Roman Legends: A collection of the fables and folk-lore of Rome. Rachel Harriette Busk
target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="#ulink_a7dd3137-1425-5a0c-9408-6e8a39bc0a19">9 of oil. After that she won’t trouble you any more.’ And to Filagranata she whispered some words, and then let them go. But the witch was now close behind, and the prince made haste to throw down the mason’s trowel. Instantly there rose up a high stone wall between them, which it took the witch some time to climb over. Nevertheless, by her supernatural powers she was not long in making up for the lost time, and had soon overtaken the best speed of the good horse. Then the prince threw down the comb, and immediately there rose up between them a strong hedge of thorns, which it took the witch some time to make her way through, and that only with her body bleeding all over from the thorns. Nevertheless, by her supernatural powers she was not long in making up for the lost time, and had soon overtaken the best speed of the good horse. Then the prince threw down the jar of oil, and the oil spread and spread till it had overflowed10 the whole country side; and as wherever you step in a pool of oil the foot only slides back, the witch could never get out of that, so the prince and Filagranata rode on in all safety towards the prince’s palace.
‘And now tell me what it was the old woman in the wood whispered to you,’ said the prince, as soon as they saw their safety sufficiently secured to breathe freely.
‘It was this,’ answered Filagranata; ‘that I was to tell you that when you arrive at your own home you must kiss no one—no one at all, not your father, or mother, or sisters, or anyone—till after our marriage. Because if you do you will forget all about your love for me, and all you have told me you think of me, and all the faithfulness you have promised me, and we shall become as strangers again to each other.’
‘How dreadful!’ said the prince. ‘Oh, you may be sure I will kiss no one if that is to be the consequence; so be quite easy. It will be rather odd, to be sure, to return from such a long journey and kiss none of them at home, not even my own mother; but I suppose if I tell them how it is they won’t mind. So be quite easy about that.’
Thus they rode on in love and confidence, and the good horse soon brought them home.
On the steps of the palace the chancellor of the kingdom came out to meet them, and saluted Filagranata as the chosen bride the prince was to bring home; he informed him that the king his father had died during his absence, and that he was now sovereign of the realm. Then he led him in to the queen-mother, to whom he told all his adventures, and explained why he must not kiss her till after his marriage. The queen-mother was so pleased with the beauty, and modesty, and gentleness of Filagranata, that she gave up her son’s kiss without repining, and before they retired to rest that night it was announced to the people that the prince had returned home to be their king, and the day was proclaimed when the feast for his marriage was to take place.
Then all in the palace went to their sleeping-chambers. But the prince, as it had been his wont from his childhood upwards, went into his mother’s room to kiss her after she was asleep, and when he saw her placid brow on the pillow, with the soft white hair parted on either side of it, and the eyes which were wont to gaze on him with so much love, resting in sleep, he could not forbear from pressing his lips on her forehead and giving the wonted kiss.
Instantly there passed from his mind all that had taken place since he last stood there to take leave of the queen-mother before he started on his journey. His visit to the witch’s palace, his flight from it, the life-perils by the way, and, what is more, the image of Filagranata herself—all passed from his mind like a vision of the night, and when he woke up and they told him he was king, it was as if he heard it for the first time, and when they brought Filagranata to him it was as though he knew her not nor saw her.
‘But,’ he said, ‘if I am king there must be a queen to share my throne;’ and as a reigning sovereign could not go over the world to seek a wife, he sent and fetched him a princess meet to be the king’s wife, and appointed the betrothal. The queen-mother, who loved Filagranata, was sad, and yet nothing that she could say could bring back to his mind the least remembrance of all he had promised her and felt towards her.
But Filagranata knew that the prince had kissed his mother, and this was why the spell was on him; so she said to her mother-in-law: ‘You get me much fine-sifted flour11 and a large bag of sweetmeats, and I will try if I cannot yet set this matter straight.’ So the queen-mother ordered that there should be placed in her room much sifted flour and a large bag of sweetmeats. And Filagranata, when she had shut close the door, set to work and made paste of the flour, and of the paste she moulded two pigeons, and filled them inside with the comfits. Then at the banquet of the betrothal she asked the queen-mother to have her two pigeons placed on the table; and she did so, one at each end. But as soon as all the company were seated, before any one was helped, the two pigeons which Filagranata had made began to talk to each other across the whole length of the table: and everybody stood still with wonder to listen to what the pigeons of paste said to each other.
‘Do you remember,’ said the first pigeon, ‘or is it possible that you have really forgotten, when I was in that doorless tower of the witch’s palace, and you came under the window and imitated her voice, saying—
Filagranata, thou maiden fair,
Loose thy tresses of golden hair:
I, thy old grandmother, am here,
till I drew you up?’
And the other pigeon answered—
‘Si, signora, I remember it now.’
And as the young king heard the second pigeon say ‘Si, signora, I remember it now,’ he, too, remembered having been in a doorless tower, and having sung such a verse.
‘Do you remember,’ continued the first pigeon, ‘how happy we were together after I drew you up into that little room where I was confined, and you swore if I would come with you we should always be together and never be separated from each other any more at all?’
And the second pigeon replied—
‘Ah yes! I remember it now.’
And as the second pigeon said ‘Ah yes! I remember it now,’ there rose up in the young king’s mind the memory of a fair sweet face on which he had once gazed with loving eyes, and of a maiden to whom he had sworn lifelong devotion.
But the first pigeon continued:—
‘Do you remember, or have you quite forgotten, how we fled away together, and how frightened we were when the witch pursued us, and how we clung to each other, and vowed, if she overtook us to kill us, we would die in each other’s arms, till a fairy met us and gave us the means to escape, and forbad you to kiss anyone, even your own mother, till after our marriage?’
And the second pigeon answered—
‘Yes, ah yes! I remember it now.’
And when the second pigeon said, ‘Yes, ah yes! I remember it now,’ the whole of the past came back to his mind, and with it all his love for Filagranata. So he rose up12 and would have stroked the pigeons which had brought it all to his mind, but when he touched them they melted away, and the sweetmeats were scattered all over the table, and the guests picked them up. But the prince ran in haste to fetch Filagranata, and he brought her and placed her by his side in the banquet-hall. But the second bride was sent back, with presents, to her own people.
‘And so it all came right at last,’ pursued the narrator. ‘Lackaday! that there are no fairies now to make things all happen right. There are plenty of people who seem to have the devil in them for doing you a mischief, but there are no fairies to set things straight again, alas!’
[I have placed this story first in order, as its incidents ramify into half the traditionary tales with which we are acquainted.
(1.) ‘Rapunzel,’ No. 12 in ‘Grimm,’ is the most like it among the German in the beginning,