The bird said, “Listen, stick your hand in the spring. Pull out two crystal balls, blow your warm breath on them, and they’ll return to their human form.” In this way she made them flesh and blood again, and I’ll tell you their names. One of the brothers was Bamán; the other, Párvis. And all three rode home on the mule.
When they had planted the boughs in the garden and put the birdcage there, they dug a little hole and poured in the water. The king and the queen were called, as well as the queen’s two sisters. “What a beautiful garden!” said the king. “Just what we wanted!” said the queen. Then the bird turned to the two sisters, who were the baker’s wife and the steward’s wife, and said, “I hear you throw away other people’s children,” and before the bird could say more, the sisters backed off and kept going till they were out of the garden.
Meanwhile the king was saying, “Show me around this garden!” The gardener’s wife thought, “Good heavens! Unexpected company! What can we possibly serve the king?” But the bird told her, “Look on the other side of the orchard. See what you find.” Nestled among the roots of the last tree were two little squashes. “And whatever will I do with these?” asked the poor woman. “With these you’ll please the king,” said the bird.
When the gardener and the king had made the rounds, and the king had had his fill of admiring the talking bird, the dancing tree, and the leaping waters, they all sat down to the table, and the king cut into the squashes. Out came pearls, pouring all over the table. The king was amazed. “Squashes full of pearls! I’ve never seen anything like it!”
“Squashes with pearls surprise you,” said the bird. “But you weren’t surprised when your wife gave birth to a dog, a cat, and a stick of wood.”
“What!” cried the king. “Tell more!”
The bird told all. Then finally it said, “Here are your three children, right before your eyes.” The king embraced them and took all three into the palace, together with the gardener and the gardener’s wife, and gave them much better jobs than the ones they’d had before. Then he issued an order for his two sisters-in-law to be rounded up and sent to the firing squad.
It’s what they deserved, isn’t it?
Colombia
33. The Count and the Queen
The count and his dear sister, the countess, lived together in town. One Sunday when the count went to Mass he fell head over heels for the wife of the king and wanted nothing but to be alone with her. Since it wasn’t possible, he came home in a gloomy mood. His sister questioned him, “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing you can help me with,” he said. Then he called an old woman and gave her a letter to carry to the queen.
When the queen read the message and understood it, she smudged the old woman’s face with charcoal and tied a flagstone to her back. The count saw the woman returning and said, “How did it go?”
“Oh, she was horrible to me! Just look at my face and this load on my back!”
At that moment the count’s sister came into the room and said to her brother, “May I be your interpreter? The queen’s answer is favorable. The black marks on the face mean she wants you to come at night, and the stone signifies that you are to come in through the window.”
So! The king would be away. And the count was off to the playing field. His sister advised him to stay only until midnight, then return. He followed her instructions.
The next night he went back but overstayed. At six in the morning he was still asleep in the queen’s bed. When the king came in and saw a man with his wife, he sent his servant after a priest to confess the two of them so he could have them put to death.
As the servant was hurrying along the street, who should be standing there but the sister of the count. She asked, “Where are you headed?” And from the servant she learned the truth, that the king had caught the queen with her dear brother. She said, “I’m going to give you this moneybag. You let me be the one to go for the priest.”
So the count’s sister went and told the priest the whole story. And the priest, not one to be judgmental, loaned her his cassock.
Dressed as the priest, she presented herself to the king and asked, “What’s this I hear?” And when the king had filled in the details, the count’s sister said to him, “Leave it to me. I’ll confess them.”
She went into the room, rousted her brother, and made him put on the priest’s cassock. Through the closed door she called to the king, “You can come in now. There’s been a mistake. Your wife wasn’t with a man but a woman!” The king entered the room and took a look for himself. He wasn’t completely satisfied. He said to the queen, “Tomorrow in church you must swear in the name of God, before a priest and before your husband, that no man has touched you but me.”
The next day, early, they made their way to church for the queen to take her oath. Meanwhile the count found a poor shepherd and paid him well for the loan of his clothing. Then, dressed as a shepherd, the count stood alongside the roadway, and about thirty minutes later the royal carriage came by. The queen insisted on stopping a moment. She got out of the carriage easily, but when she tried to climb back up she couldn’t quite manage. The shepherd came forward and said, “Young lady, I’ll hold your foot so you can get back in.” Then off they rode to the church.
When they got there, the king explained to the priest what was wanted, and the priest said to the queen, “Do you swear before God, the church, and the king, that no man has touched you but your husband?”
The queen replied, “Yes, I swear before God, before the church, before this priest, and before my king that no man has touched me but my husband and the poor shepherd who held my foot when I climbed into my carriage. No other men have I known, so help me God.”
Colorado / Félix Serna
PART FOUR
34. Crystal the Wise
Listen and learn it, learn to tell it, and tell it to teach it; if any can’t learn it they’ll buy it if any can sell it. The shoe fits, yes? No? Ouch! It pinches my toe.
There was once a gentleman who had quite a daughter. Her godmother had been a fortune-teller and had given her a little slipper that knew all and told all whenever it was asked a question, though it spoke only to the goddaughter and wouldn’t tell anybody else a thing.
The gentleman was rich beyond words. He hired private teachers so his daughter could learn foreign languages, history, and Castilian. But she knew more than they did just by talking to the slipper. They couldn’t think what to teach her. She was quicker at history and all the rest than the people who had invented those subjects. And arithmetic? She knew more about it than her father’s own cashier. In a trice she could add up the household accounts. The whole world marveled at what she knew.
People who couldn’t learn anything from teachers came to her, she explained it, and they went away knowing it. Since she made no charge, naturally she had lots of students. They called her Crystal, and the name suited her well because her mind was like a crystal ball.
Word of this young wisewoman reached the ears of a king who had a son and daughter, and he summoned the young woman’s father for a talk.
“Greetings to you, sir.”
“Greetings, Sacred Crown. At your service.”
“Good sir, could you lend me your daughter for a couple of months? They tell me she’s a genius, and I have a son and a daughter in need of instruction. My son is a young man already and a good student, but the girl is lagging behind. If your daughter could go over her lessons with her, she might learn more than she’s learning from her tutors.”
“At your command, Sacred Crown. Ready to serve you.” And when the gentleman returned to his daughter and explained what the king wanted, she said, “Very well.”
Off she went to the palace, where the king, the queen, and the princess greeted her warmly. But the prince looked down his nose. He himself had offered to go over his little sister’s lessons, and the king had said to him, “Someone else can do a better job than you.”
So the instr
uction began, and the king and the queen were delighted with the results. The princess for a change seemed to understand her lessons.
One day while Crystal was with the princess, the prince came into the room and sat down. Immediately he objected to the manner of instruction and said so. They had a heated argument. And from then on, day after day, the prince interrupted the lesson and contradicted the teacher.
Once when Crystal and the princess were having tea in the princess’s room, the prince came in and started his usual nagging. “That’s no way to teach. That’s not how I learned it.” And on and on, until finally the teacher threw down her teacup and gave the prince a slap on the face. He got up and left the room without a word.
Time passed and the princess mastered her lessons. Her parents were well pleased and offered to pay for the instruction. But Crystal refused, saying it had been an honor for her to be the teacher of a princess.
Then a strange thing happened. The prince, who had never come again to taunt the teacher, told his father he wanted to marry Crystal in order, as he put it, to pay back a debt. The king, who knew nothing of the incident, imagined that the prince had attended the classes as a dutiful student and was simply filled with gratitude. Since the young teacher’s father was a gentleman of high standing, the king gave his permission and the marriage was celebrated with all the festivities.
The prince had made arrangements for a cottage on the palace grounds to be fixed up as a retreat where he and his new wife could settle comfortably. And on their wedding night, when all the guests had gone to bed, he came into the room where his bride was getting into her nightclothes and said, “Crystal, do you remember the slap you gave me? Are you ready to apologize?”
“Apologize? I wouldn’t dream of it. In fact I’ll give you another if you keep on like this.”
At that he flew into a rage and shoved her into a corner of the room where there was a trapdoor, which he pulled open, saying, “Since you won’t repent, off to the underworld!” He pushed her down a staircase and locked her up in a cell he had prepared for just that purpose. She made no complaint and spent the night sitting upright in a little chair.
In the morning the prince came back and asked if she was ready to say she was sorry. Again she said no. To deceive the king and Crystal’s father, the prince sent a carriage off at daybreak carrying a maidservant dressed in the bride’s clothes, while he himself rode alongside on a horse as if accompanying her. He let it be known that they would be spending time at a friend’s place in the country.
He was determined to keep his bride locked up until she relented. But as she would not, he became more and more enraged. Every night he would open the trapdoor and call downstairs, “Aren’t you sorry?” And every night she would give the same answer. Her prison cell was wearisome, but nothing could move her to ask his forgiveness.
One day she noticed that a mouse had gnawed a hole in the floor boards. Bending over for a closer look, she heard rushing water. An underground stream flowed directly beneath the floor. With a table knife that had been left in the cell she enlarged the opening and saw that the stream was quite deep and that daylight appeared not far in the distance. Slipping into the water, she swam out into the open, then ran home to her father, who all this time had thought she was vacationing in the country.
When she had told him everything, he was as angry as you can imagine and was about to go storming off to the king. But she said, “Keep quiet. Just send me decent food, and I’ll let you know if I need anything else.”
“As you wish,” he said, and under the king’s very nose he had the underground stream diverted so he could go visit his daughter, who meanwhile had returned to her cell without being missed. The prince only opened the trapdoor at night and never went down the stairs; he just lowered her meals in a basket tied to a string. So he had no idea what she was up to.
One day, after shouting down the stairs, “Do you repent?” and receiving her usual answer, “Never!” the prince added, “I’ll be in Paris for a while, enjoying myself, and while I’m gone a servant will lower your food.” She replied, “That’s perfect. Have a good time and don’t get into trouble.” Exasperated, he slammed the trapdoor with his foot and went on his way.
Meanwhile she crept out of her cell, ran home to her father, and told him she needed lots of money and a special sleeping coach to get her to Paris nonstop. By the time the prince arrived, after dallying along the route, she was already installed in a magnificent palace across the street from the very palace the king of Paris had rented to the prince himself.
Every day she swung out in a coach drawn by four horses. The prince, who also took rides, noticed her and was struck by how much she looked like his wife.
He started off by greeting her. Soon he was stopping to talk. In no time he was paying her visits, asking her if she was married. She said no. Smitten, he asked her to be his wife. She said yes, and they had a wedding.
Nine months later she gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl. She decided to name them Paris and Frances. And so that’s what they were called.
After three years of marriage, the prince broke the news that he had gotten a telegram calling him home. His father, the king, had dropped dead. Crystal wanted to go, too. “Not yet,” he said. “I need time to calm my mother’s nerves.” But she managed to have him sign two declarations, one for each child, stating that they were his own and would be his heirs.
Then off he went. But the truth is that the prince had written home to say that his wife had died in childbirth, and the king, who was alive and perfectly well, had written back saying, “Come at once. I’ve found the ideal bride for you. And no dallying. The bride’s father, who is the king of Spain, insists that she be married immediately.”
Need it be said, Crystal had her suspicions. She and her two children boarded the night train and got home ahead of the prince, who was delayed choosing gifts for his new bride. She went straight to her father’s house, having sent him a telegram the day before, so that he would expect her.
When the prince arrived, he called the servant that had been paid to lower the food every day. In fact the servant had pocketed the money and never opened the trapdoor once. He said to the prince, “She died of a broken heart not long ago, and I nailed the door shut so no one will ever find her.”
Completely satisfied with this report, the prince got ready for his wedding. As it happened, the king of Spain’s daughter was no beauty, but she was young and as rich as you could ever wish. Besides, she struck the prince as timid, and he thought, “Now here’s one that won’t cross me.”
When the prince and his bride entered the cathedral, which was all lit up for the wedding, he was taken aback at the sight of a lady dressed in white, heavily veiled, and at her side two little children, also veiled. Suddenly the lady came forward, and as she stood in front of the prince she dropped her veil, and there was Crystal dressed like a queen, wearing a diamond tiara. The children, likewise, dropped their veils, and there they were: Paris and Frances, waving papers that turned out to be the declarations the prince had signed.
The children rushed at him, shouting, “Papa!” And the prince, dazzled by his wife’s beauty, fell on his knees and begged her forgiveness, confessing to all his crimes. Everybody clapped their hands and cried, “Cheers!” to the prince, his wife, and their two little heirs. And the poor Spanish princess, mad as could be, just stood there with no husband and no kingdom.
My tale is done, and the wind blows it off.
Chile / Carmen Rivera
35. Love Like Salt
A king who had three daughters called them to his side and asked each one how much she loved him. The eldest replied that her love for her father was more than all the world’s gold. The king then turned to his second daughter, who declared that her love was as precious to her as all the necklaces, rings, bracelets, and dresses in her wardrobe. Then he turned to the youngest, who said, “Father, I love you as dearly as I love salt.”
Hearing th
is, the king was filled with rage and vowed to have his daughter put to death. She wept. She begged him to change his mind. But the king was convinced that he had been mortally insulted and paid no attention to her pleading. Instead, he ordered one of his servants to take her directly to the woods and bring back only her eyes and her little finger.
When the princess got to the woods with the servant, she pleaded for her life. She promised to live deep in the forest where no one would ever see her. The servant said, “How can I help you? I have to bring back proof that you’ve been killed.”
She got down on her knees and spoke to him from her heart, and seeing how graceful and lovely she was he was moved to pity. He would spare her, he said, but they would have to cut the fifth finger from one of her hands. He forgot, in his moment of compassion, that the king had also asked for the two eyes.
The princess reminded him. Then they noticed a little dog that had followed them into the woods. They made up their minds to kill it and take out its eyes. When the deed was done, the princess gave up her little finger, and the servant, leaving her alone in the forest, went back to the palace. The king examined the proof and was satisfied that his daughter had been put to death.
Meanwhile the princess wandered into the deepest part of the woods. At last, too tired to walk farther, she stopped to sleep. When she woke up, it was morning. She was hungry and went off in no particular direction, hoping to find food. She walked all day, not knowing where she was headed. That evening she came to a cave where a hermit lived. “My dear child,” said the hermit, “what are you doing in this wilderness?”
She answered, “I’m looking for a place to spend the night.” Then she asked if she could stay and live with him in his cave, be a daughter to him, and help him. He was willing, and after the first night she stayed on.
It was a different life from anything she had known. The cave was no palace. For food she had to dig roots, and like any good shepherd she drank water straight from the brook. One day a young prince who had lost his way in the forest surprised her as she was gathering an armload of flowers. Overwhelmed by her beauty, he proposed marriage, and she accepted at once.
Latin American Folktales Page 15
