Italian Folktales Read Online Free PDF

Middle Ages.
    At a certain point this amalgam blends with yet another, a wave of images and transfigurations of oriental origin which had spread from the south when contacts with and threats from the Saracens and Turks were at their height. In the numerous sea stories I have included, the reader will see how the notion of the world divided between Christian and Muslim takes the place of the arbitrary geography of the folktale. The folktale clothes its motifs in the habits of diverse societies. In the West the imprint of feudalism prevailed (notwithstanding certain nineteenth-century touches in the south such as an English lord) while in the Orient the bourgeois folktale of the fortunes of Aladdin or of Ali Baba dominated.
    One of the few folktales, perhaps—according to Stith Thompson the only one—that can be considered of “probable Italian origin,” is that of the love of three oranges (as in Gozzi) or of the three lemons (as in Basile) or of the three pomegranates (as in the version I chose). The tale abounds in metamorphoses in baroque (or Persian?) taste altogether worthy of Basile’s inventive powers or of those of a visionary weaver of rugs. It consists of a series of metaphors strung into a story—ricotta and blood, fruit and girl; a Saracen woman who looks at her image in a well, a girl in a tree who turns into a dove, the dove’s drops of blood from which a tree suddenly grows and, completing the circle, the fruit out of which the girl emerges. I should like to have given this folktale greater prominence but having examined numerous popular versions I did not find one that could be considered the frame story. I have included two versions, one (no. 107) integrated with some others is from Abruzzi and represents the most classic form of the tale, the other (no. 8) is a curious variation from Liguria. However, I must say in this instance, Basile is unrivaled and I refer the reader to his tale, the last in the
Pentamerone
.
    In this very mysterious story of transformations, with its precise rhythm, its joyous logic at work, I think I perceive a characteristic of the popular elaboration of the Italian folktale. There is a genuine feeling for beauty in the communions or metamorphoses of woman and fruit, of woman and plant in the two beautiful companion pieces of the
Ragazza mela
(“Apple Girl”) from Florence (no. 85) and the
Rosmarina
(“Rosemary”) from Palermo (no. 161). The secret lies in the metaphorical link: the image of the freshness of the apple and of the girl or of the pears beneath which the girl is hidden in order to increase the weight of the basket (no. 11) in the story “The Little Girl Sold with the Pears.”
    The natural cruelties of the folktale give way to the rules of harmony. The continuous flow of blood that characterizes the Grimms’ brutal tales is absent. The Italian folktale seldom displays unbearable ferocity. Although the notion of cruelty persists along with an injustice bordering on inhumanity as part of the constant stuff of stories, although the woods forever echo with the weeping of maidens or of forsaken brides with severed hands, gory ferocity is never gratuitous; the narrative does not dwell on the torment of the victim, not even under pretense of pity, but moves swiftly to a healing solution, a part of which is a quick and pitiless punishment of the malefactor—or more often the malefactress—to be tarred and burned in the grim tradition of witches’ pyres, or, as in Sicily, being thrown from a window and then burned.
    A continuous quiver of love runs through Italian folklore. In speaking of the Sicilian tales, I mentioned the popularity of the Cupid and Psyche type found not only in Sicily but also in Tuscany and more or less everywhere. The supernatural bridegroom is joined in an underground dwelling. Neither his name nor his secret must be divulged lest he vanish. A lover is produced by sorcery from a basin of milk;