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239

Imbriani,Vittorio. La Novellaja Fiorentina, Fiabe e Novelle stenografate in Firenze dal dettato popolare, ristampa accresciuta di molte novelle inedite....nelle quali e accolta integralmente La Novellaja Milanese. Livorno, 1877. Pp. 183-190. No. XIII.

"IL LUCCIO"
(The Pike).

ABSTRACT

Ill-treated heroine (by step-mother)--King sees heroine and step-sister weaving and winding; pays compliments to former- Old woman aid--Heroine sent to fairies for sieve; does their bidding politely; chooses poorest gifts and gets richest turns; turns when cock crows and gets star on brow --Step-sister offends fairies; breaks glass stair; gets worst gifts; turns when ass brays, and gets ass-tail on brow--Menial heroine-- Helpful animal (pike)--Heroine saves pike and puts it in fountain -- Happy marriage--Pike removed to lake--Step-mother drives with kingand bride in iron carriage--Heroine's eyes torn out--Step-mother puts her under tub; substitutes own daughter--False bride-- Animal witness (cats)--Heroine discovered under tub by servants; pike restores her eyes--Villain Nemesis. Step-mother and step-sister locked up in tub--Pike removed to heroine's garden; kept in glass case after its death.

TABULATION

(1) Widow with one daughter marries widower with extremely beautiful daughter. One day, his Majesty passing window, sees lovely girl. One girl is weaving, the other making reels of silk. King enters house, and wants to see cloth. Every day, at the same hour, he comes and says to the beauty, "Good day and good year to her who weaves", and adds, "Good day to her who makes reels." Stepmother, who is jealous for her own daughter, sets her to weave, and the other girl to make reels. King then says, "Good day to her who weaves; good day and good year to her who makes reels."-- (2) Then mother sends heroine to fairies for a sieve. On the way she meets old woman, who tells her she has to pass through dangers; explains to her which house it is; tells her to be very careful not to break stairs, which are of glass, and that she will have to search fairies' heads, and whatever she finds, must only say, "Pearls and diamonds." Then she will ask for sieve. They will take her into room full of ugly and pretty hats, and ugly and pretty dresses, and will ask which she would like. She must choose the ugliest of each. When she is leaving, they will tell her not to turn when ass brays, but when she hears chicchericu.-- (3) Heroine follows these instructions. She chooses worst hat and dress, and gets the best. Fairies give her sieve, and start her. She turns when cock crows, and gets star in middle of her head. Step-mother tries to tear it off; but it grows the larger and brighter.-- (4) She sends her own daughter fur the sieve. Girl meets same old woman, who gives exactly the same instructions. Stepsister reaches fairies' house; breaks glass stair; insults fairies when searching their heads; chooses best hat and dress, and gets worst; is told not to turn when cock crows, hut when ass brays does so, and gets ass-tail on brow. The more mother cuts it, the longer it grows.-- (5) Stepmother sends heroine on menial errands; tires her jot, and ill-treats her, hoping she will die. She is sent to buy some pike. One of them says, when she is about to kill it: "Don't kill me! Throw me into the fountain!" Heroine takes it to fountain in garden.-- (6) King comes every day to look at heroine, and one day tells stepmother that, whether she will or no, he means to marry her. He will have to go on a journey of many months after he has given the ring. Stepmother says he must order a carriage of iron, so that heroine, who is delicate, shall not fall ill through exposure during the journey. King orders such a carriage, and it is ready. -- (7) After the wedding, when they go to palace for refreshments, heroine re members the pike, and runs to the fountain, calls it, and says good-bye. Pike bids her take it thence, and throw it into lake. She does so, and returns to king.-- (8) Stepmother hides own daughter under a tub; then tells heroine that when they have driven a little way, she must say she wants to get down for a moment. They leave the palace. Heroine says she wants to alight, and king has carriage stopped. Stepmother gets out too, takes heroine to the tub, tears out her eyes, lifts up tub, puts her inside,¹ and gives the eyes into her hand, saying, "Here, put them in your pocket." She takes ugly daughter, who was under tub, and puts her in the carriage. She is scarcely inside, when all the cats behind carriage begin:

"Miaou, miaou, miaou!
Poor Beauty is in the tub now.
The ugly girl rides in the carriage;
The devil has got her in marriage."

King says, "Go with the cats, and see what is under the tub." Mother will not.-- (9) Servants go, raise the tub, and find poor heroine with her eyes out. She asks servants to lead her to the Stream that she may wash the eyes there. Pike says: "Wash yourself thus, and put your eye in its place; now do the same to the other side, and your sight will be restored." Her eyes are all right. Pike says: "When you turn back, take those two apes, your Step-mother and stepsister, and, at my order, have them put into the tub, and let no one come to their aid. Then return and fetch me, and, when you get home, put me in the fountain in your garden." Heroine returns to carriage. Prince is surprised to see the servants returning with the bride herself and remarks, "One bride in the carriage, and one in the road?" heroine says, "Before I get in, grant me a favour, your Majesty, have those two wicked women taken, and pot under the tub where they left me; I can have nothing to do with you else."-- (10) They are put in the tub, which is closed with pad lock that none may rescue them. Heroine fetches pike, enters carriage, and off they go. King understands now why cunning stepmother insisted on iron carriage. Had it been of glass he would have seen that she wanted to palm off her own daughter. They reach palace, amid rejoicings of the people.-- (11) Heroine puts pike in fountain, and every day goes to talk with it. When, after some years, it dies, she puts it under glass shade, surrounds it with precious stones, and keeps it in the best room.

NOTES

1: See Note 41.

Note 41

(P. 256.) Compare No. 281, in which also the stepmother tears out the heroine's eyes. The same incident is met with in Bibl. de las Trad. pop. Espanolas, i, 137; Comparetti, No. 25; Cosquin, ii, 42, "Marie de la Chaume du Bois"; Gubernatis, Sto. Stefano, No. 13; Zool. Myth., i, 218; Hahn, No. 28; Maspons y Labros, Lo Rondallayre, iii, 114; Pitré, Fiabe Nov. e race. pop. Sic., No. 62; Nuovo Saggio, No. 6; Rivière, p. 51; Wenzig, p. 45.

The heroine is hidden under a tub, or trough, and the false bride presented, in Nos. 21, 54, 88, 127, 239, 241, 249; in Nos. 7, 24, 34, 229, 236, 237, 240, the stepmother puts her in a tub with the intention of boiling her; but such fate befalls her own daughter instead. Compare the following:--S .African F.-L. Journal, I, vi, 138; Coelho, No. 36; Comparetti, No. 31; Cosquin, i, 255, "La Laide et la Belle"; Dasent, p. 125, "Buttercup"; F.-L. Journal, iii, 296; vi, 199; Grimm, No. 9; Nerucci, No. 5. Thor and Tew are hidden under the cauldron in the hall of the giant Hymi ("Hymis-Kvida," Corpus P. Bor., i, 225).
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Cox, Marian Roalfe. Cinderella: Three Hundred and Forty-five Variants of Cinderella, Catskin, and Cap O' Rushes, abstracted and tabulated. London: David Nutt for the Folklore Society, 1893.

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