Roman Legends: A collection of the fables and folk-lore of Rome. Rachel Harriette Busk
the sake of being nearer him, she obtains the place of kitchen-maid in his palace, and thus acquires her title of Zendrarola in a very different way from her counterparts in other lands. One day she hears he is going to a ball, and she makes her wishing-sword give her a dress like the sky; and the young Count, who has never admired anyone before, of course falls in love with her. When he comes back, he confides to his lady mother what has occurred, and Zendrarola, now again dressed as a dirty drudge, interposes that the fair one he was extolling was not prettier than herself. He silences her indignantly by giving her a poke with the shovel, and when she meets him next night in some beautiful attire, and he asks her where she comes from, she answers ‘dalla palettada’ (from shovel-blow). The next day the same thing happens, and he gives her a blow with the tongs, and when he asks her in the evening what her country is, she answers ‘majettada’ (tongs-blow); answering to Frustinaia and Stivalaia in the second Roman version of ‘Maria di Legno.’ He gives her a ring, which she sends up in his broth, as Klein-Else does in the pancake, and so he recognises and marries her. In one or two of the Roman versions also, the means of recognition is a ring in place of a slipper.
I do not remember any Cinderella among the Russian Tales, though there are stepmother stories, which pair off with others of the Roman. For Scotch versions I must refer the reader to Campbell’s ‘Highland Tales,’ i. 226, and ii. 292.]
1 ‘Cinderella’ is a favourite in all countries, with its promise of compensation to the desolate and oppressed. I only came across it once, however, while making this collection, in its own simple form, and with a name as near its own as Cenorientola. Of course the construction of such words is quite arbitrary, and any Italian can make a dozen such out of any name or word: even in the dictionary the following variations are to be found—‘Cenericcio,’ ‘Cenerognolo,’ ‘Cenerino,’ ‘Ceneroso,’ ‘Cenerugiolo.’ ↑
Da mi tu panni belli,
Ed io te do i cencirelli.
Da mi tu abiti belli
Ed io te do i stracciarelli.
The same as above: ‘abiti’ and ‘panni’ are convertible, so are ‘cenci’ and ‘straccj.’ ↑
VACCARELLA. 1
They say there was once a husband and a wife; but I don’t mean that they were husband and wife of each other. The husband had lost his wife, and the wife had lost her husband, and each had one little daughter. The husband sent his daughter to the wife to be brought up along with her own daughter, and as the girl came every morning to be trained and instructed, the wife used to send a message back by her every evening, saying, ‘Why doesn’t your father marry me? then we should all live together, and you would no longer have this weary walk to take.’
The father, however, did not see it in the same light; but the teacher2 continued sending the same message. In short,3 at last she carried her point, having previously given a solemn promise to him that Maria, his little girl, should be always as tenderly treated as her own.
Not many months elapsed, however, before she began to show herself a true stepmother. After treating Maria with every kind of harshness, she at last sent her out into the Campagna to tend the cow, so as to keep her out of sight of her father, and estrange him from her. Maria had to keep the cow’s stall clean with fresh litter every day; sometimes she had to take the cow out to grass, and watch that it only grazed over the right piece of land; at other times she had to go out and cut grass for the cow to eat. All this was work enough for one so young; but Maria was a kind-hearted girl, and grew fond of her cow, so that it became a pleasure to her to attend to it.
When the cruel stepmother saw this she was annoyed to find her so light-hearted over her work, and to vex her more gave her a great heap of hemp to spin. It was in vain that Maria reminded her she had never been taught to spin; the only answer she got was, ‘If you don’t bring it home with you to-night all properly spun you will be finely punished;’ and Maria knew to her cost what that meant.
When Maria went out into the Campagna that day she was no longer light-hearted; and as she littered down the stall she stroked the cow fondly, and said to her, as she had no one else to complain to, ‘Vaccarella! Vaccarella! what shall I do? I have got all this hemp to spin, and I never learnt spinning. Yet if I don’t get through it somehow I shall get sadly beaten to-night. Dear little cow, tell me what to do!’
But the cow was an enchanted cow,4 and when she heard Maria cry she turned round and said quickly and positively:—
Throw it on to the horns of me,
And go along, cut grass for me!5
Maria did as she was told, went out and cut a good basketful of grass, and imagine her delight on coming back with it to find all the whole lot of hemp beautifully spun.
The surprise of the stepmother was still greater than hers, at finding that she had got through her task so easily, for she had given her enough to have occupied an ordinary person a week. Next day, therefore, she determined to vex her with a more difficult task, and gave her a quantity of spun hemp6 to weave into a piece of fine cloth. Maria’s pleadings were as fruitless as before, and once more she went to tell her tale of woe to her ‘dear little cow.’
Vaccarella readily gave the same answer as before:—
Throw it on to the horns of me,
And go along, cut grass for me!
Once more, when Maria came back with her basket of grass, she found all her work done, to her great surprise and delight. But her stepmother’s surprise was quite of another order. That Maria should have woven the cloth, not only without instruction, but even without a loom, proved clearly enough she must have had some one to help her—a matter which roused the stepmother’s jealousy in the highest degree, and wherein this help consisted she determined to find out. Accordingly, next day she gave her a shirt to make up, and then posted herself out of sight in a corner of the cow-house to see what happened. Thus she overheard Maria’s complaint to her dear little cow, and Vaccarella’s reply:—
Throw it on to the horns of me,
And go along, cut grass for me!
She thus also saw, what Maria did not see, that as soon as she had gone out the cow assumed the form of a woman, and sat down and stitched and stitched away till the shirt was made, and that in a surprisingly short space of time. As soon as it was finished, and before Maria came in, the woman became a cow again.
The cruel stepmother determined that Maria should be deprived of a friend who enabled her to set all her hard treatment at defiance, and next morning told her that she was going to kill the cow. Maria was broken-hearted at the announcement, but she knew it was useless to remonstrate; so