Latin American Folktales (13 page)

PART THREE

24. The Mouse and the Dung Beetle

A rich couple’s son was soon to be married. Next door lived a girl as poor as could be, who loved the son desperately. Her mother, who worked for the boy’s parents, would come home at night and tell her daughter what the talk was. The daughter kept hoping the boy would take an interest in her, but he never gave her a thought.

One evening the old woman came back and said, “They’ve set a date for the wedding.”

“Who is he marrying?”

“A girl whose parents are as rich as cream. Who else would he be marrying?”

The daughter felt sick but said nothing.

The mother kept a statue of St. Anthony in the house. The next morning when she’d gone off to work, the daughter closed the doors and the windows. She stood before St. Anthony and asked him to give her the boy next door for her husband. When she prayed to the saint, he smiled. She prayed a little harder, but he was a sly one and made no answer.

The day before the wedding, as soon as her mother had left for work, the girl took St. Anthony out of his niche and stood him on the hearth. She kept talking to him while she heated a spindle over the fire.

“St. Anthony, listen to me, Blue Robe, I’ve asked you over and over again to give me that boy. They say you’re powerful, but I’m beginning to wonder. You don’t help me at all. And here he is, getting married tomorrow. I’m going to clean out your ears with this hot spindle, then maybe when I talk to you you’ll hear me for a change.”

St. Anthony just laughed. When she came toward him with the heated spindle, he ran from one corner of the room to the other.

Just as he ducked under the bed, the mother knocked at the door. Flustered, the girl opened up. The old woman asked, “What’s going on?”

“Oh, nothing.”

The mother noticed St. Anthony was not in his niche. She saw his feet sticking out from under the bed.

“I took him down to clean him,” explained the daughter, “and I laid him there temporarily.” The mother picked up the saint and put him back in his niche, all the while describing the banquet that had taken place next door. Hearing this talk, the girl felt sicker than ever.

The following day was the ceremony. Before the mother left for work she asked her daughter to come along and help her. The girl refused. “I can’t,” she said. “My heart’s not in it.” Later, when the wedding procession passed in front of her window, she couldn’t even bear to look. She turned to St. Anthony and said, “I’ll never pray to you again.”

St. Anthony laughed and said, “Here’s a mouse and a dung beetle. They’re at your command. Give them orders and they’ll obey.”

When her mother returned, the girl asked which room had been prepared for the bridal chamber. The mother went to the door and pointed to a certain window in the bridegroom’s house. That night the girl gave orders to the mouse, “Go look in the window and tell me if they’re in bed yet.”

“Not yet,” reported the mouse.

She waited awhile, then sent him back. “They’re getting into bed now,” said the mouse.

“Gnaw a hole in the casement so the dung beetle can squeeze through.” Then she instructed the dung beetle, “Crawl all over both of them and smear them with whatever you can find.”

The dung beetle obeyed. First the bride and then the bridegroom leaped out of bed and ran to the bath. They threw open the doors to air out the room. The next night it was the same, and the night after that. After three nights, the bride and the bridegroom began blaming each other.

On the fourth morning the bridegroom was stopped by a little old man in front of his parents’ house. “What’s the matter?” said the little man. “You’re in such a state! Weren’t you married just three days ago? You’re as haggard as a man who’s been married a year or more.”

“May I tell you something?” said the young man. And he spilled the whole story.

“You’ve married the wrong woman,” said the little old man. “And this is the proof of it. You’ll never be happy until you find the woman who’s right for you. Better a poor woman whose heart is true. Believe in my advice and you’ll know what to do.”

The unhappy bridegroom turned away and for the first time took a look around the neighborhood. He went straight to the one who had prayed so hard to St. Anthony, who himself was none other than the little old man who had given the advice. St. Anthony blessed their union, and they lived happily from that time on. As the old people used to say: Eyes up before you sit down.

Colorado
/
Eva
Martínez

25. The Canon and the King’s False Friend

A man and his wife who were childless vowed they would make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem if God would give them children. And at long last the wife delivered a son and a daughter. The children grew up, and when they were nearly of age the husband announced to his wife that it was time to be off for Jerusalem, as they had promised. Away they went, leaving the children with His Reverence, the canon.

When the parents arrived in Jerusalem, they wrote home to ask how the children were doing. His Reverence replied that the girl had not done well, while the boy had turned out to be a fine young man. The girl, he reported, had become a tramp.

The parents wrote back that since it had come to this the daughter was to be taken out and thrown to the animals after removing her eyes and one little finger, which must be shown to them as proof upon their return. Then the canon paid two ruffians to carry the girl off to the woods and bring back her eyes and her little finger.

But the girl moved those two men to pity, and they allowed her to go free after taking only the finger. They took the eyes from a wild boar, and when they’d gone off, the boar and a little coyote stayed with the girl and took care of her in their cave.

A king who lived nearby was out in the woods one day when he spotted the boar and the coyote. He chased them, driving them into their cave. Then, peering in, he saw the girl and ordered her to come forward. “I can’t,” she said. “I have nothing to put on.” So the king took off his cape and threw it at her. She came out of the cave, the king fell in love with her, and what should happen but they rode off to his palace and got married.

Time passed and the king was called to war. Meanwhile the queen gave birth to a child. One day when the king had returned from the battlefield, the queen said to him, “Am I ever going to see my parents again?” So the king made arrangements for her to travel, selecting as her escort a friend in whom he had complete confidence. While on the road the friend became amorous, and when the queen rebuffed him he turned around and rode back. She, prepared for any emergency, had brought along one of the king’s outfits. She slipped it on and continued her journey dressed as a man. When she reached her old home, her parents had no idea who she was.

As for the friend, when he got to the palace, he told the king that his wife had turned out to be a woman no better than she should be, who of all things had insisted on traveling by herself. Then the king, with his friend in tow, set out immediately to see what the truth might be. When they arrived at the parents’ house, the wife was already there, but neither the king nor his friend recognized her in men’s clothes. And who should be there as well but His Reverence, the canon, who himself had made false accusations years earlier when his advances had been rebuffed.

So there they were all together in the same room, and as they sat around swapping stories, each told his own tale. The queen in disguise, when it was her turn to speak, told the story of the canon and the king’s false friend, not omitting a single detail. Before she had finished, the friend and the canon were shaking with fear. Then she turned around to the king and said, “Would you recognize your wife if you saw her?”

“Why, of course! I’d know her if she’d been changed into corn soup!” For the king had begun to realize who she was. In that instant she revealed herself and pointed to those who had tried to force her. The king begged her forgiveness, then asked, “What punishment for the canon and my old friend?”

“It’s up to you, my dear.” And the king ordered them tied to the tail of a horse and dragged until dead, then burned until there was nothing left but ashes. As soon as
that
matter had been taken care of, the king and his wife returned to their own country.

New
Mexico
/ Juan Julián
Archuleta

26. The Story That Became a Dream

This was a young man out traveling, who came to a town he hadn’t known before. Strolling along the streets he peered through an entranceway and saw a beautiful young woman sitting down to tea. She caught his fancy, and every day from then on he passed by her door just to catch a glimpse of her.

One day he came to a full stop and asked permission to light his cigar at her fireplace. With this little excuse he struck up a conversation and soon was asking, “Are you married or single?”

“Single,” she said. But it wasn’t true; the lady was married. Her husband, it seems, was an idler who had nothing better to do than crawl the streets up and down, coming home to his wife at night and sometimes not even then.

As it happened, the woman’s admirer had the same occupation as the husband, and since the two of them frequented the same places, it wasn’t long before they were friends.

All the while, the admirer was paying daily visits to the wife, and occasionally he would come to her when it was dark. After their first night together he pledged his love by giving her an expensive ring with his name engraved inside the band.

One night, just as the lovers were saying their good-byes, there came a knock at the door. The woman called, “Who is it?”

“Your husband!” came the answer.

The lover whispered, “What? You mean you’re married?”

“We’ll talk about that later. The important thing is to get you out of the way.” She hid him under a pile a wool in one corner of the room.

Covered up and all muffled around the ears, the lover was unable to see the husband or recognize his voice. Finally, at three in the morning, he managed to slip away. The next day he recounted the adventure to his friend.

“Well! Aren’t you the lucky one!” said the friend. “Good-looking girl, huh? And you’re going to be there again tonight?”

“Why not? Fresh love, you know.”

But if the husband thought it would be easy to catch his rival in the act, he was mistaken. The wife was too quick for him, always hiding the lover in a different spot. Worse, the husband had to listen to his friend’s tales of adventure the following day. “Old buddy,” he’d start out, “that husband doesn’t have a chance. He’s a louse, he’s outrageous. She doesn’t even want him around. And listen, he sticks his nose into every nook and cranny. But she knows where to hide me!”

“Oh, you don’t say! She must be crazy about you. What luck!”

One night, at a loss for a new place to hide her lover, the wife put him in a little shed just off the kitchen where the cook threw dishwater and food scraps. It was a foul hiding place, but the man had no choice. The husband, after checking everywhere else, tossed a pebble into the waste shed, saying, “Take this, wherever you are, you piece of filth!” The stone splashed the lover with mud from head to foot. Yet he was able to keep still and not be seen.

The next day he reported it all to his friend, who pretended to be only mildly interested; and after giving his wife’s lover a congratulatory pat on the back, he went off to see his father-in-law, who had a country place not far from town. He said, “You ought to know what kind of daughter you have!” and he explained what had been happening.

The father sent for the daughter at once and locked her in a room. Then he told his son-in-law to invite his friend to dinner. He would judge for himself whether his daughter was guilty. If he found that she was, he would kill the two of them on the spot.

The husband went back to town and soon returned with his friend. At noon the three men gathered at the table for a convivial meal, course after course washed down with draughts of wine. When dessert came, the host proposed that each relate his little adventures, beginning with himself, and he proceeded to tell an amorous tale he’d no doubt invented but that drew appreciative snorts all around.

“Now it’s your turn,” said the host, gesturing to the invited guest.

“Very well,” said the guest, and without an inkling of what lay in store he began to relate his adventures with the host’s own daughter, sparing not the smallest item. And the poor young woman heard everything through the door!

When he got to the part about the pebble and the waste shed, he started to feel his throat getting dry and he called for a cup of water. “Take wine!” they offered. But no, he needed water. And with that he was saved, because when the servant woman went out to the kitchen to get the water, the host’s daughter called to her through an open window and, without attracting the servant’s notice, she took off the ring her lover had given her and dropped it into the cup.

Seeing the ring, the guest drained the cup, slipped the ring into his vest pocket, and went on with the story: “So, after the husband looked all over the house and couldn’t find me, he was so furious he picked up a stone and threw it into the waste shed and said, ‘Take this, wherever you are, you piece of filth!’ And it was a direct hit. I was splashed all over with mud—and just at that moment I woke up in a sweat, frightened to death!”

“What?” said the old man. “You mean it was only a dream?”

“Sir, what do you take me for?” said the guest. “Do you think I would have told such a story if it had been true?”

“Rogue!” cried the old gentleman, turning to his son-in-law. “Vile scandal monger! You’ve trifled with my honor. Now make your peace with God, because you’ve breathed your last.” And with one thrust of his dagger he hushed him up forever.

They buried the dead man in the garden, and no one ever asked questions.

As for the dinner guest, he became a frequent visitor at the old man’s country estate, and before the year was out he married the young widow who had figured so prominently in his story.

Chile
/ José
Manuel
Reyes