Italian Folktales (94 page)

The rumor reached the king that there was a creature in the sea of Messina who was half man and half fish. The king therefore ordered all his sailors that if any of them saw Nick to tell him the king wanted to talk to him.

One day as a sailor headed his boat toward the open sea, he saw Nick swimming nearby. “Nick!” he said. “The king of Messina wishes a word with you!”

So Nick Fish immediately swam up to the king's palace.

The king smiled as he approached. “Nick Fish,” he said, “you are such an expert swimmer, I would like for you to swim around the whole island of Sicily and tell me where the sea is deepest and what is to be seen in that spot!”

Following orders, Nick Fish swam around the entire coast of Sicily. In a short time he was back. He related that on the floor of the sea he had seen mountains, valleys, caves, and all kinds of fish. The only time he'd been frightened was when he passed by the lighthouse, since he'd been unable to find the bottom at that point.

“Well,” asked the king, “what is Messina built on? You must go down and see.”

Nick dived in and remained under water a whole day. Then he came back up and said to the king, “Messina is built on a rock, which rests on three columns: one of them is sound, another is splintered, and the third is broken.

 

O Messina, Messina,

One day you will be leaner!”

 

The king was amazed, and decided to carry Nick Fish to Naples to see the floor of the volcanoes. Nick went down and afterward related that first he'd found cold water, then hot water and, in certain places, springs of fresh water. The king was skeptical, so Nick asked for two bottles, filling one with hot water and the other with fresh water.

But the king was tormented in the back of his mind by the notion that at Lighthouse Point the sea was bottomless. He took Nick Fish back to Messina and said, “Nick, tell me approximately how deep the water is here at the lighthouse.”

Nick went down and stayed for two days. When he returned to the surface he informed the king he had not seen the bottom, since a column of smoke was pouring from beneath a rock and clouding the water.

The king, who could no longer contain his curiosity, said, “Dive from the roof of the lighthouse.”

The lighthouse stood at the very tip of the promontory and in bygone times had lodged a sentinel who would signal the tides with a trumpet and hoist a flag to warn vessels to keep to the deep. Nick Fish leaped from that lookout. The king waited one day, then a second, then a third, but there was still no sign of Nick. Finally he emerged as pale as a ghost.

“What's the matter, Nick?” asked the king.

“I nearly died of fright,” he explained. “I saw a fish in whose mouth alone a large ship would fit! So he wouldn't swallow me, I hid behind one of the three columns that hold up Messina!”

The king listened open-mouthed, and was as anxious as ever to know how deep the water was at Lighthouse Point. But Nick said, “No, Majesty, I'm too frightened to dive one more time.”

Unable to persuade him, the king removed his crown studded with dazzling gems and threw it into the sea. “Go after it, Nick!”

“Majesty, the idea! The crown of the kingdom!”

“The only crown of its kind in the universe,” said the king. “Nick, you must fetch it!”

“If you order it, Majesty,” replied Nick, “I shall go down. But my heart tells me I'll never come up again. Give me a handful of lentils. If I escape, you'll see me emerge. But if the lentils come to the surface, that's a sign I'll never return.”

They gave him the lentils, and Nick plunged into the sea.

The king waited and waited. After an interminable wait, the lentils floated up. To this day one still awaits the return of Nick Fish.

 

(
Palermo
)

148

Once there was a merchant with three grown-up daughters. The oldest was Rosa, the second Joanna, and the third Ninetta, the most beautiful of the three.

One day a splendid opportunity for gain came the merchant's way, and he returned home lost in thought. “What's the matter, Papa?” asked the girls.

“Nothing, my daughters. A golden opportunity has just turned up, but I can't go off and leave you here by yourselves.”

“Is that all that's stopping you?” asked the oldest girl. “All you need do is get in provisions enough to last us for the time you'll be away, seal up the doors with us inside the house, and we'll see each other again when it's God's will to bring you back to us.”

That's what the merchant did: he bought a large supply of food and instructed one of his servants to call up to his oldest daughter every morning from the street to see if she had any errands for him to run. Bidding them goodbye, he asked, “Rosa, what do you want me to bring you?”

“A gown the hue of the sky.”

“And you, Joanna?”

“A gown the color of diamonds.”

“And you, Ninetta?”

“Please bring me, Father, a beautiful date-palm branch in a silver vase. If you don't, may your ship move neither forward nor backward.”

“You wicked girl!” exclaimed her sisters. “Don't you realize you might cast a spell over your father by such talk?”

“Not at all,” replied the merchant. “Let her alone. She's little and can say what she pleases.”

The merchant departed, and disembarked at just the right place. He made the important deal and then decided to buy the dress Rosa had asked for and the one Joanna had requested, but he forgot all about Ninetta's date-palm branch. He boarded his ship and gained the open sea, but a frightful storm arose with thunder, lightning, and angry waves, and there the ship sat, moving neither forward nor backward.

The captain was at his wit's end. “Where on earth did this storm come from?” At that, the merchant recalled his daughter's spell and spoke up. “Captain, I forgot to make a certain purchase. If we don't want to be shipwrecked, we must turn around and go back into port.”

The instant they turned the helm, the weather changed and, with the wind behind them, they glided back into port. The merchant went ashore, bought the date-palm branch, stuck it in a silver vase, and went back on board. The mariners hoisted the sails and, after three days of smooth sailing, the vessel reached its destination.

In the meantime, while the merchant was away, the three girls stayed in the house with the doors sealed. They had everything they needed, even a well in the courtyard where they could always get fresh water. One day the oldest sister accidentally dropped her thimble into the well, and Ninetta said, “Don't worry, sisters; just lower me into the well, and I'll fetch the thimble.”

“Go down into the well? You must be joking!” said the oldest.

“Of course I'll go down and get the thimble.” So the sisters lowered her into the well.

Ninetta found the thimble floating on the surface of the water, and she picked it up. But when she raised her head, she noticed a hole in the wall of the well, with light coming through it. She removed a brick and beheld on the other side of the wall a beautiful garden with all kinds of flowers, trees, and fruits. Dislodging more bricks, she made an opening and slipped into the garden, where the finest flowers and fruits were all hers. She filled her apron with them, slipped back into the well, replaced the bricks, and called up to her sisters, “Pull me up!” She returned aboveground as fresh as a rose.

Seeing her emerge from the well with an apronful of jasmine and cherries, her sisters asked, “Where did you get all those fine things?”

“What difference does it make? Let me down again tomorrow, and we'll get the rest.”

Now that garden belonged to the crown prince of Portugal. Finding his flowerbeds stripped, he took his poor gardener severely to task.

“I'm completely in the dark. How could such a thing possibly happen?” the gardener was careful to answer. But the prince ordered him to keep a sharper lookout from then on, if he knew what was good for him.

The next day Ninetta was all ready to go down into the garden. She said to her sisters, “Girls, let me down!”

“Are you drunk or out of your mind?”

“I'm neither drunk nor crazy. Let me down.” And they had to let her down.

She pulled out the bricks and stepped into the garden. After gathering a good apronful of flowers and fruit, she cried, “Pull me back up!” But while she was leaving, the prince came to the window and saw her hop away like a hare. He ran into the garden, but she was already gone. He called the gardener, “Which way did that girl go?”

“What girl, Majesty?”

“The one who's picking the flowers and fruit in my garden.”

“I saw nothing at all, Majesty, I swear.”

“Very well, tomorrow I will take your place.”

So the next day, hidden behind a hedge, he saw the girl slip through the bricks into the garden and fill her apron with flowers and fruit up to her chin. Out he jumped and tried to grab her, but with the speed of a cat she jumped back through the hole in the wall and closed it up with the bricks. The prince examined the entire wall, but found no spot where the bricks were loose. He waited for her the next day, and the next, but
Ninetta had received such a scare upon being discovered that she stopped going down into the well. The prince, who had found her as beautiful as a fairy, was so upset that he fell sick. But none of the doctors in the kingdom could say what his trouble was. The king consulted all the physicians, wise men, and philosophers. First one and then another spoke, and finally the floor was given to a certain Wisebeard. “Majesty,” said this Wisebeard, “ask your son if he likes a certain young lady. That would explain everything.”

The king sent for his son and asked him. The boy told him everything, saying he'd have no peace until he married this girl. Wisebeard said, “Majesty, have three days of social affairs at the palace, and issue a decree for fathers and mothers of every station in life to bring their daughters, under pain of death.” The king was in agreement, and issued the decree.

Meanwhile the merchant had returned from his trip, had the doors unsealed, and given the dresses to Rosa and Joanna, and the date-palm branch in the silver vase to Ninetta. Rosa and Joanna were dying for a ball to be given somewhere and began working on their outfits. But Ninetta stayed shut up in her room with her date-palm branch and thought of neither parties nor balls. Her father and sisters said she was crazy.

When the decree was announced, the merchant went home and told his daughters. “How wonderful! How simply wonderful!” exclaimed Rosa and Joanna. But Ninetta shrugged her shoulders and said, “You two go, I have no desire to.”

“Oh, no, my daughter,” said her father. “You must go, under pain of death; death is nothing to play with.”

“What difference does it make whether I go? Do you expect the whole world to know you have three daughters? Just say you have two.”

They argued back and forth, and the evening of the first ball Ninetta stayed home.

No sooner had her sisters left than Ninetta turned to her date-palm branch:

 

“Lovely date-palm, Gràttula-Beddàttula,

Come forth and dress up Nina,

Make her more beautiful than ever.”

 

At those words, out of the date-palm branch came one fairy, then another, then many, many more, all carrying gowns and jewels without equal. They gathered round Nina, and some bathed her, some plaited her hair, some dressed her. In no time they had her fully clothed and decked with necklaces, diamonds, and other precious stones. When she was one
dazzling jewel from head to toe, she got into a carriage, rode to the palace, climbed the stairs, and left everyone open-mouthed with admiration.

The prince recognized her and ran immediately to tell the king. Then he approached her, bowing and asking, “How are you, madam?”

“As well in winter as in summer.”

“What is your name?”

“Ah, my name . . . ”

“Where do you live?”

“In a house with a door.”

“On what street?”

“On Whirlwind Lane.”

“Madam, you will be the death of me.”

“As you will!”

And so, genteelly conversing, they danced away the whole evening, leaving the prince quite out of breath, while she was still as fresh as a rose. When the ball was over, the king, who was concerned about his son, inconspicuously instructed his servants to follow the lady and find out where she lived. She got into her carriage, but noticing she was being trailed, she undid her hair, and pearls and precious stones fell onto the road. The servants were upon them at once, like chickens going after feed, and the lady was completely forgotten. She had the horses whipped to a gallop and vanished.

Arriving home before her sisters, she said:

 

“Lovely date-palm, Gràttula-Beddàttula,

Come down and undress Nina,

Make her just the same as ever.”

 

At that, she found herself stripped of her finery and dressed in her usual housedress.

Her sisters came home. “Ninetta, Ninetta!” they exclaimed, “you don't know what a lovely ball you missed. There was a beautiful lady there who looked a little like you. Had we not known you were here at home, we would have mistaken her for you.”

“Yes, I was here all the time with my date-palm branch.”

“But tomorrow you just have to come with us.”

Meanwhile, the king's servants returned to the palace empty-handed. “You good-for-nothing creatures!” said the king. “The idea of neglecting my orders for a few trifles! Heaven help you if you don't follow the lady all the way home tomorrow evening!”