FAVOLE.

FAVOLE.FILAGRANATA.Once upon a time1there was a poor woman who had a great fancy for eating parsley. To her it was the greatest luxury, and as she had no garden of her own, and no money to spend on anything not an absolute necessity of life, she had to go about poaching in other people’s gardens to satisfy her fancy.Near her cottage was the garden of a great palace, and in this garden grew plenty of fine parsley; but the garden was surrounded by a wall, and to get at it she had to carry a ladder with her to get up by, and, as soon as she had reached the top of the wall, to let it down on the other side to get down to the parsley-bed. There was such a quantity of parsley growing here that she thought it would never be missed, and this made her bold, so that she went over every day and took as much as ever she liked.But the garden belonged to a witch,2who lived in the palace, and, though she did not often walk in this part of the garden, she knew by her supernatural powers that some one was eating her parsley; so she came near the place one day, and lay in wait till the poor woman came. As soon, therefore, as she came, and began eating the parsley, the witch at once pounced down, and asked her, in her gruff voice, what she was doing there. Though dreadfully frightened, the poor woman thought it best to own the whole truth; so she confessed that she came down by the ladder, adding that she had not taken anything except the parsley, and begged forgiveness.‘I know nothing about forgiveness,’ replied the witch.‘You have eaten my parsley, and must take the consequences; and the consequences are these: I must be godmother to your first child, be it boy or girl; and as soon as it is grown to be of an age to dress itself without help, it must belong to me.’When, accordingly, the poor woman’s first child was born, the witch came, as she had declared she would, to be its godmother. It was a fine little girl, and she gave it the name of Filagranata; after that she went away again, and the poor woman saw her no more till her little girl was grown up old enough to dress herself, and then she came and fetched her away inexorably; nor could the poor mother, with all her tears and entreaties, prevail on her to make any exchange for her child.So Filagranata was taken to the witch’s palace to live, and was put in a room in a little tower by herself, where she had to feed the pigeons. Filagranata grew fond of her pigeons, and did not at all complain of her work, yet, without knowing why, she began to grow quite sad and melancholy as time went by; it was because she had no one to play with, no one to talk to, except the witch, who was no very delightful companion. The witch came every day, once in the day, to see that she was attending properly to her work, and as there was no door or staircase to the tower—this was on purpose that she might not escape—the witch used to say when she came under the tower—Filagranata, so fair, so fair,Unloose thy tresses of golden hair:I, thy old grandmother, am here;3and as she said these words, Filagranata had to let down her beautiful long hair through the window, and by it the witch climbed up into her chamber to her. This she did every day.Now, it happened that about this time a king’s son was travelling that way searching for a beautiful wife;for you know it is the custom for princes to go searching all over the world to find a maiden fit to be a prince’s wife; at least they say so.Well, this prince, travelling along, came by the witch’s palace where Filagranata was lodged. And it happened that he came that way just as the witch was singing her ditty. If he was horrified at the sight of the witch, he was in proportion enchanted when Filagranata came to the window. So struck was he with the sight of her beauty, and modesty, and gentleness, that he stopped his horse that he might watch her as long as she stayed at the window, and thus became a spectator of the witch’s wonderful way of getting into the tower.The prince’s mind was soon made up to gain a nearer view of Filagranata, and with this purpose he rode round and round the tower seeking some mode of ingress in vain, till at last, driven to desperation, he made up his mind that he must enter by the same strange means as the witch herself. Thinking that the old creature had her abode there, and that she would probably go out for some business in the morning, and return at about the same hour as on the present occasion, he rode away, commanding his impatience as well as he could, and came back the next day a little earlier.Though he could hardly hope quite to imitate the hag’s rough and tremulous voice so as to deceive Filagranata into thinking it was really the witch, he yet made the attempt and repeated the words he had heard—Filagranata, thou maiden fair,Loose thy tresses of golden hair:I, thy old grandmother, am here.Filagranata, surprised at the soft modulation of voice, such as she had never heard before, ran quickly to the window with a look of pleasure and astonishment which gave her face a more winning expression than ever.The prince looked up, all admiration and expectation;and the thought quickly ran through Filagranata’s head—‘I have been taught to loose my hair whenever those words are said; why should not I loose it to draw up such a pleasant-looking cavalier, as well as for the ugly old hag?’ and, without waiting for a second thought, she untied the ribbon that bound her tresses and let them fall upon the prince. The prince was equally quick in taking advantage of the occasion, and, pressing his knees firmly into his horse’s flanks, so that it might not remain below to betray him, drew himself up, together with his steed, just as he had seen the witch do.Filagranata, half frightened at what she had done the moment the deed was accomplished, had not a word to say, but blushed and hung her head. The prince, on the other hand, had so many words to pour out, expressive of his admiration for her, his indignation at her captivity, and his desire to be allowed to be her deliverer, that the moments flew quickly by, and it was only when Filagranata found herself drawn to the window by the power of the witch’s magic words that they remembered the dangerous situation in which they stood.Another might have increased the peril by cries of despair, or lost precious time in useless lamentations; but Filagranata showed a presence of mind worthy of a prince’s wife by catching up a wand of the witch, with which she had seen her do wonderful things. With this she gave the prince a little tap, which immediately changed him into a pomegranate, and then another to the horse, which transformed him into an orange.4These she set by on the shelf, and then proceeded to draw up the witch after the usual manner.The old hag was not slow in perceiving there was something unusual in Filagranata’s room.‘What a stink5of Christians! What a stink of Christians!’ she kept exclaiming, as she poked her nose into every hole and corner. Yet she failed to find anything toreprehend; for as for the beautiful ripe pomegranate and the golden orange on the shelf, the Devil himself could not have thought there was anything wrong with them. Thus baffled, she was obliged to finish her inspection of the state of the pigeons, and end her visit in the usual way.As soon as she was gone Filagranata knew she was free till the next day, and so once more, with a tap of the wand, restored the horse and his rider to their natural shapes.‘And this is how your life passes every day! Is it possible?’ exclaimed the prince; ‘no, I cannot leave you here. You may be sure my good horse will be proud to bear your little weight; you have only to mount behind me, and I will take you home to my kingdom, and you shall live in the palace with my mother, and be my queen.’It is not to be supposed but that Filagranata very much preferred the idea of going with the handsome young prince who had shown so devoted an appreciation of her, and being his queen, to remaining shut up in the doorless tower and being the witch’s menial; so she offered no opposition, and the prince put her on to his good horse behind him, and away they rode.On, on, on,6they rode for a long, long way, until they came at last to a wood; but for all the good horse’s speed, the witch, who was not long in perceiving their escape and setting out in pursuit, was well nigh overtaking them. Just then they saw a little old woman7standing by the way, making signs and calling to them to arrest their course. How great soever was their anxiety to get on, so urgent was her appeal to them to stop and listen to her that they yielded to her entreaties. Nor were they losers by their kindness, for the little old woman was a fairy,8and she had stopped them, not on her own account, but to give them the means of escaping from the witch.To the prince she said: ‘Take these three gifts, andwhen the witch comes very near throw down first the mason’s trowel; and when she nearly overtakes you again throw down the comb; and when she nearly comes upon you again after that, throw down this jar9of oil. After that she won’t trouble you any more.’ And to Filagranata she whispered some words, and then let them go. But the witch was now close behind, and the prince made haste to throw down the mason’s trowel. Instantly there rose up a high stone wall between them, which it took the witch some time to climb over. Nevertheless, by her supernatural powers she was not long in making up for the lost time, and had soon overtaken the best speed of the good horse. Then the prince threw down the comb, and immediately there rose up between them a strong hedge of thorns, which it took the witch some time to make her way through, and that only with her body bleeding all over from the thorns. Nevertheless, by her supernatural powers she was not long in making up for the lost time, and had soon overtaken the best speed of the good horse. Then the prince threw down the jar of oil, and the oil spread and spread till it had overflowed10the whole country side; and as wherever you step in a pool of oil the foot only slides back, the witch could never get out of that, so the prince and Filagranata rode on in all safety towards the prince’s palace.‘And now tell me what it was the old woman in the wood whispered to you,’ said the prince, as soon as they saw their safety sufficiently secured to breathe freely.‘It was this,’ answered Filagranata; ‘that I was to tell you that when you arrive at your own home you must kiss no one—no one at all, not your father, or mother, or sisters, or anyone—till after our marriage. Because if you do you will forget all about your love for me, and all you have told me you think of me, and all the faithfulness you have promised me, and we shall become as strangers again to each other.’‘How dreadful!’ said the prince. ‘Oh, you may be sure I will kiss no one ifthatis to be the consequence; so be quite easy. It will be rather odd, to be sure, to return from such a long journey and kiss none of them at home, not even my own mother; but I suppose if I tell them how it is they won’t mind. So be quite easy about that.’Thus they rode on in love and confidence, and the good horse soon brought them home.On the steps of the palace the chancellor of the kingdom came out to meet them, and saluted Filagranata as the chosen bride the prince was to bring home; he informed him that the king his father had died during his absence, and that he was now sovereign of the realm. Then he led him in to the queen-mother, to whom he told all his adventures, and explained why he must not kiss her till after his marriage. The queen-mother was so pleased with the beauty, and modesty, and gentleness of Filagranata, that she gave up her son’s kiss without repining, and before they retired to rest that night it was announced to the people that the prince had returned home to be their king, and the day was proclaimed when the feast for his marriage was to take place.Then all in the palace went to their sleeping-chambers. But the prince, as it had been his wont from his childhood upwards, went into his mother’s room to kiss her after she was asleep, and when he saw her placid brow on the pillow, with the soft white hair parted on either side of it, and the eyes which were wont to gaze on him with so much love, resting in sleep, he could not forbear from pressing his lips on her forehead and giving the wonted kiss.Instantly there passed from his mind all that had taken place since he last stood there to take leave of the queen-mother before he started on his journey.His visit to the witch’s palace, his flight from it, the life-perils by the way, and, what is more, the image of Filagranata herself,—all passed from his mind like a vision of the night, and when he woke up and they told him he was king, it was as if he heard it for the first time, and when they brought Filagranata to him it was as though he knew her not nor saw her.‘But,’ he said, ‘if I am king there must be a queen to share my throne;’ and as a reigning sovereign could not go over the world to seek a wife, he sent and fetched him a princess meet to be the king’s wife, and appointed the betrothal. The queen-mother, who loved Filagranata, was sad, and yet nothing that she could say could bring back to his mind the least remembrance of all he had promised her and felt towards her.But Filagranata knew that the prince had kissed his mother, and this was why the spell was on him; so she said to her mother-in-law: ‘You get me much fine-sifted flour11and a large bag of sweetmeats, and I will try if I cannot yet set this matter straight.’ So the queen-mother ordered that there should be placed in her room much sifted flour and a large bag of sweetmeats. And Filagranata, when she had shut close the door, set to work and made paste of the flour, and of the paste she moulded two pigeons, and filled them inside with the comfits. Then at the banquet of the betrothal she asked the queen-mother to have her two pigeons placed on the table; and she did so, one at each end. But as soon as all the company were seated, before any one was helped, the two pigeons which Filagranata had made began to talk to each other across the whole length of the table: and everybody stood still with wonder to listen to what the pigeons of paste said to each other.‘Do you remember,’ said the first pigeon, ‘or is it possible that you have really forgotten, when I was in thatdoorless tower of the witch’s palace, and you came under the window and imitated her voice, saying,—Filagranata, thou maiden fair,Loose thy tresses of golden hair:I, thy old grandmother, am here,till I drew you up?’And the other pigeon answered,—‘Si, signora, I remember it now.’And as the young king heard the second pigeon say ‘Si, signora, I remember it now,’ he, too, remembered having been in a doorless tower, and having sung such a verse.‘Do you remember,’ continued the first pigeon, ‘how happy we were together after I drew you up into that little room where I was confined, and you swore if I would come with you we should always be together and never be separated from each other any more at all?’And the second pigeon replied,—‘Ah yes! I remember it now.’And as the second pigeon said ‘Ah yes! I remember it now,’ there rose up in the young king’s mind the memory of a fair sweet face on which he had once gazed with loving eyes, and of a maiden to whom he had sworn lifelong devotion.But the first pigeon continued:—‘Do you remember, or have you quite forgotten, how we fled away together, and how frightened we were when the witch pursued us, and how we clung to each other, and vowed, if she overtook us to kill us, we would die in each other’s arms, till a fairy met us and gave us the means to escape, and forbad you to kiss anyone, even your own mother, till after our marriage?’And the second pigeon answered,—‘Yes, ah yes! I remember it now.’And when the second pigeon said, ‘Yes, ah yes! I remember it now,’ the whole of the past came back to hismind, and with it all his love for Filagranata. So he rose up12and would have stroked the pigeons which had brought it all to his mind, but when he touched them they melted away, and the sweetmeats were scattered all over the table, and the guests picked them up. But the prince ran in haste to fetch Filagranata, and he brought her and placed her by his side in the banquet-hall. But the second bride was sent back, with presents, to her own people.‘And so it all came right at last,’ pursued the narrator. ‘Lackaday! that there are no fairies now to make things all happen right. There are plenty of people who seem to have the devil in them for doing you a mischief, but there are no fairies to set things straight again, alas!’[I have placed this story first in order, as its incidents ramify into half the traditionary tales with which we are acquainted.(1.) ‘Rapunzel,’ No. 12 in ‘Grimm,’ is the most like it among the German in the beginning, and has the most dissimilar ending. The counterpart form, in which it is some misdeed or ill-luck of the father instead of the mother, which involves the surrender of the first-born, is the more frequent opening, as in ‘The Water King,’ Ralston’s ‘Russian Folk Tales,’ p. 120. ‘The Lassie and her Godmother,’ in Dr. Dasent’s ‘Norse Tales,’ has an opening like ‘Filagranata,’ which, as it proceeds, connects it with ‘Marienkind,’ No. 4 in ‘Grimm;’ and the prohibition to open the room, in thatone, carries on the connexion to another group, the Bluebeard group, represented in this series by ‘Monsoo Mostro,’ ‘Rè Moro,’ &c.; while, further on, ‘Lassie and her Godmother’ evolves the incident of the reflection in the well, which connects it with the following story in this collection, and in this roundabout way, though not in direct form, with the termination of ‘Filagranata.’(2.) The introduction of an orange as a help to defy the ‘orca,’ connects the story again with the two next (though the fruit is used differently), and with a vast number of myths, as pointed out in Campbell’s ‘Tales of the West Highlands,’ Introduction, pp. lxxx-lxxxv. I was rather put off the scent by the narrator using the word portogallo: melagranata, though properly a pomegranate, is, I think, used in old Italian for an orange, being simply a red, or golden, apple.(3.) The three gifts of the trowel, the comb, and the oil-filler, again bring this story in connexion with another vast group. Compare ‘Campbell,’ iv. 290; also his remarks, i. 58–62, on the ‘Battle of the Birds,’ which story this resembles in the main, but, as will be found throughout this collection, the Roman form is milder. The prince wins his bride without performing tasks, and the couple, in escaping, have only to kill a strange ‘orca,’ and not the girl’s own father. In the third version of the tale in Mr. Campbell’s series, the girl becomes a poultry-maid, and has three fine dresses, constituting a link with another group—that of Cinderella (I have given the Tirolean one as ‘Klein-Else’ in ‘Household Stories from the Land of Hofer’); and the three dresses there (though not in the Gaelic story) representing the sun, moon, and stars, give it another connexion with ‘Marienkind.’ ‘The Master Maid,’ in Dr. Dasent’s collection, again, has the golden apple (though it assists in a different way) and the ending of the Roman version (a golden cock there taking the part of the two paste pigeons), but begins with the tasks in the ‘Giant’s House’ of the Gaelic version, which the Roman ignores.In the Russian story of ‘Baba Yaga’ (Ralston’s ‘Russian Folk Tales,’ pp. 139) we have the three magic gifts. Though Mr. Campbell has a very ingenious solution for the idea of the supernatural attaching to swords (i. lxxii), the same does not seem at all to explain the introduction of supernatural combs;when I once found a comb transformed into a mountain in a Tirolean story, I thought, as Mr. Ralston has also suggested (p. 144), that it fitted very well with the German expression for a mountain-ridge; but he does not tell us whether the metaphor holds good in Russ, where he finds it used; and in the present instance it is a hedge of thorns into which the comb resolves itself. I have another Roman story, in which the comb ‘swelled and swelled till every one of its teeth became a pier, and the spaces between them were arches, and it was a bridge by which one could pass over.’(4.) The kiss which brings forgetfulness, again, is found in the myths of every country. It occurs in the Tirolean story I have given as the ‘Dove-Maiden’ in ‘Household Stories from the Land of Hofer,’ though I had to omit it there for want of space; but the remaining episodes of that story are nearly identical with those of the Russian story of ‘The Water-King;’ and in the Tirolean story the maiden is fetched from a heathen magician’s house by the aid of saints, while in the others it is from giants’ or witches’ abodes, by aid of other giants and witches. Mr. Ralston supplies, at pp. 132–7, a long list of variants of this story, and in a Russian one, at p. 133, comes a ride on a Bear, which is one of the incidents in the ‘Dove-Maiden,’ though, if I remember right, it does not occur in any of the others. In Mr. Campbell’s notes to ‘The Battle of the Birds’ are also collected notices of variants of this episode.The affinity of this story with others again will be found in Mr. Cox’s ‘Mythology of the Aryan Nations,’ ii. p. 301.]1This story comes from Palombara.↑2The expression employed in this place was ‘Orca;’ as this is a word of most frequent, but somewhat capricious use, I interrupted the narrator to inquire her conception of it. ‘Well, it means a species of beast,’ she said; ‘but you see it must have been a bewitched (‘fatata’) beast, because the story says it was so rich, and had a palace, and spoke and did all the things you shall hear.’ She did not, however, seem to identify it with the evil principle according to its undoubted derivation, nor did she allow either that it had any connexion with ‘orso,’ a bear, as the narrator of the ‘il Vaso di Persa’ had expounded it, and indeed as the details of that story required; it will be seen, therefore, that popular fancy invests the monster with various shapes. The story of ‘The Pot of Marjoram,’ it will be seen, contains one or two incidents in common with this one. The apparently insignificant detail of the little plant—on which, however, both stories rest for a foundation—is noteworthy, the narrator in each instance being most positive that it was the one she had named and no other, and in both cases insisting on showing me the plant, that there might be no mistake about it. (See note to the word ‘Persa,’ infra, p. 54.)↑3Filagranata bella bella,Tira giù le bionde trecce,Ch’ io son nonna vecchiarella.‘Tira giù,’ or ‘butta giù,’ as in the next repetition, mean equally ‘throw-down.’ ‘Biondo’ expresses particularly the yellow tint in hair. Bazzarini, ‘Ortografia Enciclopedica Universale,’ defines it, ‘colore tra il giallo e bianco ed è proprio di capelli,’ on the authority of Petrarch’s use of the word. He has also ‘biondeggiante, che biondeggia, che ingiallisce,’turning or tending to yellow; and it is thus the yellow Tiber gets called ‘il biondo Tevere.’↑4‘Portogallo’ is now the ordinary word for an orange, and points to the introduction of the fruit from the Portuguese colonies in the sixteenth century. The ‘arancia,’ ‘melarancia,’ or ‘merangola,’ the ungrafted orange-tree, was, however, indigenous in Italy; and the fruit, which has even a finer appearance than the edible orange, is still grown for ornament in Roman gardens.↑5‘Puzzo,’ stink. There is no neutral word in Italian for a smell; you must define a good or a bad smell either as a perfume or a stink.↑6‘Camminando, camminando, camminando.’ This threefold repetition of this verb, according to the tense and person required by the story, I have found used as a sort of sing-song refrain by all the tellers of tales I have had to do with.↑7‘Vecchiarella,’ little old woman.↑8‘Fata;’ ethnologically Fata is the same as ‘Fairy,’ ‘Fée,’ &c., &c., and ‘fairy’ is the only translation; but it will be observed the Italian ‘fata’ has always different characteristics from the English ‘fairy.’↑9‘Buzzica’ is a homely word for a lamp-filler; it probably comes from ‘buzzicare,’ to move gently or slowly. The narrator used the word because she would, according to local custom, keep her oil in a ‘buzzica,’ without perceiving that it was most inappropriate for the purpose of the story, which required that the oil should be poured out quickly.↑10‘Allagato,’ inundated. I preserve the word on account of its expressiveness—literally making a lake of the country.↑11‘Fior di farina.’↑12As the story was told me the dialogue was broken, and every incident of the journey was made the subject of a separate question and answer; all the furniture in the room also here entered into conversation with the pigeons, brooms being particularly loquacious; but as it became tedious, and by no means added to the poetry of the situation, I condensed it to the dimensions in the text.↑THE THREE LOVE-ORANGES.1They say there was a king’s son who went out to hunt.2It was a winter’s day, and the ground was covered with snow, so that when he brought down the birds with his arquebuse the red blood made beautiful bright marks on the dazzling white snow.‘How beautiful!’ exclaimed the prince. ‘Never willI marry till I find one with a complexion fair as this snow, and tinted like this rosy blood.’When his day’s sport was at an end, he went home and told his parents that he was going to wander over the world till he found one fair as snow, tinted like rosy blood. The parents approved his design and sent him forth.On, on, on he went, till one day he met a little old woman, who stopped him, saying: ‘Whither so fast, fair prince?’He replied, ‘I walk the earth till I find one who is fair as snow, tinted like rosy blood, to make her my wife.’‘That can I help you to, and I alone,’ said the little old woman, who was a fairy; and then she gave him the three love-oranges, telling him that when he opened one such a maiden as he was in search of would appear, but he must immediately look for water and sprinkle her, or she would disappear again.The prince took the oranges, and wandered on. On, on, on he went, till at last the fancy took him to break open one of the oranges. Immediately a beautiful maiden appeared, whose complexion was indeed fair as snow, and tinted like rosy blood, but it was only when she had already disappeared that he recollected about the water. It was too late, so on he wandered again till the fancy took him to open another orange. Instantly another maiden appeared, fairer than the other, and he lost no time in looking for water to sprinkle her, but there was none, and before he came back from the search she was gone.On he wandered again till he was nearly home, when one day he noticed a handsome fountain standing by the road, and over against it a fine palace. The sight of the fountain made him think of his third orange, and he took it out and broke it open.Instantly a third maiden appeared, far fairer than either of the others; with the water of the fountain hesprinkled her the moment she appeared, and she vanished not, but staid with him and loved him.Then he said, ‘You must stay here in this bower while I go on home and fetch a retinue worthy to escort you.’In a palace opposite the fountain lived a black Saracen woman,3and just then she went down to the fountain to draw water, and as she looked into the water she said, ‘My mistress says that I am so ugly, but I am so fair, therefore I break the pitcher and the little pitcher.’4Then she looked up in the bower, and seeing the beautiful maiden, she called her down, and caressed her, and stroked her hair, and praised her beauty; but as she stroked her hair she took out a magic pin, and stuck it into her head, and instantly the maiden became a dove and perched on the side of the fountain.Then she broke the pitcher and the little pitcher, and the prince came back.When the prince saw the ugly black woman standing in the bower where he had left his beautiful maiden, he was quite bewildered, and looked all about for her.‘I am she whom you seek, prince,’ said the woman. ‘It is the sun has changed me thus while standing here waiting for you; but all will come right when I get away from the sun.’The prince did not know what to make of it, but there was no help for it but to take her and trust to her coming right when she got away from the sun. He took her home, therefore, and right grand preparations were made for the royal marriage. Tapestries were hung on the walls, and flowers strewed the floor, while in the kitchen was the cook as busy as a bee, preparing I know not how many dishes for the royal banquet.Then, lo, there came and perched on the kitchen window a little dove, and sang, ‘Cook, cook, for whom are you cooking; for the son of the king, or the Saracen Moor? May the cook fall asleep, and may all the viands be burnt!’5After this nothing would go right in the kitchen; every day all the dishes got burnt, and it was impossible to give the wedding banquet, because there was nothing fit to send up to the table. Then the king’s son came into the kitchen to learn what had happened, and they showed him the dove which had done all. ‘Sweet little dove!’ said the prince, and, catching it in his hand, began to caress it; thus he felt the pin in its head, and pulled it out. Instantly his own fair maiden stood before him, white as snow, rosy as blood. Then the mystery was cleared up, and there was great rejoicing, and the old witch was burnt.[This story, besides its similarities with those mentioned in note of the foregoing, is substantially the same as ‘Die weisse u. die schwarze Braut’ in Grimm (with his ‘Schneeweisschen u. Rosenroth’ it seems to have nothing in common, though the words ‘Snow-white and rose-red’ suggest it); but its commencement is different. The German Tale of Sneewittchen (Grimm,p. 206 has also much similarity with it: a queen sat working in a window framed with ebony; she pricks her finger, and three drops of blood that fall on the snow suggest the wish that her child may be fair as snow, red as blood, and her hair as dark as ebony. Her wishes are fulfilled, and she dies. She is succeeded by a witch-stepmother, from whom the child of wishes suffers many things, but the witch is ultimately danced to death in red-hot iron shoes. A link between them is supplied by the next following, in which the opening agrees with the German story. In Schneller’s ‘Legends of the Italian Tirol’ are two, with a title similar to the Roman one. In the first (‘I tre aranci’) the girl becomes the property of a fairy, as in Filagranata. She is sent to fetch three oranges, which she does by the help of five gifts given her by an old man; but the whole ends in the good child wishing as her only reward to be restored to her mother. The other is called ‘L’amor dei tre aranci.’ In this the prince breaks a witch’s milkjug while playing at ball, and in revenge she tells him he shall not marry till he finds ‘the Love of the three oranges,’ which he similarly obtains by the help of five gifts received of an old woman; when he opens them, the story goes on just like the Roman one, the verse of the dove being a little different:—Cogo, bel cogo,Endormeazate al fogo,Che l’arrosto se possa brusar,E la fiola (figlia) della stria non ne possa magnar.and there is nothing about ‘fair as snow, rosy as blood,’ in it. He has another, ‘Quel dalla coda di oro,’ in which three golden apples or balls play a prominent part, but it belongs to another group. A second version of this, entitled ‘I pomid’oro,’ however, is a strange mixture of the various Tirolean and Roman versions.The Hungarian story of ‘Vas Laczi’ (Iron Ladislas) begins, like ‘L’amor dei tre aranci,’ by a young prince getting into a scrape with a witch, this time by breaking her basket of eggs. His punishment is the fulfilment of his first wish, and his first wish happens to be a pettish one, that the earth might swallow up his three sisters; as one of them is said to be always dressed like the sun, the second like the moon, and the third like the stars, we havea link with the German Marienkind and the Tirolean Klein-Else. Afterwards Iron Ladislas goes in search of his sisters, and encounters many heroic adventures and many transformations, in one of which a tree in a dragon’s garden with golden apples is a prominent detail.A tree with golden fruit is also an important incident in the principal and most popular of Hungarian myths, that of ‘Tündér Ilona’ (Fairy Helen). As it is seen depicted on the thirteen compartments of the grand staircase walls of the National Club at Pest,Tündér Ilonaappears in the first as the Goddess or Queen of Summer held in thrall by the stern witch the Goddess or Queen of Winter. She is seen planting in the territory of the Earth-King a tree which represents her earnest longings after freedom, and committing it to the benign influence of the Sun-King.The second shows this mystical tree bearing its golden fruit, which the beautiful Fairy, as if ashamed of her boldness, is hasting to pluck off, borne on a chariot formed of obedient swans. The Wind-genius wafts poppy seeds over the eyes of the armed guard the Winter-Queen had set round the tree, and lulls them to sleep.In the third Argilus, the Earth-Prince, is seen surprising in his (up till then vain) nightly attempt to gather the golden fruit,Tündér Ilona’sdeparting convoy. He aims an arrow at the coy plunderer; then suddenly a glance from her pierces his heart instead, and he lets the arrow harmlessly strike the ground.The fourth portrays the happy union ofIlonaand Argilus, Summer and Earth; but the Winter-Queen comes by enraged at their successful defiance of her, and cuts offIlona’sbeautiful golden locks. (The people have it that these locks borne along by the winds planted the Puszta with the beautiful long feathery grass which they call ‘Orphan-girl’s hair’). In the distance are seen the parents of the Earth-Prince hurrying forward in search of their son.The fifth showsTündér Ilonawaking from her delicious slumber, and on discovering the loss of the mantle of her hair, hasting back in agony to her swan-chariot. Argilus in vain stretches out his arms after her, and prays her to remain always with him.In the sixth the scene is changed to the dwelling of the Earth-King. Prince Argilus is taking leave of his parents as he starts on his perilous journey, determined to deliver the captive Fairy.In the seventh the Earth-Prince has advanced on his journey as far as the dwelling of a giant, of whom he asks counsel, and who appoints him three witches to show the way to regain theTündér.In the eighth he is seen victorious in a late conflict with three giants, from each of whom he has succeeded in gaining an instrument necessary for his purpose; from one a switch, from another a pipe, from the third a conjuring mantle. The giants throw down masses of rock upon him, but he spreads out the conjuring mantle, and committing himself to it, floats securely through the air.In the ninth Argilus has reached the Winter-Witch’s border, and prepares to engage in combat with the dragon who guards it.The tenth is highly sensational. The Winter-Witch has thrown a deep sleep over him, and the poor Summer-Fairy strives to awaken him in vain.In the eleventh the ardent desires ofTündér Ilonahave prevailed over all the enchantments of the Winter-Witch, and at her prayer there rises up from the innermost region of the earth the fairy Iron-Queen, who brings the Tátos, the winged magic horse who is to bear the Prince through all dangers to certain victory.The twelfth shows Argilus andIlonaonce more united, enthroned side by side, and subjects bearing them offerings.The thirteenth is a large composition symbolising the mystic union of Earth and Summer, whence sprang, says the myth, Autumn with her abundant fruits, and the great god Pan, the author of all productiveness, who called the land of his birth after his own name and blessed it with fecundity above all nations of the earth. The tree of golden fruit, the first occasion of the auspicious meeting which led to this union, is again introduced, andTündér Ilonais again clothed in her luxuriant mantle of golden hair.]1‘I tre Melangoli di amore;’melangolo or merangolo, or merangola, an ungrafted orange. See note to ‘Filagranata.’↑2‘Caccia,’ though usually translated by ‘hunt,’ is used for all kinds of sport. Bazzarini says it even includes ‘pallone’ and other games; but it is in common use for shooting small birds as for hunting quadrupeds.↑3‘Mora Saracena,’ a black Saracen woman; ‘mora’ is in constant use for a dark-coloured person. Senhor de Saraiva tells me that a so-called ‘Mora encantada’ figures as one of the favourite personages in Portuguese traditionary tales; but she is less often an actual Moor than a princess held in thrall by Moorish art, to be set free by Christian chivalry. She is often represented as bound at the bottom of a well.↑4Mia padrona dice che son tanta brutta,E son tanta bella,Io rompo la brocca e la brocchetta.This verse would be hardly comprehensible but that the incident is better explained in the more detailed versions of other countries mentioned in note to the last tale. The ugly ‘Mora’ sees the reflection of the face of the beautiful maiden who sits in the tree overlooking the fountain, and takes it for her own. See Campbell’sTales of the W. Highlands, pp. 56–7, &c.↑5Cuoco, cuoco, per chi cucinate,Pel figlio del rè o per la mora Saracena?Il cuoco si possa dormentar’,E le vivande si possano bruciar’.↑

FAVOLE.FILAGRANATA.Once upon a time1there was a poor woman who had a great fancy for eating parsley. To her it was the greatest luxury, and as she had no garden of her own, and no money to spend on anything not an absolute necessity of life, she had to go about poaching in other people’s gardens to satisfy her fancy.Near her cottage was the garden of a great palace, and in this garden grew plenty of fine parsley; but the garden was surrounded by a wall, and to get at it she had to carry a ladder with her to get up by, and, as soon as she had reached the top of the wall, to let it down on the other side to get down to the parsley-bed. There was such a quantity of parsley growing here that she thought it would never be missed, and this made her bold, so that she went over every day and took as much as ever she liked.But the garden belonged to a witch,2who lived in the palace, and, though she did not often walk in this part of the garden, she knew by her supernatural powers that some one was eating her parsley; so she came near the place one day, and lay in wait till the poor woman came. As soon, therefore, as she came, and began eating the parsley, the witch at once pounced down, and asked her, in her gruff voice, what she was doing there. Though dreadfully frightened, the poor woman thought it best to own the whole truth; so she confessed that she came down by the ladder, adding that she had not taken anything except the parsley, and begged forgiveness.‘I know nothing about forgiveness,’ replied the witch.‘You have eaten my parsley, and must take the consequences; and the consequences are these: I must be godmother to your first child, be it boy or girl; and as soon as it is grown to be of an age to dress itself without help, it must belong to me.’When, accordingly, the poor woman’s first child was born, the witch came, as she had declared she would, to be its godmother. It was a fine little girl, and she gave it the name of Filagranata; after that she went away again, and the poor woman saw her no more till her little girl was grown up old enough to dress herself, and then she came and fetched her away inexorably; nor could the poor mother, with all her tears and entreaties, prevail on her to make any exchange for her child.So Filagranata was taken to the witch’s palace to live, and was put in a room in a little tower by herself, where she had to feed the pigeons. Filagranata grew fond of her pigeons, and did not at all complain of her work, yet, without knowing why, she began to grow quite sad and melancholy as time went by; it was because she had no one to play with, no one to talk to, except the witch, who was no very delightful companion. The witch came every day, once in the day, to see that she was attending properly to her work, and as there was no door or staircase to the tower—this was on purpose that she might not escape—the witch used to say when she came under the tower—Filagranata, so fair, so fair,Unloose thy tresses of golden hair:I, thy old grandmother, am here;3and as she said these words, Filagranata had to let down her beautiful long hair through the window, and by it the witch climbed up into her chamber to her. This she did every day.Now, it happened that about this time a king’s son was travelling that way searching for a beautiful wife;for you know it is the custom for princes to go searching all over the world to find a maiden fit to be a prince’s wife; at least they say so.Well, this prince, travelling along, came by the witch’s palace where Filagranata was lodged. And it happened that he came that way just as the witch was singing her ditty. If he was horrified at the sight of the witch, he was in proportion enchanted when Filagranata came to the window. So struck was he with the sight of her beauty, and modesty, and gentleness, that he stopped his horse that he might watch her as long as she stayed at the window, and thus became a spectator of the witch’s wonderful way of getting into the tower.The prince’s mind was soon made up to gain a nearer view of Filagranata, and with this purpose he rode round and round the tower seeking some mode of ingress in vain, till at last, driven to desperation, he made up his mind that he must enter by the same strange means as the witch herself. Thinking that the old creature had her abode there, and that she would probably go out for some business in the morning, and return at about the same hour as on the present occasion, he rode away, commanding his impatience as well as he could, and came back the next day a little earlier.Though he could hardly hope quite to imitate the hag’s rough and tremulous voice so as to deceive Filagranata into thinking it was really the witch, he yet made the attempt and repeated the words he had heard—Filagranata, thou maiden fair,Loose thy tresses of golden hair:I, thy old grandmother, am here.Filagranata, surprised at the soft modulation of voice, such as she had never heard before, ran quickly to the window with a look of pleasure and astonishment which gave her face a more winning expression than ever.The prince looked up, all admiration and expectation;and the thought quickly ran through Filagranata’s head—‘I have been taught to loose my hair whenever those words are said; why should not I loose it to draw up such a pleasant-looking cavalier, as well as for the ugly old hag?’ and, without waiting for a second thought, she untied the ribbon that bound her tresses and let them fall upon the prince. The prince was equally quick in taking advantage of the occasion, and, pressing his knees firmly into his horse’s flanks, so that it might not remain below to betray him, drew himself up, together with his steed, just as he had seen the witch do.Filagranata, half frightened at what she had done the moment the deed was accomplished, had not a word to say, but blushed and hung her head. The prince, on the other hand, had so many words to pour out, expressive of his admiration for her, his indignation at her captivity, and his desire to be allowed to be her deliverer, that the moments flew quickly by, and it was only when Filagranata found herself drawn to the window by the power of the witch’s magic words that they remembered the dangerous situation in which they stood.Another might have increased the peril by cries of despair, or lost precious time in useless lamentations; but Filagranata showed a presence of mind worthy of a prince’s wife by catching up a wand of the witch, with which she had seen her do wonderful things. With this she gave the prince a little tap, which immediately changed him into a pomegranate, and then another to the horse, which transformed him into an orange.4These she set by on the shelf, and then proceeded to draw up the witch after the usual manner.The old hag was not slow in perceiving there was something unusual in Filagranata’s room.‘What a stink5of Christians! What a stink of Christians!’ she kept exclaiming, as she poked her nose into every hole and corner. Yet she failed to find anything toreprehend; for as for the beautiful ripe pomegranate and the golden orange on the shelf, the Devil himself could not have thought there was anything wrong with them. Thus baffled, she was obliged to finish her inspection of the state of the pigeons, and end her visit in the usual way.As soon as she was gone Filagranata knew she was free till the next day, and so once more, with a tap of the wand, restored the horse and his rider to their natural shapes.‘And this is how your life passes every day! Is it possible?’ exclaimed the prince; ‘no, I cannot leave you here. You may be sure my good horse will be proud to bear your little weight; you have only to mount behind me, and I will take you home to my kingdom, and you shall live in the palace with my mother, and be my queen.’It is not to be supposed but that Filagranata very much preferred the idea of going with the handsome young prince who had shown so devoted an appreciation of her, and being his queen, to remaining shut up in the doorless tower and being the witch’s menial; so she offered no opposition, and the prince put her on to his good horse behind him, and away they rode.On, on, on,6they rode for a long, long way, until they came at last to a wood; but for all the good horse’s speed, the witch, who was not long in perceiving their escape and setting out in pursuit, was well nigh overtaking them. Just then they saw a little old woman7standing by the way, making signs and calling to them to arrest their course. How great soever was their anxiety to get on, so urgent was her appeal to them to stop and listen to her that they yielded to her entreaties. Nor were they losers by their kindness, for the little old woman was a fairy,8and she had stopped them, not on her own account, but to give them the means of escaping from the witch.To the prince she said: ‘Take these three gifts, andwhen the witch comes very near throw down first the mason’s trowel; and when she nearly overtakes you again throw down the comb; and when she nearly comes upon you again after that, throw down this jar9of oil. After that she won’t trouble you any more.’ And to Filagranata she whispered some words, and then let them go. But the witch was now close behind, and the prince made haste to throw down the mason’s trowel. Instantly there rose up a high stone wall between them, which it took the witch some time to climb over. Nevertheless, by her supernatural powers she was not long in making up for the lost time, and had soon overtaken the best speed of the good horse. Then the prince threw down the comb, and immediately there rose up between them a strong hedge of thorns, which it took the witch some time to make her way through, and that only with her body bleeding all over from the thorns. Nevertheless, by her supernatural powers she was not long in making up for the lost time, and had soon overtaken the best speed of the good horse. Then the prince threw down the jar of oil, and the oil spread and spread till it had overflowed10the whole country side; and as wherever you step in a pool of oil the foot only slides back, the witch could never get out of that, so the prince and Filagranata rode on in all safety towards the prince’s palace.‘And now tell me what it was the old woman in the wood whispered to you,’ said the prince, as soon as they saw their safety sufficiently secured to breathe freely.‘It was this,’ answered Filagranata; ‘that I was to tell you that when you arrive at your own home you must kiss no one—no one at all, not your father, or mother, or sisters, or anyone—till after our marriage. Because if you do you will forget all about your love for me, and all you have told me you think of me, and all the faithfulness you have promised me, and we shall become as strangers again to each other.’‘How dreadful!’ said the prince. ‘Oh, you may be sure I will kiss no one ifthatis to be the consequence; so be quite easy. It will be rather odd, to be sure, to return from such a long journey and kiss none of them at home, not even my own mother; but I suppose if I tell them how it is they won’t mind. So be quite easy about that.’Thus they rode on in love and confidence, and the good horse soon brought them home.On the steps of the palace the chancellor of the kingdom came out to meet them, and saluted Filagranata as the chosen bride the prince was to bring home; he informed him that the king his father had died during his absence, and that he was now sovereign of the realm. Then he led him in to the queen-mother, to whom he told all his adventures, and explained why he must not kiss her till after his marriage. The queen-mother was so pleased with the beauty, and modesty, and gentleness of Filagranata, that she gave up her son’s kiss without repining, and before they retired to rest that night it was announced to the people that the prince had returned home to be their king, and the day was proclaimed when the feast for his marriage was to take place.Then all in the palace went to their sleeping-chambers. But the prince, as it had been his wont from his childhood upwards, went into his mother’s room to kiss her after she was asleep, and when he saw her placid brow on the pillow, with the soft white hair parted on either side of it, and the eyes which were wont to gaze on him with so much love, resting in sleep, he could not forbear from pressing his lips on her forehead and giving the wonted kiss.Instantly there passed from his mind all that had taken place since he last stood there to take leave of the queen-mother before he started on his journey.His visit to the witch’s palace, his flight from it, the life-perils by the way, and, what is more, the image of Filagranata herself,—all passed from his mind like a vision of the night, and when he woke up and they told him he was king, it was as if he heard it for the first time, and when they brought Filagranata to him it was as though he knew her not nor saw her.‘But,’ he said, ‘if I am king there must be a queen to share my throne;’ and as a reigning sovereign could not go over the world to seek a wife, he sent and fetched him a princess meet to be the king’s wife, and appointed the betrothal. The queen-mother, who loved Filagranata, was sad, and yet nothing that she could say could bring back to his mind the least remembrance of all he had promised her and felt towards her.But Filagranata knew that the prince had kissed his mother, and this was why the spell was on him; so she said to her mother-in-law: ‘You get me much fine-sifted flour11and a large bag of sweetmeats, and I will try if I cannot yet set this matter straight.’ So the queen-mother ordered that there should be placed in her room much sifted flour and a large bag of sweetmeats. And Filagranata, when she had shut close the door, set to work and made paste of the flour, and of the paste she moulded two pigeons, and filled them inside with the comfits. Then at the banquet of the betrothal she asked the queen-mother to have her two pigeons placed on the table; and she did so, one at each end. But as soon as all the company were seated, before any one was helped, the two pigeons which Filagranata had made began to talk to each other across the whole length of the table: and everybody stood still with wonder to listen to what the pigeons of paste said to each other.‘Do you remember,’ said the first pigeon, ‘or is it possible that you have really forgotten, when I was in thatdoorless tower of the witch’s palace, and you came under the window and imitated her voice, saying,—Filagranata, thou maiden fair,Loose thy tresses of golden hair:I, thy old grandmother, am here,till I drew you up?’And the other pigeon answered,—‘Si, signora, I remember it now.’And as the young king heard the second pigeon say ‘Si, signora, I remember it now,’ he, too, remembered having been in a doorless tower, and having sung such a verse.‘Do you remember,’ continued the first pigeon, ‘how happy we were together after I drew you up into that little room where I was confined, and you swore if I would come with you we should always be together and never be separated from each other any more at all?’And the second pigeon replied,—‘Ah yes! I remember it now.’And as the second pigeon said ‘Ah yes! I remember it now,’ there rose up in the young king’s mind the memory of a fair sweet face on which he had once gazed with loving eyes, and of a maiden to whom he had sworn lifelong devotion.But the first pigeon continued:—‘Do you remember, or have you quite forgotten, how we fled away together, and how frightened we were when the witch pursued us, and how we clung to each other, and vowed, if she overtook us to kill us, we would die in each other’s arms, till a fairy met us and gave us the means to escape, and forbad you to kiss anyone, even your own mother, till after our marriage?’And the second pigeon answered,—‘Yes, ah yes! I remember it now.’And when the second pigeon said, ‘Yes, ah yes! I remember it now,’ the whole of the past came back to hismind, and with it all his love for Filagranata. So he rose up12and would have stroked the pigeons which had brought it all to his mind, but when he touched them they melted away, and the sweetmeats were scattered all over the table, and the guests picked them up. But the prince ran in haste to fetch Filagranata, and he brought her and placed her by his side in the banquet-hall. But the second bride was sent back, with presents, to her own people.‘And so it all came right at last,’ pursued the narrator. ‘Lackaday! that there are no fairies now to make things all happen right. There are plenty of people who seem to have the devil in them for doing you a mischief, but there are no fairies to set things straight again, alas!’[I have placed this story first in order, as its incidents ramify into half the traditionary tales with which we are acquainted.(1.) ‘Rapunzel,’ No. 12 in ‘Grimm,’ is the most like it among the German in the beginning, and has the most dissimilar ending. The counterpart form, in which it is some misdeed or ill-luck of the father instead of the mother, which involves the surrender of the first-born, is the more frequent opening, as in ‘The Water King,’ Ralston’s ‘Russian Folk Tales,’ p. 120. ‘The Lassie and her Godmother,’ in Dr. Dasent’s ‘Norse Tales,’ has an opening like ‘Filagranata,’ which, as it proceeds, connects it with ‘Marienkind,’ No. 4 in ‘Grimm;’ and the prohibition to open the room, in thatone, carries on the connexion to another group, the Bluebeard group, represented in this series by ‘Monsoo Mostro,’ ‘Rè Moro,’ &c.; while, further on, ‘Lassie and her Godmother’ evolves the incident of the reflection in the well, which connects it with the following story in this collection, and in this roundabout way, though not in direct form, with the termination of ‘Filagranata.’(2.) The introduction of an orange as a help to defy the ‘orca,’ connects the story again with the two next (though the fruit is used differently), and with a vast number of myths, as pointed out in Campbell’s ‘Tales of the West Highlands,’ Introduction, pp. lxxx-lxxxv. I was rather put off the scent by the narrator using the word portogallo: melagranata, though properly a pomegranate, is, I think, used in old Italian for an orange, being simply a red, or golden, apple.(3.) The three gifts of the trowel, the comb, and the oil-filler, again bring this story in connexion with another vast group. Compare ‘Campbell,’ iv. 290; also his remarks, i. 58–62, on the ‘Battle of the Birds,’ which story this resembles in the main, but, as will be found throughout this collection, the Roman form is milder. The prince wins his bride without performing tasks, and the couple, in escaping, have only to kill a strange ‘orca,’ and not the girl’s own father. In the third version of the tale in Mr. Campbell’s series, the girl becomes a poultry-maid, and has three fine dresses, constituting a link with another group—that of Cinderella (I have given the Tirolean one as ‘Klein-Else’ in ‘Household Stories from the Land of Hofer’); and the three dresses there (though not in the Gaelic story) representing the sun, moon, and stars, give it another connexion with ‘Marienkind.’ ‘The Master Maid,’ in Dr. Dasent’s collection, again, has the golden apple (though it assists in a different way) and the ending of the Roman version (a golden cock there taking the part of the two paste pigeons), but begins with the tasks in the ‘Giant’s House’ of the Gaelic version, which the Roman ignores.In the Russian story of ‘Baba Yaga’ (Ralston’s ‘Russian Folk Tales,’ pp. 139) we have the three magic gifts. Though Mr. Campbell has a very ingenious solution for the idea of the supernatural attaching to swords (i. lxxii), the same does not seem at all to explain the introduction of supernatural combs;when I once found a comb transformed into a mountain in a Tirolean story, I thought, as Mr. Ralston has also suggested (p. 144), that it fitted very well with the German expression for a mountain-ridge; but he does not tell us whether the metaphor holds good in Russ, where he finds it used; and in the present instance it is a hedge of thorns into which the comb resolves itself. I have another Roman story, in which the comb ‘swelled and swelled till every one of its teeth became a pier, and the spaces between them were arches, and it was a bridge by which one could pass over.’(4.) The kiss which brings forgetfulness, again, is found in the myths of every country. It occurs in the Tirolean story I have given as the ‘Dove-Maiden’ in ‘Household Stories from the Land of Hofer,’ though I had to omit it there for want of space; but the remaining episodes of that story are nearly identical with those of the Russian story of ‘The Water-King;’ and in the Tirolean story the maiden is fetched from a heathen magician’s house by the aid of saints, while in the others it is from giants’ or witches’ abodes, by aid of other giants and witches. Mr. Ralston supplies, at pp. 132–7, a long list of variants of this story, and in a Russian one, at p. 133, comes a ride on a Bear, which is one of the incidents in the ‘Dove-Maiden,’ though, if I remember right, it does not occur in any of the others. In Mr. Campbell’s notes to ‘The Battle of the Birds’ are also collected notices of variants of this episode.The affinity of this story with others again will be found in Mr. Cox’s ‘Mythology of the Aryan Nations,’ ii. p. 301.]1This story comes from Palombara.↑2The expression employed in this place was ‘Orca;’ as this is a word of most frequent, but somewhat capricious use, I interrupted the narrator to inquire her conception of it. ‘Well, it means a species of beast,’ she said; ‘but you see it must have been a bewitched (‘fatata’) beast, because the story says it was so rich, and had a palace, and spoke and did all the things you shall hear.’ She did not, however, seem to identify it with the evil principle according to its undoubted derivation, nor did she allow either that it had any connexion with ‘orso,’ a bear, as the narrator of the ‘il Vaso di Persa’ had expounded it, and indeed as the details of that story required; it will be seen, therefore, that popular fancy invests the monster with various shapes. The story of ‘The Pot of Marjoram,’ it will be seen, contains one or two incidents in common with this one. The apparently insignificant detail of the little plant—on which, however, both stories rest for a foundation—is noteworthy, the narrator in each instance being most positive that it was the one she had named and no other, and in both cases insisting on showing me the plant, that there might be no mistake about it. (See note to the word ‘Persa,’ infra, p. 54.)↑3Filagranata bella bella,Tira giù le bionde trecce,Ch’ io son nonna vecchiarella.‘Tira giù,’ or ‘butta giù,’ as in the next repetition, mean equally ‘throw-down.’ ‘Biondo’ expresses particularly the yellow tint in hair. Bazzarini, ‘Ortografia Enciclopedica Universale,’ defines it, ‘colore tra il giallo e bianco ed è proprio di capelli,’ on the authority of Petrarch’s use of the word. He has also ‘biondeggiante, che biondeggia, che ingiallisce,’turning or tending to yellow; and it is thus the yellow Tiber gets called ‘il biondo Tevere.’↑4‘Portogallo’ is now the ordinary word for an orange, and points to the introduction of the fruit from the Portuguese colonies in the sixteenth century. The ‘arancia,’ ‘melarancia,’ or ‘merangola,’ the ungrafted orange-tree, was, however, indigenous in Italy; and the fruit, which has even a finer appearance than the edible orange, is still grown for ornament in Roman gardens.↑5‘Puzzo,’ stink. There is no neutral word in Italian for a smell; you must define a good or a bad smell either as a perfume or a stink.↑6‘Camminando, camminando, camminando.’ This threefold repetition of this verb, according to the tense and person required by the story, I have found used as a sort of sing-song refrain by all the tellers of tales I have had to do with.↑7‘Vecchiarella,’ little old woman.↑8‘Fata;’ ethnologically Fata is the same as ‘Fairy,’ ‘Fée,’ &c., &c., and ‘fairy’ is the only translation; but it will be observed the Italian ‘fata’ has always different characteristics from the English ‘fairy.’↑9‘Buzzica’ is a homely word for a lamp-filler; it probably comes from ‘buzzicare,’ to move gently or slowly. The narrator used the word because she would, according to local custom, keep her oil in a ‘buzzica,’ without perceiving that it was most inappropriate for the purpose of the story, which required that the oil should be poured out quickly.↑10‘Allagato,’ inundated. I preserve the word on account of its expressiveness—literally making a lake of the country.↑11‘Fior di farina.’↑12As the story was told me the dialogue was broken, and every incident of the journey was made the subject of a separate question and answer; all the furniture in the room also here entered into conversation with the pigeons, brooms being particularly loquacious; but as it became tedious, and by no means added to the poetry of the situation, I condensed it to the dimensions in the text.↑THE THREE LOVE-ORANGES.1They say there was a king’s son who went out to hunt.2It was a winter’s day, and the ground was covered with snow, so that when he brought down the birds with his arquebuse the red blood made beautiful bright marks on the dazzling white snow.‘How beautiful!’ exclaimed the prince. ‘Never willI marry till I find one with a complexion fair as this snow, and tinted like this rosy blood.’When his day’s sport was at an end, he went home and told his parents that he was going to wander over the world till he found one fair as snow, tinted like rosy blood. The parents approved his design and sent him forth.On, on, on he went, till one day he met a little old woman, who stopped him, saying: ‘Whither so fast, fair prince?’He replied, ‘I walk the earth till I find one who is fair as snow, tinted like rosy blood, to make her my wife.’‘That can I help you to, and I alone,’ said the little old woman, who was a fairy; and then she gave him the three love-oranges, telling him that when he opened one such a maiden as he was in search of would appear, but he must immediately look for water and sprinkle her, or she would disappear again.The prince took the oranges, and wandered on. On, on, on he went, till at last the fancy took him to break open one of the oranges. Immediately a beautiful maiden appeared, whose complexion was indeed fair as snow, and tinted like rosy blood, but it was only when she had already disappeared that he recollected about the water. It was too late, so on he wandered again till the fancy took him to open another orange. Instantly another maiden appeared, fairer than the other, and he lost no time in looking for water to sprinkle her, but there was none, and before he came back from the search she was gone.On he wandered again till he was nearly home, when one day he noticed a handsome fountain standing by the road, and over against it a fine palace. The sight of the fountain made him think of his third orange, and he took it out and broke it open.Instantly a third maiden appeared, far fairer than either of the others; with the water of the fountain hesprinkled her the moment she appeared, and she vanished not, but staid with him and loved him.Then he said, ‘You must stay here in this bower while I go on home and fetch a retinue worthy to escort you.’In a palace opposite the fountain lived a black Saracen woman,3and just then she went down to the fountain to draw water, and as she looked into the water she said, ‘My mistress says that I am so ugly, but I am so fair, therefore I break the pitcher and the little pitcher.’4Then she looked up in the bower, and seeing the beautiful maiden, she called her down, and caressed her, and stroked her hair, and praised her beauty; but as she stroked her hair she took out a magic pin, and stuck it into her head, and instantly the maiden became a dove and perched on the side of the fountain.Then she broke the pitcher and the little pitcher, and the prince came back.When the prince saw the ugly black woman standing in the bower where he had left his beautiful maiden, he was quite bewildered, and looked all about for her.‘I am she whom you seek, prince,’ said the woman. ‘It is the sun has changed me thus while standing here waiting for you; but all will come right when I get away from the sun.’The prince did not know what to make of it, but there was no help for it but to take her and trust to her coming right when she got away from the sun. He took her home, therefore, and right grand preparations were made for the royal marriage. Tapestries were hung on the walls, and flowers strewed the floor, while in the kitchen was the cook as busy as a bee, preparing I know not how many dishes for the royal banquet.Then, lo, there came and perched on the kitchen window a little dove, and sang, ‘Cook, cook, for whom are you cooking; for the son of the king, or the Saracen Moor? May the cook fall asleep, and may all the viands be burnt!’5After this nothing would go right in the kitchen; every day all the dishes got burnt, and it was impossible to give the wedding banquet, because there was nothing fit to send up to the table. Then the king’s son came into the kitchen to learn what had happened, and they showed him the dove which had done all. ‘Sweet little dove!’ said the prince, and, catching it in his hand, began to caress it; thus he felt the pin in its head, and pulled it out. Instantly his own fair maiden stood before him, white as snow, rosy as blood. Then the mystery was cleared up, and there was great rejoicing, and the old witch was burnt.[This story, besides its similarities with those mentioned in note of the foregoing, is substantially the same as ‘Die weisse u. die schwarze Braut’ in Grimm (with his ‘Schneeweisschen u. Rosenroth’ it seems to have nothing in common, though the words ‘Snow-white and rose-red’ suggest it); but its commencement is different. The German Tale of Sneewittchen (Grimm,p. 206 has also much similarity with it: a queen sat working in a window framed with ebony; she pricks her finger, and three drops of blood that fall on the snow suggest the wish that her child may be fair as snow, red as blood, and her hair as dark as ebony. Her wishes are fulfilled, and she dies. She is succeeded by a witch-stepmother, from whom the child of wishes suffers many things, but the witch is ultimately danced to death in red-hot iron shoes. A link between them is supplied by the next following, in which the opening agrees with the German story. In Schneller’s ‘Legends of the Italian Tirol’ are two, with a title similar to the Roman one. In the first (‘I tre aranci’) the girl becomes the property of a fairy, as in Filagranata. She is sent to fetch three oranges, which she does by the help of five gifts given her by an old man; but the whole ends in the good child wishing as her only reward to be restored to her mother. The other is called ‘L’amor dei tre aranci.’ In this the prince breaks a witch’s milkjug while playing at ball, and in revenge she tells him he shall not marry till he finds ‘the Love of the three oranges,’ which he similarly obtains by the help of five gifts received of an old woman; when he opens them, the story goes on just like the Roman one, the verse of the dove being a little different:—Cogo, bel cogo,Endormeazate al fogo,Che l’arrosto se possa brusar,E la fiola (figlia) della stria non ne possa magnar.and there is nothing about ‘fair as snow, rosy as blood,’ in it. He has another, ‘Quel dalla coda di oro,’ in which three golden apples or balls play a prominent part, but it belongs to another group. A second version of this, entitled ‘I pomid’oro,’ however, is a strange mixture of the various Tirolean and Roman versions.The Hungarian story of ‘Vas Laczi’ (Iron Ladislas) begins, like ‘L’amor dei tre aranci,’ by a young prince getting into a scrape with a witch, this time by breaking her basket of eggs. His punishment is the fulfilment of his first wish, and his first wish happens to be a pettish one, that the earth might swallow up his three sisters; as one of them is said to be always dressed like the sun, the second like the moon, and the third like the stars, we havea link with the German Marienkind and the Tirolean Klein-Else. Afterwards Iron Ladislas goes in search of his sisters, and encounters many heroic adventures and many transformations, in one of which a tree in a dragon’s garden with golden apples is a prominent detail.A tree with golden fruit is also an important incident in the principal and most popular of Hungarian myths, that of ‘Tündér Ilona’ (Fairy Helen). As it is seen depicted on the thirteen compartments of the grand staircase walls of the National Club at Pest,Tündér Ilonaappears in the first as the Goddess or Queen of Summer held in thrall by the stern witch the Goddess or Queen of Winter. She is seen planting in the territory of the Earth-King a tree which represents her earnest longings after freedom, and committing it to the benign influence of the Sun-King.The second shows this mystical tree bearing its golden fruit, which the beautiful Fairy, as if ashamed of her boldness, is hasting to pluck off, borne on a chariot formed of obedient swans. The Wind-genius wafts poppy seeds over the eyes of the armed guard the Winter-Queen had set round the tree, and lulls them to sleep.In the third Argilus, the Earth-Prince, is seen surprising in his (up till then vain) nightly attempt to gather the golden fruit,Tündér Ilona’sdeparting convoy. He aims an arrow at the coy plunderer; then suddenly a glance from her pierces his heart instead, and he lets the arrow harmlessly strike the ground.The fourth portrays the happy union ofIlonaand Argilus, Summer and Earth; but the Winter-Queen comes by enraged at their successful defiance of her, and cuts offIlona’sbeautiful golden locks. (The people have it that these locks borne along by the winds planted the Puszta with the beautiful long feathery grass which they call ‘Orphan-girl’s hair’). In the distance are seen the parents of the Earth-Prince hurrying forward in search of their son.The fifth showsTündér Ilonawaking from her delicious slumber, and on discovering the loss of the mantle of her hair, hasting back in agony to her swan-chariot. Argilus in vain stretches out his arms after her, and prays her to remain always with him.In the sixth the scene is changed to the dwelling of the Earth-King. Prince Argilus is taking leave of his parents as he starts on his perilous journey, determined to deliver the captive Fairy.In the seventh the Earth-Prince has advanced on his journey as far as the dwelling of a giant, of whom he asks counsel, and who appoints him three witches to show the way to regain theTündér.In the eighth he is seen victorious in a late conflict with three giants, from each of whom he has succeeded in gaining an instrument necessary for his purpose; from one a switch, from another a pipe, from the third a conjuring mantle. The giants throw down masses of rock upon him, but he spreads out the conjuring mantle, and committing himself to it, floats securely through the air.In the ninth Argilus has reached the Winter-Witch’s border, and prepares to engage in combat with the dragon who guards it.The tenth is highly sensational. The Winter-Witch has thrown a deep sleep over him, and the poor Summer-Fairy strives to awaken him in vain.In the eleventh the ardent desires ofTündér Ilonahave prevailed over all the enchantments of the Winter-Witch, and at her prayer there rises up from the innermost region of the earth the fairy Iron-Queen, who brings the Tátos, the winged magic horse who is to bear the Prince through all dangers to certain victory.The twelfth shows Argilus andIlonaonce more united, enthroned side by side, and subjects bearing them offerings.The thirteenth is a large composition symbolising the mystic union of Earth and Summer, whence sprang, says the myth, Autumn with her abundant fruits, and the great god Pan, the author of all productiveness, who called the land of his birth after his own name and blessed it with fecundity above all nations of the earth. The tree of golden fruit, the first occasion of the auspicious meeting which led to this union, is again introduced, andTündér Ilonais again clothed in her luxuriant mantle of golden hair.]1‘I tre Melangoli di amore;’melangolo or merangolo, or merangola, an ungrafted orange. See note to ‘Filagranata.’↑2‘Caccia,’ though usually translated by ‘hunt,’ is used for all kinds of sport. Bazzarini says it even includes ‘pallone’ and other games; but it is in common use for shooting small birds as for hunting quadrupeds.↑3‘Mora Saracena,’ a black Saracen woman; ‘mora’ is in constant use for a dark-coloured person. Senhor de Saraiva tells me that a so-called ‘Mora encantada’ figures as one of the favourite personages in Portuguese traditionary tales; but she is less often an actual Moor than a princess held in thrall by Moorish art, to be set free by Christian chivalry. She is often represented as bound at the bottom of a well.↑4Mia padrona dice che son tanta brutta,E son tanta bella,Io rompo la brocca e la brocchetta.This verse would be hardly comprehensible but that the incident is better explained in the more detailed versions of other countries mentioned in note to the last tale. The ugly ‘Mora’ sees the reflection of the face of the beautiful maiden who sits in the tree overlooking the fountain, and takes it for her own. See Campbell’sTales of the W. Highlands, pp. 56–7, &c.↑5Cuoco, cuoco, per chi cucinate,Pel figlio del rè o per la mora Saracena?Il cuoco si possa dormentar’,E le vivande si possano bruciar’.↑

FILAGRANATA.Once upon a time1there was a poor woman who had a great fancy for eating parsley. To her it was the greatest luxury, and as she had no garden of her own, and no money to spend on anything not an absolute necessity of life, she had to go about poaching in other people’s gardens to satisfy her fancy.Near her cottage was the garden of a great palace, and in this garden grew plenty of fine parsley; but the garden was surrounded by a wall, and to get at it she had to carry a ladder with her to get up by, and, as soon as she had reached the top of the wall, to let it down on the other side to get down to the parsley-bed. There was such a quantity of parsley growing here that she thought it would never be missed, and this made her bold, so that she went over every day and took as much as ever she liked.But the garden belonged to a witch,2who lived in the palace, and, though she did not often walk in this part of the garden, she knew by her supernatural powers that some one was eating her parsley; so she came near the place one day, and lay in wait till the poor woman came. As soon, therefore, as she came, and began eating the parsley, the witch at once pounced down, and asked her, in her gruff voice, what she was doing there. Though dreadfully frightened, the poor woman thought it best to own the whole truth; so she confessed that she came down by the ladder, adding that she had not taken anything except the parsley, and begged forgiveness.‘I know nothing about forgiveness,’ replied the witch.‘You have eaten my parsley, and must take the consequences; and the consequences are these: I must be godmother to your first child, be it boy or girl; and as soon as it is grown to be of an age to dress itself without help, it must belong to me.’When, accordingly, the poor woman’s first child was born, the witch came, as she had declared she would, to be its godmother. It was a fine little girl, and she gave it the name of Filagranata; after that she went away again, and the poor woman saw her no more till her little girl was grown up old enough to dress herself, and then she came and fetched her away inexorably; nor could the poor mother, with all her tears and entreaties, prevail on her to make any exchange for her child.So Filagranata was taken to the witch’s palace to live, and was put in a room in a little tower by herself, where she had to feed the pigeons. Filagranata grew fond of her pigeons, and did not at all complain of her work, yet, without knowing why, she began to grow quite sad and melancholy as time went by; it was because she had no one to play with, no one to talk to, except the witch, who was no very delightful companion. The witch came every day, once in the day, to see that she was attending properly to her work, and as there was no door or staircase to the tower—this was on purpose that she might not escape—the witch used to say when she came under the tower—Filagranata, so fair, so fair,Unloose thy tresses of golden hair:I, thy old grandmother, am here;3and as she said these words, Filagranata had to let down her beautiful long hair through the window, and by it the witch climbed up into her chamber to her. This she did every day.Now, it happened that about this time a king’s son was travelling that way searching for a beautiful wife;for you know it is the custom for princes to go searching all over the world to find a maiden fit to be a prince’s wife; at least they say so.Well, this prince, travelling along, came by the witch’s palace where Filagranata was lodged. And it happened that he came that way just as the witch was singing her ditty. If he was horrified at the sight of the witch, he was in proportion enchanted when Filagranata came to the window. So struck was he with the sight of her beauty, and modesty, and gentleness, that he stopped his horse that he might watch her as long as she stayed at the window, and thus became a spectator of the witch’s wonderful way of getting into the tower.The prince’s mind was soon made up to gain a nearer view of Filagranata, and with this purpose he rode round and round the tower seeking some mode of ingress in vain, till at last, driven to desperation, he made up his mind that he must enter by the same strange means as the witch herself. Thinking that the old creature had her abode there, and that she would probably go out for some business in the morning, and return at about the same hour as on the present occasion, he rode away, commanding his impatience as well as he could, and came back the next day a little earlier.Though he could hardly hope quite to imitate the hag’s rough and tremulous voice so as to deceive Filagranata into thinking it was really the witch, he yet made the attempt and repeated the words he had heard—Filagranata, thou maiden fair,Loose thy tresses of golden hair:I, thy old grandmother, am here.Filagranata, surprised at the soft modulation of voice, such as she had never heard before, ran quickly to the window with a look of pleasure and astonishment which gave her face a more winning expression than ever.The prince looked up, all admiration and expectation;and the thought quickly ran through Filagranata’s head—‘I have been taught to loose my hair whenever those words are said; why should not I loose it to draw up such a pleasant-looking cavalier, as well as for the ugly old hag?’ and, without waiting for a second thought, she untied the ribbon that bound her tresses and let them fall upon the prince. The prince was equally quick in taking advantage of the occasion, and, pressing his knees firmly into his horse’s flanks, so that it might not remain below to betray him, drew himself up, together with his steed, just as he had seen the witch do.Filagranata, half frightened at what she had done the moment the deed was accomplished, had not a word to say, but blushed and hung her head. The prince, on the other hand, had so many words to pour out, expressive of his admiration for her, his indignation at her captivity, and his desire to be allowed to be her deliverer, that the moments flew quickly by, and it was only when Filagranata found herself drawn to the window by the power of the witch’s magic words that they remembered the dangerous situation in which they stood.Another might have increased the peril by cries of despair, or lost precious time in useless lamentations; but Filagranata showed a presence of mind worthy of a prince’s wife by catching up a wand of the witch, with which she had seen her do wonderful things. With this she gave the prince a little tap, which immediately changed him into a pomegranate, and then another to the horse, which transformed him into an orange.4These she set by on the shelf, and then proceeded to draw up the witch after the usual manner.The old hag was not slow in perceiving there was something unusual in Filagranata’s room.‘What a stink5of Christians! What a stink of Christians!’ she kept exclaiming, as she poked her nose into every hole and corner. Yet she failed to find anything toreprehend; for as for the beautiful ripe pomegranate and the golden orange on the shelf, the Devil himself could not have thought there was anything wrong with them. Thus baffled, she was obliged to finish her inspection of the state of the pigeons, and end her visit in the usual way.As soon as she was gone Filagranata knew she was free till the next day, and so once more, with a tap of the wand, restored the horse and his rider to their natural shapes.‘And this is how your life passes every day! Is it possible?’ exclaimed the prince; ‘no, I cannot leave you here. You may be sure my good horse will be proud to bear your little weight; you have only to mount behind me, and I will take you home to my kingdom, and you shall live in the palace with my mother, and be my queen.’It is not to be supposed but that Filagranata very much preferred the idea of going with the handsome young prince who had shown so devoted an appreciation of her, and being his queen, to remaining shut up in the doorless tower and being the witch’s menial; so she offered no opposition, and the prince put her on to his good horse behind him, and away they rode.On, on, on,6they rode for a long, long way, until they came at last to a wood; but for all the good horse’s speed, the witch, who was not long in perceiving their escape and setting out in pursuit, was well nigh overtaking them. Just then they saw a little old woman7standing by the way, making signs and calling to them to arrest their course. How great soever was their anxiety to get on, so urgent was her appeal to them to stop and listen to her that they yielded to her entreaties. Nor were they losers by their kindness, for the little old woman was a fairy,8and she had stopped them, not on her own account, but to give them the means of escaping from the witch.To the prince she said: ‘Take these three gifts, andwhen the witch comes very near throw down first the mason’s trowel; and when she nearly overtakes you again throw down the comb; and when she nearly comes upon you again after that, throw down this jar9of oil. After that she won’t trouble you any more.’ And to Filagranata she whispered some words, and then let them go. But the witch was now close behind, and the prince made haste to throw down the mason’s trowel. Instantly there rose up a high stone wall between them, which it took the witch some time to climb over. Nevertheless, by her supernatural powers she was not long in making up for the lost time, and had soon overtaken the best speed of the good horse. Then the prince threw down the comb, and immediately there rose up between them a strong hedge of thorns, which it took the witch some time to make her way through, and that only with her body bleeding all over from the thorns. Nevertheless, by her supernatural powers she was not long in making up for the lost time, and had soon overtaken the best speed of the good horse. Then the prince threw down the jar of oil, and the oil spread and spread till it had overflowed10the whole country side; and as wherever you step in a pool of oil the foot only slides back, the witch could never get out of that, so the prince and Filagranata rode on in all safety towards the prince’s palace.‘And now tell me what it was the old woman in the wood whispered to you,’ said the prince, as soon as they saw their safety sufficiently secured to breathe freely.‘It was this,’ answered Filagranata; ‘that I was to tell you that when you arrive at your own home you must kiss no one—no one at all, not your father, or mother, or sisters, or anyone—till after our marriage. Because if you do you will forget all about your love for me, and all you have told me you think of me, and all the faithfulness you have promised me, and we shall become as strangers again to each other.’‘How dreadful!’ said the prince. ‘Oh, you may be sure I will kiss no one ifthatis to be the consequence; so be quite easy. It will be rather odd, to be sure, to return from such a long journey and kiss none of them at home, not even my own mother; but I suppose if I tell them how it is they won’t mind. So be quite easy about that.’Thus they rode on in love and confidence, and the good horse soon brought them home.On the steps of the palace the chancellor of the kingdom came out to meet them, and saluted Filagranata as the chosen bride the prince was to bring home; he informed him that the king his father had died during his absence, and that he was now sovereign of the realm. Then he led him in to the queen-mother, to whom he told all his adventures, and explained why he must not kiss her till after his marriage. The queen-mother was so pleased with the beauty, and modesty, and gentleness of Filagranata, that she gave up her son’s kiss without repining, and before they retired to rest that night it was announced to the people that the prince had returned home to be their king, and the day was proclaimed when the feast for his marriage was to take place.Then all in the palace went to their sleeping-chambers. But the prince, as it had been his wont from his childhood upwards, went into his mother’s room to kiss her after she was asleep, and when he saw her placid brow on the pillow, with the soft white hair parted on either side of it, and the eyes which were wont to gaze on him with so much love, resting in sleep, he could not forbear from pressing his lips on her forehead and giving the wonted kiss.Instantly there passed from his mind all that had taken place since he last stood there to take leave of the queen-mother before he started on his journey.His visit to the witch’s palace, his flight from it, the life-perils by the way, and, what is more, the image of Filagranata herself,—all passed from his mind like a vision of the night, and when he woke up and they told him he was king, it was as if he heard it for the first time, and when they brought Filagranata to him it was as though he knew her not nor saw her.‘But,’ he said, ‘if I am king there must be a queen to share my throne;’ and as a reigning sovereign could not go over the world to seek a wife, he sent and fetched him a princess meet to be the king’s wife, and appointed the betrothal. The queen-mother, who loved Filagranata, was sad, and yet nothing that she could say could bring back to his mind the least remembrance of all he had promised her and felt towards her.But Filagranata knew that the prince had kissed his mother, and this was why the spell was on him; so she said to her mother-in-law: ‘You get me much fine-sifted flour11and a large bag of sweetmeats, and I will try if I cannot yet set this matter straight.’ So the queen-mother ordered that there should be placed in her room much sifted flour and a large bag of sweetmeats. And Filagranata, when she had shut close the door, set to work and made paste of the flour, and of the paste she moulded two pigeons, and filled them inside with the comfits. Then at the banquet of the betrothal she asked the queen-mother to have her two pigeons placed on the table; and she did so, one at each end. But as soon as all the company were seated, before any one was helped, the two pigeons which Filagranata had made began to talk to each other across the whole length of the table: and everybody stood still with wonder to listen to what the pigeons of paste said to each other.‘Do you remember,’ said the first pigeon, ‘or is it possible that you have really forgotten, when I was in thatdoorless tower of the witch’s palace, and you came under the window and imitated her voice, saying,—Filagranata, thou maiden fair,Loose thy tresses of golden hair:I, thy old grandmother, am here,till I drew you up?’And the other pigeon answered,—‘Si, signora, I remember it now.’And as the young king heard the second pigeon say ‘Si, signora, I remember it now,’ he, too, remembered having been in a doorless tower, and having sung such a verse.‘Do you remember,’ continued the first pigeon, ‘how happy we were together after I drew you up into that little room where I was confined, and you swore if I would come with you we should always be together and never be separated from each other any more at all?’And the second pigeon replied,—‘Ah yes! I remember it now.’And as the second pigeon said ‘Ah yes! I remember it now,’ there rose up in the young king’s mind the memory of a fair sweet face on which he had once gazed with loving eyes, and of a maiden to whom he had sworn lifelong devotion.But the first pigeon continued:—‘Do you remember, or have you quite forgotten, how we fled away together, and how frightened we were when the witch pursued us, and how we clung to each other, and vowed, if she overtook us to kill us, we would die in each other’s arms, till a fairy met us and gave us the means to escape, and forbad you to kiss anyone, even your own mother, till after our marriage?’And the second pigeon answered,—‘Yes, ah yes! I remember it now.’And when the second pigeon said, ‘Yes, ah yes! I remember it now,’ the whole of the past came back to hismind, and with it all his love for Filagranata. So he rose up12and would have stroked the pigeons which had brought it all to his mind, but when he touched them they melted away, and the sweetmeats were scattered all over the table, and the guests picked them up. But the prince ran in haste to fetch Filagranata, and he brought her and placed her by his side in the banquet-hall. But the second bride was sent back, with presents, to her own people.‘And so it all came right at last,’ pursued the narrator. ‘Lackaday! that there are no fairies now to make things all happen right. There are plenty of people who seem to have the devil in them for doing you a mischief, but there are no fairies to set things straight again, alas!’[I have placed this story first in order, as its incidents ramify into half the traditionary tales with which we are acquainted.(1.) ‘Rapunzel,’ No. 12 in ‘Grimm,’ is the most like it among the German in the beginning, and has the most dissimilar ending. The counterpart form, in which it is some misdeed or ill-luck of the father instead of the mother, which involves the surrender of the first-born, is the more frequent opening, as in ‘The Water King,’ Ralston’s ‘Russian Folk Tales,’ p. 120. ‘The Lassie and her Godmother,’ in Dr. Dasent’s ‘Norse Tales,’ has an opening like ‘Filagranata,’ which, as it proceeds, connects it with ‘Marienkind,’ No. 4 in ‘Grimm;’ and the prohibition to open the room, in thatone, carries on the connexion to another group, the Bluebeard group, represented in this series by ‘Monsoo Mostro,’ ‘Rè Moro,’ &c.; while, further on, ‘Lassie and her Godmother’ evolves the incident of the reflection in the well, which connects it with the following story in this collection, and in this roundabout way, though not in direct form, with the termination of ‘Filagranata.’(2.) The introduction of an orange as a help to defy the ‘orca,’ connects the story again with the two next (though the fruit is used differently), and with a vast number of myths, as pointed out in Campbell’s ‘Tales of the West Highlands,’ Introduction, pp. lxxx-lxxxv. I was rather put off the scent by the narrator using the word portogallo: melagranata, though properly a pomegranate, is, I think, used in old Italian for an orange, being simply a red, or golden, apple.(3.) The three gifts of the trowel, the comb, and the oil-filler, again bring this story in connexion with another vast group. Compare ‘Campbell,’ iv. 290; also his remarks, i. 58–62, on the ‘Battle of the Birds,’ which story this resembles in the main, but, as will be found throughout this collection, the Roman form is milder. The prince wins his bride without performing tasks, and the couple, in escaping, have only to kill a strange ‘orca,’ and not the girl’s own father. In the third version of the tale in Mr. Campbell’s series, the girl becomes a poultry-maid, and has three fine dresses, constituting a link with another group—that of Cinderella (I have given the Tirolean one as ‘Klein-Else’ in ‘Household Stories from the Land of Hofer’); and the three dresses there (though not in the Gaelic story) representing the sun, moon, and stars, give it another connexion with ‘Marienkind.’ ‘The Master Maid,’ in Dr. Dasent’s collection, again, has the golden apple (though it assists in a different way) and the ending of the Roman version (a golden cock there taking the part of the two paste pigeons), but begins with the tasks in the ‘Giant’s House’ of the Gaelic version, which the Roman ignores.In the Russian story of ‘Baba Yaga’ (Ralston’s ‘Russian Folk Tales,’ pp. 139) we have the three magic gifts. Though Mr. Campbell has a very ingenious solution for the idea of the supernatural attaching to swords (i. lxxii), the same does not seem at all to explain the introduction of supernatural combs;when I once found a comb transformed into a mountain in a Tirolean story, I thought, as Mr. Ralston has also suggested (p. 144), that it fitted very well with the German expression for a mountain-ridge; but he does not tell us whether the metaphor holds good in Russ, where he finds it used; and in the present instance it is a hedge of thorns into which the comb resolves itself. I have another Roman story, in which the comb ‘swelled and swelled till every one of its teeth became a pier, and the spaces between them were arches, and it was a bridge by which one could pass over.’(4.) The kiss which brings forgetfulness, again, is found in the myths of every country. It occurs in the Tirolean story I have given as the ‘Dove-Maiden’ in ‘Household Stories from the Land of Hofer,’ though I had to omit it there for want of space; but the remaining episodes of that story are nearly identical with those of the Russian story of ‘The Water-King;’ and in the Tirolean story the maiden is fetched from a heathen magician’s house by the aid of saints, while in the others it is from giants’ or witches’ abodes, by aid of other giants and witches. Mr. Ralston supplies, at pp. 132–7, a long list of variants of this story, and in a Russian one, at p. 133, comes a ride on a Bear, which is one of the incidents in the ‘Dove-Maiden,’ though, if I remember right, it does not occur in any of the others. In Mr. Campbell’s notes to ‘The Battle of the Birds’ are also collected notices of variants of this episode.The affinity of this story with others again will be found in Mr. Cox’s ‘Mythology of the Aryan Nations,’ ii. p. 301.]1This story comes from Palombara.↑2The expression employed in this place was ‘Orca;’ as this is a word of most frequent, but somewhat capricious use, I interrupted the narrator to inquire her conception of it. ‘Well, it means a species of beast,’ she said; ‘but you see it must have been a bewitched (‘fatata’) beast, because the story says it was so rich, and had a palace, and spoke and did all the things you shall hear.’ She did not, however, seem to identify it with the evil principle according to its undoubted derivation, nor did she allow either that it had any connexion with ‘orso,’ a bear, as the narrator of the ‘il Vaso di Persa’ had expounded it, and indeed as the details of that story required; it will be seen, therefore, that popular fancy invests the monster with various shapes. The story of ‘The Pot of Marjoram,’ it will be seen, contains one or two incidents in common with this one. The apparently insignificant detail of the little plant—on which, however, both stories rest for a foundation—is noteworthy, the narrator in each instance being most positive that it was the one she had named and no other, and in both cases insisting on showing me the plant, that there might be no mistake about it. (See note to the word ‘Persa,’ infra, p. 54.)↑3Filagranata bella bella,Tira giù le bionde trecce,Ch’ io son nonna vecchiarella.‘Tira giù,’ or ‘butta giù,’ as in the next repetition, mean equally ‘throw-down.’ ‘Biondo’ expresses particularly the yellow tint in hair. Bazzarini, ‘Ortografia Enciclopedica Universale,’ defines it, ‘colore tra il giallo e bianco ed è proprio di capelli,’ on the authority of Petrarch’s use of the word. He has also ‘biondeggiante, che biondeggia, che ingiallisce,’turning or tending to yellow; and it is thus the yellow Tiber gets called ‘il biondo Tevere.’↑4‘Portogallo’ is now the ordinary word for an orange, and points to the introduction of the fruit from the Portuguese colonies in the sixteenth century. The ‘arancia,’ ‘melarancia,’ or ‘merangola,’ the ungrafted orange-tree, was, however, indigenous in Italy; and the fruit, which has even a finer appearance than the edible orange, is still grown for ornament in Roman gardens.↑5‘Puzzo,’ stink. There is no neutral word in Italian for a smell; you must define a good or a bad smell either as a perfume or a stink.↑6‘Camminando, camminando, camminando.’ This threefold repetition of this verb, according to the tense and person required by the story, I have found used as a sort of sing-song refrain by all the tellers of tales I have had to do with.↑7‘Vecchiarella,’ little old woman.↑8‘Fata;’ ethnologically Fata is the same as ‘Fairy,’ ‘Fée,’ &c., &c., and ‘fairy’ is the only translation; but it will be observed the Italian ‘fata’ has always different characteristics from the English ‘fairy.’↑9‘Buzzica’ is a homely word for a lamp-filler; it probably comes from ‘buzzicare,’ to move gently or slowly. The narrator used the word because she would, according to local custom, keep her oil in a ‘buzzica,’ without perceiving that it was most inappropriate for the purpose of the story, which required that the oil should be poured out quickly.↑10‘Allagato,’ inundated. I preserve the word on account of its expressiveness—literally making a lake of the country.↑11‘Fior di farina.’↑12As the story was told me the dialogue was broken, and every incident of the journey was made the subject of a separate question and answer; all the furniture in the room also here entered into conversation with the pigeons, brooms being particularly loquacious; but as it became tedious, and by no means added to the poetry of the situation, I condensed it to the dimensions in the text.↑

FILAGRANATA.

Once upon a time1there was a poor woman who had a great fancy for eating parsley. To her it was the greatest luxury, and as she had no garden of her own, and no money to spend on anything not an absolute necessity of life, she had to go about poaching in other people’s gardens to satisfy her fancy.Near her cottage was the garden of a great palace, and in this garden grew plenty of fine parsley; but the garden was surrounded by a wall, and to get at it she had to carry a ladder with her to get up by, and, as soon as she had reached the top of the wall, to let it down on the other side to get down to the parsley-bed. There was such a quantity of parsley growing here that she thought it would never be missed, and this made her bold, so that she went over every day and took as much as ever she liked.But the garden belonged to a witch,2who lived in the palace, and, though she did not often walk in this part of the garden, she knew by her supernatural powers that some one was eating her parsley; so she came near the place one day, and lay in wait till the poor woman came. As soon, therefore, as she came, and began eating the parsley, the witch at once pounced down, and asked her, in her gruff voice, what she was doing there. Though dreadfully frightened, the poor woman thought it best to own the whole truth; so she confessed that she came down by the ladder, adding that she had not taken anything except the parsley, and begged forgiveness.‘I know nothing about forgiveness,’ replied the witch.‘You have eaten my parsley, and must take the consequences; and the consequences are these: I must be godmother to your first child, be it boy or girl; and as soon as it is grown to be of an age to dress itself without help, it must belong to me.’When, accordingly, the poor woman’s first child was born, the witch came, as she had declared she would, to be its godmother. It was a fine little girl, and she gave it the name of Filagranata; after that she went away again, and the poor woman saw her no more till her little girl was grown up old enough to dress herself, and then she came and fetched her away inexorably; nor could the poor mother, with all her tears and entreaties, prevail on her to make any exchange for her child.So Filagranata was taken to the witch’s palace to live, and was put in a room in a little tower by herself, where she had to feed the pigeons. Filagranata grew fond of her pigeons, and did not at all complain of her work, yet, without knowing why, she began to grow quite sad and melancholy as time went by; it was because she had no one to play with, no one to talk to, except the witch, who was no very delightful companion. The witch came every day, once in the day, to see that she was attending properly to her work, and as there was no door or staircase to the tower—this was on purpose that she might not escape—the witch used to say when she came under the tower—Filagranata, so fair, so fair,Unloose thy tresses of golden hair:I, thy old grandmother, am here;3and as she said these words, Filagranata had to let down her beautiful long hair through the window, and by it the witch climbed up into her chamber to her. This she did every day.Now, it happened that about this time a king’s son was travelling that way searching for a beautiful wife;for you know it is the custom for princes to go searching all over the world to find a maiden fit to be a prince’s wife; at least they say so.Well, this prince, travelling along, came by the witch’s palace where Filagranata was lodged. And it happened that he came that way just as the witch was singing her ditty. If he was horrified at the sight of the witch, he was in proportion enchanted when Filagranata came to the window. So struck was he with the sight of her beauty, and modesty, and gentleness, that he stopped his horse that he might watch her as long as she stayed at the window, and thus became a spectator of the witch’s wonderful way of getting into the tower.The prince’s mind was soon made up to gain a nearer view of Filagranata, and with this purpose he rode round and round the tower seeking some mode of ingress in vain, till at last, driven to desperation, he made up his mind that he must enter by the same strange means as the witch herself. Thinking that the old creature had her abode there, and that she would probably go out for some business in the morning, and return at about the same hour as on the present occasion, he rode away, commanding his impatience as well as he could, and came back the next day a little earlier.Though he could hardly hope quite to imitate the hag’s rough and tremulous voice so as to deceive Filagranata into thinking it was really the witch, he yet made the attempt and repeated the words he had heard—Filagranata, thou maiden fair,Loose thy tresses of golden hair:I, thy old grandmother, am here.Filagranata, surprised at the soft modulation of voice, such as she had never heard before, ran quickly to the window with a look of pleasure and astonishment which gave her face a more winning expression than ever.The prince looked up, all admiration and expectation;and the thought quickly ran through Filagranata’s head—‘I have been taught to loose my hair whenever those words are said; why should not I loose it to draw up such a pleasant-looking cavalier, as well as for the ugly old hag?’ and, without waiting for a second thought, she untied the ribbon that bound her tresses and let them fall upon the prince. The prince was equally quick in taking advantage of the occasion, and, pressing his knees firmly into his horse’s flanks, so that it might not remain below to betray him, drew himself up, together with his steed, just as he had seen the witch do.Filagranata, half frightened at what she had done the moment the deed was accomplished, had not a word to say, but blushed and hung her head. The prince, on the other hand, had so many words to pour out, expressive of his admiration for her, his indignation at her captivity, and his desire to be allowed to be her deliverer, that the moments flew quickly by, and it was only when Filagranata found herself drawn to the window by the power of the witch’s magic words that they remembered the dangerous situation in which they stood.Another might have increased the peril by cries of despair, or lost precious time in useless lamentations; but Filagranata showed a presence of mind worthy of a prince’s wife by catching up a wand of the witch, with which she had seen her do wonderful things. With this she gave the prince a little tap, which immediately changed him into a pomegranate, and then another to the horse, which transformed him into an orange.4These she set by on the shelf, and then proceeded to draw up the witch after the usual manner.The old hag was not slow in perceiving there was something unusual in Filagranata’s room.‘What a stink5of Christians! What a stink of Christians!’ she kept exclaiming, as she poked her nose into every hole and corner. Yet she failed to find anything toreprehend; for as for the beautiful ripe pomegranate and the golden orange on the shelf, the Devil himself could not have thought there was anything wrong with them. Thus baffled, she was obliged to finish her inspection of the state of the pigeons, and end her visit in the usual way.As soon as she was gone Filagranata knew she was free till the next day, and so once more, with a tap of the wand, restored the horse and his rider to their natural shapes.‘And this is how your life passes every day! Is it possible?’ exclaimed the prince; ‘no, I cannot leave you here. You may be sure my good horse will be proud to bear your little weight; you have only to mount behind me, and I will take you home to my kingdom, and you shall live in the palace with my mother, and be my queen.’It is not to be supposed but that Filagranata very much preferred the idea of going with the handsome young prince who had shown so devoted an appreciation of her, and being his queen, to remaining shut up in the doorless tower and being the witch’s menial; so she offered no opposition, and the prince put her on to his good horse behind him, and away they rode.On, on, on,6they rode for a long, long way, until they came at last to a wood; but for all the good horse’s speed, the witch, who was not long in perceiving their escape and setting out in pursuit, was well nigh overtaking them. Just then they saw a little old woman7standing by the way, making signs and calling to them to arrest their course. How great soever was their anxiety to get on, so urgent was her appeal to them to stop and listen to her that they yielded to her entreaties. Nor were they losers by their kindness, for the little old woman was a fairy,8and she had stopped them, not on her own account, but to give them the means of escaping from the witch.To the prince she said: ‘Take these three gifts, andwhen the witch comes very near throw down first the mason’s trowel; and when she nearly overtakes you again throw down the comb; and when she nearly comes upon you again after that, throw down this jar9of oil. After that she won’t trouble you any more.’ And to Filagranata she whispered some words, and then let them go. But the witch was now close behind, and the prince made haste to throw down the mason’s trowel. Instantly there rose up a high stone wall between them, which it took the witch some time to climb over. Nevertheless, by her supernatural powers she was not long in making up for the lost time, and had soon overtaken the best speed of the good horse. Then the prince threw down the comb, and immediately there rose up between them a strong hedge of thorns, which it took the witch some time to make her way through, and that only with her body bleeding all over from the thorns. Nevertheless, by her supernatural powers she was not long in making up for the lost time, and had soon overtaken the best speed of the good horse. Then the prince threw down the jar of oil, and the oil spread and spread till it had overflowed10the whole country side; and as wherever you step in a pool of oil the foot only slides back, the witch could never get out of that, so the prince and Filagranata rode on in all safety towards the prince’s palace.‘And now tell me what it was the old woman in the wood whispered to you,’ said the prince, as soon as they saw their safety sufficiently secured to breathe freely.‘It was this,’ answered Filagranata; ‘that I was to tell you that when you arrive at your own home you must kiss no one—no one at all, not your father, or mother, or sisters, or anyone—till after our marriage. Because if you do you will forget all about your love for me, and all you have told me you think of me, and all the faithfulness you have promised me, and we shall become as strangers again to each other.’‘How dreadful!’ said the prince. ‘Oh, you may be sure I will kiss no one ifthatis to be the consequence; so be quite easy. It will be rather odd, to be sure, to return from such a long journey and kiss none of them at home, not even my own mother; but I suppose if I tell them how it is they won’t mind. So be quite easy about that.’Thus they rode on in love and confidence, and the good horse soon brought them home.On the steps of the palace the chancellor of the kingdom came out to meet them, and saluted Filagranata as the chosen bride the prince was to bring home; he informed him that the king his father had died during his absence, and that he was now sovereign of the realm. Then he led him in to the queen-mother, to whom he told all his adventures, and explained why he must not kiss her till after his marriage. The queen-mother was so pleased with the beauty, and modesty, and gentleness of Filagranata, that she gave up her son’s kiss without repining, and before they retired to rest that night it was announced to the people that the prince had returned home to be their king, and the day was proclaimed when the feast for his marriage was to take place.Then all in the palace went to their sleeping-chambers. But the prince, as it had been his wont from his childhood upwards, went into his mother’s room to kiss her after she was asleep, and when he saw her placid brow on the pillow, with the soft white hair parted on either side of it, and the eyes which were wont to gaze on him with so much love, resting in sleep, he could not forbear from pressing his lips on her forehead and giving the wonted kiss.Instantly there passed from his mind all that had taken place since he last stood there to take leave of the queen-mother before he started on his journey.His visit to the witch’s palace, his flight from it, the life-perils by the way, and, what is more, the image of Filagranata herself,—all passed from his mind like a vision of the night, and when he woke up and they told him he was king, it was as if he heard it for the first time, and when they brought Filagranata to him it was as though he knew her not nor saw her.‘But,’ he said, ‘if I am king there must be a queen to share my throne;’ and as a reigning sovereign could not go over the world to seek a wife, he sent and fetched him a princess meet to be the king’s wife, and appointed the betrothal. The queen-mother, who loved Filagranata, was sad, and yet nothing that she could say could bring back to his mind the least remembrance of all he had promised her and felt towards her.But Filagranata knew that the prince had kissed his mother, and this was why the spell was on him; so she said to her mother-in-law: ‘You get me much fine-sifted flour11and a large bag of sweetmeats, and I will try if I cannot yet set this matter straight.’ So the queen-mother ordered that there should be placed in her room much sifted flour and a large bag of sweetmeats. And Filagranata, when she had shut close the door, set to work and made paste of the flour, and of the paste she moulded two pigeons, and filled them inside with the comfits. Then at the banquet of the betrothal she asked the queen-mother to have her two pigeons placed on the table; and she did so, one at each end. But as soon as all the company were seated, before any one was helped, the two pigeons which Filagranata had made began to talk to each other across the whole length of the table: and everybody stood still with wonder to listen to what the pigeons of paste said to each other.‘Do you remember,’ said the first pigeon, ‘or is it possible that you have really forgotten, when I was in thatdoorless tower of the witch’s palace, and you came under the window and imitated her voice, saying,—Filagranata, thou maiden fair,Loose thy tresses of golden hair:I, thy old grandmother, am here,till I drew you up?’And the other pigeon answered,—‘Si, signora, I remember it now.’And as the young king heard the second pigeon say ‘Si, signora, I remember it now,’ he, too, remembered having been in a doorless tower, and having sung such a verse.‘Do you remember,’ continued the first pigeon, ‘how happy we were together after I drew you up into that little room where I was confined, and you swore if I would come with you we should always be together and never be separated from each other any more at all?’And the second pigeon replied,—‘Ah yes! I remember it now.’And as the second pigeon said ‘Ah yes! I remember it now,’ there rose up in the young king’s mind the memory of a fair sweet face on which he had once gazed with loving eyes, and of a maiden to whom he had sworn lifelong devotion.But the first pigeon continued:—‘Do you remember, or have you quite forgotten, how we fled away together, and how frightened we were when the witch pursued us, and how we clung to each other, and vowed, if she overtook us to kill us, we would die in each other’s arms, till a fairy met us and gave us the means to escape, and forbad you to kiss anyone, even your own mother, till after our marriage?’And the second pigeon answered,—‘Yes, ah yes! I remember it now.’And when the second pigeon said, ‘Yes, ah yes! I remember it now,’ the whole of the past came back to hismind, and with it all his love for Filagranata. So he rose up12and would have stroked the pigeons which had brought it all to his mind, but when he touched them they melted away, and the sweetmeats were scattered all over the table, and the guests picked them up. But the prince ran in haste to fetch Filagranata, and he brought her and placed her by his side in the banquet-hall. But the second bride was sent back, with presents, to her own people.‘And so it all came right at last,’ pursued the narrator. ‘Lackaday! that there are no fairies now to make things all happen right. There are plenty of people who seem to have the devil in them for doing you a mischief, but there are no fairies to set things straight again, alas!’[I have placed this story first in order, as its incidents ramify into half the traditionary tales with which we are acquainted.(1.) ‘Rapunzel,’ No. 12 in ‘Grimm,’ is the most like it among the German in the beginning, and has the most dissimilar ending. The counterpart form, in which it is some misdeed or ill-luck of the father instead of the mother, which involves the surrender of the first-born, is the more frequent opening, as in ‘The Water King,’ Ralston’s ‘Russian Folk Tales,’ p. 120. ‘The Lassie and her Godmother,’ in Dr. Dasent’s ‘Norse Tales,’ has an opening like ‘Filagranata,’ which, as it proceeds, connects it with ‘Marienkind,’ No. 4 in ‘Grimm;’ and the prohibition to open the room, in thatone, carries on the connexion to another group, the Bluebeard group, represented in this series by ‘Monsoo Mostro,’ ‘Rè Moro,’ &c.; while, further on, ‘Lassie and her Godmother’ evolves the incident of the reflection in the well, which connects it with the following story in this collection, and in this roundabout way, though not in direct form, with the termination of ‘Filagranata.’(2.) The introduction of an orange as a help to defy the ‘orca,’ connects the story again with the two next (though the fruit is used differently), and with a vast number of myths, as pointed out in Campbell’s ‘Tales of the West Highlands,’ Introduction, pp. lxxx-lxxxv. I was rather put off the scent by the narrator using the word portogallo: melagranata, though properly a pomegranate, is, I think, used in old Italian for an orange, being simply a red, or golden, apple.(3.) The three gifts of the trowel, the comb, and the oil-filler, again bring this story in connexion with another vast group. Compare ‘Campbell,’ iv. 290; also his remarks, i. 58–62, on the ‘Battle of the Birds,’ which story this resembles in the main, but, as will be found throughout this collection, the Roman form is milder. The prince wins his bride without performing tasks, and the couple, in escaping, have only to kill a strange ‘orca,’ and not the girl’s own father. In the third version of the tale in Mr. Campbell’s series, the girl becomes a poultry-maid, and has three fine dresses, constituting a link with another group—that of Cinderella (I have given the Tirolean one as ‘Klein-Else’ in ‘Household Stories from the Land of Hofer’); and the three dresses there (though not in the Gaelic story) representing the sun, moon, and stars, give it another connexion with ‘Marienkind.’ ‘The Master Maid,’ in Dr. Dasent’s collection, again, has the golden apple (though it assists in a different way) and the ending of the Roman version (a golden cock there taking the part of the two paste pigeons), but begins with the tasks in the ‘Giant’s House’ of the Gaelic version, which the Roman ignores.In the Russian story of ‘Baba Yaga’ (Ralston’s ‘Russian Folk Tales,’ pp. 139) we have the three magic gifts. Though Mr. Campbell has a very ingenious solution for the idea of the supernatural attaching to swords (i. lxxii), the same does not seem at all to explain the introduction of supernatural combs;when I once found a comb transformed into a mountain in a Tirolean story, I thought, as Mr. Ralston has also suggested (p. 144), that it fitted very well with the German expression for a mountain-ridge; but he does not tell us whether the metaphor holds good in Russ, where he finds it used; and in the present instance it is a hedge of thorns into which the comb resolves itself. I have another Roman story, in which the comb ‘swelled and swelled till every one of its teeth became a pier, and the spaces between them were arches, and it was a bridge by which one could pass over.’(4.) The kiss which brings forgetfulness, again, is found in the myths of every country. It occurs in the Tirolean story I have given as the ‘Dove-Maiden’ in ‘Household Stories from the Land of Hofer,’ though I had to omit it there for want of space; but the remaining episodes of that story are nearly identical with those of the Russian story of ‘The Water-King;’ and in the Tirolean story the maiden is fetched from a heathen magician’s house by the aid of saints, while in the others it is from giants’ or witches’ abodes, by aid of other giants and witches. Mr. Ralston supplies, at pp. 132–7, a long list of variants of this story, and in a Russian one, at p. 133, comes a ride on a Bear, which is one of the incidents in the ‘Dove-Maiden,’ though, if I remember right, it does not occur in any of the others. In Mr. Campbell’s notes to ‘The Battle of the Birds’ are also collected notices of variants of this episode.The affinity of this story with others again will be found in Mr. Cox’s ‘Mythology of the Aryan Nations,’ ii. p. 301.]

Once upon a time1there was a poor woman who had a great fancy for eating parsley. To her it was the greatest luxury, and as she had no garden of her own, and no money to spend on anything not an absolute necessity of life, she had to go about poaching in other people’s gardens to satisfy her fancy.

Near her cottage was the garden of a great palace, and in this garden grew plenty of fine parsley; but the garden was surrounded by a wall, and to get at it she had to carry a ladder with her to get up by, and, as soon as she had reached the top of the wall, to let it down on the other side to get down to the parsley-bed. There was such a quantity of parsley growing here that she thought it would never be missed, and this made her bold, so that she went over every day and took as much as ever she liked.

But the garden belonged to a witch,2who lived in the palace, and, though she did not often walk in this part of the garden, she knew by her supernatural powers that some one was eating her parsley; so she came near the place one day, and lay in wait till the poor woman came. As soon, therefore, as she came, and began eating the parsley, the witch at once pounced down, and asked her, in her gruff voice, what she was doing there. Though dreadfully frightened, the poor woman thought it best to own the whole truth; so she confessed that she came down by the ladder, adding that she had not taken anything except the parsley, and begged forgiveness.

‘I know nothing about forgiveness,’ replied the witch.‘You have eaten my parsley, and must take the consequences; and the consequences are these: I must be godmother to your first child, be it boy or girl; and as soon as it is grown to be of an age to dress itself without help, it must belong to me.’

When, accordingly, the poor woman’s first child was born, the witch came, as she had declared she would, to be its godmother. It was a fine little girl, and she gave it the name of Filagranata; after that she went away again, and the poor woman saw her no more till her little girl was grown up old enough to dress herself, and then she came and fetched her away inexorably; nor could the poor mother, with all her tears and entreaties, prevail on her to make any exchange for her child.

So Filagranata was taken to the witch’s palace to live, and was put in a room in a little tower by herself, where she had to feed the pigeons. Filagranata grew fond of her pigeons, and did not at all complain of her work, yet, without knowing why, she began to grow quite sad and melancholy as time went by; it was because she had no one to play with, no one to talk to, except the witch, who was no very delightful companion. The witch came every day, once in the day, to see that she was attending properly to her work, and as there was no door or staircase to the tower—this was on purpose that she might not escape—the witch used to say when she came under the tower—

Filagranata, so fair, so fair,Unloose thy tresses of golden hair:I, thy old grandmother, am here;3

Filagranata, so fair, so fair,

Unloose thy tresses of golden hair:

I, thy old grandmother, am here;3

and as she said these words, Filagranata had to let down her beautiful long hair through the window, and by it the witch climbed up into her chamber to her. This she did every day.

Now, it happened that about this time a king’s son was travelling that way searching for a beautiful wife;for you know it is the custom for princes to go searching all over the world to find a maiden fit to be a prince’s wife; at least they say so.

Well, this prince, travelling along, came by the witch’s palace where Filagranata was lodged. And it happened that he came that way just as the witch was singing her ditty. If he was horrified at the sight of the witch, he was in proportion enchanted when Filagranata came to the window. So struck was he with the sight of her beauty, and modesty, and gentleness, that he stopped his horse that he might watch her as long as she stayed at the window, and thus became a spectator of the witch’s wonderful way of getting into the tower.

The prince’s mind was soon made up to gain a nearer view of Filagranata, and with this purpose he rode round and round the tower seeking some mode of ingress in vain, till at last, driven to desperation, he made up his mind that he must enter by the same strange means as the witch herself. Thinking that the old creature had her abode there, and that she would probably go out for some business in the morning, and return at about the same hour as on the present occasion, he rode away, commanding his impatience as well as he could, and came back the next day a little earlier.

Though he could hardly hope quite to imitate the hag’s rough and tremulous voice so as to deceive Filagranata into thinking it was really the witch, he yet made the attempt and repeated the words he had heard—

Filagranata, thou maiden fair,Loose thy tresses of golden hair:I, thy old grandmother, am here.

Filagranata, thou maiden fair,

Loose thy tresses of golden hair:

I, thy old grandmother, am here.

Filagranata, surprised at the soft modulation of voice, such as she had never heard before, ran quickly to the window with a look of pleasure and astonishment which gave her face a more winning expression than ever.

The prince looked up, all admiration and expectation;and the thought quickly ran through Filagranata’s head—‘I have been taught to loose my hair whenever those words are said; why should not I loose it to draw up such a pleasant-looking cavalier, as well as for the ugly old hag?’ and, without waiting for a second thought, she untied the ribbon that bound her tresses and let them fall upon the prince. The prince was equally quick in taking advantage of the occasion, and, pressing his knees firmly into his horse’s flanks, so that it might not remain below to betray him, drew himself up, together with his steed, just as he had seen the witch do.

Filagranata, half frightened at what she had done the moment the deed was accomplished, had not a word to say, but blushed and hung her head. The prince, on the other hand, had so many words to pour out, expressive of his admiration for her, his indignation at her captivity, and his desire to be allowed to be her deliverer, that the moments flew quickly by, and it was only when Filagranata found herself drawn to the window by the power of the witch’s magic words that they remembered the dangerous situation in which they stood.

Another might have increased the peril by cries of despair, or lost precious time in useless lamentations; but Filagranata showed a presence of mind worthy of a prince’s wife by catching up a wand of the witch, with which she had seen her do wonderful things. With this she gave the prince a little tap, which immediately changed him into a pomegranate, and then another to the horse, which transformed him into an orange.4These she set by on the shelf, and then proceeded to draw up the witch after the usual manner.

The old hag was not slow in perceiving there was something unusual in Filagranata’s room.

‘What a stink5of Christians! What a stink of Christians!’ she kept exclaiming, as she poked her nose into every hole and corner. Yet she failed to find anything toreprehend; for as for the beautiful ripe pomegranate and the golden orange on the shelf, the Devil himself could not have thought there was anything wrong with them. Thus baffled, she was obliged to finish her inspection of the state of the pigeons, and end her visit in the usual way.

As soon as she was gone Filagranata knew she was free till the next day, and so once more, with a tap of the wand, restored the horse and his rider to their natural shapes.

‘And this is how your life passes every day! Is it possible?’ exclaimed the prince; ‘no, I cannot leave you here. You may be sure my good horse will be proud to bear your little weight; you have only to mount behind me, and I will take you home to my kingdom, and you shall live in the palace with my mother, and be my queen.’

It is not to be supposed but that Filagranata very much preferred the idea of going with the handsome young prince who had shown so devoted an appreciation of her, and being his queen, to remaining shut up in the doorless tower and being the witch’s menial; so she offered no opposition, and the prince put her on to his good horse behind him, and away they rode.

On, on, on,6they rode for a long, long way, until they came at last to a wood; but for all the good horse’s speed, the witch, who was not long in perceiving their escape and setting out in pursuit, was well nigh overtaking them. Just then they saw a little old woman7standing by the way, making signs and calling to them to arrest their course. How great soever was their anxiety to get on, so urgent was her appeal to them to stop and listen to her that they yielded to her entreaties. Nor were they losers by their kindness, for the little old woman was a fairy,8and she had stopped them, not on her own account, but to give them the means of escaping from the witch.

To the prince she said: ‘Take these three gifts, andwhen the witch comes very near throw down first the mason’s trowel; and when she nearly overtakes you again throw down the comb; and when she nearly comes upon you again after that, throw down this jar9of oil. After that she won’t trouble you any more.’ And to Filagranata she whispered some words, and then let them go. But the witch was now close behind, and the prince made haste to throw down the mason’s trowel. Instantly there rose up a high stone wall between them, which it took the witch some time to climb over. Nevertheless, by her supernatural powers she was not long in making up for the lost time, and had soon overtaken the best speed of the good horse. Then the prince threw down the comb, and immediately there rose up between them a strong hedge of thorns, which it took the witch some time to make her way through, and that only with her body bleeding all over from the thorns. Nevertheless, by her supernatural powers she was not long in making up for the lost time, and had soon overtaken the best speed of the good horse. Then the prince threw down the jar of oil, and the oil spread and spread till it had overflowed10the whole country side; and as wherever you step in a pool of oil the foot only slides back, the witch could never get out of that, so the prince and Filagranata rode on in all safety towards the prince’s palace.

‘And now tell me what it was the old woman in the wood whispered to you,’ said the prince, as soon as they saw their safety sufficiently secured to breathe freely.

‘It was this,’ answered Filagranata; ‘that I was to tell you that when you arrive at your own home you must kiss no one—no one at all, not your father, or mother, or sisters, or anyone—till after our marriage. Because if you do you will forget all about your love for me, and all you have told me you think of me, and all the faithfulness you have promised me, and we shall become as strangers again to each other.’

‘How dreadful!’ said the prince. ‘Oh, you may be sure I will kiss no one ifthatis to be the consequence; so be quite easy. It will be rather odd, to be sure, to return from such a long journey and kiss none of them at home, not even my own mother; but I suppose if I tell them how it is they won’t mind. So be quite easy about that.’

Thus they rode on in love and confidence, and the good horse soon brought them home.

On the steps of the palace the chancellor of the kingdom came out to meet them, and saluted Filagranata as the chosen bride the prince was to bring home; he informed him that the king his father had died during his absence, and that he was now sovereign of the realm. Then he led him in to the queen-mother, to whom he told all his adventures, and explained why he must not kiss her till after his marriage. The queen-mother was so pleased with the beauty, and modesty, and gentleness of Filagranata, that she gave up her son’s kiss without repining, and before they retired to rest that night it was announced to the people that the prince had returned home to be their king, and the day was proclaimed when the feast for his marriage was to take place.

Then all in the palace went to their sleeping-chambers. But the prince, as it had been his wont from his childhood upwards, went into his mother’s room to kiss her after she was asleep, and when he saw her placid brow on the pillow, with the soft white hair parted on either side of it, and the eyes which were wont to gaze on him with so much love, resting in sleep, he could not forbear from pressing his lips on her forehead and giving the wonted kiss.

Instantly there passed from his mind all that had taken place since he last stood there to take leave of the queen-mother before he started on his journey.His visit to the witch’s palace, his flight from it, the life-perils by the way, and, what is more, the image of Filagranata herself,—all passed from his mind like a vision of the night, and when he woke up and they told him he was king, it was as if he heard it for the first time, and when they brought Filagranata to him it was as though he knew her not nor saw her.

‘But,’ he said, ‘if I am king there must be a queen to share my throne;’ and as a reigning sovereign could not go over the world to seek a wife, he sent and fetched him a princess meet to be the king’s wife, and appointed the betrothal. The queen-mother, who loved Filagranata, was sad, and yet nothing that she could say could bring back to his mind the least remembrance of all he had promised her and felt towards her.

But Filagranata knew that the prince had kissed his mother, and this was why the spell was on him; so she said to her mother-in-law: ‘You get me much fine-sifted flour11and a large bag of sweetmeats, and I will try if I cannot yet set this matter straight.’ So the queen-mother ordered that there should be placed in her room much sifted flour and a large bag of sweetmeats. And Filagranata, when she had shut close the door, set to work and made paste of the flour, and of the paste she moulded two pigeons, and filled them inside with the comfits. Then at the banquet of the betrothal she asked the queen-mother to have her two pigeons placed on the table; and she did so, one at each end. But as soon as all the company were seated, before any one was helped, the two pigeons which Filagranata had made began to talk to each other across the whole length of the table: and everybody stood still with wonder to listen to what the pigeons of paste said to each other.

‘Do you remember,’ said the first pigeon, ‘or is it possible that you have really forgotten, when I was in thatdoorless tower of the witch’s palace, and you came under the window and imitated her voice, saying,—

Filagranata, thou maiden fair,Loose thy tresses of golden hair:I, thy old grandmother, am here,

Filagranata, thou maiden fair,

Loose thy tresses of golden hair:

I, thy old grandmother, am here,

till I drew you up?’

And the other pigeon answered,—

‘Si, signora, I remember it now.’

And as the young king heard the second pigeon say ‘Si, signora, I remember it now,’ he, too, remembered having been in a doorless tower, and having sung such a verse.

‘Do you remember,’ continued the first pigeon, ‘how happy we were together after I drew you up into that little room where I was confined, and you swore if I would come with you we should always be together and never be separated from each other any more at all?’

And the second pigeon replied,—

‘Ah yes! I remember it now.’

And as the second pigeon said ‘Ah yes! I remember it now,’ there rose up in the young king’s mind the memory of a fair sweet face on which he had once gazed with loving eyes, and of a maiden to whom he had sworn lifelong devotion.

But the first pigeon continued:—

‘Do you remember, or have you quite forgotten, how we fled away together, and how frightened we were when the witch pursued us, and how we clung to each other, and vowed, if she overtook us to kill us, we would die in each other’s arms, till a fairy met us and gave us the means to escape, and forbad you to kiss anyone, even your own mother, till after our marriage?’

And the second pigeon answered,—

‘Yes, ah yes! I remember it now.’

And when the second pigeon said, ‘Yes, ah yes! I remember it now,’ the whole of the past came back to hismind, and with it all his love for Filagranata. So he rose up12and would have stroked the pigeons which had brought it all to his mind, but when he touched them they melted away, and the sweetmeats were scattered all over the table, and the guests picked them up. But the prince ran in haste to fetch Filagranata, and he brought her and placed her by his side in the banquet-hall. But the second bride was sent back, with presents, to her own people.

‘And so it all came right at last,’ pursued the narrator. ‘Lackaday! that there are no fairies now to make things all happen right. There are plenty of people who seem to have the devil in them for doing you a mischief, but there are no fairies to set things straight again, alas!’

[I have placed this story first in order, as its incidents ramify into half the traditionary tales with which we are acquainted.

(1.) ‘Rapunzel,’ No. 12 in ‘Grimm,’ is the most like it among the German in the beginning, and has the most dissimilar ending. The counterpart form, in which it is some misdeed or ill-luck of the father instead of the mother, which involves the surrender of the first-born, is the more frequent opening, as in ‘The Water King,’ Ralston’s ‘Russian Folk Tales,’ p. 120. ‘The Lassie and her Godmother,’ in Dr. Dasent’s ‘Norse Tales,’ has an opening like ‘Filagranata,’ which, as it proceeds, connects it with ‘Marienkind,’ No. 4 in ‘Grimm;’ and the prohibition to open the room, in thatone, carries on the connexion to another group, the Bluebeard group, represented in this series by ‘Monsoo Mostro,’ ‘Rè Moro,’ &c.; while, further on, ‘Lassie and her Godmother’ evolves the incident of the reflection in the well, which connects it with the following story in this collection, and in this roundabout way, though not in direct form, with the termination of ‘Filagranata.’

(2.) The introduction of an orange as a help to defy the ‘orca,’ connects the story again with the two next (though the fruit is used differently), and with a vast number of myths, as pointed out in Campbell’s ‘Tales of the West Highlands,’ Introduction, pp. lxxx-lxxxv. I was rather put off the scent by the narrator using the word portogallo: melagranata, though properly a pomegranate, is, I think, used in old Italian for an orange, being simply a red, or golden, apple.

(3.) The three gifts of the trowel, the comb, and the oil-filler, again bring this story in connexion with another vast group. Compare ‘Campbell,’ iv. 290; also his remarks, i. 58–62, on the ‘Battle of the Birds,’ which story this resembles in the main, but, as will be found throughout this collection, the Roman form is milder. The prince wins his bride without performing tasks, and the couple, in escaping, have only to kill a strange ‘orca,’ and not the girl’s own father. In the third version of the tale in Mr. Campbell’s series, the girl becomes a poultry-maid, and has three fine dresses, constituting a link with another group—that of Cinderella (I have given the Tirolean one as ‘Klein-Else’ in ‘Household Stories from the Land of Hofer’); and the three dresses there (though not in the Gaelic story) representing the sun, moon, and stars, give it another connexion with ‘Marienkind.’ ‘The Master Maid,’ in Dr. Dasent’s collection, again, has the golden apple (though it assists in a different way) and the ending of the Roman version (a golden cock there taking the part of the two paste pigeons), but begins with the tasks in the ‘Giant’s House’ of the Gaelic version, which the Roman ignores.

In the Russian story of ‘Baba Yaga’ (Ralston’s ‘Russian Folk Tales,’ pp. 139) we have the three magic gifts. Though Mr. Campbell has a very ingenious solution for the idea of the supernatural attaching to swords (i. lxxii), the same does not seem at all to explain the introduction of supernatural combs;when I once found a comb transformed into a mountain in a Tirolean story, I thought, as Mr. Ralston has also suggested (p. 144), that it fitted very well with the German expression for a mountain-ridge; but he does not tell us whether the metaphor holds good in Russ, where he finds it used; and in the present instance it is a hedge of thorns into which the comb resolves itself. I have another Roman story, in which the comb ‘swelled and swelled till every one of its teeth became a pier, and the spaces between them were arches, and it was a bridge by which one could pass over.’

(4.) The kiss which brings forgetfulness, again, is found in the myths of every country. It occurs in the Tirolean story I have given as the ‘Dove-Maiden’ in ‘Household Stories from the Land of Hofer,’ though I had to omit it there for want of space; but the remaining episodes of that story are nearly identical with those of the Russian story of ‘The Water-King;’ and in the Tirolean story the maiden is fetched from a heathen magician’s house by the aid of saints, while in the others it is from giants’ or witches’ abodes, by aid of other giants and witches. Mr. Ralston supplies, at pp. 132–7, a long list of variants of this story, and in a Russian one, at p. 133, comes a ride on a Bear, which is one of the incidents in the ‘Dove-Maiden,’ though, if I remember right, it does not occur in any of the others. In Mr. Campbell’s notes to ‘The Battle of the Birds’ are also collected notices of variants of this episode.

The affinity of this story with others again will be found in Mr. Cox’s ‘Mythology of the Aryan Nations,’ ii. p. 301.]

1This story comes from Palombara.↑2The expression employed in this place was ‘Orca;’ as this is a word of most frequent, but somewhat capricious use, I interrupted the narrator to inquire her conception of it. ‘Well, it means a species of beast,’ she said; ‘but you see it must have been a bewitched (‘fatata’) beast, because the story says it was so rich, and had a palace, and spoke and did all the things you shall hear.’ She did not, however, seem to identify it with the evil principle according to its undoubted derivation, nor did she allow either that it had any connexion with ‘orso,’ a bear, as the narrator of the ‘il Vaso di Persa’ had expounded it, and indeed as the details of that story required; it will be seen, therefore, that popular fancy invests the monster with various shapes. The story of ‘The Pot of Marjoram,’ it will be seen, contains one or two incidents in common with this one. The apparently insignificant detail of the little plant—on which, however, both stories rest for a foundation—is noteworthy, the narrator in each instance being most positive that it was the one she had named and no other, and in both cases insisting on showing me the plant, that there might be no mistake about it. (See note to the word ‘Persa,’ infra, p. 54.)↑3Filagranata bella bella,Tira giù le bionde trecce,Ch’ io son nonna vecchiarella.‘Tira giù,’ or ‘butta giù,’ as in the next repetition, mean equally ‘throw-down.’ ‘Biondo’ expresses particularly the yellow tint in hair. Bazzarini, ‘Ortografia Enciclopedica Universale,’ defines it, ‘colore tra il giallo e bianco ed è proprio di capelli,’ on the authority of Petrarch’s use of the word. He has also ‘biondeggiante, che biondeggia, che ingiallisce,’turning or tending to yellow; and it is thus the yellow Tiber gets called ‘il biondo Tevere.’↑4‘Portogallo’ is now the ordinary word for an orange, and points to the introduction of the fruit from the Portuguese colonies in the sixteenth century. The ‘arancia,’ ‘melarancia,’ or ‘merangola,’ the ungrafted orange-tree, was, however, indigenous in Italy; and the fruit, which has even a finer appearance than the edible orange, is still grown for ornament in Roman gardens.↑5‘Puzzo,’ stink. There is no neutral word in Italian for a smell; you must define a good or a bad smell either as a perfume or a stink.↑6‘Camminando, camminando, camminando.’ This threefold repetition of this verb, according to the tense and person required by the story, I have found used as a sort of sing-song refrain by all the tellers of tales I have had to do with.↑7‘Vecchiarella,’ little old woman.↑8‘Fata;’ ethnologically Fata is the same as ‘Fairy,’ ‘Fée,’ &c., &c., and ‘fairy’ is the only translation; but it will be observed the Italian ‘fata’ has always different characteristics from the English ‘fairy.’↑9‘Buzzica’ is a homely word for a lamp-filler; it probably comes from ‘buzzicare,’ to move gently or slowly. The narrator used the word because she would, according to local custom, keep her oil in a ‘buzzica,’ without perceiving that it was most inappropriate for the purpose of the story, which required that the oil should be poured out quickly.↑10‘Allagato,’ inundated. I preserve the word on account of its expressiveness—literally making a lake of the country.↑11‘Fior di farina.’↑12As the story was told me the dialogue was broken, and every incident of the journey was made the subject of a separate question and answer; all the furniture in the room also here entered into conversation with the pigeons, brooms being particularly loquacious; but as it became tedious, and by no means added to the poetry of the situation, I condensed it to the dimensions in the text.↑

1This story comes from Palombara.↑

2The expression employed in this place was ‘Orca;’ as this is a word of most frequent, but somewhat capricious use, I interrupted the narrator to inquire her conception of it. ‘Well, it means a species of beast,’ she said; ‘but you see it must have been a bewitched (‘fatata’) beast, because the story says it was so rich, and had a palace, and spoke and did all the things you shall hear.’ She did not, however, seem to identify it with the evil principle according to its undoubted derivation, nor did she allow either that it had any connexion with ‘orso,’ a bear, as the narrator of the ‘il Vaso di Persa’ had expounded it, and indeed as the details of that story required; it will be seen, therefore, that popular fancy invests the monster with various shapes. The story of ‘The Pot of Marjoram,’ it will be seen, contains one or two incidents in common with this one. The apparently insignificant detail of the little plant—on which, however, both stories rest for a foundation—is noteworthy, the narrator in each instance being most positive that it was the one she had named and no other, and in both cases insisting on showing me the plant, that there might be no mistake about it. (See note to the word ‘Persa,’ infra, p. 54.)↑

3

Filagranata bella bella,Tira giù le bionde trecce,Ch’ io son nonna vecchiarella.

Filagranata bella bella,Tira giù le bionde trecce,Ch’ io son nonna vecchiarella.

Filagranata bella bella,Tira giù le bionde trecce,Ch’ io son nonna vecchiarella.

Filagranata bella bella,Tira giù le bionde trecce,Ch’ io son nonna vecchiarella.

Filagranata bella bella,

Tira giù le bionde trecce,

Ch’ io son nonna vecchiarella.

‘Tira giù,’ or ‘butta giù,’ as in the next repetition, mean equally ‘throw-down.’ ‘Biondo’ expresses particularly the yellow tint in hair. Bazzarini, ‘Ortografia Enciclopedica Universale,’ defines it, ‘colore tra il giallo e bianco ed è proprio di capelli,’ on the authority of Petrarch’s use of the word. He has also ‘biondeggiante, che biondeggia, che ingiallisce,’turning or tending to yellow; and it is thus the yellow Tiber gets called ‘il biondo Tevere.’↑

4‘Portogallo’ is now the ordinary word for an orange, and points to the introduction of the fruit from the Portuguese colonies in the sixteenth century. The ‘arancia,’ ‘melarancia,’ or ‘merangola,’ the ungrafted orange-tree, was, however, indigenous in Italy; and the fruit, which has even a finer appearance than the edible orange, is still grown for ornament in Roman gardens.↑

5‘Puzzo,’ stink. There is no neutral word in Italian for a smell; you must define a good or a bad smell either as a perfume or a stink.↑

6‘Camminando, camminando, camminando.’ This threefold repetition of this verb, according to the tense and person required by the story, I have found used as a sort of sing-song refrain by all the tellers of tales I have had to do with.↑

7‘Vecchiarella,’ little old woman.↑

8‘Fata;’ ethnologically Fata is the same as ‘Fairy,’ ‘Fée,’ &c., &c., and ‘fairy’ is the only translation; but it will be observed the Italian ‘fata’ has always different characteristics from the English ‘fairy.’↑

9‘Buzzica’ is a homely word for a lamp-filler; it probably comes from ‘buzzicare,’ to move gently or slowly. The narrator used the word because she would, according to local custom, keep her oil in a ‘buzzica,’ without perceiving that it was most inappropriate for the purpose of the story, which required that the oil should be poured out quickly.↑

10‘Allagato,’ inundated. I preserve the word on account of its expressiveness—literally making a lake of the country.↑

11‘Fior di farina.’↑

12As the story was told me the dialogue was broken, and every incident of the journey was made the subject of a separate question and answer; all the furniture in the room also here entered into conversation with the pigeons, brooms being particularly loquacious; but as it became tedious, and by no means added to the poetry of the situation, I condensed it to the dimensions in the text.↑

THE THREE LOVE-ORANGES.1They say there was a king’s son who went out to hunt.2It was a winter’s day, and the ground was covered with snow, so that when he brought down the birds with his arquebuse the red blood made beautiful bright marks on the dazzling white snow.‘How beautiful!’ exclaimed the prince. ‘Never willI marry till I find one with a complexion fair as this snow, and tinted like this rosy blood.’When his day’s sport was at an end, he went home and told his parents that he was going to wander over the world till he found one fair as snow, tinted like rosy blood. The parents approved his design and sent him forth.On, on, on he went, till one day he met a little old woman, who stopped him, saying: ‘Whither so fast, fair prince?’He replied, ‘I walk the earth till I find one who is fair as snow, tinted like rosy blood, to make her my wife.’‘That can I help you to, and I alone,’ said the little old woman, who was a fairy; and then she gave him the three love-oranges, telling him that when he opened one such a maiden as he was in search of would appear, but he must immediately look for water and sprinkle her, or she would disappear again.The prince took the oranges, and wandered on. On, on, on he went, till at last the fancy took him to break open one of the oranges. Immediately a beautiful maiden appeared, whose complexion was indeed fair as snow, and tinted like rosy blood, but it was only when she had already disappeared that he recollected about the water. It was too late, so on he wandered again till the fancy took him to open another orange. Instantly another maiden appeared, fairer than the other, and he lost no time in looking for water to sprinkle her, but there was none, and before he came back from the search she was gone.On he wandered again till he was nearly home, when one day he noticed a handsome fountain standing by the road, and over against it a fine palace. The sight of the fountain made him think of his third orange, and he took it out and broke it open.Instantly a third maiden appeared, far fairer than either of the others; with the water of the fountain hesprinkled her the moment she appeared, and she vanished not, but staid with him and loved him.Then he said, ‘You must stay here in this bower while I go on home and fetch a retinue worthy to escort you.’In a palace opposite the fountain lived a black Saracen woman,3and just then she went down to the fountain to draw water, and as she looked into the water she said, ‘My mistress says that I am so ugly, but I am so fair, therefore I break the pitcher and the little pitcher.’4Then she looked up in the bower, and seeing the beautiful maiden, she called her down, and caressed her, and stroked her hair, and praised her beauty; but as she stroked her hair she took out a magic pin, and stuck it into her head, and instantly the maiden became a dove and perched on the side of the fountain.Then she broke the pitcher and the little pitcher, and the prince came back.When the prince saw the ugly black woman standing in the bower where he had left his beautiful maiden, he was quite bewildered, and looked all about for her.‘I am she whom you seek, prince,’ said the woman. ‘It is the sun has changed me thus while standing here waiting for you; but all will come right when I get away from the sun.’The prince did not know what to make of it, but there was no help for it but to take her and trust to her coming right when she got away from the sun. He took her home, therefore, and right grand preparations were made for the royal marriage. Tapestries were hung on the walls, and flowers strewed the floor, while in the kitchen was the cook as busy as a bee, preparing I know not how many dishes for the royal banquet.Then, lo, there came and perched on the kitchen window a little dove, and sang, ‘Cook, cook, for whom are you cooking; for the son of the king, or the Saracen Moor? May the cook fall asleep, and may all the viands be burnt!’5After this nothing would go right in the kitchen; every day all the dishes got burnt, and it was impossible to give the wedding banquet, because there was nothing fit to send up to the table. Then the king’s son came into the kitchen to learn what had happened, and they showed him the dove which had done all. ‘Sweet little dove!’ said the prince, and, catching it in his hand, began to caress it; thus he felt the pin in its head, and pulled it out. Instantly his own fair maiden stood before him, white as snow, rosy as blood. Then the mystery was cleared up, and there was great rejoicing, and the old witch was burnt.[This story, besides its similarities with those mentioned in note of the foregoing, is substantially the same as ‘Die weisse u. die schwarze Braut’ in Grimm (with his ‘Schneeweisschen u. Rosenroth’ it seems to have nothing in common, though the words ‘Snow-white and rose-red’ suggest it); but its commencement is different. The German Tale of Sneewittchen (Grimm,p. 206 has also much similarity with it: a queen sat working in a window framed with ebony; she pricks her finger, and three drops of blood that fall on the snow suggest the wish that her child may be fair as snow, red as blood, and her hair as dark as ebony. Her wishes are fulfilled, and she dies. She is succeeded by a witch-stepmother, from whom the child of wishes suffers many things, but the witch is ultimately danced to death in red-hot iron shoes. A link between them is supplied by the next following, in which the opening agrees with the German story. In Schneller’s ‘Legends of the Italian Tirol’ are two, with a title similar to the Roman one. In the first (‘I tre aranci’) the girl becomes the property of a fairy, as in Filagranata. She is sent to fetch three oranges, which she does by the help of five gifts given her by an old man; but the whole ends in the good child wishing as her only reward to be restored to her mother. The other is called ‘L’amor dei tre aranci.’ In this the prince breaks a witch’s milkjug while playing at ball, and in revenge she tells him he shall not marry till he finds ‘the Love of the three oranges,’ which he similarly obtains by the help of five gifts received of an old woman; when he opens them, the story goes on just like the Roman one, the verse of the dove being a little different:—Cogo, bel cogo,Endormeazate al fogo,Che l’arrosto se possa brusar,E la fiola (figlia) della stria non ne possa magnar.and there is nothing about ‘fair as snow, rosy as blood,’ in it. He has another, ‘Quel dalla coda di oro,’ in which three golden apples or balls play a prominent part, but it belongs to another group. A second version of this, entitled ‘I pomid’oro,’ however, is a strange mixture of the various Tirolean and Roman versions.The Hungarian story of ‘Vas Laczi’ (Iron Ladislas) begins, like ‘L’amor dei tre aranci,’ by a young prince getting into a scrape with a witch, this time by breaking her basket of eggs. His punishment is the fulfilment of his first wish, and his first wish happens to be a pettish one, that the earth might swallow up his three sisters; as one of them is said to be always dressed like the sun, the second like the moon, and the third like the stars, we havea link with the German Marienkind and the Tirolean Klein-Else. Afterwards Iron Ladislas goes in search of his sisters, and encounters many heroic adventures and many transformations, in one of which a tree in a dragon’s garden with golden apples is a prominent detail.A tree with golden fruit is also an important incident in the principal and most popular of Hungarian myths, that of ‘Tündér Ilona’ (Fairy Helen). As it is seen depicted on the thirteen compartments of the grand staircase walls of the National Club at Pest,Tündér Ilonaappears in the first as the Goddess or Queen of Summer held in thrall by the stern witch the Goddess or Queen of Winter. She is seen planting in the territory of the Earth-King a tree which represents her earnest longings after freedom, and committing it to the benign influence of the Sun-King.The second shows this mystical tree bearing its golden fruit, which the beautiful Fairy, as if ashamed of her boldness, is hasting to pluck off, borne on a chariot formed of obedient swans. The Wind-genius wafts poppy seeds over the eyes of the armed guard the Winter-Queen had set round the tree, and lulls them to sleep.In the third Argilus, the Earth-Prince, is seen surprising in his (up till then vain) nightly attempt to gather the golden fruit,Tündér Ilona’sdeparting convoy. He aims an arrow at the coy plunderer; then suddenly a glance from her pierces his heart instead, and he lets the arrow harmlessly strike the ground.The fourth portrays the happy union ofIlonaand Argilus, Summer and Earth; but the Winter-Queen comes by enraged at their successful defiance of her, and cuts offIlona’sbeautiful golden locks. (The people have it that these locks borne along by the winds planted the Puszta with the beautiful long feathery grass which they call ‘Orphan-girl’s hair’). In the distance are seen the parents of the Earth-Prince hurrying forward in search of their son.The fifth showsTündér Ilonawaking from her delicious slumber, and on discovering the loss of the mantle of her hair, hasting back in agony to her swan-chariot. Argilus in vain stretches out his arms after her, and prays her to remain always with him.In the sixth the scene is changed to the dwelling of the Earth-King. Prince Argilus is taking leave of his parents as he starts on his perilous journey, determined to deliver the captive Fairy.In the seventh the Earth-Prince has advanced on his journey as far as the dwelling of a giant, of whom he asks counsel, and who appoints him three witches to show the way to regain theTündér.In the eighth he is seen victorious in a late conflict with three giants, from each of whom he has succeeded in gaining an instrument necessary for his purpose; from one a switch, from another a pipe, from the third a conjuring mantle. The giants throw down masses of rock upon him, but he spreads out the conjuring mantle, and committing himself to it, floats securely through the air.In the ninth Argilus has reached the Winter-Witch’s border, and prepares to engage in combat with the dragon who guards it.The tenth is highly sensational. The Winter-Witch has thrown a deep sleep over him, and the poor Summer-Fairy strives to awaken him in vain.In the eleventh the ardent desires ofTündér Ilonahave prevailed over all the enchantments of the Winter-Witch, and at her prayer there rises up from the innermost region of the earth the fairy Iron-Queen, who brings the Tátos, the winged magic horse who is to bear the Prince through all dangers to certain victory.The twelfth shows Argilus andIlonaonce more united, enthroned side by side, and subjects bearing them offerings.The thirteenth is a large composition symbolising the mystic union of Earth and Summer, whence sprang, says the myth, Autumn with her abundant fruits, and the great god Pan, the author of all productiveness, who called the land of his birth after his own name and blessed it with fecundity above all nations of the earth. The tree of golden fruit, the first occasion of the auspicious meeting which led to this union, is again introduced, andTündér Ilonais again clothed in her luxuriant mantle of golden hair.]1‘I tre Melangoli di amore;’melangolo or merangolo, or merangola, an ungrafted orange. See note to ‘Filagranata.’↑2‘Caccia,’ though usually translated by ‘hunt,’ is used for all kinds of sport. Bazzarini says it even includes ‘pallone’ and other games; but it is in common use for shooting small birds as for hunting quadrupeds.↑3‘Mora Saracena,’ a black Saracen woman; ‘mora’ is in constant use for a dark-coloured person. Senhor de Saraiva tells me that a so-called ‘Mora encantada’ figures as one of the favourite personages in Portuguese traditionary tales; but she is less often an actual Moor than a princess held in thrall by Moorish art, to be set free by Christian chivalry. She is often represented as bound at the bottom of a well.↑4Mia padrona dice che son tanta brutta,E son tanta bella,Io rompo la brocca e la brocchetta.This verse would be hardly comprehensible but that the incident is better explained in the more detailed versions of other countries mentioned in note to the last tale. The ugly ‘Mora’ sees the reflection of the face of the beautiful maiden who sits in the tree overlooking the fountain, and takes it for her own. See Campbell’sTales of the W. Highlands, pp. 56–7, &c.↑5Cuoco, cuoco, per chi cucinate,Pel figlio del rè o per la mora Saracena?Il cuoco si possa dormentar’,E le vivande si possano bruciar’.↑

THE THREE LOVE-ORANGES.1

They say there was a king’s son who went out to hunt.2It was a winter’s day, and the ground was covered with snow, so that when he brought down the birds with his arquebuse the red blood made beautiful bright marks on the dazzling white snow.‘How beautiful!’ exclaimed the prince. ‘Never willI marry till I find one with a complexion fair as this snow, and tinted like this rosy blood.’When his day’s sport was at an end, he went home and told his parents that he was going to wander over the world till he found one fair as snow, tinted like rosy blood. The parents approved his design and sent him forth.On, on, on he went, till one day he met a little old woman, who stopped him, saying: ‘Whither so fast, fair prince?’He replied, ‘I walk the earth till I find one who is fair as snow, tinted like rosy blood, to make her my wife.’‘That can I help you to, and I alone,’ said the little old woman, who was a fairy; and then she gave him the three love-oranges, telling him that when he opened one such a maiden as he was in search of would appear, but he must immediately look for water and sprinkle her, or she would disappear again.The prince took the oranges, and wandered on. On, on, on he went, till at last the fancy took him to break open one of the oranges. Immediately a beautiful maiden appeared, whose complexion was indeed fair as snow, and tinted like rosy blood, but it was only when she had already disappeared that he recollected about the water. It was too late, so on he wandered again till the fancy took him to open another orange. Instantly another maiden appeared, fairer than the other, and he lost no time in looking for water to sprinkle her, but there was none, and before he came back from the search she was gone.On he wandered again till he was nearly home, when one day he noticed a handsome fountain standing by the road, and over against it a fine palace. The sight of the fountain made him think of his third orange, and he took it out and broke it open.Instantly a third maiden appeared, far fairer than either of the others; with the water of the fountain hesprinkled her the moment she appeared, and she vanished not, but staid with him and loved him.Then he said, ‘You must stay here in this bower while I go on home and fetch a retinue worthy to escort you.’In a palace opposite the fountain lived a black Saracen woman,3and just then she went down to the fountain to draw water, and as she looked into the water she said, ‘My mistress says that I am so ugly, but I am so fair, therefore I break the pitcher and the little pitcher.’4Then she looked up in the bower, and seeing the beautiful maiden, she called her down, and caressed her, and stroked her hair, and praised her beauty; but as she stroked her hair she took out a magic pin, and stuck it into her head, and instantly the maiden became a dove and perched on the side of the fountain.Then she broke the pitcher and the little pitcher, and the prince came back.When the prince saw the ugly black woman standing in the bower where he had left his beautiful maiden, he was quite bewildered, and looked all about for her.‘I am she whom you seek, prince,’ said the woman. ‘It is the sun has changed me thus while standing here waiting for you; but all will come right when I get away from the sun.’The prince did not know what to make of it, but there was no help for it but to take her and trust to her coming right when she got away from the sun. He took her home, therefore, and right grand preparations were made for the royal marriage. Tapestries were hung on the walls, and flowers strewed the floor, while in the kitchen was the cook as busy as a bee, preparing I know not how many dishes for the royal banquet.Then, lo, there came and perched on the kitchen window a little dove, and sang, ‘Cook, cook, for whom are you cooking; for the son of the king, or the Saracen Moor? May the cook fall asleep, and may all the viands be burnt!’5After this nothing would go right in the kitchen; every day all the dishes got burnt, and it was impossible to give the wedding banquet, because there was nothing fit to send up to the table. Then the king’s son came into the kitchen to learn what had happened, and they showed him the dove which had done all. ‘Sweet little dove!’ said the prince, and, catching it in his hand, began to caress it; thus he felt the pin in its head, and pulled it out. Instantly his own fair maiden stood before him, white as snow, rosy as blood. Then the mystery was cleared up, and there was great rejoicing, and the old witch was burnt.[This story, besides its similarities with those mentioned in note of the foregoing, is substantially the same as ‘Die weisse u. die schwarze Braut’ in Grimm (with his ‘Schneeweisschen u. Rosenroth’ it seems to have nothing in common, though the words ‘Snow-white and rose-red’ suggest it); but its commencement is different. The German Tale of Sneewittchen (Grimm,p. 206 has also much similarity with it: a queen sat working in a window framed with ebony; she pricks her finger, and three drops of blood that fall on the snow suggest the wish that her child may be fair as snow, red as blood, and her hair as dark as ebony. Her wishes are fulfilled, and she dies. She is succeeded by a witch-stepmother, from whom the child of wishes suffers many things, but the witch is ultimately danced to death in red-hot iron shoes. A link between them is supplied by the next following, in which the opening agrees with the German story. In Schneller’s ‘Legends of the Italian Tirol’ are two, with a title similar to the Roman one. In the first (‘I tre aranci’) the girl becomes the property of a fairy, as in Filagranata. She is sent to fetch three oranges, which she does by the help of five gifts given her by an old man; but the whole ends in the good child wishing as her only reward to be restored to her mother. The other is called ‘L’amor dei tre aranci.’ In this the prince breaks a witch’s milkjug while playing at ball, and in revenge she tells him he shall not marry till he finds ‘the Love of the three oranges,’ which he similarly obtains by the help of five gifts received of an old woman; when he opens them, the story goes on just like the Roman one, the verse of the dove being a little different:—Cogo, bel cogo,Endormeazate al fogo,Che l’arrosto se possa brusar,E la fiola (figlia) della stria non ne possa magnar.and there is nothing about ‘fair as snow, rosy as blood,’ in it. He has another, ‘Quel dalla coda di oro,’ in which three golden apples or balls play a prominent part, but it belongs to another group. A second version of this, entitled ‘I pomid’oro,’ however, is a strange mixture of the various Tirolean and Roman versions.The Hungarian story of ‘Vas Laczi’ (Iron Ladislas) begins, like ‘L’amor dei tre aranci,’ by a young prince getting into a scrape with a witch, this time by breaking her basket of eggs. His punishment is the fulfilment of his first wish, and his first wish happens to be a pettish one, that the earth might swallow up his three sisters; as one of them is said to be always dressed like the sun, the second like the moon, and the third like the stars, we havea link with the German Marienkind and the Tirolean Klein-Else. Afterwards Iron Ladislas goes in search of his sisters, and encounters many heroic adventures and many transformations, in one of which a tree in a dragon’s garden with golden apples is a prominent detail.A tree with golden fruit is also an important incident in the principal and most popular of Hungarian myths, that of ‘Tündér Ilona’ (Fairy Helen). As it is seen depicted on the thirteen compartments of the grand staircase walls of the National Club at Pest,Tündér Ilonaappears in the first as the Goddess or Queen of Summer held in thrall by the stern witch the Goddess or Queen of Winter. She is seen planting in the territory of the Earth-King a tree which represents her earnest longings after freedom, and committing it to the benign influence of the Sun-King.The second shows this mystical tree bearing its golden fruit, which the beautiful Fairy, as if ashamed of her boldness, is hasting to pluck off, borne on a chariot formed of obedient swans. The Wind-genius wafts poppy seeds over the eyes of the armed guard the Winter-Queen had set round the tree, and lulls them to sleep.In the third Argilus, the Earth-Prince, is seen surprising in his (up till then vain) nightly attempt to gather the golden fruit,Tündér Ilona’sdeparting convoy. He aims an arrow at the coy plunderer; then suddenly a glance from her pierces his heart instead, and he lets the arrow harmlessly strike the ground.The fourth portrays the happy union ofIlonaand Argilus, Summer and Earth; but the Winter-Queen comes by enraged at their successful defiance of her, and cuts offIlona’sbeautiful golden locks. (The people have it that these locks borne along by the winds planted the Puszta with the beautiful long feathery grass which they call ‘Orphan-girl’s hair’). In the distance are seen the parents of the Earth-Prince hurrying forward in search of their son.The fifth showsTündér Ilonawaking from her delicious slumber, and on discovering the loss of the mantle of her hair, hasting back in agony to her swan-chariot. Argilus in vain stretches out his arms after her, and prays her to remain always with him.In the sixth the scene is changed to the dwelling of the Earth-King. Prince Argilus is taking leave of his parents as he starts on his perilous journey, determined to deliver the captive Fairy.In the seventh the Earth-Prince has advanced on his journey as far as the dwelling of a giant, of whom he asks counsel, and who appoints him three witches to show the way to regain theTündér.In the eighth he is seen victorious in a late conflict with three giants, from each of whom he has succeeded in gaining an instrument necessary for his purpose; from one a switch, from another a pipe, from the third a conjuring mantle. The giants throw down masses of rock upon him, but he spreads out the conjuring mantle, and committing himself to it, floats securely through the air.In the ninth Argilus has reached the Winter-Witch’s border, and prepares to engage in combat with the dragon who guards it.The tenth is highly sensational. The Winter-Witch has thrown a deep sleep over him, and the poor Summer-Fairy strives to awaken him in vain.In the eleventh the ardent desires ofTündér Ilonahave prevailed over all the enchantments of the Winter-Witch, and at her prayer there rises up from the innermost region of the earth the fairy Iron-Queen, who brings the Tátos, the winged magic horse who is to bear the Prince through all dangers to certain victory.The twelfth shows Argilus andIlonaonce more united, enthroned side by side, and subjects bearing them offerings.The thirteenth is a large composition symbolising the mystic union of Earth and Summer, whence sprang, says the myth, Autumn with her abundant fruits, and the great god Pan, the author of all productiveness, who called the land of his birth after his own name and blessed it with fecundity above all nations of the earth. The tree of golden fruit, the first occasion of the auspicious meeting which led to this union, is again introduced, andTündér Ilonais again clothed in her luxuriant mantle of golden hair.]

They say there was a king’s son who went out to hunt.2It was a winter’s day, and the ground was covered with snow, so that when he brought down the birds with his arquebuse the red blood made beautiful bright marks on the dazzling white snow.

‘How beautiful!’ exclaimed the prince. ‘Never willI marry till I find one with a complexion fair as this snow, and tinted like this rosy blood.’

When his day’s sport was at an end, he went home and told his parents that he was going to wander over the world till he found one fair as snow, tinted like rosy blood. The parents approved his design and sent him forth.

On, on, on he went, till one day he met a little old woman, who stopped him, saying: ‘Whither so fast, fair prince?’

He replied, ‘I walk the earth till I find one who is fair as snow, tinted like rosy blood, to make her my wife.’

‘That can I help you to, and I alone,’ said the little old woman, who was a fairy; and then she gave him the three love-oranges, telling him that when he opened one such a maiden as he was in search of would appear, but he must immediately look for water and sprinkle her, or she would disappear again.

The prince took the oranges, and wandered on. On, on, on he went, till at last the fancy took him to break open one of the oranges. Immediately a beautiful maiden appeared, whose complexion was indeed fair as snow, and tinted like rosy blood, but it was only when she had already disappeared that he recollected about the water. It was too late, so on he wandered again till the fancy took him to open another orange. Instantly another maiden appeared, fairer than the other, and he lost no time in looking for water to sprinkle her, but there was none, and before he came back from the search she was gone.

On he wandered again till he was nearly home, when one day he noticed a handsome fountain standing by the road, and over against it a fine palace. The sight of the fountain made him think of his third orange, and he took it out and broke it open.

Instantly a third maiden appeared, far fairer than either of the others; with the water of the fountain hesprinkled her the moment she appeared, and she vanished not, but staid with him and loved him.

Then he said, ‘You must stay here in this bower while I go on home and fetch a retinue worthy to escort you.’

In a palace opposite the fountain lived a black Saracen woman,3and just then she went down to the fountain to draw water, and as she looked into the water she said, ‘My mistress says that I am so ugly, but I am so fair, therefore I break the pitcher and the little pitcher.’4

Then she looked up in the bower, and seeing the beautiful maiden, she called her down, and caressed her, and stroked her hair, and praised her beauty; but as she stroked her hair she took out a magic pin, and stuck it into her head, and instantly the maiden became a dove and perched on the side of the fountain.

Then she broke the pitcher and the little pitcher, and the prince came back.

When the prince saw the ugly black woman standing in the bower where he had left his beautiful maiden, he was quite bewildered, and looked all about for her.

‘I am she whom you seek, prince,’ said the woman. ‘It is the sun has changed me thus while standing here waiting for you; but all will come right when I get away from the sun.’

The prince did not know what to make of it, but there was no help for it but to take her and trust to her coming right when she got away from the sun. He took her home, therefore, and right grand preparations were made for the royal marriage. Tapestries were hung on the walls, and flowers strewed the floor, while in the kitchen was the cook as busy as a bee, preparing I know not how many dishes for the royal banquet.

Then, lo, there came and perched on the kitchen window a little dove, and sang, ‘Cook, cook, for whom are you cooking; for the son of the king, or the Saracen Moor? May the cook fall asleep, and may all the viands be burnt!’5

After this nothing would go right in the kitchen; every day all the dishes got burnt, and it was impossible to give the wedding banquet, because there was nothing fit to send up to the table. Then the king’s son came into the kitchen to learn what had happened, and they showed him the dove which had done all. ‘Sweet little dove!’ said the prince, and, catching it in his hand, began to caress it; thus he felt the pin in its head, and pulled it out. Instantly his own fair maiden stood before him, white as snow, rosy as blood. Then the mystery was cleared up, and there was great rejoicing, and the old witch was burnt.

[This story, besides its similarities with those mentioned in note of the foregoing, is substantially the same as ‘Die weisse u. die schwarze Braut’ in Grimm (with his ‘Schneeweisschen u. Rosenroth’ it seems to have nothing in common, though the words ‘Snow-white and rose-red’ suggest it); but its commencement is different. The German Tale of Sneewittchen (Grimm,p. 206 has also much similarity with it: a queen sat working in a window framed with ebony; she pricks her finger, and three drops of blood that fall on the snow suggest the wish that her child may be fair as snow, red as blood, and her hair as dark as ebony. Her wishes are fulfilled, and she dies. She is succeeded by a witch-stepmother, from whom the child of wishes suffers many things, but the witch is ultimately danced to death in red-hot iron shoes. A link between them is supplied by the next following, in which the opening agrees with the German story. In Schneller’s ‘Legends of the Italian Tirol’ are two, with a title similar to the Roman one. In the first (‘I tre aranci’) the girl becomes the property of a fairy, as in Filagranata. She is sent to fetch three oranges, which she does by the help of five gifts given her by an old man; but the whole ends in the good child wishing as her only reward to be restored to her mother. The other is called ‘L’amor dei tre aranci.’ In this the prince breaks a witch’s milkjug while playing at ball, and in revenge she tells him he shall not marry till he finds ‘the Love of the three oranges,’ which he similarly obtains by the help of five gifts received of an old woman; when he opens them, the story goes on just like the Roman one, the verse of the dove being a little different:—

Cogo, bel cogo,Endormeazate al fogo,Che l’arrosto se possa brusar,E la fiola (figlia) della stria non ne possa magnar.

Cogo, bel cogo,

Endormeazate al fogo,

Che l’arrosto se possa brusar,

E la fiola (figlia) della stria non ne possa magnar.

and there is nothing about ‘fair as snow, rosy as blood,’ in it. He has another, ‘Quel dalla coda di oro,’ in which three golden apples or balls play a prominent part, but it belongs to another group. A second version of this, entitled ‘I pomid’oro,’ however, is a strange mixture of the various Tirolean and Roman versions.

The Hungarian story of ‘Vas Laczi’ (Iron Ladislas) begins, like ‘L’amor dei tre aranci,’ by a young prince getting into a scrape with a witch, this time by breaking her basket of eggs. His punishment is the fulfilment of his first wish, and his first wish happens to be a pettish one, that the earth might swallow up his three sisters; as one of them is said to be always dressed like the sun, the second like the moon, and the third like the stars, we havea link with the German Marienkind and the Tirolean Klein-Else. Afterwards Iron Ladislas goes in search of his sisters, and encounters many heroic adventures and many transformations, in one of which a tree in a dragon’s garden with golden apples is a prominent detail.

A tree with golden fruit is also an important incident in the principal and most popular of Hungarian myths, that of ‘Tündér Ilona’ (Fairy Helen). As it is seen depicted on the thirteen compartments of the grand staircase walls of the National Club at Pest,Tündér Ilonaappears in the first as the Goddess or Queen of Summer held in thrall by the stern witch the Goddess or Queen of Winter. She is seen planting in the territory of the Earth-King a tree which represents her earnest longings after freedom, and committing it to the benign influence of the Sun-King.

The second shows this mystical tree bearing its golden fruit, which the beautiful Fairy, as if ashamed of her boldness, is hasting to pluck off, borne on a chariot formed of obedient swans. The Wind-genius wafts poppy seeds over the eyes of the armed guard the Winter-Queen had set round the tree, and lulls them to sleep.

In the third Argilus, the Earth-Prince, is seen surprising in his (up till then vain) nightly attempt to gather the golden fruit,Tündér Ilona’sdeparting convoy. He aims an arrow at the coy plunderer; then suddenly a glance from her pierces his heart instead, and he lets the arrow harmlessly strike the ground.

The fourth portrays the happy union ofIlonaand Argilus, Summer and Earth; but the Winter-Queen comes by enraged at their successful defiance of her, and cuts offIlona’sbeautiful golden locks. (The people have it that these locks borne along by the winds planted the Puszta with the beautiful long feathery grass which they call ‘Orphan-girl’s hair’). In the distance are seen the parents of the Earth-Prince hurrying forward in search of their son.

The fifth showsTündér Ilonawaking from her delicious slumber, and on discovering the loss of the mantle of her hair, hasting back in agony to her swan-chariot. Argilus in vain stretches out his arms after her, and prays her to remain always with him.

In the sixth the scene is changed to the dwelling of the Earth-King. Prince Argilus is taking leave of his parents as he starts on his perilous journey, determined to deliver the captive Fairy.

In the seventh the Earth-Prince has advanced on his journey as far as the dwelling of a giant, of whom he asks counsel, and who appoints him three witches to show the way to regain theTündér.

In the eighth he is seen victorious in a late conflict with three giants, from each of whom he has succeeded in gaining an instrument necessary for his purpose; from one a switch, from another a pipe, from the third a conjuring mantle. The giants throw down masses of rock upon him, but he spreads out the conjuring mantle, and committing himself to it, floats securely through the air.

In the ninth Argilus has reached the Winter-Witch’s border, and prepares to engage in combat with the dragon who guards it.

The tenth is highly sensational. The Winter-Witch has thrown a deep sleep over him, and the poor Summer-Fairy strives to awaken him in vain.

In the eleventh the ardent desires ofTündér Ilonahave prevailed over all the enchantments of the Winter-Witch, and at her prayer there rises up from the innermost region of the earth the fairy Iron-Queen, who brings the Tátos, the winged magic horse who is to bear the Prince through all dangers to certain victory.

The twelfth shows Argilus andIlonaonce more united, enthroned side by side, and subjects bearing them offerings.

The thirteenth is a large composition symbolising the mystic union of Earth and Summer, whence sprang, says the myth, Autumn with her abundant fruits, and the great god Pan, the author of all productiveness, who called the land of his birth after his own name and blessed it with fecundity above all nations of the earth. The tree of golden fruit, the first occasion of the auspicious meeting which led to this union, is again introduced, andTündér Ilonais again clothed in her luxuriant mantle of golden hair.]

1‘I tre Melangoli di amore;’melangolo or merangolo, or merangola, an ungrafted orange. See note to ‘Filagranata.’↑2‘Caccia,’ though usually translated by ‘hunt,’ is used for all kinds of sport. Bazzarini says it even includes ‘pallone’ and other games; but it is in common use for shooting small birds as for hunting quadrupeds.↑3‘Mora Saracena,’ a black Saracen woman; ‘mora’ is in constant use for a dark-coloured person. Senhor de Saraiva tells me that a so-called ‘Mora encantada’ figures as one of the favourite personages in Portuguese traditionary tales; but she is less often an actual Moor than a princess held in thrall by Moorish art, to be set free by Christian chivalry. She is often represented as bound at the bottom of a well.↑4Mia padrona dice che son tanta brutta,E son tanta bella,Io rompo la brocca e la brocchetta.This verse would be hardly comprehensible but that the incident is better explained in the more detailed versions of other countries mentioned in note to the last tale. The ugly ‘Mora’ sees the reflection of the face of the beautiful maiden who sits in the tree overlooking the fountain, and takes it for her own. See Campbell’sTales of the W. Highlands, pp. 56–7, &c.↑5Cuoco, cuoco, per chi cucinate,Pel figlio del rè o per la mora Saracena?Il cuoco si possa dormentar’,E le vivande si possano bruciar’.↑

1‘I tre Melangoli di amore;’melangolo or merangolo, or merangola, an ungrafted orange. See note to ‘Filagranata.’↑

2‘Caccia,’ though usually translated by ‘hunt,’ is used for all kinds of sport. Bazzarini says it even includes ‘pallone’ and other games; but it is in common use for shooting small birds as for hunting quadrupeds.↑

3‘Mora Saracena,’ a black Saracen woman; ‘mora’ is in constant use for a dark-coloured person. Senhor de Saraiva tells me that a so-called ‘Mora encantada’ figures as one of the favourite personages in Portuguese traditionary tales; but she is less often an actual Moor than a princess held in thrall by Moorish art, to be set free by Christian chivalry. She is often represented as bound at the bottom of a well.↑

4

Mia padrona dice che son tanta brutta,E son tanta bella,Io rompo la brocca e la brocchetta.

Mia padrona dice che son tanta brutta,E son tanta bella,Io rompo la brocca e la brocchetta.

Mia padrona dice che son tanta brutta,E son tanta bella,Io rompo la brocca e la brocchetta.

Mia padrona dice che son tanta brutta,E son tanta bella,Io rompo la brocca e la brocchetta.

Mia padrona dice che son tanta brutta,

E son tanta bella,

Io rompo la brocca e la brocchetta.

This verse would be hardly comprehensible but that the incident is better explained in the more detailed versions of other countries mentioned in note to the last tale. The ugly ‘Mora’ sees the reflection of the face of the beautiful maiden who sits in the tree overlooking the fountain, and takes it for her own. See Campbell’sTales of the W. Highlands, pp. 56–7, &c.↑

5

Cuoco, cuoco, per chi cucinate,Pel figlio del rè o per la mora Saracena?Il cuoco si possa dormentar’,E le vivande si possano bruciar’.

Cuoco, cuoco, per chi cucinate,Pel figlio del rè o per la mora Saracena?Il cuoco si possa dormentar’,E le vivande si possano bruciar’.

Cuoco, cuoco, per chi cucinate,Pel figlio del rè o per la mora Saracena?Il cuoco si possa dormentar’,E le vivande si possano bruciar’.

Cuoco, cuoco, per chi cucinate,Pel figlio del rè o per la mora Saracena?Il cuoco si possa dormentar’,E le vivande si possano bruciar’.

Cuoco, cuoco, per chi cucinate,

Pel figlio del rè o per la mora Saracena?

Il cuoco si possa dormentar’,

E le vivande si possano bruciar’.

↑

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