Italian Folktales (116 page)

When the girl was almost sixteen, she was out buying oil for her mother one day and met the witch. “And whose daughter are you, lass?”

“Signora Sabedda's.”

“You've really grown up . . . . I'm sure you're delicious . . . . ” Caressing her, she continued, “Here, take this fig home to your mother and, when you hand it to her, say, ‘What about your promise?'”

The girl went to her mother and told her everything. “ . . . And she told me to say, ‘And what about your promise?'”

“My promise?” repeated the mother, and burst into tears.

“Why are you weeping, Mother?”

But the woman made no reply. After weeping a while, she said, “If you run into the old woman again, tell her, ‘I'm still quite small.'”

But the girl was already sixteen and ashamed to say she was quite small. So the next time the witch crossed her path and asked, “What did your mother tell you?” she replied:

“I'm a big girl already . . . ”

“Well, come along with your grandmother who has so many beautiful presents for you,” said the witch and seized the girl.

She took her home and locked her up in the chicken coop and stuffed her full of food to fatten her up. After a short space of time, she decided to see if the girl was fat, and said, “Let me have a look at your little finger.”

The girl picked up a mouse that had his nest in the chicken coop and showed the witch the mouse's tail instead of her finger.

“My goodness, you're thin, still too thin, my little one. Keep on eating.”

But a little later, the temptation to gobble her up was just too much, so the witch led the girl out of the chicken coop. “My, you're the picture of health! Let's heat up the stove now for me to bake bread.”

They made up the bread. The girl heated the oven, swept it out, and got it all ready.

“Now put the bread in,” said the witch.

“Granny, I don't know how to put the bread in. I can do everything but that.”

“I'll show you how. Slide the bread over here to me.”

The girl passed the bread, and the witch put it in the oven.

“Now pick up the large slab that closes the oven.”

“How do I lift the slab, Granny?”

“I'll do it myself!” said the witch.

When she bent over, the girl grabbed her by the legs and shoved her inside the oven. Then she picked up the large slab and closed the oven, with the witch inside. She ran home immediately to tell her mother, and the cabbage patch was now all theirs.

 

(
Province of Caltanissetta
)

182

It is told that once there was a king who had a daughter beautiful beyond words. Marriage proposals came to her from kings and emperors everywhere, but her father refused to give her to anyone, because every night he was awakened by a voice saying, “Don't marry off your daughter! Don't marry off your daughter!”

The poor girl would look at herself in the mirror and ask, “Why can't I marry, beautiful as I am?” Nor could she stop worrying about it. One day while they were all at dinner, she asked her father, “Father, why can't I marry, beautiful as I am? Listen to me: I'm giving you two days, and if in that time you don't find someone to betroth me to, I shall kill myself.”

“If you put it that way,” replied the king, “here's what you have to do: dress up in your Sunday best, go to the window, and the first passer-by will be your husband. And that's that!”

The daughter obediently went to the window in her Sunday best, and what should come down the street but a small mouse with a tail a mile long that smelled to high heaven! The mouse stopped and studied the king's daughter at the window. And the instant she felt those eyes on her she drew away screaming. “Father, what have you done to me? The first passer-by to look at me turns out to be a mouse. Surely you don't expect me to marry a mouse?”

Her father stood in the center of the room with his arms crossed. “I do indeed, daughter. What I said goes. You must marry the first interested passer-by.” Without delay he wrote and invited all princes and court grandees to his daughter's gala wedding banquet.

With great pomp the guests appeared and took their places at the table. They had all sat down, but the bridegroom was nowhere in sight. Then a scratching was heard on the door, and who should it be but the small mouse with the smelly tail. A lackey in livery opened the door and asked, “What do you want?”

“Announce me,” said the mouse. “I'm the mouse who's come to wed the princess.”

“The mouse who's come to wed the princess!” announced the butler.

“Bring him in,” said the king.

The mouse scampered in, darted across the floor, climbed up the armchair next to the princess's, and sat down.

At the sight of the mouse there beside her, the poor maiden turned her head in disgust and shame. But the mouse pretended not to notice, and the more she turned away, the closer he moved to her.

The king told the story to all the guests who, in approval of the king's whims, smiled and said, “Yes, indeed, the mouse ought to be the princess's husband.”

Their smiles gave way to laughter, and they proceeded to laugh right in the mouse's face. Mortified, the mouse took the king aside and said, “Listen, Majesty, either you warn these people not to make light of me, or suffer the consequences.”

He scowled so intensely that the king agreed and, upon their return to the table, ordered everyone to respect the betrothed and cease laughing.

The food was brought in, but the mouse, being short and seated in the armchair, didn't reach up to the table. A cushion was placed under him, but that wasn't enough, so he went and sat in the center of the table.

“Any objections?” he asked, glancing about defiantly.

“No, no one objects,” the king assured him.

But among the guests was a very fastidious lady who could hardly keep quiet at the sight of the mouse poking his mouth into her food and dragging that long, smelly tail over her neighbors' plates. Once the mouse had finished eating her food and turned to that of the other guests, she blurted out, “How filthy! Who ever saw anything so disgusting! I can't believe my eyes when I see such things at the king's table!”

Whiskers bristling, the mouse leveled his muzzle at her, then leaped furiously up and down the table lashing his tail, flying in the guests' faces, and snapping their beards and wigs: everything his tail hit disappeared immediately—soup tureens, fruit bowls, plates, cutlery and then, one by
one, all the guests; the table also disappeared, along with the palace, and all that remained was one vast deserted plain.

Finding herself along and abandoned in the middle of this wasteland, the princess started crying and saying:

 

“Alas, my mouse!

My loathing has changed to longing!”

 

Repeating those words, she set out on foot, with no idea where she was going.

She met a hermit, who asked, “What are you doing out in these wilds, my good maiden? Heaven help you if you meet a lion or an ogress!”

“Don't speak to me of such things,” said the princess. “All I want is to find my mouse. My loathing has changed to longing.”

“I don't know what to tell you, my girl,” said the hermit. “Keep on going until you meet a hermit older than I am who might be able to advise you.”

She continued on her way, constantly repeating, “Alas, my mouse . . . ” until she met the other hermit, who said, “What you must do is dig a hole in the ground, squeeze into it, then see what happens.”

The poor girl removed the hairpin from her hair, having nothing else to dig with, and dug and dug until she made a hole in the ground the size of herself. Then she squeezed into it and came out in a dark and spacious cave. “Whatever this leads to,” she said, and started walking. The cave was full of cobwebs that stuck to her face, and the more of them she brushed off, the more she then found on her. After a day's walk she heard rushing water and found herself on the edge of a large fishpond. She put one foot in the water, but the fishpond was deep. She could not go forward, nor could she turn back, for the hole had closed behind her. “Alas, my mouse! Alas, my mouse!” she repeated. At that, water began rising all around her. There was no escape, so she plunged into the fishpond.

When she was underwater, she saw that she was not underwater, but in a large palace. The first room was all in crystal, the second all in velvet, and the third all in sequins. So she wandered from room to room over precious carpets and lighted by glittering lamps, constantly repeating:

 

“Alas, my mouse!

My loathing has changed to longing!”

 

She came to a sumptuously laid table and sat down and ate. Then she went into a bedroom, where she got in bed and went to sleep. Then she heard the rustle made by a mouse scampering about. She opened her eyes, but all was dark. She heard the mouse running through the room,
climbing up on the bed, slipping under the covers, and all of a sudden he was stroking her face, emitting little squeaks as he did so. She dared not say anything, and remained huddled up in a corner of the bed trembling.

The next morning she rose and wandered through the palace again, but still saw no one. That night the table was laid as before, so she ate and went to bed. Once more she heard the mouse running through the room and coming almost up to her face, but she didn't dare say a word.

The third night when she heard the rustle, she took heart and said:

 

“Alas, my mouse!

My loathing has changed to longing!”

 

“Light the lamp,” said a voice.

The princess lit a candle, but instead of the mouse she saw a handsome youth.

“I am the mouse with the smelly tail,” said the young man. “To free me from the spell that transformed me, I had to meet a beautiful maiden who would fall in love with me and suffer all that you have suffered.”

Imagine the joy of the princess. The couple left the cave immediately and got married.

 

They lived happily ever after,

While here we sit picking our teeth.

 

(
Caltanissetta
)

183

Once, it is told, there were two sisters—one a marquise, the other fallen into straitened circumstances. The marquise had an ugly daughter, the other had three daughters who worked with their hands for a living. One day, having no money to pay the rent, they were all put out in the street A footman of the marquise happened by and told her about it, pleading until she agreed to lodge the homeless family in a loft over the front door. In the evening the girls sat and worked by lantern light, so as to save the oil in the lamp.

But even that struck their tyrannical marquise aunt as wasteful, so she
had the lantern extinguished. The girls then spun by moonlight. One evening the youngest sister decided to stay up and spin until the moon set. As the moon descended, she followed it. Thus moving along and spinning, she was caught in a storm and took shelter in an old monastery.

In the monastery she found twelve monks. “What are you doing here, young lady?” they asked, and she told them.

The oldest monk said, “May you become lovelier than ever!”

The second one added, “When you comb your hair, may pearls and diamonds come pouring out!”

“While you're washing your hands,” said the third, “may fish and eels emerge from them.”

The fourth monk spoke. “When you speak, may roses and jasmine issue from your mouth!”

“May your cheeks,” commanded the fifth monk, “become two lady apples!”

The sixth said, “When you work, may you be done the minute you begin!”

They showed her the way back, instructing her to look behind her when she was halfway there. She looked behind her and became radiant like a star. She got home, where the first thing she did was fill a washbasin and plunge her hands into it. Out came a pair of eels that wriggled as though they had just been caught. Her mother and sisters, full of astonishment, made her tell everything. They combed her hair, collected the pearls that fell, and carried them to the marquise aunt.

The marquise immediately asked for all the details and decided to send out her own daughter, who stood sorely in need of beauty. She made her wait on the balcony all evening long and, when the moon started down, told her to follow it.

The girl found the monastery of the twelve monks, who recognized her right away as the marquise's daughter. The oldest monk said, “May you grow still uglier!”

The second monk took up from there. “When you comb your hair, may countless serpents crawl from it!”

“When you wash,” said the third, “may countless green lizards issue from you!”

“When you speak,” added the fourth, “may a world of filth squirt from you!”

With that, they dismissed her.

The marquise was anxiously awaiting her, but when the girl returned uglier than ever, her mother nearly died from the shock. She asked her what had happened, and almost died from the stench that poured from her mouth when she spoke.

Meanwhile, the pretty little cousin was sitting before the door when a king came by. He saw her, fell in love, and asked for her hand in marriage. The marquise aunt consented. The girl left for the king's country, accompanied by the marquise aunt as her most important relative. After going a certain distance, the king rode on ahead to prepare for her arrival at the palace. No sooner was he out of sight than the marquise seized the bride, tore out her eyes, thrust her into a cave, and put her own daughter in the carriage.

When the king saw the ugly cousin step from the carriage dressed as a bride, he took fright. “What is the meaning of this?” he asked scarcely above a whisper. The girl opened her mouth to answer, and her breath nearly knocked him over. The marquise told a tale about sorcery being worked on them along the way, but the king didn't believe a word of it and sent them both to prison.