Italian Folktales (129 page)

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. “The Salamanna Grapes” (
L'uva salamanna
) from Nerucci, 40, Montale Pistoiese, Tuscany, told by the widow Luisa Ginanni.

One of the richest tales of
The Arabian Nights
of Galland (“Histoire du Prince Ahmed et de la fée Pari-Banou”), full of descriptions of marvels and treasures, in a bare Tuscan version. The sequel, or the story of the fairy Pari-Banou, lengthy and rich in Galland, is reduced in Nerucci's version to an unnecessary appendix; I thus chose to conclude the tale with general
disappointment, a type of close traditionally common to some popular stories about contests.

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. “The Enchanted Palace” (
Il palazzo incantato
) from Nerucci, 59, Montale Pistoiese, Tuscany, told by the farmer Giovanni Becheroni.

One of the finest folktales about the enchanted palace, which can be classed as a variant of the Amor and Psyche type, with the invisible wife lost and regained by the husband, rather than the reverse. The charm of this Tuscan version derives from the person of the solitary prince absorbed in his books; I have aimed to accent his character by making him inept at hunting, with his pursuit of the hare leading him to the palace (here I followed a Piedmontese version—Comparetti, 27; in Nerucci, the guardian of the palace is an ill-defined “monster”). The plot is often incoherent, as in the case of the hermit's strange behavior. Nerucci fails to account for the innkeeper's sly drugging of the wine; I justified the act, following the version from Monferrato, by the daughter's claim to Fiordinando's love.

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. “Buffalo Head” (
Testa di Bufala
) from Nerucci, 37, Montale Pistoiese, Tuscany, told by the widow Luisa Ginanni.

One of the most suggestive and mysterious folktales in Italy. Different details appear in its different versions, but the plot is substantially the same, from Venice to Sardinia. The supernatural creature that rears the protagonist can be a lizard, snake, or dragon in the service of fairies, a monster, an ogre or ogress, an old woman, a woman with a bull's head, or someone invisible except for his hands (as in the most rational and civilized version—Bernoni's, source of my no. 35). The offense responsible for the transformation of the girl's face is usually ingratitude, her failure to say thank you when she goes away; sometimes it is leaving an object behind. Usually ingratitude and oversight go hand in hand; rarely is the offense curiosity (the customary forbidden door). The supernatural being always takes revenge by transforming the protagonist's face into the head of some animal (buffalo, goat, cat, or donkey); or else a beard grows out of her face, or a sheep's fleece on her neck; or she may simply become ugly, or even end up with no head at all.

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. “The King of Portugal's Son” (
Il figliolo del Re di Portogallo
) from Nerucci, 25, Montale Pistoiese, Tuscany, told by the farmer Giovanni Becheroni.

Part-folktale and part-romance, and in the end like a piece of news told at fairs, it most likely comes from an old popular poem,
Istoria di Ottinello e Giulia
.

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. “Fanta-Ghirò the Beautiful” (
Fanta-Ghirò, persona bella
) from Nerucci, 28, Montale Pistoiese, Tuscany, told by the widow Luisa Ginanni.

In Basile's
Pentameron
(III, 6), a father feels disgraced to have only daughters and no sons, which inspires Belluccia to pretend to be a man. This theme is better developed in the popular tradition, particularly in Tuscany and in Southern Italy. The humor of the present brisk and precise Tuscan
version stems altogether from an affirmation of feminine pluck and resolution—the attitude that always determines the ups and downs of women in men's garb so common in the stories and comedies of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

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. “The Old Woman's Hide” (
Pelle di vecchia
) from Nerucci, 13, Montale Pistoiese, Tuscany, told by the widow Luisa Ginanni.

The image of the beautiful girl who steps out of the old woman's skin (well portrayed in Grimm no. 179) lends charm to this tale, which is one of many variants of the “dear as salt” type, like my no. 54. This Tuscan version in the original begins in a similar way, so for the sake of variety, I took the beginning of an Abruzzese version (Finamore, 26).

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. “Olive” (
Uliva
) from Nerucci, 39, Montale Pistoiese, Tuscany, told by the widow Luisa Ginanni.

The name Olive is encountered in a mystery play (
Rappresentazione di Santa Uliva
) and in a popular poem (
Istoria de la Regina Oliva
). Both tell of a woman with mutilated hands and cursed with the crudest of vexations. Those motifs are also common to the present Tuscan tale, where cruelty and religious intolerance (manifested in the inhuman Jew) and a fundamentally cheerful nature (dramatized by the girl eating the pears) are calmly and strikingly blended as in Paolo Uccello's predella at Urbino. The story of the persecuted girl with her hands lopped off is common to quite a few versions all over Europe (cf. Grimm no. 31) and Asia (
The Arabian Nights
) and is also found in every region of Italy. According to Pitrè, it “figures in popular narratives blending sacred and profane elements and giving rise to Genoveffa, Orlanda, Florencia, Saint Guglielma, to the daughter of the king of Dacia, the queen of Poland, Crescenzia, and Saint Olive.”

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. “Catherine, Sly Country Lass” (
La contadina furba
) from Nerucci, 3 and 15, Montale Pistoiese, Tuscany, told by the widow Luisa Ginanni and the tailor Ferdinando Giovannini.

The tale of a country lass's feats of cunning is common to all of Europe (the oldest written version seems to be a Norwegian saga of the thirteenth or fourteenth century), interspersed with oriental motifs. A few of the witticisms (such as “neither naked nor clothed”) also appear in the popular Italian book of the seventeenth century,
Bertoldo, Bertoldino e Cacasenno
.

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. “The Traveler from Turin” (
Il viaggiatore torinese
) from Nerucci, 48 Montale Pistoiese, Tuscany, told by Benvenuto Ginanni, decorator.

A country Robinson Crusoe. Not only is the tale in its general plan like Defoe's novel, it also presents all the marginal similarities such as the father's opposition to the son's seafaring vocation, the shipwrecked man's industry, reflections on the vanity of wealth for the single man. But the source of the story is to be found in that great store of seafaring tales, “The Voyages of Sinbad” (
The Arabian Nights
), particularly the fourth voyage, which the Tuscan tale faithfully repeats, tacking on the sentimental story of the be
loved who also ends up in the cavern. (In the Arabian narrative, Sinbad kills all his companions, so as to survive on their victuals.) The oriental motif of the husband buried with the dead wife also comes up, with various justifications, in other popular Italian narratives (see my no. 179, Sicily, and no. 197, Sardinia). About the mysterious bull,
The Arabian Nights
is very vague, speaking only of an animal that feeds on cadavers. The gratuitous naming of places includes the landlocked city of Turin as the birthplace of the seafarer.

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. “The Daughter of the Sun” (
La figlia del Sole
) from Comparetti, 45, Pisa, told by an old woman of the people.

The myth of Danae is very much alive in Italian folklore and usually serves to introduce the later vicissitudes of the daughter engendered by the Sun. The tale, I believe, can be considered truly Italian, or pretty much so; it is actually found only in Italy, Spain, and Greece, with its crude stories of magic, mutilations, and self-prepared banquets. The bean field is not in the Pisan text but another Danae tale, from Rufina (Florence),
Faina
(Pitrè, T. p. 9). All the magic feats are in the original, except the girl's passing through the wall and walking on the cobweb—my own inventions.

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. “The Dragon and the Enchanted Filly” (
Il Drago e la cavallina fatata
) from Comparetti I, 17, Pisa, told by the narrator of the preceding tale.

Into a rather unusual plot are woven motifs of the serpent king (cf. my no. 144), Fanta-Ghirò (cf. my no. 69), and the false report of the monstrous childbirth (cf. my nos. 31, 71, 87, 141).

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. “The Florentine” (
Il Fiorentino
) from Comparetti, 44, Pisa, same narrator as in the preceding.

This is the story of Ulysses and Polyphemus translated into a Tuscan peasant story with farmer and priest, local satire, the misery of the Florentine who has nothing to boast of, and the petty cautionary moral of always staying close to home. I have accentuated the character satire in the way the story seems to demand; hence my inclusion of the tale's last sentence.

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. “Ill-Fated Royalty” (
I Reali sfortunati
) from Comparetti, 42, Pisa, same narrator as in the preceding.

This folktale presents several unusual aspects: double plot, intertwining of the different loves and matrimonial exchanges, precision of political plot with conspiracies, coup d'etat, and well-defined international relations. In addition, there is the serious tone of a tear-jerker. All those aspects suggest that a romance could be the source of the tale. The geography, on the other hand, is imaginary, with that splendid mountain passage that leads directly into Scotland.

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. “The Golden Ball” (
Il gobbino che picchia
) from Comparetti, 40, Pisa, same narrator as before.

North European (see Grimm no. 91) and also Italian tradition is full of
stories about the world underground, with the youngest of three brothers or comrades going below and freeing the princess and subsequently finding himself abandoned down there by his traitorous brothers. I chose this strange and carefree Pisan version, dressing it up a bit toward the end.

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. “Fioravante and Beautiful Isolina” (
Fioravante e la bella Isolina
) from Nuti (tale in Pisan vernacular, recorded and annotated by Oreste Nuti, Milan 1878), Pisa, told by Tonchio di Pitolo, “farmer and schoolmaster.”

In the grand line of stories about the prince disguised as a servant, who frees a princess from a spell with the help of a talking filly and three grateful animals (cf. my no. 6), this Pisan folktale is in a vernacular charged with color (which I have toned down in keeping with the book's overall tone) and interspersed with lines from Tasso and moral explanations. It presents rare fanciful details (the two dolphins, for instance, wrangling over the tress) and an even rarer subplot about the weaver in love, the poor girl who sacrifices herself to save her beloved and consequently brings about his marriage to a princess. Are these variants “literary,” or a part of genuine popular tradition? An episode with a sad denouement is unusual indeed in folktales, even if overshadowed by the usual happy ending of the princely wedding. Also, there is a bitter resignation to class barriers, which are cynically shrugged off by the decision to provide a dowry for the unfortunate girl in love, so that she can marry someone else.

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. “Fearless Simpleton” (
Lo sciocco senza paura
) from Pitrè, T. 39, Florence, told by Paolina Sarta, “who had heard it in Leghorn and told it in a very scatterbrained way.”

Unlike Dauntless Little John of my no. 1, this tale's hero, the titular protagonist of the Florentine original, takes no account of dangers or strange occurrences but is an irresponsible prattler. The notable feature of this version is the protagonist's speech, which makes him a full character—and that is rare in oral narrative (cf. Grimm no. 4). Pitrè's text closes with the hero's head cut off and put on backward (see note on my no. 1) ; but since that brings an element of fantasy into an otherwise realistic narrative, I thought it best to exclude it.

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. “The Milkmaid Queen” (
La lattaia regina
) from Pitrè, T. II, 25, Leghorn.

The girl prisoner brought by the wind or a bird to an ogress's house is already in Basile (IV, 6).

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. “The Story of Campriano” (
La storia di Campriano
) from Giannini, 1, Tereglio, near Lucca, Tuscany.

This tale has been identically preserved all over Italy and with the same title probably from the fourteenth century. A. Zenatti, publishing a verse version of 1572 (
Storia del Campriano contadino
, Bologna 1884) lists fourteen printed editions covering the period from 1518 down to the popular editions of his generation. One of the first editions specifies “composed for a Florentine.” Straparola relates the same jokes in the story of
Pre Scarpacifico (I, 3). Every version whether literary or popular, with the exception of the present version from Lucca followed by me, contains the final episode of Campriano closed up in a bag and the trick to bag someone else. I did not reinsert it, because, with the three traders swindled, the story is already complete, and the ending—although highly traditional—strikes me as arbitrarily tacked on. The proof is that it exists also separately in literary and oral versions.

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. “The North Wind's Gift” (
Il regalo del vento tramontano
) from Comparetti, 7, Mugello, Tuscany.

Known in all Europe and Asia, the folktale about magic gifts, dispensers of food and wealth successively taken from their rightful owner and later regained by means of another magic gift that delivers blows (see my no. 127), came into this Tuscan variant on a ripple of rustic rebellion—a very slight breeze, not a north wind like the one Geppone recognizes as the sole cause of his hardships and also as his only possible rescuer. Note that the prior-landlord is never explicitly condemned as the thief he is in reality; the farmers blames his misfortunes exclusively on the wind, or on his talkative wife. But submission gives way in the end to fury, in the blows that rain on the prior.

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. “The Sorceress's Head” (
La testa della Maga
) from Pitrè, T. 1, “told by Beppa Pierazzoli, of Pratovecchio in the upper Val d'Arno, longtime resident of Florence.”