The next paper or tradition on the subject of Cain, which, as every phrase in it indicates, was taken down from an old dame who at first slowly recalled forgotten sentences, will be to many more interesting, and to all much more amusing than the first. It once happened that an old gypsy in England began to tell me the story of the ghostly baker of Stonehenge and the seven loaves, but, suddenly pausing, he said: “What’s the use of telling that to you who have read it all in the Bible?” There is, however, this trifling difference, that I am not sure that my Italian witch friends knew that Cain and Abel are in the Bible at all. The Red Indian doctor, whose knowledge of the Old Testament was limited to its being good to cure neuralgia, was far beyond the contadini as regards familiarity with “the efficacy of the Scripture.”
This is the witch-tale as written word by word:
Abele e Chaino.
“They were two brothers. Abel greatly loved Cain, but Cain did not love so much the brother Abel.
“Cain had no great will to work.
“Abel, however, on the contrary, was greatly disposed (si ingegnava) to labour, because he had found it profitable. He was industrious in all, and at last became a grazier (mercante di manzi).
“And Cain also, being moved by jealousy (per astia), wished to become a grazier, but the wheel did not turn for him as it did for Abel.
“And Cain also was a good man, and set himself contentedly to work, believing that he could become as rich as his brother, but he did not succeed in this, for which reason he became so envious of Abel that it resulted in tremendous hate, and he swore to be revenged.
“Cain often visited his brother, and once said to him, ‘Abel, thou art rich and I am poor; give me the half of thy wealth, since thou wishest me so well!’
“Then Abel replied: ‘If I give thee a sum which thou thyself couldst gain by industry, thou shouldst still labour as I do, and I will give thee nothing, since, if thou wilt work as I do, thou wilt become as rich.’