Fernán Caballero was a pseudonym of Cecilia Böhl de Faber (1796–1877), a Spanish writer known for her gift for description. Her most popular novel was The Seagull (1849), and her short stories depict the legends, beliefs, and traditions of the Andalusian people, although she was not raised there. Even though she is not as popular as she once was, The Seagull was the precursor to Spanish realism, and her short folkloric stories, like “The Hump” (1911), are still household favorites in Spain.
ONCE UPON A TIME there was a King who had an only daughter, whom he wished very much to marry off in order to ensure heirs to his kingdom. But the girl, who had been spoiled when young, was willful and did not wish to marry (although, if her father had been opposed to her marriage, then she would have been anxious to marry, and as soon as possible).
One day, as she was heading out to Mass, she met with a beggar, who was so old, so hunchbacked, so ugly, and so insistent that he made her sick, and she didn’t want to give him any alms. The wretch, in order to take his revenge, threw a flea at her; and the Princess, who had never seen one of these disgusting creatures before, took it home to the palace, put it in a bottle and fed it on milk broth, until it was so big that it didn’t fit in the bottle anymore. And so the Princess sent it off to be slaughtered, and ordered its hide to be tanned and used to make the skin for a tambourine, stretched over a hoop of fennel-stalk.
And then one day, when her father started off insisting again that she get married, she said that she would, but only to the man who could guess what her tambourine was made of.
“So be it,” said her father, “but I swear, as I am a King and a Christian, you have to marry the man who guesses correctly, whoever he may be.”
Once the news had spread that the Princess would marry the man who guessed what her tambourine was made of, there came from all four corners of the world Kings, Princes, Dukes, Marquises, Counts and very well-behaved knights, and each one of them, in order of noble precedence, took a look at the tambourine, and no one guessed what it was made of. The strangest thing about it was that, when it was struck, the sound that it made was very much like the cry that beggars gave to ask for alms, in the name of the Lord. And then the King gave permission for anyone who wanted, noble or not, to come and see if they could guess what the tambourine was made of.
And it so happened that among the Princes there was one, a very handsome one, to whom the King’s daughter had taken a fancy, and when she was out on her balcony she saw him, and called out:
Fennel-stalk, and the skin of a flea:
They’re what make my tambourine.
But the Prince did not hear what she shouted; the person who did hear was the horrible hunchback, to whom she had refused her alms. The old man, who was very crafty, understood what the words the Princess had said to the handsome Prince must mean, and so he went posthaste to the palace, and said that he had come to guess what the King’s daughter’s tambourine was made of, and no sooner was he standing in front of the court than he said:
Fennel-stalk, and the skin of a flea:
They’re what make your tambourine.
Alas! He had guessed correctly, and there was no way round it. And the Princess, for all that she was against the idea, was handed over by her father to this horrid beggar, who had won the prize that the Princess had offered.
“Go, now, right away, with your husband,” the King said, “and forget you ever had a father.”
This Princess, ashamed and weeping, went away with her hunchback, and they walked and walked until they came to a river, which they had to cross.
“Take me on your back and start to wade. That’s what wives are for,” the old man said.
The Princess did what her husband said, but when she was halfway across the river she started to shake and jump in order to throw the beggar into the water. And she shook and jumped, and he fell to pieces: first the head, then the arms and legs; everything, in fact, apart from the hump, which stayed stuck to the Princess’s back, as though it had been glued there.
Once she was over the river, she asked for directions, and she found out that her hump imitated her voice and copied whatever she said, as though she had an echoing crag instead of a hump stuck to her back. Some people laughed at her, and some people were angry because they thought she was making fun of them; and so she had no option but to pretend to be dumb. In this way, holding out her hand to beg for alms, she went walking until she came to a city that she guessed must be the kingdom of the Prince she had liked so much. She went to the palace and asked to be taken on as a serving maid, and they took her. The Prince saw her and thought she was very pretty, and he said:
“If she weren’t dumb and hunchbacked, I might even marry the serving maid, because she’s got a charming face.”
The Prince’s family was trying to marry him off, and the Princess felt ever more sad and jealous, as she was falling more in love with the Prince every day.
Once the marriage contracts were drawn up between the Prince and another Princess, ramrod straight and chattier than a parrot, the Prince set off with a great host to bring her back to the palace, and the whole palace was all of a hubbub preparing for the marriage feast. They set the dumb serving maid to frying pancakes.
As she fried, the maid said to her hump:
“Little hump, little hump, would you like a pancake?”
The hump, which, as it had come from an old man and was very greedy, said yes.
“Well, get up on my shoulder,” the Princess said.
And she gave it a pancake.
And then she asked again:
“Little hump, little hump, would you like another pancake?”
The hump said that it would.
And she said:
“Well, get down into my lap.”
The hump made a little leap and settled on the Princess’s lap; but she was ready, and took the tongs and picked up the hump and threw it into the oil, where it was fried up like a pork scratching.
As soon as she was free of her hump, she went to her room, cleaned herself, combed her hair, and put on makeup and got dressed in a green and gold dress.
When the Prince returned, he was ecstatic to see the serving girl in a new dress, so clean and tidy, and without her hump.
His promised bride saw this, and said:
Just you look at her, all dressed in green:
Thinks she’s a princess, thinks she’s a queen.
To which the Princess, all high and mighty, replied:
No, just you look at her, with her flounces and furs:
Only just got here, and putting on airs.
As soon as the Prince had registered that the dumb serving maid could speak, and that there was no sign of her former hump, then he married her, and they had lots of children, and were very happy, and I was obscurely disappointed.