Prunella (fairy tale)

Prunella is an Italian fairy tale, originally known as Prezzemolina. Andrew Lang included it in The Grey Fairy Book.[1] It is Aarne-Thompson type 310, the Maiden in the Tower.[2]

Italo Calvino noted that variants were found over all of Italy.[3] The captor who demands his captive perform impossible tasks, and the person, usually the captor's child, who helps with them, is a very common fairy tale theme—Nix Nought Nothing, The Battle of the Birds, The Grateful Prince, or The Master Maid—but this tale unusually makes the captive a girl and the person the captor's son.

Synopsis

Prunella

A girl went to school, and every day, she picked a plum from a tree along the way. She was called "Prunella" because of this. But the tree belonged to a wicked witch and one day she caught the girl. Prunella grew up as her captive.

One day, the witch sent her with a basket to the well, with orders to bring it back filled with water. The water seeped out every time, and Prunella cried. A handsome young man asked her what her trouble was, and told her that he was Bensiabel, the witch's son; if she kissed him, he would fill the basket. She refused, because he was a witch's son, but he filled the basket with water anyway. The witch then set her to make bread from un-milled-wheat while she was gone, and Prunella, knowing it was impossible, set to it for a time, and then cried. Bensiabel appeared. She again refused to kiss a witch's son, but he made the bread for her.

Finally, the witch sent her over the mountains, to get a casket from her sister, knowing her sister was an even more cruel witch, who would starve her to death. Bensiabel told her and offered to save her if she kissed him; she refused. He gave her oil, bread, rope, and a broom, and told her, at his aunt's house, to oil the gate's hinges, give a fierce dog the bread, give the rope to a woman trying to lower the bucket into the well by her hair, and give the broom to a woman trying to clean the hearth with her tongue. Then she should take the casket from the cupboard and leave at once. She did this. As she left, the witch called to all of them to kill her, but they refused because of what Prunella had given them.

The witch was enraged when Prunella returned. She ordered Prunella to tell her in the night which cock had crowed, whenever one did. Prunella still refused to kiss Bensiabel, but he told her each time the yellow, and the black. When the third one crowed, Bensiabel hesitated, because he still hoped to force Prunella to kiss him, and Prunella begged him to save her. He sprang on the witch, and she fell down the stairs and died. Prunella was touched by his goodness and agreed to marry and they lived happily ever after.

Translations

The tale originally appeared as Prezzemolina in 1879, collected from Mantua by Isaia Visentini.[4] The stolen plant was originally parsley (prezzemolo in Italian), as in Rapunzel, but Andrew Lang changed it to a plum and the heroine's name to Prunella. Lang did not name a source for the story.

A version of the tale also appears in A Book of Witches, by Ruth Manning-Sanders.

Imbriani's La Prezzemolina

A version from Florence was published in 1871 by Vittorio Imbriani.[5][6] Italo Calvino adapted it in his Italian Folktales. [7]

Summary

Prezzemolina was captured not because of her own eating, but because of her mother's craving for, and theft of, fairies' parsley. The girl was seized when going to school, but after the fairies had sent her to tell her mother to pay what she owed, and the mother sent back that the fairies should take it.

The hero Memé, cousin of the fairies, helped Prezzemolina as Bensiabel did, despite her refusal of kisses. The fairies first order Prezzemolina to bleach the black walls of a room, then paint them with all birds of the air. Memé waves his magic wand and completes this task. Next, the fairies send Prezzemolina to collect a casket ("scatola del Bel-Giullare", in Imbriani; "Handsome Minstrel's box", in Zipes) from the evil Morgan le Fay (Fata Morgana). Prezzemolina goes to Fata Morgana and meets four old women on the way: the first gives her a pot of grease to use on two creeking doors; the second gives her loaves of bread to use on her guard dogs; the third a sewing thread to be given to a cobbler; and the fourth a rag to be given to a baker that is cleaning an oven with their hands. The last woman also advises her to enter Fata Morgana's castle and, while she is away, she is to get the casket and run away as fast as possible. Fata Morgana commands the baker, the cobbler, the dogs and the doors to stop her, but, due to her kind actions, Prezzemolina escapes unscathed. Now at a distance, she opens the casket and a group of musicians escape from it. Memé appears and offers to close the box in exchange for a kiss. Prezzemolina declines, but Memé uses the magic wand to draw everyone back into the box. Prezzemolina then delives the casket to the fairies. However, there was no test of identifying a rooster's crow.

In the end, Memé and Prezzemolina together destroyed the evil fairies. First they tricked and boiled three fairy ladies in the garden house, and then went to a room where they blew out the magic candles that held the souls of all the others, including Morgan's. They then took over all that had belonged to the fairies, married, and lived happily in Morgan's palace, where they were generous with the servants who had not attacked her despite Morgan's orders.

Analysis

Imbriani, commenting on the tale, noted its initial resemblance to the tale L'Orca, from the Pentamerone, but remarked that the second part of the story was close to The Golden Root.[8]

Laboulaye's Fragolette

French author Édouard René de Laboulaye published a retelling in which the plant was a strawberry, the heroine was renamed "Fragolette" (from the Italian fragola), and the hero was renamed Belèbon.[9]

In Laboulaye's tale, the action is set in Mantua. A little girl likes to pick up strawberries, and thus is nicknamed "Fragolette" ('little strawberry'). One day, she is picking up berries in the usual spot, when something strikes the back of her head. It is a witch, who takes the girl on her broom to her lair. Once there, the witch forces Fragolette to be her servant. One day, she asks the girl to take a basket to the well and fill it with water. Fragolette goes to the well to fulfill the task, but the basket cannot hold any drop of water. She begins to cry, until a soft voice inquires what is her problem; it belongs to the son of the witch, Belèbon. He asks for a kiss, but Fragolette refuses. At any rate, Belèbon breathes into the basket, fills it with water and gives it to Fragolette.

The next time, the witch tells Fragolette she will travel to Africa and gives the girl a sack of wheat; Fragolette is to use the wheat and bake some loaves of bread for her when she returns later that night. Belèbon helps her by summoning with a whistle an army of rats that grind the wheat into flour and bake enough bread to fill the room.

Later, the witch orders Fragolette to go to Viperine, the witch's sister, and get from her a strong-box. Belèbon appears to her and intructs her on how to procceed: he gives her an oil can, a bread, a cord, and a little broom. She will first cross a diry stream, she is to compliment it for it to allow her passage. She then is to use the oil on the hinges of a door, throw the bread to a dog, give the cord to a woman next to a well in the courtyard to draw water, the little broom to a cook in the kitchen to clean the oven, enter Viperine's room, get the box and escape. Fragolette follows the instructions to the letter, but Viperine wakes up. The witch's sister commands the cook, the woman at the well, the dog, the door hinges and the stream to stop her, but Fragolette returns safely with the box.

Lastly, Fragolette is to identify between three cocks which is the one who crows. With Belèbon's help, she says it is the white one. The witch springs a trap: she jumps at the girl, but Fragolette escapes through the window, while the witch catches her foot in the window and falls, the fall breaking at once her two tusks, the source of her life and power.

After the witch dies, Fragolette is free, and Belèbon, in love with her, tries to propose to her. Some time later, she concedes, and they are happily married.[10][11][12]

Other tales

Professor Licia Masoni, from University of Bologna, collected two variants of Prezzemolina from two informants in Frassinoro. In both tales, the Prezzemolina-like protagonist is taken by a sorceress to her place and forced to perform tasks for her, one of which is to get a box from another sorceress.[13]

Analysis

Tale type

Folklorist D. L. Ashliman, scholar Jack Zipes and Italian scholars Alberto Maria Cirese and Liliana Serafini list Prezzemolina as a variant of tale type ATU 310, "The Maiden in the Tower" (akin to German Rapunzel), of the international Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index.[14][15][16] Ashliman and Zipes also grouped Prunella under type 310.[17][18]

The motif of the box from the witch appears in another tale type: ATU 425B, "Son of the Witch", which includes the ancient myth of Cupid and Psyche.[19][20] In that regard, other scholars (like Jan-Öjvind Swahn and Geneviève Massignon) classified Prezzemolina as type AaTh 428, "The Wolf",[21][22][23] a tale type considered by some scholars to be a fragmentary version of type 425B (Cupid and Psyche).[24][25]

See also

References
  1. Andrew Lang, The Grey Fairy Book, Prunella Alternate link
  2. Heidi Anne Heiner, "Tales Similar to Rapunzel"
  3. Italo Calvino, Italian Folktales p 733-4 ISBN 0-15-645489-0
  4. Visentini, Isaia (1879). Canti e racconti del popolo italiano, Volume 7: Fiabe Mantovane. pp. 110–115.
  5. Imbriani, Vittorio (1877). La Novellaja fiorentina. pp. 209–215.
  6. Zipes, Jack (2013). The Golden Age of Folk and Fairy Tales: From the Brothers Grimm to Andrew Lang. Hackett Publishing Company, Incorporated. p. 60. ISBN 9781624660344.
  7. Italo Calvino, Italian Folktales p 310 ISBN 0-15-645489-0
  8. Imbriani, Vittorio. La Novellaja Fiorentina. Italia, Firenze: Coi tipi di F. Vigo. 1887. p. 215 (footnote nr. 1).
  9. Laboulaye, Édouard. Derniers contes bleus. Paris: Jouvet, 1884. pp. 137-166.
  10. Laboulaye, Edouard; Booth, Mary Louise. Last Fairy Tales. New York: Harper & Brothers [c. 1884]. pp. 65-87.
  11. Laboulaye, Édouard. Fairy Tales. Philadelphia: David McKay. pp. 112-120.
  12. Laboulaye, Édouard. Smack-Bam, or The Art of Governing Men: Political Fairy Tales of Édouard Laboulaye. Edited by Jack Zipes. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018. pp. 222-237. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780691184487-014
  13. Masoni, Licia. "Two Different Approaches to the Retelling of Traditional Tales Among ‘Non-Storytellers’ in a North Italian Village". In: Fabula 48, no. 1-2 (2007): 33-49. https://doi.org/10.1515/FABL.2007.004
  14. Discoteca di Stato (1975). Alberto Mario Cirese; Liliana Serafini (eds.). Tradizioni orali non cantate: primo inventario nazionale per tipi, motivi o argomenti [Oral Not Sung Traditions: First National Inventory by Types, Reasons or Topics] (in Italian and English). Ministero dei beni culturali e ambientali. p. 58.
  15. Ashliman, D. L. A Guide to Folktales in the English Language: Based on the Aarne-Thompson Classification System. Bibliographies and Indexes in World Literature, vol. 11. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1987. p. 60. ISBN 0-313-25961-5.
  16. Zipes, Jack. The golden age of folk and fairy tales: from the Brothers Grimm to Andrew Lang. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., [2013]. pp. 60-65. ISBN 9781624660337.
  17. Ashliman, D. L. A Guide to Folktales in the English Language: Based on the Aarne-Thompson Classification System. Bibliographies and Indexes in World Literature, vol. 11. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1987. p. 60. ISBN 0-313-25961-5.
  18. Zipes, Jack. The golden age of folk and fairy tales: from the Brothers Grimm to Andrew Lang. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., [2013]. pp. 80-83. ISBN 9781624660337.
  19. Gonzenbach, Laura. Fiabe Siciliane. Rilette da Vincenzo Consolo. A cura di Luisa Rubini. Roma: Donzelli editore, 1999. p. 492. ISBN 88-7989-279-7.
  20. Poveda, Jaume Albero. "Rondalla «El castell d'entorn i no entorn» d'Enric Valor. Anàlisi hermenèutic i folklòrica". In: Miscel·lània Joan Veny. Volume 7. Estudis de llengua i literatura catalanes/LI. L'Abadia de Montserrat, 2005. p. 229. ISBN 9788484157373.
  21. Swahn, Jan-Öjvind (1955). The tale of Cupid and Psyche (Aarne-Thompson 425 & 428). C.W.K. Gleerup. p. 368. OCLC 1032974719.
  22. Massignon, Geneviève. Contes corses. Centre d'études corses de la faculté des lettres et Sciences Humaines d'Aix-en-Provence. Édition Ophrys, Gap, 1963. p. 288.
  23. Mugnaini, Fabio. Mazzasprunı̀gliola: tradizione del racconto nel Chianti senese. L'Harmattan Italia, 1999. p. 89. ISBN 9788887605136.
  24. Thompson, Stith (1977). The Folktale. University of California Press. p. 100. ISBN 0-520-03537-2.
  25. Tangherlini, Timothy A. "Prinz als Wolf (AaTh 428) [Son of the Witch (ATU 425 B)]". In: Enzyklopädie des Märchens Online: Band 10: Nibelungenlied – Prozeßmotive. Edited by Rolf Wilhelm Brednich, Heidrun Alzheimer, Hermann Bausinger, Wolfgang Brückner, Daniel Drascek, Helge Gerndt, Ines Köhler-Zülch, Klaus Roth and Hans-Jörg Uther. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2016 [2002]. pp. 1325-1327. https://www.degruyter.com/database/EMO/entry/emo.10.245/html
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