Italian Folktales (49 page)

When they got home, the first thing the Jew said to Olive was, “Here, we are Jews, and you are too. You will believe what we believe. Heaven help you if I ever catch you reading the book the woman gave you. The first time I'll throw it into the fire and beat you, and the next time I'll cut off your hands and turn you out of the house. Watch your step, because I mean what I say.”

Under those threats, poor Olive had no choice but publicly pretend she was Jewish. Locked in her room, though, she said the Office and Litanies of the Blessed Virgin while her faithful maid kept watch, in case her father should unexpectedly appear. All precaution was useless in the end, for the Jew caught her by surprise one day kneeling and reading from the book. Seized with rage, he flung the book into the fire and beat her unmercifully.

That did not discourage Olive. She had her maid buy her a second book like the first and continued to read in it. But the Jew was suspicious and, without seeming to, watched her constantly. Finally he burst into her room and caught her again. This time, without a word, he led her to a workbench, motioned for her to stretch out her hands, and, with a sharp knife, cut them clean off. Then he ordered her taken into the woods and abandoned.

The unfortunate girl remained there more dead than alive, and with no hands what could she now do? She set out and walked and walked until she came to a large palace. She thought of going in and asking for alms, but the palace was surrounded by a high doorless wall, which enclosed a beautiful garden. Jutting out over the top of the wall were branches of a pear tree laden with ripe, yellow pears. “Oh, if only I had one of those pears!” exclaimed Olive. “Is there any way of reaching them?”

The words were no sooner out of her mouth than the wall opened and the pear tree bent down its branches, so that Olive, who had no hands, could reach the pears with her teeth and eat them while they were still on the tree. When she had eaten her fill, the tree raised its branches once more, the wall closed back together, and Olive returned to the woods. She now knew the secret and went and stood under the pear tree every day at eleven o'clock and made a meal off the fruit. Then she would return to the densest part of the woods and get through the night the best she could.

These were very fine pears, and one morning the king who lived in the palace decided to sample them, so he sent his servant out to pick a few. The servant came back quite dismayed. “Majesty, some animal has been climbing the tree and gnawing the pears down to the core!”

“We'll catch him,” said the king. He built a hut out of branches and lay in wait every night, but he lost sleep that way while the pears continued to be nibbled. He therefore decided to watch in the daytime; at eleven o'clock he saw the wall open, the pear tree bend down its branches, and Olive bite into first one pear and then another. The king who had been ready to shoot, dropped his gun in amazement. All he could do was stare at the beautiful maiden as she ate and then disappeared through the wall, which closed behind her.

He called his servant at once, and they scoured the woods for the thief. Suddenly they came upon her sleeping under a bush.

“Who are you? What are you doing here?” asked the king. “How dare you steal my pears? I was about to shoot you down with my shotgun!”

By way of reply, Olive showed him her stumps.

“You poor girl!” exclaimed the king. “What villain mutilated you so cruelly?” After hearing her story, he said, “I don't care about the pears. Come and live in my palace. My mother the queen will indeed keep you with her and look after you.”

So Olive was presented to the queen, but the son mentioned neither the pear tree's bending down nor the wall's opening by itself, lest his mother think the girl a witch and detest her. The queen did not actually refuse to take Olive in, but she had no love for her and gave her little to eat, for the simple reason that the king was too charmed by the handless maiden's beauty. To rid him of any idea he might have, she said, “My son, it's time you looked about for a wife. Any number of princesses could be yours for the asking. Take servants, horses, and money, and travel around until you have found her.”

The king obediently departed and was away visiting courts in many lands. But six months later he came home and said, “Don't be angry with me, Mamma. There's no shortage of princesses in this world. But I met none so kind and beautiful as Olive. So I've decided Olive is the maiden I'll marry.”

“What!” exclaimed the queen. “A handless girl from the woods? You know nothing about her! Would you disgrace yourself like that?”

But the queen mother's words fell on deaf ears, and the king married Olive without further delay.

Having a daughter-in-law of unknown origins was more than the old queen could bear, and she lost no opportunity to be rude and mean to Olive, taking care on the other hand not to displease the king. Wisely, Olive never made any protest.

In the meantime Olive expected a baby, to the great joy of the king; but certain neighboring kings suddenly declared war on him, obliging him to lead his soldiers to the defense of the kingdom. Before leaving, he wanted to entrust Olive to his mother, but the old queen said, “No, I can't assume such responsibility. I too am leaving the palace and shutting myself up in a convent.”

So Olive had to stay at the palace by herself, and the king urged her to write him a letter every day. Thus the king left for the battlefield and the old queen for the convent, while Olive remained at the court with all the servants. Every day a messenger left the court with a letter from Olive to the king, but at the same time an aunt of the old queen plied between court and convent to inform her of everything that went on. Upon learning that Olive had given birth to two fine babies, the old queen left the convent and returned to the palace under the pretext of coming home to help her daughter-in-law. She called the guards, forced Olive out of bed, thrust a baby under each of their mother's arms, and told the guards to take the young queen back to the woods where the king had found her.

“Leave her there to starve to death,” she said to the guards. “Your heads will roll if you disobey my orders and if you ever breathe a word of this!”

Then the old queen wrote her son that his wife had died in childbirth along with her babies; so that he would believe the lie, she had three wax figures made, then held a grand funeral and burial in the royal chapel. For the ceremony she wore mourning and wept many tears.

Off at war, the king couldn't get over the unfortunate event, nor did he suspect foul play on the part of his mother.

But let's go back to Olive, handless in the middle of the woods and dying of hunger and thirst, with those two babies in her arms. She walked onward until she came to a pool of water where a little old woman was washing clothes.

“My good woman,” said Olive, “please squeeze the water out of one of your cloths into my mouth. I'm dying of thirst.”

“No,” replied the old woman, “do as I say: kneel down and drink right from the pool.”

“But can't you see I have no hands and must hold my babies in my arms?”

“That doesn't matter. Go on and try.”

Olive knelt down, but as she bent over the pool, both babies slipped out of her arms, one after the other, and disappeared under the water. “Oh, my babies! My babies! Help! They're drowning! Help me!”

The old woman didn't budge.

“Don't be afraid, they won't drown. Fish them out.”

“How can I? Don't you see I have no hands?”

“Plunge in your stumps.”

Olive immersed her stumps in the water and felt her hands growing back. With her hands she then grabbed hold of the babies and pulled them up safe and sound.

“Be on your way now,” said the old woman. “You no longer lack hands to do for yourself. Farewell.” She was out of sight before Olive could even thank her for her fine deed.

Wandering about the woods in search of a refuge, Olive came to a brand-new villa with the door wide open. She went in to ask for shelter, but no one was there. A kettle of porridge was boiling on the hearth next to some heavier foods. Olive fed her children, ate something herself, then went into a room where there was a bed and two cradles; she put the two children to bed, then lay down herself. She thus lived in the villa without ever needing a thing or seeing a soul anywhere around the place.

But let's leave her and go back to the king, who went home when the war was over and found the town in mourning. His mother tried to comfort him, but he was more and more unhappy as time went on. In an effort to cheer up, he decided to go hunting. In the woods he was overtaken by a storm, and it looked as though the earth would yawn under all the thunder and lightning. “If only I might die!” said the king to himself. “What reason do I have to go on living without Olive?” Through the trees he spied a faint light and moved toward it in search of shelter. He knocked, and Olive opened. He did not recognize her, and she said nothing, but welcomed him cordially and invited him up to the fire to warm himself while she and the children bustled about to make him comfortable.

The king watched her, thinking how much like Olive she was; but noticing her perfectly normal hands, he shook his head. As the children jumped and played around him, he said, “I might have been blessed with children like that, but they died, alas, with their mother, and here I am all alone and miserable!”

Meanwhile Olive had gone to turn down the guest's bed and called the children to her. “Listen,” she whispered to them, “when we go back in the other room, ask me to tell you a story. I'll refuse and even threaten to slap you, but you keep on begging me.”

“Yes, Mamma, we'll do that.”

So when they got back to the fireside, they began saying, “Mamma, tell us one of your stories!”

“What are you thinking of! It's late, and the gentleman is tired and doesn't want to hear any story!”

“Come on, Mamma, please!”

“If you're not quiet, I'll slap you!”

“Poor little things!” said the king. “How could you slap them? Go on and make them happy. I'm not at all sleepy and would like to hear a story too.”

With that encouragement, Olive sat down and began her tale. The king gradually became serious, listened more and more anxiously, asking repeatedly, “And then? And then?” because it was the life story exactly of his poor wife. But he didn't dare get his hopes up, for the mystery of the hands was still unexplained. Finally he broke down and asked, “And about her hands that were cut off, how did that turn out in the end?” Olive therefore told about the old washerwoman.

“Then it's you!” cried the king, and they hugged and kissed. But after they had given vent to their joy, the king's face darkened. “I must return to the palace at once and punish my mother as she deserves!”

“No, not that!” said Olive. “If you really love me, you must promise not to lay a hand on your mother. She will be sorry enough as it is. The poor old soul believed she was acting in the interest of the kingdom. Spare her life, since I forgive her for all she has done to me.”

So the king returned to the palace and said nothing to his mother.

“I was uneasy about you,” she said to him. “How did you get through the night out in that storm?”

“I passed a good night, Mamma.”

“What!” said the queen, growing suspicious.

“Yes, at the home of kind-hearted people who kept my spirits up. It was the first time since Olive's death I've felt cheerful. By the way, Mamma, is Olive really dead?”

“What do you mean? The whole town was at the funeral.”

“I'd like to put some flowers on her grave, and see with my own eyes . . . ”

“Why all the suspicion?” asked the queen, flushed with anger. “Is that any attitude for a son to have toward his mother, doubting her word?”

“Go on, Mamma, enough of these lies! Olive, come in!”

In walked Olive leading their children. The queen, who had been crimson with rage, now turned white with fear. But Olive said, “Don't be afraid, we'll do you no harm. Our joy over finding one another again is too great to feel anything else.”

The queen returned to the convent, and the king and Olive lived in peace for the rest of their life.

 

(
Montale Pistoiese
)

72

One day a farmer hoeing his vineyard struck something hard. He bent over and saw that he had unearthed a fine mortar. He picked it up, rubbed the dirt off, and found the object to be solid gold.

“Only a king could own something like this,” he said. “I'll take it to my king, who will most likely give me a handsome present in return!”

At home he found his daughter Catherine waiting for him, and he showed her the mortar, announcing he would present it to the king. Catherine said, “Beyond all doubt, it's as lovely as lovely can be. But if you take it to the king he'll find fault with it, since something is missing, and you'll even end up paying for it.”

“And just what is missing? What could even a king find wrong with it, simpleton?”

“You just wait; the king will say:

 

‘The mortar is big and beautiful,

But where, you dummy, is the pestle?'”

 

The farmer shrugged his shoulders. “The idea of a king talking like that! Do you think he's an ignoramus like you?”

He tucked the mortar under his arm and marched straight to the king's palace. The guards weren't going to let him in, but he told them he was bringing a wonderful gift, so they took him to His Majesty. “Sacred Crown,” began the farmer, “in my vineyard I found this solid gold mortar, and I said to myself that the only place fit to display it was your palace. Therefore I am giving it to you, if you will have it.”