LA CANDELIERA.1

LA CANDELIERA.1They say there was once a king who wanted to make his beautiful young daughter marry an old, ugly king. Every time the king talked to his daughter about this marriage, she cried and begged him to spare her; but he only went on urging her the more, till at last she feared he would command her to consent, so that she might not disobey; therefore at last she said: ‘Before I marry this ugly old king to please you, you must do something to please me.’‘Oh, anything you like I will do,’ replied he.‘Then you must order for me,’ she replied, ‘a splendidcandelabrum, ten feet high, having a thick stem bigger than a man, and covered all over with all kinds of ornaments and devices in gold.’‘That shall be done,’ said the king; and he sent for the chief goldsmith of the court, and told him to make such a candelabrum; and, as he was very desirous that the marriage should be celebrated without delay, he urged him to make the candelabrum with all despatch.In a very short space of time the goldsmith brought home the candelabrum, made according to the princess’s description, and the king ordered it to be taken into his daughter’s apartment. The princess expressed herself quite pleased with it, and the king was satisfied that the marriage would now shortly take place.Late in the evening, however, the princess called her chamberlain to her, and said to him: ‘This great awkward candlestick is not the sort of thing I wanted; it does not please me at all. To-morrow morning you may take it and sell it, for I cannot bear the sight of it. You may keep the price it sells for, whatever it is; but you had better take it away early, before my father gets up.’The chamberlain was very pleased to get so great a perquisite, and got up very early to carry it away. The princess, however, had got up earlier, and had placed herself inside the candlestick; so that she was carried out of the palace by the chamberlain, and thus she escaped the marriage she dreaded so much with the ugly old king.The chamberlain, judging that the king would be very angry if he heard of his selling the splendid candelabrum he had just had made, did not venture to expose it for sale within the borders of his dominions, but carried it to the capital of the neighbouring sovereign. Here he set it up in the market-place, and cried, ‘Who’ll buy my candelabrum? Who’ll buy my fine candelabrum?’ When all the people saw what a costly candelabrum it was, no one would offer for it. At last it got bruited about till itreached the ears of the son of the king of that country, that there was a man standing in the market-place, offering to sell the most splendid candelabrum that ever was seen; so he went out to look at it himself.No sooner had the prince seen it than he determined that he must have it; so he bought it for the price of three hundred scudi, and sent his servants to take it up into his apartment. After that, he went about his affairs as usual. In the evening, however, he said to his body-servant, ‘As I am going to the play to-night, and shall be home late, take my supper up into my own room.’ And the servant did as he told him.When the prince came home from the play, he was very much surprised to find his supper eaten and all the dishes and glasses disarranged.‘What is the meaning of this?’ he exclaimed, calling his servant to him in a great fury. ‘Is this the way you prepare supper for me?’‘I don’t know what to say, your Royal Highness,’ stammered the man; ‘I saw the supper properly laid myself. How it got into this condition is more than I can say. With the leave of your Highness, I will order the table to be relaid.’But the prince was too angry to allow anything of the sort, and he went supperless to bed.The next night the same thing happened, and the prince in his displeasure threatened to discharge his servant. The night after, however, his curiosity being greatly excited as he thought over the circumstance, he called his servant, and said: ‘Lay the supper before I go out, and I will lock the room and take the key in my pocket, and we will see if anyone gets in then.’But, though this is what he said outloud, he determined to stay hidden within the room; and this is what he did. He had not remained there hidden very long when, lo and behold, the candelabrum, on which he hadnever bestowed a thought since the moment he bought it, opened, and there walked out the most beautiful princess he had ever seen, who sat down at the table, and began to sup with hearty appetite.‘Welcome, welcome, fair princess!’ exclaimed the astonished prince. ‘You have heard me from within your hiding-place speaking with indignation because my meal had been disturbed. How little did I imagine such an honour had been done me as that it should have served you!’ And he sat down beside her, and they finished the meal together. When it was over, the princess went away into her candelabrum again; and the next night the prince said to his servant: ‘In case anyone eats my supper while I am out, you had better bring up a double portion.’ The next day he had not his supper only, but all his meals, brought into his apartment; nor did he ever leave it at all now, so happy was he in the society of the princess.Then the king and queen began to question about him, saying: ‘What has bereft our son of his senses, seeing that now he no more follows the due occupations of his years, but sits all day apart in his room?’Then they called him to them and said: ‘It is not well that you should sit thus all day long in your private apartments alone. It is time that you should bethink yourself of taking a wife.’But the prince answered, ‘No other wife will I have but the candelabrum.’When his parents heard him say this they said: ‘Now there is no doubt that he is mad;’ and they spoke no more about his marrying.But one day, the queen-mother coming into his apartment suddenly, found the door of the candelabrum open, and the princess sitting talking with the prince. Then she, too, was struck with her beauty, and said: ‘If this is what you were thinking of when you said you wouldmarry the candelabrum, it was well judged.’ And she took the princess by the hand and led her to the presence of the king. The king, too, praised her beauty, and she was given to the prince to be his wife.And the king her father, when he heard of the alliance, he too was right glad, and said he esteemed it far above that of the ugly old king he wanted her to have married at the first.[The mode of telling adopted by Roman narrators makes a way out of the difficulty which this group of stories presents at first sight in the king seeming to be fated by supernatural appointment to marry his daughter. One says, ‘the queen did not say he was to marry her the ring fitted, but he was not to marry any it did not fit.’ The other says, the slipper was a supernatural slipper, and would not fit anyone whom he could marry. Whether this was a part of the traditional story or the gloss of the repeater, I do not pretend to decide. In the ‘Candeliera,’ though similar in the main, this difficulty does not arise.My Roman narrators seem to have been fonder of stories of maidens than of youths. I have only one of the latter, and by no means an uncommon one, to set off against all the Stepmother stories of the former. It, however, is the male counterpart of a prolific family in which the girls figure under similar circumstances. Grimm gives several, particularly ‘Frau Holle,’ p. 104. Dr. Dasent gives ‘The two Stepsisters.’ In the Tales of Italian Tirol are two, ‘Cölla döllö doi sores’ and ‘Le due sorelle.’ And among the Russian Tales, ‘Frost,’ p. 214. It has also been connected with the large group in which a rich brother (sometimes the elder, sometimes the younger) leaves his poor brother to starve, and ultimately gets terribly punished for enviously grasping at the poor one’s subsequent good fortune: but the structure of these is very different.]1Among the licenses which Italians take with the terminations of their words, not the least is altering the gender. ‘Candeliere’ (masc.), otherwise ‘candelliere,’ is the proper form; and I do not think ‘candeliera’ will be found in any dictionary; but as the story requires the female gender, the word is readily coined.↑THE TWO HUNCHBACKED BROTHERS.1There was once a man who had one son, who married a widow who also had one son, and both were hunchbacks. The wife took very good care of her own son, but the son of her husband she used to put to hard work and gave him scarcely anything to eat. Her son, too, used to imitate his mother, and sadly ill-treat his stepbrother.After treating him ill for a long time, she at last sent him away from the house altogether.The poor little hunchback wandered away without knowing where to go.On, on, on he went, till at last he came to a lonely hut on a wide moor. At his approach a whole host of little hunchbacks came out and danced round him, chanting plaintively—Sabbato!Domenica!a great number of times. At last our little hunchback felt his courage stirred, and, taking up the note of their chant, chimed in with—Lunedì!Instantly the dancing ceased, all the little hunchback dwarfs became full-grown, well-formed men, and, what was better still, his own hump was gone too, and he felt that he, too, was a well-grown lad.‘Good people,’ said our hunchback—now hunchbacked no more—‘I thank you much for ridding me of my hump and making me a well-grown lad. Give me now some work to do among you, and let me live with you.’But the chief of the strange people answered him and said: ‘This favour we owe to you, not you to us; for it was your chiming in with the right word on the right note which destroyed the spell that held us all. And in testimonyof our gratitude we give you further this little wand, and you will not need to work with us. Go back and live at home, and if ever anyone beats you as heretofore, you have only to say to it, “At ’em, good stick!”2and you will see what it will do for you.’Then all disappeared, and the boy went home.‘So you’ve come back, have you?’ said the stepmother. ‘What, and without your hump, too! Where have you left that?’Then the good boy told her all that had happened, without hiding anything.‘Do you hear that?’ said the stepmother to her own son. ‘Now go you and get rid of your hump in the same way.’So the second hunchback went forth, and journeyed on till he came to the lonely hut on the moor.A tribe of hunchbacks came out and danced round him, and sung—Sabbato!Domenica!Lunedì!to which the bad son of the stepmother added in his rough voice, all out of tune—Martedì!Immediately all the hunchbacks came round him and gave him a drubbing, and the chief of them stuck on him a hump in front as well as behind.Thus they sent him home to his mother.When his mother saw him come home in this plight, she turned upon the stepson and abused him for having misled her son to injure him; and both mother and son set upon him and belaboured him after their wont. But he had only told the truth, without intention to deceive; and the stepmother’s son had incurred the anger of the dwarfs by his discordant addition to their chant. So the first hero took out his wand and said, ‘At ’em, good stick!’ andthe wand flew out of his hand and administered on mother and son a sounder drubbing than that they had themselves been administering. Ever after that he was able to live at home in peace, for everyone was afraid to injure him because of the power of his stick.[Next we have a group where a younger sister of three comes to supernatural good fortune, without any previous envy or ill-treatment on the part of her elders.]1‘I due Fratelli Gobbi.’↑2‘Bachettone mena!’ Perhaps the greatest stumbling-block in the way of acquiring familiarity with the art of conversing in Italian is the capricious use of the augmentative and diminutive terminations of words. Scarcely any substantive or adjective comes out of the mouth of an Italian without qualifications of this sort, making the spoken quite different from the written language. A foreigner can never arrive at the right use of these, because they have to be made up at the moment of use, upon no established laws, but entirely by a sort of instinctive perception of fitness. At Note 1 and 3 to ‘Il Poveretto,’ and other places, I have given some specimens of some of the most ordinary of these transformations. In the instance before us, ‘bacchettone,’ from ‘bacchetta,’ a rod, presents two distinct irregularities. The augmentative of a feminine noun never ought strictly to be ‘ona;’ but there are numerous instances, scarcely to be remembered under the largest practice, in which a feminine noun takes a masculine augmentative. ‘Bacchetta’ happens to be one of these. Next, the addition ‘one’ would ordinarily express that the thing to whose designation it was added was particularly big; yet in this instance it is applied to alittle wand; it is clear, therefore, that it no longer means ‘big,’ but ‘singular,’ ‘remarkable’ in some way or other; best rendered in English by ‘good stick.’ ‘Menare,’ whence ‘mena,’ is a word of many meanings, which, though they may be all traced to the same original idea, must not be confounded. In common parlance, as in the present case, it means to beat; and ‘menar moglie’ is a common expression too; but it does not mean ‘to beat your wife,’ but ‘to lead home a wife,’ or, as we say, to ‘take a wife.’ The primary meaning is ‘to lead;’ hence, to govern; hence, to govern harshly; hence, to govern with violence; hence, to spite, to beat. One sentence in which it is used recalls a capricious use of our own word ‘to beat.’ ‘Menar’ il cane per l’aja’ (literally, to lead the dog all about the threshing-floor), answers exactly to our expression, ‘tobeatabout the bush’ in talking. ‘Menare’ and ‘dimenare, la coda,’ is said also of a dog wagging his tail. On the other hand, ‘menare per il naso’ (literally, ‘to lead one by the nose’), has by no means the signification those words bear in English, but implies a roundabout way of giving an account of anything.↑THE DARK KING.1They say there was once a poor chicory-gatherer who went out every day with his wife and his three daughters to gather chicory to sell for salad. Once, at Carneval time, he said, ‘We must gather a fine good lot to-day,’ and they all dispersed themselves about trying to do their best. The youngest daughter thus came to a place apart where the chicory was of a much finer growth than any she had ever seen before. ‘This will be grand!’ she said to herself, as she prepared to pull up the finest plant of it. But what was her surprise when with the plant, up came all the earth round it and a great hole only remained!When she peeped down into it timidly she was further surprised to find it was no dark cave below as she had apprehended, but a bright apartment handsomely furnished, and a most appetising meal spread out on the table, there was, moreover, a commodious staircase reaching to the soil on which she stood, to descend by.All fear was quickly overcome by the pleasant sight, and the girl at once prepared to descend, and, as no one appeared, to raise any objection, she sat down quite boldly and partook of the good food. As soon as she had finished eating, the tables were cleared away by invisible hands, and, as she had nothing else to do she wandered about the place looking at everything. After she had passed through several brilliant rooms she came to a passage, out of which led several store-chambers, where was laid up a good supply of everything that could serve in a house. In some there were provisions of all sorts, in some stuffs both for clothes and furniture.‘There seems to be no one to own all these fine things,’ said the girl. ‘What a boon they would be at home!’ and she put together all that would be most useful to her mother. But what was her dismay when she went backto the dining-hall to find that the staircase by which she had descended was no longer there!At this sight she sat down and had a good cry, but by-and-by, supper-time came, and with it an excellent supper, served in as mysterious a way as the dinner; and as a good supper was a rare enjoyment for her, she almost forgot her grief while discussing it. After that, invisible hands led her into a bedroom, where she was gently undressed and put to bed without seeing anyone. In the morning she was put in a bath and dressed by invisible hands, but dressed like a princess all in beautiful clothes.So it all went on for at least three months; every luxury she could wish was provided without stint, but as she never saw anyone she began to get weary, and at lastsoweary that she could do nothing but cry. At the sound of her crying there came into the room a great black King.2Though he was so dark and so big that she was frightened at the sight of him, he spoke very kindly, and asked her why she cried so bitterly, and whether she was not provided with everything she could desire. As she hardly knew herself why she cried, she did not know what to answer him, but only went on whimpering. Then he said, ‘You have not seen half the extent of this palace yet or you would not be so weary; here are the keys of all the locked rooms which you have not been into yet. Amuse yourself as much as you like in going through them; they are all just like your own. Only into the room of which the key is not among these do not try to enter. In all the rest do what you like.’The next morning she took the keys and went into one of the locked rooms, and there she found so many things to surprise and amuse her that she spent the whole day there, and the next day she examined another, and so on for quite three months together, and the locked room of which she had not the key she never thought of trying to enter. But all amusements tire at last, and at the end ofthis time she was so melancholy that she could do nothing but cry. Then the Dark King came again and asked her tenderly what she wanted.‘I want nothing you can give me,’ she replied this time. ‘I am tired of being so long away from home. I want to go back home.’‘But remember how badly you were clothed, and how poorly you fared,’ replied the Dark King.‘Ah, I know it is much pleasanter here,’ said the girl, ‘for all those matters, but one cannot do without seeing one’s relations, now and then at least.’‘If you make such a point of it,’ answered the Dark King, ‘you shall go home and see papa and mamma, but you will come back here. I only let you go on that condition.’The arrangement was accepted, and next day she was driven home in a fine coach with prancing horses and bright harness. Her appearance at home caused so much astonishment that there was hardly room for pleasure, and even her own mother would hardly acknowledge her; as for her sisters, they were so changed by her altered circumstances and so filled with jealousy they would scarcely speak to her. But when she gave her mother a large pot of gold which the Dark King had given her for the purpose, their hearts were somewhat won back to her, and they began to ask all manner of questions concerning what had befallen her during her absence. So much time had been lost at first, however, that none was left for answering them, and, promising to try and come back to them soon, she drove away in her splendid coach.Another three months passed away after this, and at the end of it she was once more so weary, her tears and cries again called the Dark King to her side.Again she confided to him that her great grief was the wish to see her friends at home. She could not bear being so long without them. To content her once more hepromised to let her drive home the next day; and the next day accordingly she went home.This time she met with a better reception, and having brought out her pot of gold at her first arrival, everyone was full of anxiety to know how it came she had such riches at her disposal.‘What that pot of money!’ replied the girl, in a tone of disparagement. ‘That’s nothing. You should see the beautiful things that are scattered about in my new home, just like nothing at all;’ and then she went on to describe the magnificence of the place, till nothing would satisfy them but that they should go there too.‘That’s impossible,’ she replied. ‘I promised him not even to mention it.’‘But if he were got rid of,thenwe might come,’ replied the elder sisters.‘What do you mean by “got rid of”?’ asked the youngest.‘Why, it is evident he is some bad sort of enchanter, whom it would be well to rid the earth of. If you were to take this stiletto and put it into his breast when he is asleep, we might all come down there and be happy together.’‘Oh, I could never do that!’‘Ah, you are so selfish you want to keep all for yourself. If you had any spirit in you, you would burst open that locked door where, you may depend the best of the treasure is concealed, and then put this stiletto into the old enchanter, and call us all down to live with you.’It was in vain she protested she could not be so ungrateful and cruel; they over-persuaded her with their arguments, and frightened her so with their reproaches that she went back resolved to do their bidding.The next morning she called up all her courage and pushed open the closed door. Inside were a number of beautiful maidens weaving glittering raiment.‘What are you doing?’ asked the chicory-gatherer.‘Making raiment for the bride of the Dark King against her espousals,’ replied the maidens.A little further on was a goldsmith and all his men working at all sorts of splendid ornaments filled with pearls and diamonds and rubies.‘What are you doing?’ asked the girl.‘Making ornaments for the bride of the Dark King against her espousals,’ replied the goldsmiths.A little further on was a little old hunchback sitting crosslegged, and patching an old torn coat with a heap of other worn-out clothes lying about him.‘What are you doing?’ asked the maiden.‘Mending the rags for the girl to go away in who was to have been the bride of the Dark King,’ replied the little old hunchback.Beyond the room where this was going on was a passage, and at the end of this a door, which she also pushed open. It gave entrance to a room where, on a bed, the Dark King lay asleep.‘This is the time to apply the stiletto my sisters gave me,’ thought the maiden. ‘I shall never have so good a chance again. They said he was a horrid old enchanter; let me see if he looks like one.’So saying she took one of the tapers from a golden bracket and held it near his face. It was true enough; his skin was black, his hair was grizly and rough, his features crabbed and forbidding.‘They’re right, there’s no doubt. It were better the earth were rid of him, as they say,’ she said within herself; and, steeling herself with this reflection, she plunged the knife into his breast.But as she wielded the weapon with the right hand, the left, in which she held the lighted taper, wavered, and some of the scalding wax fell on the forehead of the Dark King. The dropping of the wax3woke him; andwhen he saw the blood flowing from his breast, and perceived what she had done, he said sadly,‘Why have you done this? I meant well by you and really loved you, and thought if I fulfilled all you desire, you would in time have loved me. But it is over now. You must leave this place, and go back to be again what you were before.’Then he called servants, and bade them dress her again in her poor chicory-gatherer’s dress, and send her up to earth again; and it was done. But as they were about to lead her away, he said again,‘Yet one thing I will do. Take these three hairs; and if ever you are in dire distress and peril of life with none to help, burn them, and I will come to deliver you.’Then they took her back to the dining-hall, where the staircase was seen as at the first, and when they touched the ceiling, it opened, and they pushed her through the opening, and she found herself in the place where she had been picking chicory on the day that she first found the Dark King’s palace.Only as they were leading her along, she had considered that it might be dangerous for her, a young girl, to be wandering about the face of the country alone, and she had, therefore, begged the servants to give her a man’s clothes instead of her own; and they gave her the worn-out clothes that she had seen the little old hunchback sitting crosslegged to mend.When she found herself on the chicory-bed it was in the cold of the early morning, and she set off walking towards her parents’ cottage. It was about midday when she arrived, and all the family were taking their meal. Poor as it was, it looked very tempting to her who had tasted nothing all the morning.‘Who are you?’ cried the mother, as she came up to the door.‘I’m your own child, your youngest daughter. Don’t you know me?’ cried the forlorn girl in alarm.‘A likely joke!’ laughed out the mother; ‘my daughter comes to see me in a gilded coach with prancing horses!’‘Had you asked for a bit of bread in the honest character of a beggar,’ pursued the father, ‘poor as I am, I would never have refused your weary, woebegone looks; but to attempt to deceive with such a falsehood is not to be tolerated;’ and he rose up, and drove the poor child away.Protests were vain, for no one recognised her under her disguise.Mournful and hopeless, she wandered away. On, on, on, she went, till at last she came to a palace in a great city, and in the stables were a number of grooms and their helpers rubbing down horses.‘Wouldn’t there be a place for me among all these boys?’ asked the little chicory-gatherer, plaintively. ‘I, too, could learn to rub down a horse if you taught me.’‘Well, you don’t look hardly strong enough to rub down a horse, my lad,’ answered the head-groom; ‘but you seem a civil-spoken sort of chap, so you may come in; I dare say we can find some sort of work for you.’So she went into the stable-yard, and helped the grooms of the palace.But every day the queen stood at a window of the palace where she could watch the fair stable-boy, and at last she sent and called the head-groom, and said to him, ‘What are you doing with that new boy in the stable-yard?’The head-groom said, ‘Please your Majesty he came and begged for work, and we took him to help.’Then the queen said, ‘He is not fit for that sort of work, send him to me.’So the chicory-gatherer was sent up to the queen, andthe queen gave her the post of master of the palace, and appointed a fine suite of apartments and a dress becoming the rank, and was never happy unless she had this new master of the palace with her.Now the king was gone to the wars, and had been a long time absent. One day the queen said to the master of the palace that very likely the king would not come back, so that it would be better they should marry.Then the poor chicory-gatherer was sadly afraid that if the queen discovered that she was a woman she would lose her fine place at the palace, and become a poor beggar again without a home; so she said nothing of this, but only reasoned with the queen that it was better to wait and see if the king did not come home. But as she continued saying this, and at the same time never showed any wish that the king might not come back, or that the marriage might take place, the queen grew sorely offended, and swore she would be avenged.Not long after, the king really did come back, covered with glory, from the wars. Now was the time for the queen to take her revenge.Choosing her opportunity, therefore, at the moment when the king was rejoicing that he had been permitted to come back to her again, with hypocritical tears she said,‘It is no small mercy, indeed, that your Majesty has found me again here as I am, for it had well-nigh been a very different case.’The king was instantly filled with burning indignation, and asked her further what her words meant.‘They mean,’ replied the queen, ‘that the master of the palace, on whom I had bestowed the office only because he seemed so simple, as you too must say he looks, presumed on my favour, and would have me marry him, urging that peradventure the king, who had been so long absent at the wars, might never return.’The king started to his feet at the words, placing his hand upon his sword in token of his wrath; but the queen went on:‘And when he found that I would not listen to his suit, he dared to assume a tone of command, and would have compelled me to consent; so that I had to call forth all my courage, and determination, and dignity, to keep him back; and had the King’s Majesty not been directed back to the palace as soon as he was, who knows where it might have ended!’It needed no more. The king ordered the master of the palace to be instantly thrown into prison, and appointed the next day for him to be beheaded.The chicory-gatherer was ready enough now to protest that she was a woman. But it helped nothing; they only laughed. And who could stand against the word of the queen?Next day, accordingly, the scaffold was raised, and the master of the palace was brought forth to be beheaded, the king and the queen, and all the court, being present.When the chicory-gatherer, therefore, found herself in dire need and peril of life, she took out one of the hairs the Dark King had given her, and burnt it in the flame of a torch. Instantly there was a distant roaring sound as of a tramp of troops and the roll of drums. Everyone started at the sound, and the executioner stayed his hand.Then the maiden burnt the second hair, and instantly a vast army surrounded the whole place; round the palace they marched and up to the scaffold, and so to the very throne of the king. The king had now something to think of besides giving the signal for the execution, and the headsman stayed his hand.Then the maiden burnt the third hair, and instantly the Dark King himself appeared upon the scene, clothedin shining armour, and fearful in majesty and might. And he said to the king,‘Who are you that you have given over my wife to the executioner?’And the king said,‘Who is thy wife that I should give her to the executioner?’The Dark King, taking the master of the palace by the hand, said,‘This is my wife. Touch her who dares!’Then the king knew that it had been true when the master of the palace had alleged that she was not guilty of the charge the queen had brought against her, being a woman; and seeing clearly what had been the malice of the queen, he ordered the executioner to behead her instead, but the chicory-gatherer he gave up to the Dark King.Then the Dark King said to the chicory-gatherer,‘I came at your bidding to defend you, and I said you were my wife to save your life; but whether you will be my wife or not depends on you. It is for you to say whether you will or not.’Then the maiden answered,‘You have been all goodness to me; ungrateful indeed should I be did I not, as I now do, say “yes.”’As soon as she said ‘yes,’ the earth shook, and she was no longer standing on a scaffold, but before an altar in a splendid cathedral, surrounded by a populous and flourishing city. By her side stood the Black King, but black no longer. He was now a most beautiful prince; for with all his kingdom he had been under enchantment, and the condition of his release had been that a fair maiden should give her free consent to marry him.41‘Il Rè Moro.’↑2‘Moro’ does not necessarily mean a Moor, it is continually used for any dark-complexioned person; also commonly for dark or black, as a pet name for a black dog, &c.↑3The ‘moccolaio.’↑4The narrator ended this story with the following stanza:—Si faceva le nozzeCon pane e tozze,E polla vermiciosa,E viva la sposa!This is one of those rough verses with which such stories abound, and they have been rendered rougher than they originally were by substituting words which serve to retain the jingle after those conveying the sense are forgotten, like many of our own nursery-rhymes. The literal rendering of this one would be, ‘So the marriage was celebrated with bread and hunches of bread, and a chicken stuffed with vermicelli. Long live the bride!’ ‘Vermiciosa’ is not a dictionary word; ‘vermicoloso’ is the nearest, and probably a corruption of the same. Of course, primarily it means ‘full of worms;’ but as all the forms of words compounded out of the diminutive of ‘verme,’ a worm, may be applied to the fine kind of maccaroni which bears the same name, I am more inclined to think a fowl stuffed or served up with maccaroni is meant here—if it have any meaning at all beyond the purpose of a rhyme—rather than ‘a wormy fowl,’ the literal interpretation.I have met this same ‘tag’ again and again in the mouths of various narrators at the end of stories which end in a marriage. Another such, familiarly used by every Roman narrator, is:—‘Stretta la foglia,Larga la via (often, ‘Stretta la via’),Dite la vostra, Larga la foglia,Ch’ ho detto la mia.’(‘Narrow the leaf, broad the way. Tell me your tale, for I’ve told you mine.’) Perhaps originally it was ‘Larga la voglia’ (my willingness is ample, but my means of amusing you are restricted).↑MONSU MOSTRO.1There was a father who had three daughters, and when all trades failed, he said he would go and gather chicory, and called his daughters to go with him. But it was a wet day, and they begged to be left at home; so he went alone.He went out into the fields till he came to a place where was the biggest plant of chicory that ever was seen. ‘That will do for me,’ he said, and began to pull it up.Up it came by the root and left a hole in the ground, and a voice came up through the hole, and said, ‘Who’s there?’‘Friends!’2answered the chicory-gatherer; and then One sprang up through the hole on to the ground. This was Monsu Mostro. The poor man was rather frightened at his aspect, but he dared say nothing.‘Come along with me,’ said Monsu Mostro and the poor man followed till they came to a palace in the Campagna, where he gave him a horse to ride home upon and a heap of money. ‘I give you all this,’ said Monsu Mostro; ‘but you must give me one of your daughters in return.’ The poor man was too frightened to refuse, so he said he would.When he came home all his three daughters came jumping round him with delight at seeing him come home riding on horseback. ‘Papa! papa!3where have you been?’ And when they saw what a lot of money he had brought home, their questions increased tenfold. But, in spite of his riches, the chicory-gatherer did not seem in good spirits. He did not know how to announce that he had to take one of his daughters to Monsu Mostro, and so he was very slow at answering their inquiries. It was not till next morning that he made up his mind to break this dreadful matter; and then, when the time had come for him to go forth, and there was no putting it off any longer, he made a great effort and said at last, ‘I have found a husband for one of you; which shall it be?’‘Not I!’ said the eldest; ‘I’m not going to marry a husband whom I haven’t seen. Oibo!’‘Not I!’ said the second. ‘I’m not going to marry a husband whom I haven’t seen. Oibo!’‘Take me, papa! take me! I’ll go!’ said the youngest. So the father remounted the horse, and put her behind him. Thus they arrived at the palace of Monsu Mostro, and knocked.‘Who’s there?’ said a voice within.‘Friends!’ answered the father; and they were shown in.‘Here’s my daughter, as I promised,’ said the father.‘All right!’ said Monsu Mostro; and, giving him another large sum of money, sent him away.When the father was gone, he said to the girl, ‘I’m not going to marry you as your father thought. I want you to do the service of the house. But mind when there is anyone here you always call me “papa.”’The girl promised to do as she was bid, and soon after there was a knock at the door, and some hunters who had got belated in the Campagna came to seek hospitality.‘Let them in, set supper before them; and give them a change of clothes,’ said Monsu Mostro; and the girl did as she was bid. While they were at supper one of the huntsmen kept looking at her, for she was a beautiful girl, and afterwards he asked her if she would marry him, for he was the king’s son. ‘Oh, shouldn’t I like it!’ said the girl, ‘but you must ask papa.’ The prince asked Monsu Mostro, and as he made no objection, he went and fetched a greatcortège, and took her to the palace to marry her. As she was going away Monsu Mostro gave her a comb, wrapped up in paper, and said, ‘Take care of this, and don’t forget you have got it.’ The girl was too full of her happiness to pay much heed, but she put it in her bosom and went away.As she drove along, a pair of horns like a cow’s began to grow on her head, and they had already attained a considerable size before she arrived at the royal palace. The queen was horrified at her appearance, and refused to let her come in. ‘How can it possibly be that such a beautiful girl should have all of a sudden got a pair of horns?’ said the prince. But it was no use saying anything, for there were the horns, and the queen was determined that she should not be admitted into the royal palace.The prince was very much distressed, and would on no account let her be turned adrift as the queen wished, but sent her to a house in the Campagna, where he sent a servant every day to ask how she was, and to take her some present, but also to observe if the horns had not perchance gone away as suddenly as they had come. But, instead of going away, they went on growing every day bigger.In the meantime the queen sent a servant out with three little puppy-dogs in a basket, saying that whoever trained them best should marry the prince. One of these the servant brought to her, and the two others to two other girls, who were princesses, either of whom the queen would have preferred her son should marry.‘Train puppy-dogs!’ said each of the other two girls. ‘I know nothing about training puppy-dogs! What can I do with them!’ and they let them get into all manner of bad habits.Butsheput hers in a basket and went back to the palace of Monsu Mostro, and knocked.‘Who’s there?’ said Monsu Mostro.‘It’s I!’4answered she; and then she told him all that had befallen her, and showed him the puppy-dog in the basket. He looked at it for a moment, but would not let her in, and only cried out, ‘Go along! you ugly horned thing!’5She went away crying; but having lifted up the cloth and peeped at the puppy-dog, she felt reassured, and sent it back by a servant to the queen.When the queen uncovered the basket a beautiful little dog sprang out all of solid gold, yet it leaped about and performed all manner of tricks just as if it had been a real dog.The prince was triumphant when he saw thatherdog was so much better than the other two; but the queen was indignant, and said, ‘It is no dog at all, that goldthing!’ and she would not allow that the girl had won the trial.After that the queen sent a servant out with three pounds of flax, and said that whoever could spin it best should marry the prince.‘What do I know about spinning!’ said each of the other two; and they let the flax lie without touching it.Butshetook hers in a basket and went to the palace of Monsu Mostro, and knocked.‘Who’s there?’ asked he.‘It’s I!’ she replied in her doleful voice, and told him her new difficulty. Monsu Mostro looked at the flax, but refused to admit her, and saying, ‘Away with you, you horned wretch!’ shut the door against her.This basket, too, she sent by a servant to the queen, and when the queen opened it she found it full of gold thread.‘You must allow she has done better than the others this time!’ said the prince.‘No! it is as bad as before,’ answered the queen; ‘it is not natural! It won’t do for me!’‘After that the queen sent out a notice that whichever of them had her hair growing down to her heels should marry the prince.‘My hair does not reach down to my waist,’ said each of the other two. ‘How can I make it grow down to my heels?’Butshewent to the palace of Monsu Mostro, and knocked.‘Who’s there?’ asked he.‘It is I!’ she replied, as dolefully as before, and told him what was required of her now.‘You see now what it is to have paid no attention to what I told you,’ answered Monsu Mostro. ‘I told you not to forget the comb I gave you. If you had not forgottenthat none of this would have happened. That comb is your remedy now;’ and with that he shut the door.But she went home and combed her hair with the comb he had given her; and not only the horns went away, but her hair grew down quite to her heels and swept the ground. But the other two were jealous when they saw that she had beaten them in all three trials, and they came to her to ask how she made her hair grow, and she sent them to the palace of Monsu Mostro to ask.But as they only came out of jealousy, he told them to make themselves two pitch nightcaps and sleep in them; and when they got up in the morning, instead of having longer hair, all the hair they had came off.But she was at length given to the prince, and they were married amid great rejoicing.[The two preceding stories represent the Roman contribution to the stories of visits to the underground world and the Bluebeard group. I have others (particularly one called ‘Il Cavolo d’Oro’, the ‘Golden Cabbage’) more like the general run of them. The two I have selected have this difference, that in neither instance does the subterranean ruler represent the Devil. ‘Monsu Mostro,’ is most disinterested in his generosity. As usual with the Roman versions, all that is terrible is eliminated. For other versions, see Ralston, pp. 98–100; and for a somewhat similar story, the ‘Water Snake,’ p. 116. Much in the Norse, ‘East of the Sun and West of the Moon,’ is like the ‘Rè Moro;’ so is ‘The Old Dame and her Hen,’ though the later details ofthat story are more like the Tirolean version, which I have given in ‘Laxehale’s Wives,’ in ‘Household Stories from the Land of Hofer.’ The German version given as ‘Fitchers Vogel,’ Grimm, p. 177, has more of the horrid element than any of the others. In the version of ‘Tündér Ilona’ given in Graf Mailath’s‘Magyarische Sagen’ (a rather different version from that told me at Pesth, which I have given at p. 20–1), Prince Argilus loses his bride and her kingdom, and has to begin all his labours over again, through looking into a closed chamber whichTündér Ilonahad bid him not to open in her absence. But heroic action abounds in the Hungarian tales, just as it is wanting in the Roman ones, and in this, and in many details, particularly in the enthusiasm for magic horses, they are singularly like the Gaelic.The ‘Rè Moro’ is perhaps nearer ‘Beauty and the Beast’ than ‘Bluebeard.’ I had a version of this given me in the following form, under the title of‘The Enchanted Rose-Tree.’1At what period the title of honour of ‘Monsu’ got appended to the monster’s name is more than I can fix.↑2‘Chi è?’ ‘amicè.’See note 3, p. 187.↑3The reader will bear in mind, in this and other places, that ‘papa’ and ‘mama’ are vernacular for ‘father’ and ‘mother’ among children of the lowest classes in Italy.↑4‘Son’ io.’ I have generally found these stories told with a great deal of effect, especially to suit the tone to the dialogues. It was particularly the case with this one,e.g.the ‘son’ io’ was said in the lamentable tone of a person wearied with fatigue and disappointment.’↑5‘Vatene, brutta cornuda!’↑

LA CANDELIERA.1They say there was once a king who wanted to make his beautiful young daughter marry an old, ugly king. Every time the king talked to his daughter about this marriage, she cried and begged him to spare her; but he only went on urging her the more, till at last she feared he would command her to consent, so that she might not disobey; therefore at last she said: ‘Before I marry this ugly old king to please you, you must do something to please me.’‘Oh, anything you like I will do,’ replied he.‘Then you must order for me,’ she replied, ‘a splendidcandelabrum, ten feet high, having a thick stem bigger than a man, and covered all over with all kinds of ornaments and devices in gold.’‘That shall be done,’ said the king; and he sent for the chief goldsmith of the court, and told him to make such a candelabrum; and, as he was very desirous that the marriage should be celebrated without delay, he urged him to make the candelabrum with all despatch.In a very short space of time the goldsmith brought home the candelabrum, made according to the princess’s description, and the king ordered it to be taken into his daughter’s apartment. The princess expressed herself quite pleased with it, and the king was satisfied that the marriage would now shortly take place.Late in the evening, however, the princess called her chamberlain to her, and said to him: ‘This great awkward candlestick is not the sort of thing I wanted; it does not please me at all. To-morrow morning you may take it and sell it, for I cannot bear the sight of it. You may keep the price it sells for, whatever it is; but you had better take it away early, before my father gets up.’The chamberlain was very pleased to get so great a perquisite, and got up very early to carry it away. The princess, however, had got up earlier, and had placed herself inside the candlestick; so that she was carried out of the palace by the chamberlain, and thus she escaped the marriage she dreaded so much with the ugly old king.The chamberlain, judging that the king would be very angry if he heard of his selling the splendid candelabrum he had just had made, did not venture to expose it for sale within the borders of his dominions, but carried it to the capital of the neighbouring sovereign. Here he set it up in the market-place, and cried, ‘Who’ll buy my candelabrum? Who’ll buy my fine candelabrum?’ When all the people saw what a costly candelabrum it was, no one would offer for it. At last it got bruited about till itreached the ears of the son of the king of that country, that there was a man standing in the market-place, offering to sell the most splendid candelabrum that ever was seen; so he went out to look at it himself.No sooner had the prince seen it than he determined that he must have it; so he bought it for the price of three hundred scudi, and sent his servants to take it up into his apartment. After that, he went about his affairs as usual. In the evening, however, he said to his body-servant, ‘As I am going to the play to-night, and shall be home late, take my supper up into my own room.’ And the servant did as he told him.When the prince came home from the play, he was very much surprised to find his supper eaten and all the dishes and glasses disarranged.‘What is the meaning of this?’ he exclaimed, calling his servant to him in a great fury. ‘Is this the way you prepare supper for me?’‘I don’t know what to say, your Royal Highness,’ stammered the man; ‘I saw the supper properly laid myself. How it got into this condition is more than I can say. With the leave of your Highness, I will order the table to be relaid.’But the prince was too angry to allow anything of the sort, and he went supperless to bed.The next night the same thing happened, and the prince in his displeasure threatened to discharge his servant. The night after, however, his curiosity being greatly excited as he thought over the circumstance, he called his servant, and said: ‘Lay the supper before I go out, and I will lock the room and take the key in my pocket, and we will see if anyone gets in then.’But, though this is what he said outloud, he determined to stay hidden within the room; and this is what he did. He had not remained there hidden very long when, lo and behold, the candelabrum, on which he hadnever bestowed a thought since the moment he bought it, opened, and there walked out the most beautiful princess he had ever seen, who sat down at the table, and began to sup with hearty appetite.‘Welcome, welcome, fair princess!’ exclaimed the astonished prince. ‘You have heard me from within your hiding-place speaking with indignation because my meal had been disturbed. How little did I imagine such an honour had been done me as that it should have served you!’ And he sat down beside her, and they finished the meal together. When it was over, the princess went away into her candelabrum again; and the next night the prince said to his servant: ‘In case anyone eats my supper while I am out, you had better bring up a double portion.’ The next day he had not his supper only, but all his meals, brought into his apartment; nor did he ever leave it at all now, so happy was he in the society of the princess.Then the king and queen began to question about him, saying: ‘What has bereft our son of his senses, seeing that now he no more follows the due occupations of his years, but sits all day apart in his room?’Then they called him to them and said: ‘It is not well that you should sit thus all day long in your private apartments alone. It is time that you should bethink yourself of taking a wife.’But the prince answered, ‘No other wife will I have but the candelabrum.’When his parents heard him say this they said: ‘Now there is no doubt that he is mad;’ and they spoke no more about his marrying.But one day, the queen-mother coming into his apartment suddenly, found the door of the candelabrum open, and the princess sitting talking with the prince. Then she, too, was struck with her beauty, and said: ‘If this is what you were thinking of when you said you wouldmarry the candelabrum, it was well judged.’ And she took the princess by the hand and led her to the presence of the king. The king, too, praised her beauty, and she was given to the prince to be his wife.And the king her father, when he heard of the alliance, he too was right glad, and said he esteemed it far above that of the ugly old king he wanted her to have married at the first.[The mode of telling adopted by Roman narrators makes a way out of the difficulty which this group of stories presents at first sight in the king seeming to be fated by supernatural appointment to marry his daughter. One says, ‘the queen did not say he was to marry her the ring fitted, but he was not to marry any it did not fit.’ The other says, the slipper was a supernatural slipper, and would not fit anyone whom he could marry. Whether this was a part of the traditional story or the gloss of the repeater, I do not pretend to decide. In the ‘Candeliera,’ though similar in the main, this difficulty does not arise.My Roman narrators seem to have been fonder of stories of maidens than of youths. I have only one of the latter, and by no means an uncommon one, to set off against all the Stepmother stories of the former. It, however, is the male counterpart of a prolific family in which the girls figure under similar circumstances. Grimm gives several, particularly ‘Frau Holle,’ p. 104. Dr. Dasent gives ‘The two Stepsisters.’ In the Tales of Italian Tirol are two, ‘Cölla döllö doi sores’ and ‘Le due sorelle.’ And among the Russian Tales, ‘Frost,’ p. 214. It has also been connected with the large group in which a rich brother (sometimes the elder, sometimes the younger) leaves his poor brother to starve, and ultimately gets terribly punished for enviously grasping at the poor one’s subsequent good fortune: but the structure of these is very different.]1Among the licenses which Italians take with the terminations of their words, not the least is altering the gender. ‘Candeliere’ (masc.), otherwise ‘candelliere,’ is the proper form; and I do not think ‘candeliera’ will be found in any dictionary; but as the story requires the female gender, the word is readily coined.↑THE TWO HUNCHBACKED BROTHERS.1There was once a man who had one son, who married a widow who also had one son, and both were hunchbacks. The wife took very good care of her own son, but the son of her husband she used to put to hard work and gave him scarcely anything to eat. Her son, too, used to imitate his mother, and sadly ill-treat his stepbrother.After treating him ill for a long time, she at last sent him away from the house altogether.The poor little hunchback wandered away without knowing where to go.On, on, on he went, till at last he came to a lonely hut on a wide moor. At his approach a whole host of little hunchbacks came out and danced round him, chanting plaintively—Sabbato!Domenica!a great number of times. At last our little hunchback felt his courage stirred, and, taking up the note of their chant, chimed in with—Lunedì!Instantly the dancing ceased, all the little hunchback dwarfs became full-grown, well-formed men, and, what was better still, his own hump was gone too, and he felt that he, too, was a well-grown lad.‘Good people,’ said our hunchback—now hunchbacked no more—‘I thank you much for ridding me of my hump and making me a well-grown lad. Give me now some work to do among you, and let me live with you.’But the chief of the strange people answered him and said: ‘This favour we owe to you, not you to us; for it was your chiming in with the right word on the right note which destroyed the spell that held us all. And in testimonyof our gratitude we give you further this little wand, and you will not need to work with us. Go back and live at home, and if ever anyone beats you as heretofore, you have only to say to it, “At ’em, good stick!”2and you will see what it will do for you.’Then all disappeared, and the boy went home.‘So you’ve come back, have you?’ said the stepmother. ‘What, and without your hump, too! Where have you left that?’Then the good boy told her all that had happened, without hiding anything.‘Do you hear that?’ said the stepmother to her own son. ‘Now go you and get rid of your hump in the same way.’So the second hunchback went forth, and journeyed on till he came to the lonely hut on the moor.A tribe of hunchbacks came out and danced round him, and sung—Sabbato!Domenica!Lunedì!to which the bad son of the stepmother added in his rough voice, all out of tune—Martedì!Immediately all the hunchbacks came round him and gave him a drubbing, and the chief of them stuck on him a hump in front as well as behind.Thus they sent him home to his mother.When his mother saw him come home in this plight, she turned upon the stepson and abused him for having misled her son to injure him; and both mother and son set upon him and belaboured him after their wont. But he had only told the truth, without intention to deceive; and the stepmother’s son had incurred the anger of the dwarfs by his discordant addition to their chant. So the first hero took out his wand and said, ‘At ’em, good stick!’ andthe wand flew out of his hand and administered on mother and son a sounder drubbing than that they had themselves been administering. Ever after that he was able to live at home in peace, for everyone was afraid to injure him because of the power of his stick.[Next we have a group where a younger sister of three comes to supernatural good fortune, without any previous envy or ill-treatment on the part of her elders.]1‘I due Fratelli Gobbi.’↑2‘Bachettone mena!’ Perhaps the greatest stumbling-block in the way of acquiring familiarity with the art of conversing in Italian is the capricious use of the augmentative and diminutive terminations of words. Scarcely any substantive or adjective comes out of the mouth of an Italian without qualifications of this sort, making the spoken quite different from the written language. A foreigner can never arrive at the right use of these, because they have to be made up at the moment of use, upon no established laws, but entirely by a sort of instinctive perception of fitness. At Note 1 and 3 to ‘Il Poveretto,’ and other places, I have given some specimens of some of the most ordinary of these transformations. In the instance before us, ‘bacchettone,’ from ‘bacchetta,’ a rod, presents two distinct irregularities. The augmentative of a feminine noun never ought strictly to be ‘ona;’ but there are numerous instances, scarcely to be remembered under the largest practice, in which a feminine noun takes a masculine augmentative. ‘Bacchetta’ happens to be one of these. Next, the addition ‘one’ would ordinarily express that the thing to whose designation it was added was particularly big; yet in this instance it is applied to alittle wand; it is clear, therefore, that it no longer means ‘big,’ but ‘singular,’ ‘remarkable’ in some way or other; best rendered in English by ‘good stick.’ ‘Menare,’ whence ‘mena,’ is a word of many meanings, which, though they may be all traced to the same original idea, must not be confounded. In common parlance, as in the present case, it means to beat; and ‘menar moglie’ is a common expression too; but it does not mean ‘to beat your wife,’ but ‘to lead home a wife,’ or, as we say, to ‘take a wife.’ The primary meaning is ‘to lead;’ hence, to govern; hence, to govern harshly; hence, to govern with violence; hence, to spite, to beat. One sentence in which it is used recalls a capricious use of our own word ‘to beat.’ ‘Menar’ il cane per l’aja’ (literally, to lead the dog all about the threshing-floor), answers exactly to our expression, ‘tobeatabout the bush’ in talking. ‘Menare’ and ‘dimenare, la coda,’ is said also of a dog wagging his tail. On the other hand, ‘menare per il naso’ (literally, ‘to lead one by the nose’), has by no means the signification those words bear in English, but implies a roundabout way of giving an account of anything.↑THE DARK KING.1They say there was once a poor chicory-gatherer who went out every day with his wife and his three daughters to gather chicory to sell for salad. Once, at Carneval time, he said, ‘We must gather a fine good lot to-day,’ and they all dispersed themselves about trying to do their best. The youngest daughter thus came to a place apart where the chicory was of a much finer growth than any she had ever seen before. ‘This will be grand!’ she said to herself, as she prepared to pull up the finest plant of it. But what was her surprise when with the plant, up came all the earth round it and a great hole only remained!When she peeped down into it timidly she was further surprised to find it was no dark cave below as she had apprehended, but a bright apartment handsomely furnished, and a most appetising meal spread out on the table, there was, moreover, a commodious staircase reaching to the soil on which she stood, to descend by.All fear was quickly overcome by the pleasant sight, and the girl at once prepared to descend, and, as no one appeared, to raise any objection, she sat down quite boldly and partook of the good food. As soon as she had finished eating, the tables were cleared away by invisible hands, and, as she had nothing else to do she wandered about the place looking at everything. After she had passed through several brilliant rooms she came to a passage, out of which led several store-chambers, where was laid up a good supply of everything that could serve in a house. In some there were provisions of all sorts, in some stuffs both for clothes and furniture.‘There seems to be no one to own all these fine things,’ said the girl. ‘What a boon they would be at home!’ and she put together all that would be most useful to her mother. But what was her dismay when she went backto the dining-hall to find that the staircase by which she had descended was no longer there!At this sight she sat down and had a good cry, but by-and-by, supper-time came, and with it an excellent supper, served in as mysterious a way as the dinner; and as a good supper was a rare enjoyment for her, she almost forgot her grief while discussing it. After that, invisible hands led her into a bedroom, where she was gently undressed and put to bed without seeing anyone. In the morning she was put in a bath and dressed by invisible hands, but dressed like a princess all in beautiful clothes.So it all went on for at least three months; every luxury she could wish was provided without stint, but as she never saw anyone she began to get weary, and at lastsoweary that she could do nothing but cry. At the sound of her crying there came into the room a great black King.2Though he was so dark and so big that she was frightened at the sight of him, he spoke very kindly, and asked her why she cried so bitterly, and whether she was not provided with everything she could desire. As she hardly knew herself why she cried, she did not know what to answer him, but only went on whimpering. Then he said, ‘You have not seen half the extent of this palace yet or you would not be so weary; here are the keys of all the locked rooms which you have not been into yet. Amuse yourself as much as you like in going through them; they are all just like your own. Only into the room of which the key is not among these do not try to enter. In all the rest do what you like.’The next morning she took the keys and went into one of the locked rooms, and there she found so many things to surprise and amuse her that she spent the whole day there, and the next day she examined another, and so on for quite three months together, and the locked room of which she had not the key she never thought of trying to enter. But all amusements tire at last, and at the end ofthis time she was so melancholy that she could do nothing but cry. Then the Dark King came again and asked her tenderly what she wanted.‘I want nothing you can give me,’ she replied this time. ‘I am tired of being so long away from home. I want to go back home.’‘But remember how badly you were clothed, and how poorly you fared,’ replied the Dark King.‘Ah, I know it is much pleasanter here,’ said the girl, ‘for all those matters, but one cannot do without seeing one’s relations, now and then at least.’‘If you make such a point of it,’ answered the Dark King, ‘you shall go home and see papa and mamma, but you will come back here. I only let you go on that condition.’The arrangement was accepted, and next day she was driven home in a fine coach with prancing horses and bright harness. Her appearance at home caused so much astonishment that there was hardly room for pleasure, and even her own mother would hardly acknowledge her; as for her sisters, they were so changed by her altered circumstances and so filled with jealousy they would scarcely speak to her. But when she gave her mother a large pot of gold which the Dark King had given her for the purpose, their hearts were somewhat won back to her, and they began to ask all manner of questions concerning what had befallen her during her absence. So much time had been lost at first, however, that none was left for answering them, and, promising to try and come back to them soon, she drove away in her splendid coach.Another three months passed away after this, and at the end of it she was once more so weary, her tears and cries again called the Dark King to her side.Again she confided to him that her great grief was the wish to see her friends at home. She could not bear being so long without them. To content her once more hepromised to let her drive home the next day; and the next day accordingly she went home.This time she met with a better reception, and having brought out her pot of gold at her first arrival, everyone was full of anxiety to know how it came she had such riches at her disposal.‘What that pot of money!’ replied the girl, in a tone of disparagement. ‘That’s nothing. You should see the beautiful things that are scattered about in my new home, just like nothing at all;’ and then she went on to describe the magnificence of the place, till nothing would satisfy them but that they should go there too.‘That’s impossible,’ she replied. ‘I promised him not even to mention it.’‘But if he were got rid of,thenwe might come,’ replied the elder sisters.‘What do you mean by “got rid of”?’ asked the youngest.‘Why, it is evident he is some bad sort of enchanter, whom it would be well to rid the earth of. If you were to take this stiletto and put it into his breast when he is asleep, we might all come down there and be happy together.’‘Oh, I could never do that!’‘Ah, you are so selfish you want to keep all for yourself. If you had any spirit in you, you would burst open that locked door where, you may depend the best of the treasure is concealed, and then put this stiletto into the old enchanter, and call us all down to live with you.’It was in vain she protested she could not be so ungrateful and cruel; they over-persuaded her with their arguments, and frightened her so with their reproaches that she went back resolved to do their bidding.The next morning she called up all her courage and pushed open the closed door. Inside were a number of beautiful maidens weaving glittering raiment.‘What are you doing?’ asked the chicory-gatherer.‘Making raiment for the bride of the Dark King against her espousals,’ replied the maidens.A little further on was a goldsmith and all his men working at all sorts of splendid ornaments filled with pearls and diamonds and rubies.‘What are you doing?’ asked the girl.‘Making ornaments for the bride of the Dark King against her espousals,’ replied the goldsmiths.A little further on was a little old hunchback sitting crosslegged, and patching an old torn coat with a heap of other worn-out clothes lying about him.‘What are you doing?’ asked the maiden.‘Mending the rags for the girl to go away in who was to have been the bride of the Dark King,’ replied the little old hunchback.Beyond the room where this was going on was a passage, and at the end of this a door, which she also pushed open. It gave entrance to a room where, on a bed, the Dark King lay asleep.‘This is the time to apply the stiletto my sisters gave me,’ thought the maiden. ‘I shall never have so good a chance again. They said he was a horrid old enchanter; let me see if he looks like one.’So saying she took one of the tapers from a golden bracket and held it near his face. It was true enough; his skin was black, his hair was grizly and rough, his features crabbed and forbidding.‘They’re right, there’s no doubt. It were better the earth were rid of him, as they say,’ she said within herself; and, steeling herself with this reflection, she plunged the knife into his breast.But as she wielded the weapon with the right hand, the left, in which she held the lighted taper, wavered, and some of the scalding wax fell on the forehead of the Dark King. The dropping of the wax3woke him; andwhen he saw the blood flowing from his breast, and perceived what she had done, he said sadly,‘Why have you done this? I meant well by you and really loved you, and thought if I fulfilled all you desire, you would in time have loved me. But it is over now. You must leave this place, and go back to be again what you were before.’Then he called servants, and bade them dress her again in her poor chicory-gatherer’s dress, and send her up to earth again; and it was done. But as they were about to lead her away, he said again,‘Yet one thing I will do. Take these three hairs; and if ever you are in dire distress and peril of life with none to help, burn them, and I will come to deliver you.’Then they took her back to the dining-hall, where the staircase was seen as at the first, and when they touched the ceiling, it opened, and they pushed her through the opening, and she found herself in the place where she had been picking chicory on the day that she first found the Dark King’s palace.Only as they were leading her along, she had considered that it might be dangerous for her, a young girl, to be wandering about the face of the country alone, and she had, therefore, begged the servants to give her a man’s clothes instead of her own; and they gave her the worn-out clothes that she had seen the little old hunchback sitting crosslegged to mend.When she found herself on the chicory-bed it was in the cold of the early morning, and she set off walking towards her parents’ cottage. It was about midday when she arrived, and all the family were taking their meal. Poor as it was, it looked very tempting to her who had tasted nothing all the morning.‘Who are you?’ cried the mother, as she came up to the door.‘I’m your own child, your youngest daughter. Don’t you know me?’ cried the forlorn girl in alarm.‘A likely joke!’ laughed out the mother; ‘my daughter comes to see me in a gilded coach with prancing horses!’‘Had you asked for a bit of bread in the honest character of a beggar,’ pursued the father, ‘poor as I am, I would never have refused your weary, woebegone looks; but to attempt to deceive with such a falsehood is not to be tolerated;’ and he rose up, and drove the poor child away.Protests were vain, for no one recognised her under her disguise.Mournful and hopeless, she wandered away. On, on, on, she went, till at last she came to a palace in a great city, and in the stables were a number of grooms and their helpers rubbing down horses.‘Wouldn’t there be a place for me among all these boys?’ asked the little chicory-gatherer, plaintively. ‘I, too, could learn to rub down a horse if you taught me.’‘Well, you don’t look hardly strong enough to rub down a horse, my lad,’ answered the head-groom; ‘but you seem a civil-spoken sort of chap, so you may come in; I dare say we can find some sort of work for you.’So she went into the stable-yard, and helped the grooms of the palace.But every day the queen stood at a window of the palace where she could watch the fair stable-boy, and at last she sent and called the head-groom, and said to him, ‘What are you doing with that new boy in the stable-yard?’The head-groom said, ‘Please your Majesty he came and begged for work, and we took him to help.’Then the queen said, ‘He is not fit for that sort of work, send him to me.’So the chicory-gatherer was sent up to the queen, andthe queen gave her the post of master of the palace, and appointed a fine suite of apartments and a dress becoming the rank, and was never happy unless she had this new master of the palace with her.Now the king was gone to the wars, and had been a long time absent. One day the queen said to the master of the palace that very likely the king would not come back, so that it would be better they should marry.Then the poor chicory-gatherer was sadly afraid that if the queen discovered that she was a woman she would lose her fine place at the palace, and become a poor beggar again without a home; so she said nothing of this, but only reasoned with the queen that it was better to wait and see if the king did not come home. But as she continued saying this, and at the same time never showed any wish that the king might not come back, or that the marriage might take place, the queen grew sorely offended, and swore she would be avenged.Not long after, the king really did come back, covered with glory, from the wars. Now was the time for the queen to take her revenge.Choosing her opportunity, therefore, at the moment when the king was rejoicing that he had been permitted to come back to her again, with hypocritical tears she said,‘It is no small mercy, indeed, that your Majesty has found me again here as I am, for it had well-nigh been a very different case.’The king was instantly filled with burning indignation, and asked her further what her words meant.‘They mean,’ replied the queen, ‘that the master of the palace, on whom I had bestowed the office only because he seemed so simple, as you too must say he looks, presumed on my favour, and would have me marry him, urging that peradventure the king, who had been so long absent at the wars, might never return.’The king started to his feet at the words, placing his hand upon his sword in token of his wrath; but the queen went on:‘And when he found that I would not listen to his suit, he dared to assume a tone of command, and would have compelled me to consent; so that I had to call forth all my courage, and determination, and dignity, to keep him back; and had the King’s Majesty not been directed back to the palace as soon as he was, who knows where it might have ended!’It needed no more. The king ordered the master of the palace to be instantly thrown into prison, and appointed the next day for him to be beheaded.The chicory-gatherer was ready enough now to protest that she was a woman. But it helped nothing; they only laughed. And who could stand against the word of the queen?Next day, accordingly, the scaffold was raised, and the master of the palace was brought forth to be beheaded, the king and the queen, and all the court, being present.When the chicory-gatherer, therefore, found herself in dire need and peril of life, she took out one of the hairs the Dark King had given her, and burnt it in the flame of a torch. Instantly there was a distant roaring sound as of a tramp of troops and the roll of drums. Everyone started at the sound, and the executioner stayed his hand.Then the maiden burnt the second hair, and instantly a vast army surrounded the whole place; round the palace they marched and up to the scaffold, and so to the very throne of the king. The king had now something to think of besides giving the signal for the execution, and the headsman stayed his hand.Then the maiden burnt the third hair, and instantly the Dark King himself appeared upon the scene, clothedin shining armour, and fearful in majesty and might. And he said to the king,‘Who are you that you have given over my wife to the executioner?’And the king said,‘Who is thy wife that I should give her to the executioner?’The Dark King, taking the master of the palace by the hand, said,‘This is my wife. Touch her who dares!’Then the king knew that it had been true when the master of the palace had alleged that she was not guilty of the charge the queen had brought against her, being a woman; and seeing clearly what had been the malice of the queen, he ordered the executioner to behead her instead, but the chicory-gatherer he gave up to the Dark King.Then the Dark King said to the chicory-gatherer,‘I came at your bidding to defend you, and I said you were my wife to save your life; but whether you will be my wife or not depends on you. It is for you to say whether you will or not.’Then the maiden answered,‘You have been all goodness to me; ungrateful indeed should I be did I not, as I now do, say “yes.”’As soon as she said ‘yes,’ the earth shook, and she was no longer standing on a scaffold, but before an altar in a splendid cathedral, surrounded by a populous and flourishing city. By her side stood the Black King, but black no longer. He was now a most beautiful prince; for with all his kingdom he had been under enchantment, and the condition of his release had been that a fair maiden should give her free consent to marry him.41‘Il Rè Moro.’↑2‘Moro’ does not necessarily mean a Moor, it is continually used for any dark-complexioned person; also commonly for dark or black, as a pet name for a black dog, &c.↑3The ‘moccolaio.’↑4The narrator ended this story with the following stanza:—Si faceva le nozzeCon pane e tozze,E polla vermiciosa,E viva la sposa!This is one of those rough verses with which such stories abound, and they have been rendered rougher than they originally were by substituting words which serve to retain the jingle after those conveying the sense are forgotten, like many of our own nursery-rhymes. The literal rendering of this one would be, ‘So the marriage was celebrated with bread and hunches of bread, and a chicken stuffed with vermicelli. Long live the bride!’ ‘Vermiciosa’ is not a dictionary word; ‘vermicoloso’ is the nearest, and probably a corruption of the same. Of course, primarily it means ‘full of worms;’ but as all the forms of words compounded out of the diminutive of ‘verme,’ a worm, may be applied to the fine kind of maccaroni which bears the same name, I am more inclined to think a fowl stuffed or served up with maccaroni is meant here—if it have any meaning at all beyond the purpose of a rhyme—rather than ‘a wormy fowl,’ the literal interpretation.I have met this same ‘tag’ again and again in the mouths of various narrators at the end of stories which end in a marriage. Another such, familiarly used by every Roman narrator, is:—‘Stretta la foglia,Larga la via (often, ‘Stretta la via’),Dite la vostra, Larga la foglia,Ch’ ho detto la mia.’(‘Narrow the leaf, broad the way. Tell me your tale, for I’ve told you mine.’) Perhaps originally it was ‘Larga la voglia’ (my willingness is ample, but my means of amusing you are restricted).↑MONSU MOSTRO.1There was a father who had three daughters, and when all trades failed, he said he would go and gather chicory, and called his daughters to go with him. But it was a wet day, and they begged to be left at home; so he went alone.He went out into the fields till he came to a place where was the biggest plant of chicory that ever was seen. ‘That will do for me,’ he said, and began to pull it up.Up it came by the root and left a hole in the ground, and a voice came up through the hole, and said, ‘Who’s there?’‘Friends!’2answered the chicory-gatherer; and then One sprang up through the hole on to the ground. This was Monsu Mostro. The poor man was rather frightened at his aspect, but he dared say nothing.‘Come along with me,’ said Monsu Mostro and the poor man followed till they came to a palace in the Campagna, where he gave him a horse to ride home upon and a heap of money. ‘I give you all this,’ said Monsu Mostro; ‘but you must give me one of your daughters in return.’ The poor man was too frightened to refuse, so he said he would.When he came home all his three daughters came jumping round him with delight at seeing him come home riding on horseback. ‘Papa! papa!3where have you been?’ And when they saw what a lot of money he had brought home, their questions increased tenfold. But, in spite of his riches, the chicory-gatherer did not seem in good spirits. He did not know how to announce that he had to take one of his daughters to Monsu Mostro, and so he was very slow at answering their inquiries. It was not till next morning that he made up his mind to break this dreadful matter; and then, when the time had come for him to go forth, and there was no putting it off any longer, he made a great effort and said at last, ‘I have found a husband for one of you; which shall it be?’‘Not I!’ said the eldest; ‘I’m not going to marry a husband whom I haven’t seen. Oibo!’‘Not I!’ said the second. ‘I’m not going to marry a husband whom I haven’t seen. Oibo!’‘Take me, papa! take me! I’ll go!’ said the youngest. So the father remounted the horse, and put her behind him. Thus they arrived at the palace of Monsu Mostro, and knocked.‘Who’s there?’ said a voice within.‘Friends!’ answered the father; and they were shown in.‘Here’s my daughter, as I promised,’ said the father.‘All right!’ said Monsu Mostro; and, giving him another large sum of money, sent him away.When the father was gone, he said to the girl, ‘I’m not going to marry you as your father thought. I want you to do the service of the house. But mind when there is anyone here you always call me “papa.”’The girl promised to do as she was bid, and soon after there was a knock at the door, and some hunters who had got belated in the Campagna came to seek hospitality.‘Let them in, set supper before them; and give them a change of clothes,’ said Monsu Mostro; and the girl did as she was bid. While they were at supper one of the huntsmen kept looking at her, for she was a beautiful girl, and afterwards he asked her if she would marry him, for he was the king’s son. ‘Oh, shouldn’t I like it!’ said the girl, ‘but you must ask papa.’ The prince asked Monsu Mostro, and as he made no objection, he went and fetched a greatcortège, and took her to the palace to marry her. As she was going away Monsu Mostro gave her a comb, wrapped up in paper, and said, ‘Take care of this, and don’t forget you have got it.’ The girl was too full of her happiness to pay much heed, but she put it in her bosom and went away.As she drove along, a pair of horns like a cow’s began to grow on her head, and they had already attained a considerable size before she arrived at the royal palace. The queen was horrified at her appearance, and refused to let her come in. ‘How can it possibly be that such a beautiful girl should have all of a sudden got a pair of horns?’ said the prince. But it was no use saying anything, for there were the horns, and the queen was determined that she should not be admitted into the royal palace.The prince was very much distressed, and would on no account let her be turned adrift as the queen wished, but sent her to a house in the Campagna, where he sent a servant every day to ask how she was, and to take her some present, but also to observe if the horns had not perchance gone away as suddenly as they had come. But, instead of going away, they went on growing every day bigger.In the meantime the queen sent a servant out with three little puppy-dogs in a basket, saying that whoever trained them best should marry the prince. One of these the servant brought to her, and the two others to two other girls, who were princesses, either of whom the queen would have preferred her son should marry.‘Train puppy-dogs!’ said each of the other two girls. ‘I know nothing about training puppy-dogs! What can I do with them!’ and they let them get into all manner of bad habits.Butsheput hers in a basket and went back to the palace of Monsu Mostro, and knocked.‘Who’s there?’ said Monsu Mostro.‘It’s I!’4answered she; and then she told him all that had befallen her, and showed him the puppy-dog in the basket. He looked at it for a moment, but would not let her in, and only cried out, ‘Go along! you ugly horned thing!’5She went away crying; but having lifted up the cloth and peeped at the puppy-dog, she felt reassured, and sent it back by a servant to the queen.When the queen uncovered the basket a beautiful little dog sprang out all of solid gold, yet it leaped about and performed all manner of tricks just as if it had been a real dog.The prince was triumphant when he saw thatherdog was so much better than the other two; but the queen was indignant, and said, ‘It is no dog at all, that goldthing!’ and she would not allow that the girl had won the trial.After that the queen sent a servant out with three pounds of flax, and said that whoever could spin it best should marry the prince.‘What do I know about spinning!’ said each of the other two; and they let the flax lie without touching it.Butshetook hers in a basket and went to the palace of Monsu Mostro, and knocked.‘Who’s there?’ asked he.‘It’s I!’ she replied in her doleful voice, and told him her new difficulty. Monsu Mostro looked at the flax, but refused to admit her, and saying, ‘Away with you, you horned wretch!’ shut the door against her.This basket, too, she sent by a servant to the queen, and when the queen opened it she found it full of gold thread.‘You must allow she has done better than the others this time!’ said the prince.‘No! it is as bad as before,’ answered the queen; ‘it is not natural! It won’t do for me!’‘After that the queen sent out a notice that whichever of them had her hair growing down to her heels should marry the prince.‘My hair does not reach down to my waist,’ said each of the other two. ‘How can I make it grow down to my heels?’Butshewent to the palace of Monsu Mostro, and knocked.‘Who’s there?’ asked he.‘It is I!’ she replied, as dolefully as before, and told him what was required of her now.‘You see now what it is to have paid no attention to what I told you,’ answered Monsu Mostro. ‘I told you not to forget the comb I gave you. If you had not forgottenthat none of this would have happened. That comb is your remedy now;’ and with that he shut the door.But she went home and combed her hair with the comb he had given her; and not only the horns went away, but her hair grew down quite to her heels and swept the ground. But the other two were jealous when they saw that she had beaten them in all three trials, and they came to her to ask how she made her hair grow, and she sent them to the palace of Monsu Mostro to ask.But as they only came out of jealousy, he told them to make themselves two pitch nightcaps and sleep in them; and when they got up in the morning, instead of having longer hair, all the hair they had came off.But she was at length given to the prince, and they were married amid great rejoicing.[The two preceding stories represent the Roman contribution to the stories of visits to the underground world and the Bluebeard group. I have others (particularly one called ‘Il Cavolo d’Oro’, the ‘Golden Cabbage’) more like the general run of them. The two I have selected have this difference, that in neither instance does the subterranean ruler represent the Devil. ‘Monsu Mostro,’ is most disinterested in his generosity. As usual with the Roman versions, all that is terrible is eliminated. For other versions, see Ralston, pp. 98–100; and for a somewhat similar story, the ‘Water Snake,’ p. 116. Much in the Norse, ‘East of the Sun and West of the Moon,’ is like the ‘Rè Moro;’ so is ‘The Old Dame and her Hen,’ though the later details ofthat story are more like the Tirolean version, which I have given in ‘Laxehale’s Wives,’ in ‘Household Stories from the Land of Hofer.’ The German version given as ‘Fitchers Vogel,’ Grimm, p. 177, has more of the horrid element than any of the others. In the version of ‘Tündér Ilona’ given in Graf Mailath’s‘Magyarische Sagen’ (a rather different version from that told me at Pesth, which I have given at p. 20–1), Prince Argilus loses his bride and her kingdom, and has to begin all his labours over again, through looking into a closed chamber whichTündér Ilonahad bid him not to open in her absence. But heroic action abounds in the Hungarian tales, just as it is wanting in the Roman ones, and in this, and in many details, particularly in the enthusiasm for magic horses, they are singularly like the Gaelic.The ‘Rè Moro’ is perhaps nearer ‘Beauty and the Beast’ than ‘Bluebeard.’ I had a version of this given me in the following form, under the title of‘The Enchanted Rose-Tree.’1At what period the title of honour of ‘Monsu’ got appended to the monster’s name is more than I can fix.↑2‘Chi è?’ ‘amicè.’See note 3, p. 187.↑3The reader will bear in mind, in this and other places, that ‘papa’ and ‘mama’ are vernacular for ‘father’ and ‘mother’ among children of the lowest classes in Italy.↑4‘Son’ io.’ I have generally found these stories told with a great deal of effect, especially to suit the tone to the dialogues. It was particularly the case with this one,e.g.the ‘son’ io’ was said in the lamentable tone of a person wearied with fatigue and disappointment.’↑5‘Vatene, brutta cornuda!’↑

LA CANDELIERA.1They say there was once a king who wanted to make his beautiful young daughter marry an old, ugly king. Every time the king talked to his daughter about this marriage, she cried and begged him to spare her; but he only went on urging her the more, till at last she feared he would command her to consent, so that she might not disobey; therefore at last she said: ‘Before I marry this ugly old king to please you, you must do something to please me.’‘Oh, anything you like I will do,’ replied he.‘Then you must order for me,’ she replied, ‘a splendidcandelabrum, ten feet high, having a thick stem bigger than a man, and covered all over with all kinds of ornaments and devices in gold.’‘That shall be done,’ said the king; and he sent for the chief goldsmith of the court, and told him to make such a candelabrum; and, as he was very desirous that the marriage should be celebrated without delay, he urged him to make the candelabrum with all despatch.In a very short space of time the goldsmith brought home the candelabrum, made according to the princess’s description, and the king ordered it to be taken into his daughter’s apartment. The princess expressed herself quite pleased with it, and the king was satisfied that the marriage would now shortly take place.Late in the evening, however, the princess called her chamberlain to her, and said to him: ‘This great awkward candlestick is not the sort of thing I wanted; it does not please me at all. To-morrow morning you may take it and sell it, for I cannot bear the sight of it. You may keep the price it sells for, whatever it is; but you had better take it away early, before my father gets up.’The chamberlain was very pleased to get so great a perquisite, and got up very early to carry it away. The princess, however, had got up earlier, and had placed herself inside the candlestick; so that she was carried out of the palace by the chamberlain, and thus she escaped the marriage she dreaded so much with the ugly old king.The chamberlain, judging that the king would be very angry if he heard of his selling the splendid candelabrum he had just had made, did not venture to expose it for sale within the borders of his dominions, but carried it to the capital of the neighbouring sovereign. Here he set it up in the market-place, and cried, ‘Who’ll buy my candelabrum? Who’ll buy my fine candelabrum?’ When all the people saw what a costly candelabrum it was, no one would offer for it. At last it got bruited about till itreached the ears of the son of the king of that country, that there was a man standing in the market-place, offering to sell the most splendid candelabrum that ever was seen; so he went out to look at it himself.No sooner had the prince seen it than he determined that he must have it; so he bought it for the price of three hundred scudi, and sent his servants to take it up into his apartment. After that, he went about his affairs as usual. In the evening, however, he said to his body-servant, ‘As I am going to the play to-night, and shall be home late, take my supper up into my own room.’ And the servant did as he told him.When the prince came home from the play, he was very much surprised to find his supper eaten and all the dishes and glasses disarranged.‘What is the meaning of this?’ he exclaimed, calling his servant to him in a great fury. ‘Is this the way you prepare supper for me?’‘I don’t know what to say, your Royal Highness,’ stammered the man; ‘I saw the supper properly laid myself. How it got into this condition is more than I can say. With the leave of your Highness, I will order the table to be relaid.’But the prince was too angry to allow anything of the sort, and he went supperless to bed.The next night the same thing happened, and the prince in his displeasure threatened to discharge his servant. The night after, however, his curiosity being greatly excited as he thought over the circumstance, he called his servant, and said: ‘Lay the supper before I go out, and I will lock the room and take the key in my pocket, and we will see if anyone gets in then.’But, though this is what he said outloud, he determined to stay hidden within the room; and this is what he did. He had not remained there hidden very long when, lo and behold, the candelabrum, on which he hadnever bestowed a thought since the moment he bought it, opened, and there walked out the most beautiful princess he had ever seen, who sat down at the table, and began to sup with hearty appetite.‘Welcome, welcome, fair princess!’ exclaimed the astonished prince. ‘You have heard me from within your hiding-place speaking with indignation because my meal had been disturbed. How little did I imagine such an honour had been done me as that it should have served you!’ And he sat down beside her, and they finished the meal together. When it was over, the princess went away into her candelabrum again; and the next night the prince said to his servant: ‘In case anyone eats my supper while I am out, you had better bring up a double portion.’ The next day he had not his supper only, but all his meals, brought into his apartment; nor did he ever leave it at all now, so happy was he in the society of the princess.Then the king and queen began to question about him, saying: ‘What has bereft our son of his senses, seeing that now he no more follows the due occupations of his years, but sits all day apart in his room?’Then they called him to them and said: ‘It is not well that you should sit thus all day long in your private apartments alone. It is time that you should bethink yourself of taking a wife.’But the prince answered, ‘No other wife will I have but the candelabrum.’When his parents heard him say this they said: ‘Now there is no doubt that he is mad;’ and they spoke no more about his marrying.But one day, the queen-mother coming into his apartment suddenly, found the door of the candelabrum open, and the princess sitting talking with the prince. Then she, too, was struck with her beauty, and said: ‘If this is what you were thinking of when you said you wouldmarry the candelabrum, it was well judged.’ And she took the princess by the hand and led her to the presence of the king. The king, too, praised her beauty, and she was given to the prince to be his wife.And the king her father, when he heard of the alliance, he too was right glad, and said he esteemed it far above that of the ugly old king he wanted her to have married at the first.[The mode of telling adopted by Roman narrators makes a way out of the difficulty which this group of stories presents at first sight in the king seeming to be fated by supernatural appointment to marry his daughter. One says, ‘the queen did not say he was to marry her the ring fitted, but he was not to marry any it did not fit.’ The other says, the slipper was a supernatural slipper, and would not fit anyone whom he could marry. Whether this was a part of the traditional story or the gloss of the repeater, I do not pretend to decide. In the ‘Candeliera,’ though similar in the main, this difficulty does not arise.My Roman narrators seem to have been fonder of stories of maidens than of youths. I have only one of the latter, and by no means an uncommon one, to set off against all the Stepmother stories of the former. It, however, is the male counterpart of a prolific family in which the girls figure under similar circumstances. Grimm gives several, particularly ‘Frau Holle,’ p. 104. Dr. Dasent gives ‘The two Stepsisters.’ In the Tales of Italian Tirol are two, ‘Cölla döllö doi sores’ and ‘Le due sorelle.’ And among the Russian Tales, ‘Frost,’ p. 214. It has also been connected with the large group in which a rich brother (sometimes the elder, sometimes the younger) leaves his poor brother to starve, and ultimately gets terribly punished for enviously grasping at the poor one’s subsequent good fortune: but the structure of these is very different.]1Among the licenses which Italians take with the terminations of their words, not the least is altering the gender. ‘Candeliere’ (masc.), otherwise ‘candelliere,’ is the proper form; and I do not think ‘candeliera’ will be found in any dictionary; but as the story requires the female gender, the word is readily coined.↑

LA CANDELIERA.1

They say there was once a king who wanted to make his beautiful young daughter marry an old, ugly king. Every time the king talked to his daughter about this marriage, she cried and begged him to spare her; but he only went on urging her the more, till at last she feared he would command her to consent, so that she might not disobey; therefore at last she said: ‘Before I marry this ugly old king to please you, you must do something to please me.’‘Oh, anything you like I will do,’ replied he.‘Then you must order for me,’ she replied, ‘a splendidcandelabrum, ten feet high, having a thick stem bigger than a man, and covered all over with all kinds of ornaments and devices in gold.’‘That shall be done,’ said the king; and he sent for the chief goldsmith of the court, and told him to make such a candelabrum; and, as he was very desirous that the marriage should be celebrated without delay, he urged him to make the candelabrum with all despatch.In a very short space of time the goldsmith brought home the candelabrum, made according to the princess’s description, and the king ordered it to be taken into his daughter’s apartment. The princess expressed herself quite pleased with it, and the king was satisfied that the marriage would now shortly take place.Late in the evening, however, the princess called her chamberlain to her, and said to him: ‘This great awkward candlestick is not the sort of thing I wanted; it does not please me at all. To-morrow morning you may take it and sell it, for I cannot bear the sight of it. You may keep the price it sells for, whatever it is; but you had better take it away early, before my father gets up.’The chamberlain was very pleased to get so great a perquisite, and got up very early to carry it away. The princess, however, had got up earlier, and had placed herself inside the candlestick; so that she was carried out of the palace by the chamberlain, and thus she escaped the marriage she dreaded so much with the ugly old king.The chamberlain, judging that the king would be very angry if he heard of his selling the splendid candelabrum he had just had made, did not venture to expose it for sale within the borders of his dominions, but carried it to the capital of the neighbouring sovereign. Here he set it up in the market-place, and cried, ‘Who’ll buy my candelabrum? Who’ll buy my fine candelabrum?’ When all the people saw what a costly candelabrum it was, no one would offer for it. At last it got bruited about till itreached the ears of the son of the king of that country, that there was a man standing in the market-place, offering to sell the most splendid candelabrum that ever was seen; so he went out to look at it himself.No sooner had the prince seen it than he determined that he must have it; so he bought it for the price of three hundred scudi, and sent his servants to take it up into his apartment. After that, he went about his affairs as usual. In the evening, however, he said to his body-servant, ‘As I am going to the play to-night, and shall be home late, take my supper up into my own room.’ And the servant did as he told him.When the prince came home from the play, he was very much surprised to find his supper eaten and all the dishes and glasses disarranged.‘What is the meaning of this?’ he exclaimed, calling his servant to him in a great fury. ‘Is this the way you prepare supper for me?’‘I don’t know what to say, your Royal Highness,’ stammered the man; ‘I saw the supper properly laid myself. How it got into this condition is more than I can say. With the leave of your Highness, I will order the table to be relaid.’But the prince was too angry to allow anything of the sort, and he went supperless to bed.The next night the same thing happened, and the prince in his displeasure threatened to discharge his servant. The night after, however, his curiosity being greatly excited as he thought over the circumstance, he called his servant, and said: ‘Lay the supper before I go out, and I will lock the room and take the key in my pocket, and we will see if anyone gets in then.’But, though this is what he said outloud, he determined to stay hidden within the room; and this is what he did. He had not remained there hidden very long when, lo and behold, the candelabrum, on which he hadnever bestowed a thought since the moment he bought it, opened, and there walked out the most beautiful princess he had ever seen, who sat down at the table, and began to sup with hearty appetite.‘Welcome, welcome, fair princess!’ exclaimed the astonished prince. ‘You have heard me from within your hiding-place speaking with indignation because my meal had been disturbed. How little did I imagine such an honour had been done me as that it should have served you!’ And he sat down beside her, and they finished the meal together. When it was over, the princess went away into her candelabrum again; and the next night the prince said to his servant: ‘In case anyone eats my supper while I am out, you had better bring up a double portion.’ The next day he had not his supper only, but all his meals, brought into his apartment; nor did he ever leave it at all now, so happy was he in the society of the princess.Then the king and queen began to question about him, saying: ‘What has bereft our son of his senses, seeing that now he no more follows the due occupations of his years, but sits all day apart in his room?’Then they called him to them and said: ‘It is not well that you should sit thus all day long in your private apartments alone. It is time that you should bethink yourself of taking a wife.’But the prince answered, ‘No other wife will I have but the candelabrum.’When his parents heard him say this they said: ‘Now there is no doubt that he is mad;’ and they spoke no more about his marrying.But one day, the queen-mother coming into his apartment suddenly, found the door of the candelabrum open, and the princess sitting talking with the prince. Then she, too, was struck with her beauty, and said: ‘If this is what you were thinking of when you said you wouldmarry the candelabrum, it was well judged.’ And she took the princess by the hand and led her to the presence of the king. The king, too, praised her beauty, and she was given to the prince to be his wife.And the king her father, when he heard of the alliance, he too was right glad, and said he esteemed it far above that of the ugly old king he wanted her to have married at the first.[The mode of telling adopted by Roman narrators makes a way out of the difficulty which this group of stories presents at first sight in the king seeming to be fated by supernatural appointment to marry his daughter. One says, ‘the queen did not say he was to marry her the ring fitted, but he was not to marry any it did not fit.’ The other says, the slipper was a supernatural slipper, and would not fit anyone whom he could marry. Whether this was a part of the traditional story or the gloss of the repeater, I do not pretend to decide. In the ‘Candeliera,’ though similar in the main, this difficulty does not arise.My Roman narrators seem to have been fonder of stories of maidens than of youths. I have only one of the latter, and by no means an uncommon one, to set off against all the Stepmother stories of the former. It, however, is the male counterpart of a prolific family in which the girls figure under similar circumstances. Grimm gives several, particularly ‘Frau Holle,’ p. 104. Dr. Dasent gives ‘The two Stepsisters.’ In the Tales of Italian Tirol are two, ‘Cölla döllö doi sores’ and ‘Le due sorelle.’ And among the Russian Tales, ‘Frost,’ p. 214. It has also been connected with the large group in which a rich brother (sometimes the elder, sometimes the younger) leaves his poor brother to starve, and ultimately gets terribly punished for enviously grasping at the poor one’s subsequent good fortune: but the structure of these is very different.]

They say there was once a king who wanted to make his beautiful young daughter marry an old, ugly king. Every time the king talked to his daughter about this marriage, she cried and begged him to spare her; but he only went on urging her the more, till at last she feared he would command her to consent, so that she might not disobey; therefore at last she said: ‘Before I marry this ugly old king to please you, you must do something to please me.’

‘Oh, anything you like I will do,’ replied he.

‘Then you must order for me,’ she replied, ‘a splendidcandelabrum, ten feet high, having a thick stem bigger than a man, and covered all over with all kinds of ornaments and devices in gold.’

‘That shall be done,’ said the king; and he sent for the chief goldsmith of the court, and told him to make such a candelabrum; and, as he was very desirous that the marriage should be celebrated without delay, he urged him to make the candelabrum with all despatch.

In a very short space of time the goldsmith brought home the candelabrum, made according to the princess’s description, and the king ordered it to be taken into his daughter’s apartment. The princess expressed herself quite pleased with it, and the king was satisfied that the marriage would now shortly take place.

Late in the evening, however, the princess called her chamberlain to her, and said to him: ‘This great awkward candlestick is not the sort of thing I wanted; it does not please me at all. To-morrow morning you may take it and sell it, for I cannot bear the sight of it. You may keep the price it sells for, whatever it is; but you had better take it away early, before my father gets up.’

The chamberlain was very pleased to get so great a perquisite, and got up very early to carry it away. The princess, however, had got up earlier, and had placed herself inside the candlestick; so that she was carried out of the palace by the chamberlain, and thus she escaped the marriage she dreaded so much with the ugly old king.

The chamberlain, judging that the king would be very angry if he heard of his selling the splendid candelabrum he had just had made, did not venture to expose it for sale within the borders of his dominions, but carried it to the capital of the neighbouring sovereign. Here he set it up in the market-place, and cried, ‘Who’ll buy my candelabrum? Who’ll buy my fine candelabrum?’ When all the people saw what a costly candelabrum it was, no one would offer for it. At last it got bruited about till itreached the ears of the son of the king of that country, that there was a man standing in the market-place, offering to sell the most splendid candelabrum that ever was seen; so he went out to look at it himself.

No sooner had the prince seen it than he determined that he must have it; so he bought it for the price of three hundred scudi, and sent his servants to take it up into his apartment. After that, he went about his affairs as usual. In the evening, however, he said to his body-servant, ‘As I am going to the play to-night, and shall be home late, take my supper up into my own room.’ And the servant did as he told him.

When the prince came home from the play, he was very much surprised to find his supper eaten and all the dishes and glasses disarranged.

‘What is the meaning of this?’ he exclaimed, calling his servant to him in a great fury. ‘Is this the way you prepare supper for me?’

‘I don’t know what to say, your Royal Highness,’ stammered the man; ‘I saw the supper properly laid myself. How it got into this condition is more than I can say. With the leave of your Highness, I will order the table to be relaid.’

But the prince was too angry to allow anything of the sort, and he went supperless to bed.

The next night the same thing happened, and the prince in his displeasure threatened to discharge his servant. The night after, however, his curiosity being greatly excited as he thought over the circumstance, he called his servant, and said: ‘Lay the supper before I go out, and I will lock the room and take the key in my pocket, and we will see if anyone gets in then.’

But, though this is what he said outloud, he determined to stay hidden within the room; and this is what he did. He had not remained there hidden very long when, lo and behold, the candelabrum, on which he hadnever bestowed a thought since the moment he bought it, opened, and there walked out the most beautiful princess he had ever seen, who sat down at the table, and began to sup with hearty appetite.

‘Welcome, welcome, fair princess!’ exclaimed the astonished prince. ‘You have heard me from within your hiding-place speaking with indignation because my meal had been disturbed. How little did I imagine such an honour had been done me as that it should have served you!’ And he sat down beside her, and they finished the meal together. When it was over, the princess went away into her candelabrum again; and the next night the prince said to his servant: ‘In case anyone eats my supper while I am out, you had better bring up a double portion.’ The next day he had not his supper only, but all his meals, brought into his apartment; nor did he ever leave it at all now, so happy was he in the society of the princess.

Then the king and queen began to question about him, saying: ‘What has bereft our son of his senses, seeing that now he no more follows the due occupations of his years, but sits all day apart in his room?’

Then they called him to them and said: ‘It is not well that you should sit thus all day long in your private apartments alone. It is time that you should bethink yourself of taking a wife.’

But the prince answered, ‘No other wife will I have but the candelabrum.’

When his parents heard him say this they said: ‘Now there is no doubt that he is mad;’ and they spoke no more about his marrying.

But one day, the queen-mother coming into his apartment suddenly, found the door of the candelabrum open, and the princess sitting talking with the prince. Then she, too, was struck with her beauty, and said: ‘If this is what you were thinking of when you said you wouldmarry the candelabrum, it was well judged.’ And she took the princess by the hand and led her to the presence of the king. The king, too, praised her beauty, and she was given to the prince to be his wife.

And the king her father, when he heard of the alliance, he too was right glad, and said he esteemed it far above that of the ugly old king he wanted her to have married at the first.

[The mode of telling adopted by Roman narrators makes a way out of the difficulty which this group of stories presents at first sight in the king seeming to be fated by supernatural appointment to marry his daughter. One says, ‘the queen did not say he was to marry her the ring fitted, but he was not to marry any it did not fit.’ The other says, the slipper was a supernatural slipper, and would not fit anyone whom he could marry. Whether this was a part of the traditional story or the gloss of the repeater, I do not pretend to decide. In the ‘Candeliera,’ though similar in the main, this difficulty does not arise.

My Roman narrators seem to have been fonder of stories of maidens than of youths. I have only one of the latter, and by no means an uncommon one, to set off against all the Stepmother stories of the former. It, however, is the male counterpart of a prolific family in which the girls figure under similar circumstances. Grimm gives several, particularly ‘Frau Holle,’ p. 104. Dr. Dasent gives ‘The two Stepsisters.’ In the Tales of Italian Tirol are two, ‘Cölla döllö doi sores’ and ‘Le due sorelle.’ And among the Russian Tales, ‘Frost,’ p. 214. It has also been connected with the large group in which a rich brother (sometimes the elder, sometimes the younger) leaves his poor brother to starve, and ultimately gets terribly punished for enviously grasping at the poor one’s subsequent good fortune: but the structure of these is very different.]

1Among the licenses which Italians take with the terminations of their words, not the least is altering the gender. ‘Candeliere’ (masc.), otherwise ‘candelliere,’ is the proper form; and I do not think ‘candeliera’ will be found in any dictionary; but as the story requires the female gender, the word is readily coined.↑

1Among the licenses which Italians take with the terminations of their words, not the least is altering the gender. ‘Candeliere’ (masc.), otherwise ‘candelliere,’ is the proper form; and I do not think ‘candeliera’ will be found in any dictionary; but as the story requires the female gender, the word is readily coined.↑

THE TWO HUNCHBACKED BROTHERS.1There was once a man who had one son, who married a widow who also had one son, and both were hunchbacks. The wife took very good care of her own son, but the son of her husband she used to put to hard work and gave him scarcely anything to eat. Her son, too, used to imitate his mother, and sadly ill-treat his stepbrother.After treating him ill for a long time, she at last sent him away from the house altogether.The poor little hunchback wandered away without knowing where to go.On, on, on he went, till at last he came to a lonely hut on a wide moor. At his approach a whole host of little hunchbacks came out and danced round him, chanting plaintively—Sabbato!Domenica!a great number of times. At last our little hunchback felt his courage stirred, and, taking up the note of their chant, chimed in with—Lunedì!Instantly the dancing ceased, all the little hunchback dwarfs became full-grown, well-formed men, and, what was better still, his own hump was gone too, and he felt that he, too, was a well-grown lad.‘Good people,’ said our hunchback—now hunchbacked no more—‘I thank you much for ridding me of my hump and making me a well-grown lad. Give me now some work to do among you, and let me live with you.’But the chief of the strange people answered him and said: ‘This favour we owe to you, not you to us; for it was your chiming in with the right word on the right note which destroyed the spell that held us all. And in testimonyof our gratitude we give you further this little wand, and you will not need to work with us. Go back and live at home, and if ever anyone beats you as heretofore, you have only to say to it, “At ’em, good stick!”2and you will see what it will do for you.’Then all disappeared, and the boy went home.‘So you’ve come back, have you?’ said the stepmother. ‘What, and without your hump, too! Where have you left that?’Then the good boy told her all that had happened, without hiding anything.‘Do you hear that?’ said the stepmother to her own son. ‘Now go you and get rid of your hump in the same way.’So the second hunchback went forth, and journeyed on till he came to the lonely hut on the moor.A tribe of hunchbacks came out and danced round him, and sung—Sabbato!Domenica!Lunedì!to which the bad son of the stepmother added in his rough voice, all out of tune—Martedì!Immediately all the hunchbacks came round him and gave him a drubbing, and the chief of them stuck on him a hump in front as well as behind.Thus they sent him home to his mother.When his mother saw him come home in this plight, she turned upon the stepson and abused him for having misled her son to injure him; and both mother and son set upon him and belaboured him after their wont. But he had only told the truth, without intention to deceive; and the stepmother’s son had incurred the anger of the dwarfs by his discordant addition to their chant. So the first hero took out his wand and said, ‘At ’em, good stick!’ andthe wand flew out of his hand and administered on mother and son a sounder drubbing than that they had themselves been administering. Ever after that he was able to live at home in peace, for everyone was afraid to injure him because of the power of his stick.[Next we have a group where a younger sister of three comes to supernatural good fortune, without any previous envy or ill-treatment on the part of her elders.]1‘I due Fratelli Gobbi.’↑2‘Bachettone mena!’ Perhaps the greatest stumbling-block in the way of acquiring familiarity with the art of conversing in Italian is the capricious use of the augmentative and diminutive terminations of words. Scarcely any substantive or adjective comes out of the mouth of an Italian without qualifications of this sort, making the spoken quite different from the written language. A foreigner can never arrive at the right use of these, because they have to be made up at the moment of use, upon no established laws, but entirely by a sort of instinctive perception of fitness. At Note 1 and 3 to ‘Il Poveretto,’ and other places, I have given some specimens of some of the most ordinary of these transformations. In the instance before us, ‘bacchettone,’ from ‘bacchetta,’ a rod, presents two distinct irregularities. The augmentative of a feminine noun never ought strictly to be ‘ona;’ but there are numerous instances, scarcely to be remembered under the largest practice, in which a feminine noun takes a masculine augmentative. ‘Bacchetta’ happens to be one of these. Next, the addition ‘one’ would ordinarily express that the thing to whose designation it was added was particularly big; yet in this instance it is applied to alittle wand; it is clear, therefore, that it no longer means ‘big,’ but ‘singular,’ ‘remarkable’ in some way or other; best rendered in English by ‘good stick.’ ‘Menare,’ whence ‘mena,’ is a word of many meanings, which, though they may be all traced to the same original idea, must not be confounded. In common parlance, as in the present case, it means to beat; and ‘menar moglie’ is a common expression too; but it does not mean ‘to beat your wife,’ but ‘to lead home a wife,’ or, as we say, to ‘take a wife.’ The primary meaning is ‘to lead;’ hence, to govern; hence, to govern harshly; hence, to govern with violence; hence, to spite, to beat. One sentence in which it is used recalls a capricious use of our own word ‘to beat.’ ‘Menar’ il cane per l’aja’ (literally, to lead the dog all about the threshing-floor), answers exactly to our expression, ‘tobeatabout the bush’ in talking. ‘Menare’ and ‘dimenare, la coda,’ is said also of a dog wagging his tail. On the other hand, ‘menare per il naso’ (literally, ‘to lead one by the nose’), has by no means the signification those words bear in English, but implies a roundabout way of giving an account of anything.↑

THE TWO HUNCHBACKED BROTHERS.1

There was once a man who had one son, who married a widow who also had one son, and both were hunchbacks. The wife took very good care of her own son, but the son of her husband she used to put to hard work and gave him scarcely anything to eat. Her son, too, used to imitate his mother, and sadly ill-treat his stepbrother.After treating him ill for a long time, she at last sent him away from the house altogether.The poor little hunchback wandered away without knowing where to go.On, on, on he went, till at last he came to a lonely hut on a wide moor. At his approach a whole host of little hunchbacks came out and danced round him, chanting plaintively—Sabbato!Domenica!a great number of times. At last our little hunchback felt his courage stirred, and, taking up the note of their chant, chimed in with—Lunedì!Instantly the dancing ceased, all the little hunchback dwarfs became full-grown, well-formed men, and, what was better still, his own hump was gone too, and he felt that he, too, was a well-grown lad.‘Good people,’ said our hunchback—now hunchbacked no more—‘I thank you much for ridding me of my hump and making me a well-grown lad. Give me now some work to do among you, and let me live with you.’But the chief of the strange people answered him and said: ‘This favour we owe to you, not you to us; for it was your chiming in with the right word on the right note which destroyed the spell that held us all. And in testimonyof our gratitude we give you further this little wand, and you will not need to work with us. Go back and live at home, and if ever anyone beats you as heretofore, you have only to say to it, “At ’em, good stick!”2and you will see what it will do for you.’Then all disappeared, and the boy went home.‘So you’ve come back, have you?’ said the stepmother. ‘What, and without your hump, too! Where have you left that?’Then the good boy told her all that had happened, without hiding anything.‘Do you hear that?’ said the stepmother to her own son. ‘Now go you and get rid of your hump in the same way.’So the second hunchback went forth, and journeyed on till he came to the lonely hut on the moor.A tribe of hunchbacks came out and danced round him, and sung—Sabbato!Domenica!Lunedì!to which the bad son of the stepmother added in his rough voice, all out of tune—Martedì!Immediately all the hunchbacks came round him and gave him a drubbing, and the chief of them stuck on him a hump in front as well as behind.Thus they sent him home to his mother.When his mother saw him come home in this plight, she turned upon the stepson and abused him for having misled her son to injure him; and both mother and son set upon him and belaboured him after their wont. But he had only told the truth, without intention to deceive; and the stepmother’s son had incurred the anger of the dwarfs by his discordant addition to their chant. So the first hero took out his wand and said, ‘At ’em, good stick!’ andthe wand flew out of his hand and administered on mother and son a sounder drubbing than that they had themselves been administering. Ever after that he was able to live at home in peace, for everyone was afraid to injure him because of the power of his stick.[Next we have a group where a younger sister of three comes to supernatural good fortune, without any previous envy or ill-treatment on the part of her elders.]

There was once a man who had one son, who married a widow who also had one son, and both were hunchbacks. The wife took very good care of her own son, but the son of her husband she used to put to hard work and gave him scarcely anything to eat. Her son, too, used to imitate his mother, and sadly ill-treat his stepbrother.

After treating him ill for a long time, she at last sent him away from the house altogether.

The poor little hunchback wandered away without knowing where to go.

On, on, on he went, till at last he came to a lonely hut on a wide moor. At his approach a whole host of little hunchbacks came out and danced round him, chanting plaintively—

Sabbato!Domenica!

Sabbato!

Domenica!

a great number of times. At last our little hunchback felt his courage stirred, and, taking up the note of their chant, chimed in with—

Lunedì!

Lunedì!

Instantly the dancing ceased, all the little hunchback dwarfs became full-grown, well-formed men, and, what was better still, his own hump was gone too, and he felt that he, too, was a well-grown lad.

‘Good people,’ said our hunchback—now hunchbacked no more—‘I thank you much for ridding me of my hump and making me a well-grown lad. Give me now some work to do among you, and let me live with you.’

But the chief of the strange people answered him and said: ‘This favour we owe to you, not you to us; for it was your chiming in with the right word on the right note which destroyed the spell that held us all. And in testimonyof our gratitude we give you further this little wand, and you will not need to work with us. Go back and live at home, and if ever anyone beats you as heretofore, you have only to say to it, “At ’em, good stick!”2and you will see what it will do for you.’

Then all disappeared, and the boy went home.

‘So you’ve come back, have you?’ said the stepmother. ‘What, and without your hump, too! Where have you left that?’

Then the good boy told her all that had happened, without hiding anything.

‘Do you hear that?’ said the stepmother to her own son. ‘Now go you and get rid of your hump in the same way.’

So the second hunchback went forth, and journeyed on till he came to the lonely hut on the moor.

A tribe of hunchbacks came out and danced round him, and sung—

Sabbato!Domenica!Lunedì!

Sabbato!

Domenica!

Lunedì!

to which the bad son of the stepmother added in his rough voice, all out of tune—

Martedì!

Martedì!

Immediately all the hunchbacks came round him and gave him a drubbing, and the chief of them stuck on him a hump in front as well as behind.

Thus they sent him home to his mother.

When his mother saw him come home in this plight, she turned upon the stepson and abused him for having misled her son to injure him; and both mother and son set upon him and belaboured him after their wont. But he had only told the truth, without intention to deceive; and the stepmother’s son had incurred the anger of the dwarfs by his discordant addition to their chant. So the first hero took out his wand and said, ‘At ’em, good stick!’ andthe wand flew out of his hand and administered on mother and son a sounder drubbing than that they had themselves been administering. Ever after that he was able to live at home in peace, for everyone was afraid to injure him because of the power of his stick.

[Next we have a group where a younger sister of three comes to supernatural good fortune, without any previous envy or ill-treatment on the part of her elders.]

1‘I due Fratelli Gobbi.’↑2‘Bachettone mena!’ Perhaps the greatest stumbling-block in the way of acquiring familiarity with the art of conversing in Italian is the capricious use of the augmentative and diminutive terminations of words. Scarcely any substantive or adjective comes out of the mouth of an Italian without qualifications of this sort, making the spoken quite different from the written language. A foreigner can never arrive at the right use of these, because they have to be made up at the moment of use, upon no established laws, but entirely by a sort of instinctive perception of fitness. At Note 1 and 3 to ‘Il Poveretto,’ and other places, I have given some specimens of some of the most ordinary of these transformations. In the instance before us, ‘bacchettone,’ from ‘bacchetta,’ a rod, presents two distinct irregularities. The augmentative of a feminine noun never ought strictly to be ‘ona;’ but there are numerous instances, scarcely to be remembered under the largest practice, in which a feminine noun takes a masculine augmentative. ‘Bacchetta’ happens to be one of these. Next, the addition ‘one’ would ordinarily express that the thing to whose designation it was added was particularly big; yet in this instance it is applied to alittle wand; it is clear, therefore, that it no longer means ‘big,’ but ‘singular,’ ‘remarkable’ in some way or other; best rendered in English by ‘good stick.’ ‘Menare,’ whence ‘mena,’ is a word of many meanings, which, though they may be all traced to the same original idea, must not be confounded. In common parlance, as in the present case, it means to beat; and ‘menar moglie’ is a common expression too; but it does not mean ‘to beat your wife,’ but ‘to lead home a wife,’ or, as we say, to ‘take a wife.’ The primary meaning is ‘to lead;’ hence, to govern; hence, to govern harshly; hence, to govern with violence; hence, to spite, to beat. One sentence in which it is used recalls a capricious use of our own word ‘to beat.’ ‘Menar’ il cane per l’aja’ (literally, to lead the dog all about the threshing-floor), answers exactly to our expression, ‘tobeatabout the bush’ in talking. ‘Menare’ and ‘dimenare, la coda,’ is said also of a dog wagging his tail. On the other hand, ‘menare per il naso’ (literally, ‘to lead one by the nose’), has by no means the signification those words bear in English, but implies a roundabout way of giving an account of anything.↑

1‘I due Fratelli Gobbi.’↑

2‘Bachettone mena!’ Perhaps the greatest stumbling-block in the way of acquiring familiarity with the art of conversing in Italian is the capricious use of the augmentative and diminutive terminations of words. Scarcely any substantive or adjective comes out of the mouth of an Italian without qualifications of this sort, making the spoken quite different from the written language. A foreigner can never arrive at the right use of these, because they have to be made up at the moment of use, upon no established laws, but entirely by a sort of instinctive perception of fitness. At Note 1 and 3 to ‘Il Poveretto,’ and other places, I have given some specimens of some of the most ordinary of these transformations. In the instance before us, ‘bacchettone,’ from ‘bacchetta,’ a rod, presents two distinct irregularities. The augmentative of a feminine noun never ought strictly to be ‘ona;’ but there are numerous instances, scarcely to be remembered under the largest practice, in which a feminine noun takes a masculine augmentative. ‘Bacchetta’ happens to be one of these. Next, the addition ‘one’ would ordinarily express that the thing to whose designation it was added was particularly big; yet in this instance it is applied to alittle wand; it is clear, therefore, that it no longer means ‘big,’ but ‘singular,’ ‘remarkable’ in some way or other; best rendered in English by ‘good stick.’ ‘Menare,’ whence ‘mena,’ is a word of many meanings, which, though they may be all traced to the same original idea, must not be confounded. In common parlance, as in the present case, it means to beat; and ‘menar moglie’ is a common expression too; but it does not mean ‘to beat your wife,’ but ‘to lead home a wife,’ or, as we say, to ‘take a wife.’ The primary meaning is ‘to lead;’ hence, to govern; hence, to govern harshly; hence, to govern with violence; hence, to spite, to beat. One sentence in which it is used recalls a capricious use of our own word ‘to beat.’ ‘Menar’ il cane per l’aja’ (literally, to lead the dog all about the threshing-floor), answers exactly to our expression, ‘tobeatabout the bush’ in talking. ‘Menare’ and ‘dimenare, la coda,’ is said also of a dog wagging his tail. On the other hand, ‘menare per il naso’ (literally, ‘to lead one by the nose’), has by no means the signification those words bear in English, but implies a roundabout way of giving an account of anything.↑

THE DARK KING.1They say there was once a poor chicory-gatherer who went out every day with his wife and his three daughters to gather chicory to sell for salad. Once, at Carneval time, he said, ‘We must gather a fine good lot to-day,’ and they all dispersed themselves about trying to do their best. The youngest daughter thus came to a place apart where the chicory was of a much finer growth than any she had ever seen before. ‘This will be grand!’ she said to herself, as she prepared to pull up the finest plant of it. But what was her surprise when with the plant, up came all the earth round it and a great hole only remained!When she peeped down into it timidly she was further surprised to find it was no dark cave below as she had apprehended, but a bright apartment handsomely furnished, and a most appetising meal spread out on the table, there was, moreover, a commodious staircase reaching to the soil on which she stood, to descend by.All fear was quickly overcome by the pleasant sight, and the girl at once prepared to descend, and, as no one appeared, to raise any objection, she sat down quite boldly and partook of the good food. As soon as she had finished eating, the tables were cleared away by invisible hands, and, as she had nothing else to do she wandered about the place looking at everything. After she had passed through several brilliant rooms she came to a passage, out of which led several store-chambers, where was laid up a good supply of everything that could serve in a house. In some there were provisions of all sorts, in some stuffs both for clothes and furniture.‘There seems to be no one to own all these fine things,’ said the girl. ‘What a boon they would be at home!’ and she put together all that would be most useful to her mother. But what was her dismay when she went backto the dining-hall to find that the staircase by which she had descended was no longer there!At this sight she sat down and had a good cry, but by-and-by, supper-time came, and with it an excellent supper, served in as mysterious a way as the dinner; and as a good supper was a rare enjoyment for her, she almost forgot her grief while discussing it. After that, invisible hands led her into a bedroom, where she was gently undressed and put to bed without seeing anyone. In the morning she was put in a bath and dressed by invisible hands, but dressed like a princess all in beautiful clothes.So it all went on for at least three months; every luxury she could wish was provided without stint, but as she never saw anyone she began to get weary, and at lastsoweary that she could do nothing but cry. At the sound of her crying there came into the room a great black King.2Though he was so dark and so big that she was frightened at the sight of him, he spoke very kindly, and asked her why she cried so bitterly, and whether she was not provided with everything she could desire. As she hardly knew herself why she cried, she did not know what to answer him, but only went on whimpering. Then he said, ‘You have not seen half the extent of this palace yet or you would not be so weary; here are the keys of all the locked rooms which you have not been into yet. Amuse yourself as much as you like in going through them; they are all just like your own. Only into the room of which the key is not among these do not try to enter. In all the rest do what you like.’The next morning she took the keys and went into one of the locked rooms, and there she found so many things to surprise and amuse her that she spent the whole day there, and the next day she examined another, and so on for quite three months together, and the locked room of which she had not the key she never thought of trying to enter. But all amusements tire at last, and at the end ofthis time she was so melancholy that she could do nothing but cry. Then the Dark King came again and asked her tenderly what she wanted.‘I want nothing you can give me,’ she replied this time. ‘I am tired of being so long away from home. I want to go back home.’‘But remember how badly you were clothed, and how poorly you fared,’ replied the Dark King.‘Ah, I know it is much pleasanter here,’ said the girl, ‘for all those matters, but one cannot do without seeing one’s relations, now and then at least.’‘If you make such a point of it,’ answered the Dark King, ‘you shall go home and see papa and mamma, but you will come back here. I only let you go on that condition.’The arrangement was accepted, and next day she was driven home in a fine coach with prancing horses and bright harness. Her appearance at home caused so much astonishment that there was hardly room for pleasure, and even her own mother would hardly acknowledge her; as for her sisters, they were so changed by her altered circumstances and so filled with jealousy they would scarcely speak to her. But when she gave her mother a large pot of gold which the Dark King had given her for the purpose, their hearts were somewhat won back to her, and they began to ask all manner of questions concerning what had befallen her during her absence. So much time had been lost at first, however, that none was left for answering them, and, promising to try and come back to them soon, she drove away in her splendid coach.Another three months passed away after this, and at the end of it she was once more so weary, her tears and cries again called the Dark King to her side.Again she confided to him that her great grief was the wish to see her friends at home. She could not bear being so long without them. To content her once more hepromised to let her drive home the next day; and the next day accordingly she went home.This time she met with a better reception, and having brought out her pot of gold at her first arrival, everyone was full of anxiety to know how it came she had such riches at her disposal.‘What that pot of money!’ replied the girl, in a tone of disparagement. ‘That’s nothing. You should see the beautiful things that are scattered about in my new home, just like nothing at all;’ and then she went on to describe the magnificence of the place, till nothing would satisfy them but that they should go there too.‘That’s impossible,’ she replied. ‘I promised him not even to mention it.’‘But if he were got rid of,thenwe might come,’ replied the elder sisters.‘What do you mean by “got rid of”?’ asked the youngest.‘Why, it is evident he is some bad sort of enchanter, whom it would be well to rid the earth of. If you were to take this stiletto and put it into his breast when he is asleep, we might all come down there and be happy together.’‘Oh, I could never do that!’‘Ah, you are so selfish you want to keep all for yourself. If you had any spirit in you, you would burst open that locked door where, you may depend the best of the treasure is concealed, and then put this stiletto into the old enchanter, and call us all down to live with you.’It was in vain she protested she could not be so ungrateful and cruel; they over-persuaded her with their arguments, and frightened her so with their reproaches that she went back resolved to do their bidding.The next morning she called up all her courage and pushed open the closed door. Inside were a number of beautiful maidens weaving glittering raiment.‘What are you doing?’ asked the chicory-gatherer.‘Making raiment for the bride of the Dark King against her espousals,’ replied the maidens.A little further on was a goldsmith and all his men working at all sorts of splendid ornaments filled with pearls and diamonds and rubies.‘What are you doing?’ asked the girl.‘Making ornaments for the bride of the Dark King against her espousals,’ replied the goldsmiths.A little further on was a little old hunchback sitting crosslegged, and patching an old torn coat with a heap of other worn-out clothes lying about him.‘What are you doing?’ asked the maiden.‘Mending the rags for the girl to go away in who was to have been the bride of the Dark King,’ replied the little old hunchback.Beyond the room where this was going on was a passage, and at the end of this a door, which she also pushed open. It gave entrance to a room where, on a bed, the Dark King lay asleep.‘This is the time to apply the stiletto my sisters gave me,’ thought the maiden. ‘I shall never have so good a chance again. They said he was a horrid old enchanter; let me see if he looks like one.’So saying she took one of the tapers from a golden bracket and held it near his face. It was true enough; his skin was black, his hair was grizly and rough, his features crabbed and forbidding.‘They’re right, there’s no doubt. It were better the earth were rid of him, as they say,’ she said within herself; and, steeling herself with this reflection, she plunged the knife into his breast.But as she wielded the weapon with the right hand, the left, in which she held the lighted taper, wavered, and some of the scalding wax fell on the forehead of the Dark King. The dropping of the wax3woke him; andwhen he saw the blood flowing from his breast, and perceived what she had done, he said sadly,‘Why have you done this? I meant well by you and really loved you, and thought if I fulfilled all you desire, you would in time have loved me. But it is over now. You must leave this place, and go back to be again what you were before.’Then he called servants, and bade them dress her again in her poor chicory-gatherer’s dress, and send her up to earth again; and it was done. But as they were about to lead her away, he said again,‘Yet one thing I will do. Take these three hairs; and if ever you are in dire distress and peril of life with none to help, burn them, and I will come to deliver you.’Then they took her back to the dining-hall, where the staircase was seen as at the first, and when they touched the ceiling, it opened, and they pushed her through the opening, and she found herself in the place where she had been picking chicory on the day that she first found the Dark King’s palace.Only as they were leading her along, she had considered that it might be dangerous for her, a young girl, to be wandering about the face of the country alone, and she had, therefore, begged the servants to give her a man’s clothes instead of her own; and they gave her the worn-out clothes that she had seen the little old hunchback sitting crosslegged to mend.When she found herself on the chicory-bed it was in the cold of the early morning, and she set off walking towards her parents’ cottage. It was about midday when she arrived, and all the family were taking their meal. Poor as it was, it looked very tempting to her who had tasted nothing all the morning.‘Who are you?’ cried the mother, as she came up to the door.‘I’m your own child, your youngest daughter. Don’t you know me?’ cried the forlorn girl in alarm.‘A likely joke!’ laughed out the mother; ‘my daughter comes to see me in a gilded coach with prancing horses!’‘Had you asked for a bit of bread in the honest character of a beggar,’ pursued the father, ‘poor as I am, I would never have refused your weary, woebegone looks; but to attempt to deceive with such a falsehood is not to be tolerated;’ and he rose up, and drove the poor child away.Protests were vain, for no one recognised her under her disguise.Mournful and hopeless, she wandered away. On, on, on, she went, till at last she came to a palace in a great city, and in the stables were a number of grooms and their helpers rubbing down horses.‘Wouldn’t there be a place for me among all these boys?’ asked the little chicory-gatherer, plaintively. ‘I, too, could learn to rub down a horse if you taught me.’‘Well, you don’t look hardly strong enough to rub down a horse, my lad,’ answered the head-groom; ‘but you seem a civil-spoken sort of chap, so you may come in; I dare say we can find some sort of work for you.’So she went into the stable-yard, and helped the grooms of the palace.But every day the queen stood at a window of the palace where she could watch the fair stable-boy, and at last she sent and called the head-groom, and said to him, ‘What are you doing with that new boy in the stable-yard?’The head-groom said, ‘Please your Majesty he came and begged for work, and we took him to help.’Then the queen said, ‘He is not fit for that sort of work, send him to me.’So the chicory-gatherer was sent up to the queen, andthe queen gave her the post of master of the palace, and appointed a fine suite of apartments and a dress becoming the rank, and was never happy unless she had this new master of the palace with her.Now the king was gone to the wars, and had been a long time absent. One day the queen said to the master of the palace that very likely the king would not come back, so that it would be better they should marry.Then the poor chicory-gatherer was sadly afraid that if the queen discovered that she was a woman she would lose her fine place at the palace, and become a poor beggar again without a home; so she said nothing of this, but only reasoned with the queen that it was better to wait and see if the king did not come home. But as she continued saying this, and at the same time never showed any wish that the king might not come back, or that the marriage might take place, the queen grew sorely offended, and swore she would be avenged.Not long after, the king really did come back, covered with glory, from the wars. Now was the time for the queen to take her revenge.Choosing her opportunity, therefore, at the moment when the king was rejoicing that he had been permitted to come back to her again, with hypocritical tears she said,‘It is no small mercy, indeed, that your Majesty has found me again here as I am, for it had well-nigh been a very different case.’The king was instantly filled with burning indignation, and asked her further what her words meant.‘They mean,’ replied the queen, ‘that the master of the palace, on whom I had bestowed the office only because he seemed so simple, as you too must say he looks, presumed on my favour, and would have me marry him, urging that peradventure the king, who had been so long absent at the wars, might never return.’The king started to his feet at the words, placing his hand upon his sword in token of his wrath; but the queen went on:‘And when he found that I would not listen to his suit, he dared to assume a tone of command, and would have compelled me to consent; so that I had to call forth all my courage, and determination, and dignity, to keep him back; and had the King’s Majesty not been directed back to the palace as soon as he was, who knows where it might have ended!’It needed no more. The king ordered the master of the palace to be instantly thrown into prison, and appointed the next day for him to be beheaded.The chicory-gatherer was ready enough now to protest that she was a woman. But it helped nothing; they only laughed. And who could stand against the word of the queen?Next day, accordingly, the scaffold was raised, and the master of the palace was brought forth to be beheaded, the king and the queen, and all the court, being present.When the chicory-gatherer, therefore, found herself in dire need and peril of life, she took out one of the hairs the Dark King had given her, and burnt it in the flame of a torch. Instantly there was a distant roaring sound as of a tramp of troops and the roll of drums. Everyone started at the sound, and the executioner stayed his hand.Then the maiden burnt the second hair, and instantly a vast army surrounded the whole place; round the palace they marched and up to the scaffold, and so to the very throne of the king. The king had now something to think of besides giving the signal for the execution, and the headsman stayed his hand.Then the maiden burnt the third hair, and instantly the Dark King himself appeared upon the scene, clothedin shining armour, and fearful in majesty and might. And he said to the king,‘Who are you that you have given over my wife to the executioner?’And the king said,‘Who is thy wife that I should give her to the executioner?’The Dark King, taking the master of the palace by the hand, said,‘This is my wife. Touch her who dares!’Then the king knew that it had been true when the master of the palace had alleged that she was not guilty of the charge the queen had brought against her, being a woman; and seeing clearly what had been the malice of the queen, he ordered the executioner to behead her instead, but the chicory-gatherer he gave up to the Dark King.Then the Dark King said to the chicory-gatherer,‘I came at your bidding to defend you, and I said you were my wife to save your life; but whether you will be my wife or not depends on you. It is for you to say whether you will or not.’Then the maiden answered,‘You have been all goodness to me; ungrateful indeed should I be did I not, as I now do, say “yes.”’As soon as she said ‘yes,’ the earth shook, and she was no longer standing on a scaffold, but before an altar in a splendid cathedral, surrounded by a populous and flourishing city. By her side stood the Black King, but black no longer. He was now a most beautiful prince; for with all his kingdom he had been under enchantment, and the condition of his release had been that a fair maiden should give her free consent to marry him.41‘Il Rè Moro.’↑2‘Moro’ does not necessarily mean a Moor, it is continually used for any dark-complexioned person; also commonly for dark or black, as a pet name for a black dog, &c.↑3The ‘moccolaio.’↑4The narrator ended this story with the following stanza:—Si faceva le nozzeCon pane e tozze,E polla vermiciosa,E viva la sposa!This is one of those rough verses with which such stories abound, and they have been rendered rougher than they originally were by substituting words which serve to retain the jingle after those conveying the sense are forgotten, like many of our own nursery-rhymes. The literal rendering of this one would be, ‘So the marriage was celebrated with bread and hunches of bread, and a chicken stuffed with vermicelli. Long live the bride!’ ‘Vermiciosa’ is not a dictionary word; ‘vermicoloso’ is the nearest, and probably a corruption of the same. Of course, primarily it means ‘full of worms;’ but as all the forms of words compounded out of the diminutive of ‘verme,’ a worm, may be applied to the fine kind of maccaroni which bears the same name, I am more inclined to think a fowl stuffed or served up with maccaroni is meant here—if it have any meaning at all beyond the purpose of a rhyme—rather than ‘a wormy fowl,’ the literal interpretation.I have met this same ‘tag’ again and again in the mouths of various narrators at the end of stories which end in a marriage. Another such, familiarly used by every Roman narrator, is:—‘Stretta la foglia,Larga la via (often, ‘Stretta la via’),Dite la vostra, Larga la foglia,Ch’ ho detto la mia.’(‘Narrow the leaf, broad the way. Tell me your tale, for I’ve told you mine.’) Perhaps originally it was ‘Larga la voglia’ (my willingness is ample, but my means of amusing you are restricted).↑

THE DARK KING.1

They say there was once a poor chicory-gatherer who went out every day with his wife and his three daughters to gather chicory to sell for salad. Once, at Carneval time, he said, ‘We must gather a fine good lot to-day,’ and they all dispersed themselves about trying to do their best. The youngest daughter thus came to a place apart where the chicory was of a much finer growth than any she had ever seen before. ‘This will be grand!’ she said to herself, as she prepared to pull up the finest plant of it. But what was her surprise when with the plant, up came all the earth round it and a great hole only remained!When she peeped down into it timidly she was further surprised to find it was no dark cave below as she had apprehended, but a bright apartment handsomely furnished, and a most appetising meal spread out on the table, there was, moreover, a commodious staircase reaching to the soil on which she stood, to descend by.All fear was quickly overcome by the pleasant sight, and the girl at once prepared to descend, and, as no one appeared, to raise any objection, she sat down quite boldly and partook of the good food. As soon as she had finished eating, the tables were cleared away by invisible hands, and, as she had nothing else to do she wandered about the place looking at everything. After she had passed through several brilliant rooms she came to a passage, out of which led several store-chambers, where was laid up a good supply of everything that could serve in a house. In some there were provisions of all sorts, in some stuffs both for clothes and furniture.‘There seems to be no one to own all these fine things,’ said the girl. ‘What a boon they would be at home!’ and she put together all that would be most useful to her mother. But what was her dismay when she went backto the dining-hall to find that the staircase by which she had descended was no longer there!At this sight she sat down and had a good cry, but by-and-by, supper-time came, and with it an excellent supper, served in as mysterious a way as the dinner; and as a good supper was a rare enjoyment for her, she almost forgot her grief while discussing it. After that, invisible hands led her into a bedroom, where she was gently undressed and put to bed without seeing anyone. In the morning she was put in a bath and dressed by invisible hands, but dressed like a princess all in beautiful clothes.So it all went on for at least three months; every luxury she could wish was provided without stint, but as she never saw anyone she began to get weary, and at lastsoweary that she could do nothing but cry. At the sound of her crying there came into the room a great black King.2Though he was so dark and so big that she was frightened at the sight of him, he spoke very kindly, and asked her why she cried so bitterly, and whether she was not provided with everything she could desire. As she hardly knew herself why she cried, she did not know what to answer him, but only went on whimpering. Then he said, ‘You have not seen half the extent of this palace yet or you would not be so weary; here are the keys of all the locked rooms which you have not been into yet. Amuse yourself as much as you like in going through them; they are all just like your own. Only into the room of which the key is not among these do not try to enter. In all the rest do what you like.’The next morning she took the keys and went into one of the locked rooms, and there she found so many things to surprise and amuse her that she spent the whole day there, and the next day she examined another, and so on for quite three months together, and the locked room of which she had not the key she never thought of trying to enter. But all amusements tire at last, and at the end ofthis time she was so melancholy that she could do nothing but cry. Then the Dark King came again and asked her tenderly what she wanted.‘I want nothing you can give me,’ she replied this time. ‘I am tired of being so long away from home. I want to go back home.’‘But remember how badly you were clothed, and how poorly you fared,’ replied the Dark King.‘Ah, I know it is much pleasanter here,’ said the girl, ‘for all those matters, but one cannot do without seeing one’s relations, now and then at least.’‘If you make such a point of it,’ answered the Dark King, ‘you shall go home and see papa and mamma, but you will come back here. I only let you go on that condition.’The arrangement was accepted, and next day she was driven home in a fine coach with prancing horses and bright harness. Her appearance at home caused so much astonishment that there was hardly room for pleasure, and even her own mother would hardly acknowledge her; as for her sisters, they were so changed by her altered circumstances and so filled with jealousy they would scarcely speak to her. But when she gave her mother a large pot of gold which the Dark King had given her for the purpose, their hearts were somewhat won back to her, and they began to ask all manner of questions concerning what had befallen her during her absence. So much time had been lost at first, however, that none was left for answering them, and, promising to try and come back to them soon, she drove away in her splendid coach.Another three months passed away after this, and at the end of it she was once more so weary, her tears and cries again called the Dark King to her side.Again she confided to him that her great grief was the wish to see her friends at home. She could not bear being so long without them. To content her once more hepromised to let her drive home the next day; and the next day accordingly she went home.This time she met with a better reception, and having brought out her pot of gold at her first arrival, everyone was full of anxiety to know how it came she had such riches at her disposal.‘What that pot of money!’ replied the girl, in a tone of disparagement. ‘That’s nothing. You should see the beautiful things that are scattered about in my new home, just like nothing at all;’ and then she went on to describe the magnificence of the place, till nothing would satisfy them but that they should go there too.‘That’s impossible,’ she replied. ‘I promised him not even to mention it.’‘But if he were got rid of,thenwe might come,’ replied the elder sisters.‘What do you mean by “got rid of”?’ asked the youngest.‘Why, it is evident he is some bad sort of enchanter, whom it would be well to rid the earth of. If you were to take this stiletto and put it into his breast when he is asleep, we might all come down there and be happy together.’‘Oh, I could never do that!’‘Ah, you are so selfish you want to keep all for yourself. If you had any spirit in you, you would burst open that locked door where, you may depend the best of the treasure is concealed, and then put this stiletto into the old enchanter, and call us all down to live with you.’It was in vain she protested she could not be so ungrateful and cruel; they over-persuaded her with their arguments, and frightened her so with their reproaches that she went back resolved to do their bidding.The next morning she called up all her courage and pushed open the closed door. Inside were a number of beautiful maidens weaving glittering raiment.‘What are you doing?’ asked the chicory-gatherer.‘Making raiment for the bride of the Dark King against her espousals,’ replied the maidens.A little further on was a goldsmith and all his men working at all sorts of splendid ornaments filled with pearls and diamonds and rubies.‘What are you doing?’ asked the girl.‘Making ornaments for the bride of the Dark King against her espousals,’ replied the goldsmiths.A little further on was a little old hunchback sitting crosslegged, and patching an old torn coat with a heap of other worn-out clothes lying about him.‘What are you doing?’ asked the maiden.‘Mending the rags for the girl to go away in who was to have been the bride of the Dark King,’ replied the little old hunchback.Beyond the room where this was going on was a passage, and at the end of this a door, which she also pushed open. It gave entrance to a room where, on a bed, the Dark King lay asleep.‘This is the time to apply the stiletto my sisters gave me,’ thought the maiden. ‘I shall never have so good a chance again. They said he was a horrid old enchanter; let me see if he looks like one.’So saying she took one of the tapers from a golden bracket and held it near his face. It was true enough; his skin was black, his hair was grizly and rough, his features crabbed and forbidding.‘They’re right, there’s no doubt. It were better the earth were rid of him, as they say,’ she said within herself; and, steeling herself with this reflection, she plunged the knife into his breast.But as she wielded the weapon with the right hand, the left, in which she held the lighted taper, wavered, and some of the scalding wax fell on the forehead of the Dark King. The dropping of the wax3woke him; andwhen he saw the blood flowing from his breast, and perceived what she had done, he said sadly,‘Why have you done this? I meant well by you and really loved you, and thought if I fulfilled all you desire, you would in time have loved me. But it is over now. You must leave this place, and go back to be again what you were before.’Then he called servants, and bade them dress her again in her poor chicory-gatherer’s dress, and send her up to earth again; and it was done. But as they were about to lead her away, he said again,‘Yet one thing I will do. Take these three hairs; and if ever you are in dire distress and peril of life with none to help, burn them, and I will come to deliver you.’Then they took her back to the dining-hall, where the staircase was seen as at the first, and when they touched the ceiling, it opened, and they pushed her through the opening, and she found herself in the place where she had been picking chicory on the day that she first found the Dark King’s palace.Only as they were leading her along, she had considered that it might be dangerous for her, a young girl, to be wandering about the face of the country alone, and she had, therefore, begged the servants to give her a man’s clothes instead of her own; and they gave her the worn-out clothes that she had seen the little old hunchback sitting crosslegged to mend.When she found herself on the chicory-bed it was in the cold of the early morning, and she set off walking towards her parents’ cottage. It was about midday when she arrived, and all the family were taking their meal. Poor as it was, it looked very tempting to her who had tasted nothing all the morning.‘Who are you?’ cried the mother, as she came up to the door.‘I’m your own child, your youngest daughter. Don’t you know me?’ cried the forlorn girl in alarm.‘A likely joke!’ laughed out the mother; ‘my daughter comes to see me in a gilded coach with prancing horses!’‘Had you asked for a bit of bread in the honest character of a beggar,’ pursued the father, ‘poor as I am, I would never have refused your weary, woebegone looks; but to attempt to deceive with such a falsehood is not to be tolerated;’ and he rose up, and drove the poor child away.Protests were vain, for no one recognised her under her disguise.Mournful and hopeless, she wandered away. On, on, on, she went, till at last she came to a palace in a great city, and in the stables were a number of grooms and their helpers rubbing down horses.‘Wouldn’t there be a place for me among all these boys?’ asked the little chicory-gatherer, plaintively. ‘I, too, could learn to rub down a horse if you taught me.’‘Well, you don’t look hardly strong enough to rub down a horse, my lad,’ answered the head-groom; ‘but you seem a civil-spoken sort of chap, so you may come in; I dare say we can find some sort of work for you.’So she went into the stable-yard, and helped the grooms of the palace.But every day the queen stood at a window of the palace where she could watch the fair stable-boy, and at last she sent and called the head-groom, and said to him, ‘What are you doing with that new boy in the stable-yard?’The head-groom said, ‘Please your Majesty he came and begged for work, and we took him to help.’Then the queen said, ‘He is not fit for that sort of work, send him to me.’So the chicory-gatherer was sent up to the queen, andthe queen gave her the post of master of the palace, and appointed a fine suite of apartments and a dress becoming the rank, and was never happy unless she had this new master of the palace with her.Now the king was gone to the wars, and had been a long time absent. One day the queen said to the master of the palace that very likely the king would not come back, so that it would be better they should marry.Then the poor chicory-gatherer was sadly afraid that if the queen discovered that she was a woman she would lose her fine place at the palace, and become a poor beggar again without a home; so she said nothing of this, but only reasoned with the queen that it was better to wait and see if the king did not come home. But as she continued saying this, and at the same time never showed any wish that the king might not come back, or that the marriage might take place, the queen grew sorely offended, and swore she would be avenged.Not long after, the king really did come back, covered with glory, from the wars. Now was the time for the queen to take her revenge.Choosing her opportunity, therefore, at the moment when the king was rejoicing that he had been permitted to come back to her again, with hypocritical tears she said,‘It is no small mercy, indeed, that your Majesty has found me again here as I am, for it had well-nigh been a very different case.’The king was instantly filled with burning indignation, and asked her further what her words meant.‘They mean,’ replied the queen, ‘that the master of the palace, on whom I had bestowed the office only because he seemed so simple, as you too must say he looks, presumed on my favour, and would have me marry him, urging that peradventure the king, who had been so long absent at the wars, might never return.’The king started to his feet at the words, placing his hand upon his sword in token of his wrath; but the queen went on:‘And when he found that I would not listen to his suit, he dared to assume a tone of command, and would have compelled me to consent; so that I had to call forth all my courage, and determination, and dignity, to keep him back; and had the King’s Majesty not been directed back to the palace as soon as he was, who knows where it might have ended!’It needed no more. The king ordered the master of the palace to be instantly thrown into prison, and appointed the next day for him to be beheaded.The chicory-gatherer was ready enough now to protest that she was a woman. But it helped nothing; they only laughed. And who could stand against the word of the queen?Next day, accordingly, the scaffold was raised, and the master of the palace was brought forth to be beheaded, the king and the queen, and all the court, being present.When the chicory-gatherer, therefore, found herself in dire need and peril of life, she took out one of the hairs the Dark King had given her, and burnt it in the flame of a torch. Instantly there was a distant roaring sound as of a tramp of troops and the roll of drums. Everyone started at the sound, and the executioner stayed his hand.Then the maiden burnt the second hair, and instantly a vast army surrounded the whole place; round the palace they marched and up to the scaffold, and so to the very throne of the king. The king had now something to think of besides giving the signal for the execution, and the headsman stayed his hand.Then the maiden burnt the third hair, and instantly the Dark King himself appeared upon the scene, clothedin shining armour, and fearful in majesty and might. And he said to the king,‘Who are you that you have given over my wife to the executioner?’And the king said,‘Who is thy wife that I should give her to the executioner?’The Dark King, taking the master of the palace by the hand, said,‘This is my wife. Touch her who dares!’Then the king knew that it had been true when the master of the palace had alleged that she was not guilty of the charge the queen had brought against her, being a woman; and seeing clearly what had been the malice of the queen, he ordered the executioner to behead her instead, but the chicory-gatherer he gave up to the Dark King.Then the Dark King said to the chicory-gatherer,‘I came at your bidding to defend you, and I said you were my wife to save your life; but whether you will be my wife or not depends on you. It is for you to say whether you will or not.’Then the maiden answered,‘You have been all goodness to me; ungrateful indeed should I be did I not, as I now do, say “yes.”’As soon as she said ‘yes,’ the earth shook, and she was no longer standing on a scaffold, but before an altar in a splendid cathedral, surrounded by a populous and flourishing city. By her side stood the Black King, but black no longer. He was now a most beautiful prince; for with all his kingdom he had been under enchantment, and the condition of his release had been that a fair maiden should give her free consent to marry him.4

They say there was once a poor chicory-gatherer who went out every day with his wife and his three daughters to gather chicory to sell for salad. Once, at Carneval time, he said, ‘We must gather a fine good lot to-day,’ and they all dispersed themselves about trying to do their best. The youngest daughter thus came to a place apart where the chicory was of a much finer growth than any she had ever seen before. ‘This will be grand!’ she said to herself, as she prepared to pull up the finest plant of it. But what was her surprise when with the plant, up came all the earth round it and a great hole only remained!

When she peeped down into it timidly she was further surprised to find it was no dark cave below as she had apprehended, but a bright apartment handsomely furnished, and a most appetising meal spread out on the table, there was, moreover, a commodious staircase reaching to the soil on which she stood, to descend by.

All fear was quickly overcome by the pleasant sight, and the girl at once prepared to descend, and, as no one appeared, to raise any objection, she sat down quite boldly and partook of the good food. As soon as she had finished eating, the tables were cleared away by invisible hands, and, as she had nothing else to do she wandered about the place looking at everything. After she had passed through several brilliant rooms she came to a passage, out of which led several store-chambers, where was laid up a good supply of everything that could serve in a house. In some there were provisions of all sorts, in some stuffs both for clothes and furniture.

‘There seems to be no one to own all these fine things,’ said the girl. ‘What a boon they would be at home!’ and she put together all that would be most useful to her mother. But what was her dismay when she went backto the dining-hall to find that the staircase by which she had descended was no longer there!

At this sight she sat down and had a good cry, but by-and-by, supper-time came, and with it an excellent supper, served in as mysterious a way as the dinner; and as a good supper was a rare enjoyment for her, she almost forgot her grief while discussing it. After that, invisible hands led her into a bedroom, where she was gently undressed and put to bed without seeing anyone. In the morning she was put in a bath and dressed by invisible hands, but dressed like a princess all in beautiful clothes.

So it all went on for at least three months; every luxury she could wish was provided without stint, but as she never saw anyone she began to get weary, and at lastsoweary that she could do nothing but cry. At the sound of her crying there came into the room a great black King.2Though he was so dark and so big that she was frightened at the sight of him, he spoke very kindly, and asked her why she cried so bitterly, and whether she was not provided with everything she could desire. As she hardly knew herself why she cried, she did not know what to answer him, but only went on whimpering. Then he said, ‘You have not seen half the extent of this palace yet or you would not be so weary; here are the keys of all the locked rooms which you have not been into yet. Amuse yourself as much as you like in going through them; they are all just like your own. Only into the room of which the key is not among these do not try to enter. In all the rest do what you like.’

The next morning she took the keys and went into one of the locked rooms, and there she found so many things to surprise and amuse her that she spent the whole day there, and the next day she examined another, and so on for quite three months together, and the locked room of which she had not the key she never thought of trying to enter. But all amusements tire at last, and at the end ofthis time she was so melancholy that she could do nothing but cry. Then the Dark King came again and asked her tenderly what she wanted.

‘I want nothing you can give me,’ she replied this time. ‘I am tired of being so long away from home. I want to go back home.’

‘But remember how badly you were clothed, and how poorly you fared,’ replied the Dark King.

‘Ah, I know it is much pleasanter here,’ said the girl, ‘for all those matters, but one cannot do without seeing one’s relations, now and then at least.’

‘If you make such a point of it,’ answered the Dark King, ‘you shall go home and see papa and mamma, but you will come back here. I only let you go on that condition.’

The arrangement was accepted, and next day she was driven home in a fine coach with prancing horses and bright harness. Her appearance at home caused so much astonishment that there was hardly room for pleasure, and even her own mother would hardly acknowledge her; as for her sisters, they were so changed by her altered circumstances and so filled with jealousy they would scarcely speak to her. But when she gave her mother a large pot of gold which the Dark King had given her for the purpose, their hearts were somewhat won back to her, and they began to ask all manner of questions concerning what had befallen her during her absence. So much time had been lost at first, however, that none was left for answering them, and, promising to try and come back to them soon, she drove away in her splendid coach.

Another three months passed away after this, and at the end of it she was once more so weary, her tears and cries again called the Dark King to her side.

Again she confided to him that her great grief was the wish to see her friends at home. She could not bear being so long without them. To content her once more hepromised to let her drive home the next day; and the next day accordingly she went home.

This time she met with a better reception, and having brought out her pot of gold at her first arrival, everyone was full of anxiety to know how it came she had such riches at her disposal.

‘What that pot of money!’ replied the girl, in a tone of disparagement. ‘That’s nothing. You should see the beautiful things that are scattered about in my new home, just like nothing at all;’ and then she went on to describe the magnificence of the place, till nothing would satisfy them but that they should go there too.

‘That’s impossible,’ she replied. ‘I promised him not even to mention it.’

‘But if he were got rid of,thenwe might come,’ replied the elder sisters.

‘What do you mean by “got rid of”?’ asked the youngest.

‘Why, it is evident he is some bad sort of enchanter, whom it would be well to rid the earth of. If you were to take this stiletto and put it into his breast when he is asleep, we might all come down there and be happy together.’

‘Oh, I could never do that!’

‘Ah, you are so selfish you want to keep all for yourself. If you had any spirit in you, you would burst open that locked door where, you may depend the best of the treasure is concealed, and then put this stiletto into the old enchanter, and call us all down to live with you.’

It was in vain she protested she could not be so ungrateful and cruel; they over-persuaded her with their arguments, and frightened her so with their reproaches that she went back resolved to do their bidding.

The next morning she called up all her courage and pushed open the closed door. Inside were a number of beautiful maidens weaving glittering raiment.

‘What are you doing?’ asked the chicory-gatherer.

‘Making raiment for the bride of the Dark King against her espousals,’ replied the maidens.

A little further on was a goldsmith and all his men working at all sorts of splendid ornaments filled with pearls and diamonds and rubies.

‘What are you doing?’ asked the girl.

‘Making ornaments for the bride of the Dark King against her espousals,’ replied the goldsmiths.

A little further on was a little old hunchback sitting crosslegged, and patching an old torn coat with a heap of other worn-out clothes lying about him.

‘What are you doing?’ asked the maiden.

‘Mending the rags for the girl to go away in who was to have been the bride of the Dark King,’ replied the little old hunchback.

Beyond the room where this was going on was a passage, and at the end of this a door, which she also pushed open. It gave entrance to a room where, on a bed, the Dark King lay asleep.

‘This is the time to apply the stiletto my sisters gave me,’ thought the maiden. ‘I shall never have so good a chance again. They said he was a horrid old enchanter; let me see if he looks like one.’

So saying she took one of the tapers from a golden bracket and held it near his face. It was true enough; his skin was black, his hair was grizly and rough, his features crabbed and forbidding.

‘They’re right, there’s no doubt. It were better the earth were rid of him, as they say,’ she said within herself; and, steeling herself with this reflection, she plunged the knife into his breast.

But as she wielded the weapon with the right hand, the left, in which she held the lighted taper, wavered, and some of the scalding wax fell on the forehead of the Dark King. The dropping of the wax3woke him; andwhen he saw the blood flowing from his breast, and perceived what she had done, he said sadly,

‘Why have you done this? I meant well by you and really loved you, and thought if I fulfilled all you desire, you would in time have loved me. But it is over now. You must leave this place, and go back to be again what you were before.’

Then he called servants, and bade them dress her again in her poor chicory-gatherer’s dress, and send her up to earth again; and it was done. But as they were about to lead her away, he said again,

‘Yet one thing I will do. Take these three hairs; and if ever you are in dire distress and peril of life with none to help, burn them, and I will come to deliver you.’

Then they took her back to the dining-hall, where the staircase was seen as at the first, and when they touched the ceiling, it opened, and they pushed her through the opening, and she found herself in the place where she had been picking chicory on the day that she first found the Dark King’s palace.

Only as they were leading her along, she had considered that it might be dangerous for her, a young girl, to be wandering about the face of the country alone, and she had, therefore, begged the servants to give her a man’s clothes instead of her own; and they gave her the worn-out clothes that she had seen the little old hunchback sitting crosslegged to mend.

When she found herself on the chicory-bed it was in the cold of the early morning, and she set off walking towards her parents’ cottage. It was about midday when she arrived, and all the family were taking their meal. Poor as it was, it looked very tempting to her who had tasted nothing all the morning.

‘Who are you?’ cried the mother, as she came up to the door.

‘I’m your own child, your youngest daughter. Don’t you know me?’ cried the forlorn girl in alarm.

‘A likely joke!’ laughed out the mother; ‘my daughter comes to see me in a gilded coach with prancing horses!’

‘Had you asked for a bit of bread in the honest character of a beggar,’ pursued the father, ‘poor as I am, I would never have refused your weary, woebegone looks; but to attempt to deceive with such a falsehood is not to be tolerated;’ and he rose up, and drove the poor child away.

Protests were vain, for no one recognised her under her disguise.

Mournful and hopeless, she wandered away. On, on, on, she went, till at last she came to a palace in a great city, and in the stables were a number of grooms and their helpers rubbing down horses.

‘Wouldn’t there be a place for me among all these boys?’ asked the little chicory-gatherer, plaintively. ‘I, too, could learn to rub down a horse if you taught me.’

‘Well, you don’t look hardly strong enough to rub down a horse, my lad,’ answered the head-groom; ‘but you seem a civil-spoken sort of chap, so you may come in; I dare say we can find some sort of work for you.’

So she went into the stable-yard, and helped the grooms of the palace.

But every day the queen stood at a window of the palace where she could watch the fair stable-boy, and at last she sent and called the head-groom, and said to him, ‘What are you doing with that new boy in the stable-yard?’

The head-groom said, ‘Please your Majesty he came and begged for work, and we took him to help.’

Then the queen said, ‘He is not fit for that sort of work, send him to me.’

So the chicory-gatherer was sent up to the queen, andthe queen gave her the post of master of the palace, and appointed a fine suite of apartments and a dress becoming the rank, and was never happy unless she had this new master of the palace with her.

Now the king was gone to the wars, and had been a long time absent. One day the queen said to the master of the palace that very likely the king would not come back, so that it would be better they should marry.

Then the poor chicory-gatherer was sadly afraid that if the queen discovered that she was a woman she would lose her fine place at the palace, and become a poor beggar again without a home; so she said nothing of this, but only reasoned with the queen that it was better to wait and see if the king did not come home. But as she continued saying this, and at the same time never showed any wish that the king might not come back, or that the marriage might take place, the queen grew sorely offended, and swore she would be avenged.

Not long after, the king really did come back, covered with glory, from the wars. Now was the time for the queen to take her revenge.

Choosing her opportunity, therefore, at the moment when the king was rejoicing that he had been permitted to come back to her again, with hypocritical tears she said,

‘It is no small mercy, indeed, that your Majesty has found me again here as I am, for it had well-nigh been a very different case.’

The king was instantly filled with burning indignation, and asked her further what her words meant.

‘They mean,’ replied the queen, ‘that the master of the palace, on whom I had bestowed the office only because he seemed so simple, as you too must say he looks, presumed on my favour, and would have me marry him, urging that peradventure the king, who had been so long absent at the wars, might never return.’

The king started to his feet at the words, placing his hand upon his sword in token of his wrath; but the queen went on:

‘And when he found that I would not listen to his suit, he dared to assume a tone of command, and would have compelled me to consent; so that I had to call forth all my courage, and determination, and dignity, to keep him back; and had the King’s Majesty not been directed back to the palace as soon as he was, who knows where it might have ended!’

It needed no more. The king ordered the master of the palace to be instantly thrown into prison, and appointed the next day for him to be beheaded.

The chicory-gatherer was ready enough now to protest that she was a woman. But it helped nothing; they only laughed. And who could stand against the word of the queen?

Next day, accordingly, the scaffold was raised, and the master of the palace was brought forth to be beheaded, the king and the queen, and all the court, being present.

When the chicory-gatherer, therefore, found herself in dire need and peril of life, she took out one of the hairs the Dark King had given her, and burnt it in the flame of a torch. Instantly there was a distant roaring sound as of a tramp of troops and the roll of drums. Everyone started at the sound, and the executioner stayed his hand.

Then the maiden burnt the second hair, and instantly a vast army surrounded the whole place; round the palace they marched and up to the scaffold, and so to the very throne of the king. The king had now something to think of besides giving the signal for the execution, and the headsman stayed his hand.

Then the maiden burnt the third hair, and instantly the Dark King himself appeared upon the scene, clothedin shining armour, and fearful in majesty and might. And he said to the king,

‘Who are you that you have given over my wife to the executioner?’

And the king said,

‘Who is thy wife that I should give her to the executioner?’

The Dark King, taking the master of the palace by the hand, said,

‘This is my wife. Touch her who dares!’

Then the king knew that it had been true when the master of the palace had alleged that she was not guilty of the charge the queen had brought against her, being a woman; and seeing clearly what had been the malice of the queen, he ordered the executioner to behead her instead, but the chicory-gatherer he gave up to the Dark King.

Then the Dark King said to the chicory-gatherer,

‘I came at your bidding to defend you, and I said you were my wife to save your life; but whether you will be my wife or not depends on you. It is for you to say whether you will or not.’

Then the maiden answered,

‘You have been all goodness to me; ungrateful indeed should I be did I not, as I now do, say “yes.”’

As soon as she said ‘yes,’ the earth shook, and she was no longer standing on a scaffold, but before an altar in a splendid cathedral, surrounded by a populous and flourishing city. By her side stood the Black King, but black no longer. He was now a most beautiful prince; for with all his kingdom he had been under enchantment, and the condition of his release had been that a fair maiden should give her free consent to marry him.4

1‘Il Rè Moro.’↑2‘Moro’ does not necessarily mean a Moor, it is continually used for any dark-complexioned person; also commonly for dark or black, as a pet name for a black dog, &c.↑3The ‘moccolaio.’↑4The narrator ended this story with the following stanza:—Si faceva le nozzeCon pane e tozze,E polla vermiciosa,E viva la sposa!This is one of those rough verses with which such stories abound, and they have been rendered rougher than they originally were by substituting words which serve to retain the jingle after those conveying the sense are forgotten, like many of our own nursery-rhymes. The literal rendering of this one would be, ‘So the marriage was celebrated with bread and hunches of bread, and a chicken stuffed with vermicelli. Long live the bride!’ ‘Vermiciosa’ is not a dictionary word; ‘vermicoloso’ is the nearest, and probably a corruption of the same. Of course, primarily it means ‘full of worms;’ but as all the forms of words compounded out of the diminutive of ‘verme,’ a worm, may be applied to the fine kind of maccaroni which bears the same name, I am more inclined to think a fowl stuffed or served up with maccaroni is meant here—if it have any meaning at all beyond the purpose of a rhyme—rather than ‘a wormy fowl,’ the literal interpretation.I have met this same ‘tag’ again and again in the mouths of various narrators at the end of stories which end in a marriage. Another such, familiarly used by every Roman narrator, is:—‘Stretta la foglia,Larga la via (often, ‘Stretta la via’),Dite la vostra, Larga la foglia,Ch’ ho detto la mia.’(‘Narrow the leaf, broad the way. Tell me your tale, for I’ve told you mine.’) Perhaps originally it was ‘Larga la voglia’ (my willingness is ample, but my means of amusing you are restricted).↑

1‘Il Rè Moro.’↑

2‘Moro’ does not necessarily mean a Moor, it is continually used for any dark-complexioned person; also commonly for dark or black, as a pet name for a black dog, &c.↑

3The ‘moccolaio.’↑

4The narrator ended this story with the following stanza:—

Si faceva le nozzeCon pane e tozze,E polla vermiciosa,E viva la sposa!

Si faceva le nozzeCon pane e tozze,E polla vermiciosa,E viva la sposa!

Si faceva le nozzeCon pane e tozze,E polla vermiciosa,E viva la sposa!

Si faceva le nozzeCon pane e tozze,E polla vermiciosa,E viva la sposa!

Si faceva le nozze

Con pane e tozze,

E polla vermiciosa,

E viva la sposa!

This is one of those rough verses with which such stories abound, and they have been rendered rougher than they originally were by substituting words which serve to retain the jingle after those conveying the sense are forgotten, like many of our own nursery-rhymes. The literal rendering of this one would be, ‘So the marriage was celebrated with bread and hunches of bread, and a chicken stuffed with vermicelli. Long live the bride!’ ‘Vermiciosa’ is not a dictionary word; ‘vermicoloso’ is the nearest, and probably a corruption of the same. Of course, primarily it means ‘full of worms;’ but as all the forms of words compounded out of the diminutive of ‘verme,’ a worm, may be applied to the fine kind of maccaroni which bears the same name, I am more inclined to think a fowl stuffed or served up with maccaroni is meant here—if it have any meaning at all beyond the purpose of a rhyme—rather than ‘a wormy fowl,’ the literal interpretation.

I have met this same ‘tag’ again and again in the mouths of various narrators at the end of stories which end in a marriage. Another such, familiarly used by every Roman narrator, is:—

‘Stretta la foglia,Larga la via (often, ‘Stretta la via’),Dite la vostra, Larga la foglia,Ch’ ho detto la mia.’

‘Stretta la foglia,Larga la via (often, ‘Stretta la via’),Dite la vostra, Larga la foglia,Ch’ ho detto la mia.’

‘Stretta la foglia,Larga la via (often, ‘Stretta la via’),Dite la vostra, Larga la foglia,Ch’ ho detto la mia.’

‘Stretta la foglia,Larga la via (often, ‘Stretta la via’),Dite la vostra, Larga la foglia,Ch’ ho detto la mia.’

‘Stretta la foglia,

Larga la via (often, ‘Stretta la via’),

Dite la vostra, Larga la foglia,

Ch’ ho detto la mia.’

(‘Narrow the leaf, broad the way. Tell me your tale, for I’ve told you mine.’) Perhaps originally it was ‘Larga la voglia’ (my willingness is ample, but my means of amusing you are restricted).↑

MONSU MOSTRO.1There was a father who had three daughters, and when all trades failed, he said he would go and gather chicory, and called his daughters to go with him. But it was a wet day, and they begged to be left at home; so he went alone.He went out into the fields till he came to a place where was the biggest plant of chicory that ever was seen. ‘That will do for me,’ he said, and began to pull it up.Up it came by the root and left a hole in the ground, and a voice came up through the hole, and said, ‘Who’s there?’‘Friends!’2answered the chicory-gatherer; and then One sprang up through the hole on to the ground. This was Monsu Mostro. The poor man was rather frightened at his aspect, but he dared say nothing.‘Come along with me,’ said Monsu Mostro and the poor man followed till they came to a palace in the Campagna, where he gave him a horse to ride home upon and a heap of money. ‘I give you all this,’ said Monsu Mostro; ‘but you must give me one of your daughters in return.’ The poor man was too frightened to refuse, so he said he would.When he came home all his three daughters came jumping round him with delight at seeing him come home riding on horseback. ‘Papa! papa!3where have you been?’ And when they saw what a lot of money he had brought home, their questions increased tenfold. But, in spite of his riches, the chicory-gatherer did not seem in good spirits. He did not know how to announce that he had to take one of his daughters to Monsu Mostro, and so he was very slow at answering their inquiries. It was not till next morning that he made up his mind to break this dreadful matter; and then, when the time had come for him to go forth, and there was no putting it off any longer, he made a great effort and said at last, ‘I have found a husband for one of you; which shall it be?’‘Not I!’ said the eldest; ‘I’m not going to marry a husband whom I haven’t seen. Oibo!’‘Not I!’ said the second. ‘I’m not going to marry a husband whom I haven’t seen. Oibo!’‘Take me, papa! take me! I’ll go!’ said the youngest. So the father remounted the horse, and put her behind him. Thus they arrived at the palace of Monsu Mostro, and knocked.‘Who’s there?’ said a voice within.‘Friends!’ answered the father; and they were shown in.‘Here’s my daughter, as I promised,’ said the father.‘All right!’ said Monsu Mostro; and, giving him another large sum of money, sent him away.When the father was gone, he said to the girl, ‘I’m not going to marry you as your father thought. I want you to do the service of the house. But mind when there is anyone here you always call me “papa.”’The girl promised to do as she was bid, and soon after there was a knock at the door, and some hunters who had got belated in the Campagna came to seek hospitality.‘Let them in, set supper before them; and give them a change of clothes,’ said Monsu Mostro; and the girl did as she was bid. While they were at supper one of the huntsmen kept looking at her, for she was a beautiful girl, and afterwards he asked her if she would marry him, for he was the king’s son. ‘Oh, shouldn’t I like it!’ said the girl, ‘but you must ask papa.’ The prince asked Monsu Mostro, and as he made no objection, he went and fetched a greatcortège, and took her to the palace to marry her. As she was going away Monsu Mostro gave her a comb, wrapped up in paper, and said, ‘Take care of this, and don’t forget you have got it.’ The girl was too full of her happiness to pay much heed, but she put it in her bosom and went away.As she drove along, a pair of horns like a cow’s began to grow on her head, and they had already attained a considerable size before she arrived at the royal palace. The queen was horrified at her appearance, and refused to let her come in. ‘How can it possibly be that such a beautiful girl should have all of a sudden got a pair of horns?’ said the prince. But it was no use saying anything, for there were the horns, and the queen was determined that she should not be admitted into the royal palace.The prince was very much distressed, and would on no account let her be turned adrift as the queen wished, but sent her to a house in the Campagna, where he sent a servant every day to ask how she was, and to take her some present, but also to observe if the horns had not perchance gone away as suddenly as they had come. But, instead of going away, they went on growing every day bigger.In the meantime the queen sent a servant out with three little puppy-dogs in a basket, saying that whoever trained them best should marry the prince. One of these the servant brought to her, and the two others to two other girls, who were princesses, either of whom the queen would have preferred her son should marry.‘Train puppy-dogs!’ said each of the other two girls. ‘I know nothing about training puppy-dogs! What can I do with them!’ and they let them get into all manner of bad habits.Butsheput hers in a basket and went back to the palace of Monsu Mostro, and knocked.‘Who’s there?’ said Monsu Mostro.‘It’s I!’4answered she; and then she told him all that had befallen her, and showed him the puppy-dog in the basket. He looked at it for a moment, but would not let her in, and only cried out, ‘Go along! you ugly horned thing!’5She went away crying; but having lifted up the cloth and peeped at the puppy-dog, she felt reassured, and sent it back by a servant to the queen.When the queen uncovered the basket a beautiful little dog sprang out all of solid gold, yet it leaped about and performed all manner of tricks just as if it had been a real dog.The prince was triumphant when he saw thatherdog was so much better than the other two; but the queen was indignant, and said, ‘It is no dog at all, that goldthing!’ and she would not allow that the girl had won the trial.After that the queen sent a servant out with three pounds of flax, and said that whoever could spin it best should marry the prince.‘What do I know about spinning!’ said each of the other two; and they let the flax lie without touching it.Butshetook hers in a basket and went to the palace of Monsu Mostro, and knocked.‘Who’s there?’ asked he.‘It’s I!’ she replied in her doleful voice, and told him her new difficulty. Monsu Mostro looked at the flax, but refused to admit her, and saying, ‘Away with you, you horned wretch!’ shut the door against her.This basket, too, she sent by a servant to the queen, and when the queen opened it she found it full of gold thread.‘You must allow she has done better than the others this time!’ said the prince.‘No! it is as bad as before,’ answered the queen; ‘it is not natural! It won’t do for me!’‘After that the queen sent out a notice that whichever of them had her hair growing down to her heels should marry the prince.‘My hair does not reach down to my waist,’ said each of the other two. ‘How can I make it grow down to my heels?’Butshewent to the palace of Monsu Mostro, and knocked.‘Who’s there?’ asked he.‘It is I!’ she replied, as dolefully as before, and told him what was required of her now.‘You see now what it is to have paid no attention to what I told you,’ answered Monsu Mostro. ‘I told you not to forget the comb I gave you. If you had not forgottenthat none of this would have happened. That comb is your remedy now;’ and with that he shut the door.But she went home and combed her hair with the comb he had given her; and not only the horns went away, but her hair grew down quite to her heels and swept the ground. But the other two were jealous when they saw that she had beaten them in all three trials, and they came to her to ask how she made her hair grow, and she sent them to the palace of Monsu Mostro to ask.But as they only came out of jealousy, he told them to make themselves two pitch nightcaps and sleep in them; and when they got up in the morning, instead of having longer hair, all the hair they had came off.But she was at length given to the prince, and they were married amid great rejoicing.[The two preceding stories represent the Roman contribution to the stories of visits to the underground world and the Bluebeard group. I have others (particularly one called ‘Il Cavolo d’Oro’, the ‘Golden Cabbage’) more like the general run of them. The two I have selected have this difference, that in neither instance does the subterranean ruler represent the Devil. ‘Monsu Mostro,’ is most disinterested in his generosity. As usual with the Roman versions, all that is terrible is eliminated. For other versions, see Ralston, pp. 98–100; and for a somewhat similar story, the ‘Water Snake,’ p. 116. Much in the Norse, ‘East of the Sun and West of the Moon,’ is like the ‘Rè Moro;’ so is ‘The Old Dame and her Hen,’ though the later details ofthat story are more like the Tirolean version, which I have given in ‘Laxehale’s Wives,’ in ‘Household Stories from the Land of Hofer.’ The German version given as ‘Fitchers Vogel,’ Grimm, p. 177, has more of the horrid element than any of the others. In the version of ‘Tündér Ilona’ given in Graf Mailath’s‘Magyarische Sagen’ (a rather different version from that told me at Pesth, which I have given at p. 20–1), Prince Argilus loses his bride and her kingdom, and has to begin all his labours over again, through looking into a closed chamber whichTündér Ilonahad bid him not to open in her absence. But heroic action abounds in the Hungarian tales, just as it is wanting in the Roman ones, and in this, and in many details, particularly in the enthusiasm for magic horses, they are singularly like the Gaelic.The ‘Rè Moro’ is perhaps nearer ‘Beauty and the Beast’ than ‘Bluebeard.’ I had a version of this given me in the following form, under the title of‘The Enchanted Rose-Tree.’1At what period the title of honour of ‘Monsu’ got appended to the monster’s name is more than I can fix.↑2‘Chi è?’ ‘amicè.’See note 3, p. 187.↑3The reader will bear in mind, in this and other places, that ‘papa’ and ‘mama’ are vernacular for ‘father’ and ‘mother’ among children of the lowest classes in Italy.↑4‘Son’ io.’ I have generally found these stories told with a great deal of effect, especially to suit the tone to the dialogues. It was particularly the case with this one,e.g.the ‘son’ io’ was said in the lamentable tone of a person wearied with fatigue and disappointment.’↑5‘Vatene, brutta cornuda!’↑

MONSU MOSTRO.1

There was a father who had three daughters, and when all trades failed, he said he would go and gather chicory, and called his daughters to go with him. But it was a wet day, and they begged to be left at home; so he went alone.He went out into the fields till he came to a place where was the biggest plant of chicory that ever was seen. ‘That will do for me,’ he said, and began to pull it up.Up it came by the root and left a hole in the ground, and a voice came up through the hole, and said, ‘Who’s there?’‘Friends!’2answered the chicory-gatherer; and then One sprang up through the hole on to the ground. This was Monsu Mostro. The poor man was rather frightened at his aspect, but he dared say nothing.‘Come along with me,’ said Monsu Mostro and the poor man followed till they came to a palace in the Campagna, where he gave him a horse to ride home upon and a heap of money. ‘I give you all this,’ said Monsu Mostro; ‘but you must give me one of your daughters in return.’ The poor man was too frightened to refuse, so he said he would.When he came home all his three daughters came jumping round him with delight at seeing him come home riding on horseback. ‘Papa! papa!3where have you been?’ And when they saw what a lot of money he had brought home, their questions increased tenfold. But, in spite of his riches, the chicory-gatherer did not seem in good spirits. He did not know how to announce that he had to take one of his daughters to Monsu Mostro, and so he was very slow at answering their inquiries. It was not till next morning that he made up his mind to break this dreadful matter; and then, when the time had come for him to go forth, and there was no putting it off any longer, he made a great effort and said at last, ‘I have found a husband for one of you; which shall it be?’‘Not I!’ said the eldest; ‘I’m not going to marry a husband whom I haven’t seen. Oibo!’‘Not I!’ said the second. ‘I’m not going to marry a husband whom I haven’t seen. Oibo!’‘Take me, papa! take me! I’ll go!’ said the youngest. So the father remounted the horse, and put her behind him. Thus they arrived at the palace of Monsu Mostro, and knocked.‘Who’s there?’ said a voice within.‘Friends!’ answered the father; and they were shown in.‘Here’s my daughter, as I promised,’ said the father.‘All right!’ said Monsu Mostro; and, giving him another large sum of money, sent him away.When the father was gone, he said to the girl, ‘I’m not going to marry you as your father thought. I want you to do the service of the house. But mind when there is anyone here you always call me “papa.”’The girl promised to do as she was bid, and soon after there was a knock at the door, and some hunters who had got belated in the Campagna came to seek hospitality.‘Let them in, set supper before them; and give them a change of clothes,’ said Monsu Mostro; and the girl did as she was bid. While they were at supper one of the huntsmen kept looking at her, for she was a beautiful girl, and afterwards he asked her if she would marry him, for he was the king’s son. ‘Oh, shouldn’t I like it!’ said the girl, ‘but you must ask papa.’ The prince asked Monsu Mostro, and as he made no objection, he went and fetched a greatcortège, and took her to the palace to marry her. As she was going away Monsu Mostro gave her a comb, wrapped up in paper, and said, ‘Take care of this, and don’t forget you have got it.’ The girl was too full of her happiness to pay much heed, but she put it in her bosom and went away.As she drove along, a pair of horns like a cow’s began to grow on her head, and they had already attained a considerable size before she arrived at the royal palace. The queen was horrified at her appearance, and refused to let her come in. ‘How can it possibly be that such a beautiful girl should have all of a sudden got a pair of horns?’ said the prince. But it was no use saying anything, for there were the horns, and the queen was determined that she should not be admitted into the royal palace.The prince was very much distressed, and would on no account let her be turned adrift as the queen wished, but sent her to a house in the Campagna, where he sent a servant every day to ask how she was, and to take her some present, but also to observe if the horns had not perchance gone away as suddenly as they had come. But, instead of going away, they went on growing every day bigger.In the meantime the queen sent a servant out with three little puppy-dogs in a basket, saying that whoever trained them best should marry the prince. One of these the servant brought to her, and the two others to two other girls, who were princesses, either of whom the queen would have preferred her son should marry.‘Train puppy-dogs!’ said each of the other two girls. ‘I know nothing about training puppy-dogs! What can I do with them!’ and they let them get into all manner of bad habits.Butsheput hers in a basket and went back to the palace of Monsu Mostro, and knocked.‘Who’s there?’ said Monsu Mostro.‘It’s I!’4answered she; and then she told him all that had befallen her, and showed him the puppy-dog in the basket. He looked at it for a moment, but would not let her in, and only cried out, ‘Go along! you ugly horned thing!’5She went away crying; but having lifted up the cloth and peeped at the puppy-dog, she felt reassured, and sent it back by a servant to the queen.When the queen uncovered the basket a beautiful little dog sprang out all of solid gold, yet it leaped about and performed all manner of tricks just as if it had been a real dog.The prince was triumphant when he saw thatherdog was so much better than the other two; but the queen was indignant, and said, ‘It is no dog at all, that goldthing!’ and she would not allow that the girl had won the trial.After that the queen sent a servant out with three pounds of flax, and said that whoever could spin it best should marry the prince.‘What do I know about spinning!’ said each of the other two; and they let the flax lie without touching it.Butshetook hers in a basket and went to the palace of Monsu Mostro, and knocked.‘Who’s there?’ asked he.‘It’s I!’ she replied in her doleful voice, and told him her new difficulty. Monsu Mostro looked at the flax, but refused to admit her, and saying, ‘Away with you, you horned wretch!’ shut the door against her.This basket, too, she sent by a servant to the queen, and when the queen opened it she found it full of gold thread.‘You must allow she has done better than the others this time!’ said the prince.‘No! it is as bad as before,’ answered the queen; ‘it is not natural! It won’t do for me!’‘After that the queen sent out a notice that whichever of them had her hair growing down to her heels should marry the prince.‘My hair does not reach down to my waist,’ said each of the other two. ‘How can I make it grow down to my heels?’Butshewent to the palace of Monsu Mostro, and knocked.‘Who’s there?’ asked he.‘It is I!’ she replied, as dolefully as before, and told him what was required of her now.‘You see now what it is to have paid no attention to what I told you,’ answered Monsu Mostro. ‘I told you not to forget the comb I gave you. If you had not forgottenthat none of this would have happened. That comb is your remedy now;’ and with that he shut the door.But she went home and combed her hair with the comb he had given her; and not only the horns went away, but her hair grew down quite to her heels and swept the ground. But the other two were jealous when they saw that she had beaten them in all three trials, and they came to her to ask how she made her hair grow, and she sent them to the palace of Monsu Mostro to ask.But as they only came out of jealousy, he told them to make themselves two pitch nightcaps and sleep in them; and when they got up in the morning, instead of having longer hair, all the hair they had came off.But she was at length given to the prince, and they were married amid great rejoicing.[The two preceding stories represent the Roman contribution to the stories of visits to the underground world and the Bluebeard group. I have others (particularly one called ‘Il Cavolo d’Oro’, the ‘Golden Cabbage’) more like the general run of them. The two I have selected have this difference, that in neither instance does the subterranean ruler represent the Devil. ‘Monsu Mostro,’ is most disinterested in his generosity. As usual with the Roman versions, all that is terrible is eliminated. For other versions, see Ralston, pp. 98–100; and for a somewhat similar story, the ‘Water Snake,’ p. 116. Much in the Norse, ‘East of the Sun and West of the Moon,’ is like the ‘Rè Moro;’ so is ‘The Old Dame and her Hen,’ though the later details ofthat story are more like the Tirolean version, which I have given in ‘Laxehale’s Wives,’ in ‘Household Stories from the Land of Hofer.’ The German version given as ‘Fitchers Vogel,’ Grimm, p. 177, has more of the horrid element than any of the others. In the version of ‘Tündér Ilona’ given in Graf Mailath’s‘Magyarische Sagen’ (a rather different version from that told me at Pesth, which I have given at p. 20–1), Prince Argilus loses his bride and her kingdom, and has to begin all his labours over again, through looking into a closed chamber whichTündér Ilonahad bid him not to open in her absence. But heroic action abounds in the Hungarian tales, just as it is wanting in the Roman ones, and in this, and in many details, particularly in the enthusiasm for magic horses, they are singularly like the Gaelic.The ‘Rè Moro’ is perhaps nearer ‘Beauty and the Beast’ than ‘Bluebeard.’ I had a version of this given me in the following form, under the title of‘The Enchanted Rose-Tree.’

There was a father who had three daughters, and when all trades failed, he said he would go and gather chicory, and called his daughters to go with him. But it was a wet day, and they begged to be left at home; so he went alone.

He went out into the fields till he came to a place where was the biggest plant of chicory that ever was seen. ‘That will do for me,’ he said, and began to pull it up.Up it came by the root and left a hole in the ground, and a voice came up through the hole, and said, ‘Who’s there?’

‘Friends!’2answered the chicory-gatherer; and then One sprang up through the hole on to the ground. This was Monsu Mostro. The poor man was rather frightened at his aspect, but he dared say nothing.

‘Come along with me,’ said Monsu Mostro and the poor man followed till they came to a palace in the Campagna, where he gave him a horse to ride home upon and a heap of money. ‘I give you all this,’ said Monsu Mostro; ‘but you must give me one of your daughters in return.’ The poor man was too frightened to refuse, so he said he would.

When he came home all his three daughters came jumping round him with delight at seeing him come home riding on horseback. ‘Papa! papa!3where have you been?’ And when they saw what a lot of money he had brought home, their questions increased tenfold. But, in spite of his riches, the chicory-gatherer did not seem in good spirits. He did not know how to announce that he had to take one of his daughters to Monsu Mostro, and so he was very slow at answering their inquiries. It was not till next morning that he made up his mind to break this dreadful matter; and then, when the time had come for him to go forth, and there was no putting it off any longer, he made a great effort and said at last, ‘I have found a husband for one of you; which shall it be?’

‘Not I!’ said the eldest; ‘I’m not going to marry a husband whom I haven’t seen. Oibo!’

‘Not I!’ said the second. ‘I’m not going to marry a husband whom I haven’t seen. Oibo!’

‘Take me, papa! take me! I’ll go!’ said the youngest. So the father remounted the horse, and put her behind him. Thus they arrived at the palace of Monsu Mostro, and knocked.

‘Who’s there?’ said a voice within.

‘Friends!’ answered the father; and they were shown in.

‘Here’s my daughter, as I promised,’ said the father.

‘All right!’ said Monsu Mostro; and, giving him another large sum of money, sent him away.

When the father was gone, he said to the girl, ‘I’m not going to marry you as your father thought. I want you to do the service of the house. But mind when there is anyone here you always call me “papa.”’

The girl promised to do as she was bid, and soon after there was a knock at the door, and some hunters who had got belated in the Campagna came to seek hospitality.

‘Let them in, set supper before them; and give them a change of clothes,’ said Monsu Mostro; and the girl did as she was bid. While they were at supper one of the huntsmen kept looking at her, for she was a beautiful girl, and afterwards he asked her if she would marry him, for he was the king’s son. ‘Oh, shouldn’t I like it!’ said the girl, ‘but you must ask papa.’ The prince asked Monsu Mostro, and as he made no objection, he went and fetched a greatcortège, and took her to the palace to marry her. As she was going away Monsu Mostro gave her a comb, wrapped up in paper, and said, ‘Take care of this, and don’t forget you have got it.’ The girl was too full of her happiness to pay much heed, but she put it in her bosom and went away.

As she drove along, a pair of horns like a cow’s began to grow on her head, and they had already attained a considerable size before she arrived at the royal palace. The queen was horrified at her appearance, and refused to let her come in. ‘How can it possibly be that such a beautiful girl should have all of a sudden got a pair of horns?’ said the prince. But it was no use saying anything, for there were the horns, and the queen was determined that she should not be admitted into the royal palace.

The prince was very much distressed, and would on no account let her be turned adrift as the queen wished, but sent her to a house in the Campagna, where he sent a servant every day to ask how she was, and to take her some present, but also to observe if the horns had not perchance gone away as suddenly as they had come. But, instead of going away, they went on growing every day bigger.

In the meantime the queen sent a servant out with three little puppy-dogs in a basket, saying that whoever trained them best should marry the prince. One of these the servant brought to her, and the two others to two other girls, who were princesses, either of whom the queen would have preferred her son should marry.

‘Train puppy-dogs!’ said each of the other two girls. ‘I know nothing about training puppy-dogs! What can I do with them!’ and they let them get into all manner of bad habits.

Butsheput hers in a basket and went back to the palace of Monsu Mostro, and knocked.

‘Who’s there?’ said Monsu Mostro.

‘It’s I!’4answered she; and then she told him all that had befallen her, and showed him the puppy-dog in the basket. He looked at it for a moment, but would not let her in, and only cried out, ‘Go along! you ugly horned thing!’5

She went away crying; but having lifted up the cloth and peeped at the puppy-dog, she felt reassured, and sent it back by a servant to the queen.

When the queen uncovered the basket a beautiful little dog sprang out all of solid gold, yet it leaped about and performed all manner of tricks just as if it had been a real dog.

The prince was triumphant when he saw thatherdog was so much better than the other two; but the queen was indignant, and said, ‘It is no dog at all, that goldthing!’ and she would not allow that the girl had won the trial.

After that the queen sent a servant out with three pounds of flax, and said that whoever could spin it best should marry the prince.

‘What do I know about spinning!’ said each of the other two; and they let the flax lie without touching it.

Butshetook hers in a basket and went to the palace of Monsu Mostro, and knocked.

‘Who’s there?’ asked he.

‘It’s I!’ she replied in her doleful voice, and told him her new difficulty. Monsu Mostro looked at the flax, but refused to admit her, and saying, ‘Away with you, you horned wretch!’ shut the door against her.

This basket, too, she sent by a servant to the queen, and when the queen opened it she found it full of gold thread.

‘You must allow she has done better than the others this time!’ said the prince.

‘No! it is as bad as before,’ answered the queen; ‘it is not natural! It won’t do for me!’

‘After that the queen sent out a notice that whichever of them had her hair growing down to her heels should marry the prince.

‘My hair does not reach down to my waist,’ said each of the other two. ‘How can I make it grow down to my heels?’

Butshewent to the palace of Monsu Mostro, and knocked.

‘Who’s there?’ asked he.

‘It is I!’ she replied, as dolefully as before, and told him what was required of her now.

‘You see now what it is to have paid no attention to what I told you,’ answered Monsu Mostro. ‘I told you not to forget the comb I gave you. If you had not forgottenthat none of this would have happened. That comb is your remedy now;’ and with that he shut the door.

But she went home and combed her hair with the comb he had given her; and not only the horns went away, but her hair grew down quite to her heels and swept the ground. But the other two were jealous when they saw that she had beaten them in all three trials, and they came to her to ask how she made her hair grow, and she sent them to the palace of Monsu Mostro to ask.

But as they only came out of jealousy, he told them to make themselves two pitch nightcaps and sleep in them; and when they got up in the morning, instead of having longer hair, all the hair they had came off.

But she was at length given to the prince, and they were married amid great rejoicing.

[The two preceding stories represent the Roman contribution to the stories of visits to the underground world and the Bluebeard group. I have others (particularly one called ‘Il Cavolo d’Oro’, the ‘Golden Cabbage’) more like the general run of them. The two I have selected have this difference, that in neither instance does the subterranean ruler represent the Devil. ‘Monsu Mostro,’ is most disinterested in his generosity. As usual with the Roman versions, all that is terrible is eliminated. For other versions, see Ralston, pp. 98–100; and for a somewhat similar story, the ‘Water Snake,’ p. 116. Much in the Norse, ‘East of the Sun and West of the Moon,’ is like the ‘Rè Moro;’ so is ‘The Old Dame and her Hen,’ though the later details ofthat story are more like the Tirolean version, which I have given in ‘Laxehale’s Wives,’ in ‘Household Stories from the Land of Hofer.’ The German version given as ‘Fitchers Vogel,’ Grimm, p. 177, has more of the horrid element than any of the others. In the version of ‘Tündér Ilona’ given in Graf Mailath’s‘Magyarische Sagen’ (a rather different version from that told me at Pesth, which I have given at p. 20–1), Prince Argilus loses his bride and her kingdom, and has to begin all his labours over again, through looking into a closed chamber whichTündér Ilonahad bid him not to open in her absence. But heroic action abounds in the Hungarian tales, just as it is wanting in the Roman ones, and in this, and in many details, particularly in the enthusiasm for magic horses, they are singularly like the Gaelic.

The ‘Rè Moro’ is perhaps nearer ‘Beauty and the Beast’ than ‘Bluebeard.’ I had a version of this given me in the following form, under the title of‘The Enchanted Rose-Tree.’

1At what period the title of honour of ‘Monsu’ got appended to the monster’s name is more than I can fix.↑2‘Chi è?’ ‘amicè.’See note 3, p. 187.↑3The reader will bear in mind, in this and other places, that ‘papa’ and ‘mama’ are vernacular for ‘father’ and ‘mother’ among children of the lowest classes in Italy.↑4‘Son’ io.’ I have generally found these stories told with a great deal of effect, especially to suit the tone to the dialogues. It was particularly the case with this one,e.g.the ‘son’ io’ was said in the lamentable tone of a person wearied with fatigue and disappointment.’↑5‘Vatene, brutta cornuda!’↑

1At what period the title of honour of ‘Monsu’ got appended to the monster’s name is more than I can fix.↑

2‘Chi è?’ ‘amicè.’See note 3, p. 187.↑

3The reader will bear in mind, in this and other places, that ‘papa’ and ‘mama’ are vernacular for ‘father’ and ‘mother’ among children of the lowest classes in Italy.↑

4‘Son’ io.’ I have generally found these stories told with a great deal of effect, especially to suit the tone to the dialogues. It was particularly the case with this one,e.g.the ‘son’ io’ was said in the lamentable tone of a person wearied with fatigue and disappointment.’↑

5‘Vatene, brutta cornuda!’↑

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