FAVOLE.
FILAGRANATA.
Once upon a time[1] there was a poor woman who had a great fancy for eating parsley. To her it was the greatest luxury, and as she had no garden of her own, and no money to spend on anything not an absolute necessity of life, she had to go about poaching in other people’s gardens to satisfy her fancy.
Near her cottage was the garden of a great palace, and in this garden grew plenty of fine parsley; but the garden was surrounded by a wall, and to get at it she had to carry a ladder with her to get up by, and, as soon as she had reached the top of the wall, to let it down on the other side to get down to the parsley-bed. There was such a quantity of parsley growing here that she thought it would never be missed, and this made her bold, so that she went over every day and took as much as ever she liked.
But the garden belonged to a witch,[2] who lived in the palace, and, though she did not often walk in this part of the garden, she knew by her supernatural powers that some one was eating her parsley; so she came near the place one day, and lay in wait till the poor woman came. As soon, therefore, as she came, and began eating the parsley, the witch at once pounced down, and asked her, in her gruff voice, what she was doing there. Though dreadfully frightened, the poor woman thought it best to own the whole truth; so she confessed that she came down by the ladder, adding that she had not taken anything except the parsley, and begged forgiveness.
‘I know nothing about forgiveness,’ replied the witch. ‘You have eaten my parsley, and must take the consequences; and the consequences are these: I must be godmother to your first child, be it boy or girl; and as soon as it is grown to be of an age to dress itself without help, it must belong to me.’
When, accordingly, the poor woman’s first child was born, the witch came, as she had declared she would, to be its godmother. It was a fine little girl, and she gave it the name of Filagranata; after that she went away again, and the poor woman saw her no more till her little girl was grown up old enough to dress herself, and then she came and fetched her away inexorably; nor could the poor mother, with all her tears and entreaties, prevail on her to make any exchange for her child.
So Filagranata was taken to the witch’s palace to live, and was put in a room in a little tower by herself, where she had to feed the pigeons. Filagranata grew fond of her pigeons, and did not at all complain of her work, yet, without knowing why, she began to grow quite sad and melancholy as time went by; it was because she had no one to play with, no one to talk to, except the witch, who was no very delightful companion. The witch came every day, once in the day, to see that she was attending properly to her work, and as there was no door or staircase to the tower—this was on purpose that she might not escape—the witch used to say when she came under the tower—
Filagranata, so fair, so fair,
Unloose thy tresses of golden hair:
I, thy old grandmother, am here;[3]
and as she said these words, Filagranata had to let down her beautiful long hair through the window, and by it the witch climbed up into her chamber to her. This she did every day.
Now, it happened that about this time a king’s son was travelling that way searching for a beautiful wife; for you know it is the custom for princes to go searching all over the world to find a maiden fit to be a prince’s wife; at least they say so.
Well, this prince, travelling along, came by the witch’s palace where Filagranata was lodged. And it happened that he came that way just as the witch was singing her ditty. If he was horrified at the sight of the witch, he was in proportion enchanted when Filagranata came to the window. So struck was he with the sight of her beauty, and modesty, and gentleness, that he stopped his horse that he might watch her as long as she stayed at the window, and thus became a spectator of the witch’s wonderful way of getting into the tower.
The prince’s mind was soon made up to gain a nearer view of Filagranata, and with this purpose he rode round and round the tower seeking some mode of ingress in vain, till at last, driven to desperation, he made up his mind that he must enter by the same strange means as the witch herself. Thinking that the old creature had her abode there, and that she would probably go out for some business in the morning, and return at about the same hour as on the present occasion, he rode away, commanding his impatience as well as he could, and came back the next day a little earlier.
Though he could hardly hope quite to imitate the hag’s rough and tremulous voice so as to deceive Filagranata into thinking it was really the witch, he yet made the attempt and repeated the words he had heard—
Filagranata, thou maiden fair,
Loose thy tresses of golden hair:
I, thy old grandmother, am here.
Filagranata, surprised at the soft modulation of voice, such as she had never heard before, ran quickly to the window with a look of pleasure and astonishment which gave her face a more winning expression than ever.
The prince looked up, all admiration and expectation; and the thought quickly ran through Filagranata’s head—‘I have been taught to loose my hair whenever those words are said; why should not I loose it to draw up such a pleasant-looking cavalier, as well as for the ugly old hag?’ and, without waiting for a second thought, she untied the ribbon that bound her tresses and let them fall upon the prince. The prince was equally quick in taking advantage of the occasion, and, pressing his knees firmly into his horse’s flanks, so that it might not remain below to betray him, drew himself up, together with his steed, just as he had seen the witch do.
Filagranata, half frightened at what she had done the moment the deed was accomplished, had not a word to say, but blushed and hung her head. The prince, on the other hand, had so many words to pour out, expressive of his admiration for her, his indignation at her captivity, and his desire to be allowed to be her deliverer, that the moments flew quickly by, and it was only when Filagranata found herself drawn to the window by the power of the witch’s magic words that they remembered the dangerous situation in which they stood.
Another might have increased the peril by cries of despair, or lost precious time in useless lamentations; but Filagranata showed a presence of mind worthy of a prince’s wife by catching up a wand of the witch, with which she had seen her do wonderful things. With this she gave the prince a little tap, which immediately changed him into a pomegranate, and then another to the horse, which transformed him into an orange.[4] These she set by on the shelf, and then proceeded to draw up the witch after the usual manner.
The old hag was not slow in perceiving there was something unusual in Filagranata’s room.
‘What a stink[5] of Christians! What a stink of Christians!’ she kept exclaiming, as she poked her nose into every hole and corner. Yet she failed to find anything to reprehend; for as for the beautiful ripe pomegranate and the golden orange on the shelf, the Devil himself could not have thought there was anything wrong with them. Thus baffled, she was obliged to finish her inspection of the state of the pigeons, and end her visit in the usual way.
As soon as she was gone Filagranata knew she was free till the next day, and so once more, with a tap of the wand, restored the horse and his rider to their natural shapes.
‘And this is how your life passes every day! Is it possible?’ exclaimed the prince; ‘no, I cannot leave you here. You may be sure my good horse will be proud to bear your little weight; you have only to mount behind me, and I will take you home to my kingdom, and you shall live in the palace with my mother, and be my queen.’
It is not to be supposed but that Filagranata very much preferred the idea of going with the handsome young prince who had shown so devoted an appreciation of her, and being his queen, to remaining shut up in the doorless tower and being the witch’s menial; so she offered no opposition, and the prince put her on to his good horse behind him, and away they rode.
On, on, on,[6] they rode for a long, long way, until they came at last to a wood; but for all the good horse’s speed, the witch, who was not long in perceiving their escape and setting out in pursuit, was well nigh overtaking them. Just then they saw a little old woman[7] standing by the way, making signs and calling to them to arrest their course. How great soever was their anxiety to get on, so urgent was her appeal to them to stop and listen to her that they yielded to her entreaties. Nor were they losers by their kindness, for the little old woman was a fairy,[8] and she had stopped them, not on her own account, but to give them the means of escaping from the witch.
To the prince she said: ‘Take these three gifts, and when the witch comes very near throw down first the mason’s trowel; and when she nearly overtakes you again throw down the comb; and when she nearly comes upon you again after that, throw down this jar[9] of oil. After that she won’t trouble you any more.’ And to Filagranata she whispered some words, and then let them go. But the witch was now close behind, and the prince made haste to throw down the mason’s trowel. Instantly there rose up a high stone wall between them, which it took the witch some time to climb over. Nevertheless, by her supernatural powers she was not long in making up for the lost time, and had soon overtaken the best speed of the good horse. Then the prince threw down the comb, and immediately there rose up between them a strong hedge of thorns, which it took the witch some time to make her way through, and that only with her body bleeding all over from the thorns. Nevertheless, by her supernatural powers she was not long in making up for the lost time, and had soon overtaken the best speed of the good horse. Then the prince threw down the jar of oil, and the oil spread and spread till it had overflowed[10] the whole country side; and as wherever you step in a pool of oil the foot only slides back, the witch could never get out of that, so the prince and Filagranata rode on in all safety towards the prince’s palace.
‘And now tell me what it was the old woman in the wood whispered to you,’ said the prince, as soon as they saw their safety sufficiently secured to breathe freely.
‘It was this,’ answered Filagranata; ‘that I was to tell you that when you arrive at your own home you must kiss no one—no one at all, not your father, or mother, or sisters, or anyone—till after our marriage. Because if you do you will forget all about your love for me, and all you have told me you think of me, and all the faithfulness you have promised me, and we shall become as strangers again to each other.’
‘How dreadful!’ said the prince. ‘Oh, you may be sure I will kiss no one if that is to be the consequence; so be quite easy. It will be rather odd, to be sure, to return from such a long journey and kiss none of them at home, not even my own mother; but I suppose if I tell them how it is they won’t mind. So be quite easy about that.’
Thus they rode on in love and confidence, and the good horse soon brought them home.
On the steps of the palace the chancellor of the kingdom came out to meet them, and saluted Filagranata as the chosen bride the prince was to bring home; he informed him that the king his father had died during his absence, and that he was now sovereign of the realm. Then he led him in to the queen-mother, to whom he told all his adventures, and explained why he must not kiss her till after his marriage. The queen-mother was so pleased with the beauty, and modesty, and gentleness of Filagranata, that she gave up her son’s kiss without repining, and before they retired to rest that night it was announced to the people that the prince had returned home to be their king, and the day was proclaimed when the feast for his marriage was to take place.
Then all in the palace went to their sleeping-chambers. But the prince, as it had been his wont from his childhood upwards, went into his mother’s room to kiss her after she was asleep, and when he saw her placid brow on the pillow, with the soft white hair parted on either side of it, and the eyes which were wont to gaze on him with so much love, resting in sleep, he could not forbear from pressing his lips on her forehead and giving the wonted kiss.
Instantly there passed from his mind all that had taken place since he last stood there to take leave of the queen-mother before he started on his journey. His visit to the witch’s palace, his flight from it, the life-perils by the way, and, what is more, the image of Filagranata herself,—all passed from his mind like a vision of the night, and when he woke up and they told him he was king, it was as if he heard it for the first time, and when they brought Filagranata to him it was as though he knew her not nor saw her.
‘But,’ he said, ‘if I am king there must be a queen to share my throne;’ and as a reigning sovereign could not go over the world to seek a wife, he sent and fetched him a princess meet to be the king’s wife, and appointed the betrothal. The queen-mother, who loved Filagranata, was sad, and yet nothing that she could say could bring back to his mind the least remembrance of all he had promised her and felt towards her.
But Filagranata knew that the prince had kissed his mother, and this was why the spell was on him; so she said to her mother-in-law: ‘You get me much fine-sifted flour[11] and a large bag of sweetmeats, and I will try if I cannot yet set this matter straight.’ So the queen-mother ordered that there should be placed in her room much sifted flour and a large bag of sweetmeats. And Filagranata, when she had shut close the door, set to work and made paste of the flour, and of the paste she moulded two pigeons, and filled them inside with the comfits. Then at the banquet of the betrothal she asked the queen-mother to have her two pigeons placed on the table; and she did so, one at each end. But as soon as all the company were seated, before any one was helped, the two pigeons which Filagranata had made began to talk to each other across the whole length of the table: and everybody stood still with wonder to listen to what the pigeons of paste said to each other.
‘Do you remember,’ said the first pigeon, ‘or is it possible that you have really forgotten, when I was in that doorless tower of the witch’s palace, and you came under the window and imitated her voice, saying,—
Filagranata, thou maiden fair,
Loose thy tresses of golden hair:
I, thy old grandmother, am here,
till I drew you up?’
And the other pigeon answered,—
‘Si, signora, I remember it now.’
And as the young king heard the second pigeon say ‘Si, signora, I remember it now,’ he, too, remembered having been in a doorless tower, and having sung such a verse.
‘Do you remember,’ continued the first pigeon, ‘how happy we were together after I drew you up into that little room where I was confined, and you swore if I would come with you we should always be together and never be separated from each other any more at all?’
And the second pigeon replied,—
‘Ah yes! I remember it now.’
And as the second pigeon said ‘Ah yes! I remember it now,’ there rose up in the young king’s mind the memory of a fair sweet face on which he had once gazed with loving eyes, and of a maiden to whom he had sworn lifelong devotion.
But the first pigeon continued:—
‘Do you remember, or have you quite forgotten, how we fled away together, and how frightened we were when the witch pursued us, and how we clung to each other, and vowed, if she overtook us to kill us, we would die in each other’s arms, till a fairy met us and gave us the means to escape, and forbad you to kiss anyone, even your own mother, till after our marriage?’
And the second pigeon answered,—
‘Yes, ah yes! I remember it now.’
And when the second pigeon said, ‘Yes, ah yes! I remember it now,’ the whole of the past came back to his mind, and with it all his love for Filagranata. So he rose up[12] and would have stroked the pigeons which had brought it all to his mind, but when he touched them they melted away, and the sweetmeats were scattered all over the table, and the guests picked them up. But the prince ran in haste to fetch Filagranata, and he brought her and placed her by his side in the banquet-hall. But the second bride was sent back, with presents, to her own people.
‘And so it all came right at last,’ pursued the narrator. ‘Lackaday! that there are no fairies now to make things all happen right. There are plenty of people who seem to have the devil in them for doing you a mischief, but there are no fairies to set things straight again, alas!’
[I have placed this story first in order, as its incidents ramify into half the traditionary tales with which we are acquainted.
(1.) ‘Rapunzel,’ No. 12 in ‘Grimm,’ is the most like it among the German in the beginning, and has the most dissimilar ending. The counterpart form, in which it is some misdeed or ill-luck of the father instead of the mother, which involves the surrender of the first-born, is the more frequent opening, as in ‘The Water King,’ Ralston’s ‘Russian Folk Tales,’ p. 120. ‘The Lassie and her Godmother,’ in Dr. Dasent’s ‘Norse Tales,’ has an opening like ‘Filagranata,’ which, as it proceeds, connects it with ‘Marienkind,’ No. 4 in ‘Grimm;’ and the prohibition to open the room, in that one, carries on the connexion to another group, the Bluebeard group, represented in this series by ‘Monsoo Mostro,’ ‘Rè Moro,’ &c.; while, further on, ‘Lassie and her Godmother’ evolves the incident of the reflection in the well, which connects it with the following story in this collection, and in this roundabout way, though not in direct form, with the termination of ‘Filagranata.’
(2.) The introduction of an orange as a help to defy the ‘orca,’ connects the story again with the two next (though the fruit is used differently), and with a vast number of myths, as pointed out in Campbell’s ‘Tales of the West Highlands,’ Introduction, pp. lxxx-lxxxv. I was rather put off the scent by the narrator using the word portogallo: melagranata, though properly a pomegranate, is, I think, used in old Italian for an orange, being simply a red, or golden, apple.
(3.) The three gifts of the trowel, the comb, and the oil-filler, again bring this story in connexion with another vast group. Compare ‘Campbell,’ iv. 290; also his remarks, i. 58–62, on the ‘Battle of the Birds,’ which story this resembles in the main, but, as will be found throughout this collection, the Roman form is milder. The prince wins his bride without performing tasks, and the couple, in escaping, have only to kill a strange ‘orca,’ and not the girl’s own father. In the third version of the tale in Mr. Campbell’s series, the girl becomes a poultry-maid, and has three fine dresses, constituting a link with another group—that of Cinderella (I have given the Tirolean one as ‘Klein-Else’ in ‘Household Stories from the Land of Hofer’); and the three dresses there (though not in the Gaelic story) representing the sun, moon, and stars, give it another connexion with ‘Marienkind.’ ‘The Master Maid,’ in Dr. Dasent’s collection, again, has the golden apple (though it assists in a different way) and the ending of the Roman version (a golden cock there taking the part of the two paste pigeons), but begins with the tasks in the ‘Giant’s House’ of the Gaelic version, which the Roman ignores.
In the Russian story of ‘Baba Yaga’ (Ralston’s ‘Russian Folk Tales,’ pp. 139) we have the three magic gifts. Though Mr. Campbell has a very ingenious solution for the idea of the supernatural attaching to swords (i. lxxii), the same does not seem at all to explain the introduction of supernatural combs; when I once found a comb transformed into a mountain in a Tirolean story, I thought, as Mr. Ralston has also suggested (p. 144), that it fitted very well with the German expression for a mountain-ridge; but he does not tell us whether the metaphor holds good in Russ, where he finds it used; and in the present instance it is a hedge of thorns into which the comb resolves itself. I have another Roman story, in which the comb ‘swelled and swelled till every one of its teeth became a pier, and the spaces between them were arches, and it was a bridge by which one could pass over.’
(4.) The kiss which brings forgetfulness, again, is found in the myths of every country. It occurs in the Tirolean story I have given as the ‘Dove-Maiden’ in ‘Household Stories from the Land of Hofer,’ though I had to omit it there for want of space; but the remaining episodes of that story are nearly identical with those of the Russian story of ‘The Water-King;’ and in the Tirolean story the maiden is fetched from a heathen magician’s house by the aid of saints, while in the others it is from giants’ or witches’ abodes, by aid of other giants and witches. Mr. Ralston supplies, at pp. 132–7, a long list of variants of this story, and in a Russian one, at p. 133, comes a ride on a Bear, which is one of the incidents in the ‘Dove-Maiden,’ though, if I remember right, it does not occur in any of the others. In Mr. Campbell’s notes to ‘The Battle of the Birds’ are also collected notices of variants of this episode.
The affinity of this story with others again will be found in Mr. Cox’s ‘Mythology of the Aryan Nations,’ ii. p. 301.]
[1] This story comes from Palombara. [↑]
[2] The expression employed in this place was ‘Orca;’ as this is a word of most frequent, but somewhat capricious use, I interrupted the narrator to inquire her conception of it. ‘Well, it means a species of beast,’ she said; ‘but you see it must have been a bewitched (‘fatata’) beast, because the story says it was so rich, and had a palace, and spoke and did all the things you shall hear.’ She did not, however, seem to identify it with the evil principle according to its undoubted derivation, nor did she allow either that it had any connexion with ‘orso,’ a bear, as the narrator of the ‘il Vaso di Persa’ had expounded it, and indeed as the details of that story required; it will be seen, therefore, that popular fancy invests the monster with various shapes. The story of ‘The Pot of Marjoram,’ it will be seen, contains one or two incidents in common with this one. The apparently insignificant detail of the little plant—on which, however, both stories rest for a foundation—is noteworthy, the narrator in each instance being most positive that it was the one she had named and no other, and in both cases insisting on showing me the plant, that there might be no mistake about it. (See note to the word ‘Persa,’ infra, p. 54.) [↑]
Filagranata bella bella,
Tira giù le bionde trecce,
Ch’ io son nonna vecchiarella.
‘Tira giù,’ or ‘butta giù,’ as in the next repetition, mean equally ‘throw-down.’ ‘Biondo’ expresses particularly the yellow tint in hair. Bazzarini, ‘Ortografia Enciclopedica Universale,’ defines it, ‘colore tra il giallo e bianco ed è proprio di capelli,’ on the authority of Petrarch’s use of the word. He has also ‘biondeggiante, che biondeggia, che ingiallisce,’ turning or tending to yellow; and it is thus the yellow Tiber gets called ‘il biondo Tevere.’ [↑]
[4] ‘Portogallo’ is now the ordinary word for an orange, and points to the introduction of the fruit from the Portuguese colonies in the sixteenth century. The ‘arancia,’ ‘melarancia,’ or ‘merangola,’ the ungrafted orange-tree, was, however, indigenous in Italy; and the fruit, which has even a finer appearance than the edible orange, is still grown for ornament in Roman gardens. [↑]
[5] ‘Puzzo,’ stink. There is no neutral word in Italian for a smell; you must define a good or a bad smell either as a perfume or a stink. [↑]
[6] ‘Camminando, camminando, camminando.’ This threefold repetition of this verb, according to the tense and person required by the story, I have found used as a sort of sing-song refrain by all the tellers of tales I have had to do with. [↑]
[7] ‘Vecchiarella,’ little old woman. [↑]
[8] ‘Fata;’ ethnologically Fata is the same as ‘Fairy,’ ‘Fée,’ &c., &c., and ‘fairy’ is the only translation; but it will be observed the Italian ‘fata’ has always different characteristics from the English ‘fairy.’ [↑]
[9] ‘Buzzica’ is a homely word for a lamp-filler; it probably comes from ‘buzzicare,’ to move gently or slowly. The narrator used the word because she would, according to local custom, keep her oil in a ‘buzzica,’ without perceiving that it was most inappropriate for the purpose of the story, which required that the oil should be poured out quickly. [↑]
[10] ‘Allagato,’ inundated. I preserve the word on account of its expressiveness—literally making a lake of the country. [↑]
[12] As the story was told me the dialogue was broken, and every incident of the journey was made the subject of a separate question and answer; all the furniture in the room also here entered into conversation with the pigeons, brooms being particularly loquacious; but as it became tedious, and by no means added to the poetry of the situation, I condensed it to the dimensions in the text. [↑]
THE THREE LOVE-ORANGES.[1]
They say there was a king’s son who went out to hunt.[2] It was a winter’s day, and the ground was covered with snow, so that when he brought down the birds with his arquebuse the red blood made beautiful bright marks on the dazzling white snow.
‘How beautiful!’ exclaimed the prince. ‘Never will I marry till I find one with a complexion fair as this snow, and tinted like this rosy blood.’
When his day’s sport was at an end, he went home and told his parents that he was going to wander over the world till he found one fair as snow, tinted like rosy blood. The parents approved his design and sent him forth.
On, on, on he went, till one day he met a little old woman, who stopped him, saying: ‘Whither so fast, fair prince?’
He replied, ‘I walk the earth till I find one who is fair as snow, tinted like rosy blood, to make her my wife.’
‘That can I help you to, and I alone,’ said the little old woman, who was a fairy; and then she gave him the three love-oranges, telling him that when he opened one such a maiden as he was in search of would appear, but he must immediately look for water and sprinkle her, or she would disappear again.
The prince took the oranges, and wandered on. On, on, on he went, till at last the fancy took him to break open one of the oranges. Immediately a beautiful maiden appeared, whose complexion was indeed fair as snow, and tinted like rosy blood, but it was only when she had already disappeared that he recollected about the water. It was too late, so on he wandered again till the fancy took him to open another orange. Instantly another maiden appeared, fairer than the other, and he lost no time in looking for water to sprinkle her, but there was none, and before he came back from the search she was gone.
On he wandered again till he was nearly home, when one day he noticed a handsome fountain standing by the road, and over against it a fine palace. The sight of the fountain made him think of his third orange, and he took it out and broke it open.
Instantly a third maiden appeared, far fairer than either of the others; with the water of the fountain he sprinkled her the moment she appeared, and she vanished not, but staid with him and loved him.
Then he said, ‘You must stay here in this bower while I go on home and fetch a retinue worthy to escort you.’
In a palace opposite the fountain lived a black Saracen woman,[3] and just then she went down to the fountain to draw water, and as she looked into the water she said, ‘My mistress says that I am so ugly, but I am so fair, therefore I break the pitcher and the little pitcher.’[4]
Then she looked up in the bower, and seeing the beautiful maiden, she called her down, and caressed her, and stroked her hair, and praised her beauty; but as she stroked her hair she took out a magic pin, and stuck it into her head, and instantly the maiden became a dove and perched on the side of the fountain.
Then she broke the pitcher and the little pitcher, and the prince came back.
When the prince saw the ugly black woman standing in the bower where he had left his beautiful maiden, he was quite bewildered, and looked all about for her.
‘I am she whom you seek, prince,’ said the woman. ‘It is the sun has changed me thus while standing here waiting for you; but all will come right when I get away from the sun.’
The prince did not know what to make of it, but there was no help for it but to take her and trust to her coming right when she got away from the sun. He took her home, therefore, and right grand preparations were made for the royal marriage. Tapestries were hung on the walls, and flowers strewed the floor, while in the kitchen was the cook as busy as a bee, preparing I know not how many dishes for the royal banquet.
Then, lo, there came and perched on the kitchen window a little dove, and sang, ‘Cook, cook, for whom are you cooking; for the son of the king, or the Saracen Moor? May the cook fall asleep, and may all the viands be burnt!’[5]
After this nothing would go right in the kitchen; every day all the dishes got burnt, and it was impossible to give the wedding banquet, because there was nothing fit to send up to the table. Then the king’s son came into the kitchen to learn what had happened, and they showed him the dove which had done all. ‘Sweet little dove!’ said the prince, and, catching it in his hand, began to caress it; thus he felt the pin in its head, and pulled it out. Instantly his own fair maiden stood before him, white as snow, rosy as blood. Then the mystery was cleared up, and there was great rejoicing, and the old witch was burnt.
[This story, besides its similarities with those mentioned in note of the foregoing, is substantially the same as ‘Die weisse u. die schwarze Braut’ in Grimm (with his ‘Schneeweisschen u. Rosenroth’ it seems to have nothing in common, though the words ‘Snow-white and rose-red’ suggest it); but its commencement is different. The German Tale of Sneewittchen (Grimm, p. 206 has also much similarity with it: a queen sat working in a window framed with ebony; she pricks her finger, and three drops of blood that fall on the snow suggest the wish that her child may be fair as snow, red as blood, and her hair as dark as ebony. Her wishes are fulfilled, and she dies. She is succeeded by a witch-stepmother, from whom the child of wishes suffers many things, but the witch is ultimately danced to death in red-hot iron shoes. A link between them is supplied by the next following, in which the opening agrees with the German story. In Schneller’s ‘Legends of the Italian Tirol’ are two, with a title similar to the Roman one. In the first (‘I tre aranci’) the girl becomes the property of a fairy, as in Filagranata. She is sent to fetch three oranges, which she does by the help of five gifts given her by an old man; but the whole ends in the good child wishing as her only reward to be restored to her mother. The other is called ‘L’amor dei tre aranci.’ In this the prince breaks a witch’s milkjug while playing at ball, and in revenge she tells him he shall not marry till he finds ‘the Love of the three oranges,’ which he similarly obtains by the help of five gifts received of an old woman; when he opens them, the story goes on just like the Roman one, the verse of the dove being a little different:—
Cogo, bel cogo,
Endormeazate al fogo,
Che l’arrosto se possa brusar,
E la fiola (figlia) della stria non ne possa magnar.
and there is nothing about ‘fair as snow, rosy as blood,’ in it. He has another, ‘Quel dalla coda di oro,’ in which three golden apples or balls play a prominent part, but it belongs to another group. A second version of this, entitled ‘I pomi d’ oro,’ however, is a strange mixture of the various Tirolean and Roman versions.
The Hungarian story of ‘Vas Laczi’ (Iron Ladislas) begins, like ‘L’amor dei tre aranci,’ by a young prince getting into a scrape with a witch, this time by breaking her basket of eggs. His punishment is the fulfilment of his first wish, and his first wish happens to be a pettish one, that the earth might swallow up his three sisters; as one of them is said to be always dressed like the sun, the second like the moon, and the third like the stars, we have a link with the German Marienkind and the Tirolean Klein-Else. Afterwards Iron Ladislas goes in search of his sisters, and encounters many heroic adventures and many transformations, in one of which a tree in a dragon’s garden with golden apples is a prominent detail.
A tree with golden fruit is also an important incident in the principal and most popular of Hungarian myths, that of ‘Tündér Ilona’ (Fairy Helen). As it is seen depicted on the thirteen compartments of the grand staircase walls of the National Club at Pest, Tündér Ilona appears in the first as the Goddess or Queen of Summer held in thrall by the stern witch the Goddess or Queen of Winter. She is seen planting in the territory of the Earth-King a tree which represents her earnest longings after freedom, and committing it to the benign influence of the Sun-King.
The second shows this mystical tree bearing its golden fruit, which the beautiful Fairy, as if ashamed of her boldness, is hasting to pluck off, borne on a chariot formed of obedient swans. The Wind-genius wafts poppy seeds over the eyes of the armed guard the Winter-Queen had set round the tree, and lulls them to sleep.
In the third Argilus, the Earth-Prince, is seen surprising in his (up till then vain) nightly attempt to gather the golden fruit, Tündér Ilona’s departing convoy. He aims an arrow at the coy plunderer; then suddenly a glance from her pierces his heart instead, and he lets the arrow harmlessly strike the ground.
The fourth portrays the happy union of Ilona and Argilus, Summer and Earth; but the Winter-Queen comes by enraged at their successful defiance of her, and cuts off Ilona’s beautiful golden locks. (The people have it that these locks borne along by the winds planted the Puszta with the beautiful long feathery grass which they call ‘Orphan-girl’s hair’). In the distance are seen the parents of the Earth-Prince hurrying forward in search of their son.
The fifth shows Tündér Ilona waking from her delicious slumber, and on discovering the loss of the mantle of her hair, hasting back in agony to her swan-chariot. Argilus in vain stretches out his arms after her, and prays her to remain always with him.
In the sixth the scene is changed to the dwelling of the Earth-King. Prince Argilus is taking leave of his parents as he starts on his perilous journey, determined to deliver the captive Fairy.
In the seventh the Earth-Prince has advanced on his journey as far as the dwelling of a giant, of whom he asks counsel, and who appoints him three witches to show the way to regain the Tündér.
In the eighth he is seen victorious in a late conflict with three giants, from each of whom he has succeeded in gaining an instrument necessary for his purpose; from one a switch, from another a pipe, from the third a conjuring mantle. The giants throw down masses of rock upon him, but he spreads out the conjuring mantle, and committing himself to it, floats securely through the air.
In the ninth Argilus has reached the Winter-Witch’s border, and prepares to engage in combat with the dragon who guards it.
The tenth is highly sensational. The Winter-Witch has thrown a deep sleep over him, and the poor Summer-Fairy strives to awaken him in vain.
In the eleventh the ardent desires of Tündér Ilona have prevailed over all the enchantments of the Winter-Witch, and at her prayer there rises up from the innermost region of the earth the fairy Iron-Queen, who brings the Tátos, the winged magic horse who is to bear the Prince through all dangers to certain victory.
The twelfth shows Argilus and Ilona once more united, enthroned side by side, and subjects bearing them offerings.
The thirteenth is a large composition symbolising the mystic union of Earth and Summer, whence sprang, says the myth, Autumn with her abundant fruits, and the great god Pan, the author of all productiveness, who called the land of his birth after his own name and blessed it with fecundity above all nations of the earth. The tree of golden fruit, the first occasion of the auspicious meeting which led to this union, is again introduced, and Tündér Ilona is again clothed in her luxuriant mantle of golden hair.]
[1] ‘I tre Melangoli di amore;’ melangolo or merangolo, or merangola, an ungrafted orange. See note to ‘Filagranata.’ [↑]
[2] ‘Caccia,’ though usually translated by ‘hunt,’ is used for all kinds of sport. Bazzarini says it even includes ‘pallone’ and other games; but it is in common use for shooting small birds as for hunting quadrupeds. [↑]
[3] ‘Mora Saracena,’ a black Saracen woman; ‘mora’ is in constant use for a dark-coloured person. Senhor de Saraiva tells me that a so-called ‘Mora encantada’ figures as one of the favourite personages in Portuguese traditionary tales; but she is less often an actual Moor than a princess held in thrall by Moorish art, to be set free by Christian chivalry. She is often represented as bound at the bottom of a well. [↑]
Mia padrona dice che son tanta brutta,
E son tanta bella,
Io rompo la brocca e la brocchetta.
This verse would be hardly comprehensible but that the incident is better explained in the more detailed versions of other countries mentioned in note to the last tale. The ugly ‘Mora’ sees the reflection of the face of the beautiful maiden who sits in the tree overlooking the fountain, and takes it for her own. See Campbell’s Tales of the W. Highlands, pp. 56–7, &c. [↑]
Cuoco, cuoco, per chi cucinate,
Pel figlio del rè o per la mora Saracena?
Il cuoco si possa dormentar’,
E le vivande si possano bruciar’.
PALOMBELLETTA.[1]
They say there was a peasant whose wife had died and left him one little girl, who was the most beautiful creature that ever was seen; no one on earth could compare with her for beauty. After a while the peasant married again: this time he married a peasant-woman who had a daughter who was the most deformed object that ever was seen; no cripple on earth could compare with her for deformity; and, moreover, her skin was quite black and shrivelled, and altogether no one could bear to look at her, she was so hideous.
One day when everyone was out, and only the fair daughter at home, the king came by from hunting thirsty, and he stopped at the cottage and asked the fair maid for a glass of water. When he saw how fair she was and with what grace she waited on him, he said, ‘Fair maiden, if you will, I will come back in eight days and make you my wife.’ The maiden answered, ‘Indeed I will it, your Majesty!’ and the king rode away.
When the stepmother came home the simple maiden told her all that had happened, and she answered her deceitfully, congratulating her on her good fortune. Before the day came round, however, she shut the fair maiden in the cellar. When the king came she went out to meet him with a smiling face, saying, ‘Good day, Sire! What is your royal pleasure?’ And the king answered, ‘To marry your daughter am I come.’ Then the stepmother brought out her own daughter to him, all wrapped up in a wide mantle, and her face covered with a thick veil, and a hood over that.
‘Rest assured, good woman, that your daughter will be my tenderest care,’ said the king; ‘but you must take those wrappers off.’
‘By no means, Sire!’ exclaimed the stepmother. ‘And beware you do it not. You have seen how fair she is above all the children of earth. But this exceeding beauty she has on one condition. If one breath of air strike her she loses it all. Therefore, Oh, king! let not the veil be removed.’
When the king heard that he called for another veil, and another hood, and wrapping her still more carefully round, handed her into the carriage he had brought for her, shut the door close, and rode away on horseback by her side.
When they arrived at the palace the hideous daughter of the stepmother was married to the king all wrapt up in her veils.
The stepmother, however, went into her room, full of triumph at what she had done. ‘But what am I to do with the other girl!’ she said to herself; ‘somehow or other some day she will get out of the cellar, and the king will see her, and it will be worse for my daughter than before.’ And as she knew not what to do she went to a witch to help her. ‘This is what you must do,’ said the witch; ‘take this pin’ (and she gave her a long pin with a gold head), ‘and put it into the head of the maiden, and she will become a dove. Then have ready a cage, and keep her in it, and no one will ever see her for a maiden more.’
The stepmother went therefore, and bought a cage, and taking the large pin[2] down into the cellar, she drove the pin into the fair maiden’s head, holding open the cage as she did so.
As soon as the pin entered the maiden’s head she became a dove, but instead of flying into the cage she flew over the stepmother’s head far away out of sight.
On she flew till she came to the king’s palace, right against the window of the kitchen where the cook was ready preparing a great dinner for the king. The cook looked round as he heard the poor little dove beating its frightened breast against the window, and, fearful lest it should hurt itself, he opened the window.
In flew the dove as soon as he opened the window, and flew three times round his head, singing each time as she did so:—‘O cook! O cook! of the royal kitchen, what shall we do with the Queen? All of you put yourselves to sleep, and may the dinner be burnt up!’[3]
As soon as she had sung this the third time the cook sank into a deep sleep; the dinner from want of attention was all burnt up; and when the king sat down to table, there was nothing to set before him.
‘Where is the dinner?’ exclaimed the king, as he looked over the empty table to which he had brought his bride, still wrapt up in her thick veils.
‘Please your Majesty, the dinner is all burnt up as black as charcoal,’ said the chamberlain; ‘and the cook sits in the kitchen so fast asleep that no one can wake him.’
‘Go and fetch me a dinner from the inn,’ said the king; ‘and the cook, when he comes to himself, let him be brought before me.’
After a time the cook came to himself, and the chamberlain brought him before the king.
‘Tell me how this happened,’ said the king to the cook. ‘All these years you have served me well and faithfully; how is it that to-day, when the dinner should have been of the best in honour of my bride, everything is burnt up, and the king’s table is left empty?’
‘Indeed, the dinner had been of the best, Sire,’ answered the cook. ‘So had I prepared it. Only, when all was nearly ready, there came a dove flying in at the window, and flew three times round my head, singing each time,
Cook of the royal kitchen,
What shall we do with the Queen?
Sleep ye all soundly, and burnt be the meal
Which on the King’s board should have been.
After that a deep sleep fell on me and I know nothing more of what happened.’
‘That must have been a singular dove,’ said the king; ‘bring her to me and you shall be forgiven.’
The cook went down to look for the dove, and found her midway, flying to meet him.
‘There is the dove, Sire,’ said the cook, handing the dove to the king.
‘So you spoilt my dinner, did you palombelletta,’ said the king. ‘But never mind; you are a dear little dove, and I forgive you,’ and he put her in his breast and stroked her. Thus, as he went on stroking and fondling her, calling her ‘palombelletta bella!’ he felt the gold head of the stepmother’s big pin through the feathers. ‘What have you got in your head, palombelletta dear?’ he said, and pulled the pin out.
Instantly the fair maiden stood before him in all her surpassing beauty as he had seen her at the first. ‘Are you not my fair maiden who promised to marry me?’ exclaimed the king.
‘The very same, and no other,’ replied the maiden.
‘Then who is this one?’ said the king, and he turned to the stepmother’s daughter beside him, and tore off her veil. Then he understood the deceit that had been played on him, and he sent for the stepmother, and ordered that she and her daughter should be punished with death.
[The next group most prolific in variety of incidents is that in which the stepmother represents the evil genius of the story; sometimes there is a daughter only, sometimes a daughter and a son, and sometimes, but less frequent, a son only. Allied to it is that in which the character devolves on two elder sisters, not specified to be stepsisters, and the incidents in these two branches are closely interwoven. I give the first place to Cinderella, because it has acquired a homely importance.]
[1] ‘Palombelletta,’ dear little dove. [↑]
[2] ‘Spillone,’ big pin. This magic use of long pins driven into the head is one of the frequent charges against witches. See numerous instances at various epochs given by Del Rio, ‘Disquisitionum Magicarum,’ lib. iii. p. 1, 2 iv. s. II., where he mentions among others the cases of two midwives who were convicted in Germany of having destroyed, the one forty, the other innumerable, new-born infants in this manner. [↑]
Cuoco! cuoco! di reale cucina
Che faremo della regina?
Tutti posse a dormentar’,
E la pranza posse bruciar’.
The words have been clipt in repetition. ‘Posse,’ in the third line, must be a corruption of ‘si pongono,’ from the verb ‘ponere;’ and in the fourth line, of ‘si puo,’ from the verb ‘potere.’ [↑]
LA CENORIENTOLA.[1]
They say there was a merchant who had three daughters. When he went out into foreign countries to buy wares he told them he would bring them rare presents whatever they might ask for. The eldest asked for precious jewels, the second for rich shawls, but the youngest who was always kept out of sight in the kitchen by the others, and made to do the dirty work of the house, asked only for a little bird.
‘So you want a little bird, do you! What is the use of a little bird to you!’ said the sisters mocking her, and ‘Papa will have something else to think of than minding little birds on a long journey.’
‘But you will bring me a little bird, won’t you, papa?’ pleaded the little girl; ‘and I can tell you that if you don’t the boat you are on will stand still, and will neither move backwards nor forwards.’
The merchant went away into a far country and bought precious wares, but he forgot all about the little bird. It was only when he had got on board a boat to go down a mighty river on his homeward way, and the captain found the boat would not move by any means, that he remembered what his daughter had said to him. Then while the captain was wondering how it was the boat would not move, he went to him and told him what he had done. But the captain said, ‘That is easily set right. Here close by is a garden full of thousands of birds; you can easily creep in and carry off one. One will never be missed among so many thousands.’
The merchant followed his directions and went into the garden where there were so many thousand birds that he easily caught one. The captain gave him a cage, and he brought it safely home and gave it to his daughter.
That night the elder sisters said as usual, ‘We are going to the ball; you will stay at home and sweep up the place and mind the fire.’
Now all the birds in the garden which the captain had pointed out to the merchant were fairies; so when the others were gone to the ball and the youngest daughter went into her room to her bird, she said to it:
Give me splendid raiment,
And I will give you my rags.[2]
Immediately, the bird gave her the most beautiful suit of clothes, with jewels and golden slippers, and a splendid carriage and prancing horses. With these the maiden went to the ball which was at the king’s palace. The moment the king saw her he fell in love with her, and would dance with no one else. The sisters were furious with the stranger because the king danced all night with her and not with them, but they had no idea it was their sister.
The second night she did the same, only the bird gave her a yet more beautiful dress, and the king did all he could to find out who she was, but she would not tell him. Then he asked her name and she said,—
‘They call me Cenorientola.’
‘Cenorientola,’ said the king; ‘what a pretty name! I never heard it before.’
He had also told the servants that they must run after her carriage and see where it went; but though they ran as fast as the wind they could not come near the pace of her horses.
The third night the sisters went to the ball and left her at home, and she staid at home with her little bird and said to it,—
Give me splendid raiment,
And I will give you my rags.[3]
Then the bird gave her a more splendid suit still, and the king paid her as much attention as ever. But to the servants he had said, ‘If you don’t follow fast enough tonight to see where she lives I will have all your heads cut off.’ So they used such extra diligence that she in her hurry to get away dropped one of her golden slippers; this the servants picked up and brought to the king.
The next day the king sent a servant into every house in the city till he should find her whom the golden slipper fitted, but there was not one; last of all he came to the merchant’s house, and he tried it on the two elder daughters and it would fit neither. Then he said,—
‘There must be some other maiden in this house;’ but they only shrugged their shoulders. ‘It is impossible; another maiden there must be, for every maiden in the city we have seen and the slipper fits none, therefore one there must be here.’
Then they said,—
‘In truth we have a little sister who sits in the kitchen and does the work. She is called Cenorientola, because she is always smutty. We are sure she never went to a ball, and it would only soil the beautiful gold slipper to let her put her smutty feet into it.’
‘It may be so,’ replied the king’s servant, ‘but we must try, nevertheless.’
So they fetched her, and the king’s servant found that the shoe fitted her; and they went and told the king all.
The moment the king heard them say Cenorientola he said,—‘That is she! It is the name she gave me.’
So he sent a carriage to fetch her in all haste. The bird meantime had given her a more beautiful dress than any she had had before, and priceless jewels, so that when they came to fetch her she looked quite fit to be a queen. Then the king married her; and though her sisters had behaved so ill to her she gave them two fine estates, so that all were content.
[The counterparts to the story are endless. In Grimm’s ‘Aschenputtel’ (p. 93), the nominal German counterpart, there is a stepmother as well as two sisters, and the story turns upon the gifts each daughter craves of the father, an episode which occurs in Roman versions with different titles. His ‘Die drei Männlein im Walde’ (‘Three Little Men in the Wood’) is like it, and the other versions too, and the episode in it of the good daughter receiving the faculty of dropping a gold coin from her mouth at every word she utters, is like a Hungarian story, in which no stepmother figures, but the evil genius of the story (the Lady-in-Waiting) is plainly called a witch. In this story it is a princess, from whose footsteps rise gold pieces, her tears are pearls, and her smiles rosebuds. In one of the Siddhi Kür Stories which I have translated as ‘Sagas from the far East’ (p. 49) is a similar incident, and a Spanish equivalent in Note 3. A friend of mine met with a very similar legend in a convent at Quito, concerning a nun called ‘the Rose of Quito,’ out of whose grave a rose-tree is said to have sprung and blossomed on the morrow of her burial. It seems, however, to have an independent origin, as ‘the Rose of Quito’ died within the last 150 years. In the Tirolean ‘Klein-Else,’ or ‘Aschenpfödl,’ to which allusion has already been made, and which answers to it in name, we have a connexion with the last group (as in some of the succeeding Roman versions) in the sun, moon, and star dresses.
Among the Tales of Italian Tirol we find it as Zendrarola, and with a good deal of variation from any other form I have met. The story opens with a dying father as in the North Tirolean ‘Klein-Else,’ but it is only a rich man, not a warrior-baron, and he has three daughters instead of one. He bids them choose what gifts he shall bestow on them before he dies, and the eldest asks for a pair of earrings; the second for a dress; and the youngest for his magic sword, which gives whatever the possessor wishes for. The story is singular in this, that the elder sisters seem to have no spite. The father does not die; but, notwithstanding his recovery, he has nothing more to do with the story further than to give an unwilling consent that the youngest daughter, though his favourite, shall go forth with her sword and roam the world till she finds a husband. She only takes service in a large house in a big town, however; but there falls in love with a melancholy youth, son of a count, who lives opposite. For the sake of being nearer him, she obtains the place of kitchen-maid in his palace, and thus acquires her title of Zendrarola in a very different way from her counterparts in other lands. One day she hears he is going to a ball, and she makes her wishing-sword give her a dress like the sky; and the young Count, who has never admired anyone before, of course falls in love with her. When he comes back, he confides to his lady mother what has occurred, and Zendrarola, now again dressed as a dirty drudge, interposes that the fair one he was extolling was not prettier than herself. He silences her indignantly by giving her a poke with the shovel, and when she meets him next night in some beautiful attire, and he asks her where she comes from, she answers ‘dalla palettada’ (from shovel-blow). The next day the same thing happens, and he gives her a blow with the tongs, and when he asks her in the evening what her country is, she answers ‘majettada’ (tongs-blow); answering to Frustinaia and Stivalaia in the second Roman version of ‘Maria di Legno.’ He gives her a ring, which she sends up in his broth, as Klein-Else does in the pancake, and so he recognises and marries her. In one or two of the Roman versions also, the means of recognition is a ring in place of a slipper.
I do not remember any Cinderella among the Russian Tales, though there are stepmother stories, which pair off with others of the Roman. For Scotch versions I must refer the reader to Campbell’s ‘Highland Tales,’ i. 226, and ii. 292.]
[1] ‘Cinderella’ is a favourite in all countries, with its promise of compensation to the desolate and oppressed. I only came across it once, however, while making this collection, in its own simple form, and with a name as near its own as Cenorientola. Of course the construction of such words is quite arbitrary, and any Italian can make a dozen such out of any name or word: even in the dictionary the following variations are to be found—‘Cenericcio,’ ‘Cenerognolo,’ ‘Cenerino,’ ‘Ceneroso,’ ‘Cenerugiolo.’ [↑]
Da mi tu panni belli,
Ed io te do i cencirelli.
Da mi tu abiti belli
Ed io te do i stracciarelli.
The same as above: ‘abiti’ and ‘panni’ are convertible, so are ‘cenci’ and ‘straccj.’ [↑]
VACCARELLA.[1]
They say there was once a husband and a wife; but I don’t mean that they were husband and wife of each other. The husband had lost his wife, and the wife had lost her husband, and each had one little daughter. The husband sent his daughter to the wife to be brought up along with her own daughter, and as the girl came every morning to be trained and instructed, the wife used to send a message back by her every evening, saying, ‘Why doesn’t your father marry me? then we should all live together, and you would no longer have this weary walk to take.’
The father, however, did not see it in the same light; but the teacher[2] continued sending the same message. In short,[3] at last she carried her point, having previously given a solemn promise to him that Maria, his little girl, should be always as tenderly treated as her own.
Not many months elapsed, however, before she began to show herself a true stepmother. After treating Maria with every kind of harshness, she at last sent her out into the Campagna to tend the cow, so as to keep her out of sight of her father, and estrange him from her. Maria had to keep the cow’s stall clean with fresh litter every day; sometimes she had to take the cow out to grass, and watch that it only grazed over the right piece of land; at other times she had to go out and cut grass for the cow to eat. All this was work enough for one so young; but Maria was a kind-hearted girl, and grew fond of her cow, so that it became a pleasure to her to attend to it.
When the cruel stepmother saw this she was annoyed to find her so light-hearted over her work, and to vex her more gave her a great heap of hemp to spin. It was in vain that Maria reminded her she had never been taught to spin; the only answer she got was, ‘If you don’t bring it home with you to-night all properly spun you will be finely punished;’ and Maria knew to her cost what that meant.
When Maria went out into the Campagna that day she was no longer light-hearted; and as she littered down the stall she stroked the cow fondly, and said to her, as she had no one else to complain to, ‘Vaccarella! Vaccarella! what shall I do? I have got all this hemp to spin, and I never learnt spinning. Yet if I don’t get through it somehow I shall get sadly beaten to-night. Dear little cow, tell me what to do!’
But the cow was an enchanted cow,[4] and when she heard Maria cry she turned round and said quickly and positively:—
Throw it on to the horns of me,
And go along, cut grass for me![5]
Maria did as she was told, went out and cut a good basketful of grass, and imagine her delight on coming back with it to find all the whole lot of hemp beautifully spun.
The surprise of the stepmother was still greater than hers, at finding that she had got through her task so easily, for she had given her enough to have occupied an ordinary person a week. Next day, therefore, she determined to vex her with a more difficult task, and gave her a quantity of spun hemp[6] to weave into a piece of fine cloth. Maria’s pleadings were as fruitless as before, and once more she went to tell her tale of woe to her ‘dear little cow.’
Vaccarella readily gave the same answer as before:—
Throw it on to the horns of me,
And go along, cut grass for me!
Once more, when Maria came back with her basket of grass, she found all her work done, to her great surprise and delight. But her stepmother’s surprise was quite of another order. That Maria should have woven the cloth, not only without instruction, but even without a loom, proved clearly enough she must have had some one to help her—a matter which roused the stepmother’s jealousy in the highest degree, and wherein this help consisted she determined to find out. Accordingly, next day she gave her a shirt to make up, and then posted herself out of sight in a corner of the cow-house to see what happened. Thus she overheard Maria’s complaint to her dear little cow, and Vaccarella’s reply:—
Throw it on to the horns of me,
And go along, cut grass for me!
She thus also saw, what Maria did not see, that as soon as she had gone out the cow assumed the form of a woman, and sat down and stitched and stitched away till the shirt was made, and that in a surprisingly short space of time. As soon as it was finished, and before Maria came in, the woman became a cow again.
The cruel stepmother determined that Maria should be deprived of a friend who enabled her to set all her hard treatment at defiance, and next morning told her that she was going to kill the cow. Maria was broken-hearted at the announcement, but she knew it was useless to remonstrate; so she only used her greatest speed to reach her ‘dear little cow,’ and warn her of what was going to happen in time to make her escape.
‘There is no need for me to escape,’ replied Vaccarella; ‘killing will not hurt me. So dry your tears, and don’t be distressed. Only, after they have killed me, put your hand under my heart, and there you will find a golden ball. This ball is yours, so take it out, and whenever you are tired of your present kind of life, you have only to say to it on some fitting occasion—“Golden ball, golden ball, dress me in gold and give me a lover,”[7] and you shall see what shall happen.’
Vaccarella had no time to say more, for the stepmother arrived just then with a man who slaughtered the cow at her order.
Under Vaccarella’s heart Maria found the promised golden ball, which she hid away carefully against some fitting occasion for using it arose.
Not long after there was a novena[8] of a great festival, during which Maria’s stepmother, with all her disposition to overwork her, durst not keep her from church, lest the neighbours should cry ‘Shame!’ on her.
Maria accordingly went to church with all the rest of the people, and when she had made her way through the crowd to a little distance from her stepmother, she took her golden ball out of her pocket and whispered to it—‘Golden ball, golden ball, dress me in gold and give me a lover.’
Instantly the golden ball burst gently open and enveloped her, and she came out of it all radiant with beautiful clothing, like a princess. Everybody made way for her in her astonishing brightness.
The eyes of the king’s son were turned upon her, no less than the eyes of all the people; and the prayers were no sooner over than he sent some of his attendants to call her and bring her to him. Before they could reach her, however, Maria had restored her beautiful raiment to the golden ball, and, in the sordid attire in which her stepmother dressed her, she could easily pass through the crowd unperceived.
At home, her stepmother could not forbear talking, like everyone else in the town, about the maiden in glittering raiment who had appeared in the midst of the church; but, of course, without the remotest suspicion that it was Maria herself. But Maria sat still and said nothing.
So it happened each day of the Novena; for, though Maria was not at all displeased with the appearance and fame of the husband whom her ‘dear little cow’ seemed to have appointed for her, she did not wish to be too easy a prize, and thought it but right to make him take a little trouble to win her. Thus she every day restored all her bright clothing to the golden ball before the prince’s men could overtake her. Only on the last day of the Novena, when the prince, fearful lest it might also be the last on which he would have an opportunity of seeing her, had told them to use extra diligence, they were so near overtaking her that, in the hurry of the moment, she dropped a slipper.[9] This the prince’s men eagerly seized, feeling no compunction in wresting it from the mean-looking wench (so Maria now looked) who disputed possession of it with them, not in the least imagining that she could be the radiant being of whom they were in search.
The Novena over, Maria once more returned to her ceaseless toil; but the stepmother’s hatred had grown so great that she determined to rid herself of her altogether and in the most cruel way.
Down in the cellar there stood a large barrel,[10] which had grown dirty and mouldy from neglect, and wanted scalding out. ‘Get into the barrel, Maria girl,’ she bid her next morning for her task, ‘and scrape it and rub it well before we scald it.’
Maria did as she was bid, and the stepmother went away to boil the water.
Meantime, the prince’s men had taken Maria’s slipper to him, and he, delighted to have any token of his fair one, appointed an officer to go into every house, and proclaim that the maiden whom the slipper might fit should be his bride. The officer went round from house to house, trying the slipper on everybody’s foot. But it fitted no one, for it was under a spell.
But the stepmother’s own daughter[11] had gone down to the cellar to help Maria, unbeknown to her mother; and it so happened that, just as she was inside the barrel and Maria outside, the king’s officer happened to come by that way. He opened the door,[12] and, seeing a damsel standing within, tried on the sandal without waiting to ask leave. As the sandal fitted Maria to perfection, the officer was all impatience to carry her off to the prince, and placed her in the carriage which was waiting outside, and drove off with her before anyone had even observed his entrance.
Scarcely had all this passed than the stepmother came back, with her servants, each carrying a can of boiling water. They placed themselves in a ring round the barrel, and each emptied her charge into it. As it was the stepmother’s daughter who was inside at the time, instead of Maria, it was she who got scalded to death in her place.
By-and-by, when the house was quiet, the bad stepmother went to the barrel, intending to take out the body of Maria and hide it. What was her dismay when she found, instead of Maria’s body, that of her own daughter! As soon as her distress and grief subsided sufficiently to enable her to consider what she had to do, the idea suggested itself to conceal the murder by putting the blame of it on some one else. For this purpose she took the body of her daughter, and, dressing it in dry clothes, seated it on the top of the stairs against her husband’s return.[13]
Presently, home he came with his ass-load of wood, and called to her daughter to come and help him unload it, as usual. But the daughter continued sitting on the top of the stairs, and moved not. Again and again he called, louder and louder, but still she moved not; till at last, irritated beyond all endurance, he hurled one of his logs of wood at her, which brought the badly-balanced corpse rolling and tumbling all the way down the stairs, just as the stepmother had designed.
The husband, however, was far from being deceived by the device. He could see the body presented no appearance of dying from a recent fall.
‘Where’s Maria?’ he asked, as soon as he got up into the room.
‘Nobody knows; she has disappeared!’ replied the stepmother; nor was he slow to convince himself she was nowhere in the house.
‘This is no place for me to stay in,’ said the husband to himself. ‘One child driven away, and one murdered; who can say what may happen next?’
Next morning, therefore, he called to him the little daughter born to him since his marriage with Maria’s stepmother, and went away with her for good and all. So that bad woman was deprived, as she deserved, of her husband and all her children in one day.
Just as the father and his daughter were starting to go away, Maria drove by in a gilded coach with the prince her husband; so he had the satisfaction, and her stepmother the vexation, of seeing her triumph.
[The introduction of the wonder-working cow in this second version of the story of Cinderella cannot fail to suggest the idea that it may find its prototype in Sabala, the heavenly cow of the Ramayana.[14]
I have another Stepmother story, the place of which is here, but it is too long to give in its entirety. It begins like the last, and the next, and many others, with a widower, the teacher of whose children, a boy and girl, insists on marrying him. Soon after, of course, she turns the children out of doors; the boy is made the slave of a witch, and comes well at last out of many adventures; it is one of the nearest approaches to a heroic story that I have met with in Rome. There are details in it, however, like Filagranata and others, not actually of the Stepmother group. The girl gets taken into a Brigand’s cave, and goes through adventures which befall the youngest of three sisters (without a stepmother) in the Italian-Tirolese tale of ‘Le tre Sorelle,’ and that, again, is precisely like another Roman story I have, in many respects different from the present one, called ‘The Three Windows.’ One of the adventures in the present story is, that the witch, instead of killing the girl, gives her the appearance of death, and she is shut up in a box instead of being regularly buried, and a prince, as he goes by hunting, finds her, and the means of restoring her, and marries her. This is a very common incident in another group, and occurs in the ‘Siddhi Kür’ story which I have given as ‘The Prayer making suddenly Rich,’ in ‘Sagas from the Far East;’ and in the third version of ‘Maria de Legno,’ infra, where also the girl is not even seemingly dead. I cannot forbear subjoining a quaint version of the story of Joseph, which was told me, embodying the same incident, though the story of Joseph has usually been identified with the group in which a younger brother is the hero; by Dr. Dasent, among others, who gives several examples, under the name of ‘Boots.’ In the Roman series this group is represented by ‘Scioccolone.’]
[1] ‘Vaccarella,’ ‘dear little cow,’ ‘good little cow.’ The endearment is expressed in the form of the diminutive. [↑]
[3] ‘Basta,’ ‘enough,’ ‘to cut a long story short.’ [↑]
Butta sopr’ alle corna a me,
E vatene far l’erba per me.
‘Corno’ is one of the words which (as ‘muro,’ ‘novo,’ ‘braccio,’ ‘dito,’ &c.), masculine in the singular, have a feminine plural. [↑]
[6] ‘Carrèvale,’ or ‘corrèvale’—I could not very well distinguish which, and do not know the word. The narrator explained it as like ‘cànapa’—hemp, only finer. ‘Refe’ is used in the same sense in Tuscany. [↑]
Pallo dorato! Pallo dorato!
Vestimi d’oro e dammi l’innamorato.
‘Dorato’ is used for ‘golden’ as well as for ‘gilt.’ The change from ‘palla,’ a ball, to ‘pallo’ is a very considerable license, for the sake of making it rime with ‘innamorato;’ though some words admit of being spelt either way, as ‘mattino’ or ‘mattina, ‘botto’ or ‘botta’ (a blow), and others can be used with either gender without alteration, as ‘polvere.’ I have never met with ‘pallo’ elsewhere, though it is one of the words which take a masculine augmentative (‘pallone’). [↑]
[8] ‘Novena,’ a short service, with or without a sermon, said for nine days before some great festival, in preparation for it. [↑]
[9] ‘Pianella,’ a sandal, or slipper without a heel. ‘In those days they used to wear such things instead of shoes,’ commented the old lady as she told the tale. [↑]
[10] ‘Botte,’ a very large wine-barrel of a certain measure. [↑]
[11] Here called ‘buona figlia,’ ‘good daughter.’ There did not seem any reason for this designation. Possibly the narrator had forgotten some incident of the story, introducing it. [↑]
[12] That the cellar should be, as thus appears, on the ground-floor, is very characteristic of Rome, though there are, of course, plenty of underground cellars too; but the one is properly ‘cantino’ and ‘canova,’ and the other ‘grottino.’ The distinction is, however, not very rigidly observed in common parlance. To have an underground cellar is so far a specialité, that it has been taken to be a sufficiently distinctive attribute to supply the sign or title to those inns which possess it. Rufini gives examples of above a dozen thus called ‘Del Grottino.’ [↑]
[13] The ground-floor being used as a cellar, the family lives upstairs. This is a very common arrangement. [↑]
[14] The reader who has not access to a better rendering of this beautiful legend will find one I have given from Bopp, in ‘Sagas from the Far East,’ pp. 402–3; but Mr. Ralston gives us a Russian version, in which a doll or puppet is the agent instead of the cow (pp. 150–9). It is true, on the other hand, that he has (p. 115) another rather different story, in which a cow also gives good gifts; and mentions others at p. 260. In a story of the Italian Tirol, ‘Le due Sorelle,’ which I shall have occasion to notice later, a cow has also a supernatural part to play, somewhat like that of Vaccarella; only there she acts at the bidding of a fairy, not of her own motion. [↑]
GIUSEPPE L’EBREO.
‘Do you know the story of Giuseppe l’Ebreo?’
‘Not by that name. Tell it me, and I’ll tell you if I’ve heard it before.’
‘There was once a moglie e marito who had seven sons.’
‘Oh, do you mean the Machabees?’
‘No. I don’t think they were called Machabees—I don’t know. But the youngest of the seven was called Joseph, and he was his father’s Benjamin, and that made the others jealous of him. They used to go out in the Campagna together to feed the flocks, for in those days all were shepherds; and when the others had Joseph out there all alone they said, “Let us kill him;” and they were going to kill him; but one said, “No, we must not kill him: we will put him down a well;” and so they did.
‘The next day it happened that a great king went by hunting, and as his dogs passed the well where Joseph was they scented human blood and made a great barking, and the king said, “See what the dogs have found.” So they took the stone from the mouth of the well and let a cord down, and behold a beautiful boy came up—for Joseph was a beautiful boy—and he pleased the king, and he took him home and kept him as a precious jewel, he was so fair. So handsome was he, that the Queen fell in love with him; and when he wouldn’t listen to her she accused him of having insulted her, and had him put into prison.
‘After that the King had a strange dream: he saw three lean cows and three fat cows; and he saw the three lean cows eat up the three fat cows; and he sent for all the theologians in the country, and none of them could tell what the dream meant; but Joseph said, “I can tell what the dream means.”... The rest as in the Bible.’
[Dr. Dasent gives one Norse story of a stepmother, with a stepson and daughter, which begins like the one of which I have given an abstract, but runs off into quite different incidents.]
THE KING WHO GOES OUT TO DINNER.[1]
They say there was a well-to-do peasant whose wife died leaving him two children—a boy and a girl. Both were beautiful children, but the girl was of the most inconceivable beauty.
As both were still young, and the father did not know how to supply a mother’s place to them, he sent them to a woman, who was to teach them and train them, and do all that a mother would have done for them. So to her they went every day. The woman, however, was bent on marrying their father, and used to send a message every day to ask why he did not marry her. The father sent in answer that he did not want to marry; but the woman continued to repeat the same message so frequently that, wearied by her importunity, he sent an answer to the effect that when a pair of strong woollen stockings, which he also gave the children to take to her, were rotted away he would marry her, and not before. The woman took the pair of stockings and hung them up in a loft and damped them with water twice a day till they were soon quite rotted; then she showed them to the children, and told them to tell their father what they had seen. When the children went home they said, ‘Papa! we saw your pair of stockings to-day; they are all rotted away.’ But the father said, ‘Nonsense! Those thick stockings could not have rotted in this time; there must be some unfair play.’
The next morning he gave them a large pitcher of water, and told them to take it to their teacher, saying that when all the water had dried up he would marry her, and not before. The teacher took the children up every day to see how rapidly the water diminished in the jug; but the fact was she used to go first and pour out a little every day.[2] At last she showed them the pitcher empty, and bid them tell their father that they had seen it so. ‘Impossible!’ said their father; but when they assured him they had seen the water in it gradually diminish day by day, he saw there was no way of disputing the fact, and that he was bound by the condition he himself had fixed.
Accordingly he married the teacher. No sooner, however, was she in possession of the house than she told the father she would not have the children about the place; they were not her children, and she could not bear the sight of them. The father expostulated, saying he had no place to send them to, but the stepmother continued so persistently in her representations that, for the sake of peace, he ceased to oppose her, and she took upon herself the task of disposing of them.
One day, therefore, she made them a large cake,[3] and putting it in a basket with a bottle of wine, she took them for a walk outside the gates. When they had gone a long, long way, she proposed that they should sit down and lunch off their cake and wine. The children were nothing loth; but, while they were eating, the stepmother slipped away unperceived, and left them alone, thinking that they would be lost. But the fact was the boy had overheard their father and mother talking about getting rid of them, and he had provided himself with a paper parcel[4] of ashes, and had strewn them all along the road they had come, unperceived by his stepmother, and so now by this track they found their way home again.
The stepmother was furious at seeing them come back, but she said nothing in order not to rouse their suspicions. A few days after, however, she made another cake and proposed to take them another walk. The children accompanied her willingly; but the little boy provided himself with a parcel of millet, and strewed the grain on the ground as they walked along. They were in no haste, therefore, to finish their refection. But, alas! when they came to trace the track by which they were to return, there was no means of finding it, for the birds had come meanwhile and eaten up all the grain. The little girl was appalled when she saw they were lost, and sat down to cry; but the little boy said, ‘Never mind; our stepmother was very cross and unkind to us; perhaps we shall meet with some one who will behave better to us. Come, let us look for shelter before night comes on.’ The little girl took courage at her brother’s words, and, joining hands, they walked on together.
Before night they came to a little cottage, the only one in sight; so they knocked at the door. ‘Who’s there?’ said a voice within, and when they answered ‘Friends,’ an old man opened the door. ‘Will you please take us in and give us shelter for the night, for our stepmother has turned us out of our home?’ said the little boy. ‘Come in, and welcome,’ answered the old man, ‘and you shall be my children.’ So they went in and lived with him as his children.
When they had been living there some time, it happened that one day when the old man and her brother were both out, the king came by hunting, and he came to the hut and asked for some water to drink. The extraordinary beauty of the maiden astonished the king, and he asked her whence she was, and so learnt all her story. When he went home he told his mother, saying, ‘When I was out to-day I saw the most beautiful maiden that ever was created. You must come and see her.’ The queen-mother did not like going to the poor hut, but the prince urged her so much that at last she consented to accompany him. The king drove out beforehand to the cottage and gave notice that he would like to dine there, and, giving the maiden plenty of money, told her to prepare the best dinner that ever she could for him and the queen-mother. The maiden tidied up the cottage so neatly, and prepared the dinner so well, and did the honours of it so gracefully, that the queen-mother was won to admire her as much as her son had been, and when the king told her of his intention to make the girl his wife she was well pleased. So Albina (such was her name) was married to the king, and her brother was made viceroy.
In the meantime, the stepmother had begun to wonder what had become of the children. But she was a witch, and had a divining rod;[5] this rod she struck, and asked it where the children were. The answer came, ‘The girl is married to the king, and the lad is made viceroy.’
When she heard this she went to her husband and said, ‘Do you know a sort of remorse has taken me that we let those poor children go we know not whither. I am resolved to put on a pilgrim’s dress and go and seek them that I may bring them home to us again.’ The father was very glad to hear her speak thus, and gave his consent to her taking the journey. The next day, therefore, she put on a pilgrim’s dress and went forth.
On, on, on she went till she came to the city where Albina was married to the king. Here she took up her stand opposite the palace windows, and with her divining rod she called up a golden hen with golden chickens,[6] and made them strut about under the palace window. When Queen Albina looked out and saw the wonderful brood, she sent down at once to call the pilgrim-woman to her and offered to buy them of her. ‘My hen and chickens I neither sell nor pledge,’ answered the pretended pilgrim; ‘I only part with them at one price.’
‘And what is the price, good pilgrim, say?’ answered the queen.
‘My price is that the queen herself take me down to the palace garden and show me the whale which I know there is in the fish-pond.’[7]
‘That is a condition easily accepted,’ answered Albina. ‘I will take you there at once, good woman.’
The queen and the pretended pilgrim then went down together to the pond. The pretended pilgrim no sooner came in sight of the whale than she touched the water with her rod and bade the whale swallow the queen. The whale obeyed the stroke of the wand imparted through the water, and the stepmother went up and threw herself on the queen’s bed. When she had well wrapped herself in the coverlets so as to be hidden, she called the maids to her and bid them tell the king that the queen was sick. The king immediately came in all haste to assure himself of the state of the queen. ‘I am ill indeed, very ill!’ cried the pretended queen, groaning between whiles; ‘and there is no hope for me, for there is only one remedy for my malady, and that I cannot take.’
‘Tell me the one remedy at least,’ said the king.
‘The one only remedy for me is the blood of the viceroy, and that I could not take.’
‘It is a dreadful remedy indeed,’ said the king; ‘but if it is the only thing to save your life, I must make you take it.’
‘Oh, no! I could not take it!’ exclaimed the pretended queen, for the sake of appearing genuine.
But the king, bent on saving her life at any price, sent and had the viceroy taken possession of and secured, ready to be slain,[8] in one of the lower chambers of the palace. The windows of this chamber looked out upon the fish-pond.
The viceroy looked out of the window on to the fishpond, and immediately there came a voice up to him, speaking out of the whale, and saying, ‘Save me, my brother, for here am I imprisoned in the whale, and behold two children are born to me.’
But her brother could only answer, ‘I can give help to none, for I also am in peril of death, being bound and shut up ready to be slain!’
Then a voice of lamentation came up from within the whale saying, ‘Woe is me that my brother is to be slain, and I and my children are shut up in this horrible place! Woe is me!’
Presently, the gardener hearing these lamentations, went to the king, saying, ‘O, king! come down thyself and hear the voice of one that waileth, and the voice cometh as from within the whale.’
The king went down, and at once recognised the voice of the queen; then he commanded that the whale should be ripped open; no sooner was this done than the queen and her two children were brought to light. The king embraced them all, and said, ‘Who then is she that is in the queen’s bed?’ and he commanded that she should be brought before him. When the queen had seen her she said, ‘This is my stepmother;’ and when the pilgrim’s weeds, which she had taken off, were also found, and it was shown that it was she who had worked all this mischief, the king pronounced that she was a witch, and she was put to death, and the viceroy was set at liberty.
[I now come to three stories more strictly of the Cinderella type than the two last, but no stepmother appears in them.]
[1] ‘Il Rè che va a Pranzo.’ [↑]
[2] I am inclined to think there was some forgetfulness here on the part of the narrator; such artifices always fulfil the conditions they evade in some underhand way—they never set them utterly at defiance, as in the instance in the text. Such conditions also always go in threes; the third was probably forgotten in this instance. [↑]
[3] ‘Pizza,’ a cake made of Indian corn. [↑]
[4] ‘Cartoccio,’ a conical paper parcel. [↑]
[5] ‘Bacchettino da comando.’ [↑]
[6] ‘Biocca cogli polsini d’oro,’ a hen and chickens all of gold; ‘biocca’ is a word used by peasants for ‘gallina,’ and ‘polsini’ for ‘pollastri.’ [↑]
[7] ‘Pescheria,’ ordinarily ‘fish-market,’ but sometimes, as in this place, a tank or piece of water for preserving fish for table. That so large a fish as a whale should be kept in one, is only one of the exaggerations proper to the realm of fable. [↑]
[8] The very incident which occurs in the stepmother story of ‘How the Serpent-gods were Propitiated,’ in ‘Sagas from the Far East.’ [↑]
THE POT OF MARJORAM.[1]
They say there was once a father who was a rich, very rich, merchant, and the daughters had been used all their lives to have every thing that money could buy them, so that one day when the father was going to a distant mart where he expected to find the choicest wares, and asked them what he should bring home, they scarcely knew what to ask. But when he told them he expected to find shawls of such brilliant hues as they had never seen, with gold threads interwoven, the eldest instantly begged him to bring her one of these; and when he said he expected to find coverlets of bird plumage vieing with the rainbow in brilliancy, the second entreated him to bring her one of these.
The third daughter, however, who was distinguished by stay-at-home habits, and by her distaste for vanity of every kind, would not have any of these gay ornaments, though he not only offered her shawls and coverlets such as her sisters revelled in the idea of possessing, but precious jewelry, sparkling rubies, and rarest pearls. She would have none of these, but asked him only to bring her a pot of marjoram, which she wanted for household uses as none was to be got in the country where they were living.
The father soon after set out on his travels, and having reached his destination did not fail, while laying in his rare and precious stock, to select the choicest specimens to bestow on his two eldest daughters.
But the homely pot of marjoram quite went out of his head, and he returned homewards without having so much as thought of it.
He was nearly home when he was accosted on the way by a strange-looking man one evening, who asked him if he would not buy of him a pot of marjoram.
‘A pot of marjoram!’ The words brought back his youngest daughter’s request whom he would not have disappointed for all the world.
‘A pot of marjoram, say you? Yes, it’s just what I want. Give it here, and there’s something extra because it is just what I want;’ and throwing him money to three or four times the ordinary value of the article, he called to an attendant to stow the pot on to the pack-saddle of one of the mules.
But the stranger held back the pot and laughed in his face.
‘I had thought you were a trader,’ he said, ‘and knew enough of the rules of trade to let a man fix his own price on his own wares.’
The merchant laughed in his turn at what seemed to him an insolent comparison.
‘When a trader goes thousands of miles, through a thousand perils to bring home precious wares from afar which those at home scarcely know the use of, true, then, he alone can fix the price. But a pot of marjoram, every one knows the price of that.’
‘Perhaps not,’ replied the stranger, binding his cloak about him with the pot tightly held under his arm. ‘At all events it is clear you don’t;’ and he took a step forward as if he considered the negotiation at an end.
The merchant was vexed; he would not on any account miss taking back a pot of marjoram, and he knew he was now so near home that no other chance would there be of procuring one. Swallowing down his annoyance as well as he could, therefore, he led his horse nearer to the strange man and said,—
‘You make me quite curious to hear your price named, friend, as till this moment I had not thought there could be two ideas on the subject.’
‘My price is three hundred thousand scudi,’ replied the strange man, who was really a magician; ‘and if you knew its powers you would know, too, it is cheap at that.’
And again he made as if he would have gone on his way, indifferent whether the bargain were concluded or not.
The merchant was quite puzzled how to act. The pot of marjoram he must have, and his knowledge of the art of bargaining convinced him that the man’s manner meant he would not rebate an iota of his price. Whatever awkwardness he felt in suddenly giving three hundred thousand scudi for an article he had just appraised at a paul it was even more apparent to him that any attempt at haggling would only have added to the absurdity of the situation by its futility. Therefore, assuming a magnificent air, as if the vast price were after all no matter to him, he called to his steward to count out the sum demanded and rode on.
Arrived at home, his showy presents were received with raptures by his two eldest daughters, while the youngest received her modest-seeming share of his generosity with an expression of surprise and admiration, which gave the good merchant a secret satisfaction in imagining that she was not altogether ignorant of its immense value.
As days went by, however, everything fell back into the usual routine. The elder sisters continued the same round of gaiety in which they had ever been immersed, the younger remained as of old, quietly absorbed in her household duties; but if she had any pastime it was that of diligently cultivating her pot of marjoram. By degrees, however, through the steward’s gossip with the servants, it came round to the knowledge of the sisters that, though their younger sister had seemed to frame so humble a request, its satisfaction had cost their father’s treasury a fabulous sum. The discovery excited their utmost indignation, and their jealousy being roused, they determined to inflict a condign and appropriate punishment for what they deemed her presumption, by destroying the illstarred pot of marjoram.
To get at it, however, was no easy matter, as its guardian seldom left the house, and was always watching over it with jealous care. At last they resolved, by way of pretext for securing her absence, to represent to their father that it was not good for a young girl to remain so shut up; that whether she had a taste for it or not, she ought to see the world; and urged their arguments so efficaciously that he quite admitted their cogency, and one evening, calling his youngest daughter to him, imperatively required that she should accompany him to an evening engagement.
The poor child dared not disobey her father, but parted from her pot of marjoram with a heavy heart, as if some foreboding of evil possessed her. No sooner had she left the house than the sisters went up into her room, and taking the pot of marjoram, flung it out of the window, so that it all lay broken and shattered on the highroad, where it was soon trampled under foot and every vestige of it dispersed.
When she came in and saw what was done her grief was unbounded, and no sooner was the house sunk in slumber than, determining to live no longer under the same roof with those who had treated her so unfeelingly, she set out to wander forth absorbed in sorrow, and not caring whither she went.
On, on, on she went, taking no heed of the way, all through the night, and when the morning dawned she found herself in the midst of a vast plain, at a place where many roads met. As she hesitated for a moment which she should take, there suddenly appeared before her a fairy,[2] though the last time she looked up she had not seen a speck anywhere between herself and the horizon.
‘Where are you going so early, my pretty maiden, and why weep you?’ said the fairy, in a soothing voice that seemed made to charm an answer out of the most reluctant.
Nevertheless, it was no easy question to answer, for the maiden had no sort of idea whither she was going; therefore she took the second question first and poured out the whole tale of her sisters’ harshness and her late terrible disappointment.
‘That is not so very bad after all,’ replied the fairy, when she had finished her tale. ‘I see you have been trying to be a sensible girl, but you must be brave as well as sensible. Men say of us women, “Women always look at the dark side of things;”[3] there is always a bright side which you must try to look out for, even when, as in this instance, you couldn’t possibly see it; for all the evil that befalls us does not work evil in the end.[4] Now it happens that there is a particularly bright side to this case of yours, and the evil that was done you will bring you no ultimate harm. But you must exercise fortitude and stedfastness in what you will have to do. For this I will give you a man’s clothing, as it would not be seemly for a young girl like you to be going about the world alone, and it will save you from many dangers.’
So saying, though she had no bundle of any sort about her, she produced a complete suit of male attire, travelling cloak and all, and in the girdle were bound weapons, and many articles of which the maiden did not even know the use or the name, but the fairy assured her she would want them all by and by. Then, having pointed out which was the road she should take, she again bid her be of good heart, and disappeared almost before the maiden had time to utter her heartfelt thanks.
The fairy had no sooner vanished than the whole face of the country wore a different aspect; instead of being surrounded by a vast plain, mighty mountains rose on the right hand and on the left, while before her, straight along her path, was a dense forest. The maiden’s heart misgave her at the sight, but she remembered the fairy’s advice and walked steadily along. Notwithstanding her conversation had not seemed to last many minutes too, the sun was already high in the heavens, and its rays beat so fiercely upon her that she was glad even of the gloomy forest’s shade. Arrived at the first trees she was pleased to hear the trickling of a little brook over the stones, and to find that the good fairy had not failed to give her a supply of provisions of which she now gladly availed herself.
As the afternoon grew cooler she rose and walked on till nightfall without further adventure, and then disposed herself to rest for the night, climbing first into the spreading boughs of a large tree, that she might be out of the way of any wild beasts which the forest might harbour.
In the middle of the night her sleep was disturbed by a horrible growling; and what was her surprise when she fully woke to find that though it proceeded from a common he-, and she-bear[5] stretched out under the very tree she had chosen for her resting-place, she could understand all the meaning it contained just as if they had spoken in words; and she recognised the new power as another gift of the good fairy.
‘Where have you been all this long time?’ growled the she-bear; ‘it is quite abominable what a long time you stay away now continually; I have been hunting through the whole forest for you.’
‘That was quite waste of trouble,’ replied the he-bear testily, ‘for I have been a long way from the forest.’
‘Where were you, then?’ growled the she-bear again, with a tone that showed she was determined to know all about it.
‘If you must know, I went twenty miles along the side of the river, then over the back of the rocky mountains, and then skirting round the forest till I came to the kingdom of Persia. And out of the kingdom of Persia there went up a great wail, for last night, from his high tower, the king of Persia fell out of window and broke all his bones, moreover his flesh is all cut with the glass, which has entered into his wounds. Therefore the land of Persia bewails her king.’
‘Then let them get another king,’ growled the she-bear.
‘That is not so easy,’ rejoined the he-bear. ‘For over all the face of the earth was no king so comely in person as the king of Persia. But that is not the worst, for the matter concerns us more nearly than you have any idea of.’
‘How can it concern us?’ retorted the she-bear.
‘It concerns us so much that if anyone only knew of us we should both be killed. For the only remedy for his wounds is that we should both be killed, the fat of our bodies be melted together, an ointment made of it with honey and wax, and be smeared over the king’s body, and then bathe him in warm baths, doing this alternately for the space of three days he will be made well again. And now he has sent a proclamation into all lands inviting any physician to come to heal him by his art, and if any of them by their books and their divination should discover this we both shall certainly be put to death.’
‘Nonsense! do come and go to sleep,’ replied the she-bear testily; ‘how should anyone find us out in the midst of this forest?’
‘It’s not very likely certainly,’ growled the he-bear.
And in consequence of this happy feeling of security both brutes were soon fast asleep.
How gladly the maiden listened to their snoring, when she found she could understand it just as well as their growling.
‘I’m sound asleep,’ snored the she-bear.
‘I’m so tired I don’t want ever to wake again,’ snored her mate.
‘Neither shall you,’ said the maiden as she noiselessly let herself down from the tree.
‘Only think of that old king of Persia wanting our fat; long may he wish for it!’ snored the she-bear.
‘Now it would be a fine thing to give back all his strength and his beauty to the king of Persia, but the price of one’s life is too much for the honour,’ snored the he-bear.
‘Nevertheless, you shall have that honour,’ whispered the maiden, as she drew two sharp two-edged knives with which her girdle was furnished, and, taking her stand firmly, plunged one with each hand deep into the throat of each beast. A mingled stream of blood gushed forth, and the two huge carcases rolled over without so much as a grunt, so neatly had the execution been performed.
By the first morning’s light she once more called all her courage to her assistance, and cut up the carcasses, extracting the fat. Then she lit a fire and melted it down together, nor was she without the requisite wax and honey, for the good fairy had provided her with enough of each. The ointment made, she set out to follow the line of travel the bear had indicated, and not without much toil and weariness at last found herself in the kingdom of Persia. Strong in belief in the efficacy of her remedy, she presented herself at once at the palace gate and demanded admission on the score of her ability to effect the desired cure of the ailing king.
‘Though I may not have the high-sounding fame of which I daresay many can boast who have come at the summons of your king, yet so certain am I of the powers of my treatment that I put my life in your hands, and give you leave to torture me to death if I succeed not.’
‘Fear not, fair sir,’ replied the chamberlain; ‘no difficulty will be made in admitting you, for you alone have applied to heal the king. Every other mediciner throughout the whole world, on reading the description of the king’s ailments given in the proclamation, has pronounced his health past recovery, and not one will even make the attempt.’
Pale, emaciated, and agonised as he was, the maiden at once recognised on her admission to the presence of the king the justice of the bear’s account of his personal attractions, and now more earnestly than ever desired her success.
The king very willingly submitted to her medicaments, and at the end of three days was, as the bear had predicted, quite sound in limb and restored to all his beauty of person. If his personal attractions had been an object of admiration to the maiden, those of his supposed physician had not been lost on the king, and when she came on the fourth day to take her leave of him, he told her at once he could not think of parting with her; she must remain attached to his court, and be always his physician in attendance. The flush of joy which she could not conceal at the proposal sufficed to convince the king of the justice of certain suspicions he had already entertained, that his supposed physician was no physician, but a maiden worthy to be his queen.
For the moment he said nothing further, but only assigned to the stranger apartments in the palace, and a suite of his own, and a yearly stipend on the most liberal scale. As days went by, being continually in each other’s presence, with that familiarity which their new relations allowed, each had the opportunity of growing more and more fond of the other. At last the king called his chamberlain to him one day and told him it was his desire that the state physician should appear before him dressed in queenly robes, and attended by a train of ladies of the court, and damsels and pages of honour.
The chamberlain fancied that the life-peril through which the prince had so lately passed had injured his brain, and only undertook the commission with a visible reluctance. Nevertheless, as he durst not disobey any command of his sovereign, how strange soever, all was done as he had directed; though what puzzled the chamberlain the more was that the physician seemed as nearly demented as the king, for, instead of testifying any reluctance in submitting to such a travesty, his countenance had betrayed the most unmistakable joy at hearing the king’s pleasure.
The king had further given orders for the attendance of all the great officers of state and all the nobles of the land, as well as his guards of various degrees, all in brilliant gala dress. Before going into the state hall to receive their homage, however, he entered alone into his private cabinet, whither he commanded the attendance of his physician. Both meeting thus, each habited to the greatest advantage in their own appropriate dress, each was more than ever smitten with the attractions of the other. The king was not very long in winning from the maiden the confession that the robes she now wore were those of her sex, or that she shared his own desire that they should be united by that tie which would bind them together inseparably for ever. No sooner had he thus obtained her consent than he led her into the midst of the assembled court and required the homage of all his people to her as their queen.
As for the wicked sisters, his first act was to send for them and have them burnt to death.
[‘How well I remember,’ added the narrator, ‘the way my mother used always to end that story when she told it to me.’
‘And how was that?’ asked I eagerly, not at all sorry to come across some local addition at last.
‘But it has nothing to do with the tale, really,’ she replied, as deeming it too unimportant to trouble me with.
‘Never mind, I should like to hear it,’ said I.
‘Well then, it used to run thus: “Never was such a banquet made in all the world as for the nuptials of this king of Persia. The confetti were as big as eggs; and, do you know, I had five of them given to me.”’
‘O mamma,’ I used to say then, ‘why didn’t you keep them for me? what splendid confetti they must have been!’
‘Stop, and you shall hear what I did with them,’ she would reply.
| Uno lo dava al gallo | One I gave to the cock |
| Che mi portava a cavallo, | Who carried me on his back,[6] |
| Una a la gallina | And one to the hen |
| Che m’ insegnò la via. | Who showed me the way, |
| Uno al porco | And one to the pig |
| Che m’ insegnò la porta. | Who pointed out the door; |
| Uno ne mangiai, | One I ate myself, |
| E uno ne misse là, | And one I put by there, |
| Che ancora ci sarà. | Where no doubt it still remains. |
And she used to point as she spoke at an old glass cabinet, where I would go and rummage, always expecting to find the sweetmeat, till one day, getting convinced it had no existence, I got very angry, and threw a big key at one of the panes and broke it, and she never would tell me that story any more.]
[1] ‘Il vaso di persa.’ Marjoram goes by the name of ‘persa’ in the vernacular of Rome. Parsley, which sounds the more literal translation, is ‘erbetta.’ I think the narrator believed it to be connected with Persia. [↑]
[2] ‘Fata’ is a powerful enchantress. I know no English equivalent but ‘fairy,’ though there is this difference that a ‘fata’ is by no means invariably an airy and beautiful being; she more often wears a very ordinary appearance, and not unfrequently that of a very old wrinkled woman, but is always goodnatured and benevolent, as distinguished from the malevolent ‘strega,’ a nearer counterpart of our ‘witch.’ [↑]
[3] ‘Le femmine sempre pigliano il peggio.’ [↑]
[4] ‘Non tutto il male vien’ per nuocere.’ [↑]
[5] ‘Orgo,’ the vernacular form of the classic ‘Orco,’ is the Italian equivalent for ‘Old Bogey;’ but it is also used in place of ‘orso,’ a bear (as in the precise instance of this tale being told to me), when it is desired to give terror to his character in a tale. [↑]
[6] Has this anything to do with ‘riding the cock-horse’? [↑]
THE POT OF RUE.[1]
They say there was once a rich merchant who had three daughters. Two of them were very gay and fond of dancing and theatres, but the youngest was very stay-at-home and scarcely ever went beyond the garden.
One day when the father was going abroad to buy merchandise, he asked his three daughters what he should bring them home. The two eldest asked for all manner of dresses and ornaments, but the youngest asked only for a pot of rue.
‘That’s a funny fancy,’ said the father, ‘but an easy one to satisfy at all events; so be sure you shall have it.’
‘Not so easy, perhaps, as you think,’ replied the maiden; ‘only now you have promised it, mind you bring it, as you will find you will not be able to get home unless you bring it with you.’
The father did not pay much heed to her words, but went to a far country, bought his merchandise, taking care to include the fine clothes and jewels for his two eldest daughters, and, forgetting about the pot of rue, set out to come home.
They were scarcely a day’s journey out at sea when the ship stood quite still, nor was the captain able by any means to govern it, for neither sail nor oar would move it an inch.
‘Some one on board has an unfulfilled promise on him,’ declared the captain; and he called upon whoever it was to come forward and own it, that he might be thrown overboard, and that the lives of all the passengers and crew should not be put in jeopardy by his fault.
Then the merchant came forward and said it was true he had forgotten to bring with him something he had promised to his little daughter, but that it was so slight a matter he did not think it could be that which was stopping the ship.
As no one else had anything of the sort to accuse themselves of, the captain judged that it was indeed the merchant’s fault that had stopped the ship; only, as he was such a great merchant and a frequent trader by his vessel, he agreed to put back with him instead of throwing him overboard. He first, however, asked,—
‘And what may the thing be that you have to take to your daughter?’
‘Nothing but a pot of rue,’ replied the merchant.
‘A pot of rue!’ answered the captain; ‘that is no easy matter. In the whole country there is no one has a plant of it but the king, and he is so choice over it that he has decreed that if anyone venture to ask him only for a single leaf he shall instantly be put to death.’
‘That is bad hearing,’ said the merchant. ‘Nevertheless, as I have promised to get it I must make the trial, and if I perish in the attempt I might have had a worse death.’
So they landed the merchant, and he went straight up to the king’s palace.
‘Majesty!’ he said, throwing himself on his knees before the throne. ‘It is in no spirit of wantonness I break the decree which forbids the asking a single leaf of the precious plant of rue. A promise was on me before I knew the king’s decree, and I am bound thereby to ask not merely a single leaf but the whole plant, of the king, even though it be at peril of my life.’
Then said the king,—
‘To whom hadst thou made this promise?’
And the merchant made answer,—
‘Though it was only to my youngest daughter I made the promise, yet having made it, I will not leave off from asking for it.’
Then the king answered,—
‘Because thou hast been faithful to thy promise, and courageous in risking thy life rather than to break thy word, behold I give the whole plant at thy desire; and this without breaking my royal decree. For my decree said that whoso desired a single leaf should be put to death, but in that thou hast asked the whole plant thou hast shown a courage worthy of reward.’
So he took the plant of rue and gave it to the merchant to give to his daughter; moreover, he bade him tell her that she should every night burn a leaf of the plant. With that he dismissed him.
The merchant returned home and distributed the presents he had brought to his daughters, and not more pleased were the elder ones with their fine gifts than was the younger with her simple pot of rue. In the evening they went with their father to the ball as usual, but the youngest staid at home as she was wont to do, and this night she burnt a leaf of the rue as the king had bidden her. But the king had three beautiful sons, and no sooner had she burnt the rue leaf than the eldest son of the king appeared before her, and sitting beside her, said so many kind things that no evening had ever passed so pleasantly. This she did every evening as the king had bidden.
But the other merchants said to the merchant her father,—
‘How is it that only two daughters come to the balls?’
And the merchant, not knowing how to account for the youngest daughter’s preference for staying at home, answered,—
‘I have only two daughters old enough to come to the balls?’
But the other merchants said,—
‘Nay, but bring now thy youngest daughter.’
So the next evening the merchant made the youngest daughter go with him to the ball, and the two elder daughters were left at home.
As the youngest was wont never to leave her room, the others, how jealous soever they were of her, were never able to do her any harm. But now that they felt secure she was absent for a considerable space, they went into her apartment and set fire to it, and the whole place was burnt, and also the garden, and the plant of rue.
If the king’s son had come in haste for the burning of a single leaf, I leave it to be imagined with what speed he came for the burning of the whole plant. With such impetus, indeed, he came, that he was bruised and burnt all over with the flaming beams of which the apartment was built, and cut all over with the broken glass; so that when he reached home again he was in a sorry plight indeed.
But the youngest daughter, coming home with her father from the ball, and finding all her apartment burnt to the ground, as well as all the plants in the garden, and with them the pot of rue, she said, ‘I will stay no more in this place.’ So she dressed herself in man’s clothes and wandered forth.
On, on, on, she went, till night came, and she could go no further, but she laid herself to sleep under a tree. In the middle of the night came an ogre and an ogress,[2] and laid themselves down also under the tree. Then she heard the ogre speaking to the ogress, and saying, ‘Our king’s eldest son, the flower of the land, is sore ill and like to die, having fallen through the window of the highest story of the palace, and is cut with the glass, and bruised all over. What shall be done to heal the king’s eldest son, the flower of the land?’
And the ogress made answer: ‘This is what should be done—but it is well no one knows it. They should kill us, and take the fat that is round our hearts and make an ointment, and anoint therewith the wounds of the king’s son.’
When the merchant’s daughter heard this, she waited till the ogre and ogress were gone to sleep; then she took out a brace of pistols—for with the man’s dress she had also a brace of pistols—and with one in each hand she killed the ogre and ogress together, and with her knife she ripped them open, and took out the fat that was round their hearts. Then she journeyed on till she came to the king’s palace. At the door of the palace stood a guard, who told her there was no entrance for such as her; but she said, ‘To heal the wounds of the king’s eldest son am I come.’
Then the sentinel laughed, and said, ‘So many great and learned surgeons have come, and have benefited him nothing, there is no entrance for a mountebank like thee. Begone! begone!’
But she, knowing certainly that she had the only means of healing, would not be sent away; and when the sentinel would have driven her off she struggled so bravely that he had to call out all the guard to resist her; and when they all used their strength against her, she protested so loudly that the noise of the struggle made the king himself begin to inquire what was the matter. Then they told him, ‘Behold, there stands without a low and base fellow, who would fain pretend to heal the wounds of the king’s son.’
But the king answered: ‘As all the great and learned surgeons have failed, let even the travelling doctor try his skill; maybe he knows some means of healing.’
Then she was brought into the apartment of the king’s son, and she asked for all she needed to make the ointment, and linen for bandages, and to be left alone with him for the space of a week. At the end of a week the king’s son was perfectly cured and well. Then she dressed herself with care, but still in the garb of a travelling doctor—for she had no other—and stood before him, and said, ‘Know you me not?’ And when he looked at her he said, ‘Ah! yes; the maiden of the rue plant!’ For till then she had been so soiled with the dust of travel that he could not recognise her. Then when he had recognised her he protested he would marry her, and, sending to the king his father, he told him the same.
When the king heard of his resolve, he said, ‘It is well that the prince is healed of his wounds; but with the return of bodily health it is evident he has lost his reason, in that he is determined to marry his surgeon. Nevertheless, as nothing is gained in this kind of malady by contradiction, it is best to humour him. We must get this surgeon to submit to be dressed up like a princess, and we must amuse him by letting him go through the form of marrying her.’
It was done, therefore, as the king had said. But when the ladies of the court came to attend the supposed surgeon, and saw her dressed in her bridal robes, they saw by the way they became her that she was indeed a woman and no surgeon, and that the prince was by no means distempered in his mind.
But the prince silenced their exclamations, saying: ‘Nay, but say nothing; for perchance if my father knew that this should be a real marriage, and no mere make-believe to humour a disordered whim, he might withhold his consent, seeing the maiden is no princess. But I know she is the wife destined for me, because my mother, before she died, told me I should know her by the pot of rue; and because, by devoting herself to healing me, she has deserved well of me. So let the marriage go through, even as the king my father had devised.’
So the marriage was celebrated, and when the king learnt afterwards that the pretended surgeon was a real maiden, he knew the thing could not be altered, and said nothing. So the merchant’s daughter became the prince’s wife.
[The following is a third variant of this story, but so like the last, that I only give an abbreviated version of it.]
KING OTHO.[1]
In this case the merchant, when he goes out to buy his wares, asks his three daughters what he shall bring them. The eldest asks for fine dresses, the second for beautiful shawls, the third for nothing but some sand out of the garden of King Otho. The king had registered sentence of death against anyone who should ask for the sand. But in consideration of a bribe of three hundred scudi the gardener gives him a little.
When she gets it, the daughter burns a little in the evening, when the sisters are gone to a ball. Instantly King Otho comes, and falls in love with her. She gives him a most exquisite pair of knee-bands she has embroidered, before he goes away. The second night she gives him a handkerchief of her work, and the third a beautiful necktie.
After this, her father insists one evening that she should go to the ball. Her sisters say that if she goes they shall stay away. When she is gone they burn down her room, and in it all the sand of King Otho’s garden. If the king came quickly for the burning of a little pinch, he naturally comes in exceeding greater haste at the burning of the whole quantity: in such haste that he is wounded all over with the blazing beams and broken glass. There is a great explosion.[2] As he knew nothing about the spite of the sisters, he could only think that the mischief arose from the misconduct of her to whom the sand had been given, and determines accordingly to have nothing more to do with her.
When she comes home, and finds what has happened, she is in despair. She dresses like a man and goes away. In the night, in a cave where she takes shelter, she hears an ogre and ogress talking over what has happened, and they say that the only cure is an ointment made of their blood.[3] She shoots them both, and takes their blood and heals the king with it. The king offers any kind of reward the supposed doctor will name; but she will have nothing but some of the sand of the garden. She contrives, however, to discover the knee-bands, the handkerchief, and the necktie she had given him, and asks him what they are. ‘Oh, only the presents of a faithless lover,’ he replies. She then insists he should give them up to her, which he does, and she goes away.
When she gets home she burns a pinch of the sand, and the king is forced by its virtue to appear; but he comes in great indignation, and accuses her of wounding him. She replies it was not she who wounded him, but who healed him. He is incredulous; and she shows him the knee-bands, handkerchief, and necktie, which convince him he owes his healing to her. They make peace, and are married.
[Mr. Ralston gives a very pretty counterpart of so much of this story as relates to the transformation of a human being into a flower, at p. 15 of the story commencing at page 10, and ‘Aschenputtel,’ Grimm, p. 93, has something like it; but I do not recall any European story in which a person is actually wounded and half-killed by damage done to a tree mysteriously connected with him. There is something like it in the ‘trees of life’ which people plant, and their withering is to be a token that harm has befallen them.
Overhearing the advice of supernatural beasts under a tree occurs in the Norse ‘True and Untrue,’ and is very common in all sorts of ways, everywhere. It enters, too, into the analogous Italian Tirolean tale of ‘I due cavallari,’ where witches figure instead of the orco and orchessa.
Next, are four stories in which many incidents of the Cinderella type are set in a different framework; they are represented in the Gaelic by ‘The King who wanted to marry his Daughter;’ at the end of which reference will be found to other versions, where are details occurring in one or other of the following: that from Straparola is naturally the most like the Roman, but it is not like any one of them all throughout, and forms a remarkable link between the first Roman and the two Gaelic versions. The girl’s answer, that she ‘came from the country of candlesticks,’ in the second version, is noteworthy, because it connects it with the Roman story of the ‘Candeliera,’ at the same time that it conveys no sense in its own. The box in the Gaelic versions recalls, just as Mr. Campbell says, the fine old chests which served for conveying home the corredo (including much more than trousseau in its modern use) of the bride, which are not only preserved as heirlooms and curiosities in many an Italian palace, but in many a museum also; there are some very handsome ones at Perugia. And yet it is just in the Italian versions that the box loses this character. In Straparola’s, it is a wardrobe; in the two versions of ‘Maria di Legno,’ a wooden statue; in ‘La Candeliera,’ it has the shape of a candlestick. In the third version of ‘Maria di Legno,’ the box used is only an old press that happens to be in the deserted tower.
Mr. Ralston, pp. 77–8, supplies a Russian counterpart, in which it is a prince, and not a maiden, who is conveyed in a provisioned box, and this is linked hereby with the Hungarian story of Iron Ladislas, who descends by such means to the underground world in search of his sisters; and this again connects this story both with those in which I have already had occasion to mention him and with one to follow called ‘Il Rè Moro,’ one I have in MS. called ‘Il Cavolo d’oro,’ &c. The first and more elaborate of the four Roman stories, ‘Maria di Legno,’ does the same.]
[1] This was pronounced ‘Uttone,’ but was doubtless intended for ‘King Otho.’ Words which in Latin were spelt with a u, as ‘Bollo,’ ‘pollo,’ retain the sound of u in the mouth of the people; but I know of no reason for it in the present instance. [↑]
[2] ‘Precipizio,’ equivalent to ‘an explosion,’ ‘a terrible kick-up,’ &c. [↑]
[3] The blood instead of the fat is one of the variations of this version. It is not easy to see how blood can enter into the composition of an ointment, yet one of the most frequent charges to be met in processes against witches was taking the blood of infants to make various ointments. [↑]
MARIA WOOD.[1]
Once again my story is of a widower father; this time, however, a king, and having one only daughter, Maria, the apple of his eye and the pride of his heart. The one concern of his life was to marry her well and happily before he died.
The queen, whom he believed to be wise above mortal women, had left him when she died a ring, with the advice to listen to the addresses of no one on Maria’s behalf but his whose finger a gold ring which she gave him should fit, for that he whom it alone should fit would be a noble and a worthy husband indeed.
Maria’s teacher was very different from those we have had to do with hitherto; she was a beneficent fairy, whose services her good and clever mother had obtained for her under this disguise, and all her lessons and actions were directed entirely for her benefit, and she was able to advise and look out for her better than her father himself.
Time went by, and no one who came to court Maria had a finger which the ring would fit. It was not that Maria was not quite young enough to wait, but her father was growing old and feeble, and full of ailments, and he hasted to see her settled in life before death called him away.
At last there came to sue for Maria’s hand a most accomplished cavalier, who declared himself to be a prince of a distant region, and he certainly brought costly presents, and was attended by a brilliant retinue well calculated to sustain the alleged character.
The father, who had had so much trouble about fitting the ring, was much disposed not to attend any more to this circumstance when the prince objected to be subjected to so trivial a trial. After some days, however, as he hesitated finally to make up his mind to bestow her on him without his having fulfilled this condition, he suddenly consented to submit to it, when, lo and behold, the ring could not be found!
‘If you have not got the ring,’ said the prince, ‘it really is not my fault if it is not tried on. You see I am perfectly willing to accept the test, but if you cannot apply it you must not visit it on me.’
‘What you say is most reasonable,’ said the father. ‘But what can I do? I promised her mother I would not let the girl marry anyone but him the ring fitted.’
‘Do you mean then that the girl is never to marry at all, since you have lost the ring! That would be monstrous indeed. You may be sure, however, in my case, the ring would have fitted if you had had it here, because I am so exactly the kind of husband your wife promised the ring should fit. So what more reasonable than to give her to me? However, to meet your wishes and prejudices to the utmost, I am willing to submit to any other test, however difficult, the young lady herself likes to name. Nay, I will say—three tests. Will that satisfy you?’
All this was so perfectly reasonable that the father felt he could not but agree to it, and Maria was told to be ready the next day to name the first of the tests which she would substitute for that of the ring.
Though the prince was so handsome, so accomplished, so rich, and so persevering with his suit, Maria felt an instinctive dislike to him, which embarrassed her the more that she had no fault of any sort to find with him which she could make patent to her father.
To the compassionate and appreciative bosom of her teacher she poured out all her grief, and found there a ready response.
The teacher, who by her fairy powers knew what mortals could not know, knew that the prince was no other than the devil,[2] and that the marriage must be prevented at any price, but that it would be vain for her to give this information to the father, as he would have laughed in her face, and told her to go and rule copy-books and knit stockings. She must, therefore, set to work in a different way to protect her charge from the impending evil.
In the first instance, however, and without mentioning the alarming disclosure of who her suitor really was, she merely bid Maria to be of good courage and all would come right; and for the test she had to propose, she bid her ask him to produce a dress woven of the stars of heaven.
The next morning, accordingly, when the prince came to inquire what her good pleasure was, she asked him to bring her a dress woven of the stars of heaven.
The prince bit his lip, and a look of fierceness it had never worn before stole over his face at hearing this request. And though he instantly put on a smile, there was much suppressed anger perceptible in the tone with which he answered,
‘This is not your own idea. Some one who has no good will towards me has told you this.’
‘It was no part of the condition, I think, that I should act without advice, and certainly no part of it that I should say whether I took advice or not,’ replied Maria discreetly; and then her desire to break from the engagement making her bold, she added, ‘But, you know, if you do not like the test, or consider it in any way unfair, I do not press you to accept it. You will meet with no reproach from me if you renounce it.’
‘Oh dear no! I have no such wish,’ the prince hastened to reply. ‘The dress woven of the stars of heaven will be here by to-morrow morning, and you have only to be ready by the same time to name what is the second test you propose.’
Maria hastened back to her teacher to recount the story of the morning’s work; to tell of the moment of hope she had had that the prince would renounce the attempt, and then his final acceptance of the undertaking. ‘Dear teacher mine! Cannot you think of something else so very, very difficult I can give him to do to-morrow that he may be obliged to refuse it?’
‘To-morrow I would have you ask him for a dress woven of moonbeams,’ replied the teacher; ‘which will be very difficult to supply; but I fear he will yet find the means of accomplishing it.’
The next morning the dress woven of the stars of heaven was brought in by six pages, and it was all they could do to carry it, for the dazzling of the rays of the stars in their eyes. When the dress of moonbeams was asked for, the prince showed little less impatience than at the first request, but yet undertook to supply it, and reminded Maria that the next day she must be ready with her third test.
Once more Maria had recourse to her sage teacher’s counsels, and this time was advised to ask for a dress woven of sunbeams.
The next day the dress woven of moonbeams was produced, but it required twelve pages to bring it in, for it was so dazzling they could only hold it for ten minutes at a stretch, and they had to carry it in relays, six at a time. When Maria now asked for the dress woven of sunbeams, the prince grew so angry that she was quite frightened, and at the same time entertained for a moment a confident hope that now, at last, he would own himself baffled. Nevertheless, at the end of a few moments’ hesitation, he pronounced his intention of complying, but added in almost a threatening tone, ‘And remember that when it comes to-morrow morning you will not then have any more ridiculous tests to prefer, but will belong to me for ever, and must be prepared to go away with me in the carriage that will be at the door.’ He turned on his heel as he spoke and stalked away, without saying good-bye, or so much as turning to look at her, or he would have seen she had sunk down on the ground in an agony of despair.
Her father came in and found her thus, and asked her what could possibly put her into such a state on the eve of such a brilliant marriage. Maria threw herself in his arms and told him all her distress, but when it was told it sounded childish and unreasonable.
‘Can anything be more absurd?’ replied the old man. ‘To-morrow I may be dead, and what will become of you? What can you desire more than a husband suited to you in age and person, with every advantage the world can offer? And you would throw all this away for the sake of a foolish fancy you cannot even explain! Dry your tears and do not listen to such fancies any more, and keep your pretty little face in good order for looking as smiling and as pleasing as such a devoted husband deserves you should look on your wedding morning. It is I who have to lament; I who shall be left alone in my old age; but I do not repine, I shall be quite happy for my few remaining days in knowing that you have all the happiness life can afford you;’ and as he spoke he clasped her fondly in his arms.
Maria, reassured by his words, began to think he was in the right, and she was thus as cheerful as he could wish that last night they were to spend together.
But when night came and she found the teacher who understood her so well, waiting to put her to bed for the last time, all her own true feelings came back, and, bursting into tears, she entreated her to find some way of delivering her.
‘The time has come,’ replied the teacher, ‘that I should tell you all. The innocence and truthfulness of your heart guided you right in believing that the prince was no husband for you. You did not, and could not, know who he was; but now I must tell you he is the devil himself. Nay; do not shudder and tremble so; it remains entirely with yourself to decide whether you shall be his or not; he can have no sort of power over any against their will.’
‘But, of course, I will have nothing to do with him,’ replied the child, simply. ‘Why don’t you tell papa, and make him send him away?’
‘Because, for one thing, he would not believe me. As I have said, the prince being what he is can have no power over you against your own will. Your breaking from him must be your own act. Further, you must understand the terms of the struggle. Power is given him to deceive, and thus he has deceived your father. I have been set by your mother to watch over you, and I can tell you what he is, but I have no power to undeceive your father. If I were to attempt it it would do no good, he would not believe me, and it would break his heart to see you renounce so promising an union. On the other hand, you must understand that when the devil wooes a maiden in this form he does not suddenly after appear with horns and hoofs and carry her off to brimstone and fire. For the term of your life he will behave with average kindness and affection, and he will abundantly supply you with the good things of this world. After that I need not say what the effect of his power over you will be. On the other hand, if you give him up you must be prepared to undergo many trials and privations. It is not merely going on with your present life such as it has been up till now. Those peaceful days are allowed for youthful strength to mature, but now the time has come that you have to make a life-choice. What do you say? Have you courage to renounce the ease and enjoyment the prince has to offer you and face poverty, with the want and the insults which come in its train?’
Poor little Maria looked very serious. She had never felt any great attraction for the prince, it is true, but now the question was placed upon a new issue. She had learnt enough about duty and sacrifice, and she had always intended to do right at all costs, but now that the day of trial had come it seemed so different from what she had expected, she knew not what to say.
‘You are tired to-night, my child; and it is late,’ said the teacher. ‘We will say no more till the morning. I will wake you betimes and you shall tell me your mind then.’
In the morning Maria’s mind was made up. She had chosen the good part; but how was she to be delivered from the prince?
‘This is what you will have to do,’ replied the teacher, after commending her good resolution. ‘I have had made ready for you a wooden figure of an old woman, inside which I will stow away all that you have valuable, for it may be of use some day, but especially I will bestow there the dresses woven of the stars of heaven, of moonbeams, and that of sunbeams, which, I doubt not, the prince will bring you, according to promise, in the morning. When you have driven with him in his carriage all day, towards evening you will find yourself in a thick wood. Say to him you are tired with sitting in the carriage all day, and ask to be allowed to walk a little way in the wood before sundown. I, meantime, will place ready my wooden figure of an old woman, which you will find there, and, watching for a moment when he has his head turned, place yourself inside the figure and walk away. There is another thing which you must do, which is very important. When the ring was lost, you must know it was he who took it, and, though he kept it studiously concealed all the while he was in your father’s palace, he will now carry it boldly slung on the feather in his cap; this you must find means of possessing yourself of during the journey, because it is essential to you that you should have it in your own hands. And fear nothing either, in making your escape, for the ring is your own property, which he has falsely taken; and, in leaving him, remember he can have no power over you against your will. I may not inform you what may befall you in your new character as poor Maria Wood, but be good and courageous; always, as now, choose the right bravely in all questions and doubts, and you shall not go unrewarded.’
There was little time for leave-taking between the good teacher and her affectionate pupil, for the prince almost immediately after came to claim his bride, and all the neighbours and friends came, too, to the festivities. The dress woven of sunbeams was brought by four-and-twenty pages, for it was so dazzling they could not hold it for more than five minutes at a time, and they had to carry it by relays.
At last leave-takings and festivities were over, and, amid the good-wishes and blessings of all, Maria drove away in the prince’s carriage. On they drove all day, and towards the end of it, as it was getting dark, Maria contrived to twitch the ring from the prince’s cap without his being aware of it; presently after she exclaimed, ‘Oh dear! how cramped I feel from sitting all day in this carriage; cannot I walk a little way in this wood before it gets dark?’
‘Most certainly you can, if you wish,’ replied the prince, who, having everything his own way, was in a very accommodating humour.
When they had walked a little way down the forest-path, Maria espied the wooden form she was to assume, placed ready under a tree.
‘That old woman will have a longish way to go to get a night’s shelter, I fancy,’ exclaimed the prince, with a laugh which made Maria shudder, both from its heartlessness and also because it reminded her that she would soon find herself alone, far from shelter, in that dark wood. But was it not better to be alone in the dark than in such company as that she was about to leave, she said to herself. Then she turned once more to look at it. The figure looked so natural she could not forbear saying mechanically, ‘Poor old woman! give me a little coin to bestow on her that she may wish us Godspeed on our night-journey.’
‘Nonsense!’ replied the prince. ‘Never let me hear you talk such idle stuff. And, come, it is time to go back into the carriage; it is getting quite dark.’
‘Oh! what a beautiful firefly!’ exclaimed Maria, reminded by the speech to hasten her separation from her uncongenial companion, ‘Oh, do catch it for me!’
The prince lifted his cap, and ran a few steps after the insect. ‘Oh, I see another, and I shall catch it before you catch yours—you’ll see!’ So saying, she darted towards the tree where the wooden figure stood ready, and placing herself inside, walked slowly and freely along, counterfeiting the gait of an aged and weary woman.
The prince had soon caught the firefly and was bringing it back in triumph, when, to his dismay, Maria was nowhere to be seen. He ran this way and that, called and shouted in vain. The servants with the carriage were too far off to have seen anything; there was no witness to appeal to but the old woman.
‘Which way did the young lady run who was walking with me just now?’ he eagerly inquired.
‘Down that path there to the right, as fast as the firefly itself could fly, and if she comes back as quickly as she went she will be back presently,’ replied Maria Wood, feigning the voice of an old woman.
The prince ran in the direction indicated, and was soon himself lost in the mazes of the forest, where he wandered hopelessly all night; and only when the morning light came was he able to make his way back to his carriage, and drive home ashamed and crestfallen, giving up his conquest in despair, and vowing useless vengeance against the fairy godmother, whose intervention he now recognised it was had baffled him.
Maria meantime walked steadily and fearlessly along, guided by the stars which peeped here and there through the tall trees. Nor was shelter so far off as the prince had said. Before very long a party of charcoal-burners hailed her, and offered a share of such poor hospitality as they could command. It was very different from the comforts of her father’s house; but Maria took it as the first instalment of the hardships she had accepted.
Maria’s wooden form was very skilfully made; the limbs had supple joints, which could be moved by the person inside just like those of a living being; and the clothes the teacher had provided being just like those of the country people about, no one entertained the least suspicion that Maria Wood, as she had now become, was anything different from themselves.
The charcoal-burners were kind, simple people, and, finding Maria willing to assist them in their labours to the extent of her powers, proposed to her to stay and cast in her lot with them as long as the season for their work lasted; and she did their hard work and shared their poor fare with never a word of complaint.
At last, one day, when she was on I know not what errand, at some distance from the encampment, the young king of the country, who had lately been called to the throne, came through the forest hunting, with a large retinue of followers. Crash, crash, like thunder, went the brushwood as the wild boar trampled it down, and the eager dogs bounded after him with lightning speed. They passed close to Maria, who was as much alarmed as if she had really been the old woman she seemed to be: but when she saw the riders bearing down upon her, their horses’ hoofs tearing up the soil, and the branches everywhere giving way before their impetuosity, her heart failed her entirely, and she swooned away upon the grass. The king, however, was the only one whose course passed over the spot where she was, and he only perceived her in time to rein up his mount just before it might have trampled on her.
‘See here to this old body, whom we have nearly frightened to death,’ he cried; and the huntsmen came and lifted her up.
‘Some of you carry her home to the palace, that she may be attended to,’ said the king further; and they carried her home to the palace, and laid her on a bed, and restored her senses.
When the king came home from the hunt, he would go himself to see how it had fared with her; and when he found her almost restored he asked her whither she would wish to be sent.
‘Little it matters to me where I go,’ replied Maria Wood, in the saddened voice of grief-stricken age; ‘for home and kindred have I none. Little it matters where I lay my weary bones to rest.’
When the king heard her speak thus he compassionated her, and inquired if there was any service in the household that could be offered her.
‘Please your Majesty, there is not much strength in her for work,’ replied the steward; ‘but, if such is your royal will, she can be set to help the scullions in the kitchen.’
‘Will that suit you, old dame?’ inquired the king. ‘They shall not ask too much of you, and a good table and warm shelter shall never be wanting.’
‘All thanks to your Majesty’s bounty. My heart could desire nothing more than to live thus under the shadow of your Majesty,’ replied Maria, making a humble obeisance.
And thus Maria, from a princess, became a servant of servants.
‘What’s the use of giving us such a cranky old piece as that for a help?’ said the scullion to the turnspit, as Maria was introduced to her new quarters.
‘Why, as to that, as she has taken the service she must do it, cranky or not cranky,’ answered the turnspit.
‘Aye, I dare say we shall be able to get it out of her one way or another,’ replied the scullion.
And they did get it out of her; and Maria had more put upon her, and less of kind words and scarcely better food than with the charcoal-burners. But she took it all in silence and patience, and no complaint passed her lips. She had no fixed duties, but one called her here and another there; she was at everyone’s bidding, but she did her best to content them all.
Then came the Carneval; and on the last three days every servant had license to don a domino and dance at the king’s ball. What an opportunity for Maria Wood! After serving in her unbecoming disguise with so much endurance and perseverance for now a full year, here was one day on which she might wear a becoming dress, and enjoy herself according to the measure of her age and sex, and due position in the world.
All the household, all royal as it was, was in a hubbub of confusion. No one was at work—no one at his post; and there was no one to notice that Maria Wood was absent, like the rest.
Locking herself into the loft which served her for a sleeping-place, Maria not only came out of her wooden disguise, but took out of it the garment woven of the stars of heaven—a most convenient dress for the occasion. At a masqued ball no one can recognise anybody else, except by a guess suggested by familiar characteristics which the domino fails to disguise. But no one at the king’s court was familiar with the characteristics of Maria Wood; and wherever she passed the whole company was in an excitement to know whose was the elegant figure shrouded in such a marvellous costume. But there was so much majesty in her air, that no one durst ask her to dance or so much as approach her.
Only the king himself felt conscious of the right to offer to lead her to the dance; and she, who had not forgotten how handsome he was, and how kind he had been on the night that his huntsmen had nearly frightened her to death in the forest, right willingly accepted the favour. But even he was so awed by her grace and dignity, that, charmed as he was with her conversation, and burning to know her style and title, he yet could not frame the question that would ascertain whence she had come.
Very early in the evening, while the other masquers reckoned the amusement was only beginning, Maria, with characteristic moderation, chose an opportunity for withdrawing unperceived from the ballroom.
It will readily be imagined that the next night every one was full of curiosity, and the king most of all, to know whether the lady in the starry dress would appear again; and the more that, though everybody had been talking of her to the exclusion of everyone else the whole intervening day through, no one could offer a satisfactory conjecture as to who she could possibly be.
While all eyes were full of expectation, accordingly, the second evening, suddenly and unannounced there appeared in their midst a form, graceful and mobile like hers they had so much admired, but draped in a still more dazzling dress (for Maria this night wore her garment woven of moonbeams); and it was only the king who had the certainty that it was really the same person.
‘Why did you take away all the light of our ball so early last night?’ inquired the king, as they were dancing together.
‘I have to be up early, and so I must go to bed early,’ replied Maria.
‘And what can a sylph-like creature like you have to get up early in the morning for? You are only fit to lie on a bed of roses, with nightingales to sing to you,’ pursued the king.
‘My occupations are very different, I can assure your Majesty,’ said Maria, with a hearty laugh.
‘What can those occupations possibly be?’ inquired the king eagerly; ‘I am dying to know.’
‘Oh, fie! You must not ask a domino such a direct question as that; it is as bad as asking her name, and that is against all rules. But see, the dancers await your Majesty; we are putting them all out.’
Thus she put him off, and she fenced so well that he succeeded no better in searching out the mystery in all his subsequent attempts. Though he had determined, too, never to leave her side all the evening, that he might certainly observe which way she went, she was so alert that she defeated his plans. Kings have a certain etiquette to observe, even at a Carneval ball; and while social exigencies demanded that he should bestow a salute on one and another of the distinguished personages present, Maria contrived to gather her shining raiment round her so as to invert its dazzling folds, and glide away unperceived.
The king was beside himself with vexation when he found she was gone; nor could he sleep all the succeeding night, or rather those hours which must be stolen out of the day to make a night of when the real night has been spent in revels. One thought occupied him, which was that the succeeding night was the last in which he could expect to have the chance of obtaining an explanation from his fair partner of the dance. The next day began the gloom of Lent, and she would disappear from his sight forever. He arranged in his head a dozen forms of conversation by which to entrap her into some admission by which he could find out who she could possibly be; he determined to be more vigilant than ever in observing her movements; and, to provide against every possible chance of failure, he stationed guards at every exit of the ballroom, with strict orders to follow her when she passed.
In the midst of the ball on the third night Maria entered more radiant than ever, having on her dress woven of sunbeams. The masquers put their hands up to shade their eyes as she passed, and the chandeliers and torches were paled by its brilliance. The king was at her side immediately, but though he put in requisition all the devices he had prepared, Maria succeeded in evading them all, and the evening passed away without his being a bit wiser about how to see more of her than he had been at the beginning. The only thing that gave him a little hope that she did not mean absolutely to abandon him, was that in the course of the evening she took out a ring, which she told him had never fitted anyone yet, and begged him, as a matter of curiosity, to try it on his hand; and then when it strangely happened that it fitted him perfectly, she could not altogether conceal the pleasure it seemed to give her. Nevertheless, she put up the ring again, and would give no further explanation about it any more than about herself.
By-and-by, choosing her moment as dexterously as before, she made her escape without exciting the king’s attention. The guards, however, were all expectation, and notwithstanding that she had taken the precaution of turning the sunbeams inwards, they recognised her, and followed softly after her as they had been bidden. Maria, however, did not fail to perceive they were following her, and, to divert their attention, took off a string of precious pearls she wore round her throat, and, unthreading them on the ground, escaped swiftly to her loft while the guards were occupied in gathering up the treasure.
The king was disconsolate beyond measure when he found that all his schemes were foiled, and that his radiant maiden had passed away like the rays in which she was clothed, leaving only darkness and weariness for him. So disconsolate he grew that nothing could distract him. He would no more occupy himself with the affairs of the state, still less with any minor occupations. He could not bear the light of the sun because its beams reminded him of his loss, and he dreaded similarly the sight of the moon or the stars, but, shut up in a dark room almost hopeless, he wept the weary days away.
So remarkable a change in the habits of the young king became the subject of general comment, and could not fail to reach the ears of even so insignificant a menial as Maria. She, indeed, had every reason to hear of it, for scarcely could the afflicted king be induced to take the simplest food, and the attendants of the kitchen were reduced to complete inactivity. Maria was no longer called hither and thither at everyone’s pleasure, and as long as this inactivity lasted she knew the king was still of the same mind about herself. But at last the talk of the kitchen took a more alarming character; it was reported that physicians had been called in, and had pronounced that unless means were found to distract him his state of despondency would prove fatal, but that nothing which had been tried had the least effect in rousing him from his melancholy.
Meantime Lent was passing away and Easter was close at hand. Maria thought she might now be satisfied with his constancy, and determined to take the step which she had good reason to believe would restore all his vigour.
Accordingly, while the cooks and scullions were all dispersed about one thing and another, she went into the kitchen and made a cake, into which she put the ring, and took it up herself to the queen-mother. It was not very easy for such a haggard old woman to obtain admission to the private apartments, but when she declared she had come about a remedy for the king, she was made welcome. Having thus obtained the ear of the queen-mother, she assured her, with many protestations, that if the king could he made to eat the whole of the cake, without giving the least piece of it to anyone, he would be immediately cured. But that if he gave away the least piece the virtue might be lost. This was lest he should thus give away the ring to anyone. The ladies waiting on the queen laughed at the old woman’s pretensions, and would have driven her away with contumely, but the queen said: ‘Nay, who knows but there may be healing in it. Experience often teaches the old remedies which science has failed to discover.’
Then she dismissed Maria with a present, and took the cake in to the king, trying to amuse him with the old woman’s story; but the king refused to be amused, and let the cake be. Only as he took no notice of what food he ate, and they gave him this cake for all his meals, he took it as he would have taken anything else that had been set before him. When he cut it, his knife struck against something hard, and when he had pulled this out, he found it was the very ring his sylphlike partner had given him the night she wore the dress woven of sunbeams.
At the sight he started like one waking from a trance.
‘How came this ring here?’ he exclaimed; and the queen-mother, who had stood by to see the effect of the remedy, replied,
‘A certain old woman, whom you befriended in the forest and told the servants to shelter in the palace, brought me the cake, saying it would prove a remedy for your melancholy, which she had prepared out of gratitude.’
‘Let her be called instantly hither,’ then said the king; and they went to fetch Maria Wood; but Maria could nowhere be found.
The king was at this announcement very nearly relapsing into his former condition; but the idea came to his mind to find something out by means of the ring itself. Therefore he summoned together all the goldsmiths, and refiners, and alchemists of his kingdom, and bid them tell him the history of the ring.
At the end of seven days’ trial the oldest of the alchemists brought it back to the king and said:
‘We find, O King, that this ring is made of gold which comes from afar. Moreover, that the workmanship is such as is only produced in the kingdoms of the West, and the characters on it pronounce that its owner is a princess of high degree, whose dominions exceed greatly those of the King’s Majesty in magnitude.’
The king now ordered a more urgent search to be made for Maria Wood, as the only clue by which to reach the fair owner of the ring; and Maria, having heard by report of the alchemists’ announcement, thought it was time to let herself be known. Habiting herself, therefore, in becoming attire, with jewels befitting her rank, with all of which the fairy had amply provided her, she entered for the last time her wooden covering, and went up to the king in answer to his summons.
‘Come hither, good woman,’ said the king encouragingly; ‘you have indeed done me good service in sending me this ring, and have repaid a hundredfold the little favour I bestowed on you in taking you into the palace. If, now, you will further bring me hither her to whom this ring belongs, or take me where I may find her, you shall not only live in the palace, but shall live there in royal state and luxury, and whatsoever more you may desire.’
At these words Maria stepped out of her wooden case, and stood before the king in all her youthful beauty, telling him all her story.
The proofs that supported it were sufficient to silence every doubt; and when the people were called together to celebrate her marriage with the king, the whole nation hailed her accession as their queen with the greatest delight.
Soon after, the royal pair went to visit Maria’s father, who had the joy of knowing that his child was really well established in life. They stayed with him till he died; and then his dominions were added to those of the king, Maria’s husband. Maria did not forget to inquire for her good mistress, but she had long ago gone back to Fairyland.
SECOND VERSION.
Another version of this, differing in many details, was given me in the following form. The former was from Loreto; this, from Rome itself.
They say, there was a king, whose wife, when she came to die, said to him,
‘When I am dead, you will want to marry again; but take my advice: marry no woman but her whose foot my shoe fits.’
But this she said because the shoe was under a spell, and would fit no one whom he could marry.
The king, however, caused the shoe to be tried on all manner of women; and when the answer always was that it would fit none of them, he grew quite bewildered and strange in his mind.
After some years had passed, his young daughter, having grown up to girl’s estate, came to him one day, saying,
‘Oh, papa; only think! Mamma’s shoe just fits me!’
‘Does it!’ replied the simple king; ‘then I must marry you.’
‘Oh, that cannot be, papa,’ said the girl, and ran away.
But the simple king was so possessed with the idea that he must marry the woman whom his wife’s shoe fitted, that he sent for her every day and said the same thing. But the queen had not said that he should marry the woman whom her shoe fitted, but that he should not marry any whom it did not fit.
When the princess found that he persevered in his silly caprice, she said at last,
‘Papa, if I am to do what you say, you must do something for me first.’
‘Agreed, my child,’ replied the king; ‘you have only to speak.’
‘Then, before I marry,’ said the girl, ‘I want a lot of things, but I will begin with one at a time. First, I want a dress of the colour of a beautiful noontide sky, but all covered with stars, like the sky at midnight, and furnished with a parure to suit it.’[3]
Such a dress the king had made and brought to her.
‘Next,’ said the princess, ‘I want a dress of the colour of the sea, all covered with golden fishes, with a fitting parure.’
Such a dress the king had made, and brought to her.
‘Next,’ said the princess, ‘I want a dress of a dark blue, all covered with gold embroidery and spangled with silver bells, and with a parure to match.’
Such a dress the king had made and brought to her.
‘These are all very good,’ said the princess; ‘but now you must send for the most cunning artificer in your whole kingdom, and let him make me a figure of an old woman[4] just like life, fitted with all sorts of springs to make it move and walk when one gets inside it, just like a real woman.’
Such a figure the king had made, and brought it to the princess.
‘That is just the sort of figure I wanted,’ said she; ‘and now I don’t want anything more.’
And the simple king went away quite happy.
As soon as she was alone, however, the princess packed all the three dresses and many of her other dresses, and all her jewellery and a large sum of money, inside the figure of the old woman, and then she got into it and walked away. No one seeing an old woman walking out of the palace thought she had anything to do with the princess, and thus she got far away without anyone thinking of stopping her.
On, on, on, she wandered till she came to the palace of a great king, and just at the time that the king’s son was coming in from hunting.
‘Have you a place in all this fine palace to take in a poor old body?’ whined the princess inside the figure of the old woman.
‘No, no! get out of the way! How dare you come in the way of the prince!’ said the servants, and drove her away.
But the prince took compassion on her, and called her to him.
‘What’s your name, good woman?’ said the prince.
‘Maria Wood is my name, your Highness,’ replied the princess.
‘And what can you do, since you ask for a place?’
‘Oh, I can do many things. First, I understand all about poultry, and then——’
‘That’ll do,’ replied the prince; ‘take her, and let her be the henwife,[5] and let her have food and lodging, and all she wants.’
So they gave her a little hut on the borders of the forest, and set her to tend the poultry.
But the prince as he went out hunting often passed by her hut, and when she saw him pass she never failed to come out and salute him, and now and then he would stop his horse and spend a few moments in gossip with her.
Before long it was Carneval time; and as the prince came by Maria Wood came out and wished him a ‘good Carneval.’[6] The prince stopped his horse and said, his young head full of the pleasure he expected,
‘To-morrow, you know, we have the first day of the feast.’
‘To be sure I know it; and how I should like to be there: won’t you take me?’ answered Maria Wood.
‘You shameless old woman,’ replied the prince, ‘to think of your wanting to go to a festino[7] at your time of life!’ and he gave her a cut with his whip.
The next day Maria put on her dress of the colour of the noontide sky, covered with stars like the sky at midnight, with the parure made to wear with it, and came to the feast. Every lady made place before her dazzling appearance, and the prince alone dared to ask her to dance. With her he danced all the evening, and fairly fell in love with her,[8] nor could he leave her side; and as they sat together, he took the ring off his own finger and put it on to her hand. She appeared equally satisfied with his attentions, and seemed to desire no other partner. Only when he tried to gather from her whence she was, she would only say she came from the country of Whipblow,[9] which set the prince wondering very much, as he had never heard of such a country. At the end of the ball, the prince sent his attendants to watch her that he might learn where she lived, but she disappeared so swiftly it was impossible for them to tell what had become of her.
When the prince came by Maria Wood’s hut next day, she did not fail to wish him again a ‘good Carneval.’
‘To-morrow we have the second festino, you know,’ said the prince.
‘Well I know it,’ replied Maria Wood; ‘shouldn’t I like to go! Won’t you take me?’
‘You contemptible old woman to talk in that way!’ exclaimed the prince. ‘You ought to know better!’ and he struck her with his boot.
Next night Maria put on her dress of the colour of the sea, covered all over with gold fishes, and the parure made to wear with it, and went to the feast. The prince recognised her at once, and claimed her for his partner all the evening, nor did she seem to wish for any other, only when he tried to learn from her whence she was, she would only say she came from the country of Bootkick.[10] The prince could not remember ever to have heard of the Bootkick country, and thought she meant to laugh at him; however, he ordered his attendants to make more haste this night in following her; but what diligence soever they used she was too swift for them.
The next time the prince came by Maria Wood’s hut, she did not fail to wish him again a ‘good Carneval.’
‘To-morrow we have the last festino!’ exclaimed he, with a touch of sadness, for he remembered it was the last of the happy evenings that he could feel sure of seeing his fair unknown.
‘Ah! you must take me. But, what’ll you say if I come to it in spite of you?’ answered Maria Wood.
‘You incorrigible old woman!’ exclaimed the prince; ‘you provoke me so with your nonsense, I really cannot keep my hand off you;’ and he gave her a slap.
The next night Maria Wood put on her dress of a dark blue, all covered with gold embroidery and spangled with silver bells, and the parure made to wear with it. The prince constituted her his partner for the evening as before, nor did she seem to wish for any other, only when he wanted to learn from her whence she was, all she would say was that she came from Slapland.[11] This night the prince told his servants to make more haste in following her, or he would discharge them all. But they answered, ‘It is useless to attempt the thing, as no mortal can equal her in swiftness.’
After this, the prince fell ill of his disappointment, because he saw no hope of hearing any more of the fair domino with whom he had spent three happy evenings, nor could any doctor find any remedy for his sickness.
Then Maria Wood sent him word, saying, ‘Though the prince’s physicians cannot help him, yet let him but take a cup of broth of my making, and he will immediately be healed.’
‘Nonsense! how can a cup of broth, or how can any medicament, help me!’ exclaimed the prince. ‘There is no cure for my ailment.’
Again Maria Wood sent the same message; but the prince said angrily,
‘Tell the silly old thing to hold her tongue; she doesn’t know what she’s talking about.’
But again, the third time, Maria Wood sent to him, saying, ‘Let the prince but take a cup of broth of my making, and he will immediately be healed.’
By this time the prince was so weary that he did not take the trouble to refuse. The servants finding him so depressed began to fear that he was sinking, and they called to Maria Wood to make her broth, because, though they had little faith in her promise, they knew not what else to try. So Maria Wood made ready the cup of broth she had promised, and they put it down beside the prince.
Presently the whole palace was roused; the prince had started up in bed, and was shouting,
‘Bring hither Maria Wood! Quick! Bring hither Maria Wood!’
So they ran and fetched Maria Wood, wondering what could have happened to bring about so great a change in the prince. But the truth was, that Maria had put into the cup of broth the ring the prince had put on her finger the first night of the feast, and when he began to take the broth he found the ring with the spoon. When he saw the ring, he knew at once that Maria Wood could tell where to find his fair partner.
‘Wait a bit! there’s plenty of time!’ said Maria, when the servant came to fetch her in all haste; and she waited to put on her dress of the colour of the noontide sky.
The prince was beside himself for joy when he saw her, and would have the betrothal celebrated that very day.
THIRD VERSION.
In another version, on the princess refusing to do what the king wishes, he sends his servants to take her to a high tower he has out in the Campagna, and bids them carry her to the top and drop her down.
They take her there; but have not the heart to throw her down. In a corner of the upper story of the tower they see a large case or press.
‘Suppose we shut her up in this great press, and leave her in the middle of the open Campagna, a long way off, to the providence of God? It will be better than killing her,’ says one of them.
‘We have nothing against the plan,’ answered the others; ‘provided we take her so far that she cannot possibly come back to our king’s country.’
So they locked her up in the great box, and carried the box a long, long way out in the open Campagna, and left it there to the providence of God.
The poor princess was very glad to have escaped death; but she felt very desolate in the box. As she was wondering what would happen to her, she was suddenly frightened by a great barking of dogs round the box. A king’s son had come by hunting, and his dogs had smelt human blood in the box.
‘Call the dogs off, and let’s see what’s in the box,’ said the prince.
So they opened the box; and when they saw the princess inside, they saw she was no common maiden, for she had a stomacher and earrings of brilliants. So they brought her to the prince, and she pleased him, and he married her.
[This way of introducing the box incident is more like Straparola’s, and again connects this group with the former one in which I have had occasion to mention it.]
[2] This is one of the very rare instances in which the Devil appears in Roman stories in this kind of character, so common in Northern popular tales. [↑]
[3] ‘Colle gioie compagne.’ [↑]
[6] A ‘buon carnevale’ chiefly implies the wish that the person to whom it is addressed should have good success with partners at the balls, &c. [↑]
[7] A ‘festino’ is the common name for a public masqued ball commencing at midnight. There are three principal ones in the Roman Carneval; in other parts of Italy, where the Carneval is longer, there are probably more. It is also called ‘Veglione,’ because it keeps people awake at a time when they ought to be in bed. [↑]
[8] ‘How quick princes always were in falling in love in those days!’ was the running comment of the narrator. [↑]
[9] To understand the implied satire of this word it is necessary to observe that ‘Frusta’ is a whip; the princess therefore says she came from ‘Frustinaia,’ Whip-blow. [↑]
[10] ‘Stivale,’ a boot. As the prince had struck her with his boot, she says she comes from ‘Stivalaia,’ Boot-kick. [↑]
[11] ‘Schiaffaia’ from schiaffa, a slap. The prince had given her a slap, so she says she comes from Slap-land. [↑]
LA CANDELIERA.[1]
They say there was once a king who wanted to make his beautiful young daughter marry an old, ugly king. Every time the king talked to his daughter about this marriage, she cried and begged him to spare her; but he only went on urging her the more, till at last she feared he would command her to consent, so that she might not disobey; therefore at last she said: ‘Before I marry this ugly old king to please you, you must do something to please me.’
‘Oh, anything you like I will do,’ replied he.
‘Then you must order for me,’ she replied, ‘a splendid candelabrum, ten feet high, having a thick stem bigger than a man, and covered all over with all kinds of ornaments and devices in gold.’
‘That shall be done,’ said the king; and he sent for the chief goldsmith of the court, and told him to make such a candelabrum; and, as he was very desirous that the marriage should be celebrated without delay, he urged him to make the candelabrum with all despatch.
In a very short space of time the goldsmith brought home the candelabrum, made according to the princess’s description, and the king ordered it to be taken into his daughter’s apartment. The princess expressed herself quite pleased with it, and the king was satisfied that the marriage would now shortly take place.
Late in the evening, however, the princess called her chamberlain to her, and said to him: ‘This great awkward candlestick is not the sort of thing I wanted; it does not please me at all. To-morrow morning you may take it and sell it, for I cannot bear the sight of it. You may keep the price it sells for, whatever it is; but you had better take it away early, before my father gets up.’
The chamberlain was very pleased to get so great a perquisite, and got up very early to carry it away. The princess, however, had got up earlier, and had placed herself inside the candlestick; so that she was carried out of the palace by the chamberlain, and thus she escaped the marriage she dreaded so much with the ugly old king.
The chamberlain, judging that the king would be very angry if he heard of his selling the splendid candelabrum he had just had made, did not venture to expose it for sale within the borders of his dominions, but carried it to the capital of the neighbouring sovereign. Here he set it up in the market-place, and cried, ‘Who’ll buy my candelabrum? Who’ll buy my fine candelabrum?’ When all the people saw what a costly candelabrum it was, no one would offer for it. At last it got bruited about till it reached the ears of the son of the king of that country, that there was a man standing in the market-place, offering to sell the most splendid candelabrum that ever was seen; so he went out to look at it himself.
No sooner had the prince seen it than he determined that he must have it; so he bought it for the price of three hundred scudi, and sent his servants to take it up into his apartment. After that, he went about his affairs as usual. In the evening, however, he said to his body-servant, ‘As I am going to the play to-night, and shall be home late, take my supper up into my own room.’ And the servant did as he told him.
When the prince came home from the play, he was very much surprised to find his supper eaten and all the dishes and glasses disarranged.
‘What is the meaning of this?’ he exclaimed, calling his servant to him in a great fury. ‘Is this the way you prepare supper for me?’
‘I don’t know what to say, your Royal Highness,’ stammered the man; ‘I saw the supper properly laid myself. How it got into this condition is more than I can say. With the leave of your Highness, I will order the table to be relaid.’
But the prince was too angry to allow anything of the sort, and he went supperless to bed.
The next night the same thing happened, and the prince in his displeasure threatened to discharge his servant. The night after, however, his curiosity being greatly excited as he thought over the circumstance, he called his servant, and said: ‘Lay the supper before I go out, and I will lock the room and take the key in my pocket, and we will see if anyone gets in then.’
But, though this is what he said outloud, he determined to stay hidden within the room; and this is what he did. He had not remained there hidden very long when, lo and behold, the candelabrum, on which he had never bestowed a thought since the moment he bought it, opened, and there walked out the most beautiful princess he had ever seen, who sat down at the table, and began to sup with hearty appetite.
‘Welcome, welcome, fair princess!’ exclaimed the astonished prince. ‘You have heard me from within your hiding-place speaking with indignation because my meal had been disturbed. How little did I imagine such an honour had been done me as that it should have served you!’ And he sat down beside her, and they finished the meal together. When it was over, the princess went away into her candelabrum again; and the next night the prince said to his servant: ‘In case anyone eats my supper while I am out, you had better bring up a double portion.’ The next day he had not his supper only, but all his meals, brought into his apartment; nor did he ever leave it at all now, so happy was he in the society of the princess.
Then the king and queen began to question about him, saying: ‘What has bereft our son of his senses, seeing that now he no more follows the due occupations of his years, but sits all day apart in his room?’
Then they called him to them and said: ‘It is not well that you should sit thus all day long in your private apartments alone. It is time that you should bethink yourself of taking a wife.’
But the prince answered, ‘No other wife will I have but the candelabrum.’
When his parents heard him say this they said: ‘Now there is no doubt that he is mad;’ and they spoke no more about his marrying.
But one day, the queen-mother coming into his apartment suddenly, found the door of the candelabrum open, and the princess sitting talking with the prince. Then she, too, was struck with her beauty, and said: ‘If this is what you were thinking of when you said you would marry the candelabrum, it was well judged.’ And she took the princess by the hand and led her to the presence of the king. The king, too, praised her beauty, and she was given to the prince to be his wife.
And the king her father, when he heard of the alliance, he too was right glad, and said he esteemed it far above that of the ugly old king he wanted her to have married at the first.
[The mode of telling adopted by Roman narrators makes a way out of the difficulty which this group of stories presents at first sight in the king seeming to be fated by supernatural appointment to marry his daughter. One says, ‘the queen did not say he was to marry her the ring fitted, but he was not to marry any it did not fit.’ The other says, the slipper was a supernatural slipper, and would not fit anyone whom he could marry. Whether this was a part of the traditional story or the gloss of the repeater, I do not pretend to decide. In the ‘Candeliera,’ though similar in the main, this difficulty does not arise.
My Roman narrators seem to have been fonder of stories of maidens than of youths. I have only one of the latter, and by no means an uncommon one, to set off against all the Stepmother stories of the former. It, however, is the male counterpart of a prolific family in which the girls figure under similar circumstances. Grimm gives several, particularly ‘Frau Holle,’ p. 104. Dr. Dasent gives ‘The two Stepsisters.’ In the Tales of Italian Tirol are two, ‘Cölla döllö doi sores’ and ‘Le due sorelle.’ And among the Russian Tales, ‘Frost,’ p. 214. It has also been connected with the large group in which a rich brother (sometimes the elder, sometimes the younger) leaves his poor brother to starve, and ultimately gets terribly punished for enviously grasping at the poor one’s subsequent good fortune: but the structure of these is very different.]
[1] Among the licenses which Italians take with the terminations of their words, not the least is altering the gender. ‘Candeliere’ (masc.), otherwise ‘candelliere,’ is the proper form; and I do not think ‘candeliera’ will be found in any dictionary; but as the story requires the female gender, the word is readily coined. [↑]
THE TWO HUNCHBACKED BROTHERS.[1]
There was once a man who had one son, who married a widow who also had one son, and both were hunchbacks. The wife took very good care of her own son, but the son of her husband she used to put to hard work and gave him scarcely anything to eat. Her son, too, used to imitate his mother, and sadly ill-treat his stepbrother.
After treating him ill for a long time, she at last sent him away from the house altogether.
The poor little hunchback wandered away without knowing where to go.
On, on, on he went, till at last he came to a lonely hut on a wide moor. At his approach a whole host of little hunchbacks came out and danced round him, chanting plaintively—
Sabbato!
Domenica!
a great number of times. At last our little hunchback felt his courage stirred, and, taking up the note of their chant, chimed in with—
Lunedì!
Instantly the dancing ceased, all the little hunchback dwarfs became full-grown, well-formed men, and, what was better still, his own hump was gone too, and he felt that he, too, was a well-grown lad.
‘Good people,’ said our hunchback—now hunchbacked no more—‘I thank you much for ridding me of my hump and making me a well-grown lad. Give me now some work to do among you, and let me live with you.’
But the chief of the strange people answered him and said: ‘This favour we owe to you, not you to us; for it was your chiming in with the right word on the right note which destroyed the spell that held us all. And in testimony of our gratitude we give you further this little wand, and you will not need to work with us. Go back and live at home, and if ever anyone beats you as heretofore, you have only to say to it, “At ’em, good stick!”[2] and you will see what it will do for you.’
Then all disappeared, and the boy went home.
‘So you’ve come back, have you?’ said the stepmother. ‘What, and without your hump, too! Where have you left that?’
Then the good boy told her all that had happened, without hiding anything.
‘Do you hear that?’ said the stepmother to her own son. ‘Now go you and get rid of your hump in the same way.’
So the second hunchback went forth, and journeyed on till he came to the lonely hut on the moor.
A tribe of hunchbacks came out and danced round him, and sung—
Sabbato!
Domenica!
Lunedì!
to which the bad son of the stepmother added in his rough voice, all out of tune—
Martedì!
Immediately all the hunchbacks came round him and gave him a drubbing, and the chief of them stuck on him a hump in front as well as behind.
Thus they sent him home to his mother.
When his mother saw him come home in this plight, she turned upon the stepson and abused him for having misled her son to injure him; and both mother and son set upon him and belaboured him after their wont. But he had only told the truth, without intention to deceive; and the stepmother’s son had incurred the anger of the dwarfs by his discordant addition to their chant. So the first hero took out his wand and said, ‘At ’em, good stick!’ and the wand flew out of his hand and administered on mother and son a sounder drubbing than that they had themselves been administering. Ever after that he was able to live at home in peace, for everyone was afraid to injure him because of the power of his stick.
[Next we have a group where a younger sister of three comes to supernatural good fortune, without any previous envy or ill-treatment on the part of her elders.]
[1] ‘I due Fratelli Gobbi.’ [↑]
[2] ‘Bachettone mena!’ Perhaps the greatest stumbling-block in the way of acquiring familiarity with the art of conversing in Italian is the capricious use of the augmentative and diminutive terminations of words. Scarcely any substantive or adjective comes out of the mouth of an Italian without qualifications of this sort, making the spoken quite different from the written language. A foreigner can never arrive at the right use of these, because they have to be made up at the moment of use, upon no established laws, but entirely by a sort of instinctive perception of fitness. At Note 1 and 3 to ‘Il Poveretto,’ and other places, I have given some specimens of some of the most ordinary of these transformations. In the instance before us, ‘bacchettone,’ from ‘bacchetta,’ a rod, presents two distinct irregularities. The augmentative of a feminine noun never ought strictly to be ‘ona;’ but there are numerous instances, scarcely to be remembered under the largest practice, in which a feminine noun takes a masculine augmentative. ‘Bacchetta’ happens to be one of these. Next, the addition ‘one’ would ordinarily express that the thing to whose designation it was added was particularly big; yet in this instance it is applied to a little wand; it is clear, therefore, that it no longer means ‘big,’ but ‘singular,’ ‘remarkable’ in some way or other; best rendered in English by ‘good stick.’ ‘Menare,’ whence ‘mena,’ is a word of many meanings, which, though they may be all traced to the same original idea, must not be confounded. In common parlance, as in the present case, it means to beat; and ‘menar moglie’ is a common expression too; but it does not mean ‘to beat your wife,’ but ‘to lead home a wife,’ or, as we say, to ‘take a wife.’ The primary meaning is ‘to lead;’ hence, to govern; hence, to govern harshly; hence, to govern with violence; hence, to spite, to beat. One sentence in which it is used recalls a capricious use of our own word ‘to beat.’ ‘Menar’ il cane per l’aja’ (literally, to lead the dog all about the threshing-floor), answers exactly to our expression, ‘to beat about the bush’ in talking. ‘Menare’ and ‘dimenare, la coda,’ is said also of a dog wagging his tail. On the other hand, ‘menare per il naso’ (literally, ‘to lead one by the nose’), has by no means the signification those words bear in English, but implies a roundabout way of giving an account of anything. [↑]
THE DARK KING.[1]
They say there was once a poor chicory-gatherer who went out every day with his wife and his three daughters to gather chicory to sell for salad. Once, at Carneval time, he said, ‘We must gather a fine good lot to-day,’ and they all dispersed themselves about trying to do their best. The youngest daughter thus came to a place apart where the chicory was of a much finer growth than any she had ever seen before. ‘This will be grand!’ she said to herself, as she prepared to pull up the finest plant of it. But what was her surprise when with the plant, up came all the earth round it and a great hole only remained!
When she peeped down into it timidly she was further surprised to find it was no dark cave below as she had apprehended, but a bright apartment handsomely furnished, and a most appetising meal spread out on the table, there was, moreover, a commodious staircase reaching to the soil on which she stood, to descend by.
All fear was quickly overcome by the pleasant sight, and the girl at once prepared to descend, and, as no one appeared, to raise any objection, she sat down quite boldly and partook of the good food. As soon as she had finished eating, the tables were cleared away by invisible hands, and, as she had nothing else to do she wandered about the place looking at everything. After she had passed through several brilliant rooms she came to a passage, out of which led several store-chambers, where was laid up a good supply of everything that could serve in a house. In some there were provisions of all sorts, in some stuffs both for clothes and furniture.
‘There seems to be no one to own all these fine things,’ said the girl. ‘What a boon they would be at home!’ and she put together all that would be most useful to her mother. But what was her dismay when she went back to the dining-hall to find that the staircase by which she had descended was no longer there!
At this sight she sat down and had a good cry, but by-and-by, supper-time came, and with it an excellent supper, served in as mysterious a way as the dinner; and as a good supper was a rare enjoyment for her, she almost forgot her grief while discussing it. After that, invisible hands led her into a bedroom, where she was gently undressed and put to bed without seeing anyone. In the morning she was put in a bath and dressed by invisible hands, but dressed like a princess all in beautiful clothes.
So it all went on for at least three months; every luxury she could wish was provided without stint, but as she never saw anyone she began to get weary, and at last so weary that she could do nothing but cry. At the sound of her crying there came into the room a great black King.[2] Though he was so dark and so big that she was frightened at the sight of him, he spoke very kindly, and asked her why she cried so bitterly, and whether she was not provided with everything she could desire. As she hardly knew herself why she cried, she did not know what to answer him, but only went on whimpering. Then he said, ‘You have not seen half the extent of this palace yet or you would not be so weary; here are the keys of all the locked rooms which you have not been into yet. Amuse yourself as much as you like in going through them; they are all just like your own. Only into the room of which the key is not among these do not try to enter. In all the rest do what you like.’
The next morning she took the keys and went into one of the locked rooms, and there she found so many things to surprise and amuse her that she spent the whole day there, and the next day she examined another, and so on for quite three months together, and the locked room of which she had not the key she never thought of trying to enter. But all amusements tire at last, and at the end of this time she was so melancholy that she could do nothing but cry. Then the Dark King came again and asked her tenderly what she wanted.
‘I want nothing you can give me,’ she replied this time. ‘I am tired of being so long away from home. I want to go back home.’
‘But remember how badly you were clothed, and how poorly you fared,’ replied the Dark King.
‘Ah, I know it is much pleasanter here,’ said the girl, ‘for all those matters, but one cannot do without seeing one’s relations, now and then at least.’
‘If you make such a point of it,’ answered the Dark King, ‘you shall go home and see papa and mamma, but you will come back here. I only let you go on that condition.’
The arrangement was accepted, and next day she was driven home in a fine coach with prancing horses and bright harness. Her appearance at home caused so much astonishment that there was hardly room for pleasure, and even her own mother would hardly acknowledge her; as for her sisters, they were so changed by her altered circumstances and so filled with jealousy they would scarcely speak to her. But when she gave her mother a large pot of gold which the Dark King had given her for the purpose, their hearts were somewhat won back to her, and they began to ask all manner of questions concerning what had befallen her during her absence. So much time had been lost at first, however, that none was left for answering them, and, promising to try and come back to them soon, she drove away in her splendid coach.
Another three months passed away after this, and at the end of it she was once more so weary, her tears and cries again called the Dark King to her side.
Again she confided to him that her great grief was the wish to see her friends at home. She could not bear being so long without them. To content her once more he promised to let her drive home the next day; and the next day accordingly she went home.
This time she met with a better reception, and having brought out her pot of gold at her first arrival, everyone was full of anxiety to know how it came she had such riches at her disposal.
‘What that pot of money!’ replied the girl, in a tone of disparagement. ‘That’s nothing. You should see the beautiful things that are scattered about in my new home, just like nothing at all;’ and then she went on to describe the magnificence of the place, till nothing would satisfy them but that they should go there too.
‘That’s impossible,’ she replied. ‘I promised him not even to mention it.’
‘But if he were got rid of, then we might come,’ replied the elder sisters.
‘What do you mean by “got rid of”?’ asked the youngest.
‘Why, it is evident he is some bad sort of enchanter, whom it would be well to rid the earth of. If you were to take this stiletto and put it into his breast when he is asleep, we might all come down there and be happy together.’
‘Oh, I could never do that!’
‘Ah, you are so selfish you want to keep all for yourself. If you had any spirit in you, you would burst open that locked door where, you may depend the best of the treasure is concealed, and then put this stiletto into the old enchanter, and call us all down to live with you.’
It was in vain she protested she could not be so ungrateful and cruel; they over-persuaded her with their arguments, and frightened her so with their reproaches that she went back resolved to do their bidding.
The next morning she called up all her courage and pushed open the closed door. Inside were a number of beautiful maidens weaving glittering raiment.
‘What are you doing?’ asked the chicory-gatherer.
‘Making raiment for the bride of the Dark King against her espousals,’ replied the maidens.
A little further on was a goldsmith and all his men working at all sorts of splendid ornaments filled with pearls and diamonds and rubies.
‘What are you doing?’ asked the girl.
‘Making ornaments for the bride of the Dark King against her espousals,’ replied the goldsmiths.
A little further on was a little old hunchback sitting crosslegged, and patching an old torn coat with a heap of other worn-out clothes lying about him.
‘What are you doing?’ asked the maiden.
‘Mending the rags for the girl to go away in who was to have been the bride of the Dark King,’ replied the little old hunchback.
Beyond the room where this was going on was a passage, and at the end of this a door, which she also pushed open. It gave entrance to a room where, on a bed, the Dark King lay asleep.
‘This is the time to apply the stiletto my sisters gave me,’ thought the maiden. ‘I shall never have so good a chance again. They said he was a horrid old enchanter; let me see if he looks like one.’
So saying she took one of the tapers from a golden bracket and held it near his face. It was true enough; his skin was black, his hair was grizly and rough, his features crabbed and forbidding.
‘They’re right, there’s no doubt. It were better the earth were rid of him, as they say,’ she said within herself; and, steeling herself with this reflection, she plunged the knife into his breast.
But as she wielded the weapon with the right hand, the left, in which she held the lighted taper, wavered, and some of the scalding wax fell on the forehead of the Dark King. The dropping of the wax[3] woke him; and when he saw the blood flowing from his breast, and perceived what she had done, he said sadly,
‘Why have you done this? I meant well by you and really loved you, and thought if I fulfilled all you desire, you would in time have loved me. But it is over now. You must leave this place, and go back to be again what you were before.’
Then he called servants, and bade them dress her again in her poor chicory-gatherer’s dress, and send her up to earth again; and it was done. But as they were about to lead her away, he said again,
‘Yet one thing I will do. Take these three hairs; and if ever you are in dire distress and peril of life with none to help, burn them, and I will come to deliver you.’
Then they took her back to the dining-hall, where the staircase was seen as at the first, and when they touched the ceiling, it opened, and they pushed her through the opening, and she found herself in the place where she had been picking chicory on the day that she first found the Dark King’s palace.
Only as they were leading her along, she had considered that it might be dangerous for her, a young girl, to be wandering about the face of the country alone, and she had, therefore, begged the servants to give her a man’s clothes instead of her own; and they gave her the worn-out clothes that she had seen the little old hunchback sitting crosslegged to mend.
When she found herself on the chicory-bed it was in the cold of the early morning, and she set off walking towards her parents’ cottage. It was about midday when she arrived, and all the family were taking their meal. Poor as it was, it looked very tempting to her who had tasted nothing all the morning.
‘Who are you?’ cried the mother, as she came up to the door.
‘I’m your own child, your youngest daughter. Don’t you know me?’ cried the forlorn girl in alarm.
‘A likely joke!’ laughed out the mother; ‘my daughter comes to see me in a gilded coach with prancing horses!’
‘Had you asked for a bit of bread in the honest character of a beggar,’ pursued the father, ‘poor as I am, I would never have refused your weary, woebegone looks; but to attempt to deceive with such a falsehood is not to be tolerated;’ and he rose up, and drove the poor child away.
Protests were vain, for no one recognised her under her disguise.
Mournful and hopeless, she wandered away. On, on, on, she went, till at last she came to a palace in a great city, and in the stables were a number of grooms and their helpers rubbing down horses.
‘Wouldn’t there be a place for me among all these boys?’ asked the little chicory-gatherer, plaintively. ‘I, too, could learn to rub down a horse if you taught me.’
‘Well, you don’t look hardly strong enough to rub down a horse, my lad,’ answered the head-groom; ‘but you seem a civil-spoken sort of chap, so you may come in; I dare say we can find some sort of work for you.’
So she went into the stable-yard, and helped the grooms of the palace.
But every day the queen stood at a window of the palace where she could watch the fair stable-boy, and at last she sent and called the head-groom, and said to him, ‘What are you doing with that new boy in the stable-yard?’
The head-groom said, ‘Please your Majesty he came and begged for work, and we took him to help.’
Then the queen said, ‘He is not fit for that sort of work, send him to me.’
So the chicory-gatherer was sent up to the queen, and the queen gave her the post of master of the palace, and appointed a fine suite of apartments and a dress becoming the rank, and was never happy unless she had this new master of the palace with her.
Now the king was gone to the wars, and had been a long time absent. One day the queen said to the master of the palace that very likely the king would not come back, so that it would be better they should marry.
Then the poor chicory-gatherer was sadly afraid that if the queen discovered that she was a woman she would lose her fine place at the palace, and become a poor beggar again without a home; so she said nothing of this, but only reasoned with the queen that it was better to wait and see if the king did not come home. But as she continued saying this, and at the same time never showed any wish that the king might not come back, or that the marriage might take place, the queen grew sorely offended, and swore she would be avenged.
Not long after, the king really did come back, covered with glory, from the wars. Now was the time for the queen to take her revenge.
Choosing her opportunity, therefore, at the moment when the king was rejoicing that he had been permitted to come back to her again, with hypocritical tears she said,
‘It is no small mercy, indeed, that your Majesty has found me again here as I am, for it had well-nigh been a very different case.’
The king was instantly filled with burning indignation, and asked her further what her words meant.
‘They mean,’ replied the queen, ‘that the master of the palace, on whom I had bestowed the office only because he seemed so simple, as you too must say he looks, presumed on my favour, and would have me marry him, urging that peradventure the king, who had been so long absent at the wars, might never return.’
The king started to his feet at the words, placing his hand upon his sword in token of his wrath; but the queen went on:
‘And when he found that I would not listen to his suit, he dared to assume a tone of command, and would have compelled me to consent; so that I had to call forth all my courage, and determination, and dignity, to keep him back; and had the King’s Majesty not been directed back to the palace as soon as he was, who knows where it might have ended!’
It needed no more. The king ordered the master of the palace to be instantly thrown into prison, and appointed the next day for him to be beheaded.
The chicory-gatherer was ready enough now to protest that she was a woman. But it helped nothing; they only laughed. And who could stand against the word of the queen?
Next day, accordingly, the scaffold was raised, and the master of the palace was brought forth to be beheaded, the king and the queen, and all the court, being present.
When the chicory-gatherer, therefore, found herself in dire need and peril of life, she took out one of the hairs the Dark King had given her, and burnt it in the flame of a torch. Instantly there was a distant roaring sound as of a tramp of troops and the roll of drums. Everyone started at the sound, and the executioner stayed his hand.
Then the maiden burnt the second hair, and instantly a vast army surrounded the whole place; round the palace they marched and up to the scaffold, and so to the very throne of the king. The king had now something to think of besides giving the signal for the execution, and the headsman stayed his hand.
Then the maiden burnt the third hair, and instantly the Dark King himself appeared upon the scene, clothed in shining armour, and fearful in majesty and might. And he said to the king,
‘Who are you that you have given over my wife to the executioner?’
And the king said,
‘Who is thy wife that I should give her to the executioner?’
The Dark King, taking the master of the palace by the hand, said,
‘This is my wife. Touch her who dares!’
Then the king knew that it had been true when the master of the palace had alleged that she was not guilty of the charge the queen had brought against her, being a woman; and seeing clearly what had been the malice of the queen, he ordered the executioner to behead her instead, but the chicory-gatherer he gave up to the Dark King.
Then the Dark King said to the chicory-gatherer,
‘I came at your bidding to defend you, and I said you were my wife to save your life; but whether you will be my wife or not depends on you. It is for you to say whether you will or not.’
Then the maiden answered,
‘You have been all goodness to me; ungrateful indeed should I be did I not, as I now do, say “yes.”’
As soon as she said ‘yes,’ the earth shook, and she was no longer standing on a scaffold, but before an altar in a splendid cathedral, surrounded by a populous and flourishing city. By her side stood the Black King, but black no longer. He was now a most beautiful prince; for with all his kingdom he had been under enchantment, and the condition of his release had been that a fair maiden should give her free consent to marry him.[4]
[2] ‘Moro’ does not necessarily mean a Moor, it is continually used for any dark-complexioned person; also commonly for dark or black, as a pet name for a black dog, &c. [↑]
[4] The narrator ended this story with the following stanza:—
Si faceva le nozze
Con pane e tozze,
E polla vermiciosa,
E viva la sposa!
This is one of those rough verses with which such stories abound, and they have been rendered rougher than they originally were by substituting words which serve to retain the jingle after those conveying the sense are forgotten, like many of our own nursery-rhymes. The literal rendering of this one would be, ‘So the marriage was celebrated with bread and hunches of bread, and a chicken stuffed with vermicelli. Long live the bride!’ ‘Vermiciosa’ is not a dictionary word; ‘vermicoloso’ is the nearest, and probably a corruption of the same. Of course, primarily it means ‘full of worms;’ but as all the forms of words compounded out of the diminutive of ‘verme,’ a worm, may be applied to the fine kind of maccaroni which bears the same name, I am more inclined to think a fowl stuffed or served up with maccaroni is meant here—if it have any meaning at all beyond the purpose of a rhyme—rather than ‘a wormy fowl,’ the literal interpretation.
I have met this same ‘tag’ again and again in the mouths of various narrators at the end of stories which end in a marriage. Another such, familiarly used by every Roman narrator, is:—
‘Stretta la foglia,
Larga la via (often, ‘Stretta la via’),
Dite la vostra, Larga la foglia,
Ch’ ho detto la mia.’
(‘Narrow the leaf, broad the way. Tell me your tale, for I’ve told you mine.’) Perhaps originally it was ‘Larga la voglia’ (my willingness is ample, but my means of amusing you are restricted). [↑]
MONSU MOSTRO.[1]
There was a father who had three daughters, and when all trades failed, he said he would go and gather chicory, and called his daughters to go with him. But it was a wet day, and they begged to be left at home; so he went alone.
He went out into the fields till he came to a place where was the biggest plant of chicory that ever was seen. ‘That will do for me,’ he said, and began to pull it up. Up it came by the root and left a hole in the ground, and a voice came up through the hole, and said, ‘Who’s there?’
‘Friends!’[2] answered the chicory-gatherer; and then One sprang up through the hole on to the ground. This was Monsu Mostro. The poor man was rather frightened at his aspect, but he dared say nothing.
‘Come along with me,’ said Monsu Mostro and the poor man followed till they came to a palace in the Campagna, where he gave him a horse to ride home upon and a heap of money. ‘I give you all this,’ said Monsu Mostro; ‘but you must give me one of your daughters in return.’ The poor man was too frightened to refuse, so he said he would.
When he came home all his three daughters came jumping round him with delight at seeing him come home riding on horseback. ‘Papa! papa![3] where have you been?’ And when they saw what a lot of money he had brought home, their questions increased tenfold. But, in spite of his riches, the chicory-gatherer did not seem in good spirits. He did not know how to announce that he had to take one of his daughters to Monsu Mostro, and so he was very slow at answering their inquiries. It was not till next morning that he made up his mind to break this dreadful matter; and then, when the time had come for him to go forth, and there was no putting it off any longer, he made a great effort and said at last, ‘I have found a husband for one of you; which shall it be?’
‘Not I!’ said the eldest; ‘I’m not going to marry a husband whom I haven’t seen. Oibo!’
‘Not I!’ said the second. ‘I’m not going to marry a husband whom I haven’t seen. Oibo!’
‘Take me, papa! take me! I’ll go!’ said the youngest. So the father remounted the horse, and put her behind him. Thus they arrived at the palace of Monsu Mostro, and knocked.
‘Who’s there?’ said a voice within.
‘Friends!’ answered the father; and they were shown in.
‘Here’s my daughter, as I promised,’ said the father.
‘All right!’ said Monsu Mostro; and, giving him another large sum of money, sent him away.
When the father was gone, he said to the girl, ‘I’m not going to marry you as your father thought. I want you to do the service of the house. But mind when there is anyone here you always call me “papa.”’
The girl promised to do as she was bid, and soon after there was a knock at the door, and some hunters who had got belated in the Campagna came to seek hospitality.
‘Let them in, set supper before them; and give them a change of clothes,’ said Monsu Mostro; and the girl did as she was bid. While they were at supper one of the huntsmen kept looking at her, for she was a beautiful girl, and afterwards he asked her if she would marry him, for he was the king’s son. ‘Oh, shouldn’t I like it!’ said the girl, ‘but you must ask papa.’ The prince asked Monsu Mostro, and as he made no objection, he went and fetched a great cortège, and took her to the palace to marry her. As she was going away Monsu Mostro gave her a comb, wrapped up in paper, and said, ‘Take care of this, and don’t forget you have got it.’ The girl was too full of her happiness to pay much heed, but she put it in her bosom and went away.
As she drove along, a pair of horns like a cow’s began to grow on her head, and they had already attained a considerable size before she arrived at the royal palace. The queen was horrified at her appearance, and refused to let her come in. ‘How can it possibly be that such a beautiful girl should have all of a sudden got a pair of horns?’ said the prince. But it was no use saying anything, for there were the horns, and the queen was determined that she should not be admitted into the royal palace.
The prince was very much distressed, and would on no account let her be turned adrift as the queen wished, but sent her to a house in the Campagna, where he sent a servant every day to ask how she was, and to take her some present, but also to observe if the horns had not perchance gone away as suddenly as they had come. But, instead of going away, they went on growing every day bigger.
In the meantime the queen sent a servant out with three little puppy-dogs in a basket, saying that whoever trained them best should marry the prince. One of these the servant brought to her, and the two others to two other girls, who were princesses, either of whom the queen would have preferred her son should marry.
‘Train puppy-dogs!’ said each of the other two girls. ‘I know nothing about training puppy-dogs! What can I do with them!’ and they let them get into all manner of bad habits.
But she put hers in a basket and went back to the palace of Monsu Mostro, and knocked.
‘Who’s there?’ said Monsu Mostro.
‘It’s I!’[4] answered she; and then she told him all that had befallen her, and showed him the puppy-dog in the basket. He looked at it for a moment, but would not let her in, and only cried out, ‘Go along! you ugly horned thing!’[5]
She went away crying; but having lifted up the cloth and peeped at the puppy-dog, she felt reassured, and sent it back by a servant to the queen.
When the queen uncovered the basket a beautiful little dog sprang out all of solid gold, yet it leaped about and performed all manner of tricks just as if it had been a real dog.
The prince was triumphant when he saw that her dog was so much better than the other two; but the queen was indignant, and said, ‘It is no dog at all, that gold thing!’ and she would not allow that the girl had won the trial.
After that the queen sent a servant out with three pounds of flax, and said that whoever could spin it best should marry the prince.
‘What do I know about spinning!’ said each of the other two; and they let the flax lie without touching it.
But she took hers in a basket and went to the palace of Monsu Mostro, and knocked.
‘Who’s there?’ asked he.
‘It’s I!’ she replied in her doleful voice, and told him her new difficulty. Monsu Mostro looked at the flax, but refused to admit her, and saying, ‘Away with you, you horned wretch!’ shut the door against her.
This basket, too, she sent by a servant to the queen, and when the queen opened it she found it full of gold thread.
‘You must allow she has done better than the others this time!’ said the prince.
‘No! it is as bad as before,’ answered the queen; ‘it is not natural! It won’t do for me!’
‘After that the queen sent out a notice that whichever of them had her hair growing down to her heels should marry the prince.
‘My hair does not reach down to my waist,’ said each of the other two. ‘How can I make it grow down to my heels?’
But she went to the palace of Monsu Mostro, and knocked.
‘Who’s there?’ asked he.
‘It is I!’ she replied, as dolefully as before, and told him what was required of her now.
‘You see now what it is to have paid no attention to what I told you,’ answered Monsu Mostro. ‘I told you not to forget the comb I gave you. If you had not forgotten that none of this would have happened. That comb is your remedy now;’ and with that he shut the door.
But she went home and combed her hair with the comb he had given her; and not only the horns went away, but her hair grew down quite to her heels and swept the ground. But the other two were jealous when they saw that she had beaten them in all three trials, and they came to her to ask how she made her hair grow, and she sent them to the palace of Monsu Mostro to ask.
But as they only came out of jealousy, he told them to make themselves two pitch nightcaps and sleep in them; and when they got up in the morning, instead of having longer hair, all the hair they had came off.
But she was at length given to the prince, and they were married amid great rejoicing.
[The two preceding stories represent the Roman contribution to the stories of visits to the underground world and the Bluebeard group. I have others (particularly one called ‘Il Cavolo d’ Oro’, the ‘Golden Cabbage’) more like the general run of them. The two I have selected have this difference, that in neither instance does the subterranean ruler represent the Devil. ‘Monsu Mostro,’ is most disinterested in his generosity. As usual with the Roman versions, all that is terrible is eliminated. For other versions, see Ralston, pp. 98–100; and for a somewhat similar story, the ‘Water Snake,’ p. 116. Much in the Norse, ‘East of the Sun and West of the Moon,’ is like the ‘Rè Moro;’ so is ‘The Old Dame and her Hen,’ though the later details of that story are more like the Tirolean version, which I have given in ‘Laxehale’s Wives,’ in ‘Household Stories from the Land of Hofer.’ The German version given as ‘Fitchers Vogel,’ Grimm, p. 177, has more of the horrid element than any of the others. In the version of ‘Tündér Ilona’ given in Graf Mailath’s ‘Magyarische Sagen’ (a rather different version from that told me at Pesth, which I have given at p. 20–1), Prince Argilus loses his bride and her kingdom, and has to begin all his labours over again, through looking into a closed chamber which Tündér Ilona had bid him not to open in her absence. But heroic action abounds in the Hungarian tales, just as it is wanting in the Roman ones, and in this, and in many details, particularly in the enthusiasm for magic horses, they are singularly like the Gaelic.
The ‘Rè Moro’ is perhaps nearer ‘Beauty and the Beast’ than ‘Bluebeard.’ I had a version of this given me in the following form, under the title of ‘The Enchanted Rose-Tree.’
[1] At what period the title of honour of ‘Monsu’ got appended to the monster’s name is more than I can fix. [↑]
[2] ‘Chi è?’ ‘amicè.’ See note 3, p. 187. [↑]
[3] The reader will bear in mind, in this and other places, that ‘papa’ and ‘mama’ are vernacular for ‘father’ and ‘mother’ among children of the lowest classes in Italy. [↑]
[4] ‘Son’ io.’ I have generally found these stories told with a great deal of effect, especially to suit the tone to the dialogues. It was particularly the case with this one, e.g. the ‘son’ io’ was said in the lamentable tone of a person wearied with fatigue and disappointment.’ [↑]
[5] ‘Vatene, brutta cornuda!’ [↑]
THE ENCHANTED ROSE-TREE.[1]
They say there was once a merchant who, when he was going out to buy rare merchandise, asked his daughter what rich present he should bring home to her. She, however, would hear of nothing but only a simple rose-tree.
‘That,’ said her father, ‘is too easy. However, as you are bent on having a rose-tree, you shall have the most beautiful rose-tree I can find in all my travels.’
In all his travels, however, he met with no rose-tree that he deemed choice enough. But one day, when he was walking outside the walls of his own city, he came to a garden which he had never observed before, filled with all manner of beautiful flowers.
‘This is a wonderful garden indeed,’ said the merchant to himself; ‘I never saw it before, and yet these luxuriant plants seem to have many years’ growth in them. There must be something wonderful about them, so this is just the place to look for my daughter’s rose-tree.’ In he went therefore to look for the rose-tree.
In the midst of the garden was a casino, the door of which stood open; when he went in he found a banquet spread with the choicest dishes; and though he saw no one, a kind voice invited him to sit down and enjoy himself. So he sat down to the banquet, and very much he did enjoy himself, for there was everything he could desire.[2]
When he had well eaten and drunk, he bethought him to go out again into the garden and seek a choice rose-tree.
‘As the banquet was free,’ he thought to himself, ‘I suppose the flowers are free too.’
So he selected what seemed to him the choicest rose of all; while it had petals of the richest red in the world, within it was all shining gold, and the leaves too were overlaid with shining gold. This rose-tree, therefore, he proceeded to root up.
A peal of thunder attended the attempt, and with a noise of rushing winds and waters a hideous monster[3] suddenly appeared before him.
‘How dare you root up my rose-trees?’ said the monster; ‘was it not enough that I gave you my best hospitality freely? Must you also rob me of my flowers, which are as my life to me? Now you must die!’
The merchant excused himself as best he could, saying it was the very freedom of the hospitality which had emboldened him to take the rose, and that he had only ventured to take it because he had promised the prettiest rose-tree he could find to his daughter.
‘Your daughter, say you?’ replied the monster. ‘If there is a daughter in the case perhaps I may forgive you; but only on condition that you bring her hither to me within three days’ time.’
The father went home sad at heart, but within three days he kept his promise of taking his daughter to the garden. The monster received them very kindly, and gave them the casino to live in, where they were well fed and lodged. At the end of eight days, however, a voice came to the father and told him he must depart; and when he hesitated to leave his daughter alone he was taken by invisible agency and turned out of the garden.
The monster now often came and talked to the daughter, and he was so gentle and so kind that she began quite to like him. One day she asked him to let her go home and see her friends, and he, who refused her nothing, let her go; but begged her to promise solemnly she would come back at the end of eight days, ‘for if you are away longer than that,’ he added, ‘I know I shall die of despair.’ Then he gave her a mirror into which she could look and see how he was.
Thus she went home, and the time passed quickly away, and eight days were gone and she had not thought of returning. Then by accident the mirror came under her hand, and, looking into it, she saw the monster stretched on the ground as if at the point of death. The sight filled her with compunction, and she hurried back with her best speed.
Arrived at the garden, she found the monster just as she had seen him in the mirror. At sight of her he revived, and soon became so much better that she was much touched when she saw how deeply he cared for her.
‘And were you really so bad only because I went away?’ she asked.
‘No, not only because you went away, for it was right you should go and see your parents; but because I began to fear you would never come back, and if you had never come back I should quite have died.’
‘And now you are all right again?’
‘Yes, now you are here I am quite happy; that is, I should be quite happy if you would promise always to remain and never go away any more.’
Then when she saw how earnest and sincere he was in wishing her to stay, she gave her consent never to leave him more.
No sooner had she spoken the promise than in the twinkling of an eye all was changed. The monster became a handsome prince, the casino a palace, the garden a flourishing country, and each several rose-tree a city. For the prince had been enchanted by an enemy, and had to remain transformed as a monster till he should be redeemed by the love of a maiden.
[The three brothers who occupy so large a space in the household tales of other countries, do not seem to be popular favourites in Rome. I have come across them but seldom. There are plenty of them in the ‘Norse Tales,’ under the name of ‘Boots’ for the unexpectedly doughty brother. The Spanish romance I have given as ‘Simple Johnny and the Spell-bound Princesses,’ in ‘Patrañas,’ makes him a knight. In the Siddhi Kür story of ‘How the Schimnu Khan was Slain,’ it is three hired companions (as in some other versions), who betray the hero; and in all but this (which is its link with the usual Three-brother stories), it is a remarkably close repetition of the details of another Spanish romance, which I have given as ‘The Ill-tempered Princess,’ and this, in its turn, is like the Tirolean ‘Laxhale’s Wives’ and the Roman ‘Diavolo che prese moglie.’ Compare, further, a number of instances collected by Mr. Ralston, pp. 72–80, and 260–7. In many parts of Tirol you meet a Three-brother story different from any of these. Three brothers go out to hunt chamois on a Sunday morning, and get so excited with the sport that they make themselves too late to hear Mass, and get turned into stone, or some other dreadful punishment. The younger brother, who has all along urged them to go down, but has been overruled by the others, is involved in the same punishment. There are three peaks on the Knie Pass, leading from Tirol to Salzburg, called ‘The Three Brothers,’ from such a legend.]
[2] According to the narrator, there was a dish of ‘pasta’ heaped up like a mountain; and ‘souplis di riso con rigaglie’ and ‘capone con contorni,’ and several kinds of wine. I give this description verbally, as it was given to me, as characteristic of the local colouring such legends receive. The dishes named are the favourites of the Roman middle class. ‘Pasta’ is the Roman equivalent for the ‘maccaroni’ of the Neapolitan. ‘Rigaglie’ is the liver, &c., of poultry minced, to put into the fried balls of rice. ‘Contorni’ means something more than ‘garnish,’ being something put round the dish, not merely for ornament, but more or less substantial, to be eaten with it, as sausages round a turkey. [↑]
[3] The word used in this place was ‘mostro,’ not ‘orco,’ marking a distinct idea in the tradition, where it is the Principle of Evil himself who is intended, and where, an unfortunate mortal subjected by malice to his influence. [↑]
SCIOCCOLONE.[1]
Once upon a time there were three brothers, who were woodmen; their employment was not one which required great skill, and they were none of them very clever, but the youngest was the least brilliant of all. So simple was he that all the neighbours, and his very brothers—albeit they were not so very superior in intelligence themselves—gave him the nickname of ‘Scioccolone,’ the great simpleton, and accordingly Scioccolone he was called wherever he went.
Every day these three brothers went out into the woods to their work, and every evening they all came home, each staggering under his load of wood, which he carried to the dealer who paid them for their toil: thus one day of labour passed away just like another in all respects. So it went on for years.
Nevertheless, one day came at last which was not at all like the others, and if all days were like it the world would be quite upside down, or be at least a very different world from what it is. Oimè! that such days never occur now at all! Basta, this is what happened. It was in the noontide heat of a very hot day, the three simple brothers committed the imprudence of going out of the shelter of the woods into the wold beyond, and there, lying on the grass in the severest blaze of the burning sun, they saw three beautiful peasant girls lying fast asleep.
‘Only look at those silly girls sleeping in the full blaze of the sun!’ cried the eldest brother.
‘They’ll get bad in their heads in this heat,’ said the second.
But Scioccolone said: ‘Shall we not get some sticks and boughs, and make a little shed to shelter them?’
‘Just like one of Scioccolone’s fine ideas!’ laughed the eldest brother scornfully.
‘Well done, Scioccolone! That’s the best thing you’ve thought of this long while. And who will build a shed over us while we’re building a shed for the girls, I should like to know?’ said the second.
But Scioccolone said: ‘We can’t leave them there like that; they will be burnt to death. If you won’t help me I must build the shed alone.’
‘A wise resolve, and worthy of Scioccolone!’ scoffed the eldest brother.
‘Good-bye, Scioccolone!’ cried the second, as the two elder brothers walked away together. ‘Good-bye for ever! I don’t expect ever to see you alive again, of course.’
And they never did see him again, but what it was that happened to him you shall hear.
Without waiting to find a retort to his brothers’ gibes, Scioccolone set to work to fell four stout young saplings, and to set them up as supports of his shed in four holes he had previously scooped with the aid of his bill-hook; then he rammed them in with wedges, which he also had to cut and shape. After this he cut four large bushy branches, which he tied to the uprights with the cord he used for tying up his faggots of logs; and as the shade of these was scarcely close enough to keep out all the fierce rays of the sun, he went back to the wood and collected all the large broad leaves he could find, and came back and spread them out over his leafy roof. All this was very hard labour indeed when performed under the dreaded sun, and just in the hours when men do no work; yet so beautiful were the three maidens that, when at last he had completed his task, he could not tear himself away from them to go and seek repose in the shade of the wood, but he must needs continue standing in the full sun gazing at them open-mouthed.
At last the three beautiful maidens awoke, and when they saw what a fragrant shade had refreshed their slumbers they began pouring out their gratitude to their devoted benefactor.
Do not run at hasty conclusions, however, and imagine that of course the three beautiful maidens fell in love on the spot with Scioccolone, and he had only to pick and choose which of them he would have to make him happy as his wife. A very proper ending, you say, for a fairy tale. It was not so, however. Scioccolone looked anything but attractive just then. His meaningless features and uncouth, clownish gait were never at any time likely to inspire the fair maidens with sudden affection; but just then, after his running hither and thither, his felling, digging, and hammering in the heat of the day, his face had acquired a tint which made it look rougher and redder and more repulsive than anyone ever wore before.
Besides this, the three maidens were fairies, who had taken the form[2] of beautiful peasant girls for some reason of their own.
But neither did they leave his good deed unrewarded. By no means. Each of the three declared she would give him such a precious gift that he should own to his last hour that they were not ungrateful. So they sat and thought what great gift they could think of which should be calculated to make him very happy indeed.
At last the first of the three got up and exclaimed that she had thought of her gift, and she did not think anyone could give him a greater one; for she would promise him he should one day be a king.
Wasn’t that a fine gift!
Scioccolone, however, did not think so. The idea of his being a king! Simple as he was, he could see the incongruity of the idea, and the embarrassment of the situation. How should he the poor clown, everybody’s laughingstock, become a king? and if he did, kingship had no attractions for him.
He was too kind-hearted, however, to say anything in disparagement of the well-meant promise, and too straightforward to assume a show of gratitude he did not feel; so after the first little burst of hilarity which he was not sufficiently master of himself to suppress, he remained standing open-mouthed after his awkward manner.
Then the second fairy addressed him and said:—
‘I see you don’t quite like my sister’s gift; but you may be sure she would not have promised it if it had not been a good gift, after you have been so kind to us; and when it comes true, it will somehow all turn out very nice and right. But now, meantime, that I may not similarly disappoint you with my gift by choosing it for you, I shall let you choose it for yourself; so say, what shall it be?’
Scioccolone was almost as much embarrassed with the second fairy’s permission of choosing for himself as he had been with the first fairy’s choice for him. First he grinned, and then he twisted his great awkward mouth about, and then he grinned again, till, at last, ashamed of keeping the fairies waiting so long for his answer, he said, with another grin:—
‘Well, to tell you what I should really like, it would be that when I have finished making up my faggot of logs this evening, instead of having to stagger home carrying it, it should roll along by itself, and then I get astride of it, and that it should carry me.’
‘That would be fine!’ he added, and he grinned again as he thought of the fun it would be to be carried home by the load of logs instead of carrying the load as he had been wont.
‘Certainly! That wish is granted,’ replied the second fairy readily. ‘You will find it all happen just as you have described.’
Then the third fairy came forward and said:—
‘And now choose; what shall my gift be? You have only to ask for whatever you like and you shall have it.’
Such a heap of wishes rose up in Scioccolone’s imagination at this announcement, that he could not make up his mind which to select; as fast as he fixed on one thing, he remembered it would be incomplete without some other gift, and as he went on trying to find some one wish that should be as comprehensive as possible, he suddenly blurted out—
‘Promise me that whatever I wish may come true; that’ll be the best gift; and so if I forget a thing one moment I can wish for it the next. That’ll be the best gift to be sure!’
‘Granted!’ said the third fairy. ‘You have only to wish for anything and you will find you get it immediately, whatever it is.’
The fairies then took leave and went their way, and Scioccolone was reminded by the lengthening shades that it was time he betook himself to complete his day’s work. Scarcely succeeding in collecting his thoughts, so dazzled and bewildered was he by the late supernatural conversation, he yet found his way back to the spot where he had been felling wood.
‘Oh, dear! how tired I am!’ he said within himself as he walked along. ‘How I wish the wood was all felled and the faggots tied up!’ and though he said this mechanically as he might have said it any other day of his life, without thinking of the fairy’s promise, which was, indeed, too vast for him to put it consciously to such a practical test then, full of astonishment as he was, yet when he got back to his working-place the wood was felled and laid in order, and tied into a faggot in the best manner.
‘Well to be sure!’ soliloquised Scioccolone. ‘The girls have kept their promise indeed! This is just exactly what I wished. And now, let’s see what else did I wish? Oh, yes; that if I got astride on the faggot it should roll along by itself and carry me with it; let’s see if that’ll come true too!’
With that he got astride on the faggot, and sure enough the faggot moved on all by itself, and carried Scioccolone along with it pleasantly enough.
Only there was one thing Scioccolone had forgotten to ask for, and that was power to guide the faggot; and now, though it took a direction quite contrary to that of his homeward way, he had no means of inducing it to change its tack. After some time spent in fruitless efforts in schooling his unruly mount, Scioccolone began to reason with himself.
‘After all, it does not much matter about going home. I only get laughed at and called “Scioccolone.” Maybe in some other place they may be better, and as the faggot is acting under the orders of my benefactress, it will doubtless all be for the best.’
So he committed himself to the faggot to take him wherever it would. On went the faggot surely and steadily, as if quite conscious where it had to go; and thus, before nightfall, it came to a great city where were many people, who all came out to see the wonder of the faggot of logs moving along by itself, and a man riding on it.
In this city was a king, who lived in a palace with an only daughter. Now this daughter had never been known to laugh. What pains soever the king her father took to divert her were all unavailing; nothing brought a smile to her lips.
Now, however, when all the people ran to the windows to see a man riding on a faggot, the king’s daughter ran to look out too; and when she saw the faggot moving by itself, and the uncouth figure of Scioccolone sitting on it, and heard all the people laughing at the sight, then the king’s daughter laughed too; laughed for the first time in her life.
But Scioccolone passing under the palace, heard her clear and merry laugh resounding above the laughter of all the people, he looked up and saw her, and when he saw her looking so bright and fair he said within himself:—
‘Now, if ever the fairy’s power of wishing is to be of use to me, I wish that I might have a little son, and that the beautiful princess should be the mother.’ But he did not think of wishing to stop there that he might look at her, so the faggot carried him past the palace and past all the houses into the outskirts of the city, till he got tired and weary, and just then passing a wood merchant’s yard, the thought rose to his lips,—
‘I wish that wood merchant would buy this faggot of me!’
Immediately the wood merchant came out and offered to buy the faggot, and as it was such a wonderful faggot, that he thought Scioccolone would never consent to sell it, he offered him such a high price that Scioccolone had enough to live on like a prince for a year.
After a time there was again a great stir in the city, everyone was abroad in the streets whispering and consulting. To the king’s daughter was born a little son, and no one knew who the father was, not even the princess herself. Then the king sent for all the men in the city, and brought them to the infant, and said, ‘Is this your father?’ but the babe said ‘No!’ to them all.
Last of all, Scioccolone was brought, and when the king took him up to the babe and said, ‘Is this your father?’ the babe rose joyfully from its cradle and said, ‘Yes; that is my father!’ When the king heard this and saw what a rough ugly clown Scioccolone was, he was very angry with his daughter, and said she must marry him and go away for ever from the palace. It was all in vain that the princess protested she had never seen him but for one moment from the top of the palace. The babe protested quite positively that he was his father; so the king had them married, and sent them away from the palace for ever; and the babe was right, for though Scioccolone and the princess had never met, Scioccolone had wished that he might have a son, of whom she should be the mother, and by the power of the spell[3] the child was born.
Scioccolone was only too delighted with the king’s angry decree. He felt quite out of place in the palace, and was glad enough to be sent away from it. All he wanted was to have such a beautiful wife, and he willingly obeyed the king’s command to take her away, a long, long way off.
The princess, however, was quite of a different mind. She could not cease from crying, because she was given to such an uncouth, clownish husband that no tidy peasant wench would have married.
When, therefore, Scioccolone saw his beautiful bride so unhappy and distressed, he grew distressed himself; and in his distress he remembered once more the promise of the fairy, that whatever he wished he might have, and he began wishing away at once. First he wished for a pleasant villa,[4] prettily laid-out, and planted, and walled; then, a casino[5] in the midst of it, prettily furnished, and having plenty of pastimes and diversions; then, for a farm, well-stocked with beasts for all kinds of uses; for carriages and servants, for fruits and flowers, and all that can make life pleasant. And when he found that with all these things the princess did not seem much happier than before, he bethought himself of wishing that he might be furnished with a handsome person, polished manners, and an educated mind, altogether such as the princess wished. All his wishes were fulfilled, and the princess now loved him very much, and they lived very happily together.
After they had been living thus some time, it happened one day that the king, going out hunting, observed this pleasant villa on the wold, where heretofore all had been bare, unplanted, and unbuilt.
‘How is this!’ cried the king; and he drew rein, and went into the villa intending to inquire how the change had come about.
Scioccolone came out to meet him, not only so transformed that the king never recognised him, but so distinguished by courtesy and urbanity, that the king himself felt ashamed to question him as to how the villa had grown up so suddenly. He accepted his invitation to come and rest in the casino, however; and there they fell to conversing on a variety of subjects, till the king was so struck with the sagacity and prudence of Scioccolone’s talk, that when he rose to take leave, he said:
‘Such a man as you I have long sought to succeed me in the government of the kingdom. I am growing old and have no children, and you are worthy in all ways to wear the crown. Come up, therefore, if you will, to the palace and live with me, and when I die you shall be king.’
Scioccolone, now no longer feeling himself so ill-adapted to live in a palace, willingly consented, and a few days after, with his wife and his little son, he went up to the palace to live with the king.
But the king’s delight can scarcely be imagined when he found that the wife of the polished stranger was indeed his very own daughter.
After a few years the old king died, and Scioccolone reigned in his stead. And thus the promises of all the three fairies were fulfilled.
[Among the Italian-Tirolese tales is one called ‘I tre pezzi rari’ (The Three Rare Things), which begins just like ‘Scioccolone,’ and then the fairies give the three gifts of a dinner-providing table-cloth, an exhaustless purse, and a resistless cudgel, which we so often meet with, as in Grimm’s ‘Tischchen deck dich,’ p. 142; Campbell’s ‘Three Soldiers,’ i. p. 176–93, who refers to numerous other versions, in which other incidents of the two next succeeding tales occur. The Spanish version I have given by the name of ‘Matanzas’ in ‘Patrañas.’
In the Roman version of the ‘Dodici palmi di naso,’ it is singular that it is the second and not the youngest son who is the hero. There is another Italian-Tirolese story, entitled ‘Il Zufolotta,’ in which only one boy and two fairies are concerned, and they only give him the one gift of the Zufoletto, which, instead of supplying every wish as in ‘Dodici palmi di naso,’ has the power of the Zauberflöte, the pipe of the ‘Pied Piper,’ and kindred instruments in all times and countries, so that, when it has got its possessor into such trouble that he is condemned to be executed, it answers the same end as the cudgel, liberating its master by setting the judge and executioner dancing, instead of by thumping them.]
[1] ‘Sciocco,’ a simpleton; ‘scioccolone,’ a great awkward simpleton. [↑]
[2] Even in this story, where the fairies really are described as fair to see, it will be observed it is only said they had assumed the forms of beautiful girls for one occasion, not that they were necessarily beautiful, like our fairies. [↑]
[3] ‘Fatatura,’ the virtue of enchantment. [↑]
[4] ‘Villa’ is more often used to express a little estate—or, as we should say, the ‘grounds’ on which a country-house stands—than for the house itself, though we have borrowed the word exclusively in the latter sense. [↑]
[5] ‘Casino’ a tasteful little house. [↑]
TWELVE FEET OF NOSE.[1]
There was a poor old father, who was very poor indeed, and very old. When he came to die, he called his three sons round his bed, and said they must summon a notary to make his will. The sons looked at each other, and thought he was doating. He repeated his desire, and then one of them ventured to say:
‘But father, dear, why should we go to the expense of calling in a notary; there is not a single thing on earth you have to leave us!’
But the old man told them again to call a notary, and still they hesitated, because they thought the notary would say they were making game of him.
At last the old man began to get angry when he found they would not do as he said, and, just not to vex him in his last moments, they called the notary, and the notary brought his witnesses.
Then the father was content, and called them all to his bedside.
‘Now, pull out the old case under the bed, and take out what you find there.’
They found an old broken hat, without a brim, a ragged purse that was so worn you could not have trusted any money in its keeping, and a horn.[2]
These three things he bequeathed in due form of law, one to each of his sons; and it was only because they saw that the man was in his death agony that those who were called to act as witnesses could keep from laughing. To the notary, of course, it was all one whether it was an old hat or a new one, his part was the same, and when he had done what was needful, he went his way, and the witnesses went with him; but as they went out, they said one to another:
‘Poor old man! perhaps it is a comfort to him in his last moments to fancy he has got something to leave.’
When they were all gone, as the three sons were standing by, very sad, and looking at each other, not knowing what to make of the strange scene, he called the eldest, to whose portion the hat had fallen, and said:
‘See what I’ve given you.’
‘Why, father!’ answered he, ‘it isn’t even good enough to bind round one’s knee when one goes out hoeing!’
But the father answered:
‘I wouldn’t let you know its value till those people were gone, lest any should take it from you; this is its value, that if you put it on, you can go in to dine at whatever inn you please, or sit down to drink at what wineshop you please, and take what you like and drink what you like, for no one will see you while you have it on.’
Then he called his second son, to whose lot the purse had fallen, and he said:
‘See what I have given you.’
‘Why, father!’ answered the son, ‘it isn’t even good enough to keep a little tobacco in, if I could afford to buy any!’
But the father answered:
‘I wouldn’t tell you its value till those people were gone, lest any should take it from you; but this is its value; if you put your fingers in, you’ll find a scudo there, and after that another, and another, as many as ever you will; there will always be one.’
Then he called his youngest son, and said:
‘See what I have given you.’
And he answered:
‘Yes, father, it’s a very nice horn; and when I am starving hungry I can cheat myself into being content by playing on it.’
‘Silly boy!’ answered the father; ‘that is not its use. I wouldn’t tell you its value while those people were here, lest they should take it from you. Its value is this, that whenever you want anything you have only to sound it, and one will come who will bring whatever you want, be it a dinner, a suit of clothes, a palace, or an army.’
After this the father died, and each found himself well provided with the legacy he had given him.
It happened that one day as the second son[3] was passing under the window of the palace a waiting-maid looked out and said: ‘Can you play at cards?’
‘As well as most,’ answered the youth.
‘Very well, then; come up,’ answered the waiting-maid; ‘for the queen wants some one to play with her.’
Very readily he went up, therefore, and played at cards with the queen, and when he had played all the evening he had lost fifty scudi.
‘Never mind about paying the fifty scudi,’ said the queen, as he rose to leave. ‘We only played to pass away the time, and you don’t look by your dress as if you could afford fifty scudi.’
‘Not at all!’ replied the youth. ‘I will certainly bring the fifty scudi in the morning.’
And in the morning, by putting his fingers fifty times into the ragged purse, he had the required sum, and went back with it to the palace and paid the queen.
The queen was very much astonished that such a shabby-looking fellow should have such command of money, and determined to find out how it was; so she made him stay and dine. After dinner she took him into her private room and said to him:
‘Tell me, how comes it that you, who are but a shabby-looking fellow, have such command of money?’
‘Oh!’ answered he quite unsuspectingly, ‘because my father left me a wonderful purse, in which is always a scudo.’
‘Nonsense!’ answered the queen. ‘That is a very pretty fable, but such purses don’t exist.’
‘Oh, but it is so indeed,’ answered the youth.
‘Quite impossible,’ persisted the queen.
‘But here it is; you can see for yourself!’ pursued the incautious youth, taking it out.
The queen took it from him as if to try its powers, but no sooner was she in possession of it than she called in the guard to turn out a fellow who was trying to rob her, and give him a good beating.
Indignant at such treatment, the youth went to his eldest brother and begged his hat of him that he might, by its means, go and punish the queen.
Putting on the hat he went back to the palace at the hour of dinner and sat down to table. As soon as the queen was served he took her plate and ate up all that was in it one course after another, so that the queen got nothing, and finding it useless to call for more dishes, she gave it up as a bad job, and went into her room. The youth followed her in and demanded the return of his wonderful purse.
‘How can I know it is you if I don’t see you?’ said the queen.
‘Never mind about seeing me. Put the purse out on the table for me and I will take it.’
‘No, I can’t if I don’t see you,’ replied the queen. ‘I can’t believe it is you unless I see you.’
The youth fell into the snare and took off his hat.
‘How did you manage to make yourself invisible?’ asked the queen.
‘Just by putting on this old hat.’
‘I don’t believe that could make you invisible,’ exclaimed the queen. ‘Let me try.’
And she snatched the hat out of his hand and put it on. Of course she was now in turn invisible, and he sought her in vain; but worse than that, she rang the bell for the guard and bid them turn the shabby youth out and give him a bastonata.
Full of fresh indignation he ran to his youngest brother and told him all his story, begging the loan of his horn, that he might punish the queen by its means; and the brother lent it him.
He sounds the horn and One comes.[4]
‘I want an army with cannons to throw down the palace,’ said the youth; and instantly there was a tramp of armed men, and a rumble of artillery waggons.
The queen was sitting at dinner, but when she heard all the noise she came to the window; meantime the soldiers had surrounded the palace and pointed their guns.
‘What’s all this about! What’s the matter!’ cried the queen out of the window.
‘The matter is, that I want my purse and my hat back,’ answered the youth.
‘To be sure! you are right; here they are. I don’t want my palace battered down, so I will give them to you.’
The youth went up to receive them; but when he got upstairs he found the queen sunk half fainting in a chair.
‘Oh! I’m so frightened; I can’t think where I put the things. Only send away that army and I’ll look for them immediately.’
The youth sent away the army, and the queen got up and began looking about for the things.
‘Tell me,’ she said, as she wandered from one cupboard to another, ‘how did you, who are such a shabby-looking fellow, manage to call together such an army?’
‘Because I’ve got this horn,’ answered the youth. ‘And with it I can call up whatever I want, and if you don’t make haste and find the purse and the hat, I’ll call up the army again and batter down the palace in right earnest.’
‘You won’t make me believe that!’ replied the queen. ‘That sorry horn can’t work such wonders as that: let me try.’ And she took the horn out of his hands and sounded it and One appeared. ‘Two stout men!’ she commanded quickly; and when they came she bid them drive the shabby-looking youth out of the palace and give him a bastonata.
He was now quite undone, and was ashamed to go back to his brothers. So he wandered away outside the town. After much walking he came to a vineyard, where he strolled in; and what struck him was, that though it was January, there was a fine fig-tree covered with ripe luscious figs.
‘This is a godsend indeed,’ he said, ‘to a hungry man,’ and he began plucking and eating the figs. Before he had eaten many, however, he found his nose had begun to grow to a terrible size; a foot for every fig.
‘That’ll never do!’ he cried, and left off eating the figs and wandered on. Presently he came to another vineyard, where he also strolled in: there, though it was January, he saw a tree all covered with ripe red cherries. ‘I wonder what calamity will pursue me for eating them,’ he said, as he gathered them. But when he had eaten a good many he perceived that at last his luck had turned, for in proportion as he ate his nose grew less and less, till at last it was just the right size again.
‘Now I know how to punish the queen,’ he said, and he filled a bottle with the juice of the cherries, and went back and gathered a basketful of figs.
These figs he cried under the palace window, and as he had got more dusty and threadbare with his late wanderings no one recognised him. ‘Figs in January! that is a treat!’ and they bought up the whole basketful. Then as they ate, their noses all began to grow, but the queen, as she was very greedy, ate twelve for her share, so that she had twelve feet of nose added to the length of hers. It was so long that it trailed behind her on the ground as she walked along.
Then there was a hue and cry! All the surgeons and physicians in the kingdom were sent for, but could do no good. They were all in despair, when our youth came up disguised as a foreign doctor.
‘Noses! I can heal noses! whoever has got too much nose let him come to me!’
All the inhabitants gathered round him, and the queen called to him loudest of all.
‘The medicine I have to give is necessarily a very strong one to effect so extraordinary a cure; therefore I won’t give it to the queen’s majesty till she has seen it used on all her servants, beginning with the lowest.’
Taking them all in order, beginning with the lowest, he gave a few drops of cherry-juice to each, and all their noses came right.
Last of all the queen remained.
‘The queen can’t be treated like common people,’ he said; ‘she must be treated by herself. I must go into her room with her, and I can cure her with one drop of my cordial.’
‘You think yourself very clever that you talk of curing with one drop of your cordial, but you’re not the only person who can work wonders. I’ve got greater wonders than yours. I’ve got a hat which makes you invisible, a purse that never is empty, and a horn that gives you everything you call for.’
‘Very pretty things to talk about,’ answered the pretended doctor, ‘but such things don’t exist.’
‘Don’t they!’ said the queen. ‘There they are!’
And she laid them all out on the table.
This was enough for him. Taking advantage of the lesson she had given him by her example, he quickly put on the hat, making himself invisible; after that it was easy to snatch up the other things and escape; nor could anyone follow him. He lived very comfortably for the rest of his life, taking a scudo out of his purse for whatever he had to pay, and his brothers likewise got on very well with their legacies, for he restored them as soon as he had rescued them from the queen. But the queen remained for the rest of her life with TWELVE FEET OF NOSE.
[1] ‘Dodici palmi di naso,’ a nose twelve palms long. Twelve palms make a canna and a half, equal to three mètres. [↑]
[2] ‘Ciuffoletto.’ ‘What is a ‘ciuffoletto?’ I asked. ‘Much the same as a fravodo,’ the narrator answered; and I remembered that from another, in another tale, I had made out ‘fravodo’ to be a horn. [↑]
[3] That the second of the three sons should be the hero of the story is, I think, an unusual variation. [↑]
A YARD OF NOSE.[1]
There was once a poor orphan youth left all alone, with no home, and no means of gaining a living, and no place of shelter.
Not knowing what to do he wandered away over the Campagna, straight on; when he had wandered all day and was ready to die of hunger and weariness, he at last saw a fig-tree covered with ripe figs.
‘There’s a godsend!’ said the poor orphan; and he set to upon the figs without ceremony. But, lo! he had scarcely eaten half-a-dozen when his nose began to feel very odd; he put his hand up to it and it felt much bigger than usual; however, he was too hungry to trouble himself about it, and he ate on. As he ate on his nose felt queerer and queerer; he put his hand up and found it was quite a foot[2] long! But he was so hungry he went on eating still, and before he had done he had fully a yard of nose.
‘A pretty thing I have done for myself now! As well might I have died of starvation as make myself such an object as this! Never can I appear among civilised beings again.’ And he laid himself down to sleep, hiding himself in the foliage of the fig-tree lest anybody passing by should see his nose.
In the morning the first thing he thought of when he awoke was his nose; he had no need to put up his hand to feel it for it reached down to his hand, a full yard of it waggling about.
‘There’s no help for it,’ he said. ‘I must keep away from all habitable places, and live as best I may.’
So he wandered on and on over the Campagna away from all habitations, straight on; and when he had wandered all day and was ready to die of hunger and weariness he saw another fig-tree covered with ripe figs.
Right glad he was to see anything in the shape of food. ‘If it had only been anything else in the world but figs!’ he said. ‘If I go on at this rate I shan’t be able to carry my nose along at all! Yet starving is hard, too, and I’m such a figure now, nothing can make me much worse, so here goes!’ and he began eating at the figs without more ado.
As he ate this time, however, his nose, instead of feeling queerer and queerer as it had before, began to feel lighter and lighter.
Less, less, and still less it grew,[3] till at last he had to put his hand up to feel where it was, and by the time he had done eating, it was just its natural size again.
‘Now I know how to make my fortune!’[4] he cried, and he danced for delight.
With a basketful of the figs of the first tree he trudged to the nearest town, still clad in his peasant’s dress, and cried, ‘Fine figs! fine figs! who’ll buy my beautiful ripe figs!’
All the people ran out to see the new fruit-seller, and his figs looked so tempting that plenty of people bought of him. Among the foremost was the host of the inn, with his wife and his buxom daughter, and every one of them, as they ate the figs their noses began to grow and grow till everyone of them had a nose fully a yard long.
Then there was a hue and cry through the whole town, everyone with his yard of nose dangling and waggling, came running out, calling, ‘Ho! Here! Wretch of a fruit-seller!’[5]
But our fruit-seller had had the good sense to foresee the coming storm, and had taken care to get far out of the way of pursuit.
But the next day he dressed himself like a doctor, all in black, with a long false beard, and came to the same town, where he entered the druggist’s[6] shop, and gave himself out for a great doctor.
‘You come in good season!’ said the druggist. ‘A doctor is wanted here just now, if ever one was, for to everyone almost in the town is grown a nose[7] so big! so big! in fact, a full yard of nose! Anyone who could reduce these noses might make a fortune indeed!’
‘Why, that’s just what I excel at of all things. Let me see some of these people,’ answered our pretended doctor.
The druggist looked incredulous at a real remedy turning up so very opportunely; but at the same moment a pretty peasant girl came into the shop to buy some medicine for her mother; that is, she would have been pretty if it had not been for the terrible nose, which made a fright of her. The false doctor was seized with compunction when he saw what a fright his figs had made of this pretty girl, and he took out some figs of the other tree and gave her to eat, and immediately her tremendous nose grew less, and less, and less, and she was a pretty girl again. Of course it need not be said that he did not give her the figs in their natural state and form; he had peeled and pounded, and made them up with other things to disguise them.
The druggist no sooner saw this wonderful cure than he was prompt to publish it, and there was quite a strife who should have the new doctor the first.
It was the innkeeper who succeeded in being the first to possess himself of him. ‘What will you give me for the cure?’ said the strange doctor.
‘Whatever you have the conscience to ask,’ replied the host, panting to be rid of the monstrosity.
‘Four thousand scudi apiece,’ replied the false doctor; and the host, his wife, and his buxom daughter stood in a row waiting to be cured. With the same remedy that had cured the peasant girl he cured the host first, and next his daughter. After he had cured her he said, ‘Instead of the second premium of four thousand scudi, I will take the hand of your daughter, if you like?’
‘Yes, if you wish; it’s a very good idea,’ replied the host.
‘Never, while I live!’ said the wife.
‘Why not? He’s a very good husband!’ said the host.
‘An ugly old travelling doctor, who comes no one knows whence, to marry my daughter indeed!’ said the wife.
‘I’m sure we’re under great obligations to his cleverness,’ said the husband.
‘Then let him be paid his price, and go about his business, and not talk impudence!’ said the wife.
‘But I choose that he shall marry her!’ said the husband.
‘And I choose that he shan’t,’ said the wife; ‘and you’ll find that much stronger.’
Just then a customer came in, and the host had to go and attend upon him, and while he was gone the wife called the servants, and bade them turn the doctor out, and give him a good drubbing into the bargain, saying, ‘I’ll have some other doctor to cure me!’
So he left them, and went on curing people’s noses all day, till he had made a lot of money. Then he went away, but limping all the time from the beating he had received. The next day he came back dressed like a Turk, so that no one would have known him for the same man, and he came back to the same inn, saying he, too, could cure noses.
The mistress of the inn gave him a hearty welcome, as she was very anxious to find another doctor who could cure her nose.
‘My treatment is effectual, but it is rude,’ said the pretended Turk. ‘I don’t know if you’ll like to submit to it.’
‘Oh yes! Anything, whatever it may be, only to be rid of this monstrous nose,’ said the hostess.
‘Then you must come into a room by yourself with me,’ said the pretended Turk; ‘and I have a stick here made out of the root of a particular tree. I must thump you on the back with it, and in proportion as I thump you the nose will draw in. Of course it will hurt very much, and make you cry out, so you must tell your servants and people outside that however much you may call they are not to come in. For if they should come in and interrupt the cure, it would all have to be begun over again, and all you had suffered would go for nothing.’
So the hostess gave strict orders, saying, ‘I am going into this room with the Turk to be cured by him, and however much I may call out, or whatever I may say, mind none of you, on pain of losing your places, open the door, or come near the room.’
Then she took the Turk into a room apart, and shut the door. The Turk no sooner got her alone than he made her lie with her face downwards on a sofa, and then—whack, whack, whack![8] he gave her such a beating that she felt the effects of it to the end of her days.
Of course it was in vain she screamed and roared for help; the servants had had their orders, and none of them durst approach the room. It was only when she had fainted that the Turk left her alone and went his way.
But she never got her nose cured, and he married the pretty peasant girl who was the subject of his first cure.
[The two following stories contain a jumbling mixture of the incidents of the three preceding, set in a different framework; more or less mixed up with those in the stories of other countries mentioned at p. 128. Some of those in ‘The Transformation Donkey’ occur in the Siddhi Kür story of ‘The Gold-spitting Prince,’ in ‘Sagas from the Far East,’ but they are constructed into a quite different tale.]
[1] ‘Mezza canna di Naso,’ half a cane of nose. A cane is the former Roman standard measure, and was exactly equal to two mètres. [↑]
[2] ‘Palmo,’ was the expression used; the Canna was divided into eight palms. [↑]
[3] ‘Calava, calava, calava.’ [↑]
[4] ‘Adesso so’ a cavallo.’ ‘Now I am on the way to fortune.’ [↑]
[5] ‘Quell’ fruttivendolo’; ‘quell’ uomo’! ‘quella donna!’ a vulgar way of calling after people. [↑]
[6] ‘Spezziale,’ a druggist (‘droghiere’ is a grocer). It is the custom in Rome for the doctors of the poor to sit in the druggists’ shops, ready to be called for. [↑]
[8] ‘Pīmperte; Pāmperte! Pūmperte!’ [↑]
THE CHICORY-SELLER AND THE ENCHANTED PRINCESS.[1]
There was a chicory-seller, with a wife and a son, all of them dying of hunger, and sleeping on the floor because they couldn’t afford a bed. Once when they went out in the morning to gather chicory, the son found such a large plant of it, never was such a plant seen, it took them an hour, working at it together, to pull it up, and it filled two great bags. What is more, when they had got it all up, there was a great hole in the ground.
‘What can there be down in that hole?’ said the son. ‘I must go and see!’ In he jumped,[2] and down he went.
Suddenly he found himself in the midst of a splendid palace, and a number of obsequious servants gathered round him. They all bowed to the ground, and said,
‘Your lordship! your lordship!’ and asked him what he ‘pleased to want.’
So there he was, dressed like a clodhopper, and all these servants dressed like princes, bowing and scraping to him.
‘What do I want?’ said the lad; ‘most of all, I want a dinner.’
Immediately they brought him a banquet of a dinner, and waited on him all the time. Dinner over, they dressed him like a prince.
By-and-by there came in an ugly old hag, as ugly as a witch, who said,
‘Good morning, Prince; are you come to marry me?’
‘I’m no prince; and I’m not come to marry you most certainly!’ replied the youth.
But all the servants standing round made all sorts of gesticulations that he should say ‘yes.’
‘It’s no use mouthing at me,’ said the lad; ‘I shall never say “yes” to that!’
But they went on making signs all round that he should say ‘yes,’ till at last they bewildered him so, that, almost without knowing what he did, he said ‘yes.’
Directly he had said ‘yes,’ there were thunder and lightning, and thunderbolts, and meteors, and howling of wind, and storm of hail. The youth felt in great fear; but the servants said:
‘It is all right. She you thought an old hag is indeed a beautiful princess of eighteen, but she was under a spell; by consenting to marry her you have ended that spell, if you can only stand through the fear of this storm for three days and three nights, no harm can come to you, and we also shall all be set free.’
The whole apartment now seemed on fire, and when that ceased for a time, it seemed to rain fire all around.
For two days he managed to endure, but on the third day he got so frightened that he ran away. He had not much bettered his condition, however; for, if he had got away from the magic storms of the under world, he had come into real storms in the actual world, and there he was alone in the Campagna, starving and destitute again.
At last an old man appeared, who said to him:
‘Why were you so foolish as to run away? You were told no harm could happen to you. Now you have nearly lost all. There is, however, one remedy left. Go on to the top of that high mountain, and gather the grass that grows there, and bring back a large bundle of it, and give it to these people to eat, and that will finish what you have begun. You will marry the princess, and share her kingdom; and all her people will be set free. For all those who waited on you as servants are noblemen of her court, who are under a spell.’
‘How am I to get up to the top of that high mountain?’ said the youth; ‘it would take me a life of weariness to arrive there!’
‘Take this divining-rod,’ said the old man, ‘and whatever difficulty comes in your way, touch it with this wand, and it will disappear.’
The youth took the wand, and bent his steps towards the mountain. There were rivers to be crossed, and steep places to be climbed, and many perils to be encountered, but the wand overcame them all. Arrived at the top, he saw a plat of fine, long grass growing, which he made no doubt was the grass he had to take. But he thought within himself, ‘If this wand can do so much, it can surely give me also a house and a dinner; and, then, why should I toil down this mountain again at all!’
‘Rod! rod! give me a nice little house!’ he commanded;[3] and there was a nice little house on the top of the mountain.
‘Rod! rod! give me a good dinner!’ and a good dinner was spread on the table.
And thus it was with everything he wanted; so he went on living on the top of the mountain, without thinking of those he had to deliver in the hole under the earth.
Suddenly, there stood the old man.[4] ‘You were not sent here to amuse yourself,’ said he, severely. ‘You were sent to fetch the means of delivering others;’ and he took the wand away from him, and touched the casino, and it disappeared, and he was once more left destitute.
‘If you would repair the past,’ said the old man, as he went away, ‘gather even now a bundle of grass and take it, and perhaps you will be in time yet; but you will have to toil alone, for you have forfeited the rod. And now, remember this counsel: whoever meets you by the way and asks to buy that grass, sell it to no man, or you are undone.’
As there was nothing else to be done, the youth set to work and cut some grass, and then terrible was the way he had to walk to get down again. Storms of fire broke continually over him, and every moment it seemed as though he would be precipitated to the bottom.
As he reached the plain a traveller met him.
‘Oh, you have some of that grass,’ said he. ‘I was just going up the mountain to get some. If you will give it me, and save my journey, I will give you a prancing horse, all covered with gold trappings studded with precious stones.’
But this time the youth began to pay more attention to the injunctions laid upon him, and he shook his head, and walked on.
‘Give it me,’ continued the stranger, ‘and I will give you in return for it a casino of your own in the Campagna, where you may live all your life.’
But the youth shook his head, and continued his way, without so much as answering him.
‘Give it me,’ said the stranger the third time, ‘and I will give you gold enough to make you rich all your days.’
But the youth stood out the third temptation as well as the other two, and then the stranger disappeared.
Without further hindrance he arrived at the chicory-hole, let himself down, and gave the grass to all the people to eat, who were half dead with waiting so long for him; and as they ate, the spell ceased. Only as he had cut the grass in an indolent sort of way, he had not brought so large a quantity as he ought, and there was one poor maiden left for whose deliverance the provision sufficed not.
Meantime the whole face of the country was changed. The plain was covered with flourishing cities; over the chicory-hole was a splendid palace, where the maiden, who had under the spell looked like an old hag, took up her abode, and where the old man had promised that he should live with her for his reward.
This reward he now came to claim.
‘But you have not completed your task,’ said the princess.
‘I think I have done a pretty good deal,’ answered the youth.
‘But there is that one who is yet undelivered.’
‘Oh, I can’t help about one. She must manage the best way she can.’
‘That won’t do,’ said the princess. ‘If you want to have me, you must complete your work.’
So he had to toil all the way up to the top of the mountain, and all the way down again, and at last the work was complete.
Then the princess married him, and all went wondrously well.[5]
[1] ‘Il Cicoriaro e la Principessa fatata.’ [↑]
[2] ‘Fa una zompa;’ ‘zompa’ for ‘zomba,’ properly a blow, a thump; here, ‘jumped down with a noise like a thump.’ [↑]
[3] Bacchettone di comando, suits this use of it better than does the English equivalent. [↑]
[4] ‘Ecco il vecchio!’ such abrupt interruptions, with change of tense, are often introduced with dramatic effect by the narrators. A similar one occurs at p. 133. ‘He sounds the horn and One comes.’ [↑]
[5] ‘E tutto andava benone;’ ‘bene,’ well; ‘benone,’ superlatively well. [↑]
THE TRANSFORMATION-DONKEY.[1]
There was once a poor chicory-seller: all chicory-sellers are poor, but this was a very poor one, and he had a large family of daughters and two sons. The daughters he left at home with their mother, but the two sons he took with him to gather chicory. While they were out gathering chicory one day, a great bird flew down before them and dropped an egg and then flew away again. The boys picked up the egg and brought it to their father, because there were some figures like strange writing on it which they could not read; but neither could the father read the strange writing, so he took the egg to a farmer.[2] The farmer read the writing, and it said:—
‘Whoso eats my head, he shall be an emperor.’
‘Whoso eats my heart, he shall never want for money.’
‘Ho, ho!’ said the farmer to himself, ‘it won’t do to tell the fellow this; I must manage to eat both the head and the heart myself.’ So he said, ‘The meaning of it is that whoever eats the bird will make a very good dinner; so to-morrow when the bird comes back, as she doubtless will to lay another egg, have a good stick ready and knock her down; then you can make a fire, and bake it between the stones, and I will come and eat it with you if you like.’
The poor chicory-seller thought his fortune was made when a farmer offered to dine with him, and the hours seemed long enough till next morning came.
With next morning, however, came the bird again. The chicory-seller was ready with his stick and knocked her down, and the boys made a fire and cooked the bird. But as they were not very apt at the trussing and cooking, the head dropped into the fire, and the youngest boy said: ‘This will never do to serve up, all burnt as it is;’ so he ate it. The heart also fell into the fire and got burnt, and the eldest boy said: ‘This will never do to serve up, all burnt as it is;’ so he ate that.
By-and-by the farmer came, and they all sat down on a bank—the farmer quite jovial at the idea of the immense advantage he was going to gain, and the chicory-seller quite elated at the idea of entertaining a farmer.
‘Bring forward the roast, boys,’ said the father; and the boys brought the bird.
‘What have you done with the head?’ exclaimed the farmer, the moment he saw the bird.
‘Oh, it got burnt, and I ate it,’ said the younger boy.
The merchant ground his teeth and stamped his foot, but he dared not say why he was so angry; so he sat silent while the chicory-seller took out his knife[3] and cut the bird up in portions.
‘Give me the piece with the heart, if I may choose,’ said the merchant; ‘I’m very fond of birds’ hearts.’
‘Certainly, any part you like,’ replied the chicory-seller, nervously turning all the pieces over and over again; ‘but I can’t find any heart. Boys, had the bird no heart?’
‘Yes, papa,’ answered the elder brother, ‘it had a heart, sure enough; but it tumbled into the fire and got burnt, and so I ate it.’
There was no object in disguising his fury any longer, so the farmer exclaimed testily, ‘Thank you, I’ll not have any then; the head and the heart are just the only parts of a bird I care to eat.’ And so saying he turned on his heel and went away.
‘Look, boys, what you’ve done! You’ve thrown away the best chance we ever had in our lives!’ cried the father in despair.[4] ‘After the farmer had taken dinner with us he must have asked us to dine with him, and, as one civility always brings another, there is no saying what it might not have led to. However, as you have chosen to throw the chance away, you may go and look out for yourselves. I’ve done with you.’ And with a sound cudgelling[5] he drove them away.
The two boys, left to themselves, wandered on till they came to a stable, when they entered the yard and asked to be allowed to do some work or other as a means of subsistence.
‘I’ve nothing for you to do,’ said the landlord; ‘but, as it’s late, you may sleep on the straw there, on the condition that you go about your business to-morrow first thing.’
The boys, glad to get a night’s lodging on any condition, went to sleep in the straw. When the elder brother woke in the morning he found a box of sequins[6] under his head.
‘How could this have come here,’ soliloquised the boy, ‘unless the host had put it there to see if we were honest? Well, thank God, if we’re poor there’s no danger of either of us taking what doesn’t belong to us.’ So he took the box to the host, and said: ‘There’s your box of sequins quite safe. You needn’t have taken the trouble to test our honesty in that way.’
The host was very much surprised, but he thought the best way was to take the money and say nothing but ‘I’m glad to see you’re such good boys.’ So he gave them breakfast and some provisions for the way.
Next night they found themselves still in the open country and no inn near, and they were obliged to be content to sleep on the bare ground. Next morning when they woke the younger boy again found a box of sequins under his head.
‘Only think of that host not being satisfied with trying us once, but to come all this way after us to test our honesty again. However, I suppose we must take it back to him.’
So they walked all the way back to the host and said: ‘Here’s your box of sequins back; as we didn’t steal it the first time it was not likely we should take it the second time.’
The host was more and more astonished; but he took the money without saying anything, only he praised the boys for being so good and gave them a hearty meal. And they went their way, taking a new direction.
The next night the younger brother said: ‘Do you know I’ve my doubts about the host having put that box of sequins under your head. How could he have done it out in the open country without our seeing him? To-night I will watch, and if he doesn’t come, and in the morning there is another box of sequins, it will be a sign that it is your own.’
He did so, and next morning there was another box of sequins. So they decided it was honestly their own, and they carried it by turns and journeyed on. About noon they came to a great city where the emperor was lately dead, and all the people were in great excitement about choosing another emperor. The population was all divided in factions, each of which had a candidate, and none would let the candidate of the others reign. There was so much fighting and quarrelling in the streets that the brothers got separated, and saw each other no more.
At this time it happened that it was the turn of the younger brother to be carrying the box of sequins. When the sentinels at the gate saw a stranger coming in carrying a box they said, ‘We must see what this is,’ and they took him to the minister. When the minister saw his box was full of sequins he said, ‘This must be our emperor.’ And all the people said, ‘Yes, this is our emperor. Long live our emperor!’ And thus the boy became an emperor.
But the elder brother had entered unperceived into the town, and went to ask hospitality in a house where was a woman with a beautiful daughter; so they let him stay. That night also there came a box of sequins under his head; so he went out and bought meat and fuel and all manner of provisions, and gave them to the mother, and said, ‘Because you took me in when I was poor last night, I have brought you all these provisions out of gratitude,’ and for the beautiful daughter he bought silks and damasks, and ornaments of gold. But the daughter said, ‘How comes it, tell me, that you, who were a poor footsore wayfarer last night, have now such boundless riches at command?’ And because she was beautiful and spoke kindly to him, he suspected no evil, but told her, saying, ‘Every morning when I wake now, I find a box of sequins under my head.’
‘And how comes it,’ said she, ‘that you find a box of sequins under your head now, and not formerly?’ ‘I do not know,’ he answered, ‘unless it be because one day when I was out with father gathering chicory, a great bird came and dropt an egg with some strange writing on it, which we could not read. But a farmer read it for us; only he would not tell us what it said, but that we should cook the bird and eat it. While we were cooking it the heart fell into the fire and got burnt, and I ate it: and when the farmer heard this he grew very angry. I think, therefore, the writing on the egg said that he who ate the heart of the bird should have many sequins.’
After this they spent the day pleasantly together; but the daughter put an emetic in his wine at supper, and so made him bring up the bird’s heart, which she kept for herself, and the next morning when he woke there was no box of sequins under his head. When he rose in the morning also the beautiful girl and her mother turned him out of the house, and he wandered forth again.
At last, being weary and full of sorrow, he sat down on the ground by the side of a stream crying. Immediately three fairies appeared to him and asked him why he wept. And when he told them, they said to him: ‘Weep no more, for instead of the bird’s heart we give you this sheepskin jacket, the pockets of which will always be full of sequins. How many soever you may take out they will always remain full.’ Then they disappeared; but he immediately went back to the house of the beautiful girl, taking her rich and fine presents; but she said to him, ‘How comes it that you, who had no money left when you went away, have now the means to buy all these fine presents?’ Then he told her of the gift of the three fairies, and they let him sleep in the house again, but the daughter called her maid to her and said: ‘Make a sheepskin jacket exactly like that in the stranger’s room.’ So she made one, and they put it in his room, and took away the one the fairies had given him, and in the morning they drove him from the house again. Then he went and sat down by the stream and wept again; but the fairies came and asked him why he wept; and he told them, saying, ‘Because they have driven me away from the house where I stayed, and I have no home to go to, and this jacket has no more sequins in the pockets.’ Then the fairies looked at the jacket, and they said, ‘This is not the jacket we gave you; it has been changed by fraud:’ so they gave him in place of it a wand, and they said, ‘With this wand strike the table, and whatever you may desire, be it meat or drink or clothes, or whatsoever you may want, it shall come upon the table.’ The next day he went back to the house of the woman and her daughter, and sat down without saying anything, but he struck the table with his wand, wishing for a great banquet, and immediately it was covered with the choicest dishes. There was no need to ask him questions this time, for they saw in what his gift consisted, and in the night, when he was asleep, they took his wand away. In the morning they drove him forth out of the house, and he went back to the stream and sat down to cry. Again the fairies appeared to him and comforted him; but they said, ‘This is the last time we may appear to you. Here is a ring; keep it on your hand; for if you lose this gift there is nothing more we may do for you;’ and they went away. But he immediately returned to the house of the woman and her beautiful daughter. They let him in, ‘Because,’ they said, ‘doubtless the fairies have given him some other gift of which we may take profit.’ And as he sat there he said, ‘All the other gifts of the fairies have I lost, but this one they have given me now I cannot lose, because it is a ring which fits my finger, and no one can take it from my hand.’
‘And of what use is your ring?’ asked the beautiful daughter.
‘Its use is that whatever I wish for while I have it on I obtain directly, whatever it may be.’
‘Then wish,’ said she, ‘that we may be both together on the top of that high mountain, and a sumptuous merenda[7] spread out for us.’
‘To be sure!’ he replied, and he repeated her wish. Instantly they found themselves on the top of the high mountain with a plentiful merenda before them; but she had a vial of opium with her, and while his head was turned away she poured the opium into his wine. Presently after this he fell into a sound sleep, so sound that there was no fear of waking him. Immediately she took the ring from his finger and put it on her own; then she wished that she might be replaced at home and that he might be left on the top of the mountain. And so it was done.
In the morning when he woke and found himself all alone on the top of the high mountain and his ring gone, he wept bitter tears, and felt too weary to attempt the descent of the steep mountain side. For three days he remained here weary and weeping, and then, becoming faint from hunger, he took some of the herbs that grew on the mountain top for food. As soon as he had eaten these he was turned into a donkey,[8] but as he retained his human intelligence, he said to himself, this herb has its uses, and he filled one of the panniers on his back with it. Then he came down from the mountain, and when he was at the foot of it, being hungry with the long journey, he ate of the grass that grew there, and, behold! he was transformed back into his natural shape; so he filled the other basket with this kind of grass and went his way.
Having dressed himself like a street seller, he took the basket of the herb which had the property of changing the eater into a donkey, and stood under the window of the house where he had been so evil entreated, and cried, ‘Fine salad! fine salad! who will buy my fine salad?’[9]
‘What is there so specially good about your salad?’ asked the maid, looking out. ‘My young mistress is particularly fond of salad, so if yours is so very superfine, you had better come up.’
He did not wait to be twice told. As soon as he saw the beautiful daughter, he said, ‘This is fine salad, indeed, the finest of the fine, all fresh gathered, and the first of its kind that ever was sold.’
‘Very likely it’s the first of its kind that ever was sold,’ said she; ‘but I don’t like to buy things I haven’t tried; it may turn out not to be nice.’
‘Oh, try it, try it freely; don’t buy without trying;’ and he picked one of the freshest and crispest bunches.
She took one in her hand and bit a few blades, and no sooner had she done so than she too became a donkey. Then he put the panniers on her back and drove her all over the town, constantly cudgelling her till she sank under the blows. Then one who saw him belabour her thus, said, ‘This must not be; you must come and answer before the emperor for thus belabouring the poor brute;’ but he refused to go unless he took the donkey with him; so they went to the emperor and said, ‘Here is one who is belabouring his donkey till she has sunk under his blows, and he refuses to come before the emperor to answer his cruelty unless he bring his donkey with him.’ And the emperor made answer, ‘Let him bring the beast with him.’
So they brought him and his donkey before the emperor. When he found himself before the emperor he said, ‘All these must go away; to the emperor alone can I tell why I belabour my donkey.’ So the emperor commanded all the people to go to a distance while he took him and his donkey apart. As soon as he found himself alone with the emperor he said, ‘See, it is I, thy brother!’ and he embraced him. Then he told him all that had befallen him since they parted. Then said the emperor to the donkey, ‘Go now with him home, and show him where thou hast laid all the things—the bird’s heart, the sheepskin jacket, the wand, and the ring, that he may bring them hither; and if thou deliver them up faithfully I will command that he give thee of that grass to eat which shall give thee back thy natural form.’
So they went back to the house and fetched all the things, and the emperor said, ‘Come thou now and live with me, and give me of thy sequins, and I will share the empire with thee.’ Thus they reigned together.
But to the donkey they gave of the grass to eat, which restored her natural form, only that her beauty was marred by the cudgelling she had received. And she said, ‘Had I not been so wilful and malicious I had now been empress.’
[In these stories we have had the actions of three Fate, somewhat resembling English fairies; in the following, we meet with three who, as often happens in Roman stories, are nothing better than witches.]
[2] The ‘mercante di Campagna’ occupies the place of farmer in the social system of Rome; that is, he produces and deals in grain and cattle; there is ‘buttaro’ (cattle breeder) besides; but the characteristics of each are so different that the one does not well translate the other. [↑]
[3] ‘Cortello’ for ‘coltello’ (a knife). The substitution of r for l in a good many words is a common Romanism. [↑]
[4] ‘Dishperato’ for ‘disperato’ (‘out of himself with vexation’), is another Romanism; as also [↑]
[5] ‘Bashtonata’ for ‘bastonata’ (a cudgelling); at least many Romans, particularly old-fashioned people, when using some words in which sp and st occur, put in an h on occasions requiring great vehemence of expression. [↑]
[6] Zecchini. The zecchino was the gold standard coin in Rome before that of the scudo was adopted. Its value was fixed in the reign of Clement XIII., 1758, at two scudi and twenty bajocchi—something between 10s. and 11s.; it was current till a few years back; and ‘zecchini’ is a common way of saying ‘money’ when a large sum is spoken of, just as we still talk of guineas. [↑]
[7] ‘Merenda’ is a supplementary meal taken at any time of day. It is not exactly lunch, because the habit of taking lunch at one and dining late has not yet obtained to any great extent in Rome; and where it has, lunch is called ‘déjeûner’; breakfast (i.e. a cup of coffee and a roll early in the morning) is always called ‘colazione.’ The established custom of Rome is dinner (‘pranzo,’ or ‘desinare,’) at twelve, and supper (‘cena’) an hour or two after the Ave, varying, therefore, according to the time of year, from six or seven till nine or ten, and even later. ‘Merenda’ is a light meal between ‘pranzo’ and ‘cena’ of not altogether general use, and chiefly on occasions of driving outside the gates to spend the afternoon at a country villa or casino. [↑]
[8] ‘Soma’ is a burden; ‘somaro’ or ‘somura’ an ass used for carrying burdens. Thus in the next line it is spoken of as having panniers on as a matter of course. [↑]
[9] ‘Che bell’ insalatina; chi vuol insalatina; che bell’ insalatina!’ a common form of crying. ‘Che belle mela!’ ‘What fine apples!’ ‘Che belle persiche!’ or ‘What fine peaches!’ may be heard all the year round. [↑]
SIGNOR LATTANZIO.
They say there was a duke who wandered over the world seeking a beautiful maiden to make his wife.
After many years he came to an inn where was a lady, who asked him what he sought.
‘I have journeyed half the earth over,’ answered the duke, ‘to find a wife to my fancy, and have not found one; and now I go back to my native city as I came.’
‘How sad!’ answered the lady. ‘I have a daughter who is the most beautiful maiden that ever was made; but three fairies have taken possession of her, and locked her up in a casino in the Campagna, and no one can get to see her.’
‘Only tell me where she is,’ replied the duke, ‘and I promise you I’ll get to see her, in spite of all the fairies in the world.’
‘It is useless!’ replied the lady. ‘So many have tried and failed. So will you.’
‘Not I!’ answered the duke. ‘Tell me how they failed, and I will do otherwise.’
‘I have told so many, and all say the same as you, and all go to seek her, but none ever come back.’
‘Never mind! Tell it once again, and I promise you it shall be the last time, for I will surely come back.’
‘If you are bent on sacrificing yourself uselessly,’ proceeded the lady, ‘this is the story. You must go to the mountain of Russia, and at the foot of it there will meet you three most beautiful maidens, who will come round you, and praise you, and flatter you, and pour out all manner of blandishments, and will ask you to go into their palace with them, and will entreat you so much that you will not be able to resist; then you will go into their palace with them, and they will turn you into a cat, for they are three fairies. But, on the other hand, if you can resist only for the space of one hour to all they will say to you, then you will have conquered, and they will be turned into cats, and you will have free access to my daughter to release her.’
‘I will go,’ said the duke firmly; and he rose up and went his way to the mountain of Russia.
‘Now, if all these other men have failed in this same attempt,’ he mused within himself as he went along, ‘it behoves me to be prudent. I know what I will do; I will put a bandage over my eyes, and then I shan’t see the fairies, and their blandishments will have no power over me.’ And so he did.
Then the fairies came out to him and said, ‘Signor Lattanzio! welcome, welcome! how fair you are; do take the bandage off and let us see you; how noble you look. Do let us see your face? We are dying to have you with us!’
But the duke remained firm, and seemed to take no heed, though their voices were so soft and persuasive that he longed to look at them, or even to lift up one corner of the bandage and take a peep. But he remained firm.
‘Signor Lattanzio! Signor Lattanzio! Don’t be so ungallant,’ pursued the fairies. ‘Here are we at your feet, as it were, begging you to give us your company, and you will not so much as speak to us, or even look at us!’
But the duke remained firm, and seemed to take no heed, though his head was turned by their accents, and he felt that if he could only go with them as they wished he should want no more. But he remained firm.
‘Signor Lattanzio! Signor Lattanzio! Signor Lattanzio!’ cried the three fairies disdainfully, for now they began to suspect in right good earnest that at last one had come who was too strong for them. ‘The fact is you are afraid of us. If you are a man, show you have no fear, and come and talk with us.’
But the duke remained firm, though a vanity, which had nearly lost him, whispered that it would be a grander triumph to look them in the face and yet resist them, than to conquer without having ventured to look at them, yet prudence prevailed, and he remained firm.
So they went on, and the duke felt that the hour was drawing to a close. He took out his repeater and struck it, and the hour of trial was over.
‘Traitor!’ cried the three fairies, and in the same instant they were turned into cats. Then the duke went into their palace, and took their wand, and with it he could open the gates of the casino where the lady’s daughter was imprisoned.
When he saw her, he found her indeed fairer than the fairest; fairer even than his conception.
When, therefore, with the wand he had restored all the cats that were upon the mountain to their natural shapes as those that had failed in their enterprise, he took her home with him to be his wife.
[As this was told me, the sign by which the duke was to recognise the three fairies was, that they were to be sweeping the ground with their breasts. The incident seemed so extravagant, that I omitted it in writing out the story; I mention it, however, now because I find the same in Note 1, on an Albanian story, to p. 177, in Ralston’s ‘Russian Folk Tales’; I met the incident subsequently in another Roman story.
The idea which has prompted this tale is apparently the same as that which has given rise to the story of ‘Odysseus and the Seirens.’ See Cox’s ‘Aryan Mythology,’ II. 242.]
HOW CAJUSSE WAS MARRIED.[1]
There was a poor tailor starving for poverty because he could get no work. One day there knocked at his door a good-natured-looking old man; the tailor’s son opened the door, and he won the boy’s confidence immediately, saying he was his uncle. He also gave him a piastre[2] to buy a good dinner. When the father came home and found him installed, and heard that he called himself his son’s uncle, and would, therefore, be his own brother, he was much surprised; but as he found he was so rich and so generous, he thought it better not to dispute his word. The visitor stayed a whole month, providing all expenses so freely all the time that everyone was delighted with him, and when at last he came to take leave, and proposed that the tailor’s boy should go with him and learn some business at his expense, the son himself was all eagerness to go, and the father, too, willingly gave his consent.
As soon as they had gone a good way outside the gates the stranger said to the boy, ‘It is all a dodge about my calling myself your uncle. I am not your uncle a bit; only I want a strong daring sort of boy to do something for me which I am too old to do myself. I am a wizard,[3] and if you do what I tell you I will reward you well; but if you attempt to resist or escape you may be sure you will suffer for it.’
‘Tell me what I have to do, before we talk about resisting and escaping,’ replied the boy; ‘maybe I shan’t mind doing it.’
They were walking on as they talked, and the boy observed that they got over much more ground than by ordinary walking, and they were now in a wild desolate country. The wizard said nothing till they reached a spot where there was a flat stone in the ground. Here he stopped, and as he lifted up the stone, he said, ‘This is what you have to do. I will let you down with this rope, and you must go all along through the dark till you come to a place where is a beautiful garden. At the gate of the garden sits a fierce dog, which will fly out at you, and bark fearfully. I will give you some bread and cheese to throw to him, and, while he is devouring the bread and cheese, you must pass on. Then all manner of terrible noises will cry after you, calling you back; but take no heed of them, and, above all, do not look back; if you look back you are lost. As soon as you are out of sound of the voices you will see on a stone an old lantern, take that and bring it back to me.’
The boy showed no unwillingness to try his fortune, and the magician gave him the bread and cheese he had promised, and let him down by a rope. He gave him also a ring, saying, ‘If anything else should happen, after you have got the lantern, to prevent your bringing it away, rub this ring and wish at the same time for deliverance, and you will be delivered.’
The boy did all the wizard had told him, and something more besides; for when he got into the garden he found the trees all covered with beautiful fruits, which were all so many precious stones; with these he filled his pockets till he could hardly move for the weight of them; then he came back to the opening of the cave, and called to the wizard to pull him up.
‘Send up the lantern first,’ said the magician, ‘and I’ll see about pulling you up afterwards.’
But the boy was afraid lest he should be left behind; so he refused to send up the lantern unless the wizard hauled him up with it. This the wizard would by no means do.
‘Ah! the youngster will be frightened if I shut him up in the dark cave a bit,’ said he, and closed the stone, meaning to call to him by-and-by to see if he had come round to a more submissive mind. The boy, however, finding himself shut up alone in the cave, bethought him of the ring, and rubbed it, wishing the while to be at home. Instantly he found himself there, lantern in hand. His parents were very much astonished at all he told them of his adventures, and, poor as they were, were very glad to have him safe back.
‘I wonder what the magician wanted this ugly old lantern for,’ said the boy to himself one day. ‘It must be good for something or he would not have been so anxious to have it; let me try rubbing it, and see if that answers as well as rubbing the ring.’ He no sooner did so than One[4] appeared, and asked his pleasure. ‘A table well laid for dinner!’ said the boy; and immediately a table appeared covered with all sorts of good things, with real silver spoons and forks.[5] Then he called on his mother and father, and they made a good meal; after that they lived for a month on the price of the silver which the mother took out and pawned.[6] One day she found the town all illuminated. What is going on?’ she asked of the neighbours. ‘The daughter of the Sultan is going to marry the son of the Grand Vizier, and there is a distribution of alms to the people on the occasion; that is why they rejoice.’ Such was the answer.
When she came home she told her son what she had heard. He said, ‘That will not be, because the daughter of the Sultan will have to marry me!’ but she only laughed at him. The next day he brought her three neat little baskets filled with the precious stones which he had gathered in the under-ground garden, and he said, ‘These you must take to the Sultan, and say I want to marry his daughter.’ But she was afraid and would not go; and when at last he made her go, she stood in a corner apart behind all the people, for there was a public audience, and came back and said she could not get at the Sultan; but he made her go again the next two days following, and she always did the same. The last day, however, the Sultan sent for her, saying, ‘Who is that old woman standing in the corner quite apart? bring her to me.’ So they brought her to him all trembling.
‘Don’t be afraid, old woman,’ said the Sultan. ‘What have you to say?’
‘My son, who must have lost his senses, sent me to say he wanted to marry the daughter of the Sultan,’ said the old woman, crying for very fear; ‘and he sends these baskets as a present.’
When the Sultan took the baskets and saw of what great value were the contents, he said, ‘Don’t be afraid, old woman; go back and tell your son I will give him an answer in a month.’
She went back and told her son; but at the end of a week the princess was married, nevertheless, to the son of the Grand Vizier.
‘There!’ said the mother, when she heard it; ‘I thought the Grand Sultan was only making game of you. Was it likely that the daughter of the Sultan should marry a beggar,[7] like you?’
‘Don’t be in too great a hurry, mother,’ replied the lad; ‘leave it to me, leave it to me.’[8]
With that he went and took out the old lantern, and rubbed it till One appeared asking his pleasure.
‘Go to-night, at three hours of night,’[9] was his reply, ‘and take the daughter of the Sultan and lay her in a poor wallet in the out-house here.’
At three hours of night he went into the out-house and found the princess on the poor wallet as he had commanded. Then he laid his sabre on the bed between them, and sat down and talked to her; but she was too frightened to answer him. This he did three nights running. The princess, however, went crying to her mother, and told her all that had happened. The Sultana could not imagine how it was. ‘But,’ she said, ‘something wrong there must be;’ and she went and told the Sultan, and he, too, said it was all wrong, and that the marriage must be annulled. Also the son of the Grand Vizier went to his father and complained, saying, ‘Every night my wife disappears just at bed-time, and, though the door is locked, I see nothing of her till the next morning.’
His father too said, ‘There must be something wrong,’ and when the Sultan said the marriage must be annulled, the Grand Vizier was quite willing. So the marriage was annulled.
At the end of the month, the lad made his mother go back to the Sultan for his answer, and he gave her three other baskets of precious stones to take with her. The Sultan, when he saw the man had so many precious stones to give away, thought he must be in truth a prince in disguise, and he answered, ‘He may come and see us.’ He also said, ‘What is his name that I may know him?’
And his mother said, ‘His name is Cajusse.’
So she went home and told her son what the sultan had said. Then he rubbed the lantern and asked for a suit to wear, all dazzling with gold and silver, and a richly caparisoned horse, and six pages in velvet dresses, four to ride behind, and one to go before with a purse scattering alms to the people, and one to cry, ‘Make place for the Signor Cajusse!’ Thus he came to the sultan, and the sultan received him well, and gave him his daughter to be his wife; but Cajusse had brought the lantern with him, and he rubbed it, and ordered that there should stand by the side of the sultan’s palace a palace a great deal handsomer, furnished with every luxury, and that all the windows should be encrusted round with precious stones, all but one. This was all done as he had said, and he took the princess home with him to live there. Then he showed her all over the beautiful palace, and showed her the windows all encrusted with gems, ‘and in this vacant one,’ said he, ‘we will put those in the six baskets I sent you before the sultan consented to our marriage; ‘and they did so; but they did not suffice.
But the magician meantime had learnt by his incantations what had happened, and in order to get possession of the lantern he watched till Cajusse was gone out hunting; then he came by dressed as a pedlar of metal work,[10] and offered to exchange old lanterns for new ones. The princess thought to make a capital bargain by exchanging Cajusse’s shabby old lantern for a brand new one, and thus fell into his snare. The magician no sooner had possession of it than he rubbed it, and ordered that the palace and all that was in it should be transported on to the high seas.
The sultan happened to look out of window just as the palace of Cajusse had disappeared. ‘What is this?’ he cried. And when he found the palace was really gone, he uttered so many furious threats that the people, who loved Cajusse well, ran out to meet him as he came home from hunting, and told him of all that had happened, and warned him of the sultan’s wrath. Instead of going back to be put in prison by the sultan therefore, he rubbed his ring and desired to be taken to the place wherever the princess was. Instantly he found himself on a floating rock in mid ocean, at the foot of the palace. Then he went to the gate and sounded the horn.[11] The princess knew her husband’s note of sounding and ran to the window. Great was her delight when she saw that it was really he, and she told him that there was a horrid old man who had possession of the palace, and persecuted her every day to marry him, saying her husband was dead. And she, to keep him at a distance, yet without offending him lest he should kill her, had said: ‘No, I have always resolved never to marry an old man, because then if he dies I should be left alone, and that would be too sad.’ ‘But when I say that,’ she continued, ‘he always says, “You need not be afraid of that, for I shall never die!” so I don’t know what to say next.’
Then the prince said, ‘Make a great feast to-night, and say you will marry him if he tells you one thing: say it is impossible that he should never die, for all people die some day or other; it is impossible but that there should be some one thing or other that is fatal to him; ask him what that one fatal thing is, and he, thinking you want to know it that you may guard him against it, will tell; then come and tell me what he says.’
The princess did all her husband had told her, and then came back and repeated what the magician had said: ‘One must go into the wood,’ she repeated, ‘where is the beast called hydra, and cut off all his seven heads. In the head which is in the middle of the other six, if it is split open, will be found a leveret; if this leveret is caught and his head split open there is a bird; if this bird is caught and his head split open, there is in it a precious stone. If that stone is put under my pillow I must die.’
The prince did not wait for anything more: he rubbed the ring, and desired to be carried to the wood where the hydra lived. Instantly he found himself face to face with the hydra, who came forward spueing fire. But Cajusse had also asked for a coat of mail and a mighty sword, and with one blow he cut off the seven heads. Then he called to his servant to take notice which was the head which was in the middle of the other six, and the servant pointed it out. Then he said, ‘Watch when I split it open, for a leveret will jump out. Beware lest it escapes.’ The servant stood to catch it, but it was so swift it ran past the servant. The prince, however, was swifter than it, and overtook it and killed it. Then he said, ‘Beware when I split open the head of the leveret. A little bird will fly out; mind that it escapes not, for we are undone if it escapes.’ So the servant stood ready to catch the bird, but the bird was so swift it flew past the servant. The prince, however, was swifter than the bird, and he overtook it and killed it, and split open its head and took out the precious stone. Then he rubbed the ring and bid it take him back to the princess. The princess was waiting for him at the window.
‘Here is the stone,’ said the prince; and he gave it to her, and with it a bottle of opium. ‘To-night,’ he said, ‘you must say you are ready to marry the wizard; make a great feast again, and have ready some of this opium in his wine. He will sleep heavily, and not see what you are doing; then you can put the stone under his pillow and when he is dead call me.’
All this the princess did. She told the wizard that she was now ready to do as he wished. The magician was so delighted that he ordered a great banquet.
‘Here,’ said the princess at the banquet, ‘is a little of my father’s choicest wine, which I had with me in the palace when it was brought hither,’ and she poured out to him to drink of the wine mixed with opium.
After this, when the wizard went to bed, he was heavy and took no notice what she did, and thus she put the stone under his pillow. No sooner did he, therefore, lay his head on the pillow than he gave three terrible yells, turned himself round and round three times, and was dead.
There was no need to call the prince, for he had heard the death yells, and immediately came up. They found the lantern, after they had hunted everywhere in vain, tied on to the magician’s body under all his clothes, for he had hid it there that he might never part with it. By its power Cajusse ordered the palace to be removed back to its place, and there they lived happily for ever afterwards.
[The introduction into this story of the dog to be appeased with a sop, and the hydra to be slain, no trace of either occurring in ‘Aladdin’s Lamp,’ is noticeable; the incident of the unjewelled window loses its point, probably through want of memory. The transporting the palace into the middle of the sea is a novel introduction; but the most remarkable change is in the mode of compassing the death of the magician. This episode as here described enters into a vast number of tales. It occurs in a Hungarian one I have in MS.:—A king directs in dying that his three sons shall go out to learn experience by adventure before they succeed to the throne. The first two nights of the journey the two elder brothers keep watch in turn, while the others sleep, and each kills a dragon. The third night, István (Stephen), the youngest, keeps watch, and is enticed away by the cries for help of a frog, which he delivers, but when he comes back the watch-fire is out. He has now to wander in search of fresh fire; he sees a spark in the distance and makes for it; by the way he meets ‘Dame Midnight,’ who tells him the fire is a week’s journey off, so he binds her to a tree, and the same with ‘The Lady Dawn,’ so that it might not be day before his return. In a week he reaches the fire, but three giants guard it, who are laying siege to a vár (fortress) to obtain possession of three beautiful maidens, whom they destined to be the brides of the King of the Dwarfs and of the very two dragons his brothers had killed. But before they give him of their fire they say he must help them in the siege. He, however, kills them by stratagem, and makes his way into the princesses’ sleeping apartment, takes three pledges of his having been there, and returns to his brothers. They continue their wanderings till they come to an inn where the three princesses and the king their father have established themselves in disguise, and make all who pass that way tell the tale of their adventures as a means of discovering who it was delivered them from the giants. The princes make themselves known, and the king bestows his daughters on them. As they drive home with their brides, they pass the Dwarf-King in a ditch by the roadside, who implores them to deliver him. The two elder brothers take no notice. István stops and helps him out. The dwarf with his supernatural strength thrusts István back into the ditch, and drives off with his bride. István sets out to search after and recover her; he meets the frog he delivered, who gives him supernatural aid, and leads him through heroic adventures in which he does service to other persons and animals, who in turn assist him by directing him to the palace of the Dwarf-King. Here exactly the same scene occurs between István and his bride as between Cajusse and the sultan’s daughter, and they lay the same plan. But the Dwarf-King is more astute than the magician, and he at first tells her that his life’s safety lies in his sceptre, on which she makes him give her the sceptre, ‘that she may take care of it,’ in reality intending to give it up to István. When he sees her so anxious for his safety, he tells her it is not in the sceptre, but he does not yet tell the truth; he next says it is in the royal mantle, and then in the crown (incidents proper to the version of Hungary, which sets so great store by the royal crown and mantle). Ultimately he confides that it resides in a golden cockchafer, inside a golden cock, inside a golden sheep, inside a golden stag, in the ninety-ninth sziget (island). She communicates all this to István. He overcomes the above-named series of golden animals by the aid of the animals he lately assisted, and thus recovers his bride.
All these incidents (somewhat differently worked in), occur in the Norse tale of ‘The Giant who had no Heart in His Body,’ and in the Russian ‘Koschei the Deathless,’ and in many others.
I have other of the ‘Arabian Night’ stories, told with the local colouring of characters and incidents proper to the neighbourhood of Rome; particularly various versions of ‘The Forty Thieves,’ leading to a number of Brigand stories, for which I have not space left in this volume.]
[1] ‘Il Matrimonio di Cajusse,’ I should imagine Caius was the right reading. Italians, though they are so fond of clipping off the final vowel of their own words, whenever they get hold of a foreign word ending in a consonant must needs always add a syllable on to it. The narrator in this instance could not spell, and I write the word as she pronounced it. Meeting with so close a counterpart of ‘Aladdin’s Lamp,’ I cross-questioned the narrator very closely as to whether she had not read it, but she assured me most solemnly that her mother had told it her when she was not more than five years old; that it was impossible she could have read it, as she could only read very imperfectly, only a few easy sentences; she had never in her life read anything long. I further elicited that it was possible her mother might have read it; but I am inclined to think she said this rather to improve my idea of her family, than because she thought it was really the case. [↑]
[2] ‘Piastra.’ In Melchiorri’s ‘Guida Metodica di Roma,’ ed. 1856, in the list of moneys current the half-scudo is put down as ‘commonly called mezza piastra.’ I do not remember to have heard it so used myself, though I have heard old people talk of piastres, the value of which would thus be the same as a scudo, or about five francs: an old inhabitant told me it was 7½ bajocchi, more than a scudo. [↑]
[3] ‘Mago.’ I asked the narrator what her idea of a ‘mago’ was, and she said, ‘Something like a stregone (masculine of strega, witch), only not quite so bad.’ [↑]
[4] Genii having no place in modern Italian mythology, the ‘Genius of the Lamp’ loses his identity here. [↑]
[5] ‘Posate,’ spoons and forks. I spare the reader the enumeration of the Roman dishes which were detailed to me as figuring on the table, as I have had to quote many of them in other stories. [↑]
[6] ‘I always used to wonder,’ observed the narrator very pertinently, ‘as my mother told me this, why they didn’t rub the lamp again and ask for what they wanted, instead of going about pawning the posate. I suppose they had forgotten about it.’ [↑]
[7] ‘Pezzente,’ a sorry fellow; literally beggar. [↑]
[8] ‘Che ci penso io’ is a saying ever in the mouth of a Roman. Whatever you may be giving directions about, they always stop you with ‘Lasci far a me, che ci penso io’ (‘Leave it to me; I’ll manage it.’) [↑]
[9] ‘Tre ore di notte’ means three hours after the evening Ave. If it was summer-time this would be about 11 P.M. A subject of the ‘Gran Sultan’ being supposed to measure time by the Ave Maria is not one of the least bizarre of traditionary accretions. [↑]
[10] ‘Chincaglieria,’ all kinds of small articles of metal-work. [↑]
[11] ‘Frāvodo.’ As I had never heard the word before, I was very particular in making the narrator repeat it, to take it down. She described it as a horn or trumpet, but I cannot meet with the word in any dictionary. [↑]