An old man and woman have two children, Giacomo and Carolina. Giacomo looks after three sheep. A hunter passes and asks for them; Giacomo gives them, and receives in reward three dogs, Throttle-iron, Run-like-the-wind, and Pass-everywhere, besides a whistle. The father refuses to keep Giacomo at home; he goes away with his three dogs, of which the first carries bread, the second viands, and the third wine. He comes to a magician's palace and is well received. Bringing his sister, the magician falls in love with her and wishes to marry her; but to this end the brother must be weakened by the abstraction of his dogs. His sister feigns illness and asks for flour; the miller demands a dog for the flour, and Giacomo yields it for love of his sister; in a similar manner the other two dogs are wheedled away from him. The magician tries to strangle Giacomo, but the latter blows his whistle, and the dogs appear and kill the magician and the sister. Giacomo goes away with the three dogs, and comes to a city which is in mourning because the king's daughter is to be devoured by the seven-headed magician. Giacomo, by means of the three dogs, kills the monster; the grateful princess puts the hem of her robe round Throttle-iron's neck and promises to marry Giacomo. The latter, who is in mourning for his sister, asks for a year and a day; but before going he cuts the seven tongues of the magician off and takes them with him. The maiden returns to the palace. The chimney-sweeper forces her to recognise him as her deliverer; the king, her father, consents to his marrying her; the princess, however, stipulates to be allowed to wait for a year and a day, which is accorded. At the expiration of the appointed time, Giacomo returns, and hears that the princess is going to be married. He sends Throttle-iron to strike the chimney-sweeper (the black man, the Saracen, the Turk, the gipsy, the monster) with his tail, in order that his collar may be remarked; he then presents himself as the real deliverer of the princess, and demands that the magician's heads be brought; as the tongues are wanting, the trick is discovered. The young couple are married, and the chimney-sweeper is burnt.
[67] Cfr. the Biblioteca delle Tradizioni Popolari Siciliane, edited by Gius. Pitrè, ii. canto 811.
[68] In Richardus Dinothus, quoted by Aldrovandi.
[69] From a letter of my friend Pitrè.
[70] De Quadrup. Dig. Viv. ii.
[71] Cfr. Du Cange, s. v. "canem ferre." The ignominy connected with this punishment has perhaps a phallic signification, the dog and the phallos appear in connection with each other in an unpublished legend maliciously narrated at Santo Stefano di Calcinaia, near Florence, and which asserts that woman was not born of a man, but of a dog. Adam was asleep; the dog carried off one of his ribs; Adam ran after the dog to recover it, but brought back nothing save the dog's tail, which came away in his hand. The tail of the ass, horse, or pig, which is left in the peasant's hand in other burlesque traditions, besides serving as an indication, as the most visible part, to find the lost or fallen animal again, or to return into itself, may perhaps have a meaning analogous to that of the tail of Adam's dog.—I hope the reader will pardon me these frequent repugnant allusions to indecent images; but being obliged to go back to an epoch in which idealism was still in its cradle, while physical life was in all its plenitude of vigour, images were taken in preference from the things of a more sensible nature, and which made a deeper and more abiding impression. It is well known that in the production of the Vedic fire by means of the friction of two sticks, the male and the female are alluded to, so that the grandiose and splendid poetical myth of Prometheus had its origin in the lowest of similitudes.
[72] Vṛiddhasya ćid vardhato dyâm inakshataḥ stavâno vamro vi ǵaghâna saṁdihaḥ; Ṛigv. i. 51, 9.
[73] Vamrîbhiḥ putram agruvo adânaṁ niveçanâd dhariva â ǵabhartha; Ṛigv. iv. 19, 9.—Another variation is the hedgehog, which, as we have seen in Chapter V., forces the viper out of its den.
[74] The dwarf-hermits, who transport a leaf upon a car, and are about to be drowned in the water contained in the foot-print of a cow, and who curse Indras, who passes smiling without assisting them, in the legend of the Mahâbhâratam, are a variety of these same ants.—Cfr. the chapters on the Elephant and on the Fishes, where we have Indras who fears to be submerged.
[75] Fa cunto ca no le mancava lo latto de la formica; Pentamerone, i. 8.