The Pleasant Nights

V. Fable 1
Guerrino and the Wild Man of the Woods

ERITREA

Guerrino, the only son of Filippo Maria, king of Sicily, sets free a wild man of the woods from his father’s prison. His mother, through fear of the king, sends her son into exile, and the wild man, now humanized, delivers the boy from many pressing ills.

I have heard by report, and also gathered from my own experiences, most gracious ladies, that a kindly service done to another – even when the identity of the benefactor is unknown – more often than not will return multiple benefits to the giver. This happened to the son of a king who, having liberated from one of his father’s prisons a wild man of the woods, was more than once rescued from a violent death by the captive he had freed. This will be made clear by the present tale. And because I care for you all, I exhort you never to be slow in aiding others, because, even though you may not be repaid by those you have helped, God Himself, who rewards all things, will never allow a good deed to go unrewarded, but will make you partakers with Him of His divine grace.

My dear ladies, as you all must know, Sicily is in itself a most fertile and self-sufficient island and surpasses all other islands of antiquity, with its towns and villages adding an even greater beauty. In past times, the lord of this island was a king named Filippo Maria, a man wise, amiable, and of rare virtue, who was married to a courteous, winsome, and lovely lady, the mother of his only son, Guerrino. The king took greater delight in the hunt than any other man in the country and for that reason he was strong and robust, for this recreation was well suited to him.

Now it happened one day as he was returning from the hunt in the company of various barons and sportsmen that he saw a wild man coming out of a thick wood so tall, deformed, and ugly that they all stared at him with amazement. For strength, he didn’t seem a bit inferior to any of them, wherefore the king, preparing himself to do battle, boldly attacked him, together with two of the most valiant of his barons. After a long and vigorous struggle they overcame him and took him prisoner. Having bound him, they then conveyed him back to the palace, where they kept him guarded and in close confinement under lock and key according to the king’s commandment. And because the king prized his captive so greatly, he ordered that the keys to the prison be held in charge by the queen, thereafter never letting a day pass without going to visit the wild man by way of pastime.

Before many days had gone by, the king once more prepared himself for the chase. When all the provisions were in readiness, he set out with a gallant company of courtiers, entrusting to the queen’s care the keys to his prisons. During his absence, Guerrino, who was then still a young lad, felt a great desire to see this wild man of the woods. So all alone, with his bow in hand in which he took great delight, he went to the prison grating behind which the monster dwelt. When he saw the wild man, he began to converse with him in a familiar way. As they were talking along, the creature, cajoling and flattering the boy, most dexterously snatched the richly ornamented arrow from his hand. Then the lad began to cry and protest, asking for his arrow back. But the wild man said to him, ‘If you will open the door and let me go free from this prison, I will give you back your arrow, but if you refuse, I will not let you have it.’

The boy answered, ‘How would you expect me to open the door and set you free, seeing that I haven’t the means?’

The wild man continued, ‘If you were truly willing to release me and let me out of this narrow cell, I would very soon teach you how it might be done.’

‘Then how?’ replied Guerrino. ‘Tell me the way.’

To which the wild man answered, ‘Go to the bedroom of your mother, the queen, and when you see her taking her midday nap, put your hand gently under her pillow and take the keys of the prison, but carefully so she won’t notice the theft, and bring them here to open my prison door. When you’ve done this, I’ll give the arrow right back to you and by chance at some time in the future I may be able to reward you even further for your kindness.’

Since he was just a boy, he wanted his arrow back more than anything. So without delay, he ran to his mother and found her asleep. Slowly he reached under her pillow and pulled out the keys, then rushed back to the prison where he said to the wild man: ‘Look, here are the keys, but if I let you out of this place, you must go so far from here that no scent of you may be traced, for if my father, who is a great huntsman, should find and capture you again, he’s sure to kill you outright.’

‘Don’t let that bother you, my boy,’ said the captive, ‘for as soon as you open the prison and set me free, I’ll give you back your arrow and get myself into such distant parts that neither your father nor any other man will ever find me.’

Guerrino, who was a very strong lad for his age, laboured at the door and finally managed to throw it open, whereupon the wild man, having returned his arrow, thanked him heartily and went his way.

Formerly this wild man had been a most handsome youth. But because he was unable to win the lady he loved beyond all measure, he abandoned his amorous ways and civilized pursuits and went to live among the beasts of the forest, dwelling ever in the gloomy woods and bosky thickets, eating grass and drinking water in the manner of the animals. On this account, the wretched man had become covered with a great mat of hair, his skin had grown hard, his beard thick, long, and tangled, and all of him green from his diet of herbs and grass – a monstrous sight to behold.

As soon as the queen awoke from her slumbers, she thrust her hand under her pillow to seek the keys, but to no avail. After turning the bed upside down and still not finding them, she was suddenly terrified and ran straight to the prison as though out of her wits. As she feared, she found it standing open. When her search for the wild man proved equally vain, she was so stricken with grief that she thought she would die. Once more at the palace, she searched diligently in every corner, all the while interrogating first one courtier and then another to find out who had been so brazen and presumptuous as to lay hands on the keys to the prison without her knowledge. But one and all declared they knew nothing of the matter. Meeting his mother and seeing her vexed and beside herself, Guerrino said to her, ‘Mother, don’t blame any of these for opening the prison door, because if some punishment is in order, it must come to me, for I, and I alone, unlocked it.’

When the queen heard these words, she was plunged into deeper sorrow than ever, fearing lest the king, when he came back from the hunt, might kill his son in anger, seeing that he had given the keys into her charge to guard them as preciously as her life. So out of her desire to escape the consequences of a small mistake, the queen now committed a far weightier one. Without more delay, she summoned her son and two of her most trusted servants, provided them with gold, silver, and good horses, and sent the boy out to seek his fortune, while begging the servants most earnestly to take the greatest care of Guerrino.

Hardly had they started on their way before the king came home from the hunt, and dismounting, made straight for the prison to visit the wild man. When he found the door wide and the captive gone, he was inflamed with such violent anger that he vowed to slay whoever it was who had done such a flagrant misdeed. Then he sought out the queen who was sitting in her chamber and commanded her to tell him the name of the impudent, rash, and presumptuous knave who had opened the prison door and let the wild man of the woods escape.

The queen answered him in a trembling voice, ‘O, sire, don’t be distressed over this thing, because Guerrino our son, according to his own confession to me, is to blame for this.’ Then she told the king everything that Guerrino had said to her, and when he had heard the story out, he was incensed with rage. Next she told him that fearing he might slay his own son, she sent the boy away into a far country, accompanied by two of their most faithful servants, bearing with them a store of jewels and money sufficient for their needs. Hearing all this, the king felt one sorrow heaped upon another, at one point nearly falling to the ground, at another nearly losing his wits. Had the courtiers not grabbed and restrained him, most assuredly he would have slain the queen on the spot.

When in time the poor king had recovered a measure of his composure and calmed his rage, he said to the queen, ‘Alas, my wife, what fancy took you to send our son, the fruit of our mutual love, away into some foreign land? Is it possible that you imagined I would hold this wild man of greater value than my own flesh and blood?’ Without waiting for a reply to these words, he ordered up a great troop of soldiers to mount their horses immediately, to divide themselves into four companies, and to make a close search in an effort to find the prince. But their entire inquest was in vain, for Guerrino and his attendants had journeyed in secret so that no one might know who they were.

Having ridden great distances over mountains and through valleys, staying first one place and then another, Guerrino at last attained his sixteenth year. By this time, he was so fair a youth that he was like nothing if not a fresh morning rose. Yet in the course of time, the servants who accompanied him were seized with the devilish idea of killing him for the cache of jewels and money, intending to share it between themselves. This wicked plot came to nothing only because by God’s will they weren’t able to come to a mutual agreement. Then by good fortune, a very fair and graceful young man rode by, mounted upon a fine steed with rich accoutrements. This youth bowed and courteously saluted Guerrino, ‘Most gracious sir, if it would not displease you, I’d like to ride along with you.’

Guerrino replied, ‘With so much politeness in your request, I couldn’t possibly refuse the pleasure of your company. Please, then, join us on the road. We’re strangers in this country and know little about the highways. Perhaps in this you may be able to direct us. Moreover, as we ride along, we can discuss our adventures and so make the journey less irksome.’

Now this young man was no other than the wild man whom Guerrino had set free from the prison of King Filippo Maria, his father. He had been wandering through various countries and strange lands, and one day by chance had met a beautiful fairy, albeit she was in a sorry state of health. When she looked upon him and saw how misshapen and hideous he was, she laughed so violently at the sight of his ugliness that she burst an abscess that had formed in the vicinity of her heart – a disorder that might well have suffocated her to death. But at that very moment she was delivered from all the pain and suffering from this infirmity and was restored to health, as though her affliction had never existed. In reward for so great a blessing, the good fairy, not wishing to appear ungrateful, said to him, ‘Oh you poor creature, so deformed and ugly, because you have restored me to the health I so much desired, you too shall go your way and be transformed from what you are now into the fairest, wisest, and most graceful youth to be found anywhere. More than this, I will share with you all the power and authority conferred upon me by nature, so that you can do anything you might desire.’ Then she presented him with a noble fairy horse and gave him leave to go wherever he wished.

Guerrino travelled along with the young man, not knowing who he was, although Guerrino was well known to him. At last they came to a mighty city called Irlanda, at that time ruled over by King Zifroi. This king was the father of two daughters, both very beautiful, modest, and surpassing Venus herself in beauty, the one named Potentiana, the other Eleuteria. The king, their father, held them both so dear that he could in no wise live without them. As soon as Guerrino entered the city of Irlanda with the unknown youth and his train of servants, he took lodging with a certain householder, the wittiest fellow in the entire city, who treated his guests with the best of cheer. On the following day, the unknown youth feigned to have business in another country. Before his departure, he went to thank Guerrino for the benefit of his company and kind treatment. But Guerrino, who felt the strongest love and friendship for him, refused to let him go, showing him such strong evidence of his attachment that, in the end, the young man agreed to stay.

In the countryside around Irlanda, there were two most fearful and savage animals, one of which was a wild stallion and the other a mare of like nature, so ferocious and cruel that they not only ravaged and devastated all the fair cultivated fields, but they also killed domestic animals and the villagers, both men and women. The countryside was in such lamentable condition from the ruin created by these beasts that no one was willing to stay there. The peasants abandoned their farms and houses so dear to them and sought new dwellings in other lands. Nowhere was there a man strong and bold enough to face these marauders, much less to fight and slay them. The king, therefore, seeing that the whole country was increasingly desolate of food, cattle, and humans, and not knowing how to correct this devastation, fell into dolorous lamentations and cursed the evil fortune that had befallen him.

Guerrino’s two servants, formerly frustrated in their evil designs by their disagreements, and then by the arrival of the unknown young man, now resumed their scheming over how they might bring about Guerrino’s death while holding on to his money and jewels. One said to the other, ‘We should confer together on the easiest way to take our master’s life.’ But they still couldn’t hit upon a suitable means without putting their own lives in peril of the law. Finally they decided to speak in secret to the innkeeper, reporting that Guerrino was a young man of great prowess and valour and that often he had boasted in their presence that he could slay the wild stallion without any danger to himself. Thus they reasoned between themselves that, with luck, these thoughts might be passed along to the ears of the king, who was so keen on destroying these two animals and protecting the welfare of his country that he would straightway order Guerrino into his presence to ask of him just how he intended to accomplish this feat. Then Guerrino, not knowing what to say or do, would be put to death by the king and they would remain the sole masters of his jewels and money. Such was the plan they then set into motion.

When the host heard this news, he was delighted – the happiest man in the world – and without losing a minute, he ran as swiftly as he could to the palace, knelt before the king, made his reverence, and said to him privately, ‘Sire, I have come to tell you that there is a fair and gallant knight errant presently staying in my hostel named Guerrino. In talking to his servants I found out, among other things, that their master is a man of great prowess and skilled in the use of arms. In times like ours one might search in vain to find another to compare with him. Moreover, on many occasions they heard him boast that with his strength and valour he could easily overcome and slay the wild horse that plays such havoc with your kingdom.’

When King Zifroi heard these words, he commanded that Guerrino be brought to him immediately. The innkeeper, obedient to the king’s command, returned at once to his inn and said to Guerrino that he was summoned to appear that instant and alone before the king, who greatly desired to speak to him. Upon hearing this, Guerrino went directly to the palace and presented himself to the king. After saluting him with becoming reverence, he begged to know the reason that he had been honoured by this royal command. King Zifroi replied, ‘Guerrino, I have been moved to send for you because I have heard you are a knight of great valour, excelling all other knights now living in the world. They tell me, too, that you have many times declared that you can tame the wild horse that is now laying waste to my kingdom without any risk of injury to yourself or others. If you will undertake this enterprise, I promise to bestow upon you such a gift that you will be happy for the rest of your days.’

Guerrino, upon hearing the king’s lofty proposition, was amazed beyond measure, denying at once that he had ever spoken such words as had been attributed to him. Disconcerted at this reply, the king addressed him, ‘Guerrino, it is my will that you undertake this task without delay, assuring yourself that if you refuse to comply with my wishes, I will take away your life.’ Guerrino returned to his inn overwhelmed with sorrow, which he dared not disclose to anyone. When the unknown youth noticed that Guerrino was plunged into melancholy, he asked the reason why he was so sad and full of grief. By reason of the brotherly love between them, Guerrino found himself unable to refuse so kind and just a request, telling him word for word all that had happened to him.

The unknown youth then said, ‘Rouse your spirits and fear for nothing, because I will show you a way to save your life, prevail in your enterprise, and fulfil the king’s desire. Go back to the king and beg him to grant you the services of a good blacksmith. Then order this smith to make you four horseshoes thicker and broader by the breadth of two fingers than the ordinary size of horseshoes, to be fitted on the hind hooves with two spikes of a finger’s length. Shoe my horse with these, which is enchanted, and then there is nothing more to fear.’

Guerrino returned to the king and told him everything, just as the young man had directed him. The king, summoning a well-skilled marshal smith, gave orders that he should carry out whatever work Guerrino might require of him. When they had gone to the smith’s forge, Guerrino instructed him how to make the four horseshoes according to his friend’s instructions. But when the smith understood the manner in which he was to make them, he mocked Guerrino and treated him like a madman, for this way of making shoes was entirely foreign to him. When Guerrino saw that the marshal smith was inclined to make fun of him and was unwilling to serve him according to his orders, he returned to the king and complained that the smith would not carry out his instructions. Wherefore, the king asked to have the marshal brought before him, there giving him express command that, under pain of his highest displeasure, he should at once carry out the duties imposed upon him or, failing that, he must himself carry out the perilous task that had been assigned to Guerrino. Hard pressed by the orders of the king, the smith made the horseshoes to Guerrino’s specification and therewith shod the horse.

When the shoeing was done and the young stranger’s horse was fitted out with everything needed for the adventure, he said to Guerrino, ‘Now quickly mount my steed and go in peace. As soon as you hear the neighing of the wild horse, dismount, take off the animal’s saddle and bridle, and let him range at will. You yourself should climb into a high tree and there wait for the end of the battle.’ Having been instructed by his cherished friend in all that he had to do, Guerrino took his leave and set out with a light heart.

Already the glorious news had spread throughout Irlanda how a valiant and handsome young knight had undertaken to tame and capture the wild horse and present him to the king. For this reason, everyone in the city, men and women alike, flew to their windows to see him pass by on his perilous errand. When they saw how handsome, young, and gallant he was, their hearts were moved to pity on his account, and they said to one another, ‘Ah, the poor fellow, going to his death with such a willing spirit. Surely it’s a pitiful thing that so valiant a youth should die so miserable a death.’ Such compassion they felt that they couldn’t hold back their tears.

But Guerrino, full of manly boldness, went blithely on his way, and when he had arrived at the place where the wild horse was most often found, he heard the sound of neighing. Then he dismounted his horse, removed the bridle and saddle and let him go free, himself climbing into the branches of a great oak, there to await the fierce and bloody contest.

No sooner had Guerrino climbed up into the tree than the wild horse appeared and right away attacked the fairy steed, and the ferocity of their fight was beyond imagining. They rushed at one another like two unchained lions, their mouths foaming like those of wild boars pursued by savage hounds. After a long combat, fought with the greatest fury, the fairy charger dealt the feral stallion two kicks full on the jaw, putting it far out of joint. Thus disabled, the wild beast could no longer fight or defend itself. When Guerrino saw this, his joy was complete. Coming down out of the oak, he took a halter brought for the purpose, attached it to the wild horse and, by his broken jaw, led him back to the city. There, amid great rejoicing, the young hero was welcomed by all the people. According to his promise, he bestowed the horse upon the king, who kept high festival with the entire city in celebration of this gallant deed.

Grief and confusion overtook the servants of Guerrino, whose evil designs had completely miscarried. Now more angry and full of hatred than ever, they again brought false word to King Zifroi’s ear of Guerrino’s boasting – how he would capture or kill the wild mare without the slightest danger. When the king heard this, he placed the very same commands upon Guerrino as he had done regarding the stallion, and when the young man refused to undertake so impossible a task, the king threatened to have him hanged by one foot as a rebel against his crown.

When Guerrino returned to his inn, he told everything to his unknown companion, who broke into a smile, ‘My good brother, don’t fret yourself over this, but go and find the marshal smith and command him to make four more horseshoes for you as large as the last and see that they are duly equipped with good sharp spikes. Then you must follow exactly the same course as you took with the wild horse and you’ll return with greater honour than ever.’ So Guerrino ordered the spiked horseshoes to be made and attached to the hooves of the enchanted steed, and then he set out on his gallant mission.

When he arrived at the place where the wild mare might be grazing and heard her neighing, he did exactly as he had done before. When he had set the fairy horse free, the mare advanced and attacked it with such fierce and terrible biting that it could barely defend itself. Bravely it bore the assault and at last succeeded in planting so sharp and dexterous a kick on the mare that she was lamed in her right leg, whereupon Guerrino came down from the high tree, caught her, and bound her tightly. Then he mounted his own horse and rode back to the palace where he presented the savage creature to the king amid the cries and acclamations of all the people. Moved by wonder and curiosity, everyone ran to see this beast, which, on account of the grave injuries received in the fight, died soon after. By these means the country was liberated from this great plague that had vexed it for so long.

Overcome by fatigue, Guerrino returned to his hostel to seek some repose, but he couldn’t get to sleep because there was a strange noise somewhere in the room. Rising from his bed, he noticed that there was something, he couldn’t tell what, buzzing about inside a pot of honey unable to get out. So Guerrino opened the container and there he found a large hornet struggling to free its wings. Moved to pity, he took hold of the insect and let it go free.

King Zifroi, meanwhile, remembered his promise to reward Guerrino for these two valiant deeds, knowing that disgrace would follow should he break his word. So he had the boy called into his presence and addressed him, ‘Guerrino, thanks to your noble deeds the entire kingdom is now free from a terrible scourge. Thus, I intend to reward you for the great benefits you have wrought in our behalf. For this, I can think of no other gift worthy and sufficient for your merits than to give to you one of my two daughters in marriage. The first is called Potentiana, with hair so marvellously braided that it shines like fine gold. The second is called Eleuteria, whose tresses gleam brightly like the finest silver. Once I have them closely veiled, if you can guess which one has the golden tresses, I will give her to you as your wife together with a generous dowry, but if you fail in this I will have your head struck from your shoulders.’

When Guerrino heard the king’s cruel proposal, he remonstrated with him saying, ‘Your Sacred Majesty! Is this an appropriate reward for all the perils and weariness I’ve endured? Is this just payment for the strength I’ve spent on your behalf? Is this the gratitude you give for delivering your country from the scourge that of late made all so desolate? Alas, I’ve done nothing to deserve such treatment. Truly, this is not a deed worthy of a noble-hearted monarch. But if this is your pleasure, I’m helpless in your hands and you must do with me as you please.’

‘Then leave,’ said Zifroi, ‘and don’t linger in my presence. I’ll give you until tomorrow to come to your decision.’

After Guerrino left the king’s presence, in his sadness he sought his dear companion and told him everything the king had said. The unknown youth hardly seemed troubled by all this, saying, ‘Don’t be downtrodden, Guerrino, don’t despair, for I will deliver you from this great danger. Remember how, a few days ago, you set free the hornet that you found with its wings entangled in the honey? That same hornet will now be the means to save you, for tomorrow after the dinner at the palace when you are put to the test, it will fly three times, buzzing and humming around the head of the girl with the golden hair, which she will drive away with her white hands. When you see her do this three times, you will know for certain that this is the one who will be your wife.’

‘Glory be,’ cried Guerrino to his companion, ‘when will the time come that I’ll ever be able to repay you for all the generous things you’ve done for me? Were I to live for a thousand years, I’ll never have it in my power to repay you for the smallest portion of it. But He who redeems us all will surely compensate for my shortfall.’

To this speech, the other replied, ‘No, my brother, in truth there is no need for you to trouble yourself about making any return to me for the services I’ve done you, for the time has come for me to reveal to you just who I am. In the same fashion that you delivered me from death, I, for my part, have desired to render to you the recompense that you so well deserve. Know then, that I am the wild man of the woods whom you, with such loving compassion, set free from the king your father’s prison-house, and that I am called Rubinetto.’ Then he went on to tell Guerrino the means by which the fairy had brought him back to his former state as a handsome young man. When he heard these words, Guerrino stood like someone in a trance and out of the great tenderness and pity he had in his heart he embraced Rubinetto, weeping the while, kissing him, and claiming him as his own brother.

Forasmuch as the time was now approaching for Guerrino to solve the question set for him by King Zifroi, the two went to the palace. The king then ordered that his two daughters, Potentiana and Eleuteria, should be brought into the presence of Guerrino covered from head to foot with white veils, which was done without delay. When the two daughters appeared looking so much alike that it was impossible to tell the one from the other, the king said, ‘Now which of these two, Guerrino, do you wish to have for your wife?’

Guerrino stood still in a state of doubt and hesitation, saying nothing. But the king, eager to bring matters to their conclusion, urged him to speak up, that time was flying, and that it was in his interests to give his answer at once. To this Guerrino replied, ‘Sire, time, in truth, may be flying, but the end of the day is still far off, which is the limit you have given to me for my decision.’ In this, all who were standing by affirmed that Guerrino was in his rights.

After the king, Guerrino, and all the others had stood for a long time in expectation, behold a hornet suddenly appeared, which at once began to fly and buzz around the head and fair face of Potentiana with the golden hair. As if she were afraid of the creature, she raised her hand to drive it away, and when she had done this three times, the hornet flew away out of sight. Even after this sign, Guerrino remained for a short while uncertain, although he had complete faith in the words of Rubinetto, his well-beloved companion.

Then said the king, ‘How now, Guerrino, what do you say? The time has come for you to make up your mind.’

Guerrino, looking closely first at one and then the other of the maidens, put his hand on the head of Potentiana, indicated to him by the hornet, and said, ‘Sire, this one is your daughter with the golden tresses.’ The maiden then raised her veil and revealed clearly that it was she indeed, to the great joy of all present and to the satisfaction of the people of the city. Zifroi the king gave her to Guerrino for his wife, and they did not depart until Rubinetto had wedded the other sister. After this, Guerrino declared himself to be the son of Filippo Maria, king of Sicily, which fact pleased Zifroi greatly and brought him to celebrate the marriages with the greatest pomp and magnificence.

The news was sent to Guerrino’s father and mother, which gave them immense joy and contentment, since by that time they had given up their son for lost. When he returned to Sicily with his dear wife and his wellloved brother and sister-in-law, they all received a gracious and loving welcome from the king and queen. Many years of peace and happiness followed thereafter, and Guerrino left behind him fair children to inherit his kingdom.

This touching story won the highest praise of all the auditors. When they all fell silent, Eritrea proposed her enigma in the following words:

A cruel beast of nature dread

From out a tiny germ is bred.

In hate all beings else it holds,

And each one trembles who beholds

Its form of fear. Death all around

It spreads, and oft itself is found

The victim of its fatal rage,

And war on all the world will wage.

Beneath its breath the trees decay,

The living plants will fade away.

A beast more cruel, fierce, and fell,

Ne’er rose from out the pit of hell.

When the enigma set forth by the damsel had been considered and highly praised by everyone, some found one solution for it and some another, but not one of them gave the one which best explained its meaning. Wherefore, seeing that her riddle had not been understood, Eritrea said, ‘The cruel beast is nothing other than the basilisk, which hates all other living creatures and slays them with its sharp and piercing glances. But if, by chance, it should happen to see its own form mirrored anywhere, it immediately dies.’ When Eritrea had come to the end of the interpretation of her enigma, Signor Evangelista, sitting by her side, said to her with a smile, ‘If truth be known, you’re this basilisk yourself, young lady, for with your beautiful eyes you bring soft death to all who gaze upon you.’ But Eritrea, her cheeks suffused with the lovely tint of nature, didn’t utter a word in reply. Alteria was sitting nearby, and when she perceived that the enigma was now completed, she remembered that her turn was next to tell a story, according to the Signora’s pleasure. Her most pleasant fable began in the following manner.

V.1 Commentary

Wonder tales are nearly always concerned with thought-provoking gestures of reciprocity and alliance, as in the present tale, between a young prince who loses a toy and gains a lifelong friend and a creature of the wilds who, in exchange for that toy, gains his freedom. Because the king has vowed death to anyone responsible for letting the wild man go free, the prince, for his deed, is in jeopardy of his life. For the loss of his family, however, he gains a protector and benefactor with magic powers, a one-time wild man, whose relationship to the boy is variously that of a martial commissariat, counsellor, mentor, friend, ersatz brother, alter ego, or shadow of the self. These are symbolically significant exchanges and realignments. How they are interpreted depends on the degree to which a tale of spare archetypal proportions is granted emblematic force – upon the cultural and psychological resonances the reader sees in such bonds – for the wild man is a savage creature of nature rather than of civilization, an angry and trapped sub-human prisoner, dangerous and feral, who, nevertheless, is docile, speaks the language of the land and keeps promises, has insight into the future, knows hidden intentions, gives flawless counsel and unfailing aid, and commands preternaturally intelligent animals. What the wild man is to the story depends upon the cultural values assigned to this composite, even paradoxical, set of characteristics. This creatural enigma is partially resolved by Straparola in treating the wild man as a self-degraded human who is subject to escape from savagery through the ‘disenchanting’ powers of a fairy. Nevertheless, during that enchantment he performs all the acts and assumes all the traits of the traditional, typologized, woodland, animal-man of ancient and medieval lore. ‘Deep readings’ of this tale will inevitably come back, not to ‘the little warrior’ Guerrino, who is a conventional fairy-tale prince in exile on his way to capturing the hand of a princess by proving himself a courageous and determined boy in foreign parts, but to the ‘Murlu,’ the ‘Iron Man,’ the mysterious outsider, who oversees and supports the progress of the hero.1

Valentin Schmidt, in his commentary on the story, senses these deep resonances, for he sees in the wild man (as in the satyr of ‘Costanza,’ IV.1) a creature of contemplation and wisdom who assists in the active life, using reason and insight to overcome all dangers and hindrances; his approach paradoxically assigns the best of human thought to the ‘natural’ man of the woodlands. He becomes a creature of freedom and for that reason attains to the rewards associated with questing and striving in the pursuit of power and self-actualization. Schmidt does not, in this German romantic mode, pass judgment on the tale of Guerrino as a frivolous precursor to such writers as von Arnim or Vulpius, but protests the trivialized representation of the wild man in related tales in the Cabinet des fées as falling far short of their Sturm und Drang potential.2 This interpretation of the wild man as spirit guide is remote, indeed, from the medieval ‘wodewose’ or savage man of the forest, bearing in his name the link between ‘woodlands’ and ‘madness.’

The progression of this character in Straparola’s story, however, is a clear illustration of the plasticity of meanings whereby, through set transformations, not only the human but the superhuman is recovered from the self-alienated recluse of the wilderness. All scholars of the wild man must, in related terms, account for his equivocal nature. Nancy Canepa begins by placing him ambiguously between the hairy, uncivilized, half infernal beast and the woodland fertility god Silvanus.3 In both ‘Costanza’ and ‘Guerrino’ the protagonists are sent to the forests or wild spaces to do battle with figures menacing civilization as ravagers of the land. Even Orson, of the celebrated French chanson de geste, Valentin et Orson, although born a prince, not only tears knights apart with his bare hands, but terrorizes the local peasantry and drives them from their dwellings in fear. These creatures, thus, whether as satyrs, dragons, or wild men may, in the first instance, be associated with anarchy, realms of death, disease, displacers of rural populations, as well as with interior savagery, untamed emotions, and psychological barriers to the normal expressions of the affective life; they are inner and outer demons (as in the preremedial phases of the hero of Robert le Diable) and hence serve as ‘open’ signifiers regarding the savage and the civilized. In ‘Costanza’ it is a young woman who tames a masculine animal force, whereas in ‘Guerrino’ it is a young man against wild horses aided by a mentor released from the wild man he once was. They are different but related stories, coinciding in their quests into wild places to overcome beasts as a precondition to their own achievement of pairing, love, and domestic stability in the next generation. In sum, the story of ‘Guerrino’ appears late in a long history of taming wild men within the context of romance. In one capacity, the man of savage strength, through training and loyalty, is made fit to participate in the adventures of chivalry as a mighty warrior. In another, he becomes the guiding force behind a sympathetic adolescent to whom he owes his freedom. Those themes emerged as raconteurs and romance writers, step by step, realized the potential in the relationship between a disaffected mighty man and his child liberator.

New potential emerges when the wild man is taken into captivity, for he becomes not only the treasured possession and objet de curiosité of kings, but a creature subject to negotiation and taming.4 Although ferocious, yet he bears intimations of the human in his physique, his potential for speech, and his predilection for naked women, who, in some wild man stories, are used as ‘bait’ to trap them.5 (Swift reverses this test to compelling effect in making Gulliver the object of the sexual attentions of a young female Yahoo.) Once again the paradoxical emerges, for even in his repudiation of order and civility, this creature is capable not only of a high level of defiance, but of moral integrity in honouring the terms of his release. The ‘meaning’ of the wild man is also framed by cultural periods, as alluded to above. He achieved prominent stature in the medieval imagination, but gained new significance in the Renaissance when the medieval wild man found himself juxtaposed with the ‘ethnographic’ savages encountered in the New World, each type demonized and idealized in relation to the ideological missions of their observers. In Straparola’s era, the figure reached a liminal point between an object of terror and an object of wonder and respect, or in the words of Hayden White, between ‘loathing and fear’ and ‘envy and admiration.’6 He serves to frighten civilization by its own fragility, whether as a reversion to the savage life, or the indulgence of the animal side of human nature, while at the same time he calls mankind to the life of freedom in natural reason. Choosing between those options has preoccupied thinkers over the past several centuries. The wild man in ‘Guerrino’ rescues the little warrior from courtly hypocrisy and corruption, but also qualifies him to be reintegrated into that same courtly life through marriage, whereupon (almost uniquely to Straparola, as it turns out) the unknown young man (the metamorphosed wild man) joins the community of lovers himself. Thus, the wild man of European fable vacillates between Merlin the soothsayer, the hairy Nordic creature of the wilds, the green man of fertility rites, the lecherous Pan, the noble savage, and the natural man.

The making of the wild man in Straparola, from the tales of the wodewose to romance, is not yet complete, for there are two further stories overwritten upon his character. Defeated in love, the youth who became the wild man took to the wilderness to escape or embody his melancholy transformation, for in the medical treatises, lycanthropy is but a slight remove from the mechanisms of amor hereos, or ilischi, the condition of lovesickness. Haly Abbas called it ‘melancholy canina’ and Rhazes likewise associated erotic melancholy with qutrub or lycanthropy, a condition in which the imagination turns upon itself and, through its alterative forces, degrades the body and abandons the mind to raving and craving compulsions. ‘At the height of the disease, the lover is seen wandering by night through cemeteries howling like a wolf. For this advanced state there is no other remedy but death.’7 In ‘Guerrino,’ the wild man has replaced the werewolf as unrequited lover; his transformation is now expressed by his solitary and aggressively antisocial behaviour, his life among the animals eating grass, his green colour and hirsute appearance. These are precisely the ‘classic’ traits of his type in the later Middle Ages.8 Arthur Dickson concurs: ‘frequently it is reported that [the wild man] has been disappointed in love,’ as when Yvain, in a state of erotomania, is so designated, but that when the lover is captured, shaved, and cared for he returns to his senses.9 When it comes to cures in the present tale, however, the logic of the fairy tale takes over from the logic of pathology, for Rubinetto recovers his full human status by the time he rediscovers Guerrino on the road, the gift of a fairy who had been cured of her illness simply by looking at him in all his former ugliness. In that moment he is reconstituted not only as a man but as a seer and wonder worker whose sole new purpose in life is to succour the boy who has granted him his freedom. Variously he imposes obedience as he proffers aid and implicitly looks for gratitude as he has shown gratitude. The terms of the tale shift steadily before our eyes, offering perhaps more hermeneutic innuendoes than hard inflections. But in sum, Straparola’s wild man is defeated in love and returns to nature. He is presented as the traditional green and hairy man with savage traits who finds himself disinclined to tell his human tale when he is taken captive and placed on display. He is, however, willing to speak to the young boy to negotiate his freedom. Later in the story, the wild man, reconverted by fairy power, becomes a friend and alter ego to the hero, his wild man status eliminated, yet strangely perpetuated in his outsider status, his powers of prescience, and his unfailing adherence to a principle of devotion and loyalty. Straparola’s fairy transformation of Rubinetto from savage to companion places the narrative at a challenging crossroad between medieval folklore and the ‘early modern’ fairy tale. In this, the story is a harbinger of a transformational phase in the development of the European storytelling imagination.

The relationship between romance and the folk-cum-fairy tale under investigation here is unavoidable, because the story follows a generic profile, that of the adolescent male who becomes separated by choice or crisis from his family, develops as a person while wandering through foreign and often supernatural landscapes, aids animals in distress, even hornets, encounters dangerous persons and tames beasts, and ultimately meets all the requisite conditions for marrying a princess. The story can contain as many or as few episodes as the raconteur wishes to include, but Straparola’s récit has been defined by four well-integrated folk motifs: the wild man’s capture and release, the subsequent meeting and bonding of liberator and liberated (the latter serving the former in the manner of the ghostly helper in the tales of the grateful dead, as in XI.2), the betrayal of the hero by his own men and the ensuing exploits in capturing wild horses, and the final rather illogical bride selection plot through the help of a grateful hornet. These are four distinct motifs with mixand-match potential, assembled at an unspecified time before Straparola found the story.10 The formula has already achieved a degree of proportion, logical consequence, and economy in confining the open-ended plotting of the initiation tale to a few episodes constituting a microromance. The readiest formula for combining the adventures in the wilderness and the business of mating in the context of a court is to attach the hero to a royal family through service and then send him out on dangerous missions through a combination of palace treachery and royal whim enforced by despotic powers. It is the very same pattern already seen in ‘Livoretto’ (III.2) and ‘Costanza’ (IV.1). Straparola’s story assumes the profile of the emerging fairy tale, not only in the fairy’s cameo appearance to heal and release the noble youth captured within the wild man and equip him with her powers, but in the restoration of the exiled prince to a royal destiny through initiation and marriage under the guidance of his mentor and benefactor. This story remains a wonder tale rather than a fairy tale only because it is the enchanted wild man rather than the fairy herself who masterminds it all.

The potential autonomy of the parts herein assembled into a story tradition entails a pre-history, a requisite period of time for framing the narrative formula available to Straparola by the mid-sixteenth century. Yet once again, Straparola is the first to bring that story into history, for ‘Guerrino’ is, by current knowledge, the oldest recorded version of the story type it represents (ATU No. 502). Subsequently, it gave rise to an instance of direct borrowing by a French writer in the late seventeenth century, but the necessary folk tale upon which it is based left a far richer legacy for collectors in the nineteenth century. These materials, passing through Straparola’s hands, do not constitute part of a linear history with a beginning and an end, but a community of motifs in recombinant evolution around an oikotype or ‘home’ tale. Stith Thompson identifies the type as the Goldener Märchen (ATU No. 314), ‘the boy with the golden hair’ in conjunction with ‘the wild man’ group, because in many such tales of the boy with a wild-man guide, the hero’s hair (or other parts of his body) is turned to gold, forcing him to wear disguises. This story type of undoubted antiquity, in one of its many manifestations, provided Straparola’s source tradition with basic materials, while in its more generic form it gave rise to the many later tales with which ‘Guerrino’ has affinities.

Most of these tales begin with a pact with the Devil, according to which the newborn child is to be turned over to him on its twenty-first birthday (a relationship that finds later parallels in the mentor-pupil relationship of the wild man and the young prince in exile). It is in his service that the young man enters a forbidden place and has his hair turned to gold. When the Devil tells him to abuse a horse containing an enchanted prince, the boy is urged by the talking animal to flee on its back, thus gaining a counsellor who guides him through all his following adventures (the horse becomes a guide, as in the Livoretto group). Hiding his golden hair is a challenge. At one point it is seen by a princess, who begins to tease the hero as the gardener’s boy (several instances of which will follow). When the lad is taunted by the king’s brothers, he goes to his horse for help and, in the end, performs valiant feats of war or dragon slaying, each time avoiding a triumphal return until his identity is discovered thanks to the golden hair.

Thus far, there is not a great deal that looks familiar. Thompson, however, describes a less well known version in which an iron man living at the bottom of a lake is captured and then negotiates for his release when the prince’s ball rolls into his cage. Immediately, we recognize our story. The wild man carries the child away on his shoulders and promises to care for him if he is obedient, but the boy fails the test by approaching an enchanted well, thereby turning his hair and fingers to gold (we see the stories coming together). There is no horse in this tale until the iron man furnishes one upon request, thereby enabling his ward to perform several ‘impossible’ feats (in the manner of Guerrino). Thompson states that ‘while this story of the wild man is by no means as popular as the other, it is spread over almost exactly the same territory in Europe, but it hardly goes outside that continent. It has been carried to Siam, to Missouri, and to Brazil.’ (An Armenian version is also known.)11 Clearly such a tale was known to Straparola, but with differences in its details: the boy is not carried away on the iron man’s shoulders but meets the wild man later, nor does he have golden hair.12 Straparola’s source also involves an additional helper, the hornet, to identify the princess, rather than to have the boy identified by his golden locks. The present story comes from a separate folk tradition, that of disguised brides and fatal consequences. The template of the generic tale has been reconstructed by abstracting from the Germanic versions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but Straparola’s variant is a text to be reckoned with as a much earlier representation of the type, indicating that by the midsixteenth century, a version was in circulation which had already integrated the golden-haired boy tradition (without the golden hair) with the wild man’s release and grateful mentorship, leading to the restoration of the little warrior – a composite folk creation already moving away from the ‘Goldener’ oikotype. It would have a legacy of its own, the early appearance of which is certified by the present story. The ‘Goldener’ influence remains apparent, but equally prominent are the Nordic elements that had worked their way south to provide the necessary materials for the wild man stories known throughout Europe.

Clearly the second of the ‘Goldener’ types, with which we are concerned here, relies upon the wild man, such as he was represented in one of the best known chansons de geste of the late Middle Ages, Valentin et Orson, together with its sources and derivatives.13 This work cannot be considered a narrative progenitor to the present story, and yet it extends a generic folk tale (the same that gave rise to ‘The Truth-speaking Bird,’ IV.3) into a chivalric romance by incorporating the lore of the wild man in a way that is fully comparable to Straparola’s novella-scale treatment of a folk tale as the micro-romance of ‘Guerrino.’ The work is of French provenance dating to the first half of the fourteenth century and became one of the most popular cycles of the Middle Ages. It tells of the two sons of the emperor of Greece (or Constantinople) who were first separated from their parents in infancy and then from each other. Valentin was raised at the court of Pepin while Orson was abducted and raised by a bear as a wild man in the forests around Orléans. Valentin is destined to become the only man of sufficient prowess to capture and tame this wild creature and draw him back to civility through an imposition of complete obedience. In this way, Orson becomes the servant and comrade of his own brother through a number of adventures until a brazen head reveals the conditions of their birth and then self-destructs.

Orson’s story is clearly built up from the folk tale tradition of the wild man with his shaggy hair, animal traits, savage temperament, but human potential. The tale of twin brothers becomes, in effect, a new frame for the close alliance between civilized and natural man as doubles of each other. The wild man must meet his liberator and bond with him as Orson does with his brother through the additional attraction of blood affinity. Nevertheless, deprived of speech, the bear brother must resort to the sign language of fawning animals to show his submissive frame of mind, as in the stories of men imprisoned inside wolves who must employ the language of gestures to communicate their plight and set up the circumstances for the recovery of their human nature. Marie de France tells just such a story in ‘The Lay of the Were-Wolf.’14 It studies the relationship between wilderness and court and the bonding that leads to the recovery of brotherhood, as in the tale of ‘Guerrino.’ One of the brothers’ tasks was to rescue their repudiated mother, Bellisant, from the giant Ferragus. There were Italian versions of the story taken from the lost French source.15 The wild man is the oldest element of the story of the two brothers, and the date at which he was superimposed upon the story of the children of the calumniated queen is difficult to set, just as it is difficult to specify when the quest for the wonderful objects, the bird, the singing tree, and the speaking bird were added to the ancient tale of the queen accused of cannibalizing her own children. Both represent critical moments in the development of their respective story traditions. In these combinatory ways, then, the story of Guerrino and the wild man are drawn into the circle of the separated brothers, inviting us to superimpose the stories.

The name ‘Guerrino’ is an invitation to investigate whether the Straparola story, in employing the name, is in some sense a crafted diminution of the greatest of all the works of that era bearing the name, Il Guerrin meschino, written in Italian around 1410 by the Tuscan minstrel Andrea da Barberino.16 Beyond the name, however, the similarities may be more generic than real, insofar as all the chivalric romances of the era proffer quests, trials of friendship, separation from family, treks through barren places, and earned marriages to princesses. The story of Guerrin the Wretched offers all of these things. His father is dethroned on the day of his birth and the boy is rescued by a Greek slave and sold in Constantinople where he befriends the Emperor’s son Alessandro and falls in love with his sister Elisena. Many of the features are replayed centuries later in ‘Das treue Füllchen’ in Wolf’s Hausmärchen, while other features are redolent of those in Valentin et Orson – particularly the foundling’s loyalty to and sacrifices for his royal friend. When the Turks take Alessandro prisoner, Guerrin stops at nothing to bring about his liberation. He also demands military equipment from the barons and rides incognito into war to save the city from the besieging Astiladoro. In the second part he leaves his adopted city to find his parents, freeing Christians from giants along the way. The entire work is in eight substantial parts featuring travels, battles, encounters, and searches of many kinds, throughout which the boys remain together as a model of friendship. Readers must abide all the way to chapter 16 of Part VI to experience the boy’s recovery of his father, with many adventures still to come. To the extent that popular storytellers borrowed names and parallel motifs from the ‘high’ literature of their age, Guerrin meschino may have made a contribution, but it does not replicate the order or the characters of the Goldener Märchen type in any transparent way.

Among the folk tales collected in the late nineteenth century, ‘Le Tartaro reconnaissant et le Herensuge’ (The grateful wild man and the Basque dragon) is one of the closest to Straparola. A king brings home from the hunt the unique satyr-like creature, the ‘Tartaro’ of Basque legend, which he was keen to place on display. But his two sons, playing at pelote, lose the pelote in the stables and must free the creature to get it back. The Tartaro tells them where their mother keeps the key and how to trick her, but does not leave without first promising aid in the future. Their father swears to eat the heart of the liberator half cooked, yet when the boys begin to argue, tattling ensues. The mother, alarmed, sends Yorge away with money, and when the young protagonist finds himself without resources, he calls the Tartaro for help, who thereafter becomes his guide and purveyor. The boy is sent ahead to a royal city where he becomes a gardener (in ‘the golden-haired boy’ tradition). Many episodes ensue, borrowing from several parallel story motifs, but principally ‘the grateful dead’ (see the commentary to XI.2) and ‘the dragon slayer’ (see the commentary to X.3). He takes flowers to the youngest of the three princesses and she takes him lunch with love. But the girl is destined to be eaten by a dragon. The Tartaro provides the hero with a horse, sword, and clothes for the task ahead. That the horse severs one of the dragon’s seven heads is redolent of the active role it plays in the story of Guerrino. As in the tale of Cesarino (X.3), girl and boy go their separate ways after the dragon is slain and the tongues are set aside as future evidence. Yorge returns to his gardening, while the king calls in vain for the conqueror to come forward until a coal porter with the seven heads claims the princess. When the princess resists the claim, a tournament is called for. Yorge assumes a new disguise and comes away victorious, but this time wounded. When the king sees the mark of his own lance, the princess is promised to him alone. Nevertheless, much unsettled business remains: the tongues must be produced to expose the impostor, and the boy’s father – he who threatened to eat the culprit’s heart – is called to witness the wedding, where he is served a sheep’s heart in reference to his vengeful vow. The Tartaro is likewise thanked for his faithful stewardship which will be extended into the future. The creature’s transformation from wild animal to ghost, satyr, wild man, or even gentleman is not described, although he is clearly of a complex nature, for he was once too wild to keep in captivity, yet rational, prescient, articulate, and loyal.17

Jack Zipes states that ‘the goldener’ type (the folk tale core of ‘Guerrino’) was formed during the Middle Ages and that the work having the greatest influence upon its formation was a twelfth-century romance entitled Robert der Teufel or Robert le Diable.18 This proves truer for those tales in which the boy is consigned to the devil and runs madly renegade than it does for the concurrent tale of the golden-haired boy who acquires his golden features through insouciant disobedience to the wild man he has liberated and who remains his lifelong friend. In Robert the Devil, the boy’s mother, in a reckless moment, desperate for a child, makes an oath to the devil which results in the birth of a child who is inclined to every vice. He is formidable and deadly in tournaments, killing knights indiscriminately. He goes raping and pillaging across the countryside in ways roughly analogous, perhaps, to those of a wild man. He puts out the eyes of those who seek to apprehend him, and as a child, when he is sent to school, kills his own master. After building a house in the woods, he hires criminals to make up his entourage, and their sport is in killing holy hermits. His conversion follows, making a bipartite design similar to those works featuring the before and after phases in the career of the captured and redeemed savage man. Upon hearing his mother’s confession concerning his birth, he seeks to convert his murderous friends to save their souls. Failing in this, he kills them all with a sledgehammer in accordance with what they deserved. He then goes to Rome after dividing his massive ill-gotten possessions between his father and the poor. The pope sends him to places about the city to do penance. In due course, an angel tells him he must cease to speak and to eat only the food rejected by dogs until God’s time in the matter is fulfilled. When the emperor stops to laugh at him, however, he becomes a kind of trickster in presenting canine posteriors for kissing, tripping queens, and putting cats in the stew. Trickster cycle elements invade the saint’s life. Then God sends a white horse and arms to Robert to make war against the Saracens incognito until he is wounded on the thigh; in this he gains a place in the chivalric world order. These precise traits are replicated in the folk tale, or inversely they are taken from the tale, thereby confirming its early existence. The wicked Seneschal, rejected in love, then impersonates the hero to win the princess by sleuth whom he could not abduct through war; it is a version of the usurping nephew who attempts to steal the hero’s rewards seen in many of the cognates in the Livoretto (III.2) and Cesarino (X.3) traditions. At last God pronounces the end of Robert’s penance, the princess reveals her devotion, the wound speaks of the hero’s prowess, the court celebrates his bravery, a hermit restores his speech, Robert marries, and at long last he returns to his home in Rouen. Many of the Goldener features are here, to be sure, but only a scant few are represented in Straparola. The devil’s child turned saint, the excruciating penitence, and the periods of madness and degradation pertain to an order of their own. Moreover, the ethos and causes characterizing the protagonist of Robert le Diable are remote from those of the wild man as seer, helper, and loyal friend. In the conventional way that links stories within a narrative tradition, particularly in relation to the lesser version of ‘the golden-haired youth’ embedded in ‘Guerrino,’ Robert is at best a cousin twice removed.

Only the briefest sampling of more recent analogues can be discussed, given their abundance and geographical distribution. The German storytellers had a penchant for the Goldener Märchen, with features still lingering from the Robert der Teufel tradition. J.W. Wolf in ‘Das treue Füllchen’ provides an inventory, as it were, of episodes relating to the story.19 Hans begins as a sassy and impervious little trickster who can dance with millstones around his neck and drive his sheep onto the heaths of an ogre, thereafter provoking and killing him. His adventures lead him on three different horses up to the kingdom on the mountain, taking him through a town where in his shabbiness the citizens laugh at him, while higher up his magic horses shake themselves three times and turn him into a golden knight, who, episode after episode, rides away from his conquests without being identified until the king traps him. At one point the pony becomes a gold producing animal by shaking itself, and further along, the princess sees the beautiful rider in the palace garden and asks for him in marriage, accepting a new life as a gardener’s wife. Then comes the inevitable war in which the gardener’s boy heads off on his broken horse with a wooden sword, transforms himself into a splendid knight along the way, only to return to laughter in his humble gear boasting of exploits which no one believes. The wound on his leg becomes the proof of his deeds. It is a tale of transformations around the golden boy motif, as well as a tale of magic speaking horses. To all of these tales, ‘Guerrino’ bears a likeness, given their origins in a common folk tale, but their differences through time and distance are equally marked.

The story of ‘Der Eise Hans’ of Friedmund von Arnim narrows the affiliations somewhat, for it begins with a wild man living at the bottom of a pond who makes off with every hunting party wandering into the region until he is captured by draining off the water.20 He is taken to a royal court and kept in a cage. When the prince’s golden ball is held for ransom, the boy supplicates three times until the wild man tells him how to get the key that will liberate him. His freedom earns from him a promise that if ever in the future the boy should find himself in distress, he only had to call for Iron Hans at the edge of the forest. For such a misdeed, the king orders his own child to be slain, but the huntsman commissioned with the task takes off his finger which, along with some hog’s entrails, is presented as proof of the deed. Iron Hans comes to the boy’s rescue and sets him to watch over a sacred spring, but Hans touches the water and ends up with a gold star on his brow, for which reason he is dismissed. In alignment with the second part of Wolf’s tale, the boy becomes a gardener’s helper, attracts the notice of the princess, fights in the king’s tourneys, and issues victorious with the help of equipment granted by Iron Hans, much as the wild man lends a magic horse to Guerrino. He has three golden balls for prizes which entitle him to the hand of the princess, but he hides his identity until he is wounded by pursuing knights. When all is revealed and the marriage is to transpire, the boy’s father is invited to attend, and also to pronounce a fitting punishment for filicide, which of course is inflicted upon him, before happiness overwhelms everyone else. Such analogues call for a very carefully qualified statement of affiliation, for while the generic story type can be variously visited upon each new telling from Straparola to the Grimm brothers’ ‘Iron John’ (still to be profiled), the filiations demonstrating direct lines of influence are not so easily drawn.

In effect, the Grimms’ story would appear to predate both Wolf and von Arnim, yet hold very close correspondences with von Arnim, in fact retelling the same story, while nevertheless possessing more details in common with ‘Guerrino.’21 The wild man is a Grendel-like figure whose arm extends from the lake to grab hunters and their dogs. He is tied up and placed in an iron cage, never to be opened upon pain of death. This wild man knew that the key was not in the king’s pocket but under the queen’s pillow. Again, the boy asks for his ball three times, an oral feature scaled back in Straparola. After the good deed, the boy is carried away on Iron John’s shoulders. He is told to be obedient in all things, particularly concerning the sacred well. Again, the boy attempts to hide his infractions but his deeds are known by definition, in keeping with the Goldener model. He must go and learn about poverty in the wide world; the protection of innocence is over. He becomes the cook’s helper at court, but refuses to take off his hat in the presence of the king. Then the princess sees his golden hair and a teasing relationship begins. When he asks for knight’s gear he gets a lame horse until Iron John supplies his needs, including a battalion of men. The king stages a tournament in which he appears incognito on different horses, each time winning the golden apple tossed by the princess, but is wounded. The wound, his golden hair, and the golden apples all serve to confirm his identity. He then asks for the princess and meets with his parents, while the reappearance of Iron John, who again offers gratitude for his freedom, caps the entire story.

This tale was also widely known in France, as in Henry Carnoy’s ‘L’Homme de fer’ in which the boy’s mark is not his golden hair but a golden star on his forehead.22 The iron giant plagues the kingdom until he is captured and caged. The prince frees him, is carried away by the giant, now as his teacher and taskmaster, in this curious reversal of roles. Once banished, he too seeks to excel in a tournament and does so with the giant’s help. This giant dies, however, before the boy realizes the customary rewards of the fairy tale. Even closer to Straparola’s tale is a version from Lower Brittany in which the story itself is set in Keranrais, Plouaret.23 In this tale, a rival appears at the end attempting to steal the rewards of the hero by presenting himself as the dragon slayer, much as Robert the Devil must expose the impostor Seneschal, and as many of the heroes in the Livoretto group must expose the false nephew. This story begins with the story of ‘Costanza’ when the youngest of three daughters rides off to court to fight for the king, finds herself blamed for the pregnancy of a maid of honour, and must reveal her true gender to the king. She becomes the mother of the prince whose compassion allows the ‘Murlu’ to escape, but not without first revealing how it was trapped, which was essentially how Costanza trapped the satyr with food. At that time, the creature would only grind its teeth and screech horribly. With the boy, however, it makes a deal in rational terms and directs him to the key in the king’s pocket. The young hero then exiles himself on the Murlu’s back, who carries him directly to the palace of the king of Naples where he takes service. With the elimination of the golden well episode and the transformed hair, one may ask if the tale (as with Straparola’s) can still belong to the ‘Goldener’ group. In this story he is set to work to increase the numbers of sheep, swine, and cows in the king’s herds, and does so admirably with the help of the Murlu. Thereafter, he kills the ogre and possesses himself of all the creature’s treasures. In a subsequent episode, he sees the princess being taken as a sacrifice to the beast with seven heads. He defeats this creature in a fight lasting two days with further help from his friend. A coal digger sees the seven heads and appropriates them in order to claim the reward, but the hero has retained the severed tongues (as in all the stories of the ‘dragon slayer’ group, X.3). In the end France is united to Naples and the Murlu reappears as the queen who had attempted to seduce the page at the French court, who in turn became the young prince’s mother! In effect, then, she had been a wild woman, and it had been her role to protect the son of the queen whom she had once loved as a page in disguise. This contrasting tale is yet another example of the plasticity of the materials and the creative forces of the oral tradition whereby a matrix of identifying features is submitted to endless transformation.

Other stories with corresponding details include ‘Granadoro,’ collected in Pisa by Domenico Comparetti. This adventure tale converges at telling moments with the tale of ‘Guerrino,’ but is essentially closer to the Livoretto group (III.2) and its many analogues.24 The prince of Portugal leaves home to meet his uncle and is displaced by an impersonator. He is compelled to become a stable boy. At the same time, he becomes the victim of false reports that he is a champion horse breaker. The horse in question takes pity on the boy and allows itself to be tamed. Only then does the story develop the motif of the wild horse, Belverde, who is ravaging the countryside, and which the prince is also compelled, though the lies of the false nephew, to subdue. Once again the tamed horse serves as counsellor, suggesting how the wild horse can be decapitated with a sabre. Further slander causes his departure on a grand quest to persuade the king’s estranged queen to return. This is accomplished with the aid of the fish, swallow, and butterfly helpers. Only the third is of interest because the queen must be chosen from among three identical sisters, which can only be accomplished by the butterfly which, like the hornet in the present story, makes the right choice. This is a talking wonder horse story that includes the swallow that brings the water of life needed to revive the slain hero and the butterfly that resolves the identity riddle, but there is no bride choice at the end. The story of Queen Granadoro and the tasks she sets for the young hero may never have belonged to the type in question, but rather to have borrowed select features. The tale collected by Giuseppe Pitrè called ‘The Symphonic Eagle’ is part of the ‘Fortunio and the King’s Daughter’ group (III.4) in which a golden eagle that is both a music machine and a container large enough to hold the young adventurer is carried, Trojan horse fashion, to the girl’s secret underground chamber. By degrees the prince answers all the riddles as required to liberate a sequestered princess. One corresponding motif is the selection of the girl from among twenty-four look-alike candidates, which is easy enough. By prearrangement, the true princess wears a different coloured bow on her head.25 This is the feature that corresponds most closely with the story of ‘Guerrino.’ Equally remote is the story of ‘Corvetto’ (III.7) in Basile’s Pentamerone.26 It coincides insofar as the protagonist in service at a foreign court becomes the victim of jealous courtiers and falls prey to their false reports concerning his prowess, all of which he is powerless to deny. Basile speculates at modest length on the luck that produces favourites and the malignity and deceit that is exercised to bring them down. The setting is Scotland and the king’s enemy is a ghoul, a savage and brutal creature living in a desert place destined for extermination. The king desired not the ghoul but his horse, which Corvetto is sent out to capture and on whose back he escapes bears, wolves, lions, and monkeys in hot pursuit. Once the ogre is slain and the keys of his abode are delivered to the king, the hero takes a royal wife and lives to spite his enemies. And there his tale is done. All of these are, in a sense, disappointingly remote, but serve to illustrate how coinciding motifs may wander from one narrative type to another over time. The problem is that Straparola’s own tale may not represent the oikotype current in its own day, but a departure or condensation, for his is closer in nature to the boy with the golden hair under the protection of a wild man released by his own hand than any other type, yet Straparola’s does not contain the critical defining motif. Similar stories lacking the wild man figure – and there are many – may be said to belong to other groups, but it is telling how many have features or generic plot designs in common with the ‘Guerrino’ type. Thus it comes about that Straparola’s story is everywhere, yet not quite anywhere in its entirety.

This story bears a relationship to those concerning the grateful dead (XI.2), for in certain of the tales a young adventurer exposes himself to exile or penury in arranging for the proper burial of a dead body (as in liberating a wild man) and thereby gains a secret friend and spirit guide, usually in the person of a revenant chevalier or knight. The young hero, alone in the world for the favour he had wrought, is able to thrive and prosper through his counsel. In the present story the wild man helps the hero in his pursuit of a princess, but in a story entitled ‘Die hälfte von allem’ (Half of everything) the merchant guide, buried at the boy’s cost, offers his help if the boy will share all he gains at the end of seven years.27 This includes a beautiful princess whom he has won in marriage. When the time is fulfilled, they meet, the goods are divided, but still the merchant is dissatisfied until the boy offers half interest in his bride, at which point the wraith retires, stating that he was now satisfied, for he had found a true friend. There are overtones of just such an obligation to the wild man, an obligation conveniently met through the availability of Potentiana’s sister.

Consider a final example from as far as Armenia in which a king banishes his son for letting a beast escape in exchange for his arrow. In his exile, he meets up with the creature who in turn supplies his needs and helps him marry a princess. He lives as a swineherd, having been displaced by a chamberlain, for which reason he engages in compulsory exploits similar to those in the Livoretto group.28 It is one last example of the fortunes of these favoured motifs and their aptitude for being grafted one upon the other, while in far looser terms preserving the signature parts of the Guerrino group.

Finally, there is the story of ‘Prince Guerini’ by Jean de Mailly, which is a direct elaboration upon Straparola’s tale.29 The story is faithful to its original in all the particulars of the plot, but supplies a commentary of its own on the themes implicit in the tale. The king was curious about the customs of the savage race, yet was intent upon holding the creature ‘in irons until he saw some signs that the wild man had been tamed and showed that he was disposed to submit to the laws and customs of civilized men.’30 The boy, not only keen to retrieve his precious arrow snatched by the prisoner, but also moved to compassion, thinks it well to liberate the creature, given that he had committed no crime. This queen also tries to assume all the blame for the boy’s act. Jean de Mailly understood the clumsiness in having the iron man restored by a fairy who had been cured by seeing his ugliness. This fairy simply touched him with her wand as he slept. Conventionalized fairy tale gesturality is already in place. Now ‘instead of thirsting for blood and carnage, he only thought of leading a gentle life and was ashamed of his natural ferocity,’ and now too ‘he sensed an indescribable joy’ in his new condition.31 It is the fairy, in fact, who commissions the new knight to seek out Guerini to thank him. This is how the young prince is rewarded for his compassion ‘for those less fortunate than he’; the good fairy was behind it all. By degrees, the fairy tale motifs transform the myth of the wild man into a moralizing tale for the little gentlemen of the salons. The irresistibly handsome Guerini the Lombard must go to France, there to conduct himself with charm at the court of the king of Arles – a little joke in itself. The one-time wild man is now the knight Alcée, who accompanies his little friend in person throughout all his adventures. Now the two knights set out to subdue the ravaging giants, and it is no longer the young prince counting on the help of his protector, but Alcée himself counting on the aid of the fairy. The story comes full circle in the giants they encounter who carry tree-sized clubs, live in caves, relish drawing blood, and wear the skins of their prey. The hero is particularly genteel and deferential in claiming the princess as his wife and arranges for the marriage of his friend to her younger sister. The story has considerable charm, but its mythological nucleus has been exposed to the plain light of common day.

Despite the impression that both the folk tale and the novella do not readily participate in the ‘other speaking’ of allegory, there remain, nevertheless, the names of the two princesses, for the little warrior wins the hand of Potentiana, and the wild man that of Eleutheria: ‘Power’ and ‘Liberty,’ or ‘Force’ and ‘Freedom.’ If these qualities are rewards through the conventional allegorical application of marriage, then martial (Guerrino) is to force what the wild man is to freedom; each bride is the perfect counterpart to her mate. But they are not the favoured reconciliation of opposites usually employed, making the allegorical reading more circumstantial than real. The story itself is a conflation of early folk tales, the wild man (ATU 502) and the golden youth (ATU 314). It is the earliest surviving representation of this configuration in a format that remains close to the original folk material, paralleling similar amalgamations in the medieval chansons de geste. Arguably, it is a reliable depiction of the story at that historical moment, one in which the wild man is explained in terms of love melancholy but remains attached to the province of the fairies; it shows some of the plot rationalization of the novella, yet maintains the episodic logic of the folk tale.

Determining just what Straparola’s story is in relationship to this sprawling sampling of related motifs, prequels, and sequels is a challenging exercise, for in his ‘Guerrino’ major features of the ‘Goldener’ type are missing while other motifs are only partially developed or are in the process of being forgotten. The wicked servants who accompany the boy during his years of wandering continually plot his death, yet fail to settle upon a means until they frame him to be sent on suicide missions, after which they are forgotten either as enemies or subjects of final punishment. Likewise, the ruler who promises death to the liberator of the wild man, including his own son, is tempered at the outset by grief and is not called back at the ending for a final reckoning. Guerrino does not take up preliminary employment at King Zifroi’s court and flirt as a menial with his future bride. But we are hard pressed to say whether, in relation to these many roads not taken, Straparola’s unique sixteenth-century snapshot is fully representative of its story tradition, or a deviation from an established ‘international form’ through the accidents of the local oral culture. There is work here for the geniuses of narratological inference from reconstructed contexts.

V. Fable 2
Adamantina’s Astonishing Doll

ALTERIA

Adamantina, daughter of Bagolana of Savona, by the acts of a doll becomes the wife of Drusiano, king of Bohemia.

Man’s wit is so clever, strong, and subtle that there can be little doubt it surpasses every other human force in the world. Not without cause it is said that the wise man is above the stars. This brings a fable to memory that, in the telling, will make clear to you, I hope, just how a young girl of mean and poor estate by the help of fortune became the wife of a mighty king. Although my fable is short, still you’ll find it no less pleasing and amusing. So lend me your closest attention and listen carefully as you have listened formerly to my most honourable associates, who have earned your thanks.

In the land of Bohemia, dear ladies, there lived not long ago a poor old woman of Savona named Bagolana. She was miserably destitute in her way of life and the mother of two daughters, one of them called Cassandra and the other Adamantina. Now this woman, although she had hardly a thing to call her own, was anxious to set her affairs in order so that she might die in peace. Seeing that the sum of her disposable wealth consisted of a small coffer filled with tow, she left it to her two daughters, at the same time begging them to live peacefully together after her death.

These two sisters, impoverished as they were in the endowments of fortune, were by no means wanting in mental gifts, so that in matters of virtue and upright behaviour they weren’t in the slightest inferior to other women. With their mother now dead and placed in her sepulchre, Cassandra, the elder sister of the two, took a pound of the tow, sat down, and with great care began to spin, making thread which, when it was finished, she gave to Adamantina, her younger sister, to take out into the marketplace to sell in order to buy bread and so keep themselves alive. Adamantina took the thread, placed it under her arm, and went on her way to the marketplace to sell her wares according to her sister’s bidding. But as chance would have it, things went entirely counter to her wishes and those of her sister, for as she was walking in the square, she fell in with an old woman who had on her lap the most beautiful and most perfectly made doll that was ever seen. Adamantina’s fancy was so taken by the poppet that, after she had feasted her eyes upon it, her thoughts became more absorbed with how she might obtain it than how she might dispose of her yarn. Her thoughts led her on, but finding no other words or means to acquire the doll, bartering seemed the only way. She approached the old woman saying, ‘Good mother, if you are in agreement, I’ll give you this thread of mine in exchange for your doll.’

The old woman, seeing such a fine and handsome girl, so eager to have the doll for her own, could not disappoint her, so taking the thread, she handed the doll over to Adamantina, who took it with the greatest delight and wrapped it in her apron.

Full of happiness and gaiety, she went back to her house. But presently her sister Cassandra asked her whether she had sold the yarn, to which Adamantina replied that she had. ‘Well then,’ Cassandra inquired, ‘where is the bread that you bought with the money?’

Then Adamantina opened her fresh-laundered apron which she always wore in front and showed her sister the doll which she had gotten by bartering her wares. But the starving Cassandra, when she saw the doll, was filled with such violent anger and indignation that she seized Adamantina by the hair and belaboured her so grievously with cuffs and blows that the wretched girl could hardly move. Yet she took the pummelling with patience and, without attempting to defend herself, took her doll and hid in another room.

When evening came, Adamantina cradled her doll in her arms, as children might do, and sitting down by the fireside, took some oil out of the lamp and anointed the doll’s stomach and legs. Then she wrapped it carefully in bits of tattered cloth and placed it in her own bed. A short time later, she herself went to bed, lying down beside the doll. Hardly had she fallen into her first sleep when Adamantina heard the doll cry out, ‘Mamma, mamma, I have to go potty.’

Wakening from her sleep, she said, ‘What’s the matter, my little child?’ And the doll repeated, ‘Mamma, I have to poop.’

‘Wait a moment, little one,’ and she got right up, took the apron she had worn the day before, placed it under her and said, ‘Now, my child.’ Then to her amazement, the doll filled her apron with a heap of coins.

As soon as Adamantina saw what had happened, right away she woke up her sister Cassandra and showed her the money excreted by her doll. When Cassandra realized how much money there was in front of her, she was wonder-struck and rendered hearty thanks to God for sending them such welcome help in their time of need. Turning to Adamantina, she asked pardon for the mean and unwarranted drubbing she had given her. Then she took the doll and caressed it tenderly, kissing it and holding it closely in her arms. When the next day arrived, the two sisters used some of the money to buy bread, wine, oil, wood, and all manner of other provisions needful to a well-equipped house, taking care every evening to anoint the doll’s stomach and loins with oil, wrap it in a piece of the finest linen, and ask it often if it felt an urge coming on, to which the doll replied ‘yes’ and then dumped a heap of coins.

On a certain day, by chance one of their neighbours, after visiting the house of the two sisters, noticed that their place was well furnished with all the necessities of life, and in such abundance, that she began to wonder how they could have grown rich in so short a time, remembering how miserably poor they had been formerly, and knowing full well that they were honest and upright in all their ways. Having given the matter full consideration, the neighbour resolved to find out the source of their ostentation. Going over a second time to their house, she asked them, ‘My daughters, you really must tell me just how you manage to furnish your house so plentifully, seeing how you were in such want but a few days ago.’

Cassandra, the elder sister, offered a reply, ‘Good neighbour, we have done all this by means of a single pound of flaxen yarn, which we gave in exchange for a doll, and this doll gives us money in abundance for everything we need.’

Upon hearing these words, their neighbour was filled with envy at their good fortune and made her resolve to steal the doll. As soon as she got back home, she told her husband how the two sisters had a certain poupée that supplied them every night with a great store of gold and silver, and how she had made up her mind to steal the doll from them at any cost.

It didn’t matter that at first her husband made light of her words, for she went on with her story with such a show of reason that she convinced him in the end that it was the very truth. Then he said to his wife, ‘So how then do you mean to steal it?’

To that the good woman answered, ‘One of these evenings you must pretend to be drunk. Then you take up your sword and run after me threatening to kill me, but you only strike the wall. Then I feign to be in great terror of you and run out of the house into the street. The two girls, who have good, passionate natures, will assuredly open their door to me and take me in for protection. I’ll stay there for the night and do my best to carry out my plan.’

On the following evening, the good dame’s husband took a rusty old sword of his, and swinging it about, striking now the wall, now something else, ran after his wife who fled out of the house screaming and crying in a loud voice. When the two sisters heard this hullabaloo, they ran to look out into the street to see what might be the matter and recognized the screaming voice of their neighbour. At once they rushed from the window down to the door leading out to the street, opened it and pulled her into the house. Asked why her husband was pursuing and assaulting her in such anger, the good woman replied, ‘This evening he came home so besotted with wine that he doesn’t know what he’s doing. And when I chided him for his binging, he grabbed his sword and ran after me threatening to kill me. Well, I was only too ready to get out of his way to keep him from causing more scandal. Being more nimble and swiftfooted than he is, I rushed over here for protection.’

The sisters said with one voice, ‘You did well, good mother. You’ll stay with us tonight, no question about that, so you don’t imperil your life with some new danger, while your husband’s drunken fit works itself off.’ Then they prepared the supper, to which all of them sat down together.

Going to bed, Adamantina took her doll with her, and when the time came for it to go potty, it called out, ‘Mamma, I have to go.’ Adamantina put a fresh cloth under it, in her usual way, and the doll pooped coins to the great astonishment of everyone. The good woman who had sought refuge with the sisters saw the whole thing and was most suspicious. Every hour now seemed a thousand years until she could steal the doll and cause it to perform this miracle for her own benefit.

When the morning came, the good woman secretly arose from her bed, left the two sisters still sleeping, and stole the doll from Adamantina’s side without her detecting the theft. Then arousing the girls, she begged her leave of them to return to her own house, affirming that by this time her husband would no doubt have gotten over his drunken fury. No sooner in the door, she reported to him with a joyful countenance, ‘Husband of mine, we’ve found our fortune at last. Just look here at the doll I told you about, which can do such amazing things.’ It seemed like the night time would never come when it would make them rich. But when the darkness finally arrived, she took the doll, kindled a good fire in her bedroom, anointed the doll’s stomach and loins with oil, and wrapped it carefully in swaddling clothes. Then undressing, she got into bed and placed it by her side.

After the first sleep of the night was over, the doll woke up and, not knowing who this woman was, cried out, ‘Lady, I have to crap.’

The good woman, anxiously awaiting the result to follow, arose from her bed and took a very white linen cloth and put it under her and said, ‘Now, my little one!’ The doll, bearing down hard, now, instead of coins, filled the cloth with such foul-smelling feces that it was nearly impossible to go near.

‘For god’s sake,’ said her husband, ‘now look what a fool you are, and what a pretty trick this dolly has played on you. I’m just as big a fool for lending my ear to such stupidities.’ At this the wife grew furious with her husband, affirming and swearing oaths that she had seen with her two eyes the heap of money the thing had made by shitting. Seeing just how determined she was to try it all over again on the following night, the husband, who was in no mood to face the same stench a second time, began to abuse her roundly with the most vindictive language a man ever levelled at a woman. Not satisfied with this, he also seized the doll in his hand and, opening the window, he hurled it out into the street, where it fell upon a heap of sweepings in front of the house. Not long after, by chance, a group of peasants who tilled land outside the city loaded this heap of refuse on their cart, intending to use it when the season came for fertilizer.

Not many days after this, Drusiano the king happened to go out into the country to find recreation in the hunt. Seized with a sharp pain in his intestines, he straightaway sought relief according to nature’s course. Then finding nothing to wipe himself with, he called out to one of his servants to go in search of something that might serve his purposes. So the servant made his way towards the manure heap collected and deposited there by the peasants to see what he might locate suitable to such ends. By chance his eye fell upon the doll, which he took in hand and carried to the king. Without a moment’s fear or hesitation, the king applied it directly to his butt to clean his excuse me, followed by the biggest scream you’ve ever heard. The doll had fastened its teeth into the king’s rump and clamped down with such a grip that he bellowed out in agony at the top of his lungs. When those in his entourage heard his frightful yelling, they all ran at once to offer their aid. By then he was writhing on the ground more dead than alive. Great was their astonishment to find that his pain was caused by a doll fastened on to him, which they attempted at once to disengage from his posterior. Yet their efforts were all in vain, for the more they tugged to pull the thing away, the more torment it inflicted on the poor king. No one could break its hold, much less make it let go. Now and again, the doll would grab hold of his jungle bells and squeeze them so hard that he saw all the stars of the firmament even though it was the middle of the day.

So the miserable king returned to his palace with the doll still clutching his ass, unable to find any means of getting rid of his plague. A proclamation was then published to the sound of the trumpet declaring that any man, no matter what his condition, who had the wit and courage to remove the doll would be rewarded by a gift of one-third of the king’s dominions. If a maiden, by chance, might be found to perform this work, he would make her his dearly-beloved wife, swearing by his own head to observe every letter of the aforesaid proclamation. No sooner was the king’s decree made public than a vast crowd of people headed towards the palace in the hope of winning the promised reward, but not one of them was granted the fortune of being able to rid the king of his trouble. On the contrary, as soon as someone came near the king, the doll tormented him more grievously than ever. Thus cruelly vexed and tortured, the wretched Drusiano, unable to light upon a remedy for his strange and incomprehensible affliction, lay there like a man almost dead.

Cassandra and Adamantina, who, in the meanwhile had shed many tears over the loss of their doll, as soon as they heard the terms of the proclamation, went directly to the palace and presented themselves before the king. Cassandra, the elder of the two, began at once to fondle and caress the doll with signs of the greatest affection. But the poppet merely bit down harder and tightened its grip, torturing the king worse than before. Then Adamantina, standing apart from the others, now came forward and said, ‘Your Sacred Majesty, please let me try my luck,’ and accosting the doll, she began to speak, ‘Ah, my child! Leave my lord the king now in peace and torment him no more.’ With these words, she took hold of it by its clothes and began to fondle and caress it. The doll, as soon as it recognized its own mamma who had tended and cared for it, suddenly turned loose of the king’s butt, to his majesty’s great relief, and leaped into Adamantina’s arms. When Drusiano saw this, he was utterly astonished and amazed and forthwith lay down to get some repose, for during many days and nights he hadn’t been able to find either rest or peace from his sharp agony.

When in time Drusiano was healed of his wounds, in order not to break the promise he had made, he had Adamantina called into his presence, and when he saw that she was a graceful and pretty young girl, he married her in the presence of all his people. Shortly after that, he bestowed her older sister, Cassandra, in an honourable marriage amid sumptuous feasts and triumphs. Thereafter, they all lived together for a long time in great peace and happiness.

When the doll saw that both of the sisters were honourably and richly married and that all had come to a happy end, it suddenly disappeared; no one ever knew what became of it or where it went. But in my opinion it merely disappeared in the usual way of phantoms.

Alteria’s fable, which was now at an end, gave great pleasure to everyone. They all laughed out loud and for a long time when they recalled the pretty way the doll went to stool, and how it hung on savagely by tooth and nail to the poor king’s bum. When the laughter ended, the Signora asked Alteria to follow the customary rule and propose her enigma. Here are the damsel’s words:

Just a span in length is he,

And plump in form in due degree,

Full of eagerness and pride,

And ready aye with men to bide.

Very fair his seeming shows;

Capote red he wears and hose,

And also bells. A thing of pleasure

To those who love him in due measure.

By the time Alteria’s challenging riddle had come to an end, the Signora was no longer in a good mood, but casting angry looks upon the girl and saying that it was most impolite to speak such immodest words to the ears of honest women in her presence, and that in the future she must take care not to trespass like this again. But Alteria, blushing somewhat, turned towards the Signora and said, ‘Signora, the enigma which I have just proposed is not immodest as you think, and this I will make quite clear to you by offering the real interpretation, which I’ll reveal immediately to you and the rest of my gracious audience. You should all understand that my riddle signifies nothing other than the falcon, which is a bird at once tractable and bold, and cometh readily to the falconer’s call. It wears jesses and bells on its feet, and it gives pleasure and diversion to anyone who takes it out to hunt birds.’ When the real interpretation to this crafty riddle had been given and the Signora’s perverse reading put aside, all the auditors gave it their hearty praise. The Signora, having by now abandoned her suspicions against Alteria and her enigma, turned her countenance towards Lauretta and made a sign for her to approach, to which the damsel complied at once. And because it was Lauretta’s turn to offer the next fable, the Signora said to her, ‘It is my wish that you put off telling us your story for a time, and that you hear first what the others may say. It is not because I hold you in light esteem that I say this to you, or that I rate your abilities less than those of your companions, but only so that we may be entertained this evening in a way that exceeds our expectations.’

Lauretta replied, ‘Signora, any word of yours is my command,’ and so, making her a deep courtesy, she went back to her place.

Then the Signora let her eyes fall upon Molino, to whom she made a sign with her hand for him to approach, whereupon he got up quickly from his seat and most respectfully went towards her. Then she said to him, ‘Signor Antonio, this last evening of the week is a special time for us, a season of privilege for anyone to say whatever he may wish. So for my own pleasure and for the pleasure of this honourable company, I want you to give us one of your best and most joyous tales – nothing less. If you will grant us this favour, as I hope you will, we will all owe to you our lasting obligation.’

Molino, when he rightly understood the Signora’s speech, at first appeared baffled and confounded, but when he saw there was no escape, he said, ‘Signora, it is for you to command and for us to obey, but I would warn you not to expect anything from me that will give you any great pleasure, seeing that the illustrious damsels all around me have brought the art of storytelling to such a pitch of excellence that there is no possibility of surpassing them. Nevertheless, such as I am, I will do my best to give you satisfaction – perhaps not as much as you would wish, or as I could hope to give, but according to the measure of my humble powers.’ Having so spoken, Molina returned to his seat and began his story in the following words.

V.2 Commentary

The story of Adamantina is a singular and grotesque variation on the rags to riches romance, for this child of poverty comes to her marriage with a king by relieving him of a fistula, or some related disease, if the doll represents anything other than an enchanted child’s toy who plants her teeth into a royal posterior for no apparent reason except to spite him for attempting to use her for a bum wipe (or to win for her ward, in the way of a fairy, the benefits of a royal marriage). That the story offers no help at all in decoding just what went wrong with his majesty’s rump, and just how Admantina’s uniquely efficient ministrations relieved his ailment through and beyond a story of an antagonized doll, will dissuade no one, given the innate will to believe in real social, medical, magical, or psychological realities embedded in such representations. The story has to be an allegory of something, of healing and redemption, for otherwise in dwelling on sphincters, doo-doo, and gripping pains, it can only be about the psychological counterpart to the excrementally human, a deep story in relation to the repressed consciousness of the race concerning poop, pleasure, perversity, and disgust. The doll, moreover, has claws with an unspecified reach which are constantly active in tormenting the king each time someone attempts to help him. Are those hands the counterpart to mental phobias or fixations? Is this doll the enactment of a castration complex? Is the promised marriage to the helpless and impoverished girl, so tenderly maternal with her doll, yet suddenly old enough to marry, the cure for his highness’s residual suffering, thereby connecting the excremental to the marital? Joël Gayraud thought so, according to his annotations of the story.32 Such readings intrigue, as though early folk formulators understood the need to symbolize such deep (and recently formulated) anxieties through their fables. But there is little denying that the story generates compelling images involving feces and money, dolls and posterior pains, and hyperbolical deliveries of excrement with the attendant odours. Thus, we may begin with the purely Rabelaisian, recalling the chapter in Book I in which the young Gargantua explains to his uncle his preferences regarding the materials and techniques for post defecatory cleansing.33 More compelling than the view of the doll making her fecal mess on the delicate white cloth of the acquisitive neighbours, more compelling than the picture of a king writhing in pain as a poppet clamps down on his arse, more compelling than the scene of crowds pouring into the palace to attempt to win a prize for dislodging the tenacious doll, is the image of Cassandra, the elder sister, stroking and caressing the poupée while it is still attached to his royal fundament – a propinquity that taunts the imagination. Does the mind make pictures of such things, and if so, are we invited to think of the doll’s condition as it leaps willingly into the arms of its loving ‘mother’ when she tells it to desist? The reader may well question the nature of the ideal response. The tale is a tale and thus ‘other speaking’ in its way, yet as with all such creations, it foregrounds its own concrete phenomenology. Before it ‘means,’ it requires mental representation.

Conventions pertaining to dolls, inanimate by definition, yet evincing human intentional states and acts of volition, are endorsed and processed without a second thought. They are accepted as readily as any child’s willingness to believe in talking bunnies or envious lions. Living dolls are metaphors in action whereby categorical imperatives are playfully dissolved; here such a creature is programmed to excrete money as an act of charity and feces as an act of retribution and justice. The ‘truth’ is in those actions, not the agent. Moreover, the doll is selectively endowed with a tick’s ability to cling, a child’s inclination to recognize and trust only a mother’s ministrations – two primal instincts perhaps – and powers of language sufficient to announce an imminent bowel movement. But does the doll have a real social agenda? What are its intended ends as a volitional creature? The question must be misleading, because while readers have difficulty enough in attributing to the representations of persons in fiction all that pertains to personhood, they will have even more in attributing all the perquisites of consciousness to this pretty toy, whose reality arises strictly within the conditions of a literary mode. So how does the fable mean? Because the doll disappears as a phantom when it is no longer needed, as fairies are inclined to do once their services are rendered, it may be nothing more than an agent of the fairyland ‘intentionality’ of seeing a pauper wedded to a king, just because that’s what fairies do.

If it is in the order of such tales not to dwell on psyches except as agents in the shaping of emblematic narratives, then characters merely think what they have to think to shape the story. The récit is about a doll purchased by a little girl for whom it opts to generate wealth in the tradition of the golden-egg-producing goose and the coin-excreting donkeys of medieval folklore – pure innocent wish fulfilment or patent fraud. It is, moreover, a story about rudimentary justice, as when the doll refuses to reward those who have stolen it, or when the king follows through in marriage to a commoner who knows how to control her kid. Inversely, it is the agent doll that enables its graceful and pretty owner to enjoy a fairy tale life ever after by compelling the king to make a lavish and reckless offer of marriage. Adamantina thus follows in the wake of all the little obscure heroines who answer riddles and marry kings, or the poor doctor’s daughter who goes off to court to cure the king’s intractable disease and thereby win the groom of her choice. With regard to the symbolism of the narrative, ‘Adamantina’ and Shakespeare’s ‘All’s Well that Ends Well’ share a common order. Of phobias and complexes, of the anal and genital, of gender and sex, the story is a potpourri of wild signifiers as binding as the reader’s inventive fantasies and intellectual predilections demand. Nevertheless, of the filth associated with money, the story bids reflection, as it does concerning the touchstone bond between mothers and their offspring and the obedience attached to instinct. At the same time, it is a parodic re-enactment of the romance rise from abjection to the pinnacle, a fairy tale without fairies, yet employing an old crone who sells the doll for a wad of yarn, and the recycling of a story type with a confirmed popular approbation even in antiquity. If the king’s posterior is a wasteland, the story is a ritual proceeding to romance, but in such miniature proportions as to suggest parody. And perhaps the story really is a brilliant deconstruction of the frivolous dream of kings and weddings, for Adamantina makes herself ready for the matrimonial transition by expending her prattling care upon a creature defined by its bodily effusions seen variously as treasure and ordure, while the doll as the prelude to royal progeny literally holds the parent hostage to fortune, if not to the king’s own fantasies about the pains of childbirth. Or perhaps it is just a story about one of the fundamental factors of the human animal attached to a squeamish mind chosen out for delivery to the elegant members of a literary salon, members (in Straparola’s framing tale) who found the greatest delight in the most objectionable scenes. As with all good oral tales, it has a calculated design on its audience, this one to bring limbic approbation out of amusing incongruity. In that it surely succeeds.

‘Adamantina’ does not begin as a romance, but rather as a variation on the story of the gold-emitting animal – a snake, goose, or dragon – and the attempt on the part of someone associated with the animal’s benefactor and beneficiary to kill it out of greed, thinking to come into possession of all its wealth at once. It is a tale of simple benefice and wish-fulfillment followed by the losses associated with greed and ignorance. Behind it, to be sure, is a complex belief system concerning the will of the world’s hidden forces to reward the meritorious, coupled with an animism that invests in lower creatures specific quotients of wisdom, magic powers, and agency. Oddly, in the Mahåbårata, it is the king’s son who excretes gold, making a child the source of his father’s financial well-being. This bounty is brought to an end by the robbers who slay him to get at once all the gold presumed to be inside his body.34 They were deceived like the neighbours in the tale of Adamantina. All of these stories depend upon the self-evident wisdom that things that excrete do not contain at any one time all that they are capable of excreting over time. It is the fallacy committed by all who slay geese that lay golden eggs (in contradistinction to those who believe that geese can indeed lay golden eggs as a precondition for manifesting their virtue in waiting for them one by one). A parallel version appears in the Panchatantra concerning a tutelary serpent which is worshipped by a Brahmin. In exchange for the gift of daily milk the Brahmin receives a gold coin; the gods are grateful and generous. When his son is commissioned to feed the creature during the Brahmin’s absence, however, he attempts to kill it and retrieve all the gold from the mound (anthill) it protects. The snake, however, detects the betrayal, bites the son and kills him.35 In this regard, the gold producers of Western fables and fairy tales are remotely related to the serpents and dragons that protect treasure mounds and barrows.

Aspects of this story type turn up among the fables of the Middle Ages. Marie de France, in ‘Le villain et le dragon’ (The peasant and the dragon), joins the golden egg with the egg of the man-without-a-soul, as in the stories of the mighty ogres who become vulnerable only when the hero engages upon a long quest for the object that contains his soul. (With regard to these precious eggs and their destruction, see the commentary to ‘Fortunato,’ III.4). In Marie’s version, a dragon planning a trip asks a friend to keep an egg that contains all of his potency and might. The peasant who accepts the care of the egg begins, in time, to think of his advantage and hence breaks it open. When the dragon returns, he realizes the man’s intent and moralizes on his untrustworthiness, in essence explaining the enmity between man and dragons ever after. Just what the egg did or did not contain goes unspecified, along with any nefarious results for the dragon, apart from his deception. The tale seems to have lost its own soul, but carries the outlines of the golden egg fable.36

The 141st story of the Gesta romanorum provides a misogynist twist, because it is a greedy wife who attempts to slay the magic provider.37 A serpent, pitying the indigence of a knight, supplies him with gold in exchange for sweet milk. (The Eastern influence is in full view.) There followed much good fortune and the birth of a beautiful son. The wife was convinced that the serpent was hiding even greater treasure and advised her husband to kill it. The knight made the attempt, missed, and immediately his ruin was in the making, including the death of his son. The wife, the cause of yet another paradise lost (but also in collaboration with her husband), tells her husband to beg for pardon in search of ‘grace’ by shedding tears. The serpent tells him he is a fool, that the attempted blow can never be forgotten, that no peace can ever follow between them, and that he must beware in the future, for the nature of the serpent is subtle and venomous. As in Marie de France’s Fables, the story has been redesigned to homiletic ends, but the basic type prevails. Avianus offers his version of the simple tale of ‘The Goose that Laid Golden Eggs,’ to mock naïve ambition and to reconcile men to slow and steady increase.38

The most important transformation to have overcome this story tradition before reaching Straparola is the conversion of the beast fable, exemplum, or rustic anecdote into a micro-romance by appending the story of the gold-shitting doll to the story of the ass-bitten prince. The idea may have arisen merely through the bathroom humour fixed in both stories, that of the magical gift stolen by a neighbour who is punished for the theft by an effusion of dung, and that of the king out hunting who, while relieving himself, encounters something unusual, such as the conversation of animals nearby who tell where a treasure is hidden. Straparola’s tale is the first to record the amalgamation in print in which the story of a defecating king is made the continuation of the story of a defecating doll cast out on the garbage heap. But the credit may not be his for the amalgamation, simply because the story in that compound form was collected widely among the folk reciters of the nineteenth century. Of course, Straparola’s tale may have gone back into circulation – an eternal ambiguity in the history of folklore.

In the world of the Italian social vignette, jest, and proto-novella, Girolamo Morlini tells the story of the priest who shitted gold and was killed by a Basque who took him for an instant repository of limitless wealth. He sought to make demonstration of the priest’s potential in the presence of the king by compelling him to imbibe a fatal dose of myrobalan nuts, cassia, and prunes. Hence the priest found death and the foolish Basque soldier exile. Given, however, that the priest had swallowed his gold to keep it secure, the story falls between tales of donkeys with inserted coins and tales of wonder creatures slain for their singular talent.39

It would appear that the only literary version of the story in the form presented by Straparola published within a century of his is ‘La papara,’ the first diversion of the fifth day of Basile’s Pentamerone.40 Unusual is that this version coincides so closely with Straparola’s when so many other cognate tales by Basile differ substantially. Lolla buys a goose at the market and discovers that it drops gold coins, a godsend for two sisters living in abject poverty. To be sure, a goose is not a doll, but the girls had sold thread to buy it, and they keep it with them in their own bed at nights. The goose no doubt belongs to the ‘primitive’ tale, but the doll is an altogether more likely bed partner, because geese don’t bother to ask. When a show of prosperity from the proceeds attracts the attention of the neighbour, it is deemed that the girls had found a hoard or had sold their honours. That latter option is alluded to by Straparola only in the vaguest of terms. The truth is discovered by boring a hole in the wall to watch their activities, including the spreading of sheets and the gathering of coins. Less dramatically than in Straparola, the neighbour appears merely to borrow the goose. For the great quantity and stench which the goose then produces, it gets its neck wrung and is cast into the street for dead. Shortly thereafter, the king’s son passes the house, is overcome by colic, and opts for an alleyway. Near to hand was the goose, destined to serve the king in the most ignominious fashion. Surpassing its counterpart, employed as Gargantua’s ‘torcheculative’ (asswipe) this one springs to life and follows the script, leading to untold pain, proclamations, and the appearances of many to attempt a cure. When Lolla arrives, however, the goose, hearing its mistress’s voice, relinquishes its hold to seek her caresses. Before the prince makes the girl his ‘queen,’ he has the thieving neighbours whipped and exiled, and so the tale concludes. The variations are evident, perhaps due to the regional differences in the story’s telling. They are important, however, in confirming the unlikelihood that Basile worked out of the Piacevoli notti, but rather that both built independently upon a fable then widely current and varied, yet already fixed in its pervasive form – purchase, gold production, theft, deception, disposal, the royal party, ironic and ignominious rediscovery, and the romance-formula ending.

That general formula is reconfirmed in the many examples of the tale recovered in the nineteenth century. Of these, one must suffice to illustrate its endurance and confirm its popularity. Again it must be said that in terms of narrative fitness, this configuration carries in its ‘memes,’ for better or for worse, the staying power of a true survivor. The version collected by Giuseppe Pitrè is so similar to Straparola’s that only the differences require mention.41 The doll is purchased with the only bit of money the widow could earn from the sale of her thread to buy bread. The child, Ninetta, is captivated by the doll. She is not only roundly beaten by her mother and two sisters, but locked out of doors to suffer cold and poverty. Only then does the doll ask to ‘make doo-doo!’ and so produces the coins. The girl is now welcomed back and the mother becomes extravagant in her purchases, which include a house and carriage. The neighbours create the domestic spat as a pretext for the wife to spend the night as a houseguest. Following the theft, the doll raises both ire and disgust by her evacuations and is spurned in consequence, ending up as rural detritus. The doll’s white apron attracts the king’s attention, and for his attempt, this poppet goes right up his fundament and lodges itself in his rectum, placing all Freudian hermeneutes back on deck, now that the doll is in the hole. Then all the king’s men tug and tug, but can’t get dollie out again. The doctors fail, too, and the proclamation goes out with the same happy issue. The malady in ano has been ousted, ‘all’s well when the end’s well,’ Ninetta is declared seventeen, and a month of celebrations follows.

V. Fable 3
The Three Hunchbacks

ANTONIO MOLINO

in Bergamese dialect

Bertoldo of Valsabbia had three sons, all of them hunchbacks and much alike in appearance. One of them, called Zambò, goes out into the world to seek his fortune and comes to Rome where he is killed and thrown into the Tiber, together with his two brothers.

It is really difficult, most pleasing ladies and gracious madonnas, I mean really difficult ‘to kick against the pricks’ (durum est contra stimulum calcitrare), for the kick of an ass is a cruel thing, but that of a horse is worse. So seeing that fortune wills me to tell a tale, well, patience, for obedience trumps sanctimoniousness; obstinacy is wickedness and he who is such will surely go to the devil’s house. But then, if I tell you something that is not to your tastes, don’t place the blame on me, but on the Signora over there who has put me up to it.

How often it happens that a man goes looking for what he had best leave alone, because many times he lights upon things he never expected to find, and in the end is left with his hands full of flies. This is exactly what happened some time ago to Zambò, the son of Bertoldo of Valsabbia, who tried to snare two of his brothers, but who was himself snared by them. Thus in the end they all three died miserably, as you’ll hear if you lend me your ears and listen with open minds and understandings to the story I’m about to relate.

I must tell you that Bertoldo of Valsabbia, in the territory of Bergamo, had three sons, all of them hunchbacks, and all resembling each other so closely that it was impossible to tell one from the other. In fact, they might be likened to three shrivelled pumpkins. One of them was called Zambò, another Bertaz, and the third Santí. The eldest was Zambò, who was not yet sixteen. One day it came to Zambò’s ears that his father, Bertoldo, intended to sell the small parcel of land that was his patrimony for the family’s sake, because there was a great famine in the surrounding areas and throughout the rest of the land. But because there was practically no one to be found in that country who didn’t have some property of their own, Zambò addressed himself to his younger brothers, Bertaz and Santí, saying, ‘It would surely be a wiser plan, my dear brothers, that our father retain the little bit of property that we happen to have so that, after his death, we have something by which to gain our sustenance. You two should go out into the world and try to earn something that will help us maintain our house, while in the meantime, I remain at home to take care of the old man. That way we won’t waste our substance and that should get us through this time of scarcity.’

Bertaz and Santí, the younger brothers, who weren’t a whit less crafty and cunning than Zambò, answered him at once, ‘Dear brother Zambò, this has all come up rather suddenly and you pose to us questions we hardly know how to answer. Give us one night to think it through. We’ll consider the matter and tomorrow we’ll let you have our reply.’

These two brothers, Bertaz and Santí, had been born together and between them there was a greater sympathy than there was between either of them and Zambò. And if Zambò had an ounce of roguery in his nature, these two had a good couple of pounds of it, for often it comes about that where cultivation is lacking, ingenuity and malice make up the loss. When the following morning arrived, Bertaz, by agreement with Santí his brother, went to find Zambò to pursue their conversation, beginning thus, ‘My dear brother Zambò, we have carefully considered and thought about our situation, and seeing that you’re our elder brother, we think it more appropriate for you to go out into the world first and that because we’re the smaller ones we should stay here to look after our father. In the meantime, if you come across any good fortune for you and us, you write to us so we can go right out to join you.’

Zambò, who had hoped to snare both Bertaz and Santí, was most disconcerted by this answer and muttered to himself, ‘These two scamps are more cunning and malicious than ever I thought.’ He had hoped to be rid of his two brothers and to be left the master of all their property, trusting that both of them might die of hunger by reason of the famine in the land. Moreover, their father was not long for this world and already had one foot in the grave. But the outcome of this affair turned out vastly different from anything Zambò had expected.

So when Zambò heard the answer given by Bertaz and Santí, he made a small bundle of the few rags he possessed, filled a pouch with some bread and cheese and a small flask of wine, put his feet in a pair of broken pigskin shoes, and set out towards Brescia. Finding nothing to suit him there, he went on to Verona where he met a master hosier who asked him if he knew the trade, and to whom he answered ‘no.’ Seeing that there was nothing for him to do there, he left Verona, and, after passing through Vicenza he came to Padua, where certain doctors saw him and asked him whether he knew how to care for mules, to which he once more answered ‘no,’ saying only that he could till land and tend vines. Because he came to no agreement with them, he went on his way to Venice.

Zambò wandered about the city for a long time without landing upon any employment to his taste, and seeing that he now had neither money nor food about him, he realized the bad way he was in. After walking back and forth, by God’s will he ended up at Fusina, but because he was penniless no one would assist him. Not knowing which way to turn, the poor chap, noting that the ragged wastrels who turned the winches that drew the boats ashore earned a few pence by their trade, he took it up himself. But Fortune, who always persecutes the poor and unfortunate, one day willed, when he was working one of these machines, that the leather strap should break. In untwining, it caught a spar which hit him full in the chest and knocked him to the ground, where for a time he lay as though dead. Had it not been for the quick aid given to him by a few charitable chaps who hauled him into their boat and rowed him back to Venice, I believe most certainly that he would have died.

As soon as Zambò had recovered from the ill effects of this accident he went in search of further employment, and as he passed by a grocer’s shop, the master, who was pounding almonds to make into marzipan, asked him whether he was of a mind to work in the shop and Zambò replied that he was. Once engaged, the grocer set him to work sorting sweetmeats, instructing him how to separate the black from the white. He worked alongside another shop boy (may he get a cancer!), the two of them carrying out the task by stripping off the rind and outer covering, eating the sweet parts, and leaving only the hard bits behind. When the grocer saw what was going on, he took a stick in hand and gave each of them a sound beating, saying, ‘If you’re intent on plunder, you thievish knaves, I prefer that you pilfer your own stores and not mine.’ Then he gave them a further taste of the stick and told them both to be damned.

Smarting from the grocer’s blows, Zambò went to San Marco, and passing by the place where herbs and vegetables are sold, by good fortune he met a market gardener from Chioggia named Vivia Vianel, who demanded of him whether he would be willing to work for him, promising him good food and fair treatment as well. Zambò by this time looked like the famished wolf on the arms of Siena and was longing for a good meal, so he said ‘yes.’ When Vianel finally sold his last few bunches of herbs, they took a boat and returned to Chioggia where Zambò was immediately set to work in the garden tending the vines.

Now, after he had gone all around in Chioggia for some time, Zambò became acquainted with several of his master’s friends, and when the season for the first ripe figs had come, Vivia took three of the finest he could pluck from his garden, placed them on a platter, and sent them as a gift to his friend Peder in Chioggia. He called Zambò, gave him the three figs, and said to him, ‘Zambò, take these three figs, carry them to my friend Ser Peder, and ask him to accept them for love of me.’

In obedience to his command he replied, ‘With pleasure, my master,’ and taking the figs he went merrily on his way. But then his ill luck caught up to him, for as he was going along the street his appetite took possession of him. He looked at the figs again and again and said to his gullet, ‘What shall I do? Shall I eat them or shall I refrain?’

His gullet replied, ‘A starving man observes no law, so eat.’ Gourmand by nature and very hungry – that was the reason Zambò listened to the ill counsel of his food pipe. Laying hands on one of the figs, he began to tear the skin from the neck. Then he took a bite here and a bite there, all the while saying ‘It is good. It is not good.’ And so he went on tasting until he had eaten the whole thing, leaving only the skin.

Once eaten, he began to wonder whether he might have done the wrong thing, but with his gullet still urging him on, he wasn’t long in his indecision. He took the second fig in his hand and treated it as he had treated the first. After the greedy fellow had made an end of the second, he was again assailed by fears and, on account of his fault, he hardly knew whether he should go on or turn back. But after short deliberation, he took courage and decided to proceed. As soon as he had come to Ser Peder’s door, he knocked and the door was instantly opened to him, because he was well known by the householders. He entered and went in search of Ser Peder, whom he found walking about. The good man asked him, ‘So what has Zambò come to tell me? What’s your good news?’

‘Good morrow, good morrow,’ answered Zambò. ‘My master gave me three figs to bring to you, but of these three I have eaten two.’

‘But how could you do such a thing as that?’ said Ser Peder.

‘Oh, I did it like this,’ replied Zambò, and with these words he took the last fig and ate it deliberately, and so it happened that all three of the figs ended up in Zambò’s belly. When Ser Peder saw this saucy jest, he said to him, ‘My son, tell your master that I thank him, but that in the future he needn’t trouble himself to send me more presents like this.’

Zambò answered, ‘No, no, Messer Peder, don’t say that, for I’ll never grow weary of such errands,’ and having said this he turned about and headed for home.

When the report of Zambò’s trick came to Vivia’s ears, and when he learned moreover that he was both lazy and a glutton, guzzling when he was hungry until he was ready to burst, and how he would never work except when he was driven to it, the good man chased the hunchback out of his house. Zambò, poor devil, finding himself again without employment, didn’t know where to turn, so after a little delay he decided to go to Rome in hope that he might find better fortune there than he had found so far, until what he thought about doing was what he did.

When he arrived in Rome, Zambò went about everywhere looking for a master, and at last he met a certain merchant named Messer Ambros dal Mul, who kept a great shop full of cloth. Zambò took service with him and was put to work minding the store. Seeing that he had suffered so much in the past, he made up his mind to learn the trade and to live a decent life in future. Although he was deformed and ugly, still he was very shrewd, and in a short time he made himself so useful in the shop that his master saw no further need to do the buying and selling, but trusted everything to him and employed him in many services. It came about that one day Messer Ambros had occasion to go to the fair of Recanati with a stock of cloth, but seeing that Zambò had become so competent in the business and had proved himself trustworthy, he decided to send Zambò to the fair and to remain at home to mind the establishment himself.

After Zambò’s departure, there was more ill fortune, for Messer Ambros was seized with so grave a disease, worse than a terrible dysentery, that after the lapse of a few days he died. When his wife, who was called Madonna Felicetta, found herself a widow, she nearly died of grief over the loss of her husband and from the anxiety that she might lose her clientele. As soon as Zambò heard the sad news of his master’s death, he returned immediately and set about, by God’s grace, to manage the affairs of the business. Madonna Felicetta, as time went on, remarked that Zambò behaved himself well and honestly and was diligent in managing affairs. She was mindful too that a year had now rolled by since the death of her husband, Messer Ambros. Because she feared one day to lose Zambò, along with many of her customers, she sought advice from some of her closest friends whether she should remarry and whether it might not be best for her to take Zambò for her husband – the factor of her business who had been in the service of her first husband for such a long time and who had gathered a great deal of experience in the management of her affairs. These worthy confidants deemed her proposition a wise one and advised her to marry Zambò. Little time passed between the word and the deed, for the nuptials were celebrated soon thereafter. Madonna Felicetta became the wife of Ser Zambò, and Ser Zambò the husband of Madonna Felicetta.

Now when Ser Zambò found himself raised to this high estate, what with a wife of his own and a fine shop well stocked with all manner of cloth goods, he wrote to his father, telling him he was now in Rome, and of the great stroke of luck that had come to him. His father, who had heard no news of his son since the day of his departure, having never received a written word from him, suddenly gave up the ghost from sheer joy. Bertaz and Santí meanwhile found their own consolation in such affairs.

One day it came about that Madonna Felicetta needed a new pair of stockings, because the ones she wore were all rent and torn. She said to Ser Zambò, her husband, that he must have another pair made for her. To this Zambò replied that he had other business to do and that if her stockings were torn she had better go mend them, patch them, and put on new heels. Madonna Felicetta, who had been greatly pampered by her late husband, replied that it had never been her manner to wear mended and reheeled stockings, and that she must have a new pair. Ser Zambò shot back that where he came from customs were different and that she simply must do without. Thus the bout of wrangling began, and from one angry word to another, it came about in the end that Ser Zambò lifted his hand and cuffed her so heavily over the head that she fell to the ground. Madonna Felicetta was little disposed to come to terms with him or to seek out any conditions of peace, but planned how she could return him blow for blow, and with that she began to swear at him. But feeling his honour impugned, Ser Zambò worked her over so soundly with his fists that the poor woman was compelled to shut her mouth.

When the summer had passed and the cold weather set in, Madonna Felicetta asked Ser Zambò to let her have a silken lining to repair her fur coat, which was in very bad condition, and which she set out to prove to him by bringing it in for him to inspect. But Ser Zambò didn’t bother even to look at it. He simply said that she had to mend it and wear it as it was, for in his country people were not used to such pomp. Madonna Felicetta was greatly angered at his words and declared that she’d have what she asked for at any cost. Ser Zambò replied that she had to be quiet and not arouse his wrath, or else things would go far worse for her. Still Madonna Felicetta pursued the matter, insisting upon her needs, till the two of them, one after the other, worked themselves up into such a fury that they were nearly blinded with rage. Ser Zambò, in his customary way, started thumping her with a stick, covering her with as many blows as she could stand until she lay on the floor half dead.

When Madonna Felicetta saw how radically his humour had changed towards her, she began to blaspheme and curse the day and hour when she had first spoken to him, remembering as well those who had advised her to take such a husband in the first place. ‘Is this the way you treat me,’ she yelled, ‘you craven rogue, jerk, useless bastard that you are? Is this my reward for all the benefits you’ve received? From the base hireling you were before, haven’t I made you the master not only of my wealth but of my person? And still you treat me in such a way? Well never fear, you treacherous thug, because I’m going to make you regret every bit of this.’

When Ser Zambò heard how his wife grew even angrier and poured out her abuse on him more copiously than before, he continued to ply his cudgel upon her back to give her the finishing touch, which reduced Madonna Felicetta to such a state of fear that whenever she heard the sound of Zambò’s voice or footsteps she trembled like a leaf in the wind and wetted her linen with terror.

When the winter had passed, it chanced that Ser Zambò had to go to Bologna on business to collect certain sums of money due to him. Because the journey would take a few days, he said to Madonna Felicetta, ‘Wife, I want you to know that I have two brothers, both of them hunchbacks like I am; in fact, they resemble me so much that were you to see the three of us together, you wouldn’t know which was which. Now I’m asking you to keep a close watch in case they come here and try to lodge with us. Make sure that you don’t let them come over the threshold on any account, for they are wicked, deceitful, and crafty knaves, and would assuredly play you some evil trick, only to scamper away and leave you with your hands full of flies. Let me find out that you have ever harboured them in this house and I’ll make you the most wretched woman in the world.’ With these words he left.

Within a week of his departure, the brothers Bertaz and Santí arrived and went about asking for Ser Zambò’s shop, which was pointed out to them. When these two scoundrels saw the fine boutique richly furnished with all kinds of cloth goods, they were astonished and wondered out loud how he could have amassed so much wealth in so short a time. Lost in wonderment, they went to the shop door and asked to talk to Ser Zambò. They were told that he was neither in the house nor even in the city, but that if they needed anything they could ask for it. At that, Bertaz repeated that they’d willingly speak to him, but that if he wasn’t at home they’d speak to his wife, asking the servant to call Madonna Felicetta. As soon as she came into the store, she knew right away that these men were her brothers-in-law. Bertaz, when he saw her, asked right out, ‘Madonna, are you the wife of Zambò?’

And she answered, ‘Most certainly, yes.’

Bertaz replied, ‘Madonna, shake hands, for we are the brothers of your husband, and thus your brothers-in-law.’

Remembering the words of Ser Zambò and the beating he had given her, Madonna Felicetta refused to touch their hands, but they went on plying her with so many affectionate words and gestures that in the end she shook hands with them. As soon as she had thus greeted them, Bertaz cried out, ‘Oh, my dear sister-in-law, give us something to eat, because we are half starved.’ Well, this she wouldn’t do. But these rascals knew the arts of flattery so well, and begged so persistently, that Madonna Felicetta was moved to pity, took them into the house, gave them plenty of food and drink, and likewise a room to sleep in.

Hardly three days had passed since Bertaz and Santí had arrived at Madonna Felicetta’s house before Ser Zambò returned. Seeing who it was, his wife was beside herself with fear and hardly knew what to do to keep the brothers out of Ser Zambò’s sight. Hitting upon no better plan, she made them go into the kitchen where there was a trough used to scald pigs, telling them to hide themselves underneath.

When Ser Zambò entered the house and remarked upon his wife’s dishevelled and worried appearance, he grew suspicious and said, ‘Why do you look so frightened? What’s the matter with you? I suppose there’s your lover hidden away somewhere in the house?’

She replied in a faint voice that there was nothing the matter with her. But Ser Zambò, who was all the while looking at her sharply, said, ‘For certain, there’s something the matter with you. Are those brothers of mine in the house by any chance?’

She answered boldly that they weren’t, whereupon he began to give her a taste of the stick, according to his custom. Bertaz and Santí, underneath the pig trough, could hear all the hurly-burly, which so terrified them that they crapped their britches and dared not so much as move or cough. When at last he put down his stick, Ser Zambò began to search the house in every corner to see whether he could find anyone hidden, but discovering nothing he calmed down and went about his affairs. He was preoccupied in this manner for such a time that Bertaz and Santí, the luckless brothers, forced to keep their hiding place for so long, what with the fright, the heat, and the terrible stench of the trough, in sheer distress as they lay there soon gave up the ghost.

When the customary hour came for Ser Zambò to go to the marketplace to meet with merchants and conduct his trade, he left the house. No sooner had he gone out than Madonna Felicetta went to the pig trough to figure out some scheme for getting rid of her brothers-in-law so that Ser Zambò might never suspect her of giving them shelter. But when she uncovered the trough, she found them lying there both stark dead and looking exactly like two pigs. Seeing the mess she was in, the poor woman fell into a fit of grief and despair. But to keep her husband in ignorance of what had transpired, she set her mind directly to work to figure out how to get them out of the house so that the mishap might be hidden from everyone.

I have heard people say that in Rome there is a custom that should the dead bodies of strangers or pilgrims be found in the public streets or in any man’s house, they are given immediately to certain undertakers, deputized for the task, to carry outside the walls of the city to be cast into the Tiber, so that nothing thereafter is ever heard or seen of them. Going to the window to see if by chance any of her friends might be passing who could lend a hand in getting rid of the two dead bodies, by good fortune Madonna Felicetta spotted one of these corpse-bearers. She called to him to come in, telling him that she had a body in the house and that she wanted him to take it away at once and cast it into the Tiber according to the custom of the city. Already Madonna Felicetta had pulled one of the bodies out from under the cover of the trough and left it lying on the floor nearby. So when the corpse-bearer had come upstairs, she helped him to load the dead man on his shoulders, urging him to come back to the house after he had thrown him into the river, when she would pay him for his services. With that, the porter of the dead went outside the city wall and threw the body into the Tiber and, having done his work, he returned to Madonna Felicetta to ask for his customary fee of a florin. But while the corpse-bearer was engaged in carrying off the first body, Madonna Felicetta, crafty dame that she was, drew out the other body and placed it at the foot of the trough in exactly the same place where the first had lain, and when the corpse-bearer came back for his payment, she said to him, ‘Did you really carry the corpse I gave you to the Tiber?’

To this the fellow replied, ‘I did, Madonna.’

‘Did you throw it into the river?’ asked the dame.

And he answered, ‘Did I throw it in? Certainly I did, and in my best manner too.’

At this speech Madonna Felicetta said, ‘How could you have thrown it when it’s still lying right here?’

When the corpse-bearer saw the second dead body, he really thought it must be the one he had carried away and was covered with dismay and confusion. Cursing and swearing the while, he hoisted it upon his shoulders, carried it off, cast it into the Tiber, and then stood there for a long while to watch as it floated down the stream. While he was once more returning to Madonna Felicetta’s house to receive his payment, it happened that he met Ser Zambò on his way home, and when the corpsebearer saw a man so much resembling the other two hunchbacks he had carried to the Tiber, he flew into such a violent fit of rage that it was as though he spat forth fire and flames on all sides giving free rein to his passion. In truth, he thought the fellow in front of him was no other than the one he had twice before tossed into the river, and that he must be some evil spirit that kept coming back again and again. So he crept around behind Zambò and dealt him a deadly blow on the head with the crowbar he carried in his hand, saying, ‘So there, you wretched villain, do you think I want to spend all day long hauling you to the river?’ Railing at him with such words and handling him so violently, poor Zambò, what with the thwacking he had received, was soon a dead man and gone to speak with Pontius Pilate.

Then the fellow hoisted the third corpse on his shoulders, bore him away, and threw him into the Tiber after the two others. Thus Zambò, Bertaz, and Santí miserably ended their lives. Madonna Felicetta, when she heard the news, was delighted beyond measure and felt no small contentment in knowing that she was free from all her hardships and might once again enjoy her former liberty.

Molino’s fable here came to an end. It pleased the ladies so much that they couldn’t stop laughing and talking about it. And although the Signora requested their silence several times over, she found it no easy matter to put an end to their merriment. Finally, when the noise died down, she asked Molino to set them an enigma to guess at, which he delivered to them as follows:

Out of their prison grave so dark

Arise the bones of dead men stark,

And ’twixt the hours of tierce and sext,

By signs will tell to mortals vext

What chance’s smiles or frowns of fate

May bless or ban till time grows late.

Savage and deep the miser’s curse,

Marking the signs of chance averse.

But he, untouched by lust of gold,

Unmoved, will fortune’s freaks behold.

Next, one with beard of flesh upsprings,

And beak of bone, and warning sings

To bid the watchers bury deep

Their bodies in a downy sleep,

And lie, poor fools by care unstirred,

On welcome boon of foolish bird.

Although Molino’s fable had greatly pleased the entire company, this ingenious and somewhat gruesome enigma diverted them even more. But insofar as no one had gathered an inkling of its meaning, the ladies with one voice begged him to reveal the answer. When he saw that the company was of one accord in the matter, in order not to appear stingy with his gifts, he solved the enigma in the following terms: ‘My riddle, dear ladies, signifies the game of hazard. The bones of the dead which quit their graves are the dice which fall out of the dice box. When they mark tray, deuce, and ace, these are the points that show good luck. Now won’t just such points as these put spirit into the play and money into the purse of the man who often wins such throws? Does the loser ever like to go away a loser, and does not all this come by the change and variations of fortune? The avaricious player who always seeks to win will now and again curse and swear so fiercely that I can’t think why the earth does not open up and swallow him. Then, after they have sat at play late into the night, the cock, which has a beard of flesh and a beak of bone, will get up and crow, thus letting the gamesters know that it is past midnight and that they should repair to their beds of goose down. When they lie in these, is it not like sinking into a deep grave? What do you all think of my explanation?’

The unriddling of this subtle enigma was received by the whole company with great laughter – laughter so hearty, in fact, that they could barely keep themselves from rolling about on their chairs. Then after the Signora had asked everyone for silence, she turned towards Molina and said, ‘Signor Antonio, as the fair orb of Diana outshines all other stars, so the fable you just told, no less than your enigma, bears off the palm from all others we have heard so far.’

Molino answered, ‘The praise you give me, Signora, is by no means due to my skill, but rather comes from the great courtesy that always abides in you. And if the Trevisan here would tell you a story in the dialect of his country, I’m sure you would listen to his with even greater pleasure.’

The Signora, who much desired to hear a story told in this fashion, said, ‘Signor Benedetto, do you hear what our Molina has said? There is no question but that you would be doing him a great wrong were you to make his words false. So put your hand in your pouch and draw out a pleasant story to bring us merriment.’ The Trevisan thought it improper on his part to take Arianna’s place, whose turn it was next, and at first excused himself, but seeing that he couldn’t weather this point, he began his fable in the following words.

V.3 Commentary

This tale is not among Straparola’s best, yet its final episode is constituted of one of the most enduring of the medieval farcical tales, that of the look-alike hunchbacks, monks, or minstrels who, as unwonted cadavers, are toted one after the other for disposal, usually in a river, by a comic porter who thinks, upon seeing a second dead victim, that it is the first which has somehow returned to the house. Frustrated by the repeated task, he is brought to kill a still living look-alike he encounters on the way back for his pay – in our story the hunchback husband returning home. The cruelty is paramount in many redactions, some of them dealing in cold-blooded murder; it is a feature of the story that can only be mitigated by the idiocy of the porter, the shrewdness of the lady in a fix who commissions him, and the stupidity and cruelty of the victims themselves, which allows for a measure of comic justice.42 Always better are the versions in which a jealous husband is killed by the exasperated porter, rather than a look-alike innocent bystander. To this stand-alone little farce, Straparola, or possibly a Bergamasque predecessor telling the tale in dialect, adds an episodic prelude in which the hunchback protagonist sets out in the world to seek his fortune, in the manner of many a fairy tale in which brothers of impoverished circumstances embark on parallel life journeys before their reunion. Straparola may have had his own story of ‘The Three Brothers’ (VII.5) in mind, in which two of the three learn professions while the third masters the ostensibly useless talent of understanding the language of animals (which of course will serve to brilliant and prosperous ends). It is a fairy tale in the making in which the little hunchback, in marrying the boss’s wife, parodies a wonder tale-rising tale from rags to riches. But in the present rendition, all that promise is thrown away in a monstrous parody. This is a harsh social vignette in a familiar geographical landscape in which two shrewd and treacherous brothers scheme against the eldest, sending him out into the world alone to make his way, with the understanding that should he come to prosperity, he is to write home and let them know. Zambò the adventurer fulfils his promise after he marries the prosperous widow of his employer, but fulfils it most incongruously, insofar as the entire final episode turns upon the warning to his wife never to entertain his brothers or let them into the house should they show up on the doorstep. Linking the two parts together necessitated this clumsy slippage in narrative logic.

The first part consists of three rather uneven episodes in the life of a picaro who is first the pathetic victim of a workplace accident in the Arsenal of Venice that nearly costs him his life, then a doltish employee of a grocer who gets himself beaten for eating and ruining the food he was to prepare, and third, a smart alec who, in literal response to a question about how he had eaten two figs intended as a gift, eats the third in demonstration. This is reminiscent of one of Tyl Eulenspiegel’s less creative pranks, although Straparola derived it from some such source as the Farce nouvelle tres bonne et fort joyeuse de Guillerme qui mangea les figues du cure (The joyous new farce of Guillermo who ate the priest’s figs).43 This section might have become a picaresque view of the world had Ser Zambò become a witty narrator, and something of his personality might have emerged had there been more developmental coherence to the episodes. Of the managing classes, we learn only that they are fell in their punishment, humourless, and decisive in their dismissals.

Perhaps the most interesting feature of the protagonist’s life on the road, beyond his privations and suffering, is the trajectory itself, for he begins in a village near Bergamo called Valsabbia (forty kilometres north-east of Brescia), or generally from the valley itself, from whence he makes his way to Brescia looking for work, then on to Verona, passing through Vicenza on his way to Padua where he declined a job offer involving the care of mules, only to end up in Venice doing odd jobs around the city and in Chioggia at the end of the lagoon.44 This is the itinerary that Ruth Bottigheimer maps provisionally upon Straparola’s own career, in that he came from Caravaggio, made the setting of the Piacevoli notti the island of Murano, and published his two books in Venice. The biographical value of such indices is circumstantial, at best, but holds an intriguing prospect. Moreover, this is one of the few stories in the collection that is told in a local dialect – that of Bergamo, the home of the commedia dell’arte’s Harlequin and Brighella, who would carry their linguistic idiosyncrasies to the world. It is told by the comic poet, Antonio da Molino, no doubt known to Straparola for his talent in the local patois, a long poem which he would publish in 1561. This, however, is in the dialect from the region where Straparola himself grew up; he was showing off, while making Molino his buffoon by playing to the Murano elite for laughs.45 This is, of course, the patois of Zambò and his brothers, hailing from a region already noteworthy for its blowhard but stalwart labour force who descended from the mountains in search of work (see the commentary to IX.5).

At the centre of the tale is a comic porter as the carrier-out of corpses, a character with a highly principled work ethic, but unconcerned with any other form of morality in relation to his work. Hence, in the Estormi of Hugues Piaucèle, a thirteenth-century fabliau, the entire tale is named after this dogged labourer, the name itself signifying ‘fight’ or ‘tumult,’ while at the same time evoking the verb estourbir, ‘to kill.’46 Others in this role, in cognate tales, are household servants or village idiots, foreigners, drunks, or the most literal-minded of menial labourers. In humdrum fashion he is called in to haul away a dead priest in a sack and toss him into the river. He asks no questions in light of the generous pay. When he returns for his money, however, a second priest has been brought out of hiding, which, in Estormi’s befuddlement, he likewise hauls to the river, thinking it the same cadaver. Upon encountering the third, he begins to curse amidst talk of miracles and revenants. His mood is not wonderment, but exasperation. How will he get his pay if the bodies keep coming back? The final humorous incongruity is that in returning the third time, he meets a live priest having nothing to do with the affair, takes him for one of the dead, and kills him for good measure with a blow over the head that spatters brains and blood in all directions, uttering all the while lines such as the following:

Comment, sire boçus, tornez?	What, Mr. Hunchback, back again?
Or me semble ce enresdie.	You’re darned stubborn it seems to me.
Mès, par le cors sainte marie	But, by the body of St Mary,
Mar retornastes ceste part.	This time you’ll regret coming back,
Vous me tenez bien por musart.	Taking me for an idiot like that.

This particular brand of humour, a mainstay of the farce, alone reconciles us to the brutal events. Estormi is a particularly anti-clerical variation on the stock tale in which a wife hides three minstrels or hunchbacks from her husband, finds them accidentally dead, and then must get rid of the bodies, only to lose her husband (another hunchback) into the bargain, taken for a resuscitated corpse – a loss seldom to her regret. In Estormi, a loyal wife, Dame Yfame, finding herself solicited by three priests for sexual favours and promised great sums of money, is told by her husband to invite them in, whereupon he kills them himself with a sledgehammer as they enter, or later in bed, in order to steal their belongings together with the money intended to pay for favours. Estormi is then called upon to dispose of the bodies, on his return killing a fourth in his exasperation. (To approve of this story, one must really hate priests.) He then receives his pay for a job well done. This story’s narrative kinship with Straparola’s favola is patently clear, but there are no self-evident conclusions to be drawn in terms of transmission and borrowing.

Of potential sources and analogues there are many, ranging from the thirteenth to the nineteenth centuries. A noteworthy study of the story type at the end of the nineteenth century by Joseph Bédier makes the present commentary from the perspective of Straparola both easier and more difficult.47 He works with fourteen texts, beginning with those versions in the Historia septem Sapientum and the Hebrew version of the Seven Sages, the Mishle Sendebar. The important factor is that both works are putatively derived from Arabic, Indian, Turkish, or Hebrew sources, although the final answer on the origin of that textual tradition is not yet in. With regard to this tale, Bédier is prepared to cede the point that it originated in the East upon demonstration, although the general bias of his entire study is to disprove, with some rhetorical expostulation, the penchant then current for tracking all Western folklore to Eastern sources. His strong predilection is to attribute this story to medieval European writers, despite its appearance in two collections traditionally associated with the East, given that these same collections in the Seven Sages tradition were elaborated in the West, not before the thirteenth or fourteenth century, around a limited number of core stories to which were added many others, some arguably of Western provenance, in essence ‘orientalized,’ much as Galland may have done in filling out the Arabian Nights. Two points are in his favour concerning this particular story: that no correlative versions have come to attention from works of unquestioned early Eastern provenance; and that the story features the kind of slapstick redolent of the medieval sottie. In brief, the story has an ethos of its own arguably not characteristic of Eastern tales. Moreover, Bédier remarked that of the fourteen texts he examined, six told of lovers who were hidden from the husband and died in the process, whether identical-appearing chevaliers or monks, while eight told of hunchbacks, whether brothers or minstrels, who were invited into the house behind the husband’s back for reasons of pity or for the wife’s amusement. He deemed the hunchback versions to be closest to the generic tale, largely because the lovers and anti-clerical versions have weaker narrative logic and less humour. Why, for example, if the husband is involved in the murders, must he hire a porter at all? Why, if the lovers are called in one by one, are the bodies accumulated? Concerning those hunchback tales, he could not tell whether they were literary or folk in origin, nor could he decide whether the ‘minstrels’ or the ‘brothers’ version should be given precedence. That, in brief, is a summary of his complex argumentation, from which we may deduce that Straparola’s ‘The Three Hunchbacks’ is a descendant of the hunchback brothers group. Of these, his story is the first literary survivor (there are prior minstrel versions). Moreover, in relation to Bédier’s analysis, Straparola’s tale is closest to the oikotype which, three centuries earlier, had produced several versions even then showing signs of degradation. They were early literary breakaways from the generic tale central to the story tradition.

According to that scenario, the folk tale of the ‘hunchback brothers’ existed, not only before Straparola, but even before the much earlier fabliaux in which the victims are minstrels. That is my intuition. The alternative scenario is to assign the birth of the tale to one of the early fabliaux writers, such as Durand, from whose single and clever invention the entire story phenomenon derives, spreading to the folk reciters, collector-editors in the Seven Sages tradition, subsequent talent-challenged fabliaux writers, and novellieri. That too seems possible but perhaps less plausible. In the latter case, the present tale must be seen to follow in the well-trodden path of the novellieri who, formerly, had written fabliaux into novelle – Straparola taking his story directly or, far more likely, from a current version of the tale taken over by the popular tradition.48 It may be reasoned further that, whether as folk tale or fabliau, there had to have been a ‘good’ version before the mangled rendition in the Mishle Sendebar, one having far more in common with the ‘better’ folk versions collected during the nineteenth century. To follow are the resumes of the tales, early and late, upon which all this inferential analysis has been based, forming a story trajectory in which Straparola’s contribution is among the most significant.

Whatever their origins, the stories in the Historia septem Sapientium and the Mishle Sendebar are remote from Straparola’s tale, despite John Colin Dunlop’s view that ‘the immediate original is one which occurs in some versions of the Seven Wise Masters.’49 To have constructed the present tale as he did from such a source, given the later analogues, would be miraculous. Arguably, his source resembled closely what he wrote. Nevertheless, the earliest traces of that story’s tradition begin with the Seven Sages, in which the sage’s sixth story tells of a husband and wife who set about to trap passers-by as prospective lovers to the lady.50 She sings in public and makes assignations in close sequence with three cavaliers to whom she has made eyes. The husband kills them as they enter and the bodies are dealt with in the now familiar way. Then, however, the wife quarrels with her husband, denounces him, and both are arrested and dragged behind horses to the place of hanging. It is a tale of outright fraud and punishment involving three look-alike victims and the disposal of three bodies. The Hebrew redaction of the Seven Sages ‘est étrangement défiguré et si sottement conté qu’il ne serait pas intelligible’ (is so strangely disfigured and so stupidly told that it would hardly make any sense) if we did not know it from other versions.51 The January–May situation is introduced, involving the old man married to the pretty young girl, who, because of her husband’s jealousy, is made to live a sequestered life. Bored, she one day sends a servant out to find some entertainment for her and he comes back with a hunchback minstrel, who then brings in his two fellow hunchbacks. The husband doesn’t even have to return home to set up the cadaver crisis. The three companions drink themselves into a stupor and are shoved into a neighbouring room where they kill each other. Then she calls for an Ethiopian (the setting is quite inexplicit) to carry the bodies away in a sack one after the other. The porter is then paid. The humour of the porter is largely absent and there is no fourth victim taken for one of the returning hunchbacks, nor is there any indication that the wife’s husband was one of their kind. Because the story is so badly told, it could not have been the source for the subsequent versions involving hunchbacks, but must, itself, be a degraded literary version of the farce or folk tale.

The work of greatest interest in relation to Straparola, and predating him by at least two centuries, is the French fabliau, ‘Les trios bossus ménestrels.’52 It is the clearest testimony in existence of an early story tradition dealing with hunchbacks who come to atrocious ends and are unceremoniously disposed of by a ‘niais’ porter. Durand or Durandus (twelfth to thirteenth century) tells the story of a beautiful girl who is married to a singularly ugly, vile, jealous, and rich hunchback. When Christmas arrives, three hunchback minstrels come to the house asking to spend the holiday with one of their own. The rules of hospitality prevail and they are well-feted and provided with gifts, but upon parting, they are warned never to return. Prevailing upon the pity of the pretty wife in the husband’s absence, however, they are called back to sing and perform. When the husband arrives, they are hidden in a coffer where all three expire. The alarmed wife calls in a porter, urging him never to speak of these things in exchange for a substantial amount of money. Then she presents him with three corpses one after the other, as though the first had twice returned or had never been taken in the first place. The porter’s growing consternation is evident. The third time there is no laughter but grim imprecations and a stoic mission. After the third, he keeps looking about himself on the way back and sees the master coming home, who is dispatched as though he were a revenant. First he rounds with him for making a fool of him, then clobbers him with a pestle and puts him in a sack. The wife is cognizant of the fourth death only by innuendo, but is pleased by her loss and pays out the money. The story is remarkably close to Straparola in spirit and design, in the wife’s compassion for the three hunchbacks, in their accidental deaths in a confined space, and in the death of the husband at the hands of an exasperated porter, thereby accomplishing her wishes without involving the lady in malfeasance. That Durand invented or borrowed, or that Straparola elaborated upon the fabliaux tradition directly or indirectly, or took his story wholesale from a folk elaboration remains a moot point. Forced to a choice, I would say either that Durand worked from a popular tale of Western origins, to which Straparola added the picaresque preliminary material and the Bergamasque dialect to a literary tradition in debt to the French fabliaux or, more plausibly, that he transcribed it from local folklore.

Closer to Straparola in time and place is Giovanni Sercambi’s novella, ‘De vitio luxurie in prelato di Ranieri pellaio in Pisa’ (De visio lusurie in prelatis). But the work belongs squarely to the Estormi group and thus has little bearing on the present story.53 It is a witness, nevertheless, to the success of the story type in its alternate version. Three monks from St. Nicholas Church in Pisa impose their affections upon Nece, harassing her in eroto-suggestive ways at various points in the church; no doubt their hypocrisy partly reconciles us to their fates. Nece asks her husband – a tanning merchant – what to do. According to the confidence game he devises, he will be absent, she will invite them to supper, allow them their ultima cena, and lure them into the bath, all in anticipation of his return. When he arrives, they are hidden in a huge vat into which the husband pours lime and boiling water. The routine of the porter ensues, a foreigner this time, who agrees to get rid of the body of a monk who had died in the house. When they went looking for Andrea the priest on the following day, they found only his prayer book, a candle, and a trail of blood. Only then do they realize that their trick, placed in the hands of a foreign porter, had also cost an innocent clergyman his life.

There remain several versions of the story type roughly contemporary with Straparola, of interest for their comparative elements, but unlikely to have had any connection to him. There are still others which may be directly in Straparola’s debt, and still others collected as folk tales in the nineteenth century, some with uncanny resemblances to the present story. In ‘Ain lied von einer vischerin’ (The fishwife’s lament), the tale has been adapted to the wandering scholars tradition of the late Middle Ages and is set in Vienna. It is the same basic story told by Sercambi, except that the fishwife has been on a lark with her visitors. When her husband returns with a fine catch of carp, he insists on putting them in the very basin where the ‘clerks’ are hidden, which must first be filled with water. They drown. Then one by one they are disposed of by an oafish porter by being pitched into the Danube. Upon his return, he too meets with a priest, takes him for one of the scholars, and sends him towards Budapest.54 It is a simple variation on the Estormi type. Another work from that same late medieval period, ‘The Three Monks of Colmar,’ bears further witness to the popularity of the tale epitomized by Sercambi.55 The three lovers in hiding are so terrified by the frightening noises made by the menacing husband that they spontaneously throw themselves into a cauldron of boiling water.

Of greater interest is a farce on the topic of the three hunchbacks mounted as one of the théâtre de la foire productions – popular outdoor spectacles held in conjunction with the annual fair of Saint-Germain or Saint-Laurent. (Their heyday was the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries until their suppression in 1789.) Les rencontres, fantaisies et coqs à l’asne facetieux du baron Gratelard, tenant sa classe ordinaire au bout du Pont Neuf contains a theatrical version of the story of the three hunchbacks in seven scenes so similar to the tale of ‘The Three Hunchbacks’ that the farce may rightfully be considered another of Straparola’s progeny.56 There is Trostole, the ugly old hunchback, married to a young and pretty wife. Horace, who seeks her love, employs the fool, Gratelard, to carry his letters. The plot we are familiar with is taken up in the play when Trostole tells his wife never to open the door to his three hunchback brothers. Then he leaves on business. The brothers arrive, cajole, crave shelter, and are taken in by pity. They are soused by the time Trostole unexpectedly returns and they expire inside coffers from the effects of their inebriation. Gratelard does his work with all four. ‘All four?’ asks the wife and realizes her good fortune, for now she can marry Horace. In the final scene, Trostole and his three brothers really do come back and start a huge melée, a concession to the ways of the popular theatre. Straparola would seem the only logical source for a work so proximate in design. Joseph Bédier mentions a version in the Contes nouveaux et plaisants, par une société, which may be passed over briefly.57 The story is transported to Asia, no doubt to disguise its direct debt to Straparola. According to Bédier, (quite significantly) it contains the preliminary adventures before the unwonted visit of the two brothers. The hunchbacks in hiding die of a surfeit of alcohol as in the farce. Then, quite unexpectedly, the Caliph of Baghdad, Harun al-Rashid (historically, 763–809), puts in an appearance, having had a dream about the river with its nets. Upon inspection, the three hunchbacks are found alive, whereupon the Caliph admonishes the married hunchback for his inhospitality towards his two brothers. The story reflects the orientalizing of Western stories that had become popular in France.

Another of this kind, equally indebted to Straparola, is the ‘Tale of the Three Crump Twin-Brothers of Damascus’ of Thomas-Simon Gueullette.58 But Gueullette did not complete his retelling without fully incorporating the preceding version from the Contes nouveaux and then adding several other now familiar folk tale motifs too long to summarize. The story begins and ends with instances in which a crime committed by one triplet can never be punished unless it can be determined which of the three is the real culprit. As long as all confess or none confesses, the guilty one is safe. One had wounded a merchant’s son at the opening, but in standing together, the guilty one goes free, although all three are exiled. Thus begins their life on the road. Each learns a trade, but only Barbakan prospers in marrying the widow when his master dies. The two brothers at last visit him in Baghdad, but Barbakan wants to avoid the ridicule that would follow from being seen together. His wife, nevertheless, lets them in, then hides them behind a brandy vat where they are ostensibly asphyxiated. The porter now dumps them in the Tigris and then throws Barbakan into the river as well under the usual mistaken assumption. When the porter and the wife get into a spat, this vigorous chap decides to drown the wife as well, but meets a fisherman carrying one of the three bodies back. The porter then confesses everything and ends up before the Caliph telling how the little crump came back to life and had to be carried a second time. A triplicate resurrection follows – all the brothers are back – and now the identity stunt is repeated in which the wife must correctly choose her husband from the three of them as each makes the claim for himself. This idea too may have derived from Straparola’s ‘The Three Brothers’ (VII.5) in which it is to be decided which of the three merited marriage to the princess in whose rescue all three had played crucial parts. Matters are settled only when the wise Caliph declares that the real Barbakan would be bastinadoed, at which point the other two sell him out. With this story, we may have come to the limits of Straparola’s direct influence upon the tradition of the three hunchbacks, but the story type by other channels enjoyed widespread circulation in both oral and written form.59

One oral version was collected by Giuseppe Pitrè in Sicily.60 The hunchback now has a pretty daughter, and while he is away, he tells his wife to give her anything she wants. She asks for her father, so the mother brings in first one minstrel hunchback, then a second and a third to play the part, each one charming and amusing the little girl until alarm sends them into hiding. The order of the narrative is replayed with bare precision, having been pared down to an efficient formula. Imbriani collects two versions in his Novellaja milanese.61 Pitrè found another in Tuscany, in which the wife goes to the well where the monks pester her.62 These are lured to the house by a promise of supper and sex. One is hidden in the chimney and there burned by the husband. Another ends up in a wardrobe; his throat is cut. The third dies in a grain bin. A man comes, puts them in sacks and throws them into a whirlpool. This porter, too, swears and complains. It is all pretty murderous and matter-of-fact business. He too is paid for a job well done. Finamore found another version in the Abruzzi.63 Salvatore Bongi includes ‘Gobbi’ (hunchbacks) in his Lettere.64 And this has merely scratched the surface.65

The most compelling evidence for the wide geographical spread of this tale is a story, remarkable in its affinities, from faraway Vietnam. Four bonzes (Buddhist priests) are killed in a hostel and the elderly owner, to avoid accusations, is eager to dispose of the bodies in secret. Three of the bodies she hides, and the fourth, whom she calls her nephew, a passing monk is hired to bury. By the time he returns for his pay, she has produced another body, saying that her nephew is so attached to her that he doesn’t want to leave; he must be buried deeper in the ground. After all four are disposed of, the porter-monk is so obsessed with the ‘returning’ nephew that when he sees another monk on a bridge, he draws conclusions and kicks him into the river. This time five bodies are buried for the price of one and the story has been stripped back to its central conceit. But it is the same anecdote and clearly a member of the unit, having traveled afar in the brains of sequential raconteurs, all of them ‘infected’ with the story schema. The Annamites to whom it belongs originated in Tibet and migrated into the peninsula through China, centuries back, carving out a state for themselves between the north (Tonkin) and the south (Cochinchina) by warring with the Khmer.66 For how long has it been one of their stories? Is it a Western tale, carried stepwise so far away? When did it make its breakaway from the tradition that inspired Straparola, for the stories are kissing cousins, or little islands once part of a main in the great ocean of stories?

The Fifth Night

V. Fable 1Guerrino and the Wild Man of the Woods