Italian Folktales Read Online Free Page A

as
Testa di Bufala
(“Buffalo Head”) which simply clamors for ethnological interpretation. There were also tales that appear strangely modern and “invented,” like
La novellina delle scimmie
(“The Little Tale of the Monkeys”) but a great many of the stories have the same themes and plots as popular poems (going back to the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries) and as the
Arabian Nights
; these (with only the settings transposed) are so faithful to the French eighteenth-century translation by Galland (allowing for an adaptation to suit Western taste) as to exclude the possibility of influences stemming from long ago, via who knows what oral paths from the Orient. These were unquestionably directly plucked from literature and transposed into folklore quite recently. Thus, when the widowed Luisa Ginanni repeats from beginning to end the plot of Boccaccio’s
Andreuccio da Perugia
, I believe that it derives not from the popular tradition that was the source of Boccaccio’s story, but from a direct version in dialect of the most picaresque story in the
Decameron
.
    Thus, with Boccaccio, we come close to defining the spirit in which Pistoia country people told stories. It would appear that in this region the link has been established (or that Nerucci perceived it) between a
fiaba
(fairy tale) and a
novella
(short story); the transition between the narrative of magic and the narrative of fortune or individual bravery has been pinpointed. The tale of magic flows smoothly into a mundane, “bourgeois” story, short story or novel of adventure, or tear-jerking account of a damsel in distress. Let us take, for example,
Il figliuolo del mercante di Milano
(“The Son of the Merchant of Milan”) which belongs to a very old and obscure type of folktale: the youth who draws from his adventures—always the same, in which a dog, poisoned food, birds play a role—a riddle in nonsense rhyme. He puts it to a princess who is reputed to be a riddle-solver, and thus wins her hand. In Montale, the hero is not the usual predestined character, but a young man of initiative, ready to run risks; he knows how to capitalize on his winnings and profit from his losses. The proof is that—and it is very odd behavior in a fairy-tale hero—instead of marrying the princess, he releases her from all obligation to him in exchange for economic gain. This happens not just once, but twice in succession: the first time in exchange for a magic object (more exactly, the permission to win it himself), and the second, even more practical, in exchange for a steady income. The supernatural origin of Menichino’s success is quite overshadowed by his true native ability to make the most of these magic powers and retain all profits for himself. But Menichino’s outstanding trait is sincerity, the ability to win people’s trust: the hallmark of a businessman.
    Nerucci’s favorite storyteller is the widow Luisa Ginanni. Of all the Montale storytellers, she knows the greatest number (three-quarters of the collection originate with her); often her imagery is quite striking, but there is no great difference between her voice and that of others. In a style full of verbal invention Nerucci intended to show us the richness of the unusual vernacular that results when the people of Montale speak in Italian—a harsh, mangled, violent Tuscan. Whereas with most of the other texts my task was somehow to enhance the stylistic color, with Nerucci’s my rewriting had to tone it down; there were, consequently, unavoidable losses.
    Rewriting Tuscan texts from a vernacular not so different from current Italian was for me a difficult task. The odds were stacked against me. And the hardest ones—for the simple reason that they are the most beautiful and already have a distinct style—were those fifteen or so tales I singled out from Nerucci. (On the other hand, in the case of the Sicilian texts from