'And now choose; what shall my gift be? You have only to ask for
whatever you like and you shall have it.'
Such a heap of wishes rose up in Scioccolone's imagination at this
announcement, that he could not make up his mind which to select; as
fast as he fixed on one thing, he remembered it would be incomplete
without some other gift, and as he went on trying to find some one wish
that should be as comprehensive as possible, he suddenly blurted out--
'Promise me that whatever I wish may come true; that'll be the best
gift; and so if I forget a thing one moment I can wish for it the
next. That'll be the best gift to be sure!'
'Granted!' said the third fairy. 'You have only to wish for anything
and you will find you get it immediately, whatever it is.'
The fairies then took leave and went their way, and Scioccolone was
reminded by the lengthening shades that it was time he betook himself
to complete his day's work. Scarcely succeeding in collecting his
thoughts, so dazzled and bewildered was he by the late supernatural
conversation, he yet found his way back to the spot where he had been
felling wood.
'Oh, dear! how tired I am!' he said within himself as he walked
along. 'How I wish the wood was all felled and the faggots tied
up!' and though he said this mechanically as he might have said it
any other day of his life, without thinking of the fairy's promise,
which was, indeed, too vast for him to put it consciously to such
a practical test then, full of astonishment as he was, yet when he
got back to his working-place the wood was felled and laid in order,
and tied into a faggot in the best manner.
'Well to be sure!' soliloquised Scioccolone. 'The girls have kept
their promise indeed! This is just exactly what I wished. And now,
let's see what else did I wish? Oh, yes; that if I got astride on
the faggot it should roll along by itself and carry me with it;
let's see if that'll come true too!'
With that he got astride on the faggot, and sure enough the faggot
moved on all by itself, and carried Scioccolone along with it
pleasantly enough.
Only there was one thing Scioccolone had forgotten to ask for, and
that was power to guide the faggot; and now, though it took a direction
quite contrary to that of his homeward way, he had no means of inducing
it to change its tack. After some time spent in fruitless efforts in
schooling his unruly mount, Scioccolone began to reason with himself.
'After all, it does not much matter about going home. I only get
laughed at and called "Scioccolone." Maybe in some other place they
may be better, and as the faggot is acting under the orders of my
benefactress, it will doubtless all be for the best.'
So he committed himself to the faggot to take him wherever it would. On
went the faggot surely and steadily, as if quite conscious where it
had to go; and thus, before nightfall, it came to a great city where
were many people, who all came out to see the wonder of the faggot
of logs moving along by itself, and a man riding on it.
In this city was a king, who lived in a palace with an only
daughter. Now this daughter had never been known to laugh. What pains
soever the king her father took to divert her were all unavailing;
nothing brought a smile to her lips.
Now, however, when all the people ran to the windows to see a man
riding on a faggot, the king's daughter ran to look out too; and
when she saw the faggot moving by itself, and the uncouth figure of
Scioccolone sitting on it, and heard all the people laughing at the
sight, then the king's daughter laughed too; laughed for the first
time in her life.
But Scioccolone passing under the palace, heard her clear and merry
laugh resounding above the laughter of all the people, he looked up
and saw her, and when he saw her looking so bright and fair he said
within himself:--
'Now, if ever the fairy's power of wishing is to be of use to me, I
wish that I might have a little son, and that the beautiful princess
should be the mother.' But he did not think of wishing to stop there
that he might look at her, so the faggot carried him past the palace
and past all the houses into the outskirts of the city, till he got
tired and weary, and just then passing a wood merchant's yard, the
thought rose to his lips,--
'I wish that wood merchant would buy this faggot of me!'
Immediately the wood merchant came out and offered to buy the faggot,
and as it was such a wonderful faggot, that he thought Scioccolone
would never consent to sell it, he offered him such a high price that
Scioccolone had enough to live on like a prince for a year.
After a time there was again a great stir in the city, everyone
was abroad in the streets whispering and consulting. To the king's
daughter was born a little son, and no one knew who the father was,
not even the princess herself. Then the king sent for all the men
in the city, and brought them to the infant, and said, 'Is this your
father?' but the babe said 'No!' to them all.
Last of all, Scioccolone was brought, and when the king took him up to
the babe and said, 'Is this your father?' the babe rose joyfully from
its cradle and said, 'Yes; that is my father!' When the king heard this
and saw what a rough ugly clown Scioccolone was, he was very angry
with his daughter, and said she must marry him and go away for ever
from the palace. It was all in vain that the princess protested she
had never seen him but for one moment from the top of the palace. The
babe protested quite positively that he was his father; so the king
had them married, and sent them away from the palace for ever; and the
babe was right, for though Scioccolone and the princess had never met,
Scioccolone had wished that he might have a son, of whom she should
be the mother, and by the power of the spell [99] the child was born.
Scioccolone was only too delighted with the king's angry decree. He
felt quite out of place in the palace, and was glad enough to be
sent away from it. All he wanted was to have such a beautiful wife,
and he willingly obeyed the king's command to take her away, a long,
long way off.
The princess, however, was quite of a different mind. She could not
cease from crying, because she was given to such an uncouth, clownish
husband that no tidy peasant wench would have married.
When, therefore, Scioccolone saw his beautiful bride so unhappy
and distressed, he grew distressed himself; and in his distress he
remembered once more the promise of the fairy, that whatever he wished
he might have, and he began wishing away at once. First he wished for
a pleasant villa, [100] prettily laid-out, and planted, and walled;
then, a casino [101] in the midst of it, prettily furnished, and having
plenty of pastimes and diversions; then, for a farm, well-stocked with
beasts for all kinds of uses; for carriages and servants, for fruits
and flowers, and all that can make life pleasant. And when he found
that with all these things the princess did not seem much happier than
before, he bethought himself of wishing that he might be furnished with
a handsome person, polished manners, and an educated mind, altogether
such as the princess wished. All his wishes were fulfilled, and the
princess now loved him very much, and they lived very happily together.
After they had been living thus some time, it happened one day that
the king, going out hunting, observed this pleasant villa on the wold,
where heretofore all had been bare, unplanted, and unbuilt.
'How is this!' cried the king; and he drew rein, and went into the
villa intending to inquire how the change had come about.
Scioccolone came out to meet him, not only so transformed that the king
never recognised him, but so distinguished by courtesy and urbanity,
that the king himself felt ashamed to question him as to how the villa
had grown up so suddenly. He accepted his invitation to come and rest
in the casino, however; and there they fell to conversing on a variety
of subjects, till the king was so struck with the sagacity and prudence
of Scioccolone's talk, that when he rose to take leave, he said:
'Such a man as you I have long sought to succeed me in the government
of the kingdom. I am growing old and have no children, and you are
worthy in all ways to wear the crown. Come up, therefore, if you will,
to the palace and live with me, and when I die you shall be king.'
Scioccolone, now no longer feeling himself so ill-adapted to live in
a palace, willingly consented, and a few days after, with his wife
and his little son, he went up to the palace to live with the king.
But the king's delight can scarcely be imagined when he found that
the wife of the polished stranger was indeed his very own daughter.
After a few years the old king died, and Scioccolone reigned in his
stead. And thus the promises of all the three fairies were fulfilled.
[Among the Italian-Tirolese tales is one called 'I tre pezzi rari'
(The Three Rare Things), which begins just like 'Scioccolone,' and then
the fairies give the three gifts of a dinner-providing table-cloth,
an exhaustless purse, and a resistless cudgel, which we so often
meet with, as in Grimm's 'Tischchen deck dich,' p. 142; Campbell's
'Three Soldiers,' i. p. 176-93, who refers to numerous other versions,
in which other incidents of the two next succeeding tales occur. The
Spanish version I have given by the name of 'Matanzas' in 'Patrañas.'
In the Roman version of the 'Dodici palmi di naso,' it is singular
that it is the second and not the youngest son who is the hero. There
is another Italian-Tirolese story, entitled 'Il Zufolotta,' in which
only one boy and two fairies are concerned, and they only give him the
one gift of the Zufoletto, which, instead of supplying every wish as in
'Dodici palmi di naso,' has the power of the Zauberflöte, the pipe of
the 'Pied Piper,' and kindred instruments in all times and countries,
so that, when it has got its possessor into such trouble that he
is condemned to be executed, it answers the same end as the cudgel,
liberating its master by setting the judge and executioner dancing,
instead of by thumping them.]