair, he fetched the girl away.
When he got home his mother came out to ask how his affairs had prospered at the fair.
‘Middling well, at the fair,’ replied the man; ‘but, by the way, I found a treasure, and I have brought her home to make her my wife. She is so hardworking that she can’t be kept from working, even on Sundays.’
‘She doesn’t look as if there was much work in her,’ observed the mother dryly; ‘but if you’re satisfied that’s enough.’
All went well enough the first week, because she was not expected to do much just at first, but at the end of that time the husband had to go to a distant fair which would keep him absent three weeks. Before he went he took his new wife up into the store-room, and said, ‘Here are provisions of all sorts, and you will have all you like to eat and drink; and here is a quantity of hemp, which you can amuse yourself with spinning and weaving if you want more employment than merely keeping the place in order.’
Then he gave her a set of rooms to herself, next the store-chamber, that there might be no cause of quarrel with the mother-in-law, who, he knew, was inclined to be jealous of her, and said good-bye.
Left to herself, she did no more work than she could help; all the nice things she found she cooked and ate, and that was all the work she did. As to the hemp, she never touched it; nor did she even clean up the place, or attempt to put it tidy.
When the husband had been gone a fortnight, the mother-in-law came up to see how she was going on, and when she saw the hemp untouched, and the place in disorder, she said, ‘So this is how you go on when your husband is away!’
‘You mind your affairs, and I’ll mind mine,’[4] answered the wife, and the mother-in-law went away offended.
Nevertheless, it was true that in eight days the husband would be back, and might expect to see something done, so she took up a lot of hemp and began trying to spin it; but, as she had no idea of how to do it, she went on in the most absurd way imaginable with it.
As she stood on the top of the outside staircase, twisting it this way and that, there passed three deformed fairies. One was lame, and one squinted,[5] and one had her head all on one side, because she had a fish-bone stuck in her throat.
The three fairies called out to ask what she was doing, and when she said ‘spinning,’ the one who squinted laughed so much that her eyes came quite right, and the one who had a bone stuck in her throat laughed so much that the bone came out, and her head became straight again like other people’s, and when the lame one saw the others laughing so much, she ran so fast to see what it was that her lameness was cured.
Then the three fairies said:
‘Since she has cured us of our ailments, we must go in and do her a good turn.’
So they went in and took the hemp and span it, and wove it, and did as much in the six remaining days as any human being could have done in twenty years; moreover, they cleaned up everything, and made everything look spick-and-span new.
Then they gave her a bag of walnuts, saying, ‘in half an hour your husband will be home; go to bed and put this bag of walnuts under your back. When he comes in say you have worked so hard that all your bones are out of joint; then move the bag of walnuts and they will make a noise, c-r-r-r-r, and he will think it is your bones which are loosened, and will say you must never work again.’
When the husband came home his mother went out to meet him, saying—
‘I told you I did not think there was much work in your “treasure.” When you go up you’ll see what a fine mess the place is all in; and as to the hemp, you had better have left it locked up, for a fine mess she has made of that.’
But the husband went up and found the place all in shining order, and so much hemp spun and woven as could scarcely be got through in twenty years. But the wife was laid up in bed.
When the husband came near the bed she moved the bag of walnuts and they went c-r-r-r-r.
‘You have done a lot of work indeed!’ said the husband.
‘Yes,’ replied the wife; ‘but I have put all my bones out of joint; only hear how they rumble!’ and she moved the walnuts again, and they went c-r-r-r-r. ‘It will be sometime before I am about again.’
‘Oh, dear! oh, dear!’ said the husband; ‘only think of such a treasure of a wife being laid up by such marvellous diligence.’
And to his mother he said: ‘A mother-in-law has never a good word for her daughter-in-law; what you told me was all pure invention.’
But to the wife he said: ‘Mind I will never have you do any work again as long as you live.’
So from that day forth she had no work to do, but ate and drank and amused herself from morning till night.
[1] ‘La Ragazza Golosa;’ ‘goloso’ means, in particular, greedy of nice things. [↑]
[2] ‘Codiche di presciúto.’ [↑]
[3] ‘Mercante di Campagna.’ See Note 2, p. 154. [↑]
[4] ‘Voi pensate a voi ed io penso a me!’ ‘Pensare’ is much used in Rome in the sense of ‘to attend to,’ ‘to provide for.’ [↑]
[5] ‘Guèrcia,’ see Note 3 to ‘The Two Friars;’ in this case squinting seems intended. [↑]