Kitabı oku: «Basque Legends; With an Essay on the Basque Language», sayfa 2

The Tartaro

Once upon a time there was the son of a king who for the punishment of some fault became a monster. He could become a man again only by marrying. One day he met a young girl who refused him, because she was so frightened at him. And the Tartaro wanted to give her a ring, which she would not accept. However, he sent it her by a young man. As soon as the ring was upon her finger it began to say, “Thou there, and I here.”¹² It kept always crying out this, and the Tartaro pursued her continually; and, as the young girl had such a horror of him, she cut off her finger and the ring, and threw them into a large pond, and there the Tartaro drowned himself.

Estefanella Hirigarray,

of Ahetze.

M. d’Abbadie’s Version

Our next story was communicated by M. d’Abbadie to the Société des Sciences et des Arts de Bayonne. The narrator is M. l’Abbé Heguiagaray, the Parish Priest of Esquiule in La Soule:—

In my infancy I often heard from my mother the story of the Tartaro. He was a Colossus, with only one eye in the middle of his forehead. He was a shepherd and a hunter, but a hunter of men. Every day he ate a sheep; then, after a snooze, every one who had the misfortune to fall into his hands. His dwelling was a huge barn, with thick walls, a high roof, and a very strong door, which he alone knew how to open. His mother, an old witch, lived in one corner of the garden, in a hut constructed of turf.

One day a powerful young man was caught in the snares of the Tartaro, who carried him off to his house. This young man saw the Tartaro eat a whole sheep, and he knew that he was accustomed to take a snooze, and that after that his own turn would come. In his despair he said to himself that he must do something. Directly the Tartaro began to snore he put the spit into the fire, made it red-hot, and plunged it into the giant’s one eye. Immediately he leapt up, and began to run after the man who had injured him; but it was impossible to find him.

“You shall not escape. It is all very well to hide yourself,” said he; “but I alone know the secret how to open this door.”

The Tartaro opened the door half-way, and let the sheep out between his legs. The young man takes the big bell off the ram, and puts it round his neck, and throws over his body the skin of the sheep which the giant had just eaten, and walks on all fours to the door.

The Tartaro examines him by feeling him, perceives the trick, and clutches hold of the skin; but the young man slips off the skin, dives between his legs, and runs off.

Immediately the mother of the Tartaro meets him, and says to him:

“O, you lucky young fellow! You have escaped the cruel tyrant; take this ring as a remembrance of your escape.”

He accepts, puts the ring on his finger, and immediately the ring begins to cry out, “Heben nuk! Heben nuk!” (“Thou hast me here! Thou hast me here!”)

The Tartaro pursues, and is on the point of catching him, when the young man, maddened with fright, and not being able to pull off the ring, takes out his knife, and cuts off his own finger, and throws it away, and thus escapes the pursuit of the Tartaro.

In other versions the young man goes into the forest with some pigs, meets the Tartaro there, is carried by him home, blinds him with the red-hot spit, and escapes by letting himself down through a garret window. The Tartaro pursues, guided by his ring, which at last he throws to the young man to put on, when it cries out as above, and the young man cuts off his finger, and throws it down a precipice or into a bog, where the ring still cries out, and the Tartaro following, is dashed to pieces and drowned.

Errua, the Madman

Like many others in the world, there was a man and woman who had a son. He was very wicked, and did nothing but mischief, and was of a thoroughly depraved disposition. The parents decided that they must send him away, and the lad was quite willing to set off.

He set out then, and goes far, far, far away. He comes to a city, and asks if they want a servant. They wanted one in a (certain) house. He goes there. They settle their terms at so much a month, and that the one who is not satisfied should strip the skin off the other’s back.¹³

The master sends his servant to the forest to get the most crooked pieces of wood that he can find. Near the forest there was a vineyard. What does the servant do but cut it all up, and carries it to the house. The master asks him where the wood is. He shows him the vine-wood cut up. The master said nothing to him, but he was not pleased.

Next day the master says to him, “Take the cows to such a field, and don’t break any hole in the fence.”

What does the lad do? He cuts all the cows into little pieces, and throws them bit by bit into the field. The master was still more angry; but he could not say anything, for fear of having his skin stripped off. So what does he do? He buys a herd of pigs, and sends his servant to the mountain with the herd.

The master knew quite well that there was a Tartaro in this mountain, but he sends him there all the same.

Our madman goes walking on, on, on. He arrives at a little hut. The Tartaro’s house was quite close to his. The pigs of the Tartaro and those of the madman used to go out together. The Tartaro said one day to him—

“Will you make a wager as to who will throw a stone farthest?”

He accepted the wager. That evening our madman was very sad. While he was at his prayers, an old woman appeared to him, and asks him—

“What is the matter with you? Why are you so sad?”

He tells her the wager that he has made with the Tartaro. The old woman says to him—

“If it is only that, it is nothing.”

And so she gives him a bird, and says to him—

“Instead of a stone, throw this bird.”

The madman was very glad at this. The next day he does as the old woman told him. The Tartaro’s stone went enormously far, but at last it fell; but the madman’s bird never came down at all.

The Tartaro was astonished that he had lost his wager, and they make another—which of the two should throw a bar of iron the farthest. The madman accepted again. He was in his little house sadly in prayer. The old woman appears again. She asks him—

“What’s the matter with you?”

“I have made a wager again, which of the two will throw the bar of iron the farthest, and I am very sorry.”

“If it is only that, it is nothing. When you take hold of the bar of iron, say, ‘Rise up, bar of iron, here and Salamanca.’” (Altchaala palenka, hemen eta Salamanka.)¹⁴

Next day the Tartaro takes his terrible bar of iron, and throws it fearfully far. The young man could hardly lift up one end, and he says—

“Rise up, bar of iron, here and Salamanca.”

When the Tartaro heard that (he cried out)—

“I give up the wager—you have won,” and he takes the bar of iron away from him. “My father and my mother live at Salamanca; don’t throw, I beg of you, I implore you—you will crush them.”

Our madman goes away very happy.

The Tartaro says to him again:

“I will pull up the biggest oak in the forest, and you pull up another.”

He says, “Yes.” And the later it grew in the day, the sadder he became. He was at his prayers. The old woman comes to him again, and says to him—

“What’s the matter with you?”

He tells her the wager he has made with the Tartaro, and how he will pull up an oak. The old woman gives him three balls of thread, and tells him to begin and tie them to all the oaks in the forest.¹⁵

Next day the Tartaro pulls up his oak, an enormously, enormously big one; and the madman begins to tie, and to tie, and to tie.

The Tartaro asks him:

“What are you doing that for?”

“You (pulled up) one, but I all these.”

The Tartaro replies,

“No! No! No! What shall I do to fatten my pigs with without acorns? You have won; you have won the wager.”

The Tartaro did not know what to think about it, and saw that he had found one cleverer than himself, and so he asks him if he will come and spend the night at his house.

The madman says, “Yes.”

He goes to bed then with the Tartaro. But he knew that there was a dead man under the bed. When the Tartaro was asleep what does the madman do? He places the dead man by the Tartaro’s side, and gets under the bed himself. In the middle of the night the Tartaro gets up, and takes his terrible bar of iron and showers blows upon blows, ping pan, ping pan, as long and as hard as he could give them.

The Tartaro gets up as usual, and goes to see his pigs, and the madman also comes out from under the bed; and he goes to see the pigs too. The Tartaro is quite astounded to see him coming, and does not know what to think of it. He says to himself that he has to do with a cleverer than he; but he asks him if he has slept well.

He answers, “Yes, very well; only I felt a few flea-bites.”

Their pigs had got mixed, and as they were fat, he had to separate them in order to go away with his. The Tartaro asked the madman what mark his pigs had.

The madman says to him, “Mine have some of them one mark, some of them two marks.”

They set to work to look at them, and they all had these same marks.

Our madman goes off then with all the hogs. He goes walking on, on, on, with all his pigs. He comes to a town where it was just market day, and sells them all except two, keeping, however, all the tails, which he put in his pockets. As you may think, he was always in fear of the Tartaro. He sees him coming down from the mountain. He kills one of his hogs, and puts the entrails in his own bosom under his waistcoat. There was a group of men near the road. As he passed them he took out his knife, and stabs it into his chest, and takes out the pig’s bowels, and our madman begins to run very much faster than before, with his pig in front of him.

When the Tartaro comes up to these men, he asks if they have seen such a man.

“Yes, yes, he was running fast, and in order to go faster just here he stabbed himself, and threw away his bowels, and still he went on all the faster.”

The Tartaro, too, in order to go faster, thrusts his knife into his body, and falls stark dead.¹⁶

The madman goes to his master’s. Near the house there was a marsh quite full of mud. He puts his live pig into it, and all the tails too. He enters the house, and says to the master that he is there with his pigs. The master is astounded to see him.

He asks him, “Where are the pigs, then?”

He says to him, “They have gone into the mud, they were so tired.”

Both go out, and begin to get the real pig out, and between the two they pull it out very well. They try to do the same thing with the others; but they kept pulling out nothing but tails.

The madman says, “You see how fat they are; that is why the tails come out alone.”

He sends the servant to fetch the spade and the hoe. Instead of bringing them he begins to beat the mistress, whack! whack! and he cries to the master, “One or both?”

The master says to him, “Both, both.”

And then he beats the servant maid almost to pieces. He goes then to the master, taking with him the spade and the hoe, and he sets to beating him with the spade and the hoe, until he can no longer defend himself, and then he thrashes the skin off his back, and takes his pig and goes off home to his father and mother; and as he lived well he died well too.

Pierre Bertrand

learnt it from his Grandmother, who died a few years since, aged 82.

Variations of Errua

We have several variations of this tale, some like the above, very similar to Grimm’s “Valiant Little Tailor,” others like Campbell’s “Highland Tales.” In one tale there are two brothers, an idiot and a fool (Enuchenta eta Ergela). The idiot goes out to service first, and gets sent back for his stupidity. Then the fool goes, and outwits both his master and the Tartaro, whose eye he burns out with a red-hot spit, as in the first instance. In another the servant frightens the Tartaro at the outset by cracking two walnuts, and saying that they were bones of Christians he was cracking. Another wager is as to which shall carry most water from a fountain. The Tartaro fills two hogsheads to carry, but the lad says to him, “Only that; I will take the whole fountain;” and he begins to stir the water about with a stick. But the Tartaro cries out, “No! No! No! I give up. Where shall I go and drink if you carry away all my water?” Another variation is as follows:—

The Three Brothers, the Cruel Master, and the Tartaro

Like many others in the world, there lived a mother with her three sons. They were not rich, but lived by their work. The eldest son said one day to his mother—

“It would be better for us if I should go out to service.”

The mother did not like it, but at last she let him go. He goes off, far, far, far away, and comes to a house, and asks if they want a servant. They say “Yes,” and they make their agreement.

The master was to give a very high salary—100,000 francs—but the servant was to do everything that the master ordered him, and, if he did not do it, the master was to tear the skin off his back at the end of the year, and to dismiss him without pay.¹⁷

The servant said to him,

“All right; I am strong, and I will work.”

On the morrow the master gives him a great deal of work, but he does it easily. The last months of the year the master presses him much more, and one day he sends him into a field to sow fourteen bushels of wheat in the day. The lad goes sadly, taking with him a pair of oxen. He returns to the house very late in the evening. The master says to him,

“Have you done your work?”

He says, “No.”

“Do you remember the agreement we made? I must tear the skin off your back: that is your salary.”

He tears the skin off, as he had said, and sends him away home without anything. His mother was in great grief at seeing him come home so thin and weak, and without any money.

He tells what has happened, and the second brother wishes to start off at once, saying that he is strong, and that he will do more work. The mother did not like it, but she was obliged to let him go.

He goes to the same house as his brother, and makes the same terms with the master. When he had almost finished his year, his master sends him too to sow fourteen bushels of wheat. He starts very early in the morning, with two pair of oxen; but the night came before he had sown it all. The master was very glad at the sight of that. He strips his skin off his back also, and sends him away without any money. Think of the vexation of this mother in seeing both her sons return in this fashion.

The third wishes to start off at once. He assures his mother that he will bring back both the money and the skin of his back. He goes to this same gentleman. He tells this one, too, that he will give him a high salary, on condition that he will do all that he shall tell him to do, otherwise he shall have the skin torn off his back, and be sent away without anything, at the end of the year.

He had made him work hard and well for ten months, and then wished to try him. He sent him to the field, and told him to sow fourteen bushels of wheat before night. He answers, “Yes.”

He takes two pairs of oxen, and goes off to the field. He ploughs a furrow all round the field, and throws his fourteen bushels of wheat into it. He then makes another furrow, to cover it up, and at night time he goes home to the house. The master is astonished. He asks him if he has sown it.

“Yes, it is all under ground; you may be sure of it.”

The master was not pleased; he had his fears.

The next day he sends him with sixteen head of cattle to such a field, and says to him,

“You must take all these cattle into the field without unlocking the gate or making a gap.”

Our lad takes a hatchet, a hoe, and a fork. Off he goes, and when he gets to the field he kills them all, one by one. He cuts them up with the hatchet, and throws them with the fork into the field.

He comes home at nightfall, and says to his master that all the cattle are in the field as he had told him. The master was not pleased, but he said nothing.

The next day he told him to go to such a forest and to bring a load of wood from there, but all the sticks quite, quite straight. Our lad goes off and cuts down in the chestnut copse all the young chestnut trees which his master had planted, and which were very fine ones; and he comes home. When the master saw that, he was not pleased, and said to him,

“To-morrow you shall go again with the oxen; and you must bring a load of wood quite crooked, all quite crooked; if you bring only one straight, so much the worse for you.”

The lad goes off, and pulls up a fine vineyard. After he had loaded his cart, he comes home. When the master saw that, he could not say anything; but he did not know what to think of it.

He sends him into a forest. There was a Tartaro there; and all the persons, and all the animals who went there, he ate them all. The master gives him ten pigs, and also food for ten days, telling him that the hogs would fatten themselves well there, because there were plenty of acorns, and that he must return at the end of ten days.

Our lad begins, and he goes on, and on, and on. He meets an old woman, who says to him:

“Where are you going to, lad?”

“To such a forest, to fatten these pigs.”

The woman says to him:

“If you are not a fool, you will not go there. That horrible Tartaro will eat you.”

This woman was carrying a basket of walnuts on her head, and he said to her:

“If you will give me two of these walnuts I will beat the Tartaro.”

She willingly gives them to him, and he goes on, and on, and on. He meets another old woman, who was winding thread. She says to him:

“Where are you going, lad?”

“To such a forest.”

“Don’t go there. There is a horrible Tartaro there, who will be sure to eat you, and your pigs as well.”

“I must go there all the same, and I will conquer him, if you will give me two of your balls of thread.”

She gives him them, willingly; and he goes on farther, and finds a blacksmith, and he, too, asks him where he is going? And he answers, “To such a forest, to fatten my pigs.”

“You may just as well go back again. There is a terrible Tartaro there, who will be sure to eat you.”

“If you will give me a spit, I will beat him.”

“I will give it you, willingly,” and he gives it him with goodwill.

Our lad goes on, and comes to this forest. He cuts off the tails of all his pigs, and hides them in a safe place. The Tartaro appears, and says to him:

“How did you come here? I am going to eat you.”

The lad says to him:

“Eat a pig if you like, but don’t touch me.”

He takes his two nuts, and rubs them one against the other.

“I have two balls here, and if one of them touches you, you are dead.”

The Tartaro is frightened, and goes away in silence. After having eaten a pig, he comes back again, and says to him:

“We must make a wager—which of the two will make the greatest heap of wood?”

The Tartaro begins to cut and to cut. Our lad leaves him alone, and when he has made a terrible big heap, he begins to go round all the trees with his balls of thread, and says to him.

“You, that; but I, all this;” and he goes on tying and tying. The Tartaro gives in, saying “that he is more clever than he.” As he had stopped his ten days, he makes in the night a great fire, and makes his spit red-hot in it; and while the Tartaro was sleeping, he plunges this spit into his only eye. After having taken his pigs’ tails, he goes away from the forest without any pigs, because the Tartaro had eaten one every day. Near his master’s house there was “a well of the fairy.”¹⁸ Our lad sticks in there the tails of all his hogs, excepting one, as well as he could. He then goes running to his master, telling him that all the pigs were coming home very gaily, and that they had got so hot in coming so fast that they had all gone under the mud. “I wished to drag one out by pulling, but only the tail came away; here it is.”

He goes off then with the master to this marsh; but the master did not dare go in there to pull them out. He goes off sadly with his servant home, not knowing what to think about it. There he counts him out his 100,000 francs, and he went home proudly to his mother and his brothers. There they lived happily, and their master was left with 100,000 francs less. That served him right for having so much.