Italian Folktales (132 page)

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. “Cannelora” from Comparetti, 46, Potenza, Lucania.

This is essentially like the story of Fonzo and Canneloro in Basile (I, 9), with the addition of the episode of the quarreling gardeners and that of the fairy changed into a snake. There is no mention in the Lucanian version of furniture giving birth to other furniture (after swelling up—a detail I omitted); I took it from the similar story in the
Pentameron
(I, 9), making an exception to my rule to use only popular motifs, and no doubt it is Basile's own invention. Both Basile's opening and the Lucanian beginning of the tale are subtly or outright lascivious.

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. “Filo d'Oro and Filomena” (
Filo d'Oro e Filomena
) from Comparetti, 33, Potenza, Lucania.

This tale is of the same family as Amor and Psyche (cf. my no. 174). I named the girl Filomena myself (in the original text she has no name) and also specified Filo d'Oro's transformations into a man with a beard, a man with whiskers, and a man with sideburns (the original simply says he assumed the form of another man). The mother who impedes the birth of the child until she puts her hands on her head repeats the myth of the birth of Hercules (a widespread motif in Sicily).

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. “The Thirteen Bandits” (
1
tredici briganti
) from La Rocca, 6, Pisticci, Lucania.

The motif of “Open sesame!” may be of modern literary origin, deriving from one of the most successful narratives of Galland's
Arabian Nights
, “The Story of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.” It now belongs to European folklore (it is also in Grimm no. 142) and often, as in this Lucanian version, takes on a strong regional character. In the widespread Italian tradition, no light is thrown on the slave Nirguaba who, in
The Arabian Nights
, plays a key role in the extermination of the thieves.

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. “The Three Orphans” (
I tre orfani
) from Lombardi, 41, Tiriolo, Calabria.

A religious allegory of rare beauty, with the mysterious simplicity of a rebus. Calabrian tales are often intertwined with Christian motifs, but nearly always as a distortion of an old pagan plot of magic. Here, on the contrary, we
find only the rhythm of the magic tale, with everything converging into the composition of liturgical symbols. But the tale opens on a realistic note—the day laborer offering his services by means of the rather somber lines, “Whoever would have me as his helper,/Him do I want for a master!”

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. “Sleeping Beauty and Her Children” (
La bella addormentata ed i suoi figli
) from R. de Leonardis (in
La Calabria
, VIII [1896], no. 12, p. 93), Rossano, Calabria.

The Italian Sleeping Beauty is quite distinct from Perrault's, since—like Basile's Neapolitan tale about Sun, Moon, and Talia (V, 5)—it concentrates, above all, on what happens
after
the prince has found Beauty, and this succession of events is cruel beyond anything the French version hints of; it is indeed one of the crudest of all Italian folktales. Scholars attribute to this type rather late literary origins (as to the Grimms' no. 50, “Hawthorn Blossom,” derived from Perrault), and as a matter of fact, nearly all the Italian popular versions, from Tuscany to Sicily, are like Basile, even down to the names of the characters. Thus, in the Calabrian version I followed, Sleeping Beauty bore the name Talia. I called her Carol, for the sake of assonance.

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. “The Handmade King” (
Il Reuccio fatto a mano
) from Di Francia, 5, Palmi, Calabria, told by Concetta Basile; and from Lombardi, 13, Feroleto Antico, Calabria, told by Maria Muraca.

This tale was also found in Naples (Basile, V, 3), Abruzzo, and Sicily.

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. “The Turkey Hen” (
La tacchina
) from Di Francia, 10, Palmi, Calabria, told by Annunziata Palermo.

The second part is the very widespread story about the woman with amputated hands (cf. my no. 71, “Olive”), but of the whole beginning—down to the marriage to the beggar girl—I found no other versions, not even partial ones. It is probably of recent tradition, with realistic episodes like the riot, the introduction of nineteenth-century figures such as the English lord (regarding the fate of this character in southern folklore, see note on my no. 158), and the supernatural exemplified only as the miracle worked by a saint. In the Calabrian text, the account of the miracle—the regaining of the amputated hands—was a bit too meager (just an encounter with St. Joseph, who causes a pond to appear and tells the woman to immerse her arms); I chose to follow the commonest version in Italy, with the babies slipping from the mother's arms into the water and the course pursued from there on. St. Joseph's verses are my own, but based on similar lines in a Tuscan version (Pitrè, T. II, 13).

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. “The Three Chicory Gatherers” (
Le tre raccoglitrici di cicoria
) from Di Francia, 27, Palmi, Calabria, told by Annunziata Palermo.

This is a variant of the Bluebeard type (see my no. 33), and I found such a cannibalistic folktale also in Tuscany, Abruzzo, and Sicily.

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. “Beauty-with-the-Seven-Dresses” (
La Bella dei Sett'abiti
) from Di Francia, 23, Palmi, Calabria, told by Pasquale Di Francia.

Although this tale belongs to the well-known group in Italy about the enchanted palace and the supernatural wife lost and magically recovered, it is quite rich in rare and original motifs, and also capriciously and elaborately incoherent (excepting the motif of the grass that revives the lizard, which is quite common).

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. “Serpent King” (
Il Re serpente
) from Di Francia, 1, Palmi, Calabria, told by Di Francia's sister, Teresa.

Composed altogether of well-known motifs, this folktale is distinguished by its animalistic details in a vein either gothic or oriental, from the opening procession of lizards and snakes through the fields up to the queen, to the end of the tale where the enchanted palace is meticulously described with the gold animals that inhabit it. I omitted the episode in the Calabrian version of the flea-skin test, which is already familiar to the reader (see my no. 104); correctly guessing what it is, the snake marries the empress. In place of it I put the snake's transformation into a man after sloughing off seven skins, as in various other versions—Tuscan, Campanian, Sicilian, and Piedmontese.

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. “The Widow and the Brigand” (
La vedova e il brigante
) from Luigi Bruzzano (in
La Calabria
, VII [1894], nos. 2–5), Roccaforte, Calabria, in Greek dialect.

The story of the mother of questionable morals who consorts with bandits or giants while her son is out hunting, and of her schemes to bring about her son's death (and then of the son's revenge) is one of the most pungent and obscure folktales circulating in Italy, apparently originating in Eastern Europe. It is also one of the most psychologically suggestive tales with its amoral mother. I followed a Greek version from Calabria, in which the theme is introduced directly, in the realistic setting of a poverty-stricken countryside where we see mother and son roaming in search of work, the son bringing down birds with his slingshot, and passing bandits tempting the widow. I ended the tale with the son's revenge, omitting all the rest of his adventures which resemble those of “The Dragon with Seven Heads” and “The Three Dogs,” with three ferocious animals instead of the dogs. In other versions the mother is almost always a queen rather than a poor peasant; sometimes she gives birth in prison to a son who frees them both, whence the adventures begin.

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. “The Crab with the Golden Eggs” (
Il granchio dalle uova d'oro
) from Luigi Bruzzano (in
La Calabria
, X [1897] nos. 1–3), Roccaforte, Calabria, in Greek dialect.

Only in this Greek version from Calabria are the golden eggs laid by a crab instead of a bird, as in the oriental motif known throughout Italy and
Europe. But is it really a crab? The original is contradictory: it first speaks of a crab (
caridaci
), then of a cockerel (
puddhaci
). The bricklayer fires on the crab, and it falls, still alive (I omitted this detail). Where I spoke of the shell and the claws, the original speaks of “the front half' and the “back half.”

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. “Nick Fish” (
Cola Pesce
) from Pitrè (
Studi di leggende popolari in Sicilia e Nuova raccolta di leggende siciliane
[vol. XXII of “Biblioteca delle tradizioni popolari siciliane”], Turin 1904), Palermo, told by a sailor.

This is the finest of the seventeen Sicilian popular versions of the famous legend of Nick Fish, published by Pitrè in an appendix to his detailed study. Among the scholars to write on the legend was Benedetto Croce. His article, “La leggenda di Niccolò Pesce,” based on a Neapolitan tradition, appeared in
Giambattista Basile
, III, (1885), no. 7, and was reprinted separately in Naples, 1885. A controversy ensued, and Pitrè and Arturo Graf expanded the study. The first literary mention of the legend is by a Provençal poet of the twelfth century, Raimon Jordon. A rich repertory of literary versions, including Schiller's ballad,
Der Taucher
(“The Diver”), is to be found in the above-mentioned study by Pitrè. Regarding Nick Fish and Benedetto Croce, see Carlo Levi's fine page in
L'Orologio
(pp. 343 ff.).

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. “Gràttula-Beddàttula” from Pitrè, 42, Palermo, told by Agatuzza Messia, seventy-year-old seamstress of winter quilts.

Of all the Italian variants of the famous “Cinderella,” the most colorful and Mediterranean is this tale about the date-palm trees, told by the great illiterate narrator of Palermo, Agatuzza Messia (see Introduction, pp. xxi-xxiv). There is no moralizing here as in Perrault and Grimm; all is one grand play of fantastic marvels. The Cinderella motif of the lost slipper is not retained in “Gràttula-Beddàttula,” but is found in all the other Italian versions.

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. “Misfortune” (
Sfortuna
) from Pitrè, 86, Palermo, told by Agatuzza Messia.

One of the most touching southern folktales is this one about the girl pursued by her evil luck, which brings misfortune to herself and others. Contrary to the custom of ostracizing the bearer of ill-luck, one takes pity on her here, in the framework of an individual cult to Fate, to whom tribute is paid in the form of vows and petitions. Men are at the mercy of the erratic psychology of the Fates. Messia superbly sketches the character of the protagonist's wicked and mad Fate. But the finest characters of Messia emerge from types like the charitable washerwoman, who is mistress of the Fates' cult and viewed with affection. (If she refrains from telling the prince about Misfortune, it is to protect her from snares and in no wise indicates a dislike for the girl.) Note how the customary generality of folktales gives way to linguistic and technical precision when Messia speaks about the washerwoman's work.

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. “Pippina the Serpent” (
La serpe Pippina
) from Pitrè, 61, Palermo, told by Agatuzza Messia.

I saw versions compiled in Emilia (with the girl changed into an eel the first time she lays eyes on water), Tuscany (see my no. 64), Abruzzo, Calabria, and Sicily. But other versions are centered on my no. 101, which is quite similar.

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. “Catherine the Wise” (
Caterina la Sapiente
) from Pitrè, 6, Palermo, told by Agatuzza Messia.

The intelligent woman, both cultured and honored, is frequent in Italian folklore. The present Sicilian popular version is far richer than the Neapolitan literary one by Basile (V, 6) and contains curious reminiscences of such medieval institutions as the “free school” and allusion to a pedagogy that we will call democratic, with equality between the sexes.

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. “The Ismailian Merchant” (
Il mercante ismaelita
) from Pitrè, 100, Palermo, told by Agatuzza Messia.

Pitrè quotes as a source a Venetian edition (1555) of a popular romance (which is also a source of my no. 112). The story assumes biblical echoes in Agatuzza Messia's narration: I refer to the threatened massacre of innocents and the strange mention of an “Ismailian” merchant. The emperor's disclosure of the Golden Fleece beneath his rags is a grand bit of theater. His role, as he sadly roams the world questioning the planets, carries us into a vaguely Shakespearean atmosphere.

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. “The Thieving Dove” (
La colomba ladra
) from Pitrè, 101, Palermo, told by Agatuzza Messia.

Widespread in all the South. Other versions in Campania, Calabria, Sicily, and Sardinia.

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. “Dealer in Peas and Beans” (
Padrón di ceci e fave
) from Pitrè, 87, Palermo, told by Agatuzza Messia.

This is the story of Puss-in-Boots, but without cat, fox, or any other animal suggestive of wiles to obtain credit in the eyes of others. In the present story, the poor protagonist comes up with the maneuvers himself as he gives free rein to his imagination regarding the bean found on the ground. Only at the end does the bean change into a fairy (but such supernatural intervention is not really indispensable), and a poor soul's dream of easy wealth becomes miraculous reality. Whereas in the cat story virtuous poverty and venturesome shrewdness collaborate as two distinct persons, the present tale combines them in a single character not nearly as appealing: he represents triumphant bluff, the dream of a poverty-stricken world devoid of prospects.

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. “The Sultan with the Itch” (
Il Balaliccbi con la rogna
) from Pitrè, 69, Palermo, told by Agatuzza Messia.

Not so much a folktale as a tale of adventure, with certain geographical notions and, above all, a clear-cut idea of differences between one civilization and another, of relationships with the Moslem world, all of which is particularly characteristic of oral narrative in the South. Here Messia, who never set foot on a ship, gives vent to her marine fantasies.