Italian Folktales (40 page)

When dinner was over, the king said, “Will you sell me the napkin?”

“Why not, Majesty? But on condition you let me sleep one whole night with your daughter, my rightful betrothed.”

“Why not, prisoner?” replied the king. “But on condition you keep perfectly still and quiet on the edge of the bed, with the windows open, a lamp lit, and eight guards in the room. If that suits you, well and good. Otherwise you get nothing at all.”

“Why not, Majesty? That's settled.”

So the king got the napkin, and the boy slept an entire night with the princess, but with no possibility of talking to her or touching her. And in the morning he was taken back to prison.

Seeing him back, the prisoners all raised their voices in mockery. “Hey, stupid! What a blockhead you are! Now we'll be back on our daily beans! A fine bargain you made with the king!”

But the lad didn't lose countenance. “Why can't we buy our dinner from now on with perfectly good money?”

“Who has any of that?”

“Take heart,” he said, and started pulling gold pieces out of his purse. So they had grand dinners sent in from the inn next door, and continued to kick over the pot of beans on the floor.

The jailer went to the king again, and the king came down to investigate. As soon as he found out about the box, he asked, “Will you sell it tome?”

“Why not, Majesty?” he replied, making the same bargain as before. He gave the king the box, and slept with the princess another time without being able to touch her or talk to her.

Seeing him back, the prisoners resumed their taunts. “Well, here we are on beans once more, hurrah!”

“Joy is a good thing indeed. Whether we eat or not, we will dance.”

“What!”

The lad pulled out the harmonica and began to play. The prisoners started dancing around him, with their ankle-chains clanking loudly. They broke into minuets, gavottes, and waltzes, and couldn't stop. The jailer rushed in, and he too started dancing, with all his keys jingling at his side.

In the meantime the king had just sat down to a banquet with his guests. Hearing the notes of the harmonica float up from the prison, they all jumped to their feet and began dancing. They looked like so many bewitched souls, and nobody knew what was going on: the ladies danced with the butlers, and the gentlemen with the cooks. Even the furniture danced. The crockery and crystal were smashed to smithereens; the roasted chickens flew off; and people butted the walls and ceiling beams. The king himself danced while yelling for everyone to stop. All of a sudden the lad stopped playing, and everyone fell to the floor at once, with heads spinning and legs collapsing.

Out of breath, the king went down to the prison. “Just who is being so funny?” he began.

“It's me, Majesty,” answered the lad, stepping forward. “Would you like to see?” He blew a note, and the king took a dance step.

“Stop! Stop this instant!” he said, frightened, then asked, “Will you sell it to me?”

“Why not, Majesty? But under what conditions this time?”

“The same as before.”

“Well, Majesty, here we're going to have to make a new bargain, or I'll play more music.”

“No, no, please! Tell me your terms.”

“Tonight I'll be satisfied with talking to the princess and having her answer me.”

The king thought it over and ended up agreeing. “But I'm doubling the number of guards, and there'll be two lamps lit.”

“As you like.”

Then the king called his daughter to him in secret and said to her, “Listen carefully: you are to say no, and only no, to every question which that rascal asks you tonight.” The princess promised she would.

Night fell, and the lad went to the bedchamber—which was brightly lit and full of guards—and stretched out on the edge of the bed at some distance from the princess. Then he said, “My bride, do you think that in this chilly night air we ought to keep the windows open?”

“No.”

“Did you hear that, guards?” cried the lad. “By express orders of the princess, the windows are to be closed.” The guards obeyed.

A quarter of an hour passed, and the lad said, “My bride, do you think it is quite right for us to be in bed and have all these guards around us?”

“No.”

“Guards!” cried the lad. “Did you hear? By express orders of the princess, be gone and don't show your faces here any more.” So the guards went off to bed, which struck them as almost too good to be true.

Letting another quarter of an hour pass, he said, “My bride, do you think it right to be in bed with two lamps lit?”

“No.”

So he put out the lamps, making the room pitch-dark.

He came back and took his place on the edge of the bed, then said, “Dear, we are lawfully married, and yet we are as far apart as if we had a thornbush hedge between us. Do you like that?”

“No.”

At that, he took her in his arms and kissed her.

When day dawned and the king appeared in his daughter's room, she said to him, “I obeyed your orders. Let bygones be bygones. This young man is my lawful husband. Pardon us.”

Having no alternative, the king ordered sumptuous wedding festivities, balls, and tournaments. The lad became the king's son-in-law and then king himself, and there you have the tale of a shepherd boy lucky enough to plop down on a royal throne for life.

 

(
Montale Pistoiese
)

61

Spain was once ruled by the good and just King Maximilian. He had three sons: William, John, and little Andrew—the youngest and his father's favorite. Following an illness, the king lost his eyesight. Though all the doctors in the kingdom were summoned, none knew of any remedy. One of the oldest doctors suggested, “Since medical knowledge is limited in this case, send for a soothsayer.” So, soothsayers from everywhere were called in. They pored over their books, but proved no wiser than the doctors in the end. With the soothsayers a wizard had slipped in, a stranger to everyone. After the others had all had their say, the wizard came forward and spoke. “I am familiar with cases of blindness like yours, King Maximilian. The cure is nowhere to be found but in the Sleeping Queen's city: it is the water in her well.” People's amazement at those words had not yet died down before the wizard vanished and was never heard of again.

The king was eager to find out who he was, but no one had ever laid eyes on the man before. One of the soothsayers thought he might be a wizard from the vicinity of Armenia, come to Spain by means of magic. The king asked, “Could the Sleeping Queen's city also be thereabouts?” An old courtier replied, “We won't know where it is until we look for it. If I were younger, I would go in search of it myself, without delay.”

William, the eldest son, stepped forward. “If anyone is to set out in search of the city, I am the one to go. It is only fitting that the firstborn put his father's health above all other concerns.”

“Dear son,” replied the king, “you have my blessing. Take money and horses and everything else you need. I will be expecting you back victorious in three months.”

William went to the kingdom's port and boarded a vessel sailing for the Isle of Buda, where it was to anchor for three hours before continuing on to Armenia. At Buda he went ashore to see the island. As he strolled about, he met a charming lady and became so engrossed in talking to her that the three hours went by before he knew it. At the appointed time the ship unfurled its sails and departed without William. He was sorry at first, but the lady's company made him soon forget all about his father's illness and the original purpose of the voyage.

When the three months were up, with still no sign of William, the king began fearing the boy was dead, and to the pain of going blind was added that of losing a son. To console him, John, the middle boy, volunteered to go in search of his brother as well as the water. The king consented, although fearful that something would happen to this son too.

On the boat, John soon came in sight of the Isle of Buda. This time the ship was to anchor there for a day. John went ashore to look around the island. He strolled into a park of myrtles, cypresses, and laurels, which shaded lagoons of limpid water stocked with fish of every color of the rainbow. From there he proceeded through the town's beautiful avenues and streets to a square with a white marble fountain in its center. Encircling the square were monuments and buildings, and in their midst rose a majestic palace with gold and silver columns and crystal walls that sparkled in the sunlight. John spied his brother moving about on the other side of those crystal walls.

“William!” he cried. “What are you doing here? Why did you not come home? We thought you were dead!” And they embraced.

William told how, once he'd set foot on the island, he'd been unable to tear himself away and how he'd been received by the beautiful lady who owned everything in sight. “This lady is Lugistella,” he added, “and she has a very lovely little sister named Isabel. If you like her, she is yours.”

In short, the twelve hours went by, and the ship sailed without John. After a brief spell of remorse, he too forgot all about his father and the miraculous water and became a guest, like his brother, in the crystal palace.

When the three months were up, with no sign of the second son, King Maximilian was alarmed and, with the entire court, feared the worst. Then little Andrew boldly declared he would go in search of his brothers and the Sleeping Queen's magic water. “So you intend to leave me too?” said the king. “Blind and crushed as I am, I must give up my last son as well?” But Andrew revived his hope of seeing the three boys back safe and sound in addition to obtaining the wonderful water, so his father consented at last to his departure.

The ship dropped anchor at the Isle of Buda, where it would remain for two days. “You may disembark,” the captain told Andrew, “but be back on time if you don't want to be left behind like two other young men who went ashore and have not been heard of since.” Andrew realized he was talking of his brothers, who must be somewhere on the island. So he began looking around and found them in the crystal palace. They embraced, and the brothers told Andrew about the spell that kept them on Buda. “We are in a real paradise here,” they told him. “We each have a beautiful lady. The mistress of the island is mine, her sister is John's. If you'll join us, I believe our ladies still have a cousin . . . ”

But Andrew cut them off. “You've obviously lost your mind if you don't remember your duty to Father! I intend to find the Sleeping Queen's magic water, and nothing can turn me from that resolution—neither riches, nor amusements, nor beautiful ladies!”

At those words, the brothers became silent and walked away in a huff. Andrew returned at once to the ship. The sails were unfurled, and favorable winds carried the vessel straight to Armenia.

As soon as he was on Armenian soil, Andrew asked everyone he met where the Sleeping Queen's city was, but apparently no one had ever heard of it. After weeks of vain search, he was directed to an old man living on a mountaintop. “He's an old, old man, as old as the world itself, by the name of Farfanello. If he doesn't know where this city is, nobody knows.”

Andrew climbed the mountain. He found the bearded, decrepit old man in his hut and told him what he was seeking. “Dear youth,” said Farfanello, “I have indeed heard of this place, but it is quite far away. First you have to cross an ocean, and that will take almost a month, to say nothing of the perils of sailing those waters. But even if you do get across them safe and sound, still greater dangers lie in store for you on the Sleeping Queen's isle, the very name of which suggests misfortune, since they call it the Isle of Tears.”

Glad to have definite information at last, Andrew embarked at the port of Brindisse. The ocean crossing was hazardous because huge polar bears, capable of wrecking even big ships, swam in those waters. But Andrew, a courageous hunter, was not afraid, and the vessel steered clear of the polar bears' claws and arrived at the Isle of Tears. The port looked abandoned, and not a sound was to be heard. Andrew disembarked and saw a sentinel holding a gun, but the man was completely motionless. Even though Andrew asked him for directions, he continued to stand as still and silent as a statue. Next, Andrew approached the porters about his baggage, but they didn't move a muscle; some held heavy trunks on their backs, with one foot forward and raised. Andrew entered the city. On one side of the street he saw a cobbler, still and silent, halted in the midst of drawing thread through a shoe. On the other side of the street a coffeehouse keeper held a pot in position to pour a lady a cup of coffee, but both he and she were mute and motionless. Streets, windows, and shops were full of people, but they all looked like figures of wax in the strangest of postures. Even the horses, dogs, cats, and other creatures were standing dead still in their tracks. Moving through this thick silence, Andrew came to a splendid palace adorned with statues and tablets commemorating the island's past kings; on the façade was a frieze full of figures, with an inscription in radiant letters of gold:
TO HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN OF LUMINOUS SOULS, WHO REIGNS OVER THIS ISLE OF PARIMUS
.

“Where could this queen be?” wondered Andrew. “Could she be one and the same as the Sleeping Queen?” He went up a grand alabaster staircase and crossed several halls decorated with bas-reliefs and guarded at the doors by the customary men of arms, over whom a spell had been cast. In one hall marble steps led up to a dais, on which stood the throne surmounted by a canopy and displaying a diamond-studded coat-of-arms. A grapevine growing in a gold pot had trailed clear across the room and twined around the throne and canopy, adorning them with clusters of ripe grapes and vine leaves. That wasn't all: fruit trees of every kind in the garden had grown quite out of bounds, thrusting their branches through the windows into the hall. Andrew, who was hungry after so much walking, pulled an apple from one of those branches and bit into it. He'd no sooner done so than his eyesight dimmed, then left him altogether. “Woe is me!” he cried. “How will I now get about in this strange country peopled with nothing but statues?” He began groping his way out of the palace; but moving along, he suddenly stepped into a hole and plummeted through empty space, landing in water over his head. With a few strokes he came to the surface, and the minute his head was out of water, he realized he had regained his eyesight. He was at the bottom of a deep well, and high above him was the sky. “So this is the well,” he said to himself, “the wizard was referring to. This is the water that will cure my father, if I ever manage to get out of here and carry some back to him.” He spied a rope hanging in the well, took hold of it, and climbed out.