Basque Legends; With an Essay on the Basque Language. Wentworth Webster
call him!”
The father says to her, in an angry tone,
“He is going off, because apparently he has no desire to have you.” And he hurls his lance at him. It strikes him on the leg. He still rides on. You can well imagine what chagrin for the young lady.
The next day she goes with the gardener’s dinner. She sees him with his leg bandaged. She asks him what it is.
The young lady begins to suspect something, and goes to tell to her father how the gardener had his leg tied up, and that he must go and ask him what is the matter. That he had told her that it was nothing.
The king did not want to go, (and said) that she must get it out of the gardener; but to please his daughter, he says he will go there. He goes then, and asks him, “What is the matter?” He tells him that a blackthorn has run into him. The king gets angry, and says “that there is not a blackthorn in all his garden, and that he is telling him a lie.”
The daughter says to him,
“Tell him to show it us.”
He shows it to them, and they are astonished to see that the lance is still there. The king did not know what to think of it all. This gardener has deceived him, and he must give him his daughter. But Petit Yorge, uncovering his bosom, shows the “fleur-de-lis” there. The king did not know what to say; but the daughter said to him,
“This is my preserver, and I will marry no one else than him.”
Petit Yorge asks the king to send for five dressmakers, the best in the town, and five butchers. The king sends for them.
Petit Yorge asks the dressmakers if they have ever made any new dresses which had a piece out; and on the dressmakers saying “No,” he counts out the pieces and gives them to the dressmakers, asking if it was like that that they had given the dresses to the princess. They say, “Certainly not.”
He goes, then, to the butchers, and asks them, if they have ever killed animals without tongues? They say, “No!” He tells them, then, to look in the heads of the serpent. They see that the tongues are not there, and then he takes out the tongues he has.
The king, having seen all that, has nothing more to say. He gives him his daughter. Petit Yorge says to him, that he must invite his father to the wedding, but on the part of the young lady’s father; and that they must serve him up at dinner a sheep’s heart, half cooked, and without salt. They make a great feast, and place this heart before this father. They make him carve it himself, and he is very indignant at that. The son then says to him:
“I expected that;” and he adds, “Ah! my poor father, have you forgotten how you said that you wished to eat the heart, half cooked, and without salt, of him who let the Tartaro go? That is not my heart, but a sheep’s heart. I have done this to recall to your memory what you said, and to make you recognize me.”
They embrace each other, and tell each other all their news, and what services the Tartaro had done him. The father returned happy to his house, and Petit Yorge lived very happily with his young lady at the king’s house; and they wanted nothing, because they had always the Tartaro at their service.
Laurentine.
In a variation of the above tale, from the narration of Mariño Amyot, of St. Jean Pied de Port, the young prince, as a herdsman, kills with a hammer successively three Tartaros who play at cards with him; he then finds in their house all their riches and horses, barrels full of gold and silver, etc., and also three “olano,” which is described as an animal who serves the Tartaro, like a dog, but much larger and more terrible, but also more intelligent and able to do any message. He kills the serpent with the aid of the “olanos,” and the princess helps by striking the serpent’s tail with a sword,29 instead of sprinkling the “sweet-scented water.” The “olano” then steals dishes off the king’s table for the prince. The charcoal-burner comes; but at last the prince shows the tongues and pieces of dress, and all ends happily, except for the charcoal-burner, who is placed on the top of seven barrels of powder, and fire is applied beneath, and then nobody sees him any more.
The commencement of the next is so different that we give it at length.
The Seven-Headed Serpent
Like many others in the world, there was a mother with her three sons. The eldest said to her that he wished to go from country to country, until he should find a situation as servant, and that she should give him a cake.
He sets out. While he is going through a forest he meets an old woman, who asks him for a morsel of his cake.30 He says to her, “No!” that he would prefer to throw it into the muddy clay. And the lad asks her if she knows of a servant’s place. She says, “No.” He goes on from forest to forest, until the night overtakes him. There comes to him a bear. He says to him,
“Ant of the earth! who has given you permission to come here?”
“Who should give it me? I have taken it myself.”
And the bear devours him.
The second son asks his mother to give him a cake, for he wishes to go as a servant, like his brother. She gives him one, and he goes away like his brother. He meets an old woman, who says to him,
“Give me a little of your cake.”
“I prefer to throw it into this muddy clay rather than to give you any of it.”
He asks her if she knows of a servant’s place. She replies, “No.” And on he goes, on, on, on, deeper into the forest. He meets a huge bear. He says to him,
“Ant of the earth! Who has given you permission to come here?”
“Who should give it me? I have taken it myself.”
And the bear devours him.
The third son asks his mother to give him a cake, for he wishes to go off, like his brothers. He sets off, and walks on, and on, and on. And he finds an old woman. She asks him,
“Where are you going?”
“I want a situation as servant.”
“Give me a little bit of your cake.”
“Here! Take the whole as well, if you like.”
“No, no! A little bit is enough for me.”
And he asks her if she knows of a servant’s place. She says to him,
“Yes; you will find it far beyond the forest. But you will meet an enemy here; but I will give you a stick, with the touch of which you may kill him.”31
He goes on, and on, and on. There comes to him a bear, and says to him,
“Ant of the ground! Who has given you permission to come here?”
“Who has given it me? I have taken it myself.”
The lad gives him a little blow with his stick, and the bear gives a howl—
“Oy, oy, oy!—spare my life! Oy, oy, oy!—spare my life!”
But he said to him,
“Tell me, then, how many you are in the place where you live?”
“Seven.”
He gives him another blow, and he falls stark dead.
He goes on, on, on, until he finds a palace. He goes in, and asks,
“Do you want a servant?”
They say to him,
“Yes, yes; our shepherd has gone away, and we want one.”
They send him to bed; and the next day they give him a fine flock of sheep, and tell him not to go on the mountain, because it is full of large and savage animals, and to pay great attention, because the sheep always want to go there. The next day he goes off with his sheep, and all of them run away to this mountain, because the herbage was very good there. Our
One of those present here interrupted the reciter—“What did she hit the serpent on the tail for?” “Why, to kill him, of course,” was the reply; “ask Mr. Webster if serpents are not killed by hitting them on the tail?”
I have a dim recollection of having read something very similar to this either in a Slavonic or a Dalmatian tale.
This incident is in the translation of a tale by Chambers, called “Rouge Etin,” in Brueyre’s “Contes de la Grande Bretagne,” p. 64. See notes ad loc.