Part 9 (1/2)
Once upon a time there were a husband and a wife who had a son. This son grew up, and said one day to his mother, ”Do you know, mother, I would like to marry?” ”Very well, marry! Whom do you want to take?” He answered, ”I want the gardener's daughter.” ”She is a good girl--take her; I am willing.” So he went, and asked for the girl, and her parents gave her to him. They were married, and when they were in the midst of their dinner, the wine gave out. The husband said, ”There is no more wine!” The bride, to show that she was a good housekeeper, said, ”I will go and get some.” She took the bottles and went to the cellar, turned the c.o.c.k, and began to think, ”Suppose I should have a son, and we should call him Bastianelo, and he should die! Oh, how grieved I should be! oh, how grieved I should be!” And thereupon she began to weep and weep; and meanwhile the wine was running all over the cellar.
When they saw that the bride did not return, the mother said, ”I will go and see what the matter is.” So she went into the cellar, and saw the bride, with the bottle in her hand, and weeping. ”What is the matter with you that you are weeping?” ”Ah, my mother, I was thinking that if I had a son, and should name him Bastianelo, and he should die, oh, how I should grieve! oh, how I should grieve!” The mother, too, began to weep, and weep, and weep; and meanwhile the wine was running over the cellar.
When the people at the table saw that no one brought the wine, the groom's father said, ”I will go and see what is the matter. Certainly something wrong has happened to the bride.” He went and saw the whole cellar full of wine, and the mother and bride weeping. ”What is the matter?” he said; ”has anything wrong happened to you?”
”No,” said the bride; ”but I was thinking that if I had a son, and should call him Bastianelo, and he should die, oh, how I should grieve!
oh, how I should grieve!” Then he, too, began to weep, and all three wept; and meanwhile the wine was running over the cellar.
When the groom saw that neither the bride, nor the mother, nor the father came back, he said, ”Now I will go and see what the matter is that no one returns.” He went into the cellar and saw all the wine running over the cellar. He hastened and stopped the cask, and then asked, ”What is the matter that you are all weeping, and have let the wine run all over the cellar?” Then the bride said, ”I was thinking that if I had a son and called him Bastianelo, and he should die, oh, how I should grieve! oh, how I should grieve!” Then the groom said, ”You stupid fools! Are you weeping at this and letting all the wine run into the cellar? Have you nothing else to think of? It shall never be said that I remained with you. I will roam about the world, and until I find three fools greater than you, I will not return home.”
He had a bread-cake made, took a bottle of wine, a sausage, and some linen, and made a bundle, which he put on a stick and carried over his shoulder. He journeyed and journeyed, but found no fool. At last he said, worn out, ”I must turn back, for I see I cannot find a greater fool than my wife.” He did not know what to do, whether to go on or turn back. ”Oh,” said he, ”it is better to try and go a little farther.” So he went on, and shortly saw a man in his s.h.i.+rt-sleeves at a well, all wet with perspiration, and water. ”What are you doing, sir, that you are so covered with water and in such a sweat?” ”Oh, let me alone,” the man answered; ”for I have been here a long time drawing water to fill this pail, and I cannot fill it.” ”What are you drawing the water in?” he asked him. ”In this sieve,” he said. ”What are you thinking about, to draw water in that sieve? Just wait!” He went to a house near by and borrowed a bucket, with which he returned to the well and filled the pail. ”Thank you, good man. G.o.d knows how long I should have had to remain here!”--”Here,” thought he, ”is one who is a greater fool than my wife.”
He continued his journey, and after a time he saw at a distance a man in his s.h.i.+rt, who was jumping down from a tree. He drew near, and saw a woman under the same tree, holding a pair of breeches. He asked them what they were doing, and they said that they had been there a long time, and that the man was trying on those breeches and did not know how to get into them. ”I have jumped and jumped,” said the man, ”until I am tired out, and I cannot imagine how to get into those breeches.” ”Oh,”
said the traveller, ”you might stay here as long as you wished, for you would never get into them this way. Come down and lean against the tree.” Then he took his legs and put them in the breeches, and after he had put them on, he said, ”Is that right?” ”Very good; bless you; for if it had not been for you, G.o.d knows how long I should have had to jump.”
Then the traveller said to himself, ”I have seen two greater fools than my wife.”
Then he went his way, and as he approached a city, he heard a great noise. When he drew near he asked what it was, and was told it was a marriage, and that it was the custom in that city for the brides to enter the city gate on horseback, and that there was a great discussion on this occasion between the groom and the owner of the horse, for the bride was tall and the horse high, and they could not get through the gate; so that they must either cut off the bride's head or the horse's legs. The groom did not wish his bride's head cut off, and the owner of the horse did not wish his horse's legs cut off, and hence this disturbance. Then the traveller said, ”Just wait,” and came up to the bride and gave her a slap that made her lower her head, and then he gave the horse a kick, and so they pa.s.sed through the gate and entered the city. The groom and the owner of the horse asked the traveller what he wanted, for he had saved the groom his bride and the owner of the horse his horse. He answered that he did not wish anything, and said to himself, ”Two and one make three! that is enough. Now I will go home.”
He did so, and said to his wife, ”Here I am, my wife; I have seen three greater fools than you;--now let us remain in peace, and think of nothing else.” They renewed the wedding, and always remained in peace.
After a time the wife had a son, whom they named Bastianelo, and Bastianelo did not die, but still lives with his father and mother.[4]
There is (Professor Crane remarks) a Sicilian version in Pitre's collection, called ”The Peasant of Larcara,” in which the bride's mother imagines that her daughter has a son who falls into the cistern. The groom--they are not yet married--is disgusted, and sets out on his travels with no fixed purpose of returning if he finds some fools greater than his mother-in-law, as in the Venetian tale. The first fool he meets is a mother, whose child, in playing the game called _nocciole_.[5] tries to get his hand out of the hole whilst his fist is full of stones. He cannot, of course, and the mother thinks they will have to cut off his hand. The traveller tells the child to drop the stones, and then he draws out his hand easily enough. Next he finds a bride who cannot enter the church because she is very tall and wears a high comb. The difficulty is settled as in the former story. After a while he comes to a woman who is spinning and drops her spindle. She calls out to the pig, whose name is Tony, to pick it up for her. The pig does nothing but grunt, and the woman in anger cries, ”Well, you won't pick it up? May your mother die!” The traveller, who had overheard all this, takes a piece of paper, which he folds up like a letter, and then knocks at the door. ”Who is there?” ”Open the door, for I have a letter for you from Tony's mother, who is ill and wishes to see her son before she dies.” The woman wonders that her imprecation has taken effect so soon, and readily consents to Tony's visit. Not only this, but she loads a mule with everything necessary for the comfort of the body and soul of the dying pig. The traveller leads away the mule with Tony, and returns home so pleased with having found that the outside world contains so many fools that he marries as he had first intended.[6]
In other Italian versions, a man is trying to jump into his stockings; another endeavours to put walnuts into a sack with a fork; and a woman dips a knotted rope into a deep well, and then having drawn it up, squeezes the water out of the knots into a pail. The final adventure of the traveller in quest of the greatest noodles is thus related in Miss Busk's _Folk-lore of Rome_:
Towards nightfall he arrived at a lone cottage, where he knocked, and asked for a night's lodging. ”I can't give you that,” said a voice from the inside; ”for I am a lone widow. I can't take a man in to sleep here.” ”But I am a pilgrim,” replied he; ”let me in at least to cook a bit of supper.”
”That I don't mind doing,” said the good wife, and she opened the door.
”Thanks, good friend,” said the pilgrim, as he sat down by the stove.
”Now add to your charity a couple of eggs in a pan.” So she gave him a pan and two eggs, and a bit of b.u.t.ter to cook them in; but he took the six eggs out of his staff and broke them into the pan too. Presently, when the good wife turned her head his way again, and saw eight eggs swimming in the pan instead of two, she said, ”Lack-a-day! you must surely be some strange being from the other world. Do you know So-and-so?” naming her husband. ”Oh yes,” said he, enjoying the joke; ”I know him very well: he lives just next to me.” ”Only to think of that!”
replied the poor woman. ”And, do tell me, how do you get on in the other world? What sort of a life is it?” ”Oh, not so very bad; it depends what sort of a place you get. The part where we are is pretty good, except that we get very little to eat. Your husband, for instance, is nearly starved.” ”No, really?” cried the good wife, clasping her hands. ”Only fancy, my good husband starving out there, so fond as he was of a good dinner, too!” Then she added, coaxingly, ”As you know him so well, perhaps you wouldn't mind doing him the charity of taking him a little somewhat, to give him a treat. There are such lots of things I could easily send him.” ”Oh dear, no, not at all. I'll do so with pleasure,”
answered he. ”But I'm not going back till to-morrow, and if I don't sleep here I must go on farther, and then I shan't come by this way.”
”That's true,” replied the widow. ”Ah, well, I mustn't mind what the folks say; for such an opportunity as this may never occur again. You must sleep in my bed, and I must sleep on the hearth; and in the morning I'll load a donkey with provisions for my poor husband.” ”Oh, no,”
replied the pilgrim, ”you shan't be disturbed in your bed. Only let me sleep on the hearth--that will do for me; and as I am an early riser, I can be gone before any one's astir, so folks won't have anything to say.”
So it was done, and an hour before sunrise the woman was up, loading the donkey with the best of her stores--ham, macaroni, flour, cheese, and wine. All this she committed to the pilgrim, saying, ”You'll send the donkey back, won't you?” ”Of course I would send him back,” he replied; ”he'd be of no use to me out there. But I shan't get out again myself for another hundred years or so, and I fear he won't find his way back alone, for it's no easy way to find.” ”To be sure not; I ought to have thought of that,” replied the widow. ”Ah, well, so as my poor husband gets a good meal, never mind the donkey.” So the pretended pilgrim from the other world went his way. He hadn't gone a hundred yards before the widow called him back. ”Ah, she's beginning to think better of it,” said he to himself, and he continued his way, pretending not to hear. ”Good pilgrim,” shouted the widow, ”I forgot one thing: would money be of any use to my poor husband?” ”Oh dear, yes,” said he, ”all the use in the world. You can always get anything for money anywhere.” ”Oh, do come back, then, and I'll trouble you with a hundred scudi for him.” He went back, willingly, for the hundred scudi, which the widow counted out to him. ”There's no help for it,” said he to himself as he went his way: ”I must go back to those at home.”
From sunny Italy to bleak Norway is certainly a ”far cry,” yet the adventure of the ”Pilgrim from Paradise” is also known to the Norse peasants, in connection with the quest of the greatest noodles: A goody goes to market, with a cow and a hen for sale. She wants five s.h.i.+llings for the cow and ten pounds for the hen. A butcher buys the cow, but doesn't want the hen. As she cannot find a buyer for the hen, she goes back to the butcher, who treats her to so much brandy that she gets dead-drunk, and in this condition the butcher tars and feathers her.
When she awakes, she fancies that she must be some strange bird, and cries out, ”Is this me, or is it not me? I'll go home, and if our dog barks, then it is not me.” Thus far we have a variant of our favourite nursery rhyme:
There was an old woman, as I've heard tell, She went to market her eggs for to sell; She went to market, all on a market-day, And she fell asleep on the king's highway.
There came a pedlar, whose name was Stout, He cut her petticoats all round about; He cut her petticoats up to the knees, Which made the old woman to s.h.i.+ver and freeze.
When the little woman first did wake, She began to s.h.i.+ver and she began to shake; She began to wonder, and she began to cry, ”Lauk-a-mercy on me, this is none of I!”
”But if this be I, as I do hope it be, I've a little dog at home, and he'll know me; If it be I, he'll wag his little tail, And if it be not I, he loudly bark and wail.”
Home went the little woman all in the dark, Up got the little dog, and began to bark; He began to bark, and she began to cry, ”Lauk-a-mercy on me, this can't be I!”