Chapter 11 Earl's Beard

Earl's Beard & Italian Fairy Tales Bocapaglia is a small town built on a steep hillside. As long as the chickens in the town lay eggs, they will roll down into the woods below the mountain.In order to prevent the eggs from rolling off and being lost, the residents hang a small bag on each hen's tail. This shows that the Bocapaglia people are not as weak and incompetent as others have ridiculed. There was a saying nearby: Everyone knows that in Bocapaglia, The donkey whistled and the master howled. This is purely a slander from the people in the nearby villages and towns. These people treat the Bocapaglia people like this because they are calm by nature and do not want to quarrel with anyone.

"Let you slander and sarcasm," said all the Bocapaglias, "and when Masino comes back, let's see which of us will howl." Massino was the wisest of the Bocapaglias, and loved by the whole town.He is not thicker than others, even much thinner than average people, but he is born smart.When he was born, he looked thin and petite, and his mother bathed him in mulled wine so that he could survive and grow stronger.Dad also put a hot iron into the wine to heat the wine.In this way, Masino not only obtained the softness of wine by soaking the skin, but also absorbed the strength of iron.After the bath, Mom put her back in the cradle covered with raw chestnut shells to cool his body and make him wiser in the sting.

When he grew up, Massino set off to serve in the army and never returned to his village.It seems to be somewhere in Africa now.During this period, a series of strange things began to happen in Bocapaglia.Every night people would find that when their cattle came back from grazing on the plains, several of them would be snatched away by the witch Michelina. The witch Michelina is always hiding in the woods below the village, waiting for an opportunity to come out. She can steal a cow with just one breath.After dark, whenever the villagers heard the rustling of the bushes in the forest, their teeth would chatter with fright, and they would even faint on the ground, so everyone said:

Witch Michelina, Steal the cattle from the stalls, Just squint, You fall down in fright. The villagers had to light a bunch of big bonfires at night, so that the witch Michelina did not dare to appear from the bushes.But when there is only one person guarding the livestock by the bonfire, the witch will quietly lean in and blow the person unconscious with gas. He weeps, despairs, and beats himself on the head.Then all the people would go together in the woods to look for cattle, and find nothing but a lock of hair, a hairpin of a woman, and the footprints of the witch Michelina. Several months passed like this, and the cows were kept in the pen and became thinner and thinner.There is no need for a brush when brushing the bristles, just use a rake to rake a few times on the beef ribs.No one dared to bring livestock to the grassland anymore, and no one dared to enter the woods again. The mushrooms in the woods grew as big as umbrellas because no one picked them for a long time.

The witch Michelina never goes to other villages to rob cattle, because she knows that there is no other village where the villagers are as peaceful and patient as the Bocapaglia people.Every night, these poor villagers light a bonfire in the middle of the yard. The women and children stay at home, while the men scratch their heads and complain around the bonfire.Complained about today, complained about tomorrow, and finally, they decided to go to the earl here for help. The count lived in a circular manor house on a hilltop in the village, surrounded by walls and covered with panes of glass.One Sunday morning, the villagers came together, hat in hand, and knocked on the door of the earl's house.After the door was opened, the villagers came to the courtyard in front of the count's round house, the windows of which were closed with iron bars, and the courtyard was surrounded by the count's guards, their beards were oiled to make them look Glossy.These people glared at the villagers one by one.At the innermost end of the courtyard, the count was sitting on a velvet chair, with a long black beard, and four guards were combing it from top to bottom for him with four combs.

The oldest villager gathered himself together and said: "Master Count, we have ventured to come here to tell you about our misfortune. There is a witch in the forest, Michelina, who has robbed our livestock." Afterwards, the old man sighed and complained bitterly, and with the confirmation of the nodding of other villagers, he told the earl about their terrible experience during this period. The count said nothing. The old man said again: "We are here to take the liberty of asking you, sir, for a solution." The count remained silent. The old man added: "We come here to dare to ask you, sir, to help us. If you are willing to send a team of guards, we can go back to the pasture to graze the livestock."

The count turned his head around his neck and said, "If I send a guard, I'll have to send a captain..." The villagers listened with pricked ears, as if feeling a glimmer of hope. "But if I send the captain," said the count, "then with whom shall I play pottery at night?" The villagers knelt on the ground and said, "Help us, Lord Earl, have pity on us!" The surrounding guards began to yawn in disgust and black oil their beards. The count turned his head again and said: "I am the earl, and I can speak for three, Since I have never seen a witch,

Explain that there are no witches at all. " Hearing the earl's words, the yawning guards immediately raised their rifles and slowly forced the villagers out of the courtyard with bayonets. The villagers returned to the yard dejectedly, not knowing what to do next. The oldest old man who had spoken to the count said, "Now we have to send someone to bring Masino back!" After speaking, they immediately wrote a letter to Masino, and then sent the letter to Africa.One evening, when the villagers gathered, as usual, around the campfire in the yard, Massino returned.Not to mention the excitement of the people rushing up to hug him and mulled wine brewed.Someone asked, "Where did you go?" Someone said, "What did you see?" Another said, "Do you know how miserable we are?"

Masino first let everyone talk enough, and then he began to narrate: "In Africa, I met savages who didn't eat people but cicadas; A madman with long nails; at sea I saw a fish wearing a shoe and a slipper, and he wanted to be the king of all fish, because no other fish had shoes or slippers; in Sicily, I I know a woman who gave birth to seventy sons, but the whole family has only one pot; in Naples, I saw that people can move forward even if they stop, because other people's gossip is so powerful that it becomes a great impetus; I've seen saints, I've seen criminals, I've seen fat people who weigh a hundred kilos, I've seen short people who are skinny, I've seen a lot of cowards, but I've never seen a man as cowardly as Bocapaglia people."

The villagers bowed their heads in shame, and Masino said they were timid, which hit the nail on the head.But Masino didn't mean to blame the folks.He asked everyone to tell the story of the witch in detail, and then said: "I will ask you three questions now, and then, as soon as midnight comes, I will catch this witch and bring her here." "Ask, ask!" Everyone said together. "The first question is to ask the barber. How many people get a haircut at your place this month?" The barber replied: "One with a long beard and one with a short beard, The one with the soft beard, the one with the curvy beard,

curly-haired, shaggy-haired, My scissors cut them all. " "Now I ask you, shoemaker, how many people come to you to repair shoes this month?" "Alas," said the shoemaker: "I've mended wooden slippers, I've mended leather slippers, A bunch of spikes were nailed, and a bunch of palm irons were put on; I have mended cloth shoes, and snakeskin shoes, But now people are out of money and no one comes anymore. " "The third question is for you, rope maker, how many pieces of rope have you sold this month?" Ropemaker said: "Willow cord, string, Rubbed and braided straw ropes, Thin wicker well rope, Thick as an arm, thin as a needle, hard as iron, soft as lard, I sold a lot of roots this month. " "Okay, I understand." Masino said, lying down by the campfire, "I'll sleep for two hours now, I'm really tired. In the middle of the night, wake me up, and I'll catch that witch ’” After speaking, he covered his face with his hat and fell asleep. The villagers waited quietly, not even daring to breathe, for fear of waking him up.In the middle of the night, Masino woke up by himself. He yawned, drank a small glass of hot wine, spit on the campfire three more times, and then stood up without anyone else and went straight to the woods. The villagers all stayed where they were and waited for him. The bonfire turned into charcoal, which turned into ashes, and the ashes turned black. At this moment, Masino returned.There is a person behind him, as if being pulled by a beard, who is it?It was the count, and the count was crying, struggling, and begging for mercy. "That's the witch!" cried Massino.Then he asked: "Where is the hot wine?" Under the glaring gaze of the crowd, the count curled up on the ground like a frozen fly. "It couldn't have been done by one of you," Massino explained, "because you've all had your hair cut and your beards cut, and there's no way you'd leave beards in the bushes; there's big, heavy shoe prints in the woods, and You all went into the woods barefoot. It can't be that some elf did it, because the elves don't need to buy so many ropes to tie up the livestock and then pull them away. Hey, where's the hot wine I want?" The Count was trembling all over, trying to hide behind his beard, which was ruffled when Masino pulled him out from behind the bushes. "Then how can he make us pass out just by looking at us?" asked a villager. "He hits your head with a wooden stick wrapped in a cloth, so that you feel like blowing air, there is no mark on your head, and you wake up dizzy." "What about the hairpins he left in the forest?" asked another. "These hairpins are what he uses to tie his beard on his head, like women tie their hair." The villagers listened quietly, and when Masino said, "Now, what do you want to do with him?" an excited shout erupted from the crowd: "Burn him! Skin him! Bind him to a pole." Tricked into a scarecrow! Put him in a barrel and keep him spinning! Put him in a bag with six cats and six dogs!" "Forgive me!" cried the Count in a trembling voice. "I think so," said Massino, "let him return all the cattle to the people, and let him clean all the cowsheds. Since he likes to go to the forest at night, let him go to the woods every night. You collect firewood. Tell the children never to pick up any hairpins on the ground again, they belong to the witch Michelina, who can no longer comb her hair and beard." The villagers did as Masino said.Then Massino set off again to travel the world, and along the way he joined in one war after another, and each war lasted a long time, as evidenced by the poem: O soldier of war, You eat poorly and sleep on the ground, Load gunpowder into the barrel, Boom!boom! The Counts Beard The town of Pocapaglia was perched on the pinnacle of a hill so steep that its inhabitants tied little bags on the tail feathers of their hens to catch each freshly laid egg that otherwise would have gone rolling down the slopes into the woods below. All of which goes to show that the people of Pocapaglia were not the dunces they were said to be, and that the proverb, In Pocapaglia ways The donkey whistles, the master brays, barely reflected the malicious grudge the neighboring townspeople bore the Pocapaglians for their peaceful ways and their reluctance to quarrel with anyone. "Yes, yes," was all the Pocapaglians would reply, "but just wait until Masino returns, and you will see who brays more, we or you." Everybody in Pocapaglia loved Masino, the smartest boy in town. He was no stronger physically than anybody else; in fact, he even looked rather puny. But he had always been very clever. Concerned over how little he was at birth, his mother had bathed him in warm wine to keep him alive and make him a little stronger. His father had heated the wine with a red-hot horseshoe. That way Masino absorbed the subtlety of wine and the endurance of iron. To cool him off after his bath , his mother cradled him in the shell of an unripened chestnut; it was bitter and gave him understanding. At the time the Pocapaglians were awaiting the return of Masino, whom no one had seen since the day he went off to be a soldier (and who was now most likely somewhere in Africa), strange things started happening in Pocapaglia. cattle came back from pasture in the plain below, an animal was whisked away by Micillina the Witch. The witch would hide in the woods at the foot of the hill, and all she needed to do was give one heavy puff, and she had herself an ox. When the farmers heard her steal through the thicket after dark, their teeth would chatter, and everyone would fall down in a swoon. That became so common that people took to saying: Beware of Micillina, that old witch, For all your oxen she will filch, Then train on you her crossed-eye, And wait for you to fall and die. At night they began lighting huge bonfires to keep Micillina the Witch from venturing out of the woods. But she would sneak up on the solitary farmer watching over cattle beside the bonfire and knock him out in one breath. In the morning upon awakening, hed find cows and oxen gone, and his friends would hear him weeping and moaning and hitting himself on the head. Then everybody combed the woods for traces of the stolen cattle, but found only tufts of hair, hairpins, and footprints left here and there by Micillina the Witch. Things went from bad to worse. Shut up all the time in the barn, the cows grew as thin as rails. A rake instead of a brush was all that was needed to groom them, from rib to rib. Nobody dared lead the cattle to pasture any more. Everyone stayed clear of the woods now, and the mushrooms that grew there went unpicked and got as big as umbrellas. Micillina the Witch was not tempted to plunder other towns, knowing full well that calm and peace-loving people were to be found only in Pocapaglia. There the poor farmers lit a big bonfire every night in the town square, while the women and children locked themselves indoors. The men sat around the fire scratching their heads and groaning. Day after day they scratched and groaned until a decision was finally reached to go to the count for help. The count lived high above the town on a large circular estate surrounded by a massive wall. The top of the wall was encrusted with sharp bits of glass. One Sunday morning all the townsmen arrived, with hats in hand. They knocked, the door swung open, and they filed into the courtyard before the courts round dwelling, which had bars at all the windows. Around the courtyard sat at the courts soldiers smoothing their mustaches with oil to make them shine and scowling at the farmers. , in a velvet chair, sat the count himself with his long black beard, which four soldiers were combing from head to foot. The oldest farmer took heart and said, "Your Honor, we have dared come to you about our misfortune. As our cattle go into the woods, Micillina the Witch appears and makes off with them." So, amid sighs and groans, with the other farmers nodding in assent, he told the count all about their nightmare. The count remained silent. "We have come here," said the old man, "to be so bold as to ask Your Honors advice." The count remained silent. "We have come here," he added, "to be so bold as to ask Your Honor to help us. If you assigned us an escort of soldiers, we could again take our cattle down to pasture." The count shook his head. "If I let you have the soldiers," he said, "I must also let you have the captain..." The farmers listened, hardly daring to hope. "But if the captain is away in the evening," said the count, "who can I play lotto with?" The farmers fell to their knees. "Help us, noble count, for pitys sake!" The soldiers around the courtyard yawned and stroked their mustaches. Again the count shook his head and said: I am the count and I count for three; No witch have I seen, So, no witch has been there. At those words and still yawning, the soldiers picked up their guns and, with bayonets extended, moved slowly toward the farmers, who turned and filed silently out of the courtyard. Back in the town square and completely discouraged, the farmers had no idea what to do next. But the senior of them all, the one who had spoken to the count, said, "Theres nothing left to do but send for Masino!" So they wrote Masino a letter and sent it to Africa. Then one evening, while they were all gathered around the bonfire as usual, Masino returned. Imagine the welcome they gave him, the embraces, the pots of hot, spiced wine! "Where on earth have you been? What did you see? If you only knew what we have been going through!" Masino let them have their say, then he had his. "In Africa I saw cannibals who ate not men but locusts; in the desert I saw a madman who had let his fingernails grow twelve meters long to dig for water; in the sea I saw a fish with a shoe and a slipper who wanted to be king of the other fish, since no other fish possessed shoe or slipper; in Sicily I saw a woman with seventy sons and only one kettle; in Naples I saw people who walked while standing still, since the chatter of other people kept them going; I saw sinners and I saw saints; I saw fat people and people no bigger than mites; many, many frightened souls did I see, but never so many as here in Pocapaglia. " The farmers hung their heads in shame, for Masino had hit a sensitive spot in suggesting they were cowards. But Masino was not cross with his fellow townsmen. He asked for a detailed account of the witches doings, then said, "Let me ask you three questions, and at the stroke of midnight Ill go out and catch the witch and bring her back to you." "Lets hear your questions! Out with them!" they all said. "The first question is for the barber. How many people came to you this month?" The barber replied: "Long beards, short beards, Fine beards, coarse beards, Locks straight, locks curly, All I trimmed(sic) in a hurry." "Your turn now, cobbler. How many people brought you their old shoes to mend this month?" "Alas!" began the cobbler: "Shoes of wood, shoes of leather, Nail by nail I hammered back together, Mended shoes of satin and shoes of serpent. But theres nothing left to do, All their money is spent." "The third question goes to you, rope maker. How much rope did you sell this month?" The rope maker replied: "Rope galore of every sort I sold: Hemp rope, braided, wicker, cord, Needle-thin to arm-thick, Lard-soft to iron-strong... This month I couldn't go wrong." "Very well," said Masino, stretching out by the fire. "Im now going to sleep for a few hours, Im very tired. Wake me up at midnight and Ill go after the witch." He put his hat over his face and fell asleep. The farmers kept perfectly quiet until midnight, not even daring to breathe, for fear of waking him. At midnight Masino shook himself, yawned, drank a cup of mulled wine, spat three times into the fire, got up without looking at a soul, and headed for the woods. The farmers stayed behind watching the fire burn down and the last embers turn to ashes. Then, whom should Masino drag in by the beard but the count! A count that wept, kicked, and pleaded for mercy. "Here's the witch!" cried Masino, and asked, "Where did you put the mulled wine?" Beneath the farmers amazed stars, the count tried to make himself as small as possible, sitting on the ground and shrinking up like a cold-bitten fly. "The thief could have been none of you," explained Masino, "since you had all gone to the barber and had no hair to lose in the bushes. Then there were those tracks made by big heavy shoes, but all of you go barefoot . Nor could the thief have been a ghost, since he wouldn't have needed to buy all that cord to tie up the animals and carry them away. But where is my mulled wine?" Shaking all over, the count tried to hide in that beard of his which Masino had tousled and torn in pulling him out of the bushes. "How did he ever make us faint by just looking at us?" asked one farmer. "He would smite you on the head with a padded club. That way you would hear only a whir. Hed leave no mark on you, you'd simply wake up with a headache." "And those hairpins he lost?" asked another. "They were used to hold his beard up on his head and make it look like a woman's hair." Until then the farmers had listened in silence, but when Masino said, "And now, what shall we do with him?" a storm of shouts arose: "Burn him! Skin him alive! String him up for a scarecrow! Seal him in a cask and roll him down the cliff! Sew him up in a sack with six cats and six dogs!" "Have mercy!" said the count in a voice just above a whisper. "Spare him," said Masino, "and he will bring back your cattle and clean your barns. And since he enjoyed going into the woods at night, make him go there every night and gather bundles of firewood for each of you. Tell the children never to pick up the hairpins they find on the ground, for they belong to Micillina the Witch, whose hair and beard will be disheveled from now on." The farmers followed the suggestion, and soon Masino left Pocapaglia to travel about the world. In the course of his travels, he found himself fighting in first one war and another, and they all lasted so long that his saying sprang up: Soldier fighter, what a hard lot! Wretched food, the ground for a cot. You feed the cannon powder: Boom-BOOM! Boom-BOOM! Boom louder! (Bra) NOTES: "The Counts Beard" (La barba del Conte). Published here for the first time, collected by Giovanni Arpino in July 1956, in certain villages of southern Piedmont: Bra (told by Caterina Asteggiano, inmate of a home for old people, and Luigi Berzia), in Guarene (told by Doro Palladino, farmer), in Narzole (told by Annetta Taricco, servant woman), and in Pocapaglia. This long narrative, which writer Giovanni Arpino has transcribed and unified from different versions with variants and additions from Bra and surroundings, cannot in my view be classified as a folktale. It is a local legend of recent origin in part (I am thinking, for instance, of the geographic particulars given), that is, not prior to the nineteenth century, and containing disparate elements: explanation of a local superstition (the hairpins of Witch Micillina), antifeudal country legend such as one finds in many northern countries, curious Detective-story structure a la Sherlock Holmes, many digressions nonessential to the story (such as the trip from Africa back to town -- which Arpino tells me also exists as a separate story -- and all the allusions to Masinos past and future adventures which lead to the conclusion globetrotter from a country whose inhabitants are reputed to be contrastingly slow and backward), verse (of which Arpino and I have presented only as much as we could d effective translate), and grotesque images which seem rooted in tradition, such as the sacks under the hens tails, the oxen so thin that they were curried with the rake, the count whose beard was combed by four soldiers, etc.... Copyright: Italian Folktales Selected and Retold by Italo Calvino, translated by George Martin, Pantheon Books, New York 1980