Italian Folktales (108 page)

 

(
Inland vicinity of Palermo
)

168

Once upon a time, it has been said over and over, there was a cobbler named Master Francesco, and since he was the laziest man alive, everyone called him Master Francesco Sit-Down-and-Eat. He had five daughters, each lovelier than the other, and all as good as gold. But with that father of theirs who worked little and earned even less, they were at a loss to make ends meet. He got up late, dressed, and off to the tavern he went, where he would spend every penny the daughters had earned.

At last they told him that, for better or worse, he had to go to work. So he picked up cobbler's bench, lasts, and hammer, threw them over his shoulder, and went through town crying, “Shoe repairs! Shoe repairs!” But knowing him for the chief lazybones and drunkard in town, people would have nothing to do with him. Realizing he would starve to death in his own town, he went to another town three miles away, where he cried, “Shoe repairs! Shoe repairs! Come one, come all and get your shoes repaired!” He cried himself hoarse, but still no one brought him any work, while his pangs of hunger became ever sharper.

Night fell, and lo and behold a lady called to him from a large mansion. He went inside and found her in bed. “Fix this worn shoe for me.”

Master Francesco fixed it for her the best he could, and the lady paid him a groat, saying, “I know you have five daughters. I am sick and need someone to wait on me. Would you let me have one of your daughters for a maid?”

“I certainly will, my lady,” replied Master Francesco. “I'll send her to you tomorrow.”

Back home, he told his daughters everything and said to the oldest, “You will be the one to go tomorrow.”

In the morning, the daughter went to the lady who exclaimed, “Ah, so you did come, my child! Sit down here and give me a kiss. I want you to be happy here with every comfort and joy anyone could ask for. As you can see, I am bedridden, so you will be in charge of the house. Go now, my child, sweep the house, make things tidy, then tidy up yourself and put on your best dress, so that my husband will find everything in order when he returns.”

The girl began sweeping and, in order to sweep under the bed, raised the bedspread which came all the way to the floor. What should she then
see but a long, long hairy tail that came out from under the sheet and reached all the way under the bed.

Woe is me! she thought to herself. Just look at the mess I'm in now! She's an ogress, not a lady! At that, she backed slowly away from the bed.

“You listen to me!” said the lady, whose voice had already changed, “Sweep everywhere but under the bed. Is that clear?”

The girl pretended she was going to sweep another room, but sneaked out of the house and returned home. “What, you're back already?” exclaimed her father.

“Father, that is an ogress, not a lady; beneath the bed she has a black hairy tail this long. Say what you will, I'm not going back.”

“Stay at home, then,” said Master Francesco, “and we'll send the second girl there.” The second girl got the same attention and words from the lady as the first, but she too spied the tail and went running home.

Now Master Francesco was greedy for the lady's generous pay; with it he could eat and dress without having to do a lick of work himself. So he sent the next daughter to the lady, and then the next, and finally the youngest, and every one of them came flying back home frightened to death by the awful black hairy tail.

“We're better off here,” they said, “better off at home working our fingers to the bone day and night and wearing our old rags than scarcely turning a hand for good food and clothing from the ogress, who would eat us in the end! Father, if that appeals to you so much, go to the ogress yourself.”

The father knew no peace until he had entered the lady's service himself. The work was so very easy, and he could eat and dress like a prince.

As a matter of fact, the lady treated him like a prince, offering him fine clothes, tasty dishes, gold rings, joys, and comforts. All he had to do was go to market, then come home and tidy the bedchamber, after which he was free to sit down, stretch out his legs, and lounge about for the rest of the day. In no time Sit-Down-and-Eat grew fatter and fatter. When he could get no plumper, the lady called him to her. “Yes, my lady?” he said approaching the bed.

The ogress sneered, grabbed him by the arm, digging her nails into him, and said:

 

“Sit-Down-and-Eat, Eat-and-Sit-Down,

On which part should I first to town,

Your head, your feet, or under gown?”

 

Shaking like a leaf, Master Francesco answered in a whisper:

 

“Believe your daughters, it is meet,

Else be eaten, starting with your feet.”

 

So the ogress seized him by the feet and sucked him completely up in one long gulp, without leaving a single bone.

 

“The girls were at peace and didn't pine

For Master Francesco who died like a swine;

Let whoever tells or hears this story

Never die a death so gory.”

 

(
Inland vicinity of Palermo
)

169

Once, they say, there was a king and queen who had a daughter they wanted to marry off. The king had a proclamation posted for all monarchy and holders of noble titles to assemble at the royal palace to be reviewed. They all assembled, while the king and his daughter watched them parade by. The first one that captured his daughter's fancy was going to be her husband. Filing past in first place were all the kings, next the princes, then the barons, knights, and professors. The king's daughter saw no king she liked, nor any prince. The barons came up, but neither did they appeal to her. It was the same with the knights.

The professors passed, and she pointed at one of them. “Father, my husband will be that one.” He was a foreign professor whom no one knew. Since the king had made a promise, he had no choice but give his daughter in marriage to the professor. After the wedding, the bridegroom wished to be off at once. The bride bid her mother and father goodbye, and the couple departed, followed by the army. After half a day's march, the soldiers said to the bridegroom, “Your Highness, let us now have lunch.”

“This is no time for lunch,” replied the bridegroom.

A bit further on, they repeated the proposal, only to be told a second time, “This is no time for lunch.”

Exasperated, the soldiers answered, “In that case, you and your royal bride go on to the country where you're headed.”

“And you and the entire military staff may go your way too,” replied the man. So the soldiers turned back, and the newlyweds continued on by themselves.

They came to a desolate, rocky terrain covered with wild vegetation. “We are home,” announced the bridegroom.

“What! There's no house here!” protested the king's daughter, growing worried.

The bridegroom tapped his stick three times, and an underground cavern sprang open. “Walk in,” he ordered.

“I'm afraid.”

“Get in there, or I'll kill you!”

The bride went in. The cavern was full of dead people, young and old, piled up on top of each other.

“See these bodies?” asked the bridegroom. “Your job will be this: take each one of them and stand them up in a row against the wall. Every night I'll bring in a fresh cartload of them.”

So began the married life of the king's daughter. She picked up the dead people from off the pile and stood them up against the wall, so that they took up less space and left room for more bodies. And every evening her husband came in with a cartload of new dead people. It was hard work, because dead people are particularly heavy. Nor could she ever get out of the cavern, for the opening had even disappeared.

The king's daughter had brought with her a little furniture, including an old chest of drawers, a gift from an aunt who was something of a fairy. One day when the bride opened a drawer, the chest spoke: “At your command, little mistress!”

Without delay she said, “I wish to get out of here and go home.”

At that, a white dove flew out of the chest and said, “Write your father a letter and put it in my bill.”

The bride wrote the letter, which the dove carried to the king and waited for an answer. The king wrote: “My daughter, find out immediately how to leave your cavern, and trust in my help.”

When the dove came back to the girl with her father's answer, she decided to get on her husband's good side that evening, in order to draw the secret out of him. “Do you know what I dreamed?” she said. “That I left the cavern.”

“It takes more than a dream to get out!” replied the husband.

“Why? What does it take?” she asked in an innocent manner.

“Well, to begin with, you have to have someone born prematurely like
myself, after seven months, to strike the stick three times on the rock. Then the cavern will open.”

As soon as the dove relayed to the king the secret about the person born after seven months' time, the king sent soldiers through city and country to find someone born after only seven months. A washerwoman hanging out things to dry saw that bustle of troops and thought to herself, They'll steal my sheets, so she began hurriedly pulling them off the line.

“Don't be afraid, we're not here to rob you,” said a corporal. “We're looking for someone born after only seven months. No matter who it is, the king wants him.”

“Oh,” replied the washerwoman, “as a matter of fact, I have a son born prematurely after only seven months.” She went into the house and got him for the soldiers. The young man, thin as a rail, joined the king at the head of the soldiers to go and free the princess. He struck the rock three times with the stick, and the cavern opened. The princess was there waiting for them and rode off with her father, the young man, and the soldiers.

Along the way they saw an old woman in a garden. “Ma'am,” they said to her, “should a man come by asking about us, we've not been by—all right?”

“Huh?” answered the old woman. “You want some beans for your soup tonight?”

“Perfect!” they exclaimed, “You're just the person we need.”

Soon the brigand himself came by, having found the cavern wide open and his wife gone. “Have you seen a woman go by with the army?” he asked the old woman.

“Huh? You're making marmalade to go with tea?”

“Marmalade my eye! A seven-months' man and the king and his daughter.”

“Ah! A pound of parsley and basil!”

“No, no, NO! The king's daughter with soldiers!”

“No, not salty cucumbers!”

The bandit shrugged his shoulders and stormed off. “But, sir,” she called after him, “why did you take offense? Whoever heard of salty cucumbers?”

Back in the safety of her father's house, the princess got married again shortly afterward, this time to the king of Siberia. Her first husband, the bandit, however, continued to pursue her and formed a plot. He dressed up as a saint and had himself put into a picture. It was a big picture with a heavy frame fastened by three bolts, and the bandit stood inside, like a saint, behind a thick glass. The picture was taken to the king of Siberia to purchase. When he saw it, he found it so beautiful and lifelike that he
bought it to hang over his bed. When no one was in the room, the bandit came out and placed a bewitched paper under the king's pillow. When the queen saw that saint's picture over her husband's bed, she gave a start, for it looked like her first husband, the bandit. But the king took her to task for being afraid of the picture of a saint.

They went to bed. Once they were asleep, the bandit turned the first door bolt to come out. The queen awakened at the sound and pinched her husband to make him listen too, but the king continued to sleep, since the magic property of that paper kept whoever had it under his pillow fast asleep. The bandit turned the second bolt, and the king slept on, while the queen was paralyzed with fear. He turned the third bolt, stepped out, and said to the queen, “I will now cut off your head. Put your neck firmly on the pillow.”

To prop her neck up high, the queen took her husband's pillow too, and in the process, the enchanted paper fell on the floor. At once the king awakened, sounded the trumpet he wore around his neck night and day, as is customary with kings, and the soldiers came running from all directions. They saw the bandit, slew him, and that was that.

 

(
Madonie
)

170

An old woman had a granddaughter. The granddaughter always stayed home and did the housework while the old woman went out shopping. One day she brought home seven little lamb heads. She gave them to her granddaughter and said, “Atanasia, I'm going out. Cook these seven little heads for me, and we'll eat them when I return.”

The girl put the heads on to cook. A cat sat nearby and, smelling the aroma that issued from the casserole, said:

 

“Mew mew mew mew mew MEW,

Half for me and half for YOU!”

 

So the girl took one of the seven lamb heads, divided it, gave half to the cat, and ate the other half herself. The cat ate, then said once more:

 

“Mew mew mew mew mew MEW,

Half for me and half for YOU!”

 

The girl cut another head in two, one part for the cat and one for herself. The cat, however, was still not satisfied, and meowed anew: