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The Story of Oimè

The Story of Oimè (Italian: La Novella di Oimè) is an Italian fairy tale collected by folklorist Giuseppe Pitrè and sourced from Tuscany. In it, a girl marries a mysterious husband, breaks a prohibition set by him and is banished from home; later, she goes to her mother-in-law's castle where she gives birth to her child and the husband comes to rock the child with a lullaby.

It is related to the international cycle of Animal as Bridegroom or The Search for the Lost Husband, in that a human girl marries a supernatural or enchanted husband, loses him and must search for him. Similar stories have been collected from oral tradition across the Mediterranean, in Italy, Greece and Spain, and nearby countries.

Source

According to Pitrè, the story was provided by informant Umiltà Minucci, from Siena.[1]

Summary

In this tale, a queen is very stingy and tries to be charitable to have a son. She gives alms to a poor old lady in church, and, after the third time, the old lady declares the queen will bear a son, but she will not be able to enjoy motherhood for long. It happens thus: a prince is indeed born and named "Oimè", but some time later, a dog enters the castle and kidnaps the baby. Years later, a poor widowed father lives with his three daughters and scavenges food for them by gathering herbs. One day, he finds a lush garden in a villa, steals some vegetables and sells them in the marketplace. He returns later to steal some more, and tries to uproot a particularly sturdy vegetable. Failing that, he sits a while and utters a sigh: "Oimè". A man appears from the villa window and asks if the man summoned him, for that is his name. Oimè discovers the man is his salad thief, and demands one of his three daughters in payment, saying he will pay him a visit and choose his bride in person. The man's elder daughters lock up their sister to try and deceive Oimè, but he asks to see the third daughter. The girl appears, and Oimè takes her as his bride to his palace.

In the palace, Oimè tells the girl the palace is also hers, but a specific room is strictly forbidden. Time passes, and the girl's sisters pay her a visit. The girl mentions the secret door, and the sisters convince her to open it. After they leave, that same night, the girl steals a key and opens the forbidden door. Inside, she finds a long corridor where woman are preparing a trousseau for Oimè's unborn son. When she reaches the last room, the woman shouts that their work was for her, and, calling the girl ungrateful, expels the girl, and the palace disappears, leaving her in the woods. The girl, pregnant, sees a light in the distance, and reaches a castle where she is given lodge by the queen. She gives birth to a son, and she is secretly visited by Oimè. Two nursemaids see the youth talking to a magic lantern, and rocking the baby with a song that laments that if the roosters never crowed and the bells never rang, he would be happy. On the following nights, the queen is informed about the youth's visit and stays awake to see him: she recognizes it is her own son, and goes to embrace him before he vanishes with the dawn. The sun rises, and the prince remains with the queen, breaking the curse cast by the old lady.[2][3]

Analysis

Tale type

Philologist Gianfranco D'Aronco classified the tale as Italian type 425, Lo sposo scomparso ("The Lost Husband").[4] The Italian type corresponds, in the international Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index, to type ATU 425, "The Search for the Lost Husband".

Renato Aprile, editor of the Italian Catalogue of Tales of Magic, sourced the tale from Siena and classified it as part of the "Amor e Psiche" cycle (type 425), as subtype 425E.[5] In this type, the heroine's husband has a padlock on his body (or a there is a chamber she is forbidden to open); after she betrays his trust, she is expelled and takes shelter in a castle where she gives birth to their child; at night her husband comes to lull the baby with a song in which there are instructions on how to save him.[6][7]

Motifs

According to Renato Aprile and Jan-Öjvind Swahn, in some variants of tale type 425E, the heroine's husband watches over his wife and son and converses with a golden lamp about his family.[8][9]

The prince's lullaby

In his 1955 monograph, Swahn noted that the husband's lullaby to his child was "rather uniformly formed", containing instructions to extinguish "the cocks [galli] and the clocks [campane]".[10] Similarly, according to Italian literary critic Mario Lavagetto and Anna Buia, the prince's lullaby from Basile's tale is "preserved" in most of the subsequent variants.[11] In the same vein, professor Michael Merakles argued that the prince's lullaby "dissolved" in Greek variants, but its existence can be gleamed by fragmentary references present in the texts.[12]

The crowing of the rooster

Although they acknowledged that the crowing of the rooster marks type AaTh 425E, Mario Lavagetto and Anna Buia, as well as folklorist Letterio Di Francia, remarked that the motif is "widespread" in Italian tradition.[13][11] In this regard, German folklorist Rudolf Schenda noted that the rooster's crowing in Basile's tale acquires a negative connotation, since it helps prolong the prince's enchantment, and only by having the roosters killed can he be saved in a more permanent manner.[14] Similarly, according to Di Francia, there is a widespread belief across Italy that the rooster's crowing facilitates the action of supernatural beings, and spells can be broken only by ceasing their singing.[15]

Variants

Scholar Nancy Canepa locates similar stories in Turkey and Greece.[16] Likewise, according to the Greek Folktale Catalogue, type 425E is "popular" in Turkey and Greece, while type 425L (a close subtype) is known across the Greek Aegean Islands and in Asia Minor.[17] On the other hand, Swahn restricted the former subtype to Italy and Catalonia.[18] In the same vein, Renato Aprile described subtype 425E as "almost exclusively" of Central and Southern Italian provenance, barring some Catalan texts.[19]

Italy

L'Ombrion

Author Vittorio Imbriani collected a tale from Firenze with the title L'Ombrion, which Imbriani related to Lo Catenaccio.[20] In this tale, a man has three daughters and is so poor he lives on alms. One day, the man finds a lush garden and fetches some herbs, when a man appears to him like an ombre (a shadow). The somber creature asks the man the purpose of his visit, and demands one of his daughters be delivered to him, unless he wishes to forfeit his life. The old man returns home and asks which of daughters will go to the ombre to save their father's life: the elder two refuse, while the youngest agrees to go with him. The old man takes his youngest to the ombre, and they descend a staircase to splendid underground quarters, where they begin to live together. However, the girl is forbidden to light any candle in their quarters, and she senses someone snoring at her side. One day, the girl begins to miss home, and the ombrion allows her to visit her sisters for a period of 24 hours, then she must be back. The girl visits her sisters and is given a candle to use at night when she goes back to her mysterious husband. She follows her sisters' suggestion and finds a handsome youth beside her, with a key next to his neck. She steals the key and uses it to open the doors of the underground palace, where she finds women working in some preparations for the king's son. She leaves the door and her husband, the youth, banishes her from his palace, but advises her to go to the king's court, where she will be given lodge and whose royal family is searching for him. While the girl is away at the castle, the youth resumes the ombrion form and converses to a magical lantern about his wife. One night, the lantern tells him his wife is sleeping soundly, and he sings a poem about if the roosters cannot crow and the bells cannot ring, then he will remain. A servant of the castle listens to the song another night and reports to the king, who fulfills the command: he orders the roosters to be killed all over the kingdom and bells to be muffled. The next morning, the servants enter the girl's room with breakfast, and sees a man by her side. The king comes to her room and recognizes the man as his son, and marries him to the girl.[21]

The Celery

Austrian philologist Christian Schneller collected and translated a tale from Wälschtirol with the title Der Selleri (Lo sellem; The Celery). In this tale, a father has three daughters, and asks them to fetch some rice for him, because he wants some soup. The elder daughter finds a bush of celery in their garden and tries to pull it, but cannot do so. The middle sister joins and tries to help her, to no avail. The third sister, also the youngest and the most beautiful, decides to pull the herb herself, but instead she is pulled down into the ground, and reaches a meadow in front of a castle. The girl enters the castle and is welcomed by a small man with a large beard. They live together in the underground castle, but the man forbids her to open a certain door. One day, however, while the small man is away, the girl opens the forbidden room and discovers women preparing linen clothes, and sees a cradle of pure gold. The girl asks whom the women are preparing for, and the women retort in a harsh answer that everything was for her. The girl locks the door behind her and the old man appears to her, explaining he is an enchanted prince who was just about to be free from his curse, but his companion betrayed him. The girl leaves the palace and wanders off until she reaches a castle where she is given lodge by the queen. Some time later, the girl gives birth to a son, who is cared for by two nursemaids. One night, the old man talks to his magic lantern about his wife and son, and visits their chambers in the castle. While there, he sings a lullaby and mentions that he would be with his son if the rooster never crowed and the bells never rang the hours. This happens on the following two nights, and the queen, on the third night, manages to run after before he vanishes and grabs a celery he left behind. The next morning, the queen, advised by the nursemaids, throws the celery in the fireplace. All of a sudden, the sounds of trampling horses and a carriage are heard approaching the castle: it is the queen's son, the prince, released from his curse.[22]

The Golden Lamp (Sardinia)

In a Sardinian tale collected from a source in Luras with the title La lampana de oro ("The Golden Lamp"), a king and queen are childless and say prayers to have one. One day, Gesú Cristos (Jesus Christ) appears in their castle to grant them their wish. In time, the queen gives birth to her son, but Jesus Christ warns that the prince cannot have contact with the fairies. Thus, the prince is raised in a tower. One day, when he is older, he goes to the balcony and the fairies abscond with him to a subterranean palace with twelve rooms under a grassy field. Near the field, lives a poor family of a father and his three daughters. The man forages for herbs to feed his daughters. One day he pulls a bush and suddenly a handsome youth (the prince) appears to him with an offer: a bag of money for one of the man's daughters as the youth's wife. The man returns home and asks his daughters which will go with the mysterious youth: the elder two refuse, save for the youngest. The man brings his cadette to the youth and she goes with him to a rich underground palace where she lives with the youth, with the caveat not to open a twelfth door. After a year, the girl is curious enough to learn what lies behind the forbidden door and decides to open it: inside she finds twelve fairies singing and weaving clothes for the prince's unborn son. The fairies notice the girl is with them and orders them to silence. The palace disappears, leaving the girl in the desert. She wanders off until she reaches the king's castle, where she is given lodge and a room where she can give birth to her son. Soon, at midnight, a person stays outside the castle, hangs a golden lamp with a golden chain and sings to the lamp, calling it golden lamp, silver lamp, and asking that if his mother knew, his son would lie in golden clothes. The maidservants guarding the guest alert the queen and she captures the owner of the mysterious voice: it is her son, the prince, kidnapped by the fairies long ago. The prince tells his mother his burden is at an end and asks her to place him inside a cauldron of hot water, for he will become even more beautiful. It happens thus, and the prince is released.[23][24]

Switzerland

Politician Caspar Decurtins published a Rhaeto-Romance tale from Surselva, L'ampla d'aur or Die goldene Lampe ("The Golden Lamp"). In this tale, a miller has three daughters, the elder two lazy, and the youngest kind. One day, the miller has to go to the city during winter, and his three daughters ask for presents, the elder two for dresses, and the youngest for a bouquet of wildflowers. During his journey, he enters a magical castle whose doors open and close by themselves, and manned by cats. He finds the wildflowers in the garden and goes to pluck some, when suddenly a snake springs up from the fountain and coils around the miller's arm, demanding the man's daughter in exchange for the flowers. The man agrees and returns home with the bouquet, which he gives to his youngest daughter and reveals the situation. The elder two chastise their cadette for her request, but the girl decides to offer herself in her father's place to the serpent. She goes to the magical castle and the feline staff welcome her in. At night, when she goes to sleep, she feels someone comes to lie with her in bed, but she does not see him. On the third night, she lights a lamp to better see her companion, and finds a handsome youth next to her. The story then explains the youth is a prince cursed by a witch into the serpentine form. Back to the girl, wax drops fall on the prince's body, who disappears and says the girl will only find him when she tears down iron shoes. After the prince vanishes, the girl meets an old woman that advises her to place the iron shoes in steaming cow dung to break them apart. The trick works. Later, the girl goes to the city and finds shelter with the queen, who takes her in. The girl gives birth to a son. At night, someone comes to the castle and talks to a golden lamp about how if the crows did not crow and the bells did not ring, he would stay during the day and cradle his child. The voice returns the next night and repeats the words. The queen, who has overheard the words, orders her servants to kill the crows around the city and muffle the bells. The third night, the voice comes again, talking about the crows and the bells, to which the queen answers the crows were killed and the bells silenced. The owner of the voice appears: the queen's son, previously turned into a serpent, who has returned at last.[25][26]

Romani-Manouche

In a tale collected by Joseph Valet from a Manouche teller named Anna Warner, with the Manouche title O ŠaXéskro Šero, translated as Tête de chou ("Head of Cabbage"), a peasant couple have many children. One day, two poor girls go to a cabbage patch up north in order to pluck some cabbages. One of the girls stay by the cartwheel while the other plucks the heads, until she finds a large head she wishes to take. Suddenly, a voice tells her to stop trying to pluck his head. The second girl thinks the cabbage is speaking, and cuts it off, but she finds herself sided by two nuns that guide her to a castle. Inside the castle, she is given a sleeping drink to sleep. During her sleep, a prince with a cabbage head comes to her bed to spend the night with her, although the girl knows nothing about it. Sometime later, she discovers she is pregnant and decides to discover her mysterious bedmate, so she spills the potion and feigns sleep. At night, the prince comes and sleeps next to her. She wakes up and sees the prince with the cabbage head next to her, and two doors with keys on his chest: she opens the first one, and finds a witch that says she is sewing socks for the prince's unborn son; behind the second door, there are two witches sewing a cap and a hat for the baby. Suddenly, the cabbage prince wakes up, admonishes the girl, who has become his wife, for her curiosity, gives her a spool of thread for her to pull and follow. The girl, pregnant, traverses bushes and forests until she reaches the castle that belongs to the cabbage prince's father. She gives birth to her son on the side of the road, but a kind shepherd finds her and takes her to the castle stables. At night, the Prince with the Cabbage Head comes in at night and asks the lamp how fare his wife and son, then goes around the bed and sighs over his wife and son, lamenting his misery when he hears the first clocks and the first rooster and mentioning how if his father knew their identities, the girl would be wearing gold and their baby diamonds. The shepherd overhears the lament and tells the king. The monarch, however, refuses to believe the tale, since his son is missing. Still, he kills the roosters and silences all the clocks. That same night, the prince with the Cabbage Head enters the stable, repeats his lament to his wife, but he does not hear any rooster, nor any bell, and falls asleep. The following morning, he finds himself restored to normal. The king reunites with his lost son, then has his daughter-in-law dressed in gold and his grandson in diamonds.[27] French researcher Bénédicte Bonnemason classified the tale as type 425E, "Enchanted Husband Sings Lullaby", which she noted to not have been recorded in France, but registered in Southern Europe (Iberian Peninsula and Italy), Central Europe and Mediterranean.[28]

See also

References

  1. ^ Pitrè, Giuseppe (1890). Due novelline toscane. Giornale de Sicilia. p. 15 (source).
  2. ^ Pitrè, Giuseppe (1890). Due novelline toscane. Giornale de Sicilia. pp. 7–15.
  3. ^ Pitrè, Giuseppe (1891). Archivio per lo studio delle tradizioni popolari rivista trimestrale. Luigi Pedone Lauriel. pp. 57–63.
  4. ^ D'aronco, Gianfranco. "Le fiabe di magia in Italia: memoria". In: Atti dell'Accademia di scienze lettere e arti di Udine, serie 6, v. 14 (1954/1957). p. 92.
  5. ^ Aprile, Renato (2000). Indice delle fiabe popolari italiane di magia (in Italian). Vol. 2. Leo S. Olschki. p. 729. ISBN 9788822248558.
  6. ^ Aarne, Antti; Thompson, Stith. The types of the folktale: a classification and bibliography. Folklore Fellows Communications FFC no. 184. Helsinki: Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 1961. p. 143.
  7. ^ Uther, Hans-Jörg (2011) [2004]. The International Index. Vol. 1: Tales of Magic. Folklore Fellows’ Communications. Kalevala Society Foundation. p. 254. ISBN 978-951-41-1054-2. ISSN 0014-5815.
  8. ^ Swahn, Jan-Öjvind (1955). The tale of Cupid and Psyche (Aarne-Thompson 425 & 428). C.W.K. Gleerup. p. 318. OCLC 1032974719. In a number of variants we are told that the husband converses with the lamp in the room ...
  9. ^ Aprile, Renato (2000). Indice delle fiabe popolari italiane di magia (in Italian). Vol. 2. Leo S. Olschki. p. 666 (section 6Ec). ISBN 9788822248558.
  10. ^ Swahn, Jan-Öjvind (1955). The tale of Cupid and Psyche (Aarne-Thompson 425 & 428). C.W.K. Gleerup. p. 319. OCLC 1032974719.
  11. ^ a b Lavagetto, Mario; Buia, Anna, eds. (2009). Racconti di orchi, di fate e di streghe: la fiaba letteraria in Italia. A. Mondadori. p. 1665. ISBN 978-88-04-57388-3.
  12. ^ Merakles, Michales G. Studien zum griechischen Märchen. Eingeleitet, übers, und bearb. von Walter Puchner. Raabser Märchen-Reihe, Bd. 9. Wien: Österr. Museum für Volkskunde, 1992. p. 106 and footnote nr. 292. ISBN 3-900359-52-0.
  13. ^ Di Francia, Letterio (Curatore). Fiabe e novelle calabresi. Prima e seconda parte. Torino: Giovanni Chiantore. 1935. p. 41.
  14. ^ Schenda, Rufold (2001). "Basile und das Problem der Mündlichkeit: ein Beitrag zur Geschichte unterschiedlicher TextKommunikationen". Schweizerisches Archiv für Volkskunde (in German). 97: 15–16. doi:10.5169/seals-118080.
  15. ^ Di Francia, Letterio (Curatore). Fiabe e novelle calabresi. Prima e seconda parte. Torino: Giovanni Chiantore. 1935. p. 76.
  16. ^ Canepa, Nancy (2007). Giambattista Basile's The Tale of Tales, or Entertainment for Little Ones. Wayne State University Press. p. 199 (footnote). ISBN 978-0-8143-3738-7. Project MUSE book 14344.
  17. ^ Angelopoulou, Anna; Brouskou, Aígle. "ΚΑΤΑΛΟΓΟΣ ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΩΝ ΠΑΡΑΜΥΘΙΩΝ". Vol. 3: ΕΠΕΞΕΡΓΑΣΙΑ ΤΥΠΩΝ ΚΑΙ ΠΑΡΑΛΛΑΓΩΝ AT 300-499. Athens: ΚΕΝΤΡΟ ΝΕΟΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΩΝ ΕΡΕΥΝΩΝ Ε.Ι.Ε, 1999. pp. 775, 779. ISBN 960-7138-22-8.
  18. ^ Swahn, Jan Öjvind. The Tale of Cupid and Psyche. Lund, C.W.K. Gleerup. 1955. p. 318.
  19. ^ Renato Aprile, ed. (1991). La fiaba di magia in Sicilia (in Italian). Sellerio. p. 192 (notes for tale nr. 3). ISBN 9788838907616.
  20. ^ Imbriani, Vittorio. La Novellaja Fiorentina. Italia, Firenze: Coi tipi di F. Vigo. 1887. pp. 328 (footnote "i").
  21. ^ Imbriani, Vittorio. La Novellaja Fiorentina. Italia, Firenze: Coi tipi di F. Vigo. 1887. pp. 327-331.
  22. ^ Schneller, Christian. Märchen und Sagen aus Wälschtirol. Innsbruck: Wagner. 1867. pp. 84-86.
  23. ^ Guarnerio, Pier Enea (1884). Una Novellina nel dialetto di Luras in Gallura (in Sardinian). Milano: Bernardoni.
  24. ^ Aprile, Renato (2000). Indice delle fiabe popolari italiane di magia (in Italian). Vol. 2. Leo S. Olschki. pp. 739–740. ISBN 9788822248558.
  25. ^ Decurtin, Caspar. Rätoromanische chrestomathie. Vol II. Erlangen, F. Junge, 1901. pp. 56–57.
  26. ^ Decurtins, Caspar; Brunold-Bigler, Ursula. Die drei Winde, Rätoromanische Märchen aus der Surselva. Chur: Desertina Verlag. 2002. pp. 122-125 (German text), 397 (classification for tale nr. 44). ISBN 978-3-85637-273-6.
  27. ^ Valet, Joseph (1988). Contes manouches (in Sinte Romani and French). Vol. 1. J. Valet. pp. 58-60 (Manouche text), 60-61 (French translation).
  28. ^ Bonnemason, Bénédicte. Analyse comparatiste et typologique des récits (contes et récits légendaires) recueillis par Joseph Valet auprès de groupes familiaux manouches installés en Auvergne dans le premier tiers du XXe siècle. 2023. p. 13. ⟨hal-04012068⟩
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