Italian Folktales (73 page)

The wedding was celebrated. Tables were also set up in the streets. Whoever wanted to eat, ate; whoever didn't want to, didn't.

 

O Lord!

A hen for every sinner!

And for me, sinner of sinners,

A hen and several roosters!

 

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110

A king had no sons, and that distressed him. In the grip of this distress he was riding through a forest, when he met a knight on a white horse.

“Why so sad, Majesty?” inquired the knight.

“I have no sons,” explained the king, “and my kingdom will be lost.”

“If you want a son,” said the knight, “sign a pact with me. When this
son turns fifteen, you will bring him to this spot in the forest and give him to me.”

“I'd sign any agreement whatever just to have him,” answered the king. Thus the pact was signed, and the son was born.

He was a little boy with golden hair, and he wore a gold cross on his chest. Day by day he grew in stature and in wisdom. Before fifteen years had rolled around, he had already completed all his schooling and become an expert at handling weapons. Just three days before the boy's fifteenth birthday, the king locked himself in his apartments and wept. The queen didn't know what to make of this weeping, until the king informed her of the pact that was about to come due, and then she too wept and wept. The boy saw his parents in tears and was puzzled. His father said, “Son, I shall now take you to the forest and entrust you to your godfather, who sanctioned your birth by a pact.”

So father and son rode to the forest in silence. Other hoofbeats were suddenly heard: it was the knight on the white horse. The youth rode up alongside him and, without a word, the father, with tears streaming down his face, wheeled his horse around and rode back whence he had come. The youth continued onward alongside the mysterious knight, through parts of the forest never before traversed. At last they came to a large palace, and the knight said, “Godson, you will live here and be the master of the house. Three things only I forbid you: to open this little window, to open this cupboard, and to go down into the stables.”

At midnight, the godfather rode away on his white horse and didn't return until dawn. After three nights, as soon as he was by himself, the godson was overcome with curiosity about the forbidden little window. He opened it and found himself peering into smoke and flames, since the window opened onto Hell. The youth stared into Hell to see if he recognized anyone there, and whom should he see but his own grandmother. She saw him too and cried out from the depths, “Grandson, dear grandson, who brought you here?”

“My godfather!” replied the young man.

“No, no, no, dear grandson. That man is not your godfather, he's the Devil. Flee for your life, grandson. Open the cupboard and take with you a sieve, a cake of soap and a comb. Then go down into the stables, where you will find your horse. Flee, and when the Devil comes after you, throw down those three objects in his path. You'll cross the Jordan River, and then be out of his reach for good.”

The next minute the youth was already galloping away on his horse named Horseradish. When the godfather returned and found him gone, together with horse and objects from the cupboard, he launched out against the damned souls and raked them over the coals. Then he set out
after the fugitive. Godfather's white horse galloped a hundred times faster than Horseradish, and would certainly have caught up with him, had the godson not thrown down in his path the comb, which changed into a forest so dense that the godfather had to struggle for quite some time to get through it. When he was finally out of the forest and galloping again, the godson let him almost catch up, then threw down the sieve. The sieve changed into a marsh, which godfather had a time crossing, after no little wallowing. He'd almost caught up with the boy for the third time, when the godson threw down the cake of soap. The soap changed into a slippery mountain, and no matter where the godfather's horse set foot, he took many more steps backward than forward. In the meantime the godson had come to the bank of the Jordan River, and spurred Horseradish forward into the current. Horseradish swam across to the other side, while the godfather, who had finally got over the mountain, gave vent to his anger over being unable to pursue him beyond the Jordan River, by unleashing thunder, lightning, wind, rain, and hail. But the youth was already on the opposite shore and galloping off to the royal city of Portugal.

In Portugal, so as not to be recognized, the youth decided to hide his golden hair and therefore bought an ox bladder from a butcher. He put it on his head, and thus looked as if he had the mange. He tethered Horseradish in a meadow, and nobody could steal him, for during his stay in the Devil's stables, the horse had learned to eat humans.

Wearing the bladder over his head, the youth strolled by the king's palace. The gardener saw him and, learning that he was seeking work, engaged him as his helper. The gardener's wife began grumbling when her husband brought him home, for she wanted no mangy man in her house. So, to please her, the husband sent him to a wood hut nearby, telling him he was not to set foot in their house again.

At night the youth stole softly from the hut and went off and untied Horseradish. He dressed up in a king's red suit, removed the bladder from his head, and his golden hair gleamed in the moonlight. He rode Horseradish through various maneuvers in the royal garden, jumping over hedges and ponds, and engaged in feats of skill, such as tossing into the air three shiny rings, gifts from his mother, that he wore on his three middle fingers, and catching them on the tip of his sword.

At the same time, the daughter of the king of Portugal happened to be at her window gazing at the garden in the moonlight, and saw the young rider with gold hair and dressed in red going through all those maneuvers. “Who can he be? How did he get into the garden?” she wondered. “I'll watch where he goes when he leaves.” She therefore saw him leave, just before dawn, by a gate that led into the meadow where he kept
his horse tethered. She still had her eyes on the gate, when a few minutes later the mangy one who helped the gardener came through it, and she closed her window so as not to be seen.

The next night she sat at the window and waited. At last she saw the mangy one come out of the hut and go through the gate. In a few minutes the rider with golden hair came back through it; this time he was dressed from head to toe in white, and resumed his maneuvers. Just before dawn he left, and in no time the mangy one returned. The princess began to suspect some connection between the mangy one and the rider.

The third night the same things took place; only the rider was dressed in black. The princess said to herself, “The mangy one and the rider are one and the same.”

The next day she went down into the garden and told the mangy one to bring her some flowers. He made three nosegays: a big one, a middlesized one, and a little one; he put them in a basket and carried them to her. The larger nosegay was fitted into the ring from his middle finger, the middle-sized one into the ring from his ring finger, and the smaller one into his pinkie ring. The princess recognized the rings and returned the basket full of gold doubloons.

The mangy one carried the basket back to the gardener, doubloons and all. The gardener began scolding his wife. “Just look at that!” he said. “You won't allow him inside our house, but the princess calls him into her rooms and fills his basket with gold doubloons!”

The next day the princess wanted the mangy one to bring her some oranges. He brought her three: one ripe, one half-ripe, one green. The princess put them on the table, and the king asked, “Why are you bringing green oranges to the table?”

“They are what the mangy one brought in,” answered the princess.

“Let's see what this mangy one has to say for himself; bring him in,” said the king. When the mangy one stood before him, the king asked why he'd picked three oranges of varying degrees of ripeness.

“Majesty,” replied the mangy one, “you have three daughters: one is marriageable, a second is only halfway ready for marriage, while the third still has a few years to wait.”

“True,” replied the king, and issued a proclamation:
LET ALL MY OLDEST DAUGHTER'S SUITORS LINE UP. HE TO WHOM SHE GIVES HER HANDKERCHIEF WILL BE CHOSEN
.

There was a grand parade under the royal windows. First came all the sons from reigning families, then all the barons, next all the knights, then the artillery men, and finally the foot soldiers. Bringing up the rear was the mangy one, and the princess gave her handkerchief to him.

Upon learning that his daughter had chosen the mangy one, the king
turned her out of the house. She went off to live in the mangy one's hut. He gave her his own bed and made do with a couch by the fire, saying a mangy one may not come close to the daughter of the king. So he's really and truly mangy, thought the princess to herself. Good heavens, what have I gone and done! She already regretted her choice.

War broke out between the king of Portugal and the king of Spain, and all the men went off to fight. They said to the mangy one, “All the men are going to war; are you who have taken in the king's daughter staying here?” They had already made plans to give him a lame horse, so that he would be killed in battle. The mangy one took the lame horse to the meadow where Horseradish was tethered, dressed himself in red from head to toe, donned a breastplate his father had given him, and rode off to war on Horseradish. The king of Portugal found himself hemmed in by the enemy: up galloped the red knight, put the enemy to flight, and saved the king's life. No enemy soldier on the field could come anywhere near the king, for the knight dealt cutting blows right and left while his horse filled the enemy horses with terror. That was how the first day's battle was won.

Each evening the king's daughter went to the palace to hear the latest news from the battlefield. When they told her about the golden-haired knight in red, who'd saved the king's life and brought victory to his army, she couldn't help thinking, That's my knight, the rider I used to see at night in the garden. And here I've gone and chosen the mangy one! With a heavy heart she returned to the hut and found the mangy one asleep by the fire, huddled up under his old cloak. The princess could no longer keep back her tears.

At dawn the mangy one rose, took the lame horse, and went off to battle. But he first stopped by the meadow as usual, exchanging the lame horse for Horseradish and his rags for a white suit. He donned the breastplate and removed the ox bladder from his head of golden hair. That day too the battle was won, thanks to the knight in white.

Upon hearing this latest piece of news in the evening and then going home and finding the mangy one sleeping by the fire, the king's daughter was more woeful than ever.

The third day the golden-haired knight showed up on the field dressed entirely in black. This time the king of Spain himself was there, together with his seven sons. So what did the golden-haired knight do but single-handedly confront all seven of them at once. He slew them one by one until they were all vanquished. But the seventh son, before dying, wounded him on the right arm with a sword. At the end of the battle the king of Portugal wanted to have the wound dressed, but the knight had already disappeared, as on the other evenings.

Hearing that the golden-haired knight had been wounded, the king's daughter was deeply grieved, as she was still in love with that stranger. She went home feeling more bitter than ever toward the mangy one and stared at him with contempt as he slept curled up next to the fire. But as she looked at him, she caught a glimpse, through his unbuttoned cloak, of a bandage around his arm. Then she noticed that, under this cloak, he wore a costly black-velvet outfit. Nor was that all she observed: sticking out from under the ox bladder was a lock of golden hair.

Wounded, the youth had been unable to change as on the other evenings; dead tired, he'd dropped down on his couch and fallen asleep.

The king's daughter stifled a cry of surprise and joy and uneasiness all in one and tiptoed out of the hut, so as not to awaken him, and went flying to her father. “Come see who won your battles! Come see!”

Followed by the whole court, the king went to the wood hut. “Yes, it is he all right!” said the king, recognizing the knight under his disguise. They woke him up and would have carried him out on their shoulders, but the king's daughter had called in the surgeon to dress his wound. The king wanted to celebrate the wedding right then and there, but the young man said, “First I must go and inform my father and mother, for I too am the son of a king.”

The father and mother came to meet their son, whom they had given up for dead, and everybody sat down together to the wedding banquet.

 

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Abruzzo
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111

A king had three daughters. Two of them were neither beautiful nor ugly, but the youngest was beautiful beyond words. Whenever any man came asking for the hand of the eldest girl, he would fall in love with the youngest. None of the girls, therefore, managed to get married. The two older daughters formed a plot against the youngest; they told their father they had both had a dream: their sister would run away from home with a common soldier. Lest the dream come true and his youngest daughter disgrace the royal house, the king called in a general and ordered him to
take the girl walking in the woods of the wildwood king and there kill her with his sword.

So they went into the wildwood king's woods, the maiden and the general. “All right,” said the girl after a time, “let's go back home now.”

“No, Your Highness,” replied the general. “I'm sorry, but I have orders to kill you right here.”