The Collected Sicilian Folk and Fairy Tales of Giuseppe Pitré

Jack Zipes, Joseph Russo, Jack Zipes, Joseph Russo

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN:
  9780415980319
• eBook ISBN:
  9781136094422
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Media Studies
• Index: Literature

This is volume 2 of a two-volume set that collects 300 of the most entertaining and important folk and fairy tales of Giuseppe Pitré, a nineteenth century Sicilian folklorist whose significance ranks alongside the Brothers Grimm. In stark contrast to the more literary ambitions of the Grimms' tales, Pitré's possess a charming, earthy quality that reflect the customs, beliefs, and superstitions of the common people more clearly than any other European folklore collection of the 19th century. Edited, translated, and with a critical introduction by world-renowned folk and fairy tale experts Jack Zipes and Joseph Russo, this is the first collection of Pitré's tales available in English. Carmelo Letterer's illustrations throughout the volume are as lively and vivid as the stories themselves, illuminating the remarkable imagination captured in the tales.

Endnotes

These notes, including the variants of the tales, are based on material that we have gathered from the following works:

Aarne, Antti and Stith Thompson. The Types of the Folktale: A Classification and aBibliography. 2nd rev. ed. FF Communications No. 3. Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1961.

Pitrè, Giuseppe. Fiabe, novelle e racconti populari siciliani. 4 vols. Palermo: L. Pedone Lauriel, 1875.

Uther, Hans-Jörg. The Types of International Folktales: A Classification and aBibliography. 3 vols. Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 2004.

Zipes, Jack, ed. The Great Fairy Tale Tradition: From Straparola and Basile to the BrothersGrimm. New York: Norton, 2001.

—— , ed. Beautiful Angiola: The Great Treasury of Sicilian Folk and Fairy Tales Collected by Laura Gonxenbach. New York: Routledge, 2004.

—— , ed. The Robber with a Witch’s Head: More Stories from The Great Treasury ofSicilian Folk and Fairy Tales Collected by Laura Gonxenbach. New York: Routledge, 2005.

Most of our comments are based on Pitrè’s own notes and different versions of the tales. We have generally kept the references to various tales and collections in the original language, with some exceptions. Whenever the name of a folklorist, collector, or scholar is recorded in the notes without mention of the work, the work can be found listed in the bibliography which follows the notes.

Each tale title is accompanied with the Sicilian title and designated number in Pitre’s original compilation. The titles are followed by the tale-type classification in Uther’s revision and expansion of Aarne and Thompson, The Typesof International Folktales as a helpful reference. In some cases there is no tale-type classification because many of the tales are particular to Sicily.

1. The Tale Told Time and Again—Lu cuntu di “Si raccunta”

This tale was placed at the beginning of Pitrè’s collection because it repre sented his perspective on storytelling. To tell a tale, he believed, brings about a sense of empowerment, and one needs to have imagination and originality to tell a tale anew. We have not found any other versions of this tale type outside of Sicily, and this may be another reason why Pitrè included it as the first in his collection. It could perhaps be categorized under the Tale Type ATU 2300—Endless Tales.

Pitrè published another version of this tale from Cianciana told by Rosario Diliberto, who worked in the sulfur mines; it was transcribed by Gaetano Di Giovanni.

The Retold Tale (Lu si raccunta)

I’ve heard tell that there was once a poor father who possessed just one ass to his name. This father also had three sons and made out a will. He gave the ass to the eldest son, the pack saddle to the second, and the harness to the third. The son who received the ass went to a village to sell the ass. There was a merchant sitting by a window, and when he saw the peasant pass by, he asked him who owned the ass.

“It’s yours, if you want to buy it,” the young man replied.

“Yes, your excellency. But let’s make a bet,” the merchant said to him. “You bet your ass, and I’ll bet my shop. If you can tell a tale without saying ‘I’ve heard tell,’ you’ll win the shop. If you say ‘I’ve heard tell,’ you lose the ass.”

“All right,” the peasant said and accepted the bet.

“How much time do you need to tell the tale?” the merchant asked. “I need three days,” the peasant replied.

Three days passed, and the merchant said, “Tell your tale.”

The peasant agreed and said, “I’m ready.”

“Begin.”

“I’ve heard tell,” said the peasant.

“You’ve lost,” the merchant said. “Remember, the bet was that you had to tell a tale without saying ‘I’ve heard tell.’ ”

“Well then, I’ve lost,” admitted the peasant.

So he left the ass there and departed. When he returned to his village, he went to his brothers and said, “I was at Calamonci. I wanted to sell the ass and found a merchant sitting by a window. He told me that he wanted to buy the ass, but then he said he wanted to make a bet. I lost the bet and had to give him the ass.”

After hearing this story, the brother who had the saddle got up and went to the same village to sell the saddle to the same merchant. They made the same bet, and the brother lost the saddle. Now the brother who had the harness went to the same merchant to sell it, and he made the same bet—the harness or the shop.

“How much time do you need?”

“Twenty-four hours,” the peasant replied.

Twenty-four hours passed, and the merchant called to him and said, “Look, it’s time for you to tell your tale.”

“I’m ready,” he said and began to tell this tale,

“My mother had a hen that laid twenty-one eggs, and among the twenty-one eggs, she discovered a little chick. This little chick sang and said, ‘Get out, merchant, because this shop is mine.’ ”

The peasant won the bet and took over the merchant’s shop.

It is clear in this tale that the teller knew a version of “The Tale That’s Been Told Time and Again,” and that the chick is similar to the promissory note which the girl had found in the chick’s feathers.

2. The Parrot with Three Tales to Tell—Lu pappagaddu chi cunta tri cunt

Tale Type ATU 1422—Parrot Reports Wife’s Adultery

After the introductory tale that comments cleverly on the power of storytelling, Pitrè had good reason to place this tale second. It is a text of remarkable structure and complexity: the frame tale encloses three internal tales (told by the parrot), which narrate the continuing adventures of the same heroine. It is tempting to see a connection between the internal tales and the main tale. The bold heroine of the parrot’s tales, who excels in liberating trapped women, may be seen as offering subtle encouragement to the imprisoned merchant’s wife to liberate herself from her oppressive enclosure and possessive husband. But, the tale’s morality is as complex as its structure. We cannot help cheering for the parrot as a moral force, protector of the wife against seduction (and we, along with the good wife, are ourselves seduced by his storytelling power). But once we have embraced the parrot as our hero, to what extent should we endorse his final performance as unpunished murderer and successful seducer?

This rich narrative is all the more impressive for being oral and not written literature, a text told to Pitrè by his best informant, the non-literate seamstress Agatuzza Messia. The parrot’s repeated phrase, “Stay here and I’ll tell you a story,” becomes emblematic of the power of oral storytelling to seduce, entertain, and support us. The frame-tale format is characteristic of Eastern narrative traditions, the most familiar example being the Scheherazade frame-tale in The Thousand and One Nights. This specific tale has a clear prototype in classical Sanskrit literature, recently made available in A. D. N. Haskar’s Shuka Saptati: Seventy Tales of the Parrot (2001). Although containing a much larger series of tales, this text offers the striking similarity that the parrot tells his tales to protect a housebound woman from seduction by outsiders. One can only wonder at the channels by which key features of this Sanskrit tale, originating in the fifteenth century, found their way into Sicilian oral tradition.

Pitrè noted thematic similarities with “The King of Spain’s Daughters”; a similar opening to “Gréttula-Beddéttula”; and similarities between the gentleman’s encounter with the old woman and themes in “Erbabianca,” “Child Margarita,” and other tales in his collection. He also saw a distant connection between the third tale and Basile’s “Verde prato,” Lo cunto de li cunti, as well as with Imbriani’s “El Pegorée,” La novellaja milanese, which have the theme of curing a sick prince or princess. Pitrè mentioned a Palermitan version, “Donna Viulanti,” which has the same three internal tales with the one significant difference that the magical figure is a seven-headed serpent, transformed by night into a handsome youth and killed when seven hunters simultaneously shoot his seven heads. Pitrè knew the three internal tales as existing independently with the following titles: (1) “The Story of the King who Went Hunting,” from Salaparuta; (2) “The Ailing Princess,” from Capaci; (3) “If the Doll Is so Beautiful, Imagine the Owner!” from Trapani.

He also knew a version from Salaparuta, “Lu frati e la soru” (“The Brother and the Sister”), which he called “superior” and summarized as follows.

The Brother and the Sister

A brother and sister went hunting, and in the thickest part of the forest the sister became lost. Not knowing how to escape, alone and in despair, she threw herself on to the ground and fell asleep. A young prince passed by and was struck by her beauty. After covering her face with a handkerchief, he continued his hunt, intending to return when she awoke and to take her with him. But an old man happened to pass by, took pity on her, and brought her to his house, where his wife took just as kindly to her as he did. The old couple had a daughter who was mute, and the girl shared this daughter’s bedroom.

That night, a handsome youth appeared, used a key to open the mute girl’s mouth, and took delight in conversing with her. The other girl saw it all, but pretended to be asleep, even when the youth tried to test her by dripping a drop of hot wax from his candle on her cheek. The next day the girl asked the old couple for a reward if she could restore their mute daughter’s speech. That night, when the youth appeared, she snatched away the key that caused the enchantment and ran off shouting, “Help! I’m scared!”

The servants and the old couple came running, and the youth hid himself in a chest of drawers that was in the room. When they found the daughter safe and sound and cured of her muteness, they burned the chest of drawers and rewarded the virtuous young maiden. The fame of this deed was spread around the world and finally reached Naples, where the king had a daughter so sick that there was no hope for her cure. Therefore, he asked to have the services of the brave young maiden for a few days. As soon as she arrived, she asked to be left alone with the sick girl, whose violent convulsions caused her to hit her head against the wall. That night a gust of wind extinguished the lamp. Seeking to re-kindle it, the girl went off toward an illuminated room she saw in the distance. There she found a sorcerer who had a cauldron boiling over a great fire. When she realized what was happening, she went and pushed the cauldron so that it spilled over both the sorcerer and the fire. When he was dead, she returned to the princess and found her in a de...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Photo
• Full Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• III. Legends and Ghost Stories
• IV. Proverbial Tales
• V. Brief Tales, Fables, and Animal Stories
• Endnotes
• Bibliography
• A–Z List of the Tales
• Index