High Albania by M. Edith Durham

Author:M. Edith Durham
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Middleway Publishing
Published: 2017-05-02T16:00:00+00:00

THE STORY OF THE WOMAN WHO WAS THRICE MARRIED.

This woman was a Devil. God! what trouble she has made! She is of Ipek, and the daughter of a rich house.

The house-lord is a rich man. He has shot eight Turks, two Catholics, and six Orthodox – and has paid for the lot. He is so important that he counts as twelve witnesses in a trial. But he has been married for years and has no child. Now his wife is forty, and will never bear one. He wanted to marry again, and found a girl and had paid twenty-five napoleons for her. But the Bishop of Prizren heard of it, and sent three priests to forbid the marriage. He was surprised, and said he only wanted a son. The priests threatened him with excommunication, so he obeyed.

Well, this girl who made such trouble was the daughter of his brother, who, thank God, has sons enough – so the family will not die out. She was very beautiful – a great big woman. When she was quite a girl you would have thought she was twenty-five.

Her father sold her as a child to a man in Ipek. But when she was only fourteen she said – the young Devil – “He is not brave. He has never shot a man. I won’t have him, and you shan’t take me to him alive.”

She was to go to him at sixteen, and refused. She said she would not have him, but would marry one of her cousins. The cousin was not a very near one – so not forbidden by the Church; but forbidden by our custom. My cousins to any generation are my brothers and sisters.

Her father was furious, said it was a deadly sin, and drove the cousin from the house. But he came at midnight with his brother and fetched the girl, and they got away to Hoti. There, as they had been living together some weeks, the Padre married them. Her parents and her betrothed were furious, for they held the marriage as incestuous. They could not come to Hoti themselves, but offered to pay twenty-five napoleons to any one who would go and shoot her husband, and within a year of marriage shot he was, and his brother too. She had borne her husband a son, and went with the babe to Scutari. She was very beautiful, and a Moslem wanted to marry her. The priests heard of it, and feared she would turn Moslem. They persuaded her to go back to her own people.

She returned with her child to Ipek, but dared not go to her father, and took refuge with the Franciscans. Her father came and demanded her. He said she had dishonoured the family, and he must shoot her. The Franciscans refused to give her up till he had sworn to spare her life.

She went home. But she was a Devil. She would not live without a man, and wanted to be married again. Her father wanted to give her to the man to whom she was first betrothed.

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