CIARPE.
THE TWO FRIARS.[1]
Two friars once went out on a journey, that is to say, a friar and a lay brother.[2] One day of their journey, when they were far from their convent, the friar said to the lay brother: ‘We fare poorly enough all the days of our life in our convent, let us, for one day of our lives, taste the good things of this world which others enjoy every day.’
‘You know better than I, who am only a poor simple lay brother,’ answered the other, ‘whether such a thing may be done. I don’t mean to say I should not like to have a jolly good dinner for once; but there is the uneasiness of conscience to spoil the feast, and the penance afterwards. I think we had better leave it alone.’
They journeyed on, therefore, and said no more about it that day, but the next, when they were very hungry after a long walk through the cold mountain air, the scent of the viands preparing in the inn as they drew near brought the subject of yesterday’s conversation to their minds again, and the friar said to the lay brother: ‘You know even our rule says that when we are journeying we cannot live as we do in our convent; we must eat and drink whatever we find in the places to which we are sent; moreover, some relaxation is allowed for the restoration of the body under the fatigues of the journey. Now, if we come, as it has often happened to us, to a poor little mountain village, where scarcely a wholesome crust of bread is to be found, to be washed down with a glass of sour wine, we have to take it for all our dinner, and eat it with thanksgiving. Therefore why, now, when we come to a place where the fare is less scanty, even as by the odours we perceive is the case here, should we not also take what is found ready, and eat it with thanksgiving?’
‘What you say seems right and just enough,’ said the lay brother, not at all sorry to have his scruples so speciously explained away. ‘But there is one thing you have not thought of. It is all very well to say we will eat and drink this and that, but how are we poor friars, who possess nothing, to command the delicacies which are smoking round the fire, and which have to be paid for by well-stored purses?’
‘Oh! that is not the difficulty,’ replied the friar; ‘leave that to me.’
By this time they had reached the threshold of the inn, and, taking his companion’s last feeble resistance for consent, the friar strutted into the eating-room with so bold an air that the lay brother hardly knew him for the humble religious he had been accompanying anon.
‘Ho! here! John, Peter, Francis, whatever you are called!’
‘Francesco, to your service,’ replied the host humbly, thinking by his commanding tone he must be some son of a great family.
‘Francesco guercino,[3] then,’ continued the friar in the same high-sounding voice, ‘take away this foul table-cloth, and bring the cleanest and finest in your house; remove these cloudy glasses and bring out the bright ones you have there locked up in the glass case, and replace these bone spoons and forks[4] with the silver ones out of your strong box.’
‘Your Excellency is served!’[5] said the host, who, as well as his wife and son, had bustled so fast to do what he was so peremptorily ordered that all was done as soon as spoken.
‘Now then Francesco guercino, what have you got to put before a hungry gentleman in this poor little place of yours?’
‘Excellenza! when you have tasted the cooking of my poor little house,’ said the host, ‘you will not, I am sure, be displeased; all unworthy as it is of your Excellency’s palate. For what we have ready, we have beef for our boiled meat, good brains for our fried, the plumpest poultry for our grilled, and the freshest eggs for our omelette; or, if your Excellency prefers it, we have hashed turkey, with crisp watercresses; and as for our soup,[6] there is not an inn in the whole province can beat us, I know. And for dessert we have cheese and fruits, and’——
‘Well done, Francesco guercino,’ said the friar interrupting him. ‘You know how to cry your own wares, at all events. Bring us the best of what you have; it is not for poor friars to complain of what is set before us.’
The last sentence gave the host a high idea of the piety of his guest just as the hectoring tone he had assumed had convinced him he must be high-born, and in a trice the best of everything in the house was made ready for the table of the friar. All other guests had to wait, or go away unserved; the host was intent only on serving the friar.
Every dish he took to the table himself, and as he did so each time the friar, fixing on him a look of sanctity, exclaimed,—
‘Blessed Francesco! Blessed Francesco!’[7]
At the close of the meal, as he was hovering about the table, nervously wiping away a crumb, or polishing a plate, he said, with trembling:
‘Excellenza! Permit a poor man to put one question. What is there you see about me that makes you look at me as though you saw happiness in store, and exclaim with so much unction as quite to fill me with joy, “Blessed Francesco!”?’
‘True, something I see wherefore I call thee blessed,’ replied the friar; ‘but I cannot tell it thee now. To-morrow, perhaps, I may find it easier. Impossible now, friend. Now, pray thee, show us our rooms.’
It needed not to add any injunctions concerning the rooms; of course, the cleanest and the best were appointed by Francesco spontaneously for such honoured guests.
‘How do you think we are getting on?’ said the friar to the lay brother when they were alone.
‘Excellently well so far,’ replied the other; ‘things have passed my lips this night which never have they tasted before, nor ever may again. But the reckoning, the reckoning; that is what puzzles me: when it comes to paying the bill, what’ll you do then?’
‘Leave it all to me,’ returned the friar; ‘I’m quite satisfied with the man we have to deal with. It will all come right, never fear.’
The next morning the two brothers were astir betimes, but Francesco was on the look-out to serve them.
‘Excellenza! you will not leave without breakfast, Excellenza!’
‘Yes, Francesco; poor friars must not mind going without breakfast.’
‘Never, from my house, Excellenza!’ responded Francesco. ‘I have the table ready with a bottle of wine freshly drawn from the cellar, eggs that were born[8] since daylight, only waiting your appearance to be boiled, rolls this moment drawn from the oven, and my wife is at the stove preparing a fried dish[9] fit for a king.’
‘Too much, too much, Francesco! You spoil us; we are not used to such things,’ said the lay brother as they sat down; but Francesco had flown into the kitchen, and returned with the dish.
‘Blessed Francesco!’ said the friar as he set it on the table.
‘I will not disturb your Excellency now,’ said Francesco; ‘but, after you have breakfasted, I crave your remembrance of your promise of last night, that you would reveal to me this morning wherefore you say with such enthusiasm “Blessed Francesco!”’
‘It is not time to speak of it now,’ said the friar; ‘first we have our reckoning to make.’
The lay brother hid his face in his table-napkin in terror, and seemed to be seized with a distressing fit of coughing.
‘Oh, don’t speak of the reckoning, Excellenza; that is as nothing.’
‘Nay,’ said the friar; ‘that must not be;’ and he made a gesture as if he would have drawn out a purse, while under the table he had to press his feet against those of the lay brother to silence his rising remonstrance for his persistence.
‘I couldn’t think of taking anything from your Excellenza,’ persisted the host, putting his hands behind him that no money might be forced upon him.
The more stedfastly he refused the more perseveringly the friar continued to press the payment, till, with his companion, he had gained the threshold of the door.
As they were passing out, however, the host once more exclaimed, ‘But the explanation your Excellency was to give me of why you said “Blessed Francesco!”’
‘Impossible, friend; I cannot tell it here. Wait till I have gained the height of yonder mound, while you stand at its foot, and I will tell it you from thence.’
With this they parted.
When the friar and his companion had reached the height he had pointed out, and were at a sufficient distance to be saved the fear of pursuit, he turned to the host, who stood gaping at the bottom, and said:
‘Lucky for you, Francesco, that when you come to die you will only have the trouble of shutting one eye, instead of two, like other men.’[10]
[Such a story at the expense of a single unworthy monk contains no implied taunt at the religious orders, who are deeply honoured in Rome, and none more than the mendicant Franciscans, most of whom are themselves of the very people. Ever since the invasion of September 20, 1870, every effort has been used to stir up the people against them, but with little effect. At the last Carneval the most elaborate car was got up with the purpose of ridiculing them, but it met with no approval, except from members of the clubs. The narrator of the story was herself not only a devoted member of the Church, but had a relative in the order of St. Francis, nor did she tell it without an edifying exordium on the goodness of the frati in general, though there must be unworthy members of all professions. Facetiæ of this class are much rarer in Rome than in Spain.]
[1] Though I believe there is no rule or ground for the distinction, in conversational language, ‘fratello’ is used for ‘brother,’ and ‘frate’ for ‘monk’ (as ‘sorella’ usually means any sister and ‘suora’ a nun). ‘Frate,’ again, is usually, though not by any rule, or exclusively, reserved for the mendicant Franciscans. A Capuchin is called ‘padre cappucino,’ and a Dominican, generally, a ‘padre domenicano.’ [↑]
[3] ‘Guercino.’ There is no very definitely expressed distinction in Italian in the way of saying weak-sighted, or one-eyed, or squinting; ‘guercio’ is used to express all. The termination ‘ino’ here is not an actual diminutive, but means ‘he who is one-eyed,’ or ‘he who is weak-sighted,’ or ‘he who squints,’ with an implied expression of sympathy (see Note 5, p. 379). In this case the conclusion shows that ‘one-eyed’ was intended. [↑]
[4] ‘Posate,’ plural of ‘posata,’ knife, fork, and spoon. [↑]
[5] ‘Ecco servito, Excellenza.’ ‘It is all done as you desire.’ [↑]
[6] The poor, badly fed themselves, delight to dilate on a description of good living, just as dreaming of eating is said to arise from a condition of hunger. I have not added a word here in the text to those of the narrator of the story, and her enumeration is a very fair rendering of the usual repertory of a Roman innkeeper. Broth or thin soup (‘minestra’); a dish of boiled meat (‘lesso’), of ‘arrosto,’ that is, grilled or baked, and of ‘fritto’ (fried) is the regular course: ‘gallinaccio spezzato’ is a turkey cut up in joints and served with various sauces, and is much more esteemed than if cooked whole, a rather unusual dish; ‘frittata,’ omelette; ‘crescione,’ watercresses. [↑]
[7] ‘Beato a te, Francesco.’ [↑]
[8] ‘Born,’ an Italianism for ‘laid.’ [↑]
[9] ‘Fritto dorato.’ Romans, though not eminent in the culinary art, fry admirably. They always succeed in making their fried dishes a rich golden colour, and they ordinarily express a fried dish by the two words together, ‘fritto dorato.’ [↑]
‘Beato a te, Francesco,
Che quando morirai
Un occhio serrerai
E l’altro no!’
THE PREFACE OF A FRANCISCAN.
A Franciscan friar was travelling on business of his order when he was overtaken by three brigands, who stole from him his ass, his saddle, and his doubloons. Moreover, they told him that if he informed any man of what they had done they would certainly come after him again and take his life; for they could only sell the ass and the saddle that were known to be his by representing that he had sold them to them, otherwise no one would have bought them.
The friar told no man what had happened to him, for fear of losing his life; yet he knew that if he could only let his parishioners know what had occurred, they would soon retake for him all that he had lost.
So he hit on the following expedient: next Sunday, as he was saying Mass, when he came to the place in the Preface where special additions commemorative of the particular festivals are inserted, after the enumeration of the praises of God, he added the words, ‘Nevertheless, me, Thy poor servant, evil men have robbed of my ass and her saddle, and all my doubloons; but to no man have I declared the thing, save unto Thee only, Omnipotent Father, who knowest all things, and helpest the poor;’ and then he went on, ‘et ideò cum angelis et archangelis,’ &c.[1]
The parishioners were no sooner thus informed of what had occurred, than they went after the brigands and made them give up all they had taken. The next time, therefore, the father was out in the Campagna, the brigands came after him and said:
‘Now, we take your life; last time we let you off, saying we would spare you if you told no man what we had done; but you cannot keep your own counsel, so you must die like the rest.’
But the good monk showed them that he had not spoken to man of the thing, but had only lamented his loss before God, which every man was free to do. And the brigands, when they heard that, could say nothing, and they let him go by uninjured, him and his beast.
[Such stories are the result of a household familiarity with sacred matters, and are told with genuine fun without the least infusion of irreverence. Just as out of the fulness of the heart the mouth speaks, even so we make jokes on whatever subject we are most occupied with. Religious offices are so much a part of the daily life of the Catholic poor that it would be impossible to banish the language of them from their simple jokes. I have had numbers of such told me without the least expression that could be called scoffing in the teller; but I forbear to give more than the two or three in the text by way of specimens, lest the spirit of them should be misjudged.]
[1] The merit of this story consists much in the mode of telling. The narrator should be able to imitate the peculiar tone to which the ‘Preface’ is sung, and to supply the corresponding notes for the additional insertion. It was very effectively done by the person who told it to me. [↑]
THE LENTEN PREACHER.
A friar came to preach the Lenten sermons in a country place. The wife of a rich peasant sat under the pulpit, and thought all the time what a nice-looking man he was, instead of listening to his exhortations to penance.
When the sermon was over she went home and took out half-a-dozen nice fine pocket-handkerchiefs, and sent them to him by her maid, with a very civil note to beg him to come and see her.
As the maid was going out, the husband met her.
‘Where are you going?’ said he.
The maid, who did not at all like her errand, promised if he would not be angry with her, and would not let her mistress know it, she would tell him all.
The husband promised to hold her harmless, and she gave him the handkerchiefs and the note.
‘Come here,’ said the husband; and he took her into his room and wrote a note as if from the friar, saying he was much obliged by her presents, and would like to see the lady very much, but that it was impossible they could meet, so she must not think of it. This note the maid took back to her mistress as if from the friar.
A few days after this the husband gave out that he would have to go to a fair, and would be away two or three days. Immediately the wife took a pound of the best snuff and sent it as a present to the friar by the same maid with another note, saying the husband was going away on such an evening, and if he then came to see her at an hour after the Ave he would find the door open. This also the maid took to her master; the husband took the snuff and wrote an answer, as if from the friar, to say he would keep the appointment. In the evening he said good-bye to his wife, and went away. But he went to the butcher and bought a stout beef sinew, and at the hour appointed for the friar, he came back dressed as a friar, and beat her with the beef sinew till she was half dead. Then he went down in the kitchen and sent the servant up to heal her, and went away for three days. When he came back the wife was still doubled up, and suffering from the beating.
‘What is the matter?’ he said, sympathisingly.
‘Oh! I fell down the cellar stairs.’
‘What do you mean by leaving your mistress to go down to the cellar?’ he cried out to the servant, with great solicitude. ‘How can you allow her to do such things? What’s the use of you?’
‘Don’t scold the servant,’ answered the wife; ‘it wasn’t her fault. I shall be all right soon.’ And she made as light of her ailment as she could, to keep him from asking her any more questions. But he was discreet enough to say no more.
Only when she was well again he sent to the friar and asked him to come home to dine with them.
‘My wife is subject to odd fancies sometimes,’ he said, as they walked home. ‘If she should do anything extravagant, don’t you mind; I shall be there to call her to order.’
Then he told the servant to bring in the soup and the boiled meat without waiting for orders, but to keep the grill back till he came to the kitchen door to call her.
At the time for the grill, therefore, he got up from table to go and call her, and thus left his wife and the friar alone together. They were no sooner alone than she got up, and calling him a horrid friar, gave him a sound drubbing. The husband came back in time to prevent mischief, and to make excuses; and finding she was cured of her affection, said no more of the affair.
ASS OR PIG.[1]
A countryman was going along driving a pig before him. ‘Let’s have a bit of fun with that fellow,’ said the brother porter of a monastery to the father guardian,[2] as they saw him coming along the road. ‘I’ll call his pig an ass, and of course he’ll say it’s a pig; then I shall laugh at him for not knowing better, and he will grow angry. Then I’ll say, “Well, will you have the father guardian to settle the dispute? and if he decides I’m right I shall keep the beast for myself.” Then you come and say it is an ass, and we’ll keep it.’
The father guardian agreed, with a hearty laugh; and as soon as the countryman came up the brother porter did all as he had arranged.
The countryman was so sure of his case that he willingly submitted to the arbitration of the father guardian; but great was his dismay when the father guardian decided against him, and he had to go home without his pig.
But what did the countryman do? He dressed himself up as a poor girl, and about nightfall, and a storm coming on, he rang at the bell of the monastery and entreated the charity of shelter for the night.
‘Impossible!’ said the brother porter; ‘we can’t have any womenkind in here.’
‘But the dark, and the storm!’ clamoured the pretended girl; ‘think of that. You can’t leave me out here all alone.’
‘I’m very sorry,’ said the porter, ‘but the thing’s impossible. I can’t do it.’
The good father guardian, hearing the dispute at that unusual hour, put his head out of the window and asked what it was all about.
‘It is a difficult case, brother porter,’ he said when he had heard the girl’s request. ‘If we take her in we infringe our rule in one way; if we leave her exposed to every kind of peril we sin against its spirit in another direction. I only see one way out of it. I can’t send her into any of your cells; but I will let her pass the night in mine, provided she is content not to undress, and will consent to sit up in a chair.’
This was exactly what the countryman wanted, therefore he gave a ready assent, and the father guardian took him up into his cell. The pretended girl sat up in a chair quietly enough through the dark of the night, but when morning began to dawn, out came a stick that had been hidden under the petticoats, and whack, whack[3]—a fine drubbing the poor father guardian got, to the tune of—‘So you think I don’t know a pig from an ass, do you?’
When he had well bruised him all over, the countryman made the best of his way downstairs, and off and away he was before anyone could catch him.
The next day what did he do? He dressed up like a doctor, and came round asking if anyone had any ailments to cure.
‘That’s just the thing for us,’ said the brother porter to himself as he saw him come by. ‘The father guardian was afraid to let the doctor of the neighbourhood attend him, for fear of the scandal of all the story coming out; the strange doctor will just do, as there is no need to tell him anything.’
The countryman in his new disguise, therefore, was taken up to the father guardian’s cell.
‘There’s nothing very much the matter,’ he said when he had examined the wounds and bruises; ‘it might all be set right in a day by a certain herb,’ which he named.
The herb was a difficult one to find, but as it was so important to get the father guardian cured immediately, before any inquiry should be raised as to the cause of his sufferings, the whole community set out to wander over the Campagna in search of it.
As soon as they were a good way off, the pretended doctor took out a thick stick which he held concealed under his long robe, and whack, whack—belaboured the poor father guardian more terribly even than before, to the tune of—‘So you think I don’t know an ass from a pig, do you?’
How far soever the brothers were gone, his cries were so piteous that they recalled them, but not till the countryman had made good his escape.
‘We have sinned, my brethren,’ said the father guardian when they were all gathered round him; ‘and I have suffered justly for it. We had no right to take the man’s pig, even for a joke. Let it now, therefore, be restored to him, and in amends let there be given him along with it an ass also.’
So the countryman got his pig back, and a donkey into the bargain.
[2] ‘Padre Guardiano’ is the ordinary title of the Superior in Franciscan convents. [↑]
THE SEVEN CLODHOPPERS.[1]
Seven clodhoppers went to confession.
‘Father, I stole something,’ said the first.
‘What was it you stole?’ asked the priest.
‘Some mistuanza,[2] because I was starving,’ replied the country bumpkin.
That the poor fellow, who really looked as if he might have been starving, should have stolen some herbs did not seem such a very grave offence; so with due advice to keep his hands from picking and stealing, and a psalm to say for his penance, the priest sent him to communion.
Then came the second, and there was the same dialogue. Then the third and the fourth, till all the seven had been up.
At last the priest began to think it was a very odd circumstance that such a number of full-grown men should all of a sudden have taken into their heads to go stealing salad herbs; and when the seventh had had his say he rejoined,—
‘But what do you mean by mistuanza?’
‘Oh, any mixture of things,’ replied the countryman.
‘Nay; that’s not the way we use the word,’ responded the priest; ‘so tell me what “things” you mean.’
‘Oh, some cow, some pig, and some fowl.’[3]
‘You men of the mistuanza!’ shouted the priest in righteous indignation, starting out of the confessional; ‘Come back! come back! you can’t go to communion like that.’
The seven clodhoppers, finding themselves discovered, began to fear the rigour of justice, and decamped as fast as they could.
[Next to gossiping jokes on subjects kindred to religion are jokes about domestic disputes, the greater blame being generally ascribed to the wife.]
[2] ‘Un po’ di mistuanza.’ ‘Mistuanza’ is a word in use among the poor for a mixture of herbs of which they make a kind of poor salad. [↑]
[3] ‘Un po’ di bove, un po’ di porchi, un po’ di galline.’
‘Un po’ (un poco) a little. The effect of the story depended a good deal on the tones of voice in which it was told. The deprecatory tone of the penitent as he says, ‘un po’ di bove,’ &c., and the horror of the priest as he cries out, ‘Signori della mistuanza!’
This same story in quite another dress was told me one evening in Aldershot Camp; and as it is a very curious instance of the migration of myths, I give the home version.
It would seem that in Aldershot lingo, or in the lingo of a certain regiment once stationed there, to ‘kill a fox’ means to get drunk. Possibly the expression was acquired during the Peninsular war, as ‘tomar una zorrilla’ has an equivalent meaning in Spanish. The story was this. Once during the brief holiday of the chaplain of the regiment, a French priest who knew a little English took his place. At confession the chief fault of which, according to the story, the men accused themselves was that they had ‘killed a fox,’ an expression perfectly well understood by their own pastor. The good French priest, however, instead of being shocked at finding how often men got drunk, was highly edified at the angelic simplicity of these Angles, who showed so much contrition for having indulged in the innocent pastime—in France, not even an offence among sportsmen—of having killed a fox.
At last there came one of a more humorous turn of mind than the rest, and the surnois air with which he pronounced the expression revealed to the good Frenchman that the words meant something more than they said.
‘Vat mean you ven you say, “kill de fox?”’ now inquired the Frenchman of his penitent with fear and trembling. And the blunt soldier had no sooner expounded the slang than the bewildered foreigner threw open the front wicket of the confessional and cried aloud:
‘Come back! all you dat have killed de foxes! Come back! come back!’ [↑]
THE LITTLE BIRD.[1]
There was an old couple who earned a poor living by working hard all day in the fields.
‘See how hard we work all day,’ said the wife; ‘and it all comes of the foolish curiosity of Adam and Eve. If it had not been for that we should have been living now in a beautiful garden, with nothing to do all day long.’
‘Yes,’ said the husband; ‘if you and I had been there, instead of Adam and Eve, all the human race had been in Paradise still.’
The count, their master, overheard them talking in this way, and he came to them and said: ‘How would you like it if I took you up into my palazzo there, to live and gave you servants to wait on you, and plenty to eat and drink?’
‘Oh, that would be delightful indeed! That would be as good as Paradise itself!’ answered husband and wife together.
‘Well, you may come up there if you think so. Only remember, in Paradise there was one tree that was not to be touched; so at my table there will be one dish not to be touched. You mustn’t mind that,’ said the count.
‘Oh, of course not,’ replied the old peasant; ‘that’s just what I say: when Eve had all the fruits in the garden, what did she want with just that one that was forbidden? And if we, who are used to the scantiest victuals, are supplied with enough to live well, what does it matter to us whether there is an extra dish or not on the table?’
‘Very well reasoned,’ said the count. ‘We quite understand each other, then?’
‘Perfectly,’ replied both husband and wife.
‘You come to live at my palace, and have everything you can want there, so long as you don’t open one dish[2] which there will be in the middle of the table. If you open that you go back to your former way of life.’
‘We quite understand,’ answered the peasants.
The count went in and called his servant, and told him to give the peasants an apartment to themselves, with everything they could want, and a sumptuous dinner, only in the middle of the table was to be an earthen dish, into which he was to put a little bird alive, so that if one lifted the cover the bird would fly out. He was to stay in the room and wait on them, and report to him what happened.
The old people sat down to dinner, and praised everything they saw, so delightful it all seemed.
‘Look! that’s the dish we’re not to touch,’ said the wife.
‘No; better not look at it,’ said the husband.
‘Pshaw! there’s no danger of wanting to open it, when we have such a lot of dishes to eat our fill out of,’ returned the wife.
So they set to, and made such a repast as they had never dreamed of before. By degrees, however, as the novelty of the thing wore off, they grew more and more desirous for something newer and newer still. Though when they at first sat down it had seemed that two dishes would be ample to satisfy them, they had now had seven or eight and they were wishing there might be others coming. There is an end to all things human, and no other came; there only remained the earthen dish in the middle of the table.
‘We might just lift the lid up a little wee bit,’ said the wife.
‘No; don’t talk about it,’ said the husband.
The wife sat still for five minutes, and then she said: ‘If one just lifted up one corner of the lid it could scarcely be called opening it, you know.’
‘Better leave it alone altogether, and not think about it at all,’ said the husband.
The wife sat still another five minutes, and then she said: ‘If one peeped in just the least in the world it would not be any harm, surely; and I should so like to know what there can possibly be. Now, what can the count have put in that dish?’
‘I’m sure I can’t guess in the least,’ said the husband; ‘and I must say I can’t see what it can signify to him if we did look at it.’
‘No; that’s what I think. And besides, how would he know if we peeped? it wouldn’t hurt him,’ said the wife.
‘No; as you say, one could just take a look,’ said the husband.
The wife didn’t want more encouragement than that. But when she lifted one side of the lid the least mite she could see nothing. She opened it the least mite more, and the bird flew out. The servant ran and told his master, and the count came down and drove them out, bidding them never complain of Adam and Eve any more.
[1] ‘L’uccelletto,’ the little bird. [↑]
[2] ‘Terrino,’ a high earthen dish with a cover, probably the origin of our ‘tureen,’ almost the only kind of Italian dish that ever has a cover. [↑]
THE DEVIL WHO TOOK TO HIMSELF A WIFE.[1]
Listen, and I will tell you what the devil did who took to himself a wife.
Ages and ages ago, in the days when the devil was loose—for now he is chained and can’t go about like that any more—the head devil[2] called the others, and said, ‘Whichever of you proves himself the boldest and cleverest, I will give him his release, and set him free from Inferno.’
So they all set to work and did all manner of wild and terrible things, and the one who pleased the head devil best was set free.
This devil being set free, went upon earth, and thought he would live like the children of men. So he took a wife, and, of course, he chose one who was handsome and fashionable[3], but he didn’t think about anything else, and he soon found that she was no housewife, was never satisfied unless she was gadding out somewhere, would not take a word of reproof, and, what was more, she spent all his money.
Every day there were furious quarrels; it was bad enough while the money lasted—and he had brought a good provision with him—but when the money came to an end it was much worse; he was ever reproaching her with extravagance, and she him with stinginess and deception.
At last he said to her one day, ‘It’s no use making a piece of work; I’m quite tired of this sort of life; I shall go back to Hell, which is a much quieter place than a house where you are. But I don’t mind doing you a good turn first. I’ll go and possess myself of a certain queen. You dress up like a doctor, and say you will heal her, and all you will have to do will be to pretend to use some ointments[4] for two or three days, on which I will go out of her. Then they will be so delighted with you for healing her that they will give you a lot of money, on which you can live for the rest of your days, and I will go back to Hell.’ But though he said this, it was only to get rid of her. As soon as he had provided her with the price for casting him out once, he meant to go and amuse himself on earth in other ways; he had no real intention of going back to Hell. Then he instructed her in the means by which she was to find out the queen of whom he was to possess himself, and went his way.
The wife, by following the direction he gave, soon found him, and, dressed as a doctor, effected the cure; that is, she made herself known to him in applying the ointments, and he went away as he had agreed.
When the king and the court saw what a wonderful cure had been effected, they gave the woman a sackfull of scudi, but all the people went on talking of her success.
The devil meantime had possessed himself of another sovereign, a king this time, and everybody in the kingdom was very desirous to have him cured, and went inquiring everywhere for a remedy. Thus they heard of the fame of the last cure by the devil’s wife. Then they immediately sent for her and insisted that she should cure this king too. But she, not sure whether he would go out a second time at her bidding, refused as long as she could; but they took her, and said, ‘Unless you cure him we shall kill you!’
‘Then,’ she said, ‘you must shut me up alone with this king, and I will try what I can do.’
So she was shut up alone with him.
‘What! you here again!’ said the devil as soon as he perceived her. ‘No; that won’t do this time. I am very comfortable inside this old king, and I mean to stay here.’
‘But they threaten to kill me if I don’t make you go; so what am I to do?’ answered the wife.
‘I can’t help that,’ he replied; ‘you must get out of the scrape the best way you can.’
At this she got in a passion, and, as she used to do in the days when they were living together, rated him so fiercely that at last he was fain to go to escape her scolding.
Once more she received a high price for the cure, and her fame got the more bruited abroad.
But the devil went into another queen, and possessed himself of her. The fame of the two cures had spread so far that the wife was soon called in to try her powers again.
‘I really can’t,’ she pleaded; but the people said:
‘What you did for the other two you can do for this one; and, if you don’t, we will cut off your head.’
To save her head, therefore, she said, ‘Then you must shut me up in a room alone with the queen.’
So she was shut up in the room with her.
‘What! you here again!’ exclaimed the devil as soon as he perceived her. ‘No; I positively won’t go this time; I couldn’t be better off than inside this old queen, and till you came I was perfectly happy.’
‘They threaten to take my head if I don’t make you go; so what am I to do?’
‘Then let them take your head, and let that be an end of it,’ replied the devil testily.
‘You are a pretty husband, indeed, to say such a speech to a wife!’ answered she in a high-pitched voice, which he knew was the foretaste of one of those terrible storms he could never resist.
Basta! she stormed so loud that she sickened him of her for good and all, and this time, to escape her, instead of possessing himself of any more kings and queens, he went straight off to Hell, and never came forth any more for fear of meeting her.
[For variants of this Ciarpa, see Ralston’s ‘Russian Folk Tales,’ pp. 37–43; ‘The Ill-tempered Princess’ in ‘Patrañas,’ &c.]
[1] ‘Il Diavolo che prese Moglie.’ [↑]
[4] Witches were generally accused of communicating with the Devil, going to midnight meetings with him, &c., by means of ointments. See ‘Del Rio,’ lib. ii. Q. xvi. p. 81, col. 1, C., and lib. iii. P. 1, 2, ii. p. 155, col. 1, B., &c., &c. [↑]
THE ROOT.
There was a rich count who married an extravagant wife. As he had plenty of money he let her spend whatever she liked. But he had no idea what a woman could spend, and very much surprised was he when he found that dressmakers, and milliners, and hairdressers, and shoemakers had made such a hole in his fortune that there was very little left. He saw it was high time to look after it, and he ventured to tender some words of remonstrance; but the moment he began to speak about it she went into hysterics. There was such a dreadful scene that he feared to approach the subject again, but the matter became so serious that at last he was obliged to do so. The least allusion, however, brought on another fit of hysterics.
What was he to do? To go on at this extravagant rate was impossible; equally impossible was it to endure the terrible scenes which ensued when he attempted to make her more careful.
At last he went to a doctor whom he knew, and asked him if he could give him any remedy for hysterics, telling him the whole story of what he wanted it for.
‘Oh, yes!’ replied the doctor; ‘I have an infallible cure. It is a certain root which must be applied very sharply to the back of the neck. If it doesn’t succeed with the first half-dozen applications, you must go on till it does. It never fails in the end.’ So saying, he gave him a stout root, as thick as a walking stick, with a knobbed end.
Strong with the promised remedy, the husband went home, and sent word to all the dressmakers, milliners, hairdressers, and shoemakers that he would pay for nothing more except what he ordered himself. Indeed he met the shoemaker on the step of the door, who had just come to take the measure for a pair of velvet slippers.
‘Don’t bring them,’ he said; ‘she has seven or eight pairs already, and that is quite enough.’
Then he went up to his wife, and told her what he had done. Such a scene of hysterics as he had never imagined before awaited him now, but he, full of confidence in his remedy, took no notice further than to go up to her and apply the root very smartly to the back of her neck as he had been directed.
‘But to me it seems that was all one with beating her with a stick,’ exclaimed another old woman who was sitting in the room knitting.
‘Of course! That’s just the fun of it!’ replied the narrator. ‘And the beauty of it was that he was so simple that he thought it was some virtue in the root that was to effect the cure.’
The hysterics stopped, and he ran off to the doctor to thank him for the capital remedy. The wife ran off, too, and went to her friends crying with terrible complaints that her husband would not allow her a single thing to put on, and, moreover, had even been beating her.
When the count got back from the doctor, he found the father and half the family there ready to abuse him for making his wife go about with nothing on, and beating her into the bargain.
‘It is all a mistake,’ said the count. ‘I will allow her everything that is right, only I will order myself what I pay for; and, as to beating her, I only applied this root which I got from the doctor to cure hysterics; nothing more.’
‘Oh! it’s a case of hysterics is it!’ said the father; ‘then it is all quite right,’ and he and the rest went away; and the count and his wife got on very well after that, and he never had to make use of the doctor’s root again.
THE QUEEN AND THE TRIPE-SELLER.[1]
They say there was a queen who had such a bad temper that she made everybody about her miserable. Whatever her husband might do to please her, she was always discontented, and as for her maids she was always slapping their faces.
There was a fairy who saw all this, and she said to herself, ‘This must not be allowed to go on;’ so she went and called another fairy, and said, ‘What shall we do to teach this naughty queen to behave herself?’ and they could not imagine what to do with her; so they agreed to think it over, and meet again another day.
When they met again, the first fairy said to the other, ‘Well, have you found any plan for correcting this naughty queen?’
‘Yes,’ replied the second fairy; ‘I have found an excellent plan. I have been up and all over the whole town, and in a little dirty back lane[2] I have found a tripe-seller as like to this queen as two peas.’[3]
‘Excellent!’ exclaimed the first fairy. ‘I see what you mean to do. One of us will take some of the queen’s clothes and dress up the tripe-seller, and the other will take some of the tripe-seller’s clothes and dress up the queen in them, and then we will exchange them till the queen learns better manners.’
‘That’s the plan,’ replied the second fairy. ‘You have said it exactly. When shall we begin?’
‘This very night,’ said the first fairy.
‘Agreed!’ said the second fairy; and that very night, while everyone else was gone quietly to bed they went, one into the palace and fetched some of the queen’s clothes, and, bringing them to the tripe-seller’s room, placed them by the side of her bed; and the other went to the tripe-seller’s room and fetched her clothes, and took them and put them by the side of the queen’s bed. They also woke them very early, and when each got up she put on the things that were by the side of the bed, thinking they were the things she had left there the night before. Thus the queen was dressed like a tripe-seller, and the tripe-seller like a queen.
Then one fairy took the queen, dressed like a tripe-seller, and put her down in the tripe-seller’s shop, and the other fairy took the tripe-seller, dressed like a queen, and placed her in the palace, and both of them did their work so swiftly that neither the queen nor the tripe-seller perceived the flight at all.
The queen was very much astonished at finding herself in a tripe-shop, and began staring about, wondering how she got there.
‘Here! Don’t stand gaping about like that!’ cried the tripe-man,[4] who was a very hot-tempered fellow; ‘Why, you haven’t boiled the coffee!’
‘Boiled the coffee!’ repeated the queen, hardly apprehending what he meant.
‘Yes; you haven’t boiled the coffee!’ said the tripe-man. ‘Don’t repeat my words, but do your work!’ and he took her by the shoulders, put the coffee-pot in her hand, and stood over her looking so fierce that she was frightened into doing what she had never done or seen done in all her life before.
Presently the coffee began to boil over.
‘There! Don’t waste all the coffee like that!’ cried the tripe-man, and he got up and gave her a slap, which made the tears come in her eyes.
‘Don’t blubber!’ said the tripe-man; ‘but bring the coffee here and pour it out.’
The queen did as she was told; but when she began to drink it, though she had made it herself, it was so nasty she didn’t know how to drink it. It was very different stuff from what she got at the palace; but the tripe-man had his eye on her, and she didn’t dare not to drink it.
‘A halfp’th of cat’s-meat!’[5] sang out a small boy in the shop.
‘Why don’t you go and serve the customer?’ said the tripe-man, knocking the cup out of the queen’s hand.
Fearing another slap, she rose hastily to give the boy what he wanted, but not knowing one thing in the shop from another, she gave him a large piece of the best tripe fit for a prince.
‘Oh, what fine tripe to-day!’ cried the small boy, and ran away as fast as he could.
It was in vain the tripe-man halloed after him, he was in too great a hurry to secure his prize to think of returning.
‘Look what you’ve done!’ cried the tripe-man, giving the queen another slap; ‘you’ve given that boy for a penny a bunch of tripe worth a shilling.’ Luckily, other customers came in and diverted the man’s attention.
Presently all the tripe hanging up had been sold, and more customers kept coming in.
‘What has come to you, to-day!’ roared the tripe-man, as the queen stood not knowing what to do with herself. ‘Do you mean to say you haven’t washed that other lot of tripe!’ and this time he gave her a kick.
To escape his fury, the queen turned to do her best with washing the other tripe, but she did it so awkwardly that she got a volley of abuse and blows too.
Then came dinner-time, and nothing prepared, or even bought to prepare, for dinner. Another stormy scene ensued at the discovery, and the tripe-man went to dine at the inn, leaving her to go without any dinner at all, in punishment for having neglected to prepare it.
While he was gone she helped all the customers to the wrong things, and, when he came home, got another scolding and more blows for her stupidity. And all through the afternoon it was the same story.
But the tripe-seller, when she found herself all in a palace, with half-a-dozen maids waiting to attend her, was equally bewildered. When they kept asking her if there was nothing she pleased to want, she kept answering, ‘No thank you,’ in such a gentle tone, the maids began to think that a reign of peace had come to them at last.
By-and-by, when the ladies came, instead of saying, as the queen had been wont, ‘What an ugly dress you have got; go and take it off!’ she said, ‘How nice you look; how tasteful your dress is!’
Afterwards the king came in, bringing her a rare nosegay. Instead of throwing it on one side to vex him, as the queen had been wont, she showed so much delight, and expressed her thanks so many times, that he was quite overcome.
The change that had come over the queen soon became the talk of the whole palace, and everyone congratulated himself on an improvement which made them all happy. The king was no less pleased than all the rest, and for the first time for many years he said he would drive out with the queen; for on account of her bad temper he had long given up driving with her. So the carriage came round with four prancing horses, and an escort of cavalry to ride before and behind it. The tripe-seller hardly could believe she was to drive in this splendid carriage, but the king handed her in before she knew where she was. Then, as he was so pleased with her gentle and grateful ways, he further asked her to say which way she would like to drive.
The tripe-seller, partly because she was too much frightened to think of any other place, and partly because she thought it would be nice to drive in state through her own neighbourhood, named the broader street out of which turned the lane in which she lived, for the royal carriage could hardly have turned down the lane itself. The king repeated the order, and away drove the royal cortège.
The circumstance of the king and queen driving out together was sufficient to excite the attention of the whole population, and wherever they passed the people crowded into the streets; thus a volley of shouts and comments ran before the carriage towards the lane of the tripe-man. The tripe-man was at the moment engaged in administering a severe chastisement to the queen for her latest mistake, and the roar of the people’s voices afforded a happy pretext for breaking away from him.
She ran with the rest to the opening of the lane just as the royal carriage was passing.
‘My husband! my husband!’ she screamed as the king drove by, and plaintive as was her voice, and different from her usual imperious tone, he heard it and turned his head towards her.
‘My husband! my royal husband!’ pleaded the humbled queen.
The king, in amazement, stopped the carriage and gazed from the queen in the gutter to the tripe-seller in royal array by his side, unable to solve the problem.
‘This is certainly my wife!’ he said at last, as he extended his hand to the queen. ‘Who then can you be?’ he added, addressing the tripe-seller.
‘I will tell the truth,’ replied the good tripe-seller. ‘I am no queen; I am the poor wife of the tripe-seller down the lane there; but how I came into the palace is more than I can say.’
‘And how come you here?’ said the king, addressing the real queen.
‘That, neither can I tell; I thought you had sent me hither to punish me for my bad temper; but if you will only take me back I will never be bad-tempered again; only take me away from this dreadful tripe-man, who has been beating me all day.’
Then the king made answer: ‘Of course you must come back with me, for you are my wife. But,’ he said to the tripe-seller; ‘what shall I do with you? After you have been living in luxury in the palace, you will feel it hard to go back to sell tripe.’
‘It’s true I have not many luxuries at home,’ answered the tripe-seller; ‘but yet I had rather be with my husband than in any palace in the world;’ and she descended from the carriage, while the queen got in.
‘Stop!’ said the king. ‘This day’s transformation, howsoever it was brought about, has been a good day, and you have been so well behaved, and so truth-spoken, I don’t like your going back to be beaten by the tripe-man.’
‘Oh, never mind that,’ said the good wife; ‘he never beats me unless I do something very stupid. And, after all, he’s my husband, and that’s enough for me.’
‘Well, if you’re satisfied, I won’t interfere any further,’ said the king; ‘except to give you some mark of my royal favour.’
So he bestowed on the tripe-man and his wife a beautiful villa, with a nice casino outside the gates, on condition that he never beat her any more.
The tripe-man was so pleased with the gifts which had come to him through his wife’s good conduct, that he kept his word, and was always thereafter very kind to her. And the queen was so frightened at the thought that she might find herself suddenly transformed into a tripe-seller again, that she kept a strict guard over her temper, and became the delight of her husband and the whole court.
[1] ‘La Regina e la Triparola;’ ‘Triparola,’ female tripe-seller. [↑]
[2] ‘Vicolo,’ a narrow dirty street. [↑]
[3] ‘Due gocciette d’acqua,’ two little drops of water, the Roman equivalent for ‘as like as two peas.’ [↑]
[4] ‘Triparolo,’ a male tripe-seller. [↑]
[5] ‘Un bajocco di tripa-gatto,’ the worst part of the tripe, sold for cats’ and dogs’ meat. [↑]
THE BAD-TEMPERED QUEEN.[1]
They say there was a queen who was so bad-tempered that no one who could help it would come near her. All the servants ran away when she came out of her apartment, for fear she should scold and maltreat them; all the people ran away when she drove out, for fear she should vex them with some tyrannical order.
As she was rich and beautiful, and ruled over vast dominions, many princes—who in their distant kingdoms had heard nothing of her failing—came to sue for her hand, but she sent them all away and would have nothing to say to any of them. She used to say she did not want to have anyone to be her master; she had rather live and govern by herself, and have everything her own way.
As time went on, however, the council of state grew dissatisfied with this resolution. They insisted that she must marry, that there might be a family of princes to carry on the succession to the throne without dispute. When the queen found that she could not help it she agreed she would marry; but she was determined she would not marry any of the princes who had come to court her, because, as they were equal to herself in birth and state, they would want to rule over her and expect obedience from her. She declared she would marry no one but a certain duke, who, as she had observed in the council and in the state banquets and balls, was always very quiet and hardly ever spoke at all. She thought he would make a nice quiet manageable sort of husband, and she would have him if she must have one at all.
The duke was as silent as usual when he was spoken to about it; but as he made no objection he was reckoned to have consented, and the marriage was duly solemnised.
As soon as the marriage was over the queen went on making her arrangements and ordering matters in the palace just as if nothing had happened, and she were still her own mistress. In particular she issued invitations for the grandest ball she had ever given, asking to it all the ministers and their families, and all the nobility of the kingdom.
The husband said nothing to all this, only a few hours before the time appointed for the banquet he called to the queen, saying: ‘Put on your travelling dress, and make haste; the carriage will be round directly.’
‘I’m not going to put on my travelling dress,’ answered the queen scornfully; ‘I am just seeing about my evening dress for the banquet this evening.’
‘If you are not ready in your travelling dress in five minutes, when the carriage comes round, it will be worse for you. Mind I have warned you.’
And he looked so determined that she quailed before him.
‘How can we be going into the country, when I have invited half the kingdom to a banquet?’ exclaimed the queen.
‘I have invited no one,’ answered the husband quietly. ‘Don’t stand hesitating when I tell you to do a thing; go and get ready directly! we are going into the country!’ he added in his most positive voice, and, though she shed many secret tears over the loss of the banquet, she ventured to oppose nothing more to his orders, but went up and dressed, and when the carriage came round she was nearly ready. In about five minutes she came down.
‘I won’t say anything this time about your keeping me waiting,’ he said when she appeared; ‘but mind it does not happen again, or you will be sorry for it.’
The queen had a favourite little dog, which she fondled and talked to all the way, to show she was offended with her husband and independent of his conversation.
Watching an opportunity when she was silent, the husband said to the little dog, ‘Jump on to my lap.’
‘He’s not going to obey you,’ said the queen contemptuously; ‘he’s my dog!’
‘I keep no one about me who does not obey me,’ said her husband quietly; and he took out his pistol and shot the dog through the head.
The queen began to understand that the husband she had chosen was not a person to be trifled with, nor did she venture even to utter a complaint.
When they arrived at the villa, as the queen was going to her apartment to undress, her husband called her to him into his room and bade her pull off his boots.
The queen’s first impulse was to utter a haughty refusal; but by this time she had learnt that, as she would certainly have to give in to him in the end, it was better to do his bidding with a good grace at the first. So she said nothing, but knelt down and pulled off his boots.
When she had done this he got up and said: ‘Now sit down in this armchair and I will take off your shoes; for my way is that one should help the other. If you behave to me as a wife should, you need never fear but that I shall behave to you as a husband should.’
By the time their visit to the country was at an end, and when they returned to the capital, everybody found their naughty queen had become the most angelic being imaginable.
[After people’s bad tempers, their follies form the most prolific subject of the Ciarpe.]
THE SIMPLE WIFE.[1]
There was a man and his wife who had a young daughter to marry; and there was a man who was seeking a wife. So the man who was seeking a wife came to the man who had a daughter to marry, and said, ‘Give me your daughter for a wife.’
‘Yes,’ said the man who had a daughter to marry;[2] ‘you’ll do very well; you’re just about the sort of son-in-law I want.’ And then he added: ‘If our daughter is to be betrothed to-day, it is the occasion for a feast.’ So to the wife he said, ‘Prepare the table;’ and to the daughter he said, ‘Draw the wine.’
The daughter went down into the cellar to draw the wine. But as she drew the wine she began to cry, saying: ‘If I am to be married I shall have a child, and the child will be a son, and the son will be a priest, and the priest will be a bishop, and the bishop will be a cardinal, and the cardinal will be a pope.’ And she cried and cried, and the wine was running all the time, so that the bottle[3] she was filling ran over, and went on running over.
Then said the father and mother: ‘What can the girl be doing down in the cellar so long?’ But the mother said: ‘I must go and see.’
So the mother went down to see why she was so long, but the moment she came into the cellar she, too, began to cry; so that the wine still went on running over.
Then the father said: ‘What can the girl and her mother both be doing so long down in the cellar? I must go and see.’
So the father went down into the cellar; but the moment he got into the cellar he, too, began to cry, and could do nothing for crying; so the wine still went on running over.
Then he who had come to seek a wife said: ‘What can these people all be doing so long down in the cellar?’ So he, too, went down to see, and found them all crying in the cellar and the wine running over. Only when the wine was all run out they left off crying and came upstairs again.
Then the betrothal and the marriage were happily celebrated.
One day after they were married the husband went into the market to buy meat, and he bought a large provision because he had invited a friend to dinner. When the wife saw him buy such a quantity of meat she began to cry, saying: ‘What can we do with such a lot of meat?’
‘Oh, never mind, don’t make a misery of it,’ said the husband; ‘put it behind you.’[4]
The simple wife took the meat and went home, saying to her parents,[5] and crying the while: ‘My husband says I am to put all this meat behind me! Do tell me what can I do?’
‘You can’t put the whole lot of it behind you, that’s certain,’ replied the equally simple mother; ‘but we can manage it between us.’
Then she took the meat and put all the hard, bony part on one chair, where she made the father sit down on it; all the fat, skinny part she put on another chair, and made the wife sit down on it; and the fleshy, meaty part she put on another chair, and sat down on that herself.
Presently the husband came with his friend, ready for dinner, knocking at the door. None of the three dared to move, however, that they might not cease to be fulfilling his injunctions. Then he looked through the keyhole, and, seeing them all sitting down without moving when he knocked, he thought they must all be dead; so he ran and fetched a locksmith, who opened the door for him.
‘What on earth are you all doing there,’ exclaimed the hungry husband, ‘instead of getting dinner ready?’
‘You told me to put the meat behind me, and I have done so,’ answered the simple wife.
Then he saw they were sitting on the meat. Out of all patience with such idiocy, he exclaimed: ‘This is the last you’ll ever see of me. At least I promise you not to come back till I have met three other people as idiotic as you, and that’s hardly likely to occur.’
With that he took his friend to a tavern to dine, and then put on a pilgrim’s dress and went wandering over the country.
In the first city he came to there was great public rejoicing going on. The princess had just been married, and the court was keeping high festival. As he came up to the palace the bride and bridegroom were just come back from church. The bride wore one of those very high round headdresses that they used to wear in olden time, with a long veil hanging from it. It was so very high that she could not by any means get in at the door, and there she stuck, not knowing what to do. Then she began to cry, saying: ‘What shall I do? what shall I do?’
‘Shall I tell you what to do?’ said the pilgrim-husband, drawing near.
‘Oh, pray do, if you can; I will give you a hundred scudi if you will only show me how to get in.’
So he went and made her go a few steps backward, and then bow her head very low, and so she could pass under the door.
‘Really, I have found one woman as simple as my people at home,’ said the pilgrim-husband, as he sat down to the banquet at the special invitation of the princess, in reward for his services. Afterwards she counted out a hundred scudi to him, and he went further.
Further along the road he came to a farm, with barns and cattle and plenty of stock about, and a large well at which a woman was drawing water. Instead of dipping in the pail, she had got the well-rope knotted into a huge knot, which she kept dipping into the water and squeezing out into the pail, and she kept crying as she did so: ‘Oh, how long shall I be filling the pail! The pail will never be full!’
‘Shall I show you how to fill it?’ asked the pilgrim-husband, drawing near.
‘Oh, yes, do show me if you can. I will give you a hundred scudi if you will only show me.’
Then he took all the knots out of the rope and let down the pail by it, and filled it in a minute.
‘Here’s a second woman as stupid as my people at home,’ said the pilgrim-husband, as the farmer’s wife asked him in to dinner in reward for his great services; ‘if I go on at this rate I shall have to return to her at last, in spite of my protestations.’
After that the farmer’s wife counted out the hundred scudi of the promised reward, and he went on further, having first packed six eggs into his hollow staff as provision for the journey.
Towards nightfall he arrived at a lone cottage. Here he knocked and asked a bed for his night’s lodging.
‘I can’t give you that,’ said a voice from the inside; ‘for I am a lone widow. I can’t take a man in to sleep here.’
‘But I am a pilgrim,’ replied he; ‘let me in at least to cook a bit of supper.’
‘That I don’t mind doing,’ said the good wife, and she opened the door.
‘Thanks, good friend!’ said the pilgrim-husband as he sat down by the stove; ‘now add to your charity a couple of eggs in a pan.’[6]
So she gave him a pan and two eggs, and a bit of butter to cook them in; but he took the six eggs out of his staff and broke them into the pan, too.
Presently, when the good wife turned her head his way again, and saw eight eggs swimming in the pan instead of two, she said: ‘Lack-a-day! you must surely be some strange being from the other world. Do you know so-and-so there’ (naming her dead husband)?
‘Oh, yes,’ said the pilgrim-husband, enjoying the joke; ‘I know him very well; he lives just next to me.’
‘Only to think of that!’ replied the poor woman. ‘And do tell me, how do you get on in the other world? What sort of a life is it?’
‘Oh, not so very bad; it depends what sort of a place you get. The part where we are is not very bad, except that we get very little to eat. Your husband, for instance, is nearly starved.’
‘No, really!’ cried the good wife, clasping her hands; ‘only fancy! my good husband starving out there; so fond as he was of a good dinner, too!’ Then she added, coaxingly: ‘As you know him so well, perhaps you wouldn’t mind doing him the charity of taking him a little somewhat to give him a treat. There are such lots of things I could easily send him.’
‘O, dear no, not at all; I’ll do it with great pleasure,’ answered he; ‘but I’m not going back till to-morrow; and if I don’t sleep here I must go on further, and then I shan’t come by this way.’
‘That’s true,’ replied the widow. ‘Ah, well, I mustn’t mind what the folks say, for such an opportunity as this may never occur again. You must sleep in my bed, and I must sleep on the hearth; and in the morning I’ll load a donkey with provisions for my poor dear husband.’
‘Oh, no,’ replied the pilgrim; ‘you shan’t be disturbed in your bed; only let me sleep on the hearth, that will do for me; and as I’m an early riser I can be gone before anyone’s astir, so folks won’t have anything to say.’
So it was done, and an hour before sunrise the woman was up loading the donkey with the best of her stores. There were ham, and maccaroni, and flour, and cheese, and wine. All this she committed to the pilgrim, saying: ‘You’ll send the donkey back, won’t you?’
‘Of course I would send him back; he’d be no use to us out there: but I shan’t get out again myself for another hundred years or so, and I fear he won’t find his way back alone, for it’s no easy way to find.’
‘To be sure not; I ought to have thought of that,’ replied the widow. ‘Ah, well, so as my poor husband gets a good meal never mind the donkey.’
So the pretended pilgrim from the other world went his way. He hadn’t gone a hundred yards before the widow called him back.
‘Ah, she’s beginning to think better of it!’ said he to himself; and he continued his way, pretending not to hear.
‘Good pilgrim!’ shouted the widow; ‘I forgot one thing. Would any money be of use to my poor dear husband?’
‘Oh dear yes, all the use in the world,’ replied the pilgrim; ‘you can always get anything for money everywhere.’
‘Oh, do come back then, and I’ll trouble you with a hundred scudi for him.’
The pretended pilgrim came back willingly for the hundred scudi, and the widow counted them out to him.
‘There is no help for it,’ soliloquised he as he went his way; ‘I must go back to those at home. I have actually found three women each more stupid than they.’
So he went home to live, and complained no more of the simplicity of his wife.
[We have the German of this story in ‘Die Klugen Leute,’ Grimm, p. 407, and again the beginning of it in ‘Die Kluge Else’ (Clever Lizzie), Grimm, p. 137 (which ends with the desperation of the wife as the second Roman version ends with the death of the husband); in some variants given in the ‘Russian Folk Tales,’ pp. 53–4; in an Italian-Tirolese tale, ‘Le donne matte’ (the title resembling that of the next Roman version); and the ending, in the Norse ‘Not a pin to choose between them.’ Senhor de Saraiva told me the following Portuguese story entitled ‘Pedro da Malas Artes’ (Tricky Peter), which embodies these incidents, but opens with a different purport.
Tricky Peter was a knowing blade; so he went out on his travels to set all the world straight; and he found plenty to do.
In the very first town he came to there was a great commotion. A bride had come to church to be married, and there she stuck at the church door, mounted on her mule, while the people deliberated whether they should facilitate her ingress by cutting off some of her head or some of the mule’s legs.
‘Let her alight and walk in,’ said Tricky Peter; ‘and the door will be high enough.’ And all the people applauded his wisdom.
At the next town he found the people all full of discontent, because one of them had to sit up by turns to tell the others when the sun rose.
‘I’ll give you a bird to perform that office,’ said Tricky Peter; and he went home and fetched a cock, and then they could all rest comfortably.
After this the story has no more silly people to deal with; but Peter fools a giant, and overcomes his strength with craft. He does not seem, either, to get paid for his services, as do the heroes of ‘La Sposa Cese,’ and all the others.
I have also another Roman story (too long to print here) of a man who sets out with a different purpose again, who meets with three sets of people afflicted with similar follies, and who also makes a good deal of money by his counsel; together with various stories in which men go to fetch their wives back from the devil’s kingdom, get three commissions of a similar nature by the way, for executing which they get richly paid on their return.
There is a story in the 5th Tantra given as ‘Le Brahme aux vains projets’ in Abbé Dubois’ translation of the ‘Pantcha-Tantra,’ which has an analogous opening to that of ‘La Sposa Cece.’ There is another among the ‘Contes Indiens’ published at the end of it, in which four Brahmans have a great dispute as to which of them can claim to be the greatest idiot—a strife only second in folly to that of the ‘Three Indolent Boys’ in Grimm, p. 551—and they each narrate such proof of having acted with consummate folly that the decision given is that there is not a pin to choose between them.
In a somewhat analogous story, which he calls ‘Aventures du Gourou Paramarta,’ one of the disciples commits the counting mistake ‘of the well-known Irishman,’ in omitting to reckon himself in his computation, also found in the Russian ‘Folk Tales,’ p. 54, and they go to buy a foal’s egg, just as do certain peasants of the Trentino in an Italian-Tirolese ‘storiella da rider’[7] (laughable story).]