Italian Folktales (90 page)

In a few months' time the princess began expecting a baby, when war was declared against her husband, who led his army to fight the enemy.

While he was away, the princess gave birth to two beautiful children, a boy and a girl. But the ministers, who disliked being ruled by a woman, especially one whose origin was a mystery to them, decided to take advantage of the circumstances and get rid of her.

So what did they do but write the king and tell him his wife had brought forth two little dogs, because of which they were awaiting orders from him as to what they should do with the queen.

The king nearly died from the shock and wrote back for them to await his return when he himself would see what was to be done. But the ministers, who were bent on getting rid of the queen at all costs, woke her up in the middle of the night, strapped a knapsack to her, putting a baby in each side of it, and abandoned her on a deserted shore.

The poor soul started weeping. Alone, hungry and thirsty, with those two stubs for hands, she had no idea how she would manage. She came to a pool of water and bent over to drink from it. While she was bending over, one of the babies slipped out of the rucksack and disappeared under the water. Just imagine her grief: there she was handless and unable to fish him up.

In that instant a handsome old man appeared before her, saying:

 

“Plunge in your stub

And get back hand and babe.”

 

The princess immersed her mutilated arm in the water and felt her hand grow back. She grabbed the child at once and took him back in her arm. With that movement, the other baby slipped out of the knapsack and disappeared under the water.

Again the old man said:

 

“Plunge in your stub

And get back hand and babe.”

 

So she got her other hand back and fished out the child and then she was able to nurse them both. Next, the good old man led her to a hilltop where a beautiful house stood. He invited her in, saying, “Remain here, and you will want for nothing. I will not abandon you.”

Let's leave the princess and return to the king who was her husband. At the end of the war he came home, and how great was his grief on finding his wife gone! He asked for an explanation, but the ministers told him they were as much in the dark as he was: she had left in the night with the two little dogs she had brought forth. The king knew no more peace without his wife, and began combing the countryside in search of her.

Meanwhile, the queen's brother, from the moment he regretted his deed, kept to the house and let his beard grow down to his knees, out of grief over killing his innocent sister. And he imprisoned his wife who had been the cause of his injustice. His ministers kept after him until they finally got him to go out hunting one day for the sake of a little exercise. Once in the country, absorbed as he was in thought, he strayed from the ministers and lost his way. All of a sudden it began to rain, and the king took shelter under an oak tree.

It so happened that the other king as well, the husband out looking for his wife, was going through those same woods, and took refuge under the oak. Thus they met for the first time, for although they were both kings, they'd never seen each other before in their whole life. They spied a light and headed toward it in the rain. That light came from the good old man's house where their sister and wife lived.

They knocked. The old man answered the door and immediately offered them shelter. They went inside, and there was the queen. She recognized them, but they did not recognize her.

“Since it is raining,” said the old man to her, “these two gentlemen here need shelter and ask hospitality of us.”

“We are honored to have them here,” she replied. “I was just getting supper for my children.”

“So we'll all eat together,” said the old man.

They were almost at the end of supper when the old man said to the two children, “Dear children, tell us a nice story now, so we'll hear you too.”

The little girl, who was the more eager, then started talking. She told the story of her mother, from the time she had been taken to the woods
by the hired assassins up to the moment of her marriage. Hearing those details, the brother said to himself, “But in that case she's none other than my sister!”

When the little girl stopped talking, the little boy took up from there and told the rest of the story, from the time his mother had married the king up to the moment the good old man had brought them to the hilltop, to the house they were in at that very moment. Listening to this account, the king said to himself, “So this lady is my wife, and these beautiful children are my very own? Why was I ever informed she had given birth to dogs?”

When the children had finished the tale, the old man said, “Gentlemen, this is your story.” The two men embraced the lady. One of them asked her forgiveness, while the other kissed the children with tears in his eyes. The old man looked on joyfully; he was none other than St. Joseph, and as a sign of his good deed, his staff blossomed all over. “Now that I've done my part,” he said, “I'll give you my blessing,” after which he disappeared.

 

(
Calabria
)

142

There was a poor mother who had three daughters. When chicory was in season, the three girls would go out with their mother to gather chicory. One day the mother and two of her daughters walked on ahead, while the oldest daughter lagged behind, having spied an enormous chicory plant which she did her best to uproot. She tugged and tugged, but the plant wouldn't budge. Then she pulled with all her might and the plant came up with so much dirt around the roots that a big hole remained, at the bottom of which was a trapdoor. The girl opened it to find an underground room where a dragon sitting in a chair said, “Mmmm! I smell human flesh! Mmm!”

“Please don't eat me,” begged Teresa, “we are poor folks. I'm the daughter of a chicory vendor, and I came here to pick chicory. Poverty drives us to it.”

“Well, stay here,” replied the dragon, “and look after my house while I go hunting. I'm leaving your dinner here—the hand of a man. If you eat it, I'll marry you when I come back. But if I find you've not eaten it, I'll cut off your head.”

Trembling all over, Teresa replied, “Yes indeed, Sir Dragon, I'll surely eat it!”

The dragon went hunting, and the poor girl from time to time would go look at that human hand in the pot and draw back in horror. How can I? she thought. How could I ever eat a human hand? It was almost time for the dragon to return, so she threw the hand into the lavatory and poured a bucket of water over it. “Now it's gone,” she said to herself, “and the dragon will think I ate it.”

The dragon returned and asked, “Did you eat the hand?”

“Yessirree, I did . . . It wasn't bad.”

“Now we'll just see,” said the dragon, and shouted, “Hand, where are you?”

“I'm in the lavatory!”

“You rascal! You threw it into the lavatory!” He grabbed the girl by the arms, carried her into a room full of beheaded dead persons, and cut off her head too.

In the evening when the mother came in from gathering chicory and didn't see Teresa, she asked the other girls, “Where is Teresa?”

“She stayed right with us,” said the sisters, “up to a certain spot. Then she disappeared.”

So they all went through the field calling, “Teresa! Teresa!” but there was no answer. They returned home weeping, but even though they had gathered a lot of chicory to sell and then buy food, every mouthful of food bought with that chicory was like poison to them, since they had paid with the loss of Teresa.

When Teresa still didn't return, her sister Concetta said, “Mamma, I shall go back to the same fields for chicory, in hopes of finding some trace of Teresa.”

That she did, and right in the spot where Teresa had last been seen, she spied a big head of chicory. She tugged and tugged and finally uprooted it. There beneath the roots was the trapdoor. Concetta went down and found the dragon sitting in a chair. “Mmmm!” he said. “I smell human flesh!”

“Please don't eat me! I'm just a poor girl, and I've already lost a sister!”

“Your sister is here, with her head cut off because she refused to eat a human hand. Now you stay and look after my house. And for dinner you
are to eat this human arm. If you do, I'll marry you. If you don't, I'll kill you like your sister.”

“Yessirree, Sir Dragon, anything you say!”

The dragon went hunting, and Concetta, utterly horrified, had no idea what to do with the arm all ready for her on a plate and garnished with radishes. After racking her brains, she dug a hole and buried it.

The dragon returned and asked, “Did you eat the arm?”

“Yessirree, Sir Dragon, I really had a feast!”

“We'll just see now. Arm, where are you?”

“Underground!” cried the arm.

So the dragon cut off Concetta's head as well.

At home, when Concetta didn't return, they all went to pieces. “Now two of them are gone,” they wailed.

The third daughter, Mariuzza, said, “Mamma, we can't lose two girls like that. I'm going out and look for them.”

She too found the big chicory plant and uprooted it. She too met the dragon, who told her, “Your sisters are closed up in that room with their heads chopped off. You will come to the same end if you fail to eat this human foot I'm leaving here for you in the soup tureen.”

Mariuzza humbly replied, “Yessirree, Sir Dragon, I'll do just as you order.”

The dragon went hunting. Mariuzza racked her brains for a way out. Then an idea occurred to her: she took the bronze mortar and ground the foot to a powder with the pestle, then poured the powder into a stocking and hid it beneath her clothes on her stomach.

The dragon returned and asked, “Did you eat the foot?”

Mariuzza smacked her lips. “I can't tell you how good it was! I'm still licking my lips!”

“We'll just see now. Foot, where are you?”

“On Mariuzza's stomach.”

“Hurrah! Hurrah!” exclaimed the dragon. “You will be my wife!” And he entrusted her with all the keys except the one to the room of those people he had murdered.

To celebrate their betrothal, Mariuzza served him wine. He emptied one bottle after another until Mariuzza had served him half the wine cellar, and he continued to drink. When she saw he was good and drunk, she said, “Now will you give me that key?”

“No, that one, no.”

“Why? Why won't you give it to me?”

“Because . . . the dead souls are in there.”

“If they are dead, you certainly don't expect them to come back to life, do you?”

“I can revive them . . . ”

“Go on! You can?”

“Of course. I have the salve . . . ”

“Where do you keep it, then, you fibber?”

“Uh . . . in the cabinet . . . ”

“So you'll never die yourself?”

“Me, yes . . . the dove in the cage . . . ”

“What does the dove have to do with it?”

“If you cut off the dove's head, you'll find an egg in its brain . . . and if you break the egg over my forehead . . . I'm done for . . . ” Raving on, he put his head down on the table, dead drunk.

Mariuzza rummaged through the whole house until she found the dove. She cut off its head, got the egg, and—“crack!”—broke it over the sleeping dragon's forehead. He started, jerked a few times, then died for good.

The girl found the salve, opened up the room, and proceeded to anoint the dead people. The first one was a king, who gave a start like someone waking up suddenly. “How I've slept! Where am I? Who woke me up?” But Mariuzza paid him no mind and went on anointing the others, her sisters first of all, and then kings, princes, counts, and knights, of whom there seemed to be no end.

Countless kings and other noblemen wanted to marry the three sisters. Mariuzza said, “Here's what you must do: Play a round of morra, and the winner will choose the girl he wants.”

They played morra, and a king won, choosing the oldest girl for himself. Next it was the turn of a prince, who took the second girl. Finally another king won, and chose Mariuzza.

Meanwhile, one of the barons nervously repeated, “Quick! Quick! Why are you wasting so much time? The dragon will return any minute and kill us all again!”

“Have no fear,” said Mariuzza. “I slew the dragon myself.”

“Hurrah! Hurrah!” they all shouted. “So we've nothing more to fear!” Each of them took a horse, divided up the dragon's treasure, and rode with the three betrothed to the city. They had a grand wedding celebration, and everyone was happy, especially the three girls' mother, who didn't have to go out any more to pick chicory.

 

(
Calabria
)

143

Once there was a father of two boys. Sensing his last hour approach, he called in his older son and said, “Son, I'm about to die. There's no more hope for me. Tell me which you prefer, my solemn blessing or a sum of money?”

Without beating around the bush, the son replied, “Give me the money, for with just the blessing I'd go hungry.”

Then the father called his younger son and put the same question to him.

“Money matters little to me,” said the younger boy. “I prefer your solemn blessing.”

The father died and they carried him to the cemetery. The little boy, who'd received only the solemn blessing, wept heartily, while the big boy, who'd inherited all the property, was thinking of the best way to use it. He ended up opening a café and taking his place behind the counter, while the little brother, whose name was Francesco, went out into the world to seek his fortune.