Italian Folk Tales

SIAMO recently had the opportunity to participate in the 2016 Scranton Fringe Festival, a multi-day arts festival in the city's downtown area. In "C'era Una Volta: Folktales from Italy," we read a selection of folktales from the Irpinia region of Avellino Province in Italy, from which many people in NEPA can claim ancestry. Below is a selection of some of the folktales we read...

THE DEVIL’S FURNACE

Once there was a poor man who worked night and day to earn money for his family.

One day, while he was coming home after a long day at work, he met a handsome gentleman, who was dressed in the finest garments. The gentleman stopped his carriage in front of the poor man, saying,

“My good sir, what do you do for a living? What do you want out of life?”

At this point, the poor man began to cry.

“I am forced to work from morning to night because I need to earn money for my family.”

The gentleman replied,

“Do you want to earn a lot of money without having to work too hard? Come with me, I’ll give you a job and after some time, I’ll give you all the money you want”

The poor man said, “If this is true, then I gladly accept your offer!”

The poor man jumped in the gentleman’s carriage and they road to a house on top of a mountain. When they got there, the poor man’s job was to throw coal into a furnace.

“Make sure this furnace never goes out,” the gentleman warned him.

For three days, the poor man worked non-stop throwing the coal into the furnace. He would be fed every day at noon. Throughout the day, other people would arrive and would be taken to various rooms in the house.

By the fourth day, the poor man was curious. He wanted to know what was happening in those rooms. Eventually, his curiosity got the best of him and he decided to go in one. He found a series of beds all lined up and in them were people that had died a long time ago.

He recognized someone he knew well. He remembered attending that man’s funeral.

“Excuse me, what are you doing here,” he asked.

“We’re in hell,” the man replied. “We’re burning in the flames.”

The temperature was quite high and the furnace was obviously what was keeping these souls on fire.

“But are you dead, too?” the man then asked. “How come you’re here? You’re in hell.”

“How on earth are we in hell?” replied the poor man and he began to tell his friend about how he ended up there. His dead friend gave him some advice.

“Look, if you can’t escape from here, you’re never going to be able to get away.”

So the poor man went back to work, throwing coal on the fire. The gentleman, whom he now realized was the devil, came back to see how he was doing.

“You’re doing a wonderful job, so I am going to pay you.”

The poor man said, “I don’t want any money.”

“How come you don’t want any money? You did so much to get paid and you wanted to earn enough of money to take care of your family. Why the sudden change of heart?”

“I want to go back to where I was before,” the poor man replied. “My life was okay before I came here.”

The devil was not happy with that reply, so he kept insisting until the poor man said,

“I saw everything. You tricked me!”

The devil then became furious.

“Fine, you want to go back to where we met? Then your wish will be granted,” he said, kicking the poor man in the process.

The devil’s footprint remained on the poor man’s body, but he forced himself to run home.

His relatives asked him what happened to him and he told them the story.

His wife then said, “You mean to tell me that to give us a better life you were willing to sell your soul to the devil?” And she began to cry. They then embraced and he told her he would never do such a thing again.

THE TREASURE IN THE WOODS

Once, there was an abandoned house in the woods. Along the path that led to this house was a beautiful piece of marble. It was said that under this marble was the devil’s treasure.

The marble had an inscription on it that said whomever wants to take the treasure in the woods had to make a pact with the devil, but no one knew how to make this pact.

One day, there was a group of friends who decided to go into the village to visit a man who would teach them how to obtain the treasure.

The man told them, “To obtain this treasure, you need to have a soul to give to the devil, but if you have a priest’s head, even better. Be careful, though, as under the marble there’s a ladder and at the bottom of the ladder there are two lions who are protecting the devil’s treasure.”

The friends decided to go to the cemetery, carrying the head of a priest who had died recently. They then approached the marble and recited some incantations that the man had taught them. These incantations caused the stone to move and the ladder appeared.

Only one of the friends, Antonio, decided to go down the ladder, the other three were too scared. When he got down the ladder, he said that the two lions wanted to attack him, but he tossed a purse filled with money at them.

As he got further and further into the devil’s cove, he became terrified and prayed to the Virgin Mary to get him out of there.

Somehow, he got out of the cove but found that his body was badly bruised. Before escaping, he grabbed the purse he tossed at the lions, but when he opened it, he discovered it was filled with coal.

From that time on, demons followed Antonio wherever he went. He was seen in the village talking to them as well. When he tried to enter the church in the village, something would block his entry.

Most likely, one of the other friends was able to obtain the treasure because he sold his soul to the devil. We know this because all of them, when they died, died in terrible and violent ways. Antonio, however, went to sleep once in a hut in the fields. The hut, which was made of hay, caught fire and only the family dog made it out alive.

MIDNIGHT MASS

Once, during Christmas time over a hundred years ago, a young girl went to Midnight Mass. That Mass was often called “The Mass of the Dead” in parts of Southern Italy.

At that time, the peasants would go to work early in the morning, but only after having gone to the cemetery for a special prayer service.

On that particular day, the young girl got up—in those days there were no clocks, so you would have to get up with the light of the sun and go to bed by the light of the moon. She heard the church bells and went to Mass, but she didn’t see anyone else in town going in her direction.

When she got to the church, she figured it was time for Mass and went inside, where she found three priests on the altar. She sat down and realized that her godmother was sitting next to her.

“How on earth are you here?” she asked her, knowing full well that her godmother had died several years beforehand.

Her godmother then turned to her and asked, “But what are you doing here?”

The girl answered, “What do you mean what am I doing here? I came to Mass!”

Her godmother went on, “But this is the Mass of the dead and it is only for those of us who have died. If you can’t get out of the church quickly, you’re going to be stuck here for the rest of the night.”

The young girl was terrified and quickly ran out the door. As she was leaving, the Church was closing and her dress was caught. She tried and tried to free herself but her fear got the best of her and she fainted.

When the other townspeople got to the church later that morning for Mass, they found the poor girl lying on the pavement in front of the Church. She was so shaken that she could no longer speak.

Later it was discovered that when the dead return to the earth on November 2, their souls visit the places where they lived and they return to their graves on January 6. This is why it is not advised to get married in November, because it is the month of the dead.

THE TRUTH ALWAYS COMES TO LIGHT

Once there was a family of shepherds with four sons. One day, their father sent them out to tend to the sheep. The three older brothers were very envious of their youngest brother as he was his mother’s favorite. That day, the older brothers decided to get rid of him by throwing him into a well filled up with water, where he later drowned.

When the three brothers got home, they told their father that their little brother had disappeared and that they looked for him all day, but were unable to find him.

Their mother and father were very upset to hear that their youngest son was lost, so they immediately went out to look for him. Unfortunately, that night there was a violent storm and they had to cut the search short because of the strong winds and rains.

They took refuge in a cave for the night and began to look again the next day. They went all over the region but without any luck. They searched for more than a week before they gave up.

The three older brothers celebrated their victory because now their parents were paying more attention to them, although their father would often remind them that because they didn’t watch their youngest brother more carefully, he was now gone.

Many years went by and another shepherd went to use that well. He sent the bucket down so he could get some water for his sheep but when the bucket came up, he realized that there was a bone floating in the water.

Surprised, the shepherd cleaned it and placed it in his sack, thinking it would be helpful for when he might have to trap wild rabbits.

That day, around noon, when the sheep were resting under an olive tree, that shepherd decided it would be a good time to get some rest as well. Before dozing off, he remembered the bone in his sack and he decided to make a rabbit trap with it.

When he took it out, he noticed the bone had two holes in it and he didn’t think it would work for what he wanted it for. He then thought it would make a nice whistle, so he began to whittle it into shape with his knife.

He cleaned it out carefully and treated it as if he were cutting a reed for the same purpose. He began to blow into it and all of a sudden a voice called out to him.

“My name is Francesco.”

The shepherd got scared and didn’t understand what was happening. He looked all around but didn’t see anyone. He tried to blow into the whistle again and the same thing happened.

“My name is Francesco. Don’t be afraid.”

The shepherd looked around again and, seeing nothing, blew into the whistle one more time.

“Please don’t be afraid. My name is Francesco. I need to tell you something. Keep blowing so I can tell you my story.”

As the shepherd continued to blow into the whistle, Francesco told of how his brothers killed him by throwing him into the well and drowning him. He asked the shepherd to go to his parents to give them the whistle made from his bone. Scared, surprised and shocked, the shepherd did as he was instructed.

Francesco, through the whistle, gave the shepherd the directions to his home, where his parents were still grieving.

The shepherd told the parents what happened and Francesco’s father, still in a state of shock, asked to see the whistle. He blew into it and heard, “Papà.”

Recognizing the voice of his youngest son, the father kept blowing into the whistle as Francesco told his parents what had happened.

When the three older brothers returned home that night from the field, their father began to play for them on the whistle and immediately Francesco called to his brothers by name. Shocked, they realized it was their brother speaking to them from beyond the grave and they ran to turn themselves in to the police for murder.

The truth, sooner or later, always comes to light.

THE PIG AND THE GROTTO

Once there was a grotto on a mountain. One day, many peasants where on the mountain searching for chestnuts and mushrooms for their pigs to eat. One of the peasants decided to explore the grotto.

Inside of the grotto was fresh spring water and the peasant took out a gourd to store some of it in. He had to be careful because the water’s current was very strong. Unfortunately, the peasant lost his balance and was taken away in the current, losing his cane and his gourd.

That night, the peasant was able to make it back to his house where his wife greeted him, holding the cane he had lost.

“Where did you find that?” he asked her.

“I was washing clothes alongside of the stream and saw this cane, so I took it for you,” she replied.

He explained the day’s events to her, adding:

“Tomorrow when I go to tend to the pigs, I am going to take one of them to the grotto and I am going to put it in the current. You wait by where you found my cane. Then I am going to come back and see if the pig ends up there.”

The next day, the peasant did as he said he would. After finishing his work for the day, he went home and found the pig, which his wife rescued from the water current thanks to some help from her brother.

The pigs belonged to a very rich man, so the peasant decided to trick him. He kept throwing the pigs into the current. One day, the rich man asked him what had happened to all of them. The peasant told him that the wolves who lived on the mountain probably killed them.

The rich man became suspicious and decide to spy on the peasant. He watched the peasant take a pig into the grotto to put it in the water and he surprised the peasant and pushed both him and the pig into the water.

When the wife went to grab the pig, she also saw her husband who, by this time, had drowned.

The moral of this story is: don’t lie, steal or cheat because, eventually, you will be found out.

VIOLET AND THE MONK

There once was a cemetery with a small monastery that housed about 10 monks on its grounds.

The monastery was very old and part of it was crumbling. All of the monks thought it was haunted by the ghost of a monk who once lived there.

No one believed that there was a ghost there, but after the monastery closed, a woman bought the house. Every night at midnight, she began to hear strange noises-- doors began to rattle and furniture began to move. One day, she decided to talk to the village priest about it and he told her,

“If this happens one more time, call me and I will perform an exorcism and a blessing on the house.”

Even though the priest eventually came to do all this, the strange things continued.

One night at midnight, the woman was in her bed and she saw the door to her bedroom open.

A monk, dressed in gold with a chalice filled with hosts came through the door. He also held a lit candle in his hands.

She was terrified and the next day she called the priest who, once again, came to bless her house.

This time, the priest decided to look through old parish records, and he realized that the woman lived in the old monastery. The monk who was haunting her was the last of the monks to die. Since that was where he lived, he wished to remain there for eternity.

The priest told her she needed to move but, unfortunately, a few months later she died. No one knows how.