Italian Folktales (7 page)

When the barrel was full, hoofbeats were heard retreating. Fairy Sibiana was fleeing for dear life, followed by her dwarfs, while out of the palace ran the king of England's daughter, cheering: “I'm safe at last! You set me free!”

With the king's daughter and the water of long life, the youth returned to his ship, where the old sailor was all ready to weigh anchor.

The king of England scanned the sea every day through his telescope. Seeing a ship approach that was flying the English flag, he ran to port overjoyed. When the mangy one beheld the youth safe and sound and escorting the king's daughter, he was fit to be tied and resolved to have him killed.

While the king was celebrating his daughter's return with a grand banquet, two grim-looking fellows came to get the youth, saying it was a matter of life and death. Puzzled, he followed them. When they got to the woods, the two fellows, who were assassins hired by the mangy one, drew their knives and cut the youth's throat.

Meanwhile at the banquet, the king's daughter was more and more worried, since the youth had gone off with that sinister pair and not returned. She went out looking for him and, reaching the woods, found his body covered with wounds. But the old sailor had brought along the barrel containing the water of long life, in which he immersed the youth's body, only to see him jump right back out as sound as ever and so handsome that the king's daughter threw her arms around his neck.

The mangy one was livid with rage. “What's in that barrel?” he asked.

“Boiling oil,” replied the sailor.

So the mangy one had a barrel of oil heated to boiling and announced to the princess: “If you don't love me I'll kill myself.” He stabbed himself with his dagger and leaped into the boiling oil. He was instantly scalded to death. Also his black wig had flown off when he leaped, revealing his mangy head.

“Ah, the mangy one!” exclaimed the king of England. “The crudest of all my enemies. He finally got what was coming to him. So you, valiant youth, are my godson! You shall marry my daughter and inherit my kingdom!” And so it was.

 

(
Riviera ligure di ponente
)

4

Long ago there lived a poor fisherman with three marriageable daughters. A certain young man asked for the hand of one of them, but people were wary of him since he came out only at night. The oldest daughter and then the middle daughter both said no to him, but the third girl said yes. The wedding was celebrated at night, and as soon as the couple was alone, the bridegroom announced to his bride: “I must tell you a secret: I am under an evil spell and doomed to be a tortoise by day and a man at night. There's only one way to break the spell: I must leave my wife right after the wedding and travel around the world, at night as a man and by day as a tortoise. If I come back and find that my wife has remained loyal to me all along and endured every hardship for my sake, I'll become a man again for good.”

“I am willing,” said the bride.

The bridegroom slipped a diamond ring on her finger. “If you use it to a good end, this ring will help you in whatever situation you find yourself.”

Day had dawned, and the bridegroom turned into a tortoise and crawled off to begin his journey around the world.

The bride went about the city in search of work. Along the way, she came across a child crying and said to his mother, “Let me hold him in my arms and calm him.”

“You'd be the first person to do that,” answered the mother. “He's been crying all day long.”

“By the power of the diamond,” whispered the bride, “may the child laugh and dance and frolic!” At that, the child started laughing, dancing, and frolicking.

Next, the bride entered a bakery and said to the woman who owned it, “You'll have no regrets if you hire me to work for you.” The owner hired her, and she began making bread, saying under her breath, “By the power of the diamond, let the whole town buy bread at this bakery as long as I work here!” From then on, people poured in and out with no sign of a letup. Among the customers were three young men who saw the bride and fell in love with her.

“If you let me spend a night with you,” one of them said to her, “I'll give you a thousand francs,”

“I'll give you two thousand,” said another.

“And I'll make it three thousand,” said the third.

She collected the three thousand francs from the third man and smuggled him into the bakery that very night.

“I'll be with you in a minute,” she told him, “after I've put the yeast into the flour. While you're waiting, would you please knead the dough a little bit for me?”

The man began kneading, and kneaded and kneaded and kneaded. By the power of the diamond, he couldn't for the life of him take his hands out of the dough, and therefore went on kneading till daylight.

“So you finally finished!” she said to him. “You really took your time!”

And she sent him packing.

Then she said yes to the man with the two thousand francs, brought him in as soon as it grew dark, and told him to blow on the fire a moment so that it wouldn't go out. He blew and blew and blew. By the power of the diamond, he had to keep right on blowing up to the next morning, with his face bulging like a wineskin.

“What a way to behave!” she said to him in the morning. “You come to see me, but spend the night blowing on the fire!”

And she sent him packing.

The next night she brought in the man with the thousand francs. “I have to add the yeast,” she told him. “While I'm doing that, go shut the door.”

The man shut the door, which by the power of the diamond came open again right away. All night long he closed it only to see it immediately reopen, and in no time the sun was up.

“Did you finally close this door? Well, you may now open it again and get out.”

Seething with rage, the three men denounced her to the authorities. In that day and time there were, in addition to policemen, women officers who were called whenever a woman was to be brought into custody. So four women officers went to apprehend the bride.

“By the power of the diamond,” said the bride, “let these women box one another's ears until tomorrow morning.”

The four women officers began boxing one another's ears so hard that their heads swelled up like pumpkins, and they still went on striking each other for all they were worth.

When the women officers failed to return with the culprit, four male officers were sent out to look for them. The bride saw them coming and said, “By the power of the diamond, let those men play leapfrog.” One of the male officers dropped down at once on all fours; a second one moved up, put his hands on the officer's back, and leaped over him, with the third and fourth following in his tracks. Thus began a game of leapfrog.

Right at that point, a tortoise came crawling into view. It was the husband returning from his trip around the world. He saw his wife, and behold! He was again a handsome young man, and a handsome young man he remained, by his wife's side, up to a ripe old age.

 

(
Riviera ligure di ponente
)

5

A woman had a daughter who was big and fat and so gluttonous that when her mother brought the soup to the table she would eat one bowl, then a second, then a third, and keep on calling for more. Her mother filled her bowl, saying, “That makes three! And four! And five!” When the daughter asked for a seventh bowl of soup, her mother, instead of filling the bowl, whacked her over the head, shouting, “And seven!”

A well-dressed young man was passing by just then and saw the mother through the window hitting the girl and crying, “And seven!”

As the big fat young lady captured his fancy immediately, he went in and asked, “Seven of what?”

Ashamed of her daughter's gluttony, the mother replied, “Seven spindles of hemp! I have a daughter so crazy about work that she'd even spin the wool on the sheep's back! Can you imagine that she's already spun seven spindles of hemp this morning and still wants to spin? To make her stop, I have to beat her.”

“If she's that hard-working, give her to me,” said the young man. “I'll try her out to see if you're telling the truth and then I'll marry her.”

He took her to his house and shut her up in a room full of hemp waiting to be spun. “I'm a sea captain, and I'm leaving on a voyage,” he said. “If you've spun all this hemp by the time I return, I'll marry you.”

The room also contained exquisite clothes and jewels, for the captain happened to be very rich. “When you become my wife,” he explained, “these things will all be yours.” Then he left her.

The girl spent her days trying on dresses and jewels and admiring herself in the mirror. She also devoted much time to planning meals, which the household servants prepared for her. None of the hemp was spun yet, and in one more day the captain would be back. The girl gave up all hope of ever marrying him and burst into tears. She was still crying when through the window flew a bundle of rags and came to rest on its feet: it was an old woman with long eyelashes. “Don't be afraid,” she told the girl. “I've come to help you. I'll spin while you make the skein.” You never saw anyone spin with the speed of that old woman. In just a quarter of an hour she had spun every bit of hemp. And the more she spun, the longer her lashes became; longer than her nose, longer than her chin, they came down more than a foot; and her eyelids also grew much longer.

When the work was finished, the girl said, “How can I repay you, my good lady?”

“I don't want to be repaid. Just invite me to your wedding banquet when you marry the captain.”

“How do I go about inviting you?”

“Just call ‘Columbina' and I'll come. But heaven help you if you forget my name. It would be as though I'd never helped you, and you'd be undone.”

The next day the captain arrived and found the hemp all spun. “Excellent!” he said. “I believe you're just the bride I was seeking. Here are the clothes and jewels I bought for you. But now I have to go on another voyage. Let's have a second test. Here's twice the amount of hemp I gave you before. If you spin it all by the time I return, I'll marry you.”

As she had done before, the girl spent her time trying on gowns and jewels, eating soup and lasagna, and got to the last day with all the hemp still waiting to be spun. She was weeping over it when, lo and behold, something dropped down the chimney, and into the room rolled a bundle of rags. It came to rest on its feet, and there stood an old woman with sagging lips. This one too promised to help, began spinning, and worked even faster than the other old woman. The more she spun, the more her lips sagged. When the hemp was all spun in a half-hour, the old woman asked only to be invited to the wedding banquet. “Just call ‘Columbara.' But don't forget my name, or my help will have been in vain and you will suffer.”

The captain returned and asked before he even got into the house, “Did you spin it all?”

“I just now finished!”

“Take these clothes and jewels. Now, if I come back from my third voyage and find you've spun this third load of hemp, which is much bigger than the other two, I promise we'll get married at once.”

As usual, the girl waited until the last day without touching the hemp. Down from the roof's gutter fell a bundle of rags, and out came an old woman with buckteeth. She began spinning, spinning ever faster, and the more she spun, the longer grew her teeth.

“To invite me to your wedding banquet,” said the old woman, “you must call ‘Columbun.' But if you forget my name, it would be better if you'd never seen me.”

When the captain came home and found the hemp all spun, he was completely satisfied. “Fine,” he said, “now you will be my wife.” He ordered preparations made for the wedding, to which he invited all the nobility in town.

Caught up in the preparations, the bride thought no more of the old women. On the morning of the wedding she remembered that she was supposed to invite them, but when she went to pronounce their names, she found they had slipped her mind. She cudgeled her brains but, for the life of her, couldn't recall a single name.

From the cheerful girl she was, she sank into a state of bottomless gloom. The captain noticed it and asked her what the matter was, but she would say nothing. Unable to account for her sadness, the bridegroom thought, This is perhaps not the right day. He therefore postponed the wedding until the day after. But the next day was still worse, and the day following we won't even mention. With every day that passed, the bride became gloomier and quieter, with her brows knit in concentration. He told her jokes and stories in an effort to make her laugh, but nothing he said or did affected her.

Since he couldn't cheer her up, he decided to go hunting and cheer himself up. Right in the heart of the woods he was caught in a storm and took refuge in a hovel. He was in there in the dark, when he heard voices:

“O Columbina!”

“O Columbara!”

“O Columbun!”

“Put on the pot to make polenta! That confounded bride won't be inviting us to her banquet after all!”

The captain wheeled around and saw three crones. One had eyelashes that dragged on the ground, another lips that hung down to her feet, and the third teeth that grazed her knees.

Well, well, he thought to himself. Now I can tell her something that will make her laugh. If she doesn't laugh over what I've just seen, she'll never laugh at anything!

He went home and said to his bride, “Just listen to this. Today I was in the woods and went into a hovel to get out of the rain. I go in and what should I see but three crones: one with eyelashes that dragged on the ground, another with lips that hung down to her feet, and the third with teeth that grazed her knees. And they called each other: ‘O Columbina,' ‘O Columbara,' ‘O Columbun!'”