“Sorti da quella casa,
E passa disotto a una torre,
E nel passare
Si senti a chiamare
A nome, alze il capo,
Ma non videte nessuno,
Soltanto senti una voce,
Una voce che le disse
‘Sali su questa torre!’”“Leave this house, in going,
Thou’lt pass beneath a tower,
And hear a voice which calls thee,
Yet looking, thou’lt see nothing,
Yet still will hear it crying,
‘Virgil, ascend the tower!’”
Virgil did this, and heard the Voice call him, when he ascended the tower and there beheld a small red goblin, who was visible to him alone, because Virgil had invoked him. And the Spirit said to him:
“Behold this little dog. Return with it to the house whence thou hast come, and go forth with the poor man, and take the dog with you. And where the dog stops there dig!”
And they did so. And they went away, and at last the dog stopped at a place, and the poor man began to dig. And lo! ere long the earth became red, and he came to iron ore. And from this discovery resulted the iron factory of Colle, and by it that of glass; wherever the dog led they found minerals. So from that time there was no more suffering because there was work for all.
This legend is a full confirmation of what I have elsewhere remarked, that these “witch-stories” have almost invariably a deeper meaning or moral than is to be found in the “popular tales” generally prevalent among peasants and children. Thus, while we find in this the magician Virgil, his invocation to a familiar spirit, the apparition of the Red Goblin of the Tower and the mystical dog of the Kobold, or goblins of the mines, there is with it a noble reflection that the best way to relieve suffering is to provide work. In an ordinary fairy-tale the magician would have simply conjured up a treasure and have given it to the poor.
Apropos of the word goblin, which is generally supposed to be from the German Kobold, I would observe that the Greek κοβαλι or cobali are defined in a curious old French work as lutins, “household spirits, or domestic fairies.”
VIRGILIO AS A PHYSICIAN, OR VIRGIL AND THE MOUSE.
“Now to signify destruction and death they paint a mouse. For it gnaweth all things, and works ruin.”—Hori Apolli: Hieroglyphica; Rome, 1606.
There once lived in Florence a young gentleman—un gran signore—who wedded a beautiful young lady to whom he was passionately attached, as she indeed was for a time to him. But “fickle and fair is nothing rare,” and it came to pass that before long she gave her love again to an intimate friend of her husband. And the latter did not indeed perceive the cause, but he was much grieved at the indifference to him which his wife began to show.
Then the wife began to tell her lover how her husband had scolded her for her neglect, and how much afraid she was lest their intrigue would be discovered, and that she was so uneasy that she was ready to poison her spouse “if she could only get rid of him!”