The Cambridge Companion to Fairy Tales (Cambridge Companions to Literature) by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2014-12-30T23:00:00+00:00

At this point Tridicinu, no longer content to use his cunning purely to survive, directs the scene like a puppet-master, flaunting his ability in a show of artistic virtuosity.

When as his final task Tridicinu is asked to bring back the ogre himself, he disguises himself as a monk, tells the ogre that he is trying to capture Tridicinu in a chest because he has killed the head monk, then tricks the ogre into getting in and brings him back to the king, where the ogre lives in chains for the remainder of his life. The king rewards Tridicinu with “all the riches and treasures he could possibly give” and a place at his side “as a brave fellow of the very first rank” (179).

In another version of ATU 328 by Pitrè, “The Story of a Queen” (“Lo cunto di ’na riggina”), a king has seven daughters who pass their time on the balcony. Their father, worried that the townspeople may disapprove, orders them inside, and when they refuse, he locks them up, after which they dig an underground tunnel and escape in men’s clothes. Eventually they end up at a farm owned by a sorcerer, where after changing back into women’s clothes they ask to spend the night; when they overhear the sorcerer’s wife, Tristana, plotting to eat them, they exchange places with the sorcerer’s daughters, who are eaten instead. They then visit Vienna (dressed again as men) and eventually set up house in a palace (as women) in Genoa. Here they marry men of varying social stations: a count, a lord, a wealthy farmer and an artisan; the youngest sister, Agatuzza, “the most clever of all,” marries a king. Her envious brothers-in-law, having heard of the sisters’ experience at the sorcerer’s house, convince the king to have his wife perform the familiar series of tasks: she must steal the ring of the sorcerer’s wife, then the sorcerer’s horse, and finally his talking instrument, all of which she accomplishes with distinction and without any outside assistance. On her first visit Agatuzza makes an astute emotional appeal to the sorcerer couple’s cannibalistic instincts, asking if she can stay with them because “I want to regard you as my own mother and father.” When she is sufficiently fattened up, she, like Tridicinu, tricks the sorcerer’s wife into the oven and serves her to the sorcerer. Agatuzza then steals the horse by threatening to beat it if it makes a noise. Her attempt to retrieve the instrument results in her being captured again, since it warns the sorcerer of her arrival. But when she is alone with the sorcerer’s new wife, she pretends to be asleep and escapes with the instrument. In her final task she (dressed as a man) digs a hole in front of the sorcerer’s castle, where she says she wants to make a water geyser for his pleasure. He falls in, at which point she offers to help him out by having him climb onto some wooden boards she had put in the hole.

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