Kitabı oku: «Basque Legends; With an Essay on the Basque Language», sayfa 4
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 shepherd had, fortunately, not forgotten his stick, for at that moment there appeared before him a terrible bear.
“Who has given you permission to come here?”
“I have taken it myself.”
“I must eat you.”
He approaches, but our shepherd gives him a little blow with his stick, and he begins to cry out,
“Oy, oy, oy!—spare my life!”
“Tell me, then, how many you are where you live?”
“We were seven yesterday, but to-day we are only six, with me.”
He gives him another blow, and he falls stark dead. And the shepherd hides him as well as he can in a hedge, and then he returns home with his sheep, well filled. That evening the sheep gave him a great deal of milk, and he made fine cheeses with it.32 The master and mistress were delighted to have such a servant. The next day he goes off again. As soon as he opened the stable-door the sheep start off running to the good pasture and fine herbage, and the same things (happen again). At the end of a moment there appears a bear, who asks him why he comes there into those parts. Our shepherd, with his stick, gives him a little blow on the neck, and the bear begins to cry,
“Ay, ay, ay!—spare my life!”
He asks him,
“How many are you there where you live?”
“We were seven, but at present we are five with me.”
And he gives him a little blow, and he falls stiff and dead. And in five days he kills all the bears in the same way; and when he saw the last one come, he was frightened to see a beast so immense and so fearful, and which came dragging himself along, he was so old. He says to him,
“Why have you come into these parts?”
And at the same time the shepherd gives him a little blow. He begins to cry out to him to spare his life, and that he would give him great riches and beautiful apartments, and that they should live together. He spares his life, and sends the flock back to the house. They go through hedges and hedges, and “through the fairies’ holes,”33 and arrive at last at a fine palace. There they find the table set out with every kind of food and drink. There were also servants to attend on them, and there were also horses all ready saddled, and with harness of gold and silver. There was nothing but riches there. After having passed some days there like that, our shepherd said to himself that it would be better to be master and owner of all that fortune. So he gives a blow to the bear, and kills him stark dead.
After having dressed himself splendidly, he gets on horseback, and goes from country to country, and comes to a city, and hears the bells sounding, dilin-don, dilin-don, and all the people are in excitement. He asks, “What is the matter?” They tell him how that there is in the mountain a serpent with seven heads, and that one person must be given to him every day. This serpent has seven heads. They draw lots to know who must be given to the serpent. The lot had fallen on the king’s daughter, and every one was in grief and distress, and all were going, with the king at their head, to accompany her to the mountain. They left her at the foot of the mountain, and she went on mounting alone to the top. This young man goes after her, and says to her,
“I will accompany you.”
The king’s daughter says to him,
“Turn back, I beg you. I do not wish you to risk your life because of me.”
He says to her,
“Have no fear for me. I have a charm of might.”
At the same time they hear an extraordinary noise and hissing, and he sees the serpent coming like the lightning. As our man has his stick with him, he gives him a little blow on one of his heads, and one by one the seven heads fall off, and our princess is saved.
In order to go to the mountain, she was dressed in her most beautiful robes. She had seven of them on. He took a little piece from each of the seven robes, and he likewise takes the tongue from each of the heads, and puts them in these little pieces of silk. He then takes the king’s daughter on his horse, and descends the mountain. The daughter goes home to her father, and our gentleman to the bear’s house. The news that the seven-headed serpent is killed spreads quickly. The king had promised his daughter, and the half of his kingdom, to the man who should have killed him. The serpent was killed, as we have said. Three charcoal-burners, passing by on the mountain, see the serpent, and take the seven heads, and go to the king, asking to have a reward. But, as they were three, they were in a difficulty; and they were sent away until the council was assembled, and to see if any other person would come. As nobody appeared, they were going to draw lots who should be the husband of the king’s daughter. There was great excitement that day, and there was also a great stir when this young man arrived in the city. He asks what it is. They tell him what it is. He was splendidly dressed, and had a magnificent horse. He asks to see the king, and, as he was handsomely dressed, he is received immediately. He asks if the seven heads of the serpent had seven tongues in them; and they cannot find them. Then he shows the seven tongues. He sends, too, for the princess’ seven robes, and he shows the seven pieces that are wanting, as well as the seven tongues. When they see that, all exclaim—
“This is the true saviour of the king’s daughter!”
And they are married.
The three charcoal-burners, after having been dressed in a coat of sulphur, were burnt alive in the midst of the market-place.
Our gentleman and lady lived very happily, sometimes at her father’s house and at other times at their own bear’s-house; and, as they had lived well, they died happily. Then I was there, and now I am here.
Our next tale will show the serpent in a new character, and might have been included under the variations of “Beauty and the Beast.”
The Serpent in the Wood
Like many others in the world, there was a widower who had three daughters. One day the eldest said to her father, that she must go and see the country. She walked on for two hours, and saw some men cutting furze, and others mowing hay.
She returned to the house, astonished at having seen such wonderful things. She told her father what wonderful things she had seen, and her father replied:
“Men cutting furze! Men mowing hay!!”
The second daughter asks, too, to go like her sister, and she returned after having seen the same things. And the third daughter said that she ought to go, too.
“Child, what will you see?”
“I, like my sisters, something or other.”
She set off on the same road as the others; and she, like the others, saw men cutting furze, and men mowing hay. She went on further, and she saw some washerwomen; and she went still a little further on till she had walked for three hours, and she saw some wood-cutters cutting firewood. She asked them if she should see anything more if she went a little further. They told her that she would see some more wood-cutters cutting firewood.
She went very much farther into the wood, and she was caught, and kept prisoner by a serpent. She remained there crying, and not able to eat anything; and she remained like that eight days, very sad; then she began to grow resigned, and she remained there three years. At the end of three years she began to wish to return home. The serpent told her to come back again at the end of two days; that his time was nearly finished, and that he was a king’s son condemned for four years34 (to be a serpent). He gave her a distaff and spindle, of silver-gilt, and a silk handkerchief. He said to her:
“If you do not find me here on your return, you will have to wear out seven pairs of shoes, six of leather and one pair of iron ones (before you will be able to find me).”
When she came home, her father would not let her go back to the house where she had passed such a long time with a son of a king, condemned to be a serpent. She said that his time was almost finished, and that in gratitude she ought to return; that he had said that he would marry her. The father had her put in prison, confined in a room very high up. The fourth day she escaped, and went to the place, but she did not find the king’s son. She had already shoes on her feet. She had almost worn them out. After that she bought another pair. She kept journeying on and on, and asking if it were far, and they told her that it was very far. She bought still another pair of shoes, and these, too, got worn out on the road. She bought a fifth pair, and after them the sixth also. She then asked if she were near yet, and they told her that she was still very far. Then she bought the seventh pair of shoes, of iron. And when she had gone a short way in these shoes, she asked if it were far from there to the son of the king. The seventh pair of shoes were almost worn out when she came to a city, and heard sounds of music. She inquired what was happening in the city.
“Such a king’s son is being married to-day.”
She went to the house, and knocked at the door. A servant came.
“What do you want?”
She asked if there were any work to spin, and she would spin it.
And the servant went to tell it to the mistress. The lady ordered the servant to bring her in. She brought her in. And when she was in the kitchen, she showed the silk handkerchief which the king’s son had given her; and she began to blow her nose with that. The lady was quite astonished to see the girl blow her nose with such a beautiful handkerchief, as if it were nothing,35 when her son had one just like it for his marriage-day. So she told her son, when he came back from the church, that she had a spinster who came from a great distance, and said to him:
“She has a silk handkerchief just like yours!”
And the king’s son said to his mother:
“I, too, must see this spinster that you have there.” And he began to go there.
And his mother said to him,
“But why must you see her?”
“I wish to see her.”
He went to the kitchen, and in his presence she used her silk handkerchief.
He said to her,
“Show me that.”
She said to him,
“It is too dirty to put into your hands, sir.”
The gentleman says to her,
“I wish to see it, and show it to me.”
(Then) he recognised the young girl. She showed him (too) the distaff and spindle.
At table, when everybody was engaged telling stories, this king said:
“I also have a story to tell.”
Everybody was silent, and turned to look at him, and he said:
“Formerly, I had a key to a chest of drawers, and I lost it, and had a new one made. (After that, I found the old one.)”
And he turned to his wife:
“Should I use the old one or the new one?”
And she replied:
“If the first was a good one, why should you make use of the new one?”
Then he gave her this answer:
“Formerly, I had a wife, and now I have taken you. I leave you, and take the former one. Do you go off, then, to your own house.”
Gagna-haurra Hirigaray.
(Learnt at Guethary.)
For the version of the Heren-Suge tales which most closely approaches the Gaelic, see below, “Keltic Legends,” “The Fisherman and his Sons,” p. 87.
III.—Animal Tales
We give two stories as specimens of animal tales, which are neither allegories, nor fables, and still less satires. The reader must remember the phrase, “This happened when animals and all things could talk.” So thoroughly is this believed, that the first tale of this class recited to us completely puzzled us. The animals are in them placed so fully on a footing with human beings—not in the least as our “poor relations,” but rather as sharper-witted, and quite as happy and well off as ourselves—that it is difficult at times to determine whether it is the beast or the man who is the speaker.
Of the latter part of our first story we have heard many variations. In one given by M. Cerquand, p. 29, note,36 the fox is represented by Basa-Jauna; in a version from Baigorry, by the Tartaro; but in three others, from separate localities, he is a fox. The first two truths are the same in all the versions. In that here given, the fun is heightened by the fox talking and lisping throughout like a little child. All these versions we take to be merely fragments of a much longer story.
In M. Cerquand’s “The Chandelier of St. Sauveur,” p. 22, the hero’s name is Acherihargaix—“the fox difficult to be caught;” and we suspect that he, too, was originally merely an animal.
Acheria, the Fox
One day a fox was hungry. He did not know what to think. He saw a shepherd pass every day with his flock, and he said to himself that he ought to steal his milk and his cheese, and to have a good feast; but he needed some one to help him in order to effect anything. So he goes off to find a wolf, and he says to him,
“Wolf, wolf! we ought to have a feast with such a shepherd’s milk and cheese. You, you shall go to where the flocks are feeding, and from a distance you must howl, ‘Uhur, uhur, uhur.’ The man, after having milked his sheep, drives them into the field, with his dog, very early in the morning, and he stops at home to do his work, and then he makes his cheese; and, when you have begun to howl ‘Uhur, uhur,’ and the dog to bark, the shepherd will leave everything else, and will go off full speed. During this time I will steal the milk, and we will share it when you come to me.”
The wolf agreed to have a feast, and set out. He did just what the fox had told him. The dog began to bark when the wolf approached. And when the man heard that he went off, leaving everything, and our fox goes and steals the vessel in which the curdled milk was. What does he do then, before the arrival of the wolf? He gently, gently takes off the cream, thinly, thinly, and he eats all the contents of the jug. After he has eaten all, he fills it up with dirt, and puts back the cream on the top, and he awaits the wolf at the place where he had told him. The fox says to him, since it is he who is to make the division, that as the top is much better than the underneath part, the one who should choose that should have only that, and the other all the rest. “Choose now which you would like.”
The wolf says to him,
“I will not have the top; I prefer what is at the bottom.”
The fox then takes the top, and gives the poor wolf the vessel full of dirt.37 When he saw that, the wolf got angry; but the fox said to him,
“It is not my fault. Apparently the shepherd makes it like that.”
And the fox goes off well filled.
Another day he was again very hungry, and did not know what to contrive. Every day he saw a boy pass by on the road with his father’s dinner. He says to a blackbird,
“Blackbird, you don’t know what we ought to do? We ought to have a good dinner. A boy will pass by here directly. You will go in front of him, and when the boy goes to catch you, you will go on a little farther, limping, and when you shall have done that a little while the boy will get impatient, and he will put down his basket in order to catch you quicker. I will take the basket, and will go to such a spot, and we will share it, and will make a good dinner.”
The blackbird says to him, “Yes.”
When the boy passes, the blackbird goes in front of the boy, limping, limping. When the boy stoops (to catch him), the blackbird escapes a little further on. At last the boy, getting impatient, puts his basket on the ground, in order to go quicker after the blackbird. The fox, who kept watching to get hold of the basket, goes off with it, not to the place agreed upon, but to his hole, and there he stuffs himself, eating the blackbird’s share as well as his own.
Then he says to himself,
“I shall do no good stopping here. The wolf is my enemy, and the blackbird, too. Something will happen to me if I stay here. I must go off to the other side of the water.”
He goes and stands at the water’s edge. A boatman happened to pass, and he said to him:
“Ho! man, ho! Will you, then, cross me over this water? I will tell you three truths.”
The man said to him, “Yes.”
The fox jumps (into the boat), and he begins to say:
“People say that maize bread is as good as wheaten bread. That is a falsehood. Wheaten bread is better. That is one truth.”
When he was in the middle of the river, he said:
“People say, too, ‘What a fine night; it is just as clear as the day!’ That’s a lie. The day is always clearer. That is the second truth.”
And he told him the third as they were getting near the bank.
“Oh! man, man, you have a bad pair of trousers on, and they will get much worse, if you do not pass over people who pay you more than I.”
“That’s very true,” said the man; and the fox leapt ashore.
Then I was by the side of the river, and I learnt these three truths, and I have never forgotten them since.
The Ass and the Wolf
Astoa Eta Otsoa.
Like many others in the world, there was an ass. He was going along a ravine, laden with Malaga wine. (You know that asses are very much afraid of wolves, because the wolves are very fond of the flesh of asses.) While he was journeying along in that fashion, he sees a wolf coming at some distance; he could not hide himself anywhere. The wolf comes up, and the ass says to him:
“Good morning, good morning, Mr. Wolf; in case you should be thirsty, I have some excellent Malaga to drink.”
“I am not thirsty; no!—but astoundingly hungry; yes! My dinner to-day shall be your head and ears.”
“Mr. Wolf, if you were good enough to let me go and hear one mass–?”
He says to him, “Well! yes.”
Our ass goes off then. When he gets into the church he shuts the door inside with his foot, and stops quietly there.
When the wolf began to get impatient at waiting, he said:
“Ay, ay, what a long mass! one would say it was Palm Sunday.”
The ass said to him:
“Dirty old wolf, have patience. I am staying here with the angels, and I have my life (safe) for to-night.”
“Ay, ay, you bad ass, you are too, too, filthy, you know. If ever you meet with me again, mass you shall not hear.”
The ass said to him:
“There are no dogs round the fold of Alagaia; if you go there you would get lots of sheep.”
The wolf gives it up, and sets off for the flock where the ass had told him to go. When the ass saw that he had gone away he came out of the church, and went home, and took good care not to come near the wolf’s place any more.
