PALOMBELLETTA.1

PALOMBELLETTA.1They say there was a peasant whose wife had died and left him one little girl, who was the most beautiful creature that ever was seen; no one on earth could compare with her for beauty. After a while the peasant married again: this time he married a peasant-woman who had a daughter who was the most deformed object that ever was seen; no cripple on earth could compare with her for deformity; and, moreover, her skin was quite black and shrivelled, and altogether no one could bear to look at her, she was so hideous.One day when everyone was out, and only the fair daughter at home, the king came by from hunting thirsty, and he stopped at the cottage and asked the fair maid for a glass of water. When he saw how fair she was and with what grace she waited on him, he said, ‘Fair maiden, if you will, I will come back in eight days and make you my wife.’ The maiden answered, ‘Indeed I will it, your Majesty!’ and the king rode away.When the stepmother came home the simple maiden told her all that had happened, and she answered her deceitfully, congratulating her on her good fortune. Before the day came round, however, she shut the fair maiden in the cellar. When the king came she went out to meet him with a smiling face, saying, ‘Good day, Sire! What is your royal pleasure?’ And the king answered, ‘To marry your daughter am I come.’ Then the stepmother brought out her own daughter to him, all wrapped up in a wide mantle, and her face covered with a thick veil, and a hood over that.‘Rest assured, good woman, that your daughter will be my tenderest care,’ said the king; ‘but you must take those wrappers off.’‘By no means, Sire!’ exclaimed the stepmother.‘And beware you do it not. You have seen how fair she is above all the children of earth. But this exceeding beauty she has on one condition. If one breath of air strike her she loses it all. Therefore, Oh, king! let not the veil be removed.’When the king heard that he called for another veil, and another hood, and wrapping her still more carefully round, handed her into the carriage he had brought for her, shut the door close, and rode away on horseback by her side.When they arrived at the palace the hideous daughter of the stepmother was married to the king all wrapt up in her veils.The stepmother, however, went into her room, full of triumph at what she had done. ‘But what am I to do with the other girl!’ she said to herself; ‘somehow or other some day she will get out of the cellar, and the king will see her, and it will be worse for my daughter than before.’ And as she knew not what to do she went to a witch to help her. ‘This is what you must do,’ said the witch; ‘take this pin’ (and she gave her a long pin with a gold head), ‘and put it into the head of the maiden, and she will become a dove. Then have ready a cage, and keep her in it, and no one will ever see her for a maiden more.’The stepmother went therefore, and bought a cage, and taking the large pin2down into the cellar, she drove the pin into the fair maiden’s head, holding open the cage as she did so.As soon as the pin entered the maiden’s head she became a dove, but instead of flying into the cage she flew over the stepmother’s head far away out of sight.On she flew till she came to the king’s palace, right against the window of the kitchen where the cook was ready preparing a great dinner for the king. The cook looked round as he heard the poor little dove beating its frightened breast against the window, and, fearful lest it should hurt itself, he opened the window.In flew the dove as soon as he opened the window, and flew three times round his head, singing each time as she did so:—‘O cook! O cook! of the royal kitchen, what shall we do with the Queen? All of you put yourselves to sleep, and may the dinner be burnt up!’3As soon as she had sung this the third time the cook sank into a deep sleep; the dinner from want of attention was all burnt up; and when the king sat down to table, there was nothing to set before him.‘Where is the dinner?’ exclaimed the king, as he looked over the empty table to which he had brought his bride, still wrapt up in her thick veils.‘Please your Majesty, the dinner is all burnt up as black as charcoal,’ said the chamberlain; ‘and the cook sits in the kitchen so fast asleep that no one can wake him.’‘Go and fetch me a dinner from the inn,’ said the king; ‘and the cook, when he comes to himself, let him be brought before me.’After a time the cook came to himself, and the chamberlain brought him before the king.‘Tell me how this happened,’ said the king to the cook. ‘All these years you have served me well and faithfully; how is it that to-day, when the dinner should have been of the best in honour of my bride, everything is burnt up, and the king’s table is left empty?’‘Indeed, the dinner had been of the best, Sire,’ answered the cook. ‘So had I prepared it. Only, when all was nearly ready, there came a dove flying in at the window, and flew three times round my head, singing each time,Cook of the royal kitchen,What shall we do with the Queen?Sleep ye all soundly, and burnt be the mealWhich on the King’s board should have been.After that a deep sleep fell on me and I know nothing more of what happened.’‘That must have been a singular dove,’ said the king; ‘bring her to me and you shall be forgiven.’The cook went down to look for the dove, and found her midway, flying to meet him.‘There is the dove, Sire,’ said the cook, handing the dove to the king.‘So you spoilt my dinner, did you palombelletta,’ said the king. ‘But never mind; you are a dear little dove, and I forgive you,’ and he put her in his breast and stroked her. Thus, as he went on stroking and fondling her, calling her ‘palombelletta bella!’ he felt the gold head of the stepmother’s big pin through the feathers. ‘What have you got in your head, palombelletta dear?’ he said, and pulled the pin out.Instantly the fair maiden stood before him in all her surpassing beauty as he had seen her at the first. ‘Are you not my fair maiden who promised to marry me?’ exclaimed the king.‘The very same, and no other,’ replied the maiden.‘Then who is this one?’ said the king, and he turned to the stepmother’s daughter beside him, and tore off her veil. Then he understood the deceit that had been played on him, and he sent for the stepmother, and ordered that she and her daughter should be punished with death.[The next group most prolific in variety of incidents is that in which the stepmother represents the evil genius of the story; sometimes there is a daughter only, sometimes a daughter and a son, and sometimes, but less frequent, a son only. Allied to it is that in which the character devolves on two elder sisters, not specified to be stepsisters, and the incidents in these two branches are closely interwoven. I give the first place to Cinderella, because it has acquired a homely importance.]1‘Palombelletta,’dear little dove.↑2‘Spillone,’ big pin. This magic use of long pins driven into the head is one of the frequent charges against witches. See numerous instances at various epochs given by Del Rio, ‘Disquisitionum Magicarum,’ lib. iii. p. 1, 2 iv. s. II., where he mentions among others the cases of two midwives who were convicted in Germany of having destroyed, the one forty, the other innumerable, new-born infants in this manner.↑3Cuoco! cuoco! di reale cucinaChe faremo della regina?Tutti posse a dormentar’,E la pranza posse bruciar’.The words have been clipt in repetition. ‘Posse,’ in the third line, must be a corruption of ‘si pongono,’ from the verb ‘ponere;’ and in thefourthline, of ‘si puo,’ from the verb ‘potere.’↑LA CENORIENTOLA.1They say there was a merchant who had three daughters. When he went out into foreign countries to buy wares he told them he would bring them rare presents whatever they might ask for. The eldest asked for precious jewels, the second for rich shawls, but the youngest who was always kept out of sight in the kitchen by the others, and made to do the dirty work of the house, asked only for a little bird.‘So you want a little bird, do you! What is the use of a little bird to you!’ said the sisters mocking her, and ‘Papa will have something else to think of than minding little birds on a long journey.’‘But you will bring me a little bird, won’t you, papa?’ pleaded the little girl; ‘and I can tell you that if you don’t the boat you are on will stand still, and will neither move backwards nor forwards.’The merchant went away into a far country and bought precious wares, but he forgot all about the little bird. It was only when he had got on board a boat to go down a mighty river on his homeward way, and the captain found the boat would not move by any means, that he remembered what his daughter had said to him. Then while the captain was wondering how it was the boat would not move, he went to him and told him what he had done. But the captain said, ‘That is easily set right. Hereclose by is a garden full of thousands of birds; you can easily creep in and carry off one.Onewill never be missed among so many thousands.’The merchant followed his directions and went into the garden where there were so many thousand birds that he easily caught one. The captain gave him a cage, and he brought it safely home and gave it to his daughter.That night the elder sisters said as usual, ‘We are going to the ball; you will stay at home and sweep up the place and mind the fire.’Now all the birds in the garden which the captain had pointed out to the merchant were fairies; so when the others were gone to the ball and the youngest daughter went into her room to her bird, she said to it:Give me splendid raiment,And I will give you my rags.2Immediately, the bird gave her the most beautiful suit of clothes, with jewels and golden slippers, and a splendid carriage and prancing horses. With these the maiden went to the ball which was at the king’s palace. The moment the king saw her he fell in love with her, and would dance with no one else. The sisters were furious with the stranger because the king danced all night with her and not with them, but they had no idea it was their sister.The second night she did the same, only the bird gave her a yet more beautiful dress, and the king did all he could to find out who she was, but she would not tell him. Then he asked her name and she said,—‘They call meCenorientola.’‘Cenorientola,’ said the king; ‘what a pretty name! I never heard it before.’He had also told the servants that they must run after her carriage and see where it went; but though they ran as fast as the wind they could not come near the pace of her horses.The third night the sisters went to the ball and lefther at home, and she staid at home with her little bird and said to it,—Give me splendid raiment,And I will give you my rags.3Then the bird gave her a more splendid suit still, and the king paid her as much attention as ever. But to the servants he had said, ‘If you don’t follow fast enough tonight to see where she lives I will have all your heads cut off.’ So they used such extra diligence that she in her hurry to get away dropped one of her golden slippers; this the servants picked up and brought to the king.The next day the king sent a servant into every house in the city till he should find her whom the golden slipper fitted, but there was not one; last of all he came to the merchant’s house, and he tried it on the two elder daughters and it would fit neither. Then he said,—‘There must be some other maiden in this house;’ but they only shrugged their shoulders. ‘It is impossible; another maiden there must be, for every maiden in the city we have seen and the slipper fits none, therefore one there must be here.’Then they said,—‘In truth we have a little sister who sits in the kitchen and does the work. She is calledCenorientola, because she is always smutty. We are sure she never went to a ball, and it would only soil the beautiful gold slipper to let her put her smutty feet into it.’‘It may be so,’ replied the king’s servant, ‘but we must try, nevertheless.’So they fetched her, and the king’s servant found that the shoe fitted her; and they went and told the king all.The moment the king heard them sayCenorientolahe said,—‘That is she! It is the name she gave me.’So he sent a carriage to fetch her in all haste. The bird meantime had given her a more beautiful dress than any she had had before, and priceless jewels, so that when they came to fetch her she looked quite fit to be a queen.Then the king married her; and though her sisters had behaved so ill to her she gave them two fine estates, so that all were content.[The counterparts to the story are endless. In Grimm’s ‘Aschenputtel’ (p. 93), the nominal German counterpart, there is a stepmother as well as two sisters, and the story turns upon the gifts each daughter craves of the father, an episode which occurs in Roman versions with different titles. His ‘Die drei Männlein im Walde’ (‘Three Little Men in the Wood’) is like it, and the other versions too, and the episode in it of the good daughter receiving the faculty of dropping a gold coin from her mouth at every word she utters, is like a Hungarian story, in which no stepmother figures, but the evil genius of the story (the Lady-in-Waiting) is plainly called a witch. In this story it is a princess, from whose footsteps rise gold pieces, her tears are pearls, and her smiles rosebuds. In one of the Siddhi Kür Stories which I have translated as ‘Sagas from the far East’ (p. 49) is a similar incident, and a Spanish equivalent in Note 3. A friend of mine met with a very similar legend in a convent at Quito, concerning a nun called ‘the Rose of Quito,’ out of whose grave a rose-tree is said to have sprung and blossomed on the morrow of her burial. It seems, however, to have an independent origin, as ‘the Rose of Quito’ died within the last 150 years. In the Tirolean ‘Klein-Else,’ or ‘Aschenpfödl,’ to which allusion has already been made, and which answers to it in name, we have a connexion with the last group (as in some of the succeeding Roman versions) in the sun, moon, and star dresses.Among the Tales of Italian Tirol we find it asZendrarola, andwith a good deal of variation from any other form I have met. The story opens with a dying father as in the North Tirolean ‘Klein-Else,’ but it is only a rich man, not a warrior-baron, and he has three daughters instead of one. He bids them choose what gifts he shall bestow on them before he dies, and the eldest asks for a pair of earrings; the second for a dress; and the youngest for his magic sword, which gives whatever the possessor wishes for. The story is singular in this, that the elder sisters seem to have no spite. The father does not die; but, notwithstanding his recovery, he has nothing more to do with the story further than to give an unwilling consent that the youngest daughter, though his favourite, shall go forth with her sword and roam the world till she finds a husband. She only takes service in a large house in a big town, however; but there falls in love with a melancholy youth, son of a count, who lives opposite. For the sake of being nearer him, she obtains the place of kitchen-maid in his palace, and thus acquires her title of Zendrarola in a very different way from her counterparts in other lands. One day she hears he is going to a ball, and she makes her wishing-sword give her a dress like the sky; and the young Count, who has never admired anyone before, of course falls in love with her. When he comes back, he confides to his lady mother what has occurred, and Zendrarola, now again dressed as a dirty drudge, interposes that the fair one he was extolling was not prettier than herself. He silences her indignantly by giving her a poke with the shovel, and when she meets him next night in some beautiful attire, and he asks her where she comes from, she answers ‘dalla palettada’ (from shovel-blow). The next day the same thing happens, and he gives her a blow with the tongs, and when he asks her in the evening what her country is, she answers ‘majettada’ (tongs-blow); answering toFrustinaiaandStivalaiain the second Roman version of ‘Maria di Legno.’ He gives her a ring, which she sends up in his broth, as Klein-Else does in the pancake, and so he recognises and marries her. In one or two of the Roman versions also, the means of recognition is a ring in place of a slipper.I do not remember any Cinderella among the Russian Tales, though there are stepmother stories, which pair off with others of the Roman. For Scotch versions I must refer the reader to Campbell’s ‘Highland Tales,’ i. 226, and ii. 292.]1‘Cinderella’ is a favourite in all countries, with its promise of compensation to the desolate and oppressed. I only came across it once, however, while making this collection, in its own simple form, and with a name as near its own asCenorientola. Of course the construction of such words is quite arbitrary, and any Italian can make a dozen such out of any name or word: even in the dictionary the following variations are to be found—‘Cenericcio,’ ‘Cenerognolo,’ ‘Cenerino,’ ‘Ceneroso,’ ‘Cenerugiolo.’↑2Da mi tu panni belli,Ed io te do i cencirelli.↑3Da mi tu abiti belliEd io te do i stracciarelli.The same as above: ‘abiti’ and ‘panni’ are convertible, so are ‘cenci’and ‘straccj.’↑VACCARELLA.1They say there was once a husband and a wife; but I don’t mean that they were husband and wife of each other. The husband had lost his wife, and the wife had lost her husband, and each had one little daughter. The husband sent his daughter to the wife to be brought up along with her own daughter, and as the girl came every morning to be trained and instructed, the wife used to send a message back by her every evening, saying, ‘Why doesn’t your father marry me? then we should all live together, and you would no longer have this weary walk to take.’The father, however, did not see it in the same light; but the teacher2continued sending the same message. In short,3at last she carried her point, having previously given a solemn promise to him that Maria, his little girl, should be always as tenderly treated as her own.Not many months elapsed, however, before she began to show herself a true stepmother. After treating Maria with every kind of harshness, she at last sent her out into the Campagna to tend the cow, so as to keep her out of sight of her father, and estrange him from her. Maria had to keep the cow’s stall clean with fresh litter every day; sometimes she had to take the cow out to grass, and watch that it only grazed over the right piece of land; at other times she had to go out and cut grass for the cow to eat. All this was work enough for one so young; but Maria was a kind-hearted girl, and grew fond of her cow, so that it became a pleasure to her to attend to it.When the cruel stepmother saw this she was annoyed to find her so light-hearted over her work, and to vex her more gave her a great heap of hemp to spin. It was in vain that Maria reminded her she had never been taught to spin; the only answer she got was, ‘If you don’t bring it home with you to-night all properly spun you will befinely punished;’ and Maria knew to her cost what that meant.When Maria went out into the Campagna that day she was no longer light-hearted; and as she littered down the stall she stroked the cow fondly, and said to her, as she had no one else to complain to, ‘Vaccarella! Vaccarella! what shall I do? I have got all this hemp to spin, and I never learnt spinning. Yet if I don’t get through it somehow I shall get sadly beaten to-night. Dear little cow, tell me what to do!’But the cow was an enchanted cow,4and when she heard Maria cry she turned round and said quickly and positively:—Throw it on to the horns of me,And go along, cut grass for me!5Maria did as she was told, went out and cut a good basketful of grass, and imagine her delight on coming back with it to find all the whole lot of hemp beautifully spun.The surprise of the stepmother was still greater than hers, at finding that she had got through her task so easily, for she had given her enough to have occupied an ordinary person a week. Next day, therefore, she determined to vex her with a more difficult task, and gave her a quantity of spun hemp6to weave into a piece of fine cloth. Maria’s pleadings were as fruitless as before, and once more she went to tell her tale of woe to her ‘dear little cow.’Vaccarella readily gave the same answer as before:—Throw it on to the horns of me,And go along, cut grass for me!Once more, when Maria came back with her basket of grass, she found all her work done, to her great surprise and delight. But her stepmother’s surprise was quite of another order. That Maria should have woven the cloth, not only without instruction, but even without a loom,proved clearly enough she must have had some one to help her—a matter which roused the stepmother’s jealousy in the highest degree, and wherein this help consisted she determined to find out. Accordingly, next day she gave her a shirt to make up, and then posted herself out of sight in a corner of the cow-house to see what happened. Thus she overheard Maria’s complaint to her dear little cow, and Vaccarella’s reply:—Throw it on to the horns of me,And go along, cut grass for me!She thus also saw, what Maria did not see, that as soon as she had gone out the cow assumed the form of a woman, and sat down and stitched and stitched away till the shirt was made, and that in a surprisingly short space of time. As soon as it was finished, and before Maria came in, the woman became a cow again.The cruel stepmother determined that Maria should be deprived of a friend who enabled her to set all her hard treatment at defiance, and next morning told her that she was going to kill the cow. Maria was broken-hearted at the announcement, but she knew it was useless to remonstrate; so she only used her greatest speed to reach her ‘dear little cow,’ and warn her of what was going to happen in time to make her escape.‘There is no need for me to escape,’ replied Vaccarella; ‘killing will not hurt me. So dry your tears, and don’t be distressed. Only, after they have killed me, put your hand under my heart, and there you will find a golden ball. This ball is yours, so take it out, and whenever you are tired of your present kind of life, you have only to say to it on some fitting occasion—“Golden ball, golden ball, dress me in gold and give me a lover,”7and you shall see what shall happen.’Vaccarella had no time to say more, for the stepmother arrived just then with a man who slaughtered the cow at her order.Under Vaccarella’s heart Maria found the promised golden ball, which she hid away carefully against some fitting occasion for using it arose.Not long after there was anovena8of a great festival, during which Maria’s stepmother, with all her disposition to overwork her, durst not keep her from church, lest the neighbours should cry ‘Shame!’ on her.Maria accordingly went to church with all the rest of the people, and when she had made her way through the crowd to a little distance from her stepmother, she took her golden ball out of her pocket and whispered to it—‘Golden ball, golden ball, dress me in gold and give me a lover.’Instantly the golden ball burst gently open and enveloped her, and she came out of it all radiant with beautiful clothing, like a princess. Everybody made way for her in her astonishing brightness.The eyes of the king’s son were turned upon her, no less than the eyes of all the people; and the prayers were no sooner over than he sent some of his attendants to call her and bring her to him. Before they could reach her, however, Maria had restored her beautiful raiment to the golden ball, and, in the sordid attire in which her stepmother dressed her, she could easily pass through the crowd unperceived.At home, her stepmother could not forbear talking, like everyone else in the town, about the maiden in glittering raiment who had appeared in the midst of the church; but, of course, without the remotest suspicion that it was Maria herself. But Maria sat still and said nothing.So it happened each day of the Novena; for, though Maria was not at all displeased with the appearance and fame of the husband whom her ‘dear little cow’ seemed to have appointed for her, she did not wish to be too easy a prize, and thought it but right to make him take a little trouble to win her. Thus she every day restored all herbright clothing to the golden ball before the prince’s men could overtake her. Only on the last day of the Novena, when the prince, fearful lest it might also be the last on which he would have an opportunity of seeing her, had told them to use extra diligence, they were so near overtaking her that, in the hurry of the moment, she dropped a slipper.9This the prince’s men eagerly seized, feeling no compunction in wresting it from the mean-looking wench (so Maria now looked) who disputed possession of it with them, not in the least imagining that she could be the radiant being of whom they were in search.The Novena over, Maria once more returned to her ceaseless toil; but the stepmother’s hatred had grown so great that she determined to rid herself of her altogether and in the most cruel way.Down in the cellar there stood a large barrel,10which had grown dirty and mouldy from neglect, and wanted scalding out. ‘Get into the barrel, Maria girl,’ she bid her next morning for her task, ‘and scrape it and rub it well before we scald it.’Maria did as she was bid, and the stepmother went away to boil the water.Meantime, the prince’s men had taken Maria’s slipper to him, and he, delighted to have any token of his fair one, appointed an officer to go into every house, and proclaim that the maiden whom the slipper might fit should be his bride. The officer went round from house to house, trying the slipper on everybody’s foot. But it fitted no one, for it was under a spell.But the stepmother’s own daughter11had gone down to the cellar to help Maria, unbeknown to her mother; and it so happened that, just as she was inside the barrel and Maria outside, the king’s officer happened to come by that way. He opened the door,12and, seeing a damsel standing within, tried on the sandal without waiting to ask leave. As the sandal fitted Maria to perfection, theofficer was all impatience to carry her off to the prince, and placed her in the carriage which was waiting outside, and drove off with her before anyone had even observed his entrance.Scarcely had all this passed than the stepmother came back, with her servants, each carrying a can of boiling water. They placed themselves in a ring round the barrel, and each emptied her charge into it. As it was the stepmother’s daughter who was inside at the time, instead of Maria, it was she who got scalded to death in her place.By-and-by, when the house was quiet, the bad stepmother went to the barrel, intending to take out the body of Maria and hide it. What was her dismay when she found, instead of Maria’s body, that of her own daughter! As soon as her distress and grief subsided sufficiently to enable her to consider what she had to do, the idea suggested itself to conceal the murder by putting the blame of it on some one else. For this purpose she took the body of her daughter, and, dressing it in dry clothes, seated it on the top of the stairs against her husband’s return.13Presently, home he came with his ass-load of wood, and called to her daughter to come and help him unload it, as usual. But the daughter continued sitting on the top of the stairs, and moved not. Again and again he called, louder and louder, but still she moved not; till at last, irritated beyond all endurance, he hurled one of his logs of wood at her, which brought the badly-balanced corpse rolling and tumbling all the way down the stairs, just as the stepmother had designed.The husband, however, was far from being deceived by the device. He could see the body presented no appearance of dying from a recent fall.‘Where’s Maria?’ he asked, as soon as he got up into the room.‘Nobody knows; she has disappeared!’ replied the stepmother; nor was he slow to convince himself she was nowhere in the house.‘This is no place for me to stay in,’ said the husband to himself. ‘One child driven away, and one murdered; who can say what may happen next?’Next morning, therefore, he called to him the little daughter born to him since his marriage with Maria’s stepmother, and went away with her for good and all. So that bad woman was deprived, as she deserved, of her husband and all her children in one day.Just as the father and his daughter were starting to go away, Maria drove by in a gilded coach with the prince her husband; so he had the satisfaction, and her stepmother the vexation, of seeing her triumph.[The introduction of the wonder-working cow in this second version of the story of Cinderella cannot fail to suggest the idea that it may find its prototype in Sabala, the heavenly cow of the Ramayana.14I have another Stepmother story, the place of which is here, but it is too long to give in its entirety. It begins like the last, and the next, and many others, with a widower, the teacher of whose children, a boy and girl, insists on marrying him. Soon after, of course, she turns the children out of doors; the boy is made the slave of a witch, and comes well at last out of many adventures; it is one of the nearest approaches to a heroic story that I have met with in Rome. There are details in it, however, like Filagranata and others, not actually of the Stepmother group. The girl gets taken into a Brigand’s cave, and goes through adventures which befall the youngest ofthreesisters (without a stepmother) in the Italian-Tirolese tale of ‘Le tre Sorelle,’ and that, again, is precisely like another Roman story I have, in many respects different from the present one, called ‘The Three Windows.’ One of the adventures in the present story is, that the witch, instead of killing the girl, gives her the appearance of death, and she is shut up in a box instead of being regularly buried, and a prince, as he goes by hunting, finds her, and the means of restoringher, and marries her. This is a very common incident in another group, and occurs in the ‘Siddhi Kür’ story which I have given as ‘The Prayer making suddenly Rich,’ in ‘Sagas from the Far East;’ and in the third version of ‘Maria de Legno,’infra, where also the girl is not even seemingly dead. I cannot forbear subjoining a quaint version of the story of Joseph, which was told me, embodying the same incident, though the story of Joseph has usually been identified with the group in which a younger brother is the hero; by Dr. Dasent, among others, who gives several examples, under the name of ‘Boots.’ In the Roman series this group is represented by ‘Scioccolone.’]1‘Vaccarella,’‘dear little cow,’ ‘good little cow.’ The endearment is expressed in the form of the diminutive.↑2‘Maestra.’↑3‘Basta,’ ‘enough,’ ‘to cut a long story short.’↑4‘Fatata.’↑5Butta sopr’ alle corna a me,E vatene far l’erba per me.‘Corno’ is one of the words which (as ‘muro,’ ‘novo,’ ‘braccio,’ ‘dito,’ &c.), masculine in the singular, have a feminine plural.↑6‘Carrèvale,’ or ‘corrèvale’—I could not very well distinguish which, and do not know the word. The narrator explained it as like ‘cànapa’—hemp, only finer. ‘Refe’ is used in the same sense in Tuscany.↑7Pallo dorato! Pallo dorato!Vestimi d’oro e dammi l’innamorato.‘Dorato’ is used for ‘golden’ as well as for ‘gilt.’ The change from ‘palla,’ a ball, to ‘pallo’ is a very considerable license, for the sake of making it rime with ‘innamorato;’ though some words admit of being spelt either way, as ‘mattino’ or ‘mattina, ‘botto’ or ‘botta’ (a blow), and others can be used with either gender without alteration, as ‘polvere.’ I have never met with ‘pallo’ elsewhere, though it is one of the words which take a masculine augmentative (‘pallone’).↑8‘Novena,’ a short service, with or without a sermon, said for nine days before some great festival, in preparation for it.↑9‘Pianella,’ a sandal, or slipper without a heel. ‘In those daysthey used to wear such things instead of shoes,’ commented the old lady as she told the tale.↑10‘Botte,’ a very large wine-barrel of a certain measure.↑11Here called ‘buona figlia,’ ‘good daughter.’ There did not seem any reason for this designation. Possibly the narrator had forgotten some incident of the story, introducing it.↑12That the cellar should be, as thus appears, on the ground-floor, is very characteristic of Rome, though there are, of course, plenty of underground cellars too; but the one is properly ‘cantino’ and ‘canova,’ and the other ‘grottino.’ The distinction is, however, not very rigidly observed in common parlance. To haveanunderground cellar is so far aspecialité, that it has been taken to be a sufficiently distinctive attribute to supply the sign or title to those inns which possess it. Rufini gives examples of above a dozen thus called ‘Del Grottino.’↑13The ground-floor being used as a cellar, the family lives upstairs. This is a very common arrangement.↑14The reader who has not access to a better rendering of this beautiful legend will find one I have given from Bopp, in ‘Sagas from the Far East,’ pp. 402–3; but Mr. Ralston gives us a Russian version, in which a doll or puppet is the agent instead of the cow (pp. 150–9). It is true, on the other hand, that he has (p. 115) another rather different story, in which a cow also gives good gifts; and mentions others at p. 260. In a story of the Italian Tirol, ‘Le due Sorelle,’ which I shall have occasion to notice later, a cow has also a supernatural part to play, somewhat like that of Vaccarella; only there she acts at the bidding of a fairy, not of her own motion.↑

PALOMBELLETTA.1They say there was a peasant whose wife had died and left him one little girl, who was the most beautiful creature that ever was seen; no one on earth could compare with her for beauty. After a while the peasant married again: this time he married a peasant-woman who had a daughter who was the most deformed object that ever was seen; no cripple on earth could compare with her for deformity; and, moreover, her skin was quite black and shrivelled, and altogether no one could bear to look at her, she was so hideous.One day when everyone was out, and only the fair daughter at home, the king came by from hunting thirsty, and he stopped at the cottage and asked the fair maid for a glass of water. When he saw how fair she was and with what grace she waited on him, he said, ‘Fair maiden, if you will, I will come back in eight days and make you my wife.’ The maiden answered, ‘Indeed I will it, your Majesty!’ and the king rode away.When the stepmother came home the simple maiden told her all that had happened, and she answered her deceitfully, congratulating her on her good fortune. Before the day came round, however, she shut the fair maiden in the cellar. When the king came she went out to meet him with a smiling face, saying, ‘Good day, Sire! What is your royal pleasure?’ And the king answered, ‘To marry your daughter am I come.’ Then the stepmother brought out her own daughter to him, all wrapped up in a wide mantle, and her face covered with a thick veil, and a hood over that.‘Rest assured, good woman, that your daughter will be my tenderest care,’ said the king; ‘but you must take those wrappers off.’‘By no means, Sire!’ exclaimed the stepmother.‘And beware you do it not. You have seen how fair she is above all the children of earth. But this exceeding beauty she has on one condition. If one breath of air strike her she loses it all. Therefore, Oh, king! let not the veil be removed.’When the king heard that he called for another veil, and another hood, and wrapping her still more carefully round, handed her into the carriage he had brought for her, shut the door close, and rode away on horseback by her side.When they arrived at the palace the hideous daughter of the stepmother was married to the king all wrapt up in her veils.The stepmother, however, went into her room, full of triumph at what she had done. ‘But what am I to do with the other girl!’ she said to herself; ‘somehow or other some day she will get out of the cellar, and the king will see her, and it will be worse for my daughter than before.’ And as she knew not what to do she went to a witch to help her. ‘This is what you must do,’ said the witch; ‘take this pin’ (and she gave her a long pin with a gold head), ‘and put it into the head of the maiden, and she will become a dove. Then have ready a cage, and keep her in it, and no one will ever see her for a maiden more.’The stepmother went therefore, and bought a cage, and taking the large pin2down into the cellar, she drove the pin into the fair maiden’s head, holding open the cage as she did so.As soon as the pin entered the maiden’s head she became a dove, but instead of flying into the cage she flew over the stepmother’s head far away out of sight.On she flew till she came to the king’s palace, right against the window of the kitchen where the cook was ready preparing a great dinner for the king. The cook looked round as he heard the poor little dove beating its frightened breast against the window, and, fearful lest it should hurt itself, he opened the window.In flew the dove as soon as he opened the window, and flew three times round his head, singing each time as she did so:—‘O cook! O cook! of the royal kitchen, what shall we do with the Queen? All of you put yourselves to sleep, and may the dinner be burnt up!’3As soon as she had sung this the third time the cook sank into a deep sleep; the dinner from want of attention was all burnt up; and when the king sat down to table, there was nothing to set before him.‘Where is the dinner?’ exclaimed the king, as he looked over the empty table to which he had brought his bride, still wrapt up in her thick veils.‘Please your Majesty, the dinner is all burnt up as black as charcoal,’ said the chamberlain; ‘and the cook sits in the kitchen so fast asleep that no one can wake him.’‘Go and fetch me a dinner from the inn,’ said the king; ‘and the cook, when he comes to himself, let him be brought before me.’After a time the cook came to himself, and the chamberlain brought him before the king.‘Tell me how this happened,’ said the king to the cook. ‘All these years you have served me well and faithfully; how is it that to-day, when the dinner should have been of the best in honour of my bride, everything is burnt up, and the king’s table is left empty?’‘Indeed, the dinner had been of the best, Sire,’ answered the cook. ‘So had I prepared it. Only, when all was nearly ready, there came a dove flying in at the window, and flew three times round my head, singing each time,Cook of the royal kitchen,What shall we do with the Queen?Sleep ye all soundly, and burnt be the mealWhich on the King’s board should have been.After that a deep sleep fell on me and I know nothing more of what happened.’‘That must have been a singular dove,’ said the king; ‘bring her to me and you shall be forgiven.’The cook went down to look for the dove, and found her midway, flying to meet him.‘There is the dove, Sire,’ said the cook, handing the dove to the king.‘So you spoilt my dinner, did you palombelletta,’ said the king. ‘But never mind; you are a dear little dove, and I forgive you,’ and he put her in his breast and stroked her. Thus, as he went on stroking and fondling her, calling her ‘palombelletta bella!’ he felt the gold head of the stepmother’s big pin through the feathers. ‘What have you got in your head, palombelletta dear?’ he said, and pulled the pin out.Instantly the fair maiden stood before him in all her surpassing beauty as he had seen her at the first. ‘Are you not my fair maiden who promised to marry me?’ exclaimed the king.‘The very same, and no other,’ replied the maiden.‘Then who is this one?’ said the king, and he turned to the stepmother’s daughter beside him, and tore off her veil. Then he understood the deceit that had been played on him, and he sent for the stepmother, and ordered that she and her daughter should be punished with death.[The next group most prolific in variety of incidents is that in which the stepmother represents the evil genius of the story; sometimes there is a daughter only, sometimes a daughter and a son, and sometimes, but less frequent, a son only. Allied to it is that in which the character devolves on two elder sisters, not specified to be stepsisters, and the incidents in these two branches are closely interwoven. I give the first place to Cinderella, because it has acquired a homely importance.]1‘Palombelletta,’dear little dove.↑2‘Spillone,’ big pin. This magic use of long pins driven into the head is one of the frequent charges against witches. See numerous instances at various epochs given by Del Rio, ‘Disquisitionum Magicarum,’ lib. iii. p. 1, 2 iv. s. II., where he mentions among others the cases of two midwives who were convicted in Germany of having destroyed, the one forty, the other innumerable, new-born infants in this manner.↑3Cuoco! cuoco! di reale cucinaChe faremo della regina?Tutti posse a dormentar’,E la pranza posse bruciar’.The words have been clipt in repetition. ‘Posse,’ in the third line, must be a corruption of ‘si pongono,’ from the verb ‘ponere;’ and in thefourthline, of ‘si puo,’ from the verb ‘potere.’↑LA CENORIENTOLA.1They say there was a merchant who had three daughters. When he went out into foreign countries to buy wares he told them he would bring them rare presents whatever they might ask for. The eldest asked for precious jewels, the second for rich shawls, but the youngest who was always kept out of sight in the kitchen by the others, and made to do the dirty work of the house, asked only for a little bird.‘So you want a little bird, do you! What is the use of a little bird to you!’ said the sisters mocking her, and ‘Papa will have something else to think of than minding little birds on a long journey.’‘But you will bring me a little bird, won’t you, papa?’ pleaded the little girl; ‘and I can tell you that if you don’t the boat you are on will stand still, and will neither move backwards nor forwards.’The merchant went away into a far country and bought precious wares, but he forgot all about the little bird. It was only when he had got on board a boat to go down a mighty river on his homeward way, and the captain found the boat would not move by any means, that he remembered what his daughter had said to him. Then while the captain was wondering how it was the boat would not move, he went to him and told him what he had done. But the captain said, ‘That is easily set right. Hereclose by is a garden full of thousands of birds; you can easily creep in and carry off one.Onewill never be missed among so many thousands.’The merchant followed his directions and went into the garden where there were so many thousand birds that he easily caught one. The captain gave him a cage, and he brought it safely home and gave it to his daughter.That night the elder sisters said as usual, ‘We are going to the ball; you will stay at home and sweep up the place and mind the fire.’Now all the birds in the garden which the captain had pointed out to the merchant were fairies; so when the others were gone to the ball and the youngest daughter went into her room to her bird, she said to it:Give me splendid raiment,And I will give you my rags.2Immediately, the bird gave her the most beautiful suit of clothes, with jewels and golden slippers, and a splendid carriage and prancing horses. With these the maiden went to the ball which was at the king’s palace. The moment the king saw her he fell in love with her, and would dance with no one else. The sisters were furious with the stranger because the king danced all night with her and not with them, but they had no idea it was their sister.The second night she did the same, only the bird gave her a yet more beautiful dress, and the king did all he could to find out who she was, but she would not tell him. Then he asked her name and she said,—‘They call meCenorientola.’‘Cenorientola,’ said the king; ‘what a pretty name! I never heard it before.’He had also told the servants that they must run after her carriage and see where it went; but though they ran as fast as the wind they could not come near the pace of her horses.The third night the sisters went to the ball and lefther at home, and she staid at home with her little bird and said to it,—Give me splendid raiment,And I will give you my rags.3Then the bird gave her a more splendid suit still, and the king paid her as much attention as ever. But to the servants he had said, ‘If you don’t follow fast enough tonight to see where she lives I will have all your heads cut off.’ So they used such extra diligence that she in her hurry to get away dropped one of her golden slippers; this the servants picked up and brought to the king.The next day the king sent a servant into every house in the city till he should find her whom the golden slipper fitted, but there was not one; last of all he came to the merchant’s house, and he tried it on the two elder daughters and it would fit neither. Then he said,—‘There must be some other maiden in this house;’ but they only shrugged their shoulders. ‘It is impossible; another maiden there must be, for every maiden in the city we have seen and the slipper fits none, therefore one there must be here.’Then they said,—‘In truth we have a little sister who sits in the kitchen and does the work. She is calledCenorientola, because she is always smutty. We are sure she never went to a ball, and it would only soil the beautiful gold slipper to let her put her smutty feet into it.’‘It may be so,’ replied the king’s servant, ‘but we must try, nevertheless.’So they fetched her, and the king’s servant found that the shoe fitted her; and they went and told the king all.The moment the king heard them sayCenorientolahe said,—‘That is she! It is the name she gave me.’So he sent a carriage to fetch her in all haste. The bird meantime had given her a more beautiful dress than any she had had before, and priceless jewels, so that when they came to fetch her she looked quite fit to be a queen.Then the king married her; and though her sisters had behaved so ill to her she gave them two fine estates, so that all were content.[The counterparts to the story are endless. In Grimm’s ‘Aschenputtel’ (p. 93), the nominal German counterpart, there is a stepmother as well as two sisters, and the story turns upon the gifts each daughter craves of the father, an episode which occurs in Roman versions with different titles. His ‘Die drei Männlein im Walde’ (‘Three Little Men in the Wood’) is like it, and the other versions too, and the episode in it of the good daughter receiving the faculty of dropping a gold coin from her mouth at every word she utters, is like a Hungarian story, in which no stepmother figures, but the evil genius of the story (the Lady-in-Waiting) is plainly called a witch. In this story it is a princess, from whose footsteps rise gold pieces, her tears are pearls, and her smiles rosebuds. In one of the Siddhi Kür Stories which I have translated as ‘Sagas from the far East’ (p. 49) is a similar incident, and a Spanish equivalent in Note 3. A friend of mine met with a very similar legend in a convent at Quito, concerning a nun called ‘the Rose of Quito,’ out of whose grave a rose-tree is said to have sprung and blossomed on the morrow of her burial. It seems, however, to have an independent origin, as ‘the Rose of Quito’ died within the last 150 years. In the Tirolean ‘Klein-Else,’ or ‘Aschenpfödl,’ to which allusion has already been made, and which answers to it in name, we have a connexion with the last group (as in some of the succeeding Roman versions) in the sun, moon, and star dresses.Among the Tales of Italian Tirol we find it asZendrarola, andwith a good deal of variation from any other form I have met. The story opens with a dying father as in the North Tirolean ‘Klein-Else,’ but it is only a rich man, not a warrior-baron, and he has three daughters instead of one. He bids them choose what gifts he shall bestow on them before he dies, and the eldest asks for a pair of earrings; the second for a dress; and the youngest for his magic sword, which gives whatever the possessor wishes for. The story is singular in this, that the elder sisters seem to have no spite. The father does not die; but, notwithstanding his recovery, he has nothing more to do with the story further than to give an unwilling consent that the youngest daughter, though his favourite, shall go forth with her sword and roam the world till she finds a husband. She only takes service in a large house in a big town, however; but there falls in love with a melancholy youth, son of a count, who lives opposite. For the sake of being nearer him, she obtains the place of kitchen-maid in his palace, and thus acquires her title of Zendrarola in a very different way from her counterparts in other lands. One day she hears he is going to a ball, and she makes her wishing-sword give her a dress like the sky; and the young Count, who has never admired anyone before, of course falls in love with her. When he comes back, he confides to his lady mother what has occurred, and Zendrarola, now again dressed as a dirty drudge, interposes that the fair one he was extolling was not prettier than herself. He silences her indignantly by giving her a poke with the shovel, and when she meets him next night in some beautiful attire, and he asks her where she comes from, she answers ‘dalla palettada’ (from shovel-blow). The next day the same thing happens, and he gives her a blow with the tongs, and when he asks her in the evening what her country is, she answers ‘majettada’ (tongs-blow); answering toFrustinaiaandStivalaiain the second Roman version of ‘Maria di Legno.’ He gives her a ring, which she sends up in his broth, as Klein-Else does in the pancake, and so he recognises and marries her. In one or two of the Roman versions also, the means of recognition is a ring in place of a slipper.I do not remember any Cinderella among the Russian Tales, though there are stepmother stories, which pair off with others of the Roman. For Scotch versions I must refer the reader to Campbell’s ‘Highland Tales,’ i. 226, and ii. 292.]1‘Cinderella’ is a favourite in all countries, with its promise of compensation to the desolate and oppressed. I only came across it once, however, while making this collection, in its own simple form, and with a name as near its own asCenorientola. Of course the construction of such words is quite arbitrary, and any Italian can make a dozen such out of any name or word: even in the dictionary the following variations are to be found—‘Cenericcio,’ ‘Cenerognolo,’ ‘Cenerino,’ ‘Ceneroso,’ ‘Cenerugiolo.’↑2Da mi tu panni belli,Ed io te do i cencirelli.↑3Da mi tu abiti belliEd io te do i stracciarelli.The same as above: ‘abiti’ and ‘panni’ are convertible, so are ‘cenci’and ‘straccj.’↑VACCARELLA.1They say there was once a husband and a wife; but I don’t mean that they were husband and wife of each other. The husband had lost his wife, and the wife had lost her husband, and each had one little daughter. The husband sent his daughter to the wife to be brought up along with her own daughter, and as the girl came every morning to be trained and instructed, the wife used to send a message back by her every evening, saying, ‘Why doesn’t your father marry me? then we should all live together, and you would no longer have this weary walk to take.’The father, however, did not see it in the same light; but the teacher2continued sending the same message. In short,3at last she carried her point, having previously given a solemn promise to him that Maria, his little girl, should be always as tenderly treated as her own.Not many months elapsed, however, before she began to show herself a true stepmother. After treating Maria with every kind of harshness, she at last sent her out into the Campagna to tend the cow, so as to keep her out of sight of her father, and estrange him from her. Maria had to keep the cow’s stall clean with fresh litter every day; sometimes she had to take the cow out to grass, and watch that it only grazed over the right piece of land; at other times she had to go out and cut grass for the cow to eat. All this was work enough for one so young; but Maria was a kind-hearted girl, and grew fond of her cow, so that it became a pleasure to her to attend to it.When the cruel stepmother saw this she was annoyed to find her so light-hearted over her work, and to vex her more gave her a great heap of hemp to spin. It was in vain that Maria reminded her she had never been taught to spin; the only answer she got was, ‘If you don’t bring it home with you to-night all properly spun you will befinely punished;’ and Maria knew to her cost what that meant.When Maria went out into the Campagna that day she was no longer light-hearted; and as she littered down the stall she stroked the cow fondly, and said to her, as she had no one else to complain to, ‘Vaccarella! Vaccarella! what shall I do? I have got all this hemp to spin, and I never learnt spinning. Yet if I don’t get through it somehow I shall get sadly beaten to-night. Dear little cow, tell me what to do!’But the cow was an enchanted cow,4and when she heard Maria cry she turned round and said quickly and positively:—Throw it on to the horns of me,And go along, cut grass for me!5Maria did as she was told, went out and cut a good basketful of grass, and imagine her delight on coming back with it to find all the whole lot of hemp beautifully spun.The surprise of the stepmother was still greater than hers, at finding that she had got through her task so easily, for she had given her enough to have occupied an ordinary person a week. Next day, therefore, she determined to vex her with a more difficult task, and gave her a quantity of spun hemp6to weave into a piece of fine cloth. Maria’s pleadings were as fruitless as before, and once more she went to tell her tale of woe to her ‘dear little cow.’Vaccarella readily gave the same answer as before:—Throw it on to the horns of me,And go along, cut grass for me!Once more, when Maria came back with her basket of grass, she found all her work done, to her great surprise and delight. But her stepmother’s surprise was quite of another order. That Maria should have woven the cloth, not only without instruction, but even without a loom,proved clearly enough she must have had some one to help her—a matter which roused the stepmother’s jealousy in the highest degree, and wherein this help consisted she determined to find out. Accordingly, next day she gave her a shirt to make up, and then posted herself out of sight in a corner of the cow-house to see what happened. Thus she overheard Maria’s complaint to her dear little cow, and Vaccarella’s reply:—Throw it on to the horns of me,And go along, cut grass for me!She thus also saw, what Maria did not see, that as soon as she had gone out the cow assumed the form of a woman, and sat down and stitched and stitched away till the shirt was made, and that in a surprisingly short space of time. As soon as it was finished, and before Maria came in, the woman became a cow again.The cruel stepmother determined that Maria should be deprived of a friend who enabled her to set all her hard treatment at defiance, and next morning told her that she was going to kill the cow. Maria was broken-hearted at the announcement, but she knew it was useless to remonstrate; so she only used her greatest speed to reach her ‘dear little cow,’ and warn her of what was going to happen in time to make her escape.‘There is no need for me to escape,’ replied Vaccarella; ‘killing will not hurt me. So dry your tears, and don’t be distressed. Only, after they have killed me, put your hand under my heart, and there you will find a golden ball. This ball is yours, so take it out, and whenever you are tired of your present kind of life, you have only to say to it on some fitting occasion—“Golden ball, golden ball, dress me in gold and give me a lover,”7and you shall see what shall happen.’Vaccarella had no time to say more, for the stepmother arrived just then with a man who slaughtered the cow at her order.Under Vaccarella’s heart Maria found the promised golden ball, which she hid away carefully against some fitting occasion for using it arose.Not long after there was anovena8of a great festival, during which Maria’s stepmother, with all her disposition to overwork her, durst not keep her from church, lest the neighbours should cry ‘Shame!’ on her.Maria accordingly went to church with all the rest of the people, and when she had made her way through the crowd to a little distance from her stepmother, she took her golden ball out of her pocket and whispered to it—‘Golden ball, golden ball, dress me in gold and give me a lover.’Instantly the golden ball burst gently open and enveloped her, and she came out of it all radiant with beautiful clothing, like a princess. Everybody made way for her in her astonishing brightness.The eyes of the king’s son were turned upon her, no less than the eyes of all the people; and the prayers were no sooner over than he sent some of his attendants to call her and bring her to him. Before they could reach her, however, Maria had restored her beautiful raiment to the golden ball, and, in the sordid attire in which her stepmother dressed her, she could easily pass through the crowd unperceived.At home, her stepmother could not forbear talking, like everyone else in the town, about the maiden in glittering raiment who had appeared in the midst of the church; but, of course, without the remotest suspicion that it was Maria herself. But Maria sat still and said nothing.So it happened each day of the Novena; for, though Maria was not at all displeased with the appearance and fame of the husband whom her ‘dear little cow’ seemed to have appointed for her, she did not wish to be too easy a prize, and thought it but right to make him take a little trouble to win her. Thus she every day restored all herbright clothing to the golden ball before the prince’s men could overtake her. Only on the last day of the Novena, when the prince, fearful lest it might also be the last on which he would have an opportunity of seeing her, had told them to use extra diligence, they were so near overtaking her that, in the hurry of the moment, she dropped a slipper.9This the prince’s men eagerly seized, feeling no compunction in wresting it from the mean-looking wench (so Maria now looked) who disputed possession of it with them, not in the least imagining that she could be the radiant being of whom they were in search.The Novena over, Maria once more returned to her ceaseless toil; but the stepmother’s hatred had grown so great that she determined to rid herself of her altogether and in the most cruel way.Down in the cellar there stood a large barrel,10which had grown dirty and mouldy from neglect, and wanted scalding out. ‘Get into the barrel, Maria girl,’ she bid her next morning for her task, ‘and scrape it and rub it well before we scald it.’Maria did as she was bid, and the stepmother went away to boil the water.Meantime, the prince’s men had taken Maria’s slipper to him, and he, delighted to have any token of his fair one, appointed an officer to go into every house, and proclaim that the maiden whom the slipper might fit should be his bride. The officer went round from house to house, trying the slipper on everybody’s foot. But it fitted no one, for it was under a spell.But the stepmother’s own daughter11had gone down to the cellar to help Maria, unbeknown to her mother; and it so happened that, just as she was inside the barrel and Maria outside, the king’s officer happened to come by that way. He opened the door,12and, seeing a damsel standing within, tried on the sandal without waiting to ask leave. As the sandal fitted Maria to perfection, theofficer was all impatience to carry her off to the prince, and placed her in the carriage which was waiting outside, and drove off with her before anyone had even observed his entrance.Scarcely had all this passed than the stepmother came back, with her servants, each carrying a can of boiling water. They placed themselves in a ring round the barrel, and each emptied her charge into it. As it was the stepmother’s daughter who was inside at the time, instead of Maria, it was she who got scalded to death in her place.By-and-by, when the house was quiet, the bad stepmother went to the barrel, intending to take out the body of Maria and hide it. What was her dismay when she found, instead of Maria’s body, that of her own daughter! As soon as her distress and grief subsided sufficiently to enable her to consider what she had to do, the idea suggested itself to conceal the murder by putting the blame of it on some one else. For this purpose she took the body of her daughter, and, dressing it in dry clothes, seated it on the top of the stairs against her husband’s return.13Presently, home he came with his ass-load of wood, and called to her daughter to come and help him unload it, as usual. But the daughter continued sitting on the top of the stairs, and moved not. Again and again he called, louder and louder, but still she moved not; till at last, irritated beyond all endurance, he hurled one of his logs of wood at her, which brought the badly-balanced corpse rolling and tumbling all the way down the stairs, just as the stepmother had designed.The husband, however, was far from being deceived by the device. He could see the body presented no appearance of dying from a recent fall.‘Where’s Maria?’ he asked, as soon as he got up into the room.‘Nobody knows; she has disappeared!’ replied the stepmother; nor was he slow to convince himself she was nowhere in the house.‘This is no place for me to stay in,’ said the husband to himself. ‘One child driven away, and one murdered; who can say what may happen next?’Next morning, therefore, he called to him the little daughter born to him since his marriage with Maria’s stepmother, and went away with her for good and all. So that bad woman was deprived, as she deserved, of her husband and all her children in one day.Just as the father and his daughter were starting to go away, Maria drove by in a gilded coach with the prince her husband; so he had the satisfaction, and her stepmother the vexation, of seeing her triumph.[The introduction of the wonder-working cow in this second version of the story of Cinderella cannot fail to suggest the idea that it may find its prototype in Sabala, the heavenly cow of the Ramayana.14I have another Stepmother story, the place of which is here, but it is too long to give in its entirety. It begins like the last, and the next, and many others, with a widower, the teacher of whose children, a boy and girl, insists on marrying him. Soon after, of course, she turns the children out of doors; the boy is made the slave of a witch, and comes well at last out of many adventures; it is one of the nearest approaches to a heroic story that I have met with in Rome. There are details in it, however, like Filagranata and others, not actually of the Stepmother group. The girl gets taken into a Brigand’s cave, and goes through adventures which befall the youngest ofthreesisters (without a stepmother) in the Italian-Tirolese tale of ‘Le tre Sorelle,’ and that, again, is precisely like another Roman story I have, in many respects different from the present one, called ‘The Three Windows.’ One of the adventures in the present story is, that the witch, instead of killing the girl, gives her the appearance of death, and she is shut up in a box instead of being regularly buried, and a prince, as he goes by hunting, finds her, and the means of restoringher, and marries her. This is a very common incident in another group, and occurs in the ‘Siddhi Kür’ story which I have given as ‘The Prayer making suddenly Rich,’ in ‘Sagas from the Far East;’ and in the third version of ‘Maria de Legno,’infra, where also the girl is not even seemingly dead. I cannot forbear subjoining a quaint version of the story of Joseph, which was told me, embodying the same incident, though the story of Joseph has usually been identified with the group in which a younger brother is the hero; by Dr. Dasent, among others, who gives several examples, under the name of ‘Boots.’ In the Roman series this group is represented by ‘Scioccolone.’]1‘Vaccarella,’‘dear little cow,’ ‘good little cow.’ The endearment is expressed in the form of the diminutive.↑2‘Maestra.’↑3‘Basta,’ ‘enough,’ ‘to cut a long story short.’↑4‘Fatata.’↑5Butta sopr’ alle corna a me,E vatene far l’erba per me.‘Corno’ is one of the words which (as ‘muro,’ ‘novo,’ ‘braccio,’ ‘dito,’ &c.), masculine in the singular, have a feminine plural.↑6‘Carrèvale,’ or ‘corrèvale’—I could not very well distinguish which, and do not know the word. The narrator explained it as like ‘cànapa’—hemp, only finer. ‘Refe’ is used in the same sense in Tuscany.↑7Pallo dorato! Pallo dorato!Vestimi d’oro e dammi l’innamorato.‘Dorato’ is used for ‘golden’ as well as for ‘gilt.’ The change from ‘palla,’ a ball, to ‘pallo’ is a very considerable license, for the sake of making it rime with ‘innamorato;’ though some words admit of being spelt either way, as ‘mattino’ or ‘mattina, ‘botto’ or ‘botta’ (a blow), and others can be used with either gender without alteration, as ‘polvere.’ I have never met with ‘pallo’ elsewhere, though it is one of the words which take a masculine augmentative (‘pallone’).↑8‘Novena,’ a short service, with or without a sermon, said for nine days before some great festival, in preparation for it.↑9‘Pianella,’ a sandal, or slipper without a heel. ‘In those daysthey used to wear such things instead of shoes,’ commented the old lady as she told the tale.↑10‘Botte,’ a very large wine-barrel of a certain measure.↑11Here called ‘buona figlia,’ ‘good daughter.’ There did not seem any reason for this designation. Possibly the narrator had forgotten some incident of the story, introducing it.↑12That the cellar should be, as thus appears, on the ground-floor, is very characteristic of Rome, though there are, of course, plenty of underground cellars too; but the one is properly ‘cantino’ and ‘canova,’ and the other ‘grottino.’ The distinction is, however, not very rigidly observed in common parlance. To haveanunderground cellar is so far aspecialité, that it has been taken to be a sufficiently distinctive attribute to supply the sign or title to those inns which possess it. Rufini gives examples of above a dozen thus called ‘Del Grottino.’↑13The ground-floor being used as a cellar, the family lives upstairs. This is a very common arrangement.↑14The reader who has not access to a better rendering of this beautiful legend will find one I have given from Bopp, in ‘Sagas from the Far East,’ pp. 402–3; but Mr. Ralston gives us a Russian version, in which a doll or puppet is the agent instead of the cow (pp. 150–9). It is true, on the other hand, that he has (p. 115) another rather different story, in which a cow also gives good gifts; and mentions others at p. 260. In a story of the Italian Tirol, ‘Le due Sorelle,’ which I shall have occasion to notice later, a cow has also a supernatural part to play, somewhat like that of Vaccarella; only there she acts at the bidding of a fairy, not of her own motion.↑

PALOMBELLETTA.1They say there was a peasant whose wife had died and left him one little girl, who was the most beautiful creature that ever was seen; no one on earth could compare with her for beauty. After a while the peasant married again: this time he married a peasant-woman who had a daughter who was the most deformed object that ever was seen; no cripple on earth could compare with her for deformity; and, moreover, her skin was quite black and shrivelled, and altogether no one could bear to look at her, she was so hideous.One day when everyone was out, and only the fair daughter at home, the king came by from hunting thirsty, and he stopped at the cottage and asked the fair maid for a glass of water. When he saw how fair she was and with what grace she waited on him, he said, ‘Fair maiden, if you will, I will come back in eight days and make you my wife.’ The maiden answered, ‘Indeed I will it, your Majesty!’ and the king rode away.When the stepmother came home the simple maiden told her all that had happened, and she answered her deceitfully, congratulating her on her good fortune. Before the day came round, however, she shut the fair maiden in the cellar. When the king came she went out to meet him with a smiling face, saying, ‘Good day, Sire! What is your royal pleasure?’ And the king answered, ‘To marry your daughter am I come.’ Then the stepmother brought out her own daughter to him, all wrapped up in a wide mantle, and her face covered with a thick veil, and a hood over that.‘Rest assured, good woman, that your daughter will be my tenderest care,’ said the king; ‘but you must take those wrappers off.’‘By no means, Sire!’ exclaimed the stepmother.‘And beware you do it not. You have seen how fair she is above all the children of earth. But this exceeding beauty she has on one condition. If one breath of air strike her she loses it all. Therefore, Oh, king! let not the veil be removed.’When the king heard that he called for another veil, and another hood, and wrapping her still more carefully round, handed her into the carriage he had brought for her, shut the door close, and rode away on horseback by her side.When they arrived at the palace the hideous daughter of the stepmother was married to the king all wrapt up in her veils.The stepmother, however, went into her room, full of triumph at what she had done. ‘But what am I to do with the other girl!’ she said to herself; ‘somehow or other some day she will get out of the cellar, and the king will see her, and it will be worse for my daughter than before.’ And as she knew not what to do she went to a witch to help her. ‘This is what you must do,’ said the witch; ‘take this pin’ (and she gave her a long pin with a gold head), ‘and put it into the head of the maiden, and she will become a dove. Then have ready a cage, and keep her in it, and no one will ever see her for a maiden more.’The stepmother went therefore, and bought a cage, and taking the large pin2down into the cellar, she drove the pin into the fair maiden’s head, holding open the cage as she did so.As soon as the pin entered the maiden’s head she became a dove, but instead of flying into the cage she flew over the stepmother’s head far away out of sight.On she flew till she came to the king’s palace, right against the window of the kitchen where the cook was ready preparing a great dinner for the king. The cook looked round as he heard the poor little dove beating its frightened breast against the window, and, fearful lest it should hurt itself, he opened the window.In flew the dove as soon as he opened the window, and flew three times round his head, singing each time as she did so:—‘O cook! O cook! of the royal kitchen, what shall we do with the Queen? All of you put yourselves to sleep, and may the dinner be burnt up!’3As soon as she had sung this the third time the cook sank into a deep sleep; the dinner from want of attention was all burnt up; and when the king sat down to table, there was nothing to set before him.‘Where is the dinner?’ exclaimed the king, as he looked over the empty table to which he had brought his bride, still wrapt up in her thick veils.‘Please your Majesty, the dinner is all burnt up as black as charcoal,’ said the chamberlain; ‘and the cook sits in the kitchen so fast asleep that no one can wake him.’‘Go and fetch me a dinner from the inn,’ said the king; ‘and the cook, when he comes to himself, let him be brought before me.’After a time the cook came to himself, and the chamberlain brought him before the king.‘Tell me how this happened,’ said the king to the cook. ‘All these years you have served me well and faithfully; how is it that to-day, when the dinner should have been of the best in honour of my bride, everything is burnt up, and the king’s table is left empty?’‘Indeed, the dinner had been of the best, Sire,’ answered the cook. ‘So had I prepared it. Only, when all was nearly ready, there came a dove flying in at the window, and flew three times round my head, singing each time,Cook of the royal kitchen,What shall we do with the Queen?Sleep ye all soundly, and burnt be the mealWhich on the King’s board should have been.After that a deep sleep fell on me and I know nothing more of what happened.’‘That must have been a singular dove,’ said the king; ‘bring her to me and you shall be forgiven.’The cook went down to look for the dove, and found her midway, flying to meet him.‘There is the dove, Sire,’ said the cook, handing the dove to the king.‘So you spoilt my dinner, did you palombelletta,’ said the king. ‘But never mind; you are a dear little dove, and I forgive you,’ and he put her in his breast and stroked her. Thus, as he went on stroking and fondling her, calling her ‘palombelletta bella!’ he felt the gold head of the stepmother’s big pin through the feathers. ‘What have you got in your head, palombelletta dear?’ he said, and pulled the pin out.Instantly the fair maiden stood before him in all her surpassing beauty as he had seen her at the first. ‘Are you not my fair maiden who promised to marry me?’ exclaimed the king.‘The very same, and no other,’ replied the maiden.‘Then who is this one?’ said the king, and he turned to the stepmother’s daughter beside him, and tore off her veil. Then he understood the deceit that had been played on him, and he sent for the stepmother, and ordered that she and her daughter should be punished with death.[The next group most prolific in variety of incidents is that in which the stepmother represents the evil genius of the story; sometimes there is a daughter only, sometimes a daughter and a son, and sometimes, but less frequent, a son only. Allied to it is that in which the character devolves on two elder sisters, not specified to be stepsisters, and the incidents in these two branches are closely interwoven. I give the first place to Cinderella, because it has acquired a homely importance.]1‘Palombelletta,’dear little dove.↑2‘Spillone,’ big pin. This magic use of long pins driven into the head is one of the frequent charges against witches. See numerous instances at various epochs given by Del Rio, ‘Disquisitionum Magicarum,’ lib. iii. p. 1, 2 iv. s. II., where he mentions among others the cases of two midwives who were convicted in Germany of having destroyed, the one forty, the other innumerable, new-born infants in this manner.↑3Cuoco! cuoco! di reale cucinaChe faremo della regina?Tutti posse a dormentar’,E la pranza posse bruciar’.The words have been clipt in repetition. ‘Posse,’ in the third line, must be a corruption of ‘si pongono,’ from the verb ‘ponere;’ and in thefourthline, of ‘si puo,’ from the verb ‘potere.’↑

PALOMBELLETTA.1

They say there was a peasant whose wife had died and left him one little girl, who was the most beautiful creature that ever was seen; no one on earth could compare with her for beauty. After a while the peasant married again: this time he married a peasant-woman who had a daughter who was the most deformed object that ever was seen; no cripple on earth could compare with her for deformity; and, moreover, her skin was quite black and shrivelled, and altogether no one could bear to look at her, she was so hideous.One day when everyone was out, and only the fair daughter at home, the king came by from hunting thirsty, and he stopped at the cottage and asked the fair maid for a glass of water. When he saw how fair she was and with what grace she waited on him, he said, ‘Fair maiden, if you will, I will come back in eight days and make you my wife.’ The maiden answered, ‘Indeed I will it, your Majesty!’ and the king rode away.When the stepmother came home the simple maiden told her all that had happened, and she answered her deceitfully, congratulating her on her good fortune. Before the day came round, however, she shut the fair maiden in the cellar. When the king came she went out to meet him with a smiling face, saying, ‘Good day, Sire! What is your royal pleasure?’ And the king answered, ‘To marry your daughter am I come.’ Then the stepmother brought out her own daughter to him, all wrapped up in a wide mantle, and her face covered with a thick veil, and a hood over that.‘Rest assured, good woman, that your daughter will be my tenderest care,’ said the king; ‘but you must take those wrappers off.’‘By no means, Sire!’ exclaimed the stepmother.‘And beware you do it not. You have seen how fair she is above all the children of earth. But this exceeding beauty she has on one condition. If one breath of air strike her she loses it all. Therefore, Oh, king! let not the veil be removed.’When the king heard that he called for another veil, and another hood, and wrapping her still more carefully round, handed her into the carriage he had brought for her, shut the door close, and rode away on horseback by her side.When they arrived at the palace the hideous daughter of the stepmother was married to the king all wrapt up in her veils.The stepmother, however, went into her room, full of triumph at what she had done. ‘But what am I to do with the other girl!’ she said to herself; ‘somehow or other some day she will get out of the cellar, and the king will see her, and it will be worse for my daughter than before.’ And as she knew not what to do she went to a witch to help her. ‘This is what you must do,’ said the witch; ‘take this pin’ (and she gave her a long pin with a gold head), ‘and put it into the head of the maiden, and she will become a dove. Then have ready a cage, and keep her in it, and no one will ever see her for a maiden more.’The stepmother went therefore, and bought a cage, and taking the large pin2down into the cellar, she drove the pin into the fair maiden’s head, holding open the cage as she did so.As soon as the pin entered the maiden’s head she became a dove, but instead of flying into the cage she flew over the stepmother’s head far away out of sight.On she flew till she came to the king’s palace, right against the window of the kitchen where the cook was ready preparing a great dinner for the king. The cook looked round as he heard the poor little dove beating its frightened breast against the window, and, fearful lest it should hurt itself, he opened the window.In flew the dove as soon as he opened the window, and flew three times round his head, singing each time as she did so:—‘O cook! O cook! of the royal kitchen, what shall we do with the Queen? All of you put yourselves to sleep, and may the dinner be burnt up!’3As soon as she had sung this the third time the cook sank into a deep sleep; the dinner from want of attention was all burnt up; and when the king sat down to table, there was nothing to set before him.‘Where is the dinner?’ exclaimed the king, as he looked over the empty table to which he had brought his bride, still wrapt up in her thick veils.‘Please your Majesty, the dinner is all burnt up as black as charcoal,’ said the chamberlain; ‘and the cook sits in the kitchen so fast asleep that no one can wake him.’‘Go and fetch me a dinner from the inn,’ said the king; ‘and the cook, when he comes to himself, let him be brought before me.’After a time the cook came to himself, and the chamberlain brought him before the king.‘Tell me how this happened,’ said the king to the cook. ‘All these years you have served me well and faithfully; how is it that to-day, when the dinner should have been of the best in honour of my bride, everything is burnt up, and the king’s table is left empty?’‘Indeed, the dinner had been of the best, Sire,’ answered the cook. ‘So had I prepared it. Only, when all was nearly ready, there came a dove flying in at the window, and flew three times round my head, singing each time,Cook of the royal kitchen,What shall we do with the Queen?Sleep ye all soundly, and burnt be the mealWhich on the King’s board should have been.After that a deep sleep fell on me and I know nothing more of what happened.’‘That must have been a singular dove,’ said the king; ‘bring her to me and you shall be forgiven.’The cook went down to look for the dove, and found her midway, flying to meet him.‘There is the dove, Sire,’ said the cook, handing the dove to the king.‘So you spoilt my dinner, did you palombelletta,’ said the king. ‘But never mind; you are a dear little dove, and I forgive you,’ and he put her in his breast and stroked her. Thus, as he went on stroking and fondling her, calling her ‘palombelletta bella!’ he felt the gold head of the stepmother’s big pin through the feathers. ‘What have you got in your head, palombelletta dear?’ he said, and pulled the pin out.Instantly the fair maiden stood before him in all her surpassing beauty as he had seen her at the first. ‘Are you not my fair maiden who promised to marry me?’ exclaimed the king.‘The very same, and no other,’ replied the maiden.‘Then who is this one?’ said the king, and he turned to the stepmother’s daughter beside him, and tore off her veil. Then he understood the deceit that had been played on him, and he sent for the stepmother, and ordered that she and her daughter should be punished with death.[The next group most prolific in variety of incidents is that in which the stepmother represents the evil genius of the story; sometimes there is a daughter only, sometimes a daughter and a son, and sometimes, but less frequent, a son only. Allied to it is that in which the character devolves on two elder sisters, not specified to be stepsisters, and the incidents in these two branches are closely interwoven. I give the first place to Cinderella, because it has acquired a homely importance.]

They say there was a peasant whose wife had died and left him one little girl, who was the most beautiful creature that ever was seen; no one on earth could compare with her for beauty. After a while the peasant married again: this time he married a peasant-woman who had a daughter who was the most deformed object that ever was seen; no cripple on earth could compare with her for deformity; and, moreover, her skin was quite black and shrivelled, and altogether no one could bear to look at her, she was so hideous.

One day when everyone was out, and only the fair daughter at home, the king came by from hunting thirsty, and he stopped at the cottage and asked the fair maid for a glass of water. When he saw how fair she was and with what grace she waited on him, he said, ‘Fair maiden, if you will, I will come back in eight days and make you my wife.’ The maiden answered, ‘Indeed I will it, your Majesty!’ and the king rode away.

When the stepmother came home the simple maiden told her all that had happened, and she answered her deceitfully, congratulating her on her good fortune. Before the day came round, however, she shut the fair maiden in the cellar. When the king came she went out to meet him with a smiling face, saying, ‘Good day, Sire! What is your royal pleasure?’ And the king answered, ‘To marry your daughter am I come.’ Then the stepmother brought out her own daughter to him, all wrapped up in a wide mantle, and her face covered with a thick veil, and a hood over that.

‘Rest assured, good woman, that your daughter will be my tenderest care,’ said the king; ‘but you must take those wrappers off.’

‘By no means, Sire!’ exclaimed the stepmother.‘And beware you do it not. You have seen how fair she is above all the children of earth. But this exceeding beauty she has on one condition. If one breath of air strike her she loses it all. Therefore, Oh, king! let not the veil be removed.’

When the king heard that he called for another veil, and another hood, and wrapping her still more carefully round, handed her into the carriage he had brought for her, shut the door close, and rode away on horseback by her side.

When they arrived at the palace the hideous daughter of the stepmother was married to the king all wrapt up in her veils.

The stepmother, however, went into her room, full of triumph at what she had done. ‘But what am I to do with the other girl!’ she said to herself; ‘somehow or other some day she will get out of the cellar, and the king will see her, and it will be worse for my daughter than before.’ And as she knew not what to do she went to a witch to help her. ‘This is what you must do,’ said the witch; ‘take this pin’ (and she gave her a long pin with a gold head), ‘and put it into the head of the maiden, and she will become a dove. Then have ready a cage, and keep her in it, and no one will ever see her for a maiden more.’

The stepmother went therefore, and bought a cage, and taking the large pin2down into the cellar, she drove the pin into the fair maiden’s head, holding open the cage as she did so.

As soon as the pin entered the maiden’s head she became a dove, but instead of flying into the cage she flew over the stepmother’s head far away out of sight.

On she flew till she came to the king’s palace, right against the window of the kitchen where the cook was ready preparing a great dinner for the king. The cook looked round as he heard the poor little dove beating its frightened breast against the window, and, fearful lest it should hurt itself, he opened the window.

In flew the dove as soon as he opened the window, and flew three times round his head, singing each time as she did so:—‘O cook! O cook! of the royal kitchen, what shall we do with the Queen? All of you put yourselves to sleep, and may the dinner be burnt up!’3

As soon as she had sung this the third time the cook sank into a deep sleep; the dinner from want of attention was all burnt up; and when the king sat down to table, there was nothing to set before him.

‘Where is the dinner?’ exclaimed the king, as he looked over the empty table to which he had brought his bride, still wrapt up in her thick veils.

‘Please your Majesty, the dinner is all burnt up as black as charcoal,’ said the chamberlain; ‘and the cook sits in the kitchen so fast asleep that no one can wake him.’

‘Go and fetch me a dinner from the inn,’ said the king; ‘and the cook, when he comes to himself, let him be brought before me.’

After a time the cook came to himself, and the chamberlain brought him before the king.

‘Tell me how this happened,’ said the king to the cook. ‘All these years you have served me well and faithfully; how is it that to-day, when the dinner should have been of the best in honour of my bride, everything is burnt up, and the king’s table is left empty?’

‘Indeed, the dinner had been of the best, Sire,’ answered the cook. ‘So had I prepared it. Only, when all was nearly ready, there came a dove flying in at the window, and flew three times round my head, singing each time,

Cook of the royal kitchen,What shall we do with the Queen?Sleep ye all soundly, and burnt be the mealWhich on the King’s board should have been.

Cook of the royal kitchen,

What shall we do with the Queen?

Sleep ye all soundly, and burnt be the meal

Which on the King’s board should have been.

After that a deep sleep fell on me and I know nothing more of what happened.’

‘That must have been a singular dove,’ said the king; ‘bring her to me and you shall be forgiven.’

The cook went down to look for the dove, and found her midway, flying to meet him.

‘There is the dove, Sire,’ said the cook, handing the dove to the king.

‘So you spoilt my dinner, did you palombelletta,’ said the king. ‘But never mind; you are a dear little dove, and I forgive you,’ and he put her in his breast and stroked her. Thus, as he went on stroking and fondling her, calling her ‘palombelletta bella!’ he felt the gold head of the stepmother’s big pin through the feathers. ‘What have you got in your head, palombelletta dear?’ he said, and pulled the pin out.

Instantly the fair maiden stood before him in all her surpassing beauty as he had seen her at the first. ‘Are you not my fair maiden who promised to marry me?’ exclaimed the king.

‘The very same, and no other,’ replied the maiden.

‘Then who is this one?’ said the king, and he turned to the stepmother’s daughter beside him, and tore off her veil. Then he understood the deceit that had been played on him, and he sent for the stepmother, and ordered that she and her daughter should be punished with death.

[The next group most prolific in variety of incidents is that in which the stepmother represents the evil genius of the story; sometimes there is a daughter only, sometimes a daughter and a son, and sometimes, but less frequent, a son only. Allied to it is that in which the character devolves on two elder sisters, not specified to be stepsisters, and the incidents in these two branches are closely interwoven. I give the first place to Cinderella, because it has acquired a homely importance.]

1‘Palombelletta,’dear little dove.↑2‘Spillone,’ big pin. This magic use of long pins driven into the head is one of the frequent charges against witches. See numerous instances at various epochs given by Del Rio, ‘Disquisitionum Magicarum,’ lib. iii. p. 1, 2 iv. s. II., where he mentions among others the cases of two midwives who were convicted in Germany of having destroyed, the one forty, the other innumerable, new-born infants in this manner.↑3Cuoco! cuoco! di reale cucinaChe faremo della regina?Tutti posse a dormentar’,E la pranza posse bruciar’.The words have been clipt in repetition. ‘Posse,’ in the third line, must be a corruption of ‘si pongono,’ from the verb ‘ponere;’ and in thefourthline, of ‘si puo,’ from the verb ‘potere.’↑

1‘Palombelletta,’dear little dove.↑

2‘Spillone,’ big pin. This magic use of long pins driven into the head is one of the frequent charges against witches. See numerous instances at various epochs given by Del Rio, ‘Disquisitionum Magicarum,’ lib. iii. p. 1, 2 iv. s. II., where he mentions among others the cases of two midwives who were convicted in Germany of having destroyed, the one forty, the other innumerable, new-born infants in this manner.↑

3

Cuoco! cuoco! di reale cucinaChe faremo della regina?Tutti posse a dormentar’,E la pranza posse bruciar’.

Cuoco! cuoco! di reale cucinaChe faremo della regina?Tutti posse a dormentar’,E la pranza posse bruciar’.

Cuoco! cuoco! di reale cucinaChe faremo della regina?Tutti posse a dormentar’,E la pranza posse bruciar’.

Cuoco! cuoco! di reale cucinaChe faremo della regina?Tutti posse a dormentar’,E la pranza posse bruciar’.

Cuoco! cuoco! di reale cucina

Che faremo della regina?

Tutti posse a dormentar’,

E la pranza posse bruciar’.

The words have been clipt in repetition. ‘Posse,’ in the third line, must be a corruption of ‘si pongono,’ from the verb ‘ponere;’ and in thefourthline, of ‘si puo,’ from the verb ‘potere.’↑

LA CENORIENTOLA.1They say there was a merchant who had three daughters. When he went out into foreign countries to buy wares he told them he would bring them rare presents whatever they might ask for. The eldest asked for precious jewels, the second for rich shawls, but the youngest who was always kept out of sight in the kitchen by the others, and made to do the dirty work of the house, asked only for a little bird.‘So you want a little bird, do you! What is the use of a little bird to you!’ said the sisters mocking her, and ‘Papa will have something else to think of than minding little birds on a long journey.’‘But you will bring me a little bird, won’t you, papa?’ pleaded the little girl; ‘and I can tell you that if you don’t the boat you are on will stand still, and will neither move backwards nor forwards.’The merchant went away into a far country and bought precious wares, but he forgot all about the little bird. It was only when he had got on board a boat to go down a mighty river on his homeward way, and the captain found the boat would not move by any means, that he remembered what his daughter had said to him. Then while the captain was wondering how it was the boat would not move, he went to him and told him what he had done. But the captain said, ‘That is easily set right. Hereclose by is a garden full of thousands of birds; you can easily creep in and carry off one.Onewill never be missed among so many thousands.’The merchant followed his directions and went into the garden where there were so many thousand birds that he easily caught one. The captain gave him a cage, and he brought it safely home and gave it to his daughter.That night the elder sisters said as usual, ‘We are going to the ball; you will stay at home and sweep up the place and mind the fire.’Now all the birds in the garden which the captain had pointed out to the merchant were fairies; so when the others were gone to the ball and the youngest daughter went into her room to her bird, she said to it:Give me splendid raiment,And I will give you my rags.2Immediately, the bird gave her the most beautiful suit of clothes, with jewels and golden slippers, and a splendid carriage and prancing horses. With these the maiden went to the ball which was at the king’s palace. The moment the king saw her he fell in love with her, and would dance with no one else. The sisters were furious with the stranger because the king danced all night with her and not with them, but they had no idea it was their sister.The second night she did the same, only the bird gave her a yet more beautiful dress, and the king did all he could to find out who she was, but she would not tell him. Then he asked her name and she said,—‘They call meCenorientola.’‘Cenorientola,’ said the king; ‘what a pretty name! I never heard it before.’He had also told the servants that they must run after her carriage and see where it went; but though they ran as fast as the wind they could not come near the pace of her horses.The third night the sisters went to the ball and lefther at home, and she staid at home with her little bird and said to it,—Give me splendid raiment,And I will give you my rags.3Then the bird gave her a more splendid suit still, and the king paid her as much attention as ever. But to the servants he had said, ‘If you don’t follow fast enough tonight to see where she lives I will have all your heads cut off.’ So they used such extra diligence that she in her hurry to get away dropped one of her golden slippers; this the servants picked up and brought to the king.The next day the king sent a servant into every house in the city till he should find her whom the golden slipper fitted, but there was not one; last of all he came to the merchant’s house, and he tried it on the two elder daughters and it would fit neither. Then he said,—‘There must be some other maiden in this house;’ but they only shrugged their shoulders. ‘It is impossible; another maiden there must be, for every maiden in the city we have seen and the slipper fits none, therefore one there must be here.’Then they said,—‘In truth we have a little sister who sits in the kitchen and does the work. She is calledCenorientola, because she is always smutty. We are sure she never went to a ball, and it would only soil the beautiful gold slipper to let her put her smutty feet into it.’‘It may be so,’ replied the king’s servant, ‘but we must try, nevertheless.’So they fetched her, and the king’s servant found that the shoe fitted her; and they went and told the king all.The moment the king heard them sayCenorientolahe said,—‘That is she! It is the name she gave me.’So he sent a carriage to fetch her in all haste. The bird meantime had given her a more beautiful dress than any she had had before, and priceless jewels, so that when they came to fetch her she looked quite fit to be a queen.Then the king married her; and though her sisters had behaved so ill to her she gave them two fine estates, so that all were content.[The counterparts to the story are endless. In Grimm’s ‘Aschenputtel’ (p. 93), the nominal German counterpart, there is a stepmother as well as two sisters, and the story turns upon the gifts each daughter craves of the father, an episode which occurs in Roman versions with different titles. His ‘Die drei Männlein im Walde’ (‘Three Little Men in the Wood’) is like it, and the other versions too, and the episode in it of the good daughter receiving the faculty of dropping a gold coin from her mouth at every word she utters, is like a Hungarian story, in which no stepmother figures, but the evil genius of the story (the Lady-in-Waiting) is plainly called a witch. In this story it is a princess, from whose footsteps rise gold pieces, her tears are pearls, and her smiles rosebuds. In one of the Siddhi Kür Stories which I have translated as ‘Sagas from the far East’ (p. 49) is a similar incident, and a Spanish equivalent in Note 3. A friend of mine met with a very similar legend in a convent at Quito, concerning a nun called ‘the Rose of Quito,’ out of whose grave a rose-tree is said to have sprung and blossomed on the morrow of her burial. It seems, however, to have an independent origin, as ‘the Rose of Quito’ died within the last 150 years. In the Tirolean ‘Klein-Else,’ or ‘Aschenpfödl,’ to which allusion has already been made, and which answers to it in name, we have a connexion with the last group (as in some of the succeeding Roman versions) in the sun, moon, and star dresses.Among the Tales of Italian Tirol we find it asZendrarola, andwith a good deal of variation from any other form I have met. The story opens with a dying father as in the North Tirolean ‘Klein-Else,’ but it is only a rich man, not a warrior-baron, and he has three daughters instead of one. He bids them choose what gifts he shall bestow on them before he dies, and the eldest asks for a pair of earrings; the second for a dress; and the youngest for his magic sword, which gives whatever the possessor wishes for. The story is singular in this, that the elder sisters seem to have no spite. The father does not die; but, notwithstanding his recovery, he has nothing more to do with the story further than to give an unwilling consent that the youngest daughter, though his favourite, shall go forth with her sword and roam the world till she finds a husband. She only takes service in a large house in a big town, however; but there falls in love with a melancholy youth, son of a count, who lives opposite. For the sake of being nearer him, she obtains the place of kitchen-maid in his palace, and thus acquires her title of Zendrarola in a very different way from her counterparts in other lands. One day she hears he is going to a ball, and she makes her wishing-sword give her a dress like the sky; and the young Count, who has never admired anyone before, of course falls in love with her. When he comes back, he confides to his lady mother what has occurred, and Zendrarola, now again dressed as a dirty drudge, interposes that the fair one he was extolling was not prettier than herself. He silences her indignantly by giving her a poke with the shovel, and when she meets him next night in some beautiful attire, and he asks her where she comes from, she answers ‘dalla palettada’ (from shovel-blow). The next day the same thing happens, and he gives her a blow with the tongs, and when he asks her in the evening what her country is, she answers ‘majettada’ (tongs-blow); answering toFrustinaiaandStivalaiain the second Roman version of ‘Maria di Legno.’ He gives her a ring, which she sends up in his broth, as Klein-Else does in the pancake, and so he recognises and marries her. In one or two of the Roman versions also, the means of recognition is a ring in place of a slipper.I do not remember any Cinderella among the Russian Tales, though there are stepmother stories, which pair off with others of the Roman. For Scotch versions I must refer the reader to Campbell’s ‘Highland Tales,’ i. 226, and ii. 292.]1‘Cinderella’ is a favourite in all countries, with its promise of compensation to the desolate and oppressed. I only came across it once, however, while making this collection, in its own simple form, and with a name as near its own asCenorientola. Of course the construction of such words is quite arbitrary, and any Italian can make a dozen such out of any name or word: even in the dictionary the following variations are to be found—‘Cenericcio,’ ‘Cenerognolo,’ ‘Cenerino,’ ‘Ceneroso,’ ‘Cenerugiolo.’↑2Da mi tu panni belli,Ed io te do i cencirelli.↑3Da mi tu abiti belliEd io te do i stracciarelli.The same as above: ‘abiti’ and ‘panni’ are convertible, so are ‘cenci’and ‘straccj.’↑

LA CENORIENTOLA.1

They say there was a merchant who had three daughters. When he went out into foreign countries to buy wares he told them he would bring them rare presents whatever they might ask for. The eldest asked for precious jewels, the second for rich shawls, but the youngest who was always kept out of sight in the kitchen by the others, and made to do the dirty work of the house, asked only for a little bird.‘So you want a little bird, do you! What is the use of a little bird to you!’ said the sisters mocking her, and ‘Papa will have something else to think of than minding little birds on a long journey.’‘But you will bring me a little bird, won’t you, papa?’ pleaded the little girl; ‘and I can tell you that if you don’t the boat you are on will stand still, and will neither move backwards nor forwards.’The merchant went away into a far country and bought precious wares, but he forgot all about the little bird. It was only when he had got on board a boat to go down a mighty river on his homeward way, and the captain found the boat would not move by any means, that he remembered what his daughter had said to him. Then while the captain was wondering how it was the boat would not move, he went to him and told him what he had done. But the captain said, ‘That is easily set right. Hereclose by is a garden full of thousands of birds; you can easily creep in and carry off one.Onewill never be missed among so many thousands.’The merchant followed his directions and went into the garden where there were so many thousand birds that he easily caught one. The captain gave him a cage, and he brought it safely home and gave it to his daughter.That night the elder sisters said as usual, ‘We are going to the ball; you will stay at home and sweep up the place and mind the fire.’Now all the birds in the garden which the captain had pointed out to the merchant were fairies; so when the others were gone to the ball and the youngest daughter went into her room to her bird, she said to it:Give me splendid raiment,And I will give you my rags.2Immediately, the bird gave her the most beautiful suit of clothes, with jewels and golden slippers, and a splendid carriage and prancing horses. With these the maiden went to the ball which was at the king’s palace. The moment the king saw her he fell in love with her, and would dance with no one else. The sisters were furious with the stranger because the king danced all night with her and not with them, but they had no idea it was their sister.The second night she did the same, only the bird gave her a yet more beautiful dress, and the king did all he could to find out who she was, but she would not tell him. Then he asked her name and she said,—‘They call meCenorientola.’‘Cenorientola,’ said the king; ‘what a pretty name! I never heard it before.’He had also told the servants that they must run after her carriage and see where it went; but though they ran as fast as the wind they could not come near the pace of her horses.The third night the sisters went to the ball and lefther at home, and she staid at home with her little bird and said to it,—Give me splendid raiment,And I will give you my rags.3Then the bird gave her a more splendid suit still, and the king paid her as much attention as ever. But to the servants he had said, ‘If you don’t follow fast enough tonight to see where she lives I will have all your heads cut off.’ So they used such extra diligence that she in her hurry to get away dropped one of her golden slippers; this the servants picked up and brought to the king.The next day the king sent a servant into every house in the city till he should find her whom the golden slipper fitted, but there was not one; last of all he came to the merchant’s house, and he tried it on the two elder daughters and it would fit neither. Then he said,—‘There must be some other maiden in this house;’ but they only shrugged their shoulders. ‘It is impossible; another maiden there must be, for every maiden in the city we have seen and the slipper fits none, therefore one there must be here.’Then they said,—‘In truth we have a little sister who sits in the kitchen and does the work. She is calledCenorientola, because she is always smutty. We are sure she never went to a ball, and it would only soil the beautiful gold slipper to let her put her smutty feet into it.’‘It may be so,’ replied the king’s servant, ‘but we must try, nevertheless.’So they fetched her, and the king’s servant found that the shoe fitted her; and they went and told the king all.The moment the king heard them sayCenorientolahe said,—‘That is she! It is the name she gave me.’So he sent a carriage to fetch her in all haste. The bird meantime had given her a more beautiful dress than any she had had before, and priceless jewels, so that when they came to fetch her she looked quite fit to be a queen.Then the king married her; and though her sisters had behaved so ill to her she gave them two fine estates, so that all were content.[The counterparts to the story are endless. In Grimm’s ‘Aschenputtel’ (p. 93), the nominal German counterpart, there is a stepmother as well as two sisters, and the story turns upon the gifts each daughter craves of the father, an episode which occurs in Roman versions with different titles. His ‘Die drei Männlein im Walde’ (‘Three Little Men in the Wood’) is like it, and the other versions too, and the episode in it of the good daughter receiving the faculty of dropping a gold coin from her mouth at every word she utters, is like a Hungarian story, in which no stepmother figures, but the evil genius of the story (the Lady-in-Waiting) is plainly called a witch. In this story it is a princess, from whose footsteps rise gold pieces, her tears are pearls, and her smiles rosebuds. In one of the Siddhi Kür Stories which I have translated as ‘Sagas from the far East’ (p. 49) is a similar incident, and a Spanish equivalent in Note 3. A friend of mine met with a very similar legend in a convent at Quito, concerning a nun called ‘the Rose of Quito,’ out of whose grave a rose-tree is said to have sprung and blossomed on the morrow of her burial. It seems, however, to have an independent origin, as ‘the Rose of Quito’ died within the last 150 years. In the Tirolean ‘Klein-Else,’ or ‘Aschenpfödl,’ to which allusion has already been made, and which answers to it in name, we have a connexion with the last group (as in some of the succeeding Roman versions) in the sun, moon, and star dresses.Among the Tales of Italian Tirol we find it asZendrarola, andwith a good deal of variation from any other form I have met. The story opens with a dying father as in the North Tirolean ‘Klein-Else,’ but it is only a rich man, not a warrior-baron, and he has three daughters instead of one. He bids them choose what gifts he shall bestow on them before he dies, and the eldest asks for a pair of earrings; the second for a dress; and the youngest for his magic sword, which gives whatever the possessor wishes for. The story is singular in this, that the elder sisters seem to have no spite. The father does not die; but, notwithstanding his recovery, he has nothing more to do with the story further than to give an unwilling consent that the youngest daughter, though his favourite, shall go forth with her sword and roam the world till she finds a husband. She only takes service in a large house in a big town, however; but there falls in love with a melancholy youth, son of a count, who lives opposite. For the sake of being nearer him, she obtains the place of kitchen-maid in his palace, and thus acquires her title of Zendrarola in a very different way from her counterparts in other lands. One day she hears he is going to a ball, and she makes her wishing-sword give her a dress like the sky; and the young Count, who has never admired anyone before, of course falls in love with her. When he comes back, he confides to his lady mother what has occurred, and Zendrarola, now again dressed as a dirty drudge, interposes that the fair one he was extolling was not prettier than herself. He silences her indignantly by giving her a poke with the shovel, and when she meets him next night in some beautiful attire, and he asks her where she comes from, she answers ‘dalla palettada’ (from shovel-blow). The next day the same thing happens, and he gives her a blow with the tongs, and when he asks her in the evening what her country is, she answers ‘majettada’ (tongs-blow); answering toFrustinaiaandStivalaiain the second Roman version of ‘Maria di Legno.’ He gives her a ring, which she sends up in his broth, as Klein-Else does in the pancake, and so he recognises and marries her. In one or two of the Roman versions also, the means of recognition is a ring in place of a slipper.I do not remember any Cinderella among the Russian Tales, though there are stepmother stories, which pair off with others of the Roman. For Scotch versions I must refer the reader to Campbell’s ‘Highland Tales,’ i. 226, and ii. 292.]

They say there was a merchant who had three daughters. When he went out into foreign countries to buy wares he told them he would bring them rare presents whatever they might ask for. The eldest asked for precious jewels, the second for rich shawls, but the youngest who was always kept out of sight in the kitchen by the others, and made to do the dirty work of the house, asked only for a little bird.

‘So you want a little bird, do you! What is the use of a little bird to you!’ said the sisters mocking her, and ‘Papa will have something else to think of than minding little birds on a long journey.’

‘But you will bring me a little bird, won’t you, papa?’ pleaded the little girl; ‘and I can tell you that if you don’t the boat you are on will stand still, and will neither move backwards nor forwards.’

The merchant went away into a far country and bought precious wares, but he forgot all about the little bird. It was only when he had got on board a boat to go down a mighty river on his homeward way, and the captain found the boat would not move by any means, that he remembered what his daughter had said to him. Then while the captain was wondering how it was the boat would not move, he went to him and told him what he had done. But the captain said, ‘That is easily set right. Hereclose by is a garden full of thousands of birds; you can easily creep in and carry off one.Onewill never be missed among so many thousands.’

The merchant followed his directions and went into the garden where there were so many thousand birds that he easily caught one. The captain gave him a cage, and he brought it safely home and gave it to his daughter.

That night the elder sisters said as usual, ‘We are going to the ball; you will stay at home and sweep up the place and mind the fire.’

Now all the birds in the garden which the captain had pointed out to the merchant were fairies; so when the others were gone to the ball and the youngest daughter went into her room to her bird, she said to it:

Give me splendid raiment,And I will give you my rags.2

Give me splendid raiment,

And I will give you my rags.2

Immediately, the bird gave her the most beautiful suit of clothes, with jewels and golden slippers, and a splendid carriage and prancing horses. With these the maiden went to the ball which was at the king’s palace. The moment the king saw her he fell in love with her, and would dance with no one else. The sisters were furious with the stranger because the king danced all night with her and not with them, but they had no idea it was their sister.

The second night she did the same, only the bird gave her a yet more beautiful dress, and the king did all he could to find out who she was, but she would not tell him. Then he asked her name and she said,—

‘They call meCenorientola.’

‘Cenorientola,’ said the king; ‘what a pretty name! I never heard it before.’

He had also told the servants that they must run after her carriage and see where it went; but though they ran as fast as the wind they could not come near the pace of her horses.

The third night the sisters went to the ball and lefther at home, and she staid at home with her little bird and said to it,—

Give me splendid raiment,And I will give you my rags.3

Give me splendid raiment,

And I will give you my rags.3

Then the bird gave her a more splendid suit still, and the king paid her as much attention as ever. But to the servants he had said, ‘If you don’t follow fast enough tonight to see where she lives I will have all your heads cut off.’ So they used such extra diligence that she in her hurry to get away dropped one of her golden slippers; this the servants picked up and brought to the king.

The next day the king sent a servant into every house in the city till he should find her whom the golden slipper fitted, but there was not one; last of all he came to the merchant’s house, and he tried it on the two elder daughters and it would fit neither. Then he said,—

‘There must be some other maiden in this house;’ but they only shrugged their shoulders. ‘It is impossible; another maiden there must be, for every maiden in the city we have seen and the slipper fits none, therefore one there must be here.’

Then they said,—

‘In truth we have a little sister who sits in the kitchen and does the work. She is calledCenorientola, because she is always smutty. We are sure she never went to a ball, and it would only soil the beautiful gold slipper to let her put her smutty feet into it.’

‘It may be so,’ replied the king’s servant, ‘but we must try, nevertheless.’

So they fetched her, and the king’s servant found that the shoe fitted her; and they went and told the king all.

The moment the king heard them sayCenorientolahe said,—‘That is she! It is the name she gave me.’

So he sent a carriage to fetch her in all haste. The bird meantime had given her a more beautiful dress than any she had had before, and priceless jewels, so that when they came to fetch her she looked quite fit to be a queen.Then the king married her; and though her sisters had behaved so ill to her she gave them two fine estates, so that all were content.

[The counterparts to the story are endless. In Grimm’s ‘Aschenputtel’ (p. 93), the nominal German counterpart, there is a stepmother as well as two sisters, and the story turns upon the gifts each daughter craves of the father, an episode which occurs in Roman versions with different titles. His ‘Die drei Männlein im Walde’ (‘Three Little Men in the Wood’) is like it, and the other versions too, and the episode in it of the good daughter receiving the faculty of dropping a gold coin from her mouth at every word she utters, is like a Hungarian story, in which no stepmother figures, but the evil genius of the story (the Lady-in-Waiting) is plainly called a witch. In this story it is a princess, from whose footsteps rise gold pieces, her tears are pearls, and her smiles rosebuds. In one of the Siddhi Kür Stories which I have translated as ‘Sagas from the far East’ (p. 49) is a similar incident, and a Spanish equivalent in Note 3. A friend of mine met with a very similar legend in a convent at Quito, concerning a nun called ‘the Rose of Quito,’ out of whose grave a rose-tree is said to have sprung and blossomed on the morrow of her burial. It seems, however, to have an independent origin, as ‘the Rose of Quito’ died within the last 150 years. In the Tirolean ‘Klein-Else,’ or ‘Aschenpfödl,’ to which allusion has already been made, and which answers to it in name, we have a connexion with the last group (as in some of the succeeding Roman versions) in the sun, moon, and star dresses.

Among the Tales of Italian Tirol we find it asZendrarola, andwith a good deal of variation from any other form I have met. The story opens with a dying father as in the North Tirolean ‘Klein-Else,’ but it is only a rich man, not a warrior-baron, and he has three daughters instead of one. He bids them choose what gifts he shall bestow on them before he dies, and the eldest asks for a pair of earrings; the second for a dress; and the youngest for his magic sword, which gives whatever the possessor wishes for. The story is singular in this, that the elder sisters seem to have no spite. The father does not die; but, notwithstanding his recovery, he has nothing more to do with the story further than to give an unwilling consent that the youngest daughter, though his favourite, shall go forth with her sword and roam the world till she finds a husband. She only takes service in a large house in a big town, however; but there falls in love with a melancholy youth, son of a count, who lives opposite. For the sake of being nearer him, she obtains the place of kitchen-maid in his palace, and thus acquires her title of Zendrarola in a very different way from her counterparts in other lands. One day she hears he is going to a ball, and she makes her wishing-sword give her a dress like the sky; and the young Count, who has never admired anyone before, of course falls in love with her. When he comes back, he confides to his lady mother what has occurred, and Zendrarola, now again dressed as a dirty drudge, interposes that the fair one he was extolling was not prettier than herself. He silences her indignantly by giving her a poke with the shovel, and when she meets him next night in some beautiful attire, and he asks her where she comes from, she answers ‘dalla palettada’ (from shovel-blow). The next day the same thing happens, and he gives her a blow with the tongs, and when he asks her in the evening what her country is, she answers ‘majettada’ (tongs-blow); answering toFrustinaiaandStivalaiain the second Roman version of ‘Maria di Legno.’ He gives her a ring, which she sends up in his broth, as Klein-Else does in the pancake, and so he recognises and marries her. In one or two of the Roman versions also, the means of recognition is a ring in place of a slipper.

I do not remember any Cinderella among the Russian Tales, though there are stepmother stories, which pair off with others of the Roman. For Scotch versions I must refer the reader to Campbell’s ‘Highland Tales,’ i. 226, and ii. 292.]

1‘Cinderella’ is a favourite in all countries, with its promise of compensation to the desolate and oppressed. I only came across it once, however, while making this collection, in its own simple form, and with a name as near its own asCenorientola. Of course the construction of such words is quite arbitrary, and any Italian can make a dozen such out of any name or word: even in the dictionary the following variations are to be found—‘Cenericcio,’ ‘Cenerognolo,’ ‘Cenerino,’ ‘Ceneroso,’ ‘Cenerugiolo.’↑2Da mi tu panni belli,Ed io te do i cencirelli.↑3Da mi tu abiti belliEd io te do i stracciarelli.The same as above: ‘abiti’ and ‘panni’ are convertible, so are ‘cenci’and ‘straccj.’↑

1‘Cinderella’ is a favourite in all countries, with its promise of compensation to the desolate and oppressed. I only came across it once, however, while making this collection, in its own simple form, and with a name as near its own asCenorientola. Of course the construction of such words is quite arbitrary, and any Italian can make a dozen such out of any name or word: even in the dictionary the following variations are to be found—‘Cenericcio,’ ‘Cenerognolo,’ ‘Cenerino,’ ‘Ceneroso,’ ‘Cenerugiolo.’↑

2

Da mi tu panni belli,Ed io te do i cencirelli.

Da mi tu panni belli,Ed io te do i cencirelli.

Da mi tu panni belli,Ed io te do i cencirelli.

Da mi tu panni belli,Ed io te do i cencirelli.

Da mi tu panni belli,

Ed io te do i cencirelli.

↑

3

Da mi tu abiti belliEd io te do i stracciarelli.

Da mi tu abiti belliEd io te do i stracciarelli.

Da mi tu abiti belliEd io te do i stracciarelli.

Da mi tu abiti belliEd io te do i stracciarelli.

Da mi tu abiti belli

Ed io te do i stracciarelli.

The same as above: ‘abiti’ and ‘panni’ are convertible, so are ‘cenci’and ‘straccj.’↑

VACCARELLA.1They say there was once a husband and a wife; but I don’t mean that they were husband and wife of each other. The husband had lost his wife, and the wife had lost her husband, and each had one little daughter. The husband sent his daughter to the wife to be brought up along with her own daughter, and as the girl came every morning to be trained and instructed, the wife used to send a message back by her every evening, saying, ‘Why doesn’t your father marry me? then we should all live together, and you would no longer have this weary walk to take.’The father, however, did not see it in the same light; but the teacher2continued sending the same message. In short,3at last she carried her point, having previously given a solemn promise to him that Maria, his little girl, should be always as tenderly treated as her own.Not many months elapsed, however, before she began to show herself a true stepmother. After treating Maria with every kind of harshness, she at last sent her out into the Campagna to tend the cow, so as to keep her out of sight of her father, and estrange him from her. Maria had to keep the cow’s stall clean with fresh litter every day; sometimes she had to take the cow out to grass, and watch that it only grazed over the right piece of land; at other times she had to go out and cut grass for the cow to eat. All this was work enough for one so young; but Maria was a kind-hearted girl, and grew fond of her cow, so that it became a pleasure to her to attend to it.When the cruel stepmother saw this she was annoyed to find her so light-hearted over her work, and to vex her more gave her a great heap of hemp to spin. It was in vain that Maria reminded her she had never been taught to spin; the only answer she got was, ‘If you don’t bring it home with you to-night all properly spun you will befinely punished;’ and Maria knew to her cost what that meant.When Maria went out into the Campagna that day she was no longer light-hearted; and as she littered down the stall she stroked the cow fondly, and said to her, as she had no one else to complain to, ‘Vaccarella! Vaccarella! what shall I do? I have got all this hemp to spin, and I never learnt spinning. Yet if I don’t get through it somehow I shall get sadly beaten to-night. Dear little cow, tell me what to do!’But the cow was an enchanted cow,4and when she heard Maria cry she turned round and said quickly and positively:—Throw it on to the horns of me,And go along, cut grass for me!5Maria did as she was told, went out and cut a good basketful of grass, and imagine her delight on coming back with it to find all the whole lot of hemp beautifully spun.The surprise of the stepmother was still greater than hers, at finding that she had got through her task so easily, for she had given her enough to have occupied an ordinary person a week. Next day, therefore, she determined to vex her with a more difficult task, and gave her a quantity of spun hemp6to weave into a piece of fine cloth. Maria’s pleadings were as fruitless as before, and once more she went to tell her tale of woe to her ‘dear little cow.’Vaccarella readily gave the same answer as before:—Throw it on to the horns of me,And go along, cut grass for me!Once more, when Maria came back with her basket of grass, she found all her work done, to her great surprise and delight. But her stepmother’s surprise was quite of another order. That Maria should have woven the cloth, not only without instruction, but even without a loom,proved clearly enough she must have had some one to help her—a matter which roused the stepmother’s jealousy in the highest degree, and wherein this help consisted she determined to find out. Accordingly, next day she gave her a shirt to make up, and then posted herself out of sight in a corner of the cow-house to see what happened. Thus she overheard Maria’s complaint to her dear little cow, and Vaccarella’s reply:—Throw it on to the horns of me,And go along, cut grass for me!She thus also saw, what Maria did not see, that as soon as she had gone out the cow assumed the form of a woman, and sat down and stitched and stitched away till the shirt was made, and that in a surprisingly short space of time. As soon as it was finished, and before Maria came in, the woman became a cow again.The cruel stepmother determined that Maria should be deprived of a friend who enabled her to set all her hard treatment at defiance, and next morning told her that she was going to kill the cow. Maria was broken-hearted at the announcement, but she knew it was useless to remonstrate; so she only used her greatest speed to reach her ‘dear little cow,’ and warn her of what was going to happen in time to make her escape.‘There is no need for me to escape,’ replied Vaccarella; ‘killing will not hurt me. So dry your tears, and don’t be distressed. Only, after they have killed me, put your hand under my heart, and there you will find a golden ball. This ball is yours, so take it out, and whenever you are tired of your present kind of life, you have only to say to it on some fitting occasion—“Golden ball, golden ball, dress me in gold and give me a lover,”7and you shall see what shall happen.’Vaccarella had no time to say more, for the stepmother arrived just then with a man who slaughtered the cow at her order.Under Vaccarella’s heart Maria found the promised golden ball, which she hid away carefully against some fitting occasion for using it arose.Not long after there was anovena8of a great festival, during which Maria’s stepmother, with all her disposition to overwork her, durst not keep her from church, lest the neighbours should cry ‘Shame!’ on her.Maria accordingly went to church with all the rest of the people, and when she had made her way through the crowd to a little distance from her stepmother, she took her golden ball out of her pocket and whispered to it—‘Golden ball, golden ball, dress me in gold and give me a lover.’Instantly the golden ball burst gently open and enveloped her, and she came out of it all radiant with beautiful clothing, like a princess. Everybody made way for her in her astonishing brightness.The eyes of the king’s son were turned upon her, no less than the eyes of all the people; and the prayers were no sooner over than he sent some of his attendants to call her and bring her to him. Before they could reach her, however, Maria had restored her beautiful raiment to the golden ball, and, in the sordid attire in which her stepmother dressed her, she could easily pass through the crowd unperceived.At home, her stepmother could not forbear talking, like everyone else in the town, about the maiden in glittering raiment who had appeared in the midst of the church; but, of course, without the remotest suspicion that it was Maria herself. But Maria sat still and said nothing.So it happened each day of the Novena; for, though Maria was not at all displeased with the appearance and fame of the husband whom her ‘dear little cow’ seemed to have appointed for her, she did not wish to be too easy a prize, and thought it but right to make him take a little trouble to win her. Thus she every day restored all herbright clothing to the golden ball before the prince’s men could overtake her. Only on the last day of the Novena, when the prince, fearful lest it might also be the last on which he would have an opportunity of seeing her, had told them to use extra diligence, they were so near overtaking her that, in the hurry of the moment, she dropped a slipper.9This the prince’s men eagerly seized, feeling no compunction in wresting it from the mean-looking wench (so Maria now looked) who disputed possession of it with them, not in the least imagining that she could be the radiant being of whom they were in search.The Novena over, Maria once more returned to her ceaseless toil; but the stepmother’s hatred had grown so great that she determined to rid herself of her altogether and in the most cruel way.Down in the cellar there stood a large barrel,10which had grown dirty and mouldy from neglect, and wanted scalding out. ‘Get into the barrel, Maria girl,’ she bid her next morning for her task, ‘and scrape it and rub it well before we scald it.’Maria did as she was bid, and the stepmother went away to boil the water.Meantime, the prince’s men had taken Maria’s slipper to him, and he, delighted to have any token of his fair one, appointed an officer to go into every house, and proclaim that the maiden whom the slipper might fit should be his bride. The officer went round from house to house, trying the slipper on everybody’s foot. But it fitted no one, for it was under a spell.But the stepmother’s own daughter11had gone down to the cellar to help Maria, unbeknown to her mother; and it so happened that, just as she was inside the barrel and Maria outside, the king’s officer happened to come by that way. He opened the door,12and, seeing a damsel standing within, tried on the sandal without waiting to ask leave. As the sandal fitted Maria to perfection, theofficer was all impatience to carry her off to the prince, and placed her in the carriage which was waiting outside, and drove off with her before anyone had even observed his entrance.Scarcely had all this passed than the stepmother came back, with her servants, each carrying a can of boiling water. They placed themselves in a ring round the barrel, and each emptied her charge into it. As it was the stepmother’s daughter who was inside at the time, instead of Maria, it was she who got scalded to death in her place.By-and-by, when the house was quiet, the bad stepmother went to the barrel, intending to take out the body of Maria and hide it. What was her dismay when she found, instead of Maria’s body, that of her own daughter! As soon as her distress and grief subsided sufficiently to enable her to consider what she had to do, the idea suggested itself to conceal the murder by putting the blame of it on some one else. For this purpose she took the body of her daughter, and, dressing it in dry clothes, seated it on the top of the stairs against her husband’s return.13Presently, home he came with his ass-load of wood, and called to her daughter to come and help him unload it, as usual. But the daughter continued sitting on the top of the stairs, and moved not. Again and again he called, louder and louder, but still she moved not; till at last, irritated beyond all endurance, he hurled one of his logs of wood at her, which brought the badly-balanced corpse rolling and tumbling all the way down the stairs, just as the stepmother had designed.The husband, however, was far from being deceived by the device. He could see the body presented no appearance of dying from a recent fall.‘Where’s Maria?’ he asked, as soon as he got up into the room.‘Nobody knows; she has disappeared!’ replied the stepmother; nor was he slow to convince himself she was nowhere in the house.‘This is no place for me to stay in,’ said the husband to himself. ‘One child driven away, and one murdered; who can say what may happen next?’Next morning, therefore, he called to him the little daughter born to him since his marriage with Maria’s stepmother, and went away with her for good and all. So that bad woman was deprived, as she deserved, of her husband and all her children in one day.Just as the father and his daughter were starting to go away, Maria drove by in a gilded coach with the prince her husband; so he had the satisfaction, and her stepmother the vexation, of seeing her triumph.[The introduction of the wonder-working cow in this second version of the story of Cinderella cannot fail to suggest the idea that it may find its prototype in Sabala, the heavenly cow of the Ramayana.14I have another Stepmother story, the place of which is here, but it is too long to give in its entirety. It begins like the last, and the next, and many others, with a widower, the teacher of whose children, a boy and girl, insists on marrying him. Soon after, of course, she turns the children out of doors; the boy is made the slave of a witch, and comes well at last out of many adventures; it is one of the nearest approaches to a heroic story that I have met with in Rome. There are details in it, however, like Filagranata and others, not actually of the Stepmother group. The girl gets taken into a Brigand’s cave, and goes through adventures which befall the youngest ofthreesisters (without a stepmother) in the Italian-Tirolese tale of ‘Le tre Sorelle,’ and that, again, is precisely like another Roman story I have, in many respects different from the present one, called ‘The Three Windows.’ One of the adventures in the present story is, that the witch, instead of killing the girl, gives her the appearance of death, and she is shut up in a box instead of being regularly buried, and a prince, as he goes by hunting, finds her, and the means of restoringher, and marries her. This is a very common incident in another group, and occurs in the ‘Siddhi Kür’ story which I have given as ‘The Prayer making suddenly Rich,’ in ‘Sagas from the Far East;’ and in the third version of ‘Maria de Legno,’infra, where also the girl is not even seemingly dead. I cannot forbear subjoining a quaint version of the story of Joseph, which was told me, embodying the same incident, though the story of Joseph has usually been identified with the group in which a younger brother is the hero; by Dr. Dasent, among others, who gives several examples, under the name of ‘Boots.’ In the Roman series this group is represented by ‘Scioccolone.’]1‘Vaccarella,’‘dear little cow,’ ‘good little cow.’ The endearment is expressed in the form of the diminutive.↑2‘Maestra.’↑3‘Basta,’ ‘enough,’ ‘to cut a long story short.’↑4‘Fatata.’↑5Butta sopr’ alle corna a me,E vatene far l’erba per me.‘Corno’ is one of the words which (as ‘muro,’ ‘novo,’ ‘braccio,’ ‘dito,’ &c.), masculine in the singular, have a feminine plural.↑6‘Carrèvale,’ or ‘corrèvale’—I could not very well distinguish which, and do not know the word. The narrator explained it as like ‘cànapa’—hemp, only finer. ‘Refe’ is used in the same sense in Tuscany.↑7Pallo dorato! Pallo dorato!Vestimi d’oro e dammi l’innamorato.‘Dorato’ is used for ‘golden’ as well as for ‘gilt.’ The change from ‘palla,’ a ball, to ‘pallo’ is a very considerable license, for the sake of making it rime with ‘innamorato;’ though some words admit of being spelt either way, as ‘mattino’ or ‘mattina, ‘botto’ or ‘botta’ (a blow), and others can be used with either gender without alteration, as ‘polvere.’ I have never met with ‘pallo’ elsewhere, though it is one of the words which take a masculine augmentative (‘pallone’).↑8‘Novena,’ a short service, with or without a sermon, said for nine days before some great festival, in preparation for it.↑9‘Pianella,’ a sandal, or slipper without a heel. ‘In those daysthey used to wear such things instead of shoes,’ commented the old lady as she told the tale.↑10‘Botte,’ a very large wine-barrel of a certain measure.↑11Here called ‘buona figlia,’ ‘good daughter.’ There did not seem any reason for this designation. Possibly the narrator had forgotten some incident of the story, introducing it.↑12That the cellar should be, as thus appears, on the ground-floor, is very characteristic of Rome, though there are, of course, plenty of underground cellars too; but the one is properly ‘cantino’ and ‘canova,’ and the other ‘grottino.’ The distinction is, however, not very rigidly observed in common parlance. To haveanunderground cellar is so far aspecialité, that it has been taken to be a sufficiently distinctive attribute to supply the sign or title to those inns which possess it. Rufini gives examples of above a dozen thus called ‘Del Grottino.’↑13The ground-floor being used as a cellar, the family lives upstairs. This is a very common arrangement.↑14The reader who has not access to a better rendering of this beautiful legend will find one I have given from Bopp, in ‘Sagas from the Far East,’ pp. 402–3; but Mr. Ralston gives us a Russian version, in which a doll or puppet is the agent instead of the cow (pp. 150–9). It is true, on the other hand, that he has (p. 115) another rather different story, in which a cow also gives good gifts; and mentions others at p. 260. In a story of the Italian Tirol, ‘Le due Sorelle,’ which I shall have occasion to notice later, a cow has also a supernatural part to play, somewhat like that of Vaccarella; only there she acts at the bidding of a fairy, not of her own motion.↑

VACCARELLA.1

They say there was once a husband and a wife; but I don’t mean that they were husband and wife of each other. The husband had lost his wife, and the wife had lost her husband, and each had one little daughter. The husband sent his daughter to the wife to be brought up along with her own daughter, and as the girl came every morning to be trained and instructed, the wife used to send a message back by her every evening, saying, ‘Why doesn’t your father marry me? then we should all live together, and you would no longer have this weary walk to take.’The father, however, did not see it in the same light; but the teacher2continued sending the same message. In short,3at last she carried her point, having previously given a solemn promise to him that Maria, his little girl, should be always as tenderly treated as her own.Not many months elapsed, however, before she began to show herself a true stepmother. After treating Maria with every kind of harshness, she at last sent her out into the Campagna to tend the cow, so as to keep her out of sight of her father, and estrange him from her. Maria had to keep the cow’s stall clean with fresh litter every day; sometimes she had to take the cow out to grass, and watch that it only grazed over the right piece of land; at other times she had to go out and cut grass for the cow to eat. All this was work enough for one so young; but Maria was a kind-hearted girl, and grew fond of her cow, so that it became a pleasure to her to attend to it.When the cruel stepmother saw this she was annoyed to find her so light-hearted over her work, and to vex her more gave her a great heap of hemp to spin. It was in vain that Maria reminded her she had never been taught to spin; the only answer she got was, ‘If you don’t bring it home with you to-night all properly spun you will befinely punished;’ and Maria knew to her cost what that meant.When Maria went out into the Campagna that day she was no longer light-hearted; and as she littered down the stall she stroked the cow fondly, and said to her, as she had no one else to complain to, ‘Vaccarella! Vaccarella! what shall I do? I have got all this hemp to spin, and I never learnt spinning. Yet if I don’t get through it somehow I shall get sadly beaten to-night. Dear little cow, tell me what to do!’But the cow was an enchanted cow,4and when she heard Maria cry she turned round and said quickly and positively:—Throw it on to the horns of me,And go along, cut grass for me!5Maria did as she was told, went out and cut a good basketful of grass, and imagine her delight on coming back with it to find all the whole lot of hemp beautifully spun.The surprise of the stepmother was still greater than hers, at finding that she had got through her task so easily, for she had given her enough to have occupied an ordinary person a week. Next day, therefore, she determined to vex her with a more difficult task, and gave her a quantity of spun hemp6to weave into a piece of fine cloth. Maria’s pleadings were as fruitless as before, and once more she went to tell her tale of woe to her ‘dear little cow.’Vaccarella readily gave the same answer as before:—Throw it on to the horns of me,And go along, cut grass for me!Once more, when Maria came back with her basket of grass, she found all her work done, to her great surprise and delight. But her stepmother’s surprise was quite of another order. That Maria should have woven the cloth, not only without instruction, but even without a loom,proved clearly enough she must have had some one to help her—a matter which roused the stepmother’s jealousy in the highest degree, and wherein this help consisted she determined to find out. Accordingly, next day she gave her a shirt to make up, and then posted herself out of sight in a corner of the cow-house to see what happened. Thus she overheard Maria’s complaint to her dear little cow, and Vaccarella’s reply:—Throw it on to the horns of me,And go along, cut grass for me!She thus also saw, what Maria did not see, that as soon as she had gone out the cow assumed the form of a woman, and sat down and stitched and stitched away till the shirt was made, and that in a surprisingly short space of time. As soon as it was finished, and before Maria came in, the woman became a cow again.The cruel stepmother determined that Maria should be deprived of a friend who enabled her to set all her hard treatment at defiance, and next morning told her that she was going to kill the cow. Maria was broken-hearted at the announcement, but she knew it was useless to remonstrate; so she only used her greatest speed to reach her ‘dear little cow,’ and warn her of what was going to happen in time to make her escape.‘There is no need for me to escape,’ replied Vaccarella; ‘killing will not hurt me. So dry your tears, and don’t be distressed. Only, after they have killed me, put your hand under my heart, and there you will find a golden ball. This ball is yours, so take it out, and whenever you are tired of your present kind of life, you have only to say to it on some fitting occasion—“Golden ball, golden ball, dress me in gold and give me a lover,”7and you shall see what shall happen.’Vaccarella had no time to say more, for the stepmother arrived just then with a man who slaughtered the cow at her order.Under Vaccarella’s heart Maria found the promised golden ball, which she hid away carefully against some fitting occasion for using it arose.Not long after there was anovena8of a great festival, during which Maria’s stepmother, with all her disposition to overwork her, durst not keep her from church, lest the neighbours should cry ‘Shame!’ on her.Maria accordingly went to church with all the rest of the people, and when she had made her way through the crowd to a little distance from her stepmother, she took her golden ball out of her pocket and whispered to it—‘Golden ball, golden ball, dress me in gold and give me a lover.’Instantly the golden ball burst gently open and enveloped her, and she came out of it all radiant with beautiful clothing, like a princess. Everybody made way for her in her astonishing brightness.The eyes of the king’s son were turned upon her, no less than the eyes of all the people; and the prayers were no sooner over than he sent some of his attendants to call her and bring her to him. Before they could reach her, however, Maria had restored her beautiful raiment to the golden ball, and, in the sordid attire in which her stepmother dressed her, she could easily pass through the crowd unperceived.At home, her stepmother could not forbear talking, like everyone else in the town, about the maiden in glittering raiment who had appeared in the midst of the church; but, of course, without the remotest suspicion that it was Maria herself. But Maria sat still and said nothing.So it happened each day of the Novena; for, though Maria was not at all displeased with the appearance and fame of the husband whom her ‘dear little cow’ seemed to have appointed for her, she did not wish to be too easy a prize, and thought it but right to make him take a little trouble to win her. Thus she every day restored all herbright clothing to the golden ball before the prince’s men could overtake her. Only on the last day of the Novena, when the prince, fearful lest it might also be the last on which he would have an opportunity of seeing her, had told them to use extra diligence, they were so near overtaking her that, in the hurry of the moment, she dropped a slipper.9This the prince’s men eagerly seized, feeling no compunction in wresting it from the mean-looking wench (so Maria now looked) who disputed possession of it with them, not in the least imagining that she could be the radiant being of whom they were in search.The Novena over, Maria once more returned to her ceaseless toil; but the stepmother’s hatred had grown so great that she determined to rid herself of her altogether and in the most cruel way.Down in the cellar there stood a large barrel,10which had grown dirty and mouldy from neglect, and wanted scalding out. ‘Get into the barrel, Maria girl,’ she bid her next morning for her task, ‘and scrape it and rub it well before we scald it.’Maria did as she was bid, and the stepmother went away to boil the water.Meantime, the prince’s men had taken Maria’s slipper to him, and he, delighted to have any token of his fair one, appointed an officer to go into every house, and proclaim that the maiden whom the slipper might fit should be his bride. The officer went round from house to house, trying the slipper on everybody’s foot. But it fitted no one, for it was under a spell.But the stepmother’s own daughter11had gone down to the cellar to help Maria, unbeknown to her mother; and it so happened that, just as she was inside the barrel and Maria outside, the king’s officer happened to come by that way. He opened the door,12and, seeing a damsel standing within, tried on the sandal without waiting to ask leave. As the sandal fitted Maria to perfection, theofficer was all impatience to carry her off to the prince, and placed her in the carriage which was waiting outside, and drove off with her before anyone had even observed his entrance.Scarcely had all this passed than the stepmother came back, with her servants, each carrying a can of boiling water. They placed themselves in a ring round the barrel, and each emptied her charge into it. As it was the stepmother’s daughter who was inside at the time, instead of Maria, it was she who got scalded to death in her place.By-and-by, when the house was quiet, the bad stepmother went to the barrel, intending to take out the body of Maria and hide it. What was her dismay when she found, instead of Maria’s body, that of her own daughter! As soon as her distress and grief subsided sufficiently to enable her to consider what she had to do, the idea suggested itself to conceal the murder by putting the blame of it on some one else. For this purpose she took the body of her daughter, and, dressing it in dry clothes, seated it on the top of the stairs against her husband’s return.13Presently, home he came with his ass-load of wood, and called to her daughter to come and help him unload it, as usual. But the daughter continued sitting on the top of the stairs, and moved not. Again and again he called, louder and louder, but still she moved not; till at last, irritated beyond all endurance, he hurled one of his logs of wood at her, which brought the badly-balanced corpse rolling and tumbling all the way down the stairs, just as the stepmother had designed.The husband, however, was far from being deceived by the device. He could see the body presented no appearance of dying from a recent fall.‘Where’s Maria?’ he asked, as soon as he got up into the room.‘Nobody knows; she has disappeared!’ replied the stepmother; nor was he slow to convince himself she was nowhere in the house.‘This is no place for me to stay in,’ said the husband to himself. ‘One child driven away, and one murdered; who can say what may happen next?’Next morning, therefore, he called to him the little daughter born to him since his marriage with Maria’s stepmother, and went away with her for good and all. So that bad woman was deprived, as she deserved, of her husband and all her children in one day.Just as the father and his daughter were starting to go away, Maria drove by in a gilded coach with the prince her husband; so he had the satisfaction, and her stepmother the vexation, of seeing her triumph.[The introduction of the wonder-working cow in this second version of the story of Cinderella cannot fail to suggest the idea that it may find its prototype in Sabala, the heavenly cow of the Ramayana.14I have another Stepmother story, the place of which is here, but it is too long to give in its entirety. It begins like the last, and the next, and many others, with a widower, the teacher of whose children, a boy and girl, insists on marrying him. Soon after, of course, she turns the children out of doors; the boy is made the slave of a witch, and comes well at last out of many adventures; it is one of the nearest approaches to a heroic story that I have met with in Rome. There are details in it, however, like Filagranata and others, not actually of the Stepmother group. The girl gets taken into a Brigand’s cave, and goes through adventures which befall the youngest ofthreesisters (without a stepmother) in the Italian-Tirolese tale of ‘Le tre Sorelle,’ and that, again, is precisely like another Roman story I have, in many respects different from the present one, called ‘The Three Windows.’ One of the adventures in the present story is, that the witch, instead of killing the girl, gives her the appearance of death, and she is shut up in a box instead of being regularly buried, and a prince, as he goes by hunting, finds her, and the means of restoringher, and marries her. This is a very common incident in another group, and occurs in the ‘Siddhi Kür’ story which I have given as ‘The Prayer making suddenly Rich,’ in ‘Sagas from the Far East;’ and in the third version of ‘Maria de Legno,’infra, where also the girl is not even seemingly dead. I cannot forbear subjoining a quaint version of the story of Joseph, which was told me, embodying the same incident, though the story of Joseph has usually been identified with the group in which a younger brother is the hero; by Dr. Dasent, among others, who gives several examples, under the name of ‘Boots.’ In the Roman series this group is represented by ‘Scioccolone.’]

They say there was once a husband and a wife; but I don’t mean that they were husband and wife of each other. The husband had lost his wife, and the wife had lost her husband, and each had one little daughter. The husband sent his daughter to the wife to be brought up along with her own daughter, and as the girl came every morning to be trained and instructed, the wife used to send a message back by her every evening, saying, ‘Why doesn’t your father marry me? then we should all live together, and you would no longer have this weary walk to take.’

The father, however, did not see it in the same light; but the teacher2continued sending the same message. In short,3at last she carried her point, having previously given a solemn promise to him that Maria, his little girl, should be always as tenderly treated as her own.

Not many months elapsed, however, before she began to show herself a true stepmother. After treating Maria with every kind of harshness, she at last sent her out into the Campagna to tend the cow, so as to keep her out of sight of her father, and estrange him from her. Maria had to keep the cow’s stall clean with fresh litter every day; sometimes she had to take the cow out to grass, and watch that it only grazed over the right piece of land; at other times she had to go out and cut grass for the cow to eat. All this was work enough for one so young; but Maria was a kind-hearted girl, and grew fond of her cow, so that it became a pleasure to her to attend to it.

When the cruel stepmother saw this she was annoyed to find her so light-hearted over her work, and to vex her more gave her a great heap of hemp to spin. It was in vain that Maria reminded her she had never been taught to spin; the only answer she got was, ‘If you don’t bring it home with you to-night all properly spun you will befinely punished;’ and Maria knew to her cost what that meant.

When Maria went out into the Campagna that day she was no longer light-hearted; and as she littered down the stall she stroked the cow fondly, and said to her, as she had no one else to complain to, ‘Vaccarella! Vaccarella! what shall I do? I have got all this hemp to spin, and I never learnt spinning. Yet if I don’t get through it somehow I shall get sadly beaten to-night. Dear little cow, tell me what to do!’

But the cow was an enchanted cow,4and when she heard Maria cry she turned round and said quickly and positively:—

Throw it on to the horns of me,And go along, cut grass for me!5

Throw it on to the horns of me,

And go along, cut grass for me!5

Maria did as she was told, went out and cut a good basketful of grass, and imagine her delight on coming back with it to find all the whole lot of hemp beautifully spun.

The surprise of the stepmother was still greater than hers, at finding that she had got through her task so easily, for she had given her enough to have occupied an ordinary person a week. Next day, therefore, she determined to vex her with a more difficult task, and gave her a quantity of spun hemp6to weave into a piece of fine cloth. Maria’s pleadings were as fruitless as before, and once more she went to tell her tale of woe to her ‘dear little cow.’

Vaccarella readily gave the same answer as before:—

Throw it on to the horns of me,And go along, cut grass for me!

Throw it on to the horns of me,

And go along, cut grass for me!

Once more, when Maria came back with her basket of grass, she found all her work done, to her great surprise and delight. But her stepmother’s surprise was quite of another order. That Maria should have woven the cloth, not only without instruction, but even without a loom,proved clearly enough she must have had some one to help her—a matter which roused the stepmother’s jealousy in the highest degree, and wherein this help consisted she determined to find out. Accordingly, next day she gave her a shirt to make up, and then posted herself out of sight in a corner of the cow-house to see what happened. Thus she overheard Maria’s complaint to her dear little cow, and Vaccarella’s reply:—

Throw it on to the horns of me,And go along, cut grass for me!

Throw it on to the horns of me,

And go along, cut grass for me!

She thus also saw, what Maria did not see, that as soon as she had gone out the cow assumed the form of a woman, and sat down and stitched and stitched away till the shirt was made, and that in a surprisingly short space of time. As soon as it was finished, and before Maria came in, the woman became a cow again.

The cruel stepmother determined that Maria should be deprived of a friend who enabled her to set all her hard treatment at defiance, and next morning told her that she was going to kill the cow. Maria was broken-hearted at the announcement, but she knew it was useless to remonstrate; so she only used her greatest speed to reach her ‘dear little cow,’ and warn her of what was going to happen in time to make her escape.

‘There is no need for me to escape,’ replied Vaccarella; ‘killing will not hurt me. So dry your tears, and don’t be distressed. Only, after they have killed me, put your hand under my heart, and there you will find a golden ball. This ball is yours, so take it out, and whenever you are tired of your present kind of life, you have only to say to it on some fitting occasion—“Golden ball, golden ball, dress me in gold and give me a lover,”7and you shall see what shall happen.’

Vaccarella had no time to say more, for the stepmother arrived just then with a man who slaughtered the cow at her order.

Under Vaccarella’s heart Maria found the promised golden ball, which she hid away carefully against some fitting occasion for using it arose.

Not long after there was anovena8of a great festival, during which Maria’s stepmother, with all her disposition to overwork her, durst not keep her from church, lest the neighbours should cry ‘Shame!’ on her.

Maria accordingly went to church with all the rest of the people, and when she had made her way through the crowd to a little distance from her stepmother, she took her golden ball out of her pocket and whispered to it—‘Golden ball, golden ball, dress me in gold and give me a lover.’

Instantly the golden ball burst gently open and enveloped her, and she came out of it all radiant with beautiful clothing, like a princess. Everybody made way for her in her astonishing brightness.

The eyes of the king’s son were turned upon her, no less than the eyes of all the people; and the prayers were no sooner over than he sent some of his attendants to call her and bring her to him. Before they could reach her, however, Maria had restored her beautiful raiment to the golden ball, and, in the sordid attire in which her stepmother dressed her, she could easily pass through the crowd unperceived.

At home, her stepmother could not forbear talking, like everyone else in the town, about the maiden in glittering raiment who had appeared in the midst of the church; but, of course, without the remotest suspicion that it was Maria herself. But Maria sat still and said nothing.

So it happened each day of the Novena; for, though Maria was not at all displeased with the appearance and fame of the husband whom her ‘dear little cow’ seemed to have appointed for her, she did not wish to be too easy a prize, and thought it but right to make him take a little trouble to win her. Thus she every day restored all herbright clothing to the golden ball before the prince’s men could overtake her. Only on the last day of the Novena, when the prince, fearful lest it might also be the last on which he would have an opportunity of seeing her, had told them to use extra diligence, they were so near overtaking her that, in the hurry of the moment, she dropped a slipper.9This the prince’s men eagerly seized, feeling no compunction in wresting it from the mean-looking wench (so Maria now looked) who disputed possession of it with them, not in the least imagining that she could be the radiant being of whom they were in search.

The Novena over, Maria once more returned to her ceaseless toil; but the stepmother’s hatred had grown so great that she determined to rid herself of her altogether and in the most cruel way.

Down in the cellar there stood a large barrel,10which had grown dirty and mouldy from neglect, and wanted scalding out. ‘Get into the barrel, Maria girl,’ she bid her next morning for her task, ‘and scrape it and rub it well before we scald it.’

Maria did as she was bid, and the stepmother went away to boil the water.

Meantime, the prince’s men had taken Maria’s slipper to him, and he, delighted to have any token of his fair one, appointed an officer to go into every house, and proclaim that the maiden whom the slipper might fit should be his bride. The officer went round from house to house, trying the slipper on everybody’s foot. But it fitted no one, for it was under a spell.

But the stepmother’s own daughter11had gone down to the cellar to help Maria, unbeknown to her mother; and it so happened that, just as she was inside the barrel and Maria outside, the king’s officer happened to come by that way. He opened the door,12and, seeing a damsel standing within, tried on the sandal without waiting to ask leave. As the sandal fitted Maria to perfection, theofficer was all impatience to carry her off to the prince, and placed her in the carriage which was waiting outside, and drove off with her before anyone had even observed his entrance.

Scarcely had all this passed than the stepmother came back, with her servants, each carrying a can of boiling water. They placed themselves in a ring round the barrel, and each emptied her charge into it. As it was the stepmother’s daughter who was inside at the time, instead of Maria, it was she who got scalded to death in her place.

By-and-by, when the house was quiet, the bad stepmother went to the barrel, intending to take out the body of Maria and hide it. What was her dismay when she found, instead of Maria’s body, that of her own daughter! As soon as her distress and grief subsided sufficiently to enable her to consider what she had to do, the idea suggested itself to conceal the murder by putting the blame of it on some one else. For this purpose she took the body of her daughter, and, dressing it in dry clothes, seated it on the top of the stairs against her husband’s return.13

Presently, home he came with his ass-load of wood, and called to her daughter to come and help him unload it, as usual. But the daughter continued sitting on the top of the stairs, and moved not. Again and again he called, louder and louder, but still she moved not; till at last, irritated beyond all endurance, he hurled one of his logs of wood at her, which brought the badly-balanced corpse rolling and tumbling all the way down the stairs, just as the stepmother had designed.

The husband, however, was far from being deceived by the device. He could see the body presented no appearance of dying from a recent fall.

‘Where’s Maria?’ he asked, as soon as he got up into the room.

‘Nobody knows; she has disappeared!’ replied the stepmother; nor was he slow to convince himself she was nowhere in the house.

‘This is no place for me to stay in,’ said the husband to himself. ‘One child driven away, and one murdered; who can say what may happen next?’

Next morning, therefore, he called to him the little daughter born to him since his marriage with Maria’s stepmother, and went away with her for good and all. So that bad woman was deprived, as she deserved, of her husband and all her children in one day.

Just as the father and his daughter were starting to go away, Maria drove by in a gilded coach with the prince her husband; so he had the satisfaction, and her stepmother the vexation, of seeing her triumph.

[The introduction of the wonder-working cow in this second version of the story of Cinderella cannot fail to suggest the idea that it may find its prototype in Sabala, the heavenly cow of the Ramayana.14

I have another Stepmother story, the place of which is here, but it is too long to give in its entirety. It begins like the last, and the next, and many others, with a widower, the teacher of whose children, a boy and girl, insists on marrying him. Soon after, of course, she turns the children out of doors; the boy is made the slave of a witch, and comes well at last out of many adventures; it is one of the nearest approaches to a heroic story that I have met with in Rome. There are details in it, however, like Filagranata and others, not actually of the Stepmother group. The girl gets taken into a Brigand’s cave, and goes through adventures which befall the youngest ofthreesisters (without a stepmother) in the Italian-Tirolese tale of ‘Le tre Sorelle,’ and that, again, is precisely like another Roman story I have, in many respects different from the present one, called ‘The Three Windows.’ One of the adventures in the present story is, that the witch, instead of killing the girl, gives her the appearance of death, and she is shut up in a box instead of being regularly buried, and a prince, as he goes by hunting, finds her, and the means of restoringher, and marries her. This is a very common incident in another group, and occurs in the ‘Siddhi Kür’ story which I have given as ‘The Prayer making suddenly Rich,’ in ‘Sagas from the Far East;’ and in the third version of ‘Maria de Legno,’infra, where also the girl is not even seemingly dead. I cannot forbear subjoining a quaint version of the story of Joseph, which was told me, embodying the same incident, though the story of Joseph has usually been identified with the group in which a younger brother is the hero; by Dr. Dasent, among others, who gives several examples, under the name of ‘Boots.’ In the Roman series this group is represented by ‘Scioccolone.’]

1‘Vaccarella,’‘dear little cow,’ ‘good little cow.’ The endearment is expressed in the form of the diminutive.↑2‘Maestra.’↑3‘Basta,’ ‘enough,’ ‘to cut a long story short.’↑4‘Fatata.’↑5Butta sopr’ alle corna a me,E vatene far l’erba per me.‘Corno’ is one of the words which (as ‘muro,’ ‘novo,’ ‘braccio,’ ‘dito,’ &c.), masculine in the singular, have a feminine plural.↑6‘Carrèvale,’ or ‘corrèvale’—I could not very well distinguish which, and do not know the word. The narrator explained it as like ‘cànapa’—hemp, only finer. ‘Refe’ is used in the same sense in Tuscany.↑7Pallo dorato! Pallo dorato!Vestimi d’oro e dammi l’innamorato.‘Dorato’ is used for ‘golden’ as well as for ‘gilt.’ The change from ‘palla,’ a ball, to ‘pallo’ is a very considerable license, for the sake of making it rime with ‘innamorato;’ though some words admit of being spelt either way, as ‘mattino’ or ‘mattina, ‘botto’ or ‘botta’ (a blow), and others can be used with either gender without alteration, as ‘polvere.’ I have never met with ‘pallo’ elsewhere, though it is one of the words which take a masculine augmentative (‘pallone’).↑8‘Novena,’ a short service, with or without a sermon, said for nine days before some great festival, in preparation for it.↑9‘Pianella,’ a sandal, or slipper without a heel. ‘In those daysthey used to wear such things instead of shoes,’ commented the old lady as she told the tale.↑10‘Botte,’ a very large wine-barrel of a certain measure.↑11Here called ‘buona figlia,’ ‘good daughter.’ There did not seem any reason for this designation. Possibly the narrator had forgotten some incident of the story, introducing it.↑12That the cellar should be, as thus appears, on the ground-floor, is very characteristic of Rome, though there are, of course, plenty of underground cellars too; but the one is properly ‘cantino’ and ‘canova,’ and the other ‘grottino.’ The distinction is, however, not very rigidly observed in common parlance. To haveanunderground cellar is so far aspecialité, that it has been taken to be a sufficiently distinctive attribute to supply the sign or title to those inns which possess it. Rufini gives examples of above a dozen thus called ‘Del Grottino.’↑13The ground-floor being used as a cellar, the family lives upstairs. This is a very common arrangement.↑14The reader who has not access to a better rendering of this beautiful legend will find one I have given from Bopp, in ‘Sagas from the Far East,’ pp. 402–3; but Mr. Ralston gives us a Russian version, in which a doll or puppet is the agent instead of the cow (pp. 150–9). It is true, on the other hand, that he has (p. 115) another rather different story, in which a cow also gives good gifts; and mentions others at p. 260. In a story of the Italian Tirol, ‘Le due Sorelle,’ which I shall have occasion to notice later, a cow has also a supernatural part to play, somewhat like that of Vaccarella; only there she acts at the bidding of a fairy, not of her own motion.↑

1‘Vaccarella,’‘dear little cow,’ ‘good little cow.’ The endearment is expressed in the form of the diminutive.↑

2‘Maestra.’↑

3‘Basta,’ ‘enough,’ ‘to cut a long story short.’↑

4‘Fatata.’↑

5

Butta sopr’ alle corna a me,E vatene far l’erba per me.

Butta sopr’ alle corna a me,E vatene far l’erba per me.

Butta sopr’ alle corna a me,E vatene far l’erba per me.

Butta sopr’ alle corna a me,E vatene far l’erba per me.

Butta sopr’ alle corna a me,

E vatene far l’erba per me.

‘Corno’ is one of the words which (as ‘muro,’ ‘novo,’ ‘braccio,’ ‘dito,’ &c.), masculine in the singular, have a feminine plural.↑

6‘Carrèvale,’ or ‘corrèvale’—I could not very well distinguish which, and do not know the word. The narrator explained it as like ‘cànapa’—hemp, only finer. ‘Refe’ is used in the same sense in Tuscany.↑

7

Pallo dorato! Pallo dorato!Vestimi d’oro e dammi l’innamorato.

Pallo dorato! Pallo dorato!Vestimi d’oro e dammi l’innamorato.

Pallo dorato! Pallo dorato!Vestimi d’oro e dammi l’innamorato.

Pallo dorato! Pallo dorato!Vestimi d’oro e dammi l’innamorato.

Pallo dorato! Pallo dorato!

Vestimi d’oro e dammi l’innamorato.

‘Dorato’ is used for ‘golden’ as well as for ‘gilt.’ The change from ‘palla,’ a ball, to ‘pallo’ is a very considerable license, for the sake of making it rime with ‘innamorato;’ though some words admit of being spelt either way, as ‘mattino’ or ‘mattina, ‘botto’ or ‘botta’ (a blow), and others can be used with either gender without alteration, as ‘polvere.’ I have never met with ‘pallo’ elsewhere, though it is one of the words which take a masculine augmentative (‘pallone’).↑

8‘Novena,’ a short service, with or without a sermon, said for nine days before some great festival, in preparation for it.↑

9‘Pianella,’ a sandal, or slipper without a heel. ‘In those daysthey used to wear such things instead of shoes,’ commented the old lady as she told the tale.↑

10‘Botte,’ a very large wine-barrel of a certain measure.↑

11Here called ‘buona figlia,’ ‘good daughter.’ There did not seem any reason for this designation. Possibly the narrator had forgotten some incident of the story, introducing it.↑

12That the cellar should be, as thus appears, on the ground-floor, is very characteristic of Rome, though there are, of course, plenty of underground cellars too; but the one is properly ‘cantino’ and ‘canova,’ and the other ‘grottino.’ The distinction is, however, not very rigidly observed in common parlance. To haveanunderground cellar is so far aspecialité, that it has been taken to be a sufficiently distinctive attribute to supply the sign or title to those inns which possess it. Rufini gives examples of above a dozen thus called ‘Del Grottino.’↑

13The ground-floor being used as a cellar, the family lives upstairs. This is a very common arrangement.↑

14The reader who has not access to a better rendering of this beautiful legend will find one I have given from Bopp, in ‘Sagas from the Far East,’ pp. 402–3; but Mr. Ralston gives us a Russian version, in which a doll or puppet is the agent instead of the cow (pp. 150–9). It is true, on the other hand, that he has (p. 115) another rather different story, in which a cow also gives good gifts; and mentions others at p. 260. In a story of the Italian Tirol, ‘Le due Sorelle,’ which I shall have occasion to notice later, a cow has also a supernatural part to play, somewhat like that of Vaccarella; only there she acts at the bidding of a fairy, not of her own motion.↑

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