[518] It was narrated to me by a peasant woman who heard it at Cavour in Piedmont:—
A man who is paralytic has three daughters, Catherine, Clorinda, and Margaret; he sets out on a journey to consult a great doctor, and asks his daughters what they wish him to bring them when he returns; Margaret will be content if he bring her a flower. He arrives at his destination, a castle; everything is prepared to receive him, but the doctor is not to be found; he sets out to return home, but on the way he recollects the flower, which he had forgotten; he goes back to the garden of the castle and is about to pluck a daisy (margherita), when a toad warns him that he will die in three days if he does not give it one of his daughters to wife. The father informs his daughters of this, upon which the two eldest refuse; but the youngest, in order to save her father's life, consents. Her father is cured, and the wedding takes place; during the night the toad becomes a beautiful youth, but warns his bride never to tell any one, for if she does, he will always remain a toad, and he gives her a ring by means of which she will obtain whatever she wishes for. The sisters have an inkling of some mystery, and make her confess; the toad falls ill and disappears; she calls him with the ring, but in vain; seeing this, she throws the ring, as useless, into a pond, upon which the beautiful youth steps out, and never becomes a toad again; their happiness together thereafter is unbroken.
In an unpublished Tuscan story, related to me by Uliva Selvi at Antignano near Leghorn, instead of the toad we have a magician of frightful aspect. The father of the three daughters is a sailor; he promises to fetch a shawl to the first, a hat to the second, and a rose to the third. When the voyage is over, he is about to return, but, having forgotten the rose, the ship refuses to move; he is compelled to go back to look for the rose in a garden; a magician hands the rose with a little box to the father to give it to one of his daughters, whom the magician is to marry. At midnight, the father, having returned home, relates to his third daughter all that happened. The little box is opened; it carries off the third daughter to the magician, who happens to be king of Pietraverde, and is now a handsome young man. He shows her, in the palace, three rooms, of which one is red, one white, and another black. They live together happily. Meanwhile, the eldest sister is to be married; the magician conducts his wife into the red room; she wishes to go to the wedding, and the magician consents, but warns her not to say either who he is, or aught she knows of him, if she does not wish to lose him, as to recover him again she would have to wait till she should wear out as many shoes as there are in the world. He gives her a dress which, as she goes, is heard rustling a long way off; and he tells her, if her pin should drop, to let the bride pick it up and keep it; warning her, moreover, not to drink or to eat of anything they may offer her. All this she observes to the letter. The second sister is about to be married; the magician leads his wife into the white room and repeats the same instructions, only, instead of the pin, she is to let her ring of brilliants drop. The father dies; the magician then takes his wife into the black room, the chamber of melancholy. She wishes to go to the funeral, and is permitted, after the usual warnings; the magician, moreover, gives her a ring; if it become black, she will lose him; she forgets the warning and loses him. She wanders about for seven years, and no one can give her any news of the king of Pietraverde; she then disguises herself as a man, and arrives at a city where the king's hostler takes her into his service; no sooner does she touch the carriages than they become clean. The queen passes by and wonders at the personal appearance of the youth; she engages him to work in her kitchen, then to serve at table, and finally to be her valet de chambre. The queen falls in love with him, and wishes to have him at any cost; in vain; she then accuses him of designing to take her life. The king, although unwillingly, has him put in prison; soon he has pity upon him and lets him free. The fictitious youth continues to wander about; he arrives at the city, and asks for news of the king of Pietraverde; they tell her that he has long been dead, and point her to a room where his bier is supported by columns of wax, or candles; he will not awake until the candles are consumed. She goes up and weeps; the king takes three hairs from his beard and recommends her to preserve them carefully. She continues her wanderings, still dressed as a man, and is engaged by other hostlers of a king as assistant. The news of her bravery reach the king, who takes her into his kitchen. The queen sees him and falls in love with him; in vain; she accuses him to the king, who puts her in prison; she is condemned to death, and the guillotine is prepared. While going to execution, she remembers the three hairs, and burns one; an army of warriors appear, sent by the king of Pietraverde; they terrify all the king's people, whom they compel to postpone the execution till next day. The next day she does the same with the same result. The third day she brings out the third hair; the cavalry appear again, commanded this time by the king of Pietraverde in person, dressed so that he shone like a brilliant, that he appeared like a sun; he releases the youth from the execution; the king of Pietraverde has the young girl dressed as a princess; she is tried in a court of justice; her innocence is established; the queen's head is cut off.
[519] "Suessanus tradit, quod bufonem quempiam obviam fieri felicissimum augurium fuisse antiquitas existimavit.—Anno 1553, in villa quadam Thuringia ad Unstrum, a muliere bufo caudatus natus est, quemadmodum in libro de prodigiis et ostentis habetur. Nec mirum, quia Cœlius Aurelianus et Platearius scribunt mulieres aliquando cum fœto humano bufones et alia animalia hujus generis eniti. Sed hujus monstrosæ conceptionis causam non assignant. Tradit quidem Platearius illa præsidia, quæ ad provocandos menses commendantur, ducere; etiam bufonem fratrem Salernitanorum quemadmodum aliqui lacertum fratrem Longobardorum nominant. Quoniam mulieres Salernitanæ potissimum in principio conceptionis succum apii et porrorum potant, ut hoc animal interimant, antequam fœtus viviscat. Insuper mulier quædam ex Gesnero, recens nupta cum omnium opinione prægnans diceretur, quatuor animalia bufonibus similia peperit et optime valuit."—Aldrovandi also reads: "apud Heisterbacensem in historia miraculorum," that some monks found a living toad inside a hen in place of intestines. In the same author, a priest finds an immense toad at the bottom of a jar of wine; whilst he is wondering how such a large toad should have been able to enter by such a small orifice, the toad disappears.
[520] Cfr. Targioni Tozzetti, Lezioni di Materia Medica, Florence, 1821.
[521] Some extraordinary lizards of which Aldrovandi speaks are of a half sacred and half monstrous nature: "Præter illud memorabile, quod Mizaldus recitat accidisse anno Domini 1551, mense Julii in Hungaria prope pagum Zichsum juxta Theisum fluvium nimirum in multorum hominum alvo lacertas naturalibus similes ortas fuisse. Interdum contingit, ut animadvertit Schenchius, lacertam viridem in cæti magnitudinem excrescere, qualis aliquando Lutetiæ visa est. Sæpe etiam lacertæ duobus et tribus caudis refertæ nascuntur, quas vulgus ludentibus favorabiles esse nugatur."
[522] In the Mahâbhâratam, i. 981-1003, it is said that the serpents amphisbhænæ (duṇḍubhâs, duṇḍavas, nâgabhṛitas, the same, I think, as the mannuni of Malabar,) being good, must not be killed; an amphisbhæna relates that it had once been the wise Sahasrapâd (properly of the hundred feet; the amphisbhæna appears to be a lizard without feet, and with a tail the same size as its head, for which reason the belief arose that it had two heads; it seems to be another personification of the circular year, like the serpent), and that it became a serpent by a curse, because it had once frightened a Brâhman with a fictitious serpent made of grass; at the sight of the wise Kurus, the amphisbhæna is released from its malediction.
[523] St Augustine, Hom. 36, says of the devil: "Leo et draco est; Leo propter impetum, Draco propter insidias;" in Albania, the devil is called dreikj, and in Romania, dracu.
[524] A proverb of the Râmâyaṇam says, that "only a female serpent can distinguish the feet of a male serpent" (v. 38): Ahireva hyaheḥ pâdâu viǵâniyânna saṁçayaḥ). The feet of the serpent, like those of the devil, which is the tail (or the phallos of the male) can be perceived by a female alone; women know where the devil has his tail.
[525] Tom. i., "Sunt qui in aquæ inspectione umbras dæmonum evocant, et imagiones vel ludificationes ibi videre et ab iis aliqua audire se perhibent."