The Valleys of Tirol: Their traditions and customs and how to visit them

In selecting a specimen or two of the fiabe I will take first a group going by the name of ‘Zuam’ or ‘Gian dall’ Orso’ (Bear-Johnny),²³⁰ because the Wolf-boy group is a very curious one, and this is our nearest approach to it,²³¹ though it deals with a bear-child and not a wolf-child;²³² and because we have already found Orso and Orco confounded in Italian folk-lore at Rome. The following is from Val di Non: – A labourer and his wife had their little boy out with them as they worked in the fields. A she-bear came out of the woods and carried him off. She treated him well, however, and taught him to be strong and hardy, and when he was twenty years old she sent him to his parents. He had such an appetite that he eat them out of house and home, and then he made his mother go and beg all over the country till she had enough to buy him three hundredweight of iron to make him a club. Armed with this club, he went forth to seek fortune. In the woods he met a giant carrying a leaden club called Barbiscat (‘Cat’s Beard’), and the two made friends went out together till they met another giant, who carried a wooden club called Testa di Molton (‘Ram’s Head’). They made friends and went out together till they came to a house in a town where magicians lived. The giant with Barbiscat knocked first, and at midnight a magician came out and said, ‘Earthworm, wherefore are you come?’ then he of Barbiscat was frightened and ran away. The next night the giant with Testa di Molton knocked with the same result. But the third night Gian dall’ Orso himself knocked, and he had no fear, but when the magician came out he knocked him down with many blows of his iron club, and went to fetch the other two giants. When they returned no magician was to be seen, only a trail of blood. They followed the trail till they came to a deep pit, and Zuam dall’ Orso made the giants let him down by a rope. In a cave he found the wounded magician and three others besides, by slaying whom he delivered a beautiful maiden. The giants drew her up, but abandoned him. Then he saw a ring lying on the ground, and when he took it up and rubbed it two Moors appeared and asked him what he wanted. ‘I want an eagle, to bear me up to earth,’ he said. So they brought him a big eagle, ‘but,’ said they, ‘he must be well fed the while.’ So he bid them bring him two shins of beef, and fed him well the while, and the eagle bore him to the king; who finding he was the deliverer of his daughter, killed the two giants, and gave him plenty of gold and silver, with which he went back to his home and lived happily and in peace, – a very homely termination, welcome to the mountaineer’s mind. In the Lederthal version he was so strong at two years old that he lifted up the mountain under which the bear’s den was, and ran back to his mother; but at school he killed all the children, and knocked down the teacher and the priest, and was sent to prison. Here he lifted the door off its hinges, and went to the judge, and made him give him a sword, with which he went forth to seek fortune. With the two companions picked up by the wayside, who for once do not play him the trick of leaving him below in the cave, he delivers three princesses, and all are made happy. In another version, where he is called ‘Filomusso the Smith,’ and is nurtured by an ass instead of a bear, the provision of meat for feeding the eagle is exhausted before he reaches the earth, and he heroically tears a piece of flesh out of his own leg, and thus the flight can be completed.

2. The following version of the story of Joseph and his Brethren is quaint: – A king had three sons. The two elder were grown up, while Jacob (the Italian is not given) was still quite small, and was his father’s pet. One day, when the king came back from hunting, he was quite out of sorts because he had lost the feather (la penna dell’ uccello sgrifone) he was wont always to wear. When everyone had sought for it in vain, little Jacob came to him, and bid him eat and be of good cheer for he and his brothers would find the feather. The king promises his kingdom to whichever of the three finds it. Little Jacob finds the feather, and carries it full of joy to his brothers. The brothers, jealous that he should have the kingdom, kill him and take the feather to their father. A year after a shepherd finds little Jacob’s bones, and takes one of them to make a fife, but as soon as he begins to play upon it the fife tells the whole story of the foul play. The shepherd takes it to the king, who convicts his two sons, has them put to death, and dies of grief.

3. Here is a homely version of Oidipous and the Sphinx: – A poor man owed a large debt and had nothing to pay it with. The rich man to whom he owed it came to demand the sum, and found only the poor man’s little boy sitting by the hearth. ‘What are you doing?’ asked the rich man. ‘I watch them come and go,’ replied the boy. ‘Do so many people come to you then?’ enquired the rich man. ‘No man,’ replied the boy. Not liking to own himself puzzled, the rich man asked again, ‘Where is your father?’ ‘He’s gone to plug a hole with another hole,’ replied the boy. Posed again, the rich man proceeded, ‘And where’s your mother?’ ‘She’s baking bread that’s already eaten,’ replied the boy.

‘You are either very clever or a great idiot,’ now retorted the rich man; ‘will you please to explain yourself?’ ‘Yes, if you will reward me by forgiving father his debt.’ The rich man accepted the terms, and the boy proceeded.

‘I’m boiling beans, and the bubbling water makes them seethe, and I watch them come and go. My father is gone to borrow a sum of money to pay you with, so to plug one hole he is making another. All the bread we have eaten for a fortnight past was borrowed of a neighbour, now mother is making some to pay it back with, so I may well say what she is making is already eaten.’

The rich man expressed himself satisfied, and the poor man was delivered from the burden of his debt.

4. A poor country lad once went out into the wide world to seek fortune. As he went along he met a very old woman carrying a pail of water, with which she seemed sadly overladen. The poor lad ran after her, and carried it home for her. But she was an Angana, and to reward him she gave him a dog and a cat, and a little silver ring, which she told him to turn round whenever he was in difficulty. The boy walked on, thinking little about the old woman’s ring, and not at all believing in its efficacy. When he got tired with his walking he laid down under a tree, but he was too hungry to sleep. As he lay tossing about he twirled the ring round without knowing what he was doing, and suddenly an old woman appeared before him, just like the one he had helped, and asked what he wanted of her. ‘Something to eat and drink,’ was the ready and natural answer. He had hardly spoken it when he found a table spread with good things before him. He made a good meal, nor did he neglect to feed his dog and cat well; and then they all had a good sleep. In the morning he reasoned, ‘Why should I journey further when my ring can give one all one wants?’ So he turned the ring round; and when the old woman appeared he asked for a house, and meadows, and farming-stock, and furniture; and then he paused to think of what more he could possibly desire; but he remembered the lessons of moderation his mother had taught him, and he said, ‘No, it is not good for a man to have all he wants in this world.’ So he asked for nothing more, but set to work to cultivate his land. One day when he was working on his land, a grand damsel came by with a number of servants riding after her. The damsel had lost her way, and had to ask him to lead her back to the right path. As they went, she talked to him about his house and his means, and his way of life; and before she had got to her journey’s end they were so well pleased with each other that she agreed to go back with him and marry him; but it was the ring she was in love with rather than with him. They were no sooner married than she got possession of the ring, and by its power she ordered the farm-house to be changed into a palace, and the farm-servants into liveried retainers, and all manner of luxuries, and chests of coin. Nor was she satisfied with this. One day, when her husband was asleep in a summer-house, she ordered it to be carried up to the highest tip of a very high mountain, and the palace far away into her own country. When he woke he found himself all alone on the frightful height, with no one but the dog and cat, who always slept the one at his head and the other at his feet. Though he was an expert climber it was impossible to get down from so sharp a peak, so he sat down and gave himself up to despair. The cat and dog, however, comforted him, and said they would provide the remedy. They clambered down the rugged declivity, and ran on together till they came to a stream which puss could not cross, but the dog put her on his back and swam over with her; and without further adventure they made their way to the palace where their master’s wife lived. With some cleverness they manœuvred their way into the interior, but into the bed-room there seemed no chance of effecting an entrance. They paced up and down hour by hour, but the door was never opened. At last, when all was very still, a mouse came running along the corridor. The cat pounced on the mouse, who pleaded hard for mercy in favour of her seven small children. ‘If I restore you to liberty,’ said the cat, ‘you must do something for me in return.’ The mouse promised everything; and the cat instructed her to gnaw a hole in the door, and fetch the ring out of the princess’s mouth, where she made no doubt she kept it at night for safety. The mouse kept her word, and obeying her directions punctually, soon returned with the ring; and off the cat and dog set on their return home, in high glee at their success. It rankled, however, in the dog’s mind, that it was the cat who had all the glory of recovering the treasure; and by the time they had got back to the stream he told her that if she would not give him the satisfaction of carrying the ring the rest of the way, he would not carry her over it. The cat would not accept his view, and a fight ensued, in the midst of which the ring escaped them both and fell into the water, where it was caught by a fish. The cat was in despair, but the dog plunged in and seized the fish, and by regaining the ring earned equal right to the merit of its recovery, and they clambered together in amity. Their master was rejoiced to receive his ring once more, and by its power he got back his homestead and farm-stock, and sent for his mother to live with him, and all his life through took great care of his faithful dog and cat; but the perverse princess he ordered the ring to transfer in the summer-house to the peak whither she would have banished him. When all this was set in order he threw away the ring, because he said it was not well for a man to have all his wishes satisfied in this world.²³³

The following legend of St. Kümmerniss is very popular in Tirol. Churchill, in his ‘Titian’s Country,’ mentions a chapel on the borders of Cadore and Wälsch-Tirol, where she is represented just as there described, but he does not appear to have inquired into its symbolism. There was once a heathen king who had a daughter named Kümmerniss, who was fair and beautiful beyond compare. A neighbouring king, also a heathen, sought her in marriage, and her father gave his consent to the union; but Kümmerniss was distressed beyond measure, for she had vowed in her own heart to be the bride of heaven. Of course her father could not understand her motives, and to force her to marry put her into a hard prison. From the depths of the dungeon Kümmerniss prayed that she might be so transformed that no man should wish to marry her; and in conformity with her devoted petition, when they came to take her out of the prison they found that all her beauty was gone, and her face overgrown with long hair like a man’s beard. When her father saw the change in her he was indignant, and asked what had befallen her. She replied that He whom she adored had changed her so, to save her from marrying the heathen king after she had vowed herself to be His bride alone. ‘Then shall you die, like Him you adore,’ was her father’s answer. She meekly replied that she had no greater desire than to die, that she might be united with Him. And thus her pure life was taken a sweet sacrifice; and whoso would like her be altogether devoted to God, and like her obtain their petition from heaven, let them honour her, and cause her effigy to be painted in the church. So many believed they found the efficacy of her intercession, that they set up memorial images of her everywhere, and in one place they set one up all in pure gold. A poor minstrel once came by that way with his violin; and because he had earned nothing, and was near starving, he stood before St. Kümmerniss and played his prayer on his violin. Plaintive and more plaintive still grew his beseeching notes, till at last the saint, who never sent any away empty, shook off one of her golden shoes, and bid him take it for an alms. The minstrel carried the golden shoe to a goldsmith, and asked him to buy it of him for money; but the goldsmith, recognizing whence it came, refused to have anything to do with sacrilegious traffic, and accused him of stealing it. The minstrel loudly protested his innocence, and the goldsmith as loudly vociferated his accusation, till their clamour raised the whole village; and all were full of fury and indignation at the supposed crime of the minstrel. As their anger grew, they were near tearing him in pieces, when a grave hermit came by, and they asked him to judge the case. ‘If it be true that the man obtained one shoe by his minstrelsy, let him play till he obtain the other in our sight,’ was his sentence; and all the people were so pleased with it, that they dragged the minstrel back to the shrine of St. Kümmerniss. The minstrel, who had been as much astonished as anyone else at his first success, scarcely dared hope for a second, but it was death to shrink from the test; so he rested his instrument on his shoulder, and drew the bow across it with trembling hand. Sweet and plaintive were the shuddering voice-like tones he sent forth before the shrine; but yet the second shoe fell not. The people began to murmur; horror heightened his distress. Cadence after cadence, moan upon moan, wail upon wail, faltered through the air, and entranced every ear and palsied every hand that would have seized him; till at last, overcome with the intensity of his own passionate appeal, the minstrel sank unconscious on the ground. When they went to raise him up, they found that the second golden shoe was no longer on the saint’s foot, but that she had cast it towards him. When they saw that, each vied with the other to make amends for the unjust suspicions of the past. The golden shoes were restored to the saint; but the minstrel never wanted for good entertainment for the rest of his life.

‘Puss in Boots’ figures in the Folklore of Wälsch-Tirol as ‘Il Conte Martin della Gatta;’ its chief point of variation is that no boots enter into it at all, otherwise the action of the cat is as usual in other versions.

There is another class of stories in which the townspeople indulge at the expense of the uninstructed peasants in outlying districts, and which their extreme simplicity and naïveté occasionally justify. I must not close my notice of the Volklore of Wälsch-Tirol without giving some specimens of these. It may be generally observed that stories which have no particular moral point, and are designed only to amuse without instructing, are as frequent in the Trentino as they are rare in the German divisions of Tirol.

Turlulù²³⁴ was such a simple boy that he could not be made to do anything aright; and what was worst was, he thought himself so clever that he would always go off without listening to half his instructions. One day his mother sent him with her last piece of money to buy a bit of meat for a poor neighbour; ‘And mind,’ she said, ‘that the butcher doesn’t give you all bone.’ ‘Leave that to me!’ cried Turlulù without waiting for an explanation; and off he went to the town. The butcher offered him a nice piece of leg of beef. ‘No, no, there’s bone to that,’ cried Turlulù; ‘that won’t do.’ The butcher, provoked, offered him a lump of lights. Turlulù seeing it look so soft, and no bone at all to it, went off with it quite pleased, but of course the poor neighbour had to starve. When his mother found what he had done, she was in great distress, for she had no money left; so she sent him with a piece of home-spun linen to try to sell it. ‘But mind you don’t waste your time talking to gossiping old women,’ she said. ‘Leave that to me, mother,’ cried Turlulù; and off he ran. As he got near the market-place, he began crying, ‘Fine linen! who wants to buy fine linen!’ Several countrywomen, who had come up to town to make purchases, came to look at the quality. ‘Go along, you gossiping old things; don’t imagine I’m going to sell it to you!’ cried Turlulù, and he ran away from them. As he ran on he saw a capitello²³⁵ by the wayside. When he saw the image of the Blessed Virgin, looking so grave and calm, he said, ‘Ah, you are no gossip, you shall have my linen;’ and he threw it at her feet. ‘Come, pay me!’ he cried presently; but of course the figure moved not. ‘Ah, I see, you’ve not got the money to-day; I will come back for it to-morrow.’ When he came back on the morrow the linen had been picked up by a passer-by, but no money was forthcoming. ‘Pay me now,’ said Turlulù; but still the figure was immovable. Again and again he repeated the demand, till, finding it still unheeded, he took off his belt, and hit hard and fast upon the image. So great was his violence, that in a very short time he had knocked it to the ground; and lo and behold, inside the now uncovered pedestal were a heap of gold pieces, which some miser had concealed there for greater security. ‘My mother herself will own this is good pay for the linen,’ cried Turlulù, as he filled his pockets, ‘and for once she won’t find fault.’ His way home lay along the edge of the pond, and as he passed the ducks were crying, ‘Quack! quack! quack!’ Turlulù thought they were saying Quattro, meaning that he had four pieces of gold. ‘That’s all you know about it,’ cried Turlulù; ‘I’ve got many more than four, many more.’ But the ducks continued to cry ‘Quack.’ ‘I tell you there are more than four,’ reiterated Turlulù impetuously, but the ducks did not alter their strain. ‘Then take them, and count them yourselves, and you’ll see what a lot there are!’ So saying, he threw the whole treasure into the mud; and as the ducks, scared by the noise, left off their ‘quack,’ he satisfied himself that he had convinced them, and went home to boast to his mother of the feat.

A showman came through a village with a dancing-bear. The people went out to see him, and gave him plenty of halfpence. ‘Suppose we try our luck, and go about showing a bear too; it seems a profitable sort of trade,’ said one of the lookers-on to another. ‘Ay, but where shall we find one?’ objected the man addressed. ‘Oh, there must be bears to be found; it needs only to go out and look for them.’ They went out to look for a bear, and at last really found one,²³⁶ which ran before them and plunged into a cave. ‘I’ll tell you what we’ll do,’ said the peasant who had proposed the adventure, ‘I’ll creep into the cave and seize the bear, and you take hold of my legs and pull us both out together.’ The other assented; and in went the first. But the bear, instead of letting him seize it, bit off his head. The other pulled him out as agreed, but was much astonished to find him headless. ‘Well, to be sure!’ he cried, ‘I never noticed the poor fellow came out this morning without his head. I must go home and ask his wife for it.’ So saying, he ran back to the man’s house. ‘I say, neighbour,’ he cried, ‘did you happen to notice, when your husband went out this morning, whether he had his head on?’ ‘I never thought to look,’ replied the wife, ‘but I’ll run up and see if he left it in bed; but tell me,’ she added, ‘will he catch cold for going out without his head on?’ ‘I don’t know as to that,’ replied the man; ‘but if he should want to whistle he might find it awkward!’

A woman working in the fields one day saw a snail, which spread out its horns as she looked at it. In great alarm, she ran to the chief man of the parish, and told him what she had seen. He, too, was horribly frightened, but he mastered his fear, as became the dignity of his office. In order to provide duly for the safety of his village, he sent two trustworthy men with a large sum of money to Trent, to buy a sharp sword; and till their return placed all the able-bodied men on guard. When the man brought the sharp sword back from Trent, he called the heads of the Commune together, and said to them: ‘I will not exercise my right of sending any of you in peril of his life, but I ask you which of you is ready to encounter this great danger, and whoever has the courage shall receive a great reward.’ Hereupon two of the most valiant came forward as volunteers, and were invested with the sharp sword. In solemn silence they marched boldly to the field where the snail was, and they saw him sitting on the edge of a rotten leaf; but at the moment when they had screwed up their courage to smite him with the edge of the sword, the breeze blew down the leaf and the snail with it. They, however, thought the snail was preparing to attack them, and ran away so fast that they tumbled over the edge of an abyss.

The people of a certain village were envious because the church tower of the neighbouring village was higher than theirs. So they held a council to consider what remedy they could apply. No one could think of anything to propose, till the oldest and wisest of them at last rose and advised that a great heap of hay should be laid by the side of their tower, so that it might eat and grow strong, and increase in height. The counsel was received with applause, and every one cheerfully brought his quota to the common sacrifice, till there was a mighty heap of hay laid at the base of the church tower. All the horses and asses that went by, finding such a fine provision of provender laid out for them, ate the hay; but the people seeing the heap diminish, were quite satisfied, and said, ‘Our tower must be beginning to grow, you see how fast it eats!’

In Wälsch-Tirol the graves are not decked with flowers on All Souls’ Day, as in Germany, but on the other hand it is customary for the parish clergy to gather their flocks round them, and say the Rosary kneeling amid the graves. Doles of bread, locally called cuzza, and alms, are given away to the poor on that day, and in some places a particular soup made of beans. The symbolism was formerly carried so far, that these alms, devoted to the refreshment of the souls of the departed, were actually laid on the graves, as if it was supposed that the holy souls would come out and partake of the material food. And thus some even placed vessels of cold water as a special means of solace from their purgatorial pains.²³⁷ In the north of Italy, the feast of Sta. Lucia (December 13) holds the place of that of St. Nicholas among children in Germany; in Wälsch-Tirol the children have the advantage of keeping both.

In Val Arsa, part of the loaves baked on Christmas Eve are kept, as Cross-buns used to be among us. In Folgareit they have a curious game for Christmas-tide. A number of heaps of flour, according to the number of the household, are arranged on the table by the father of the family, some little present being covered up in each; when they are thus prepared the family is admitted, and the choice of places decided by various modes of contest. In several parts, particularly in the Rabbithal, the Lombard²³⁸ custom prevails of putting a huge log on the fire, called the Zocco di Natale and the Zocco di ogni bene, that it may burn all night and keep the Divine Infant from the cold. The idea, more or less prevalent all over Christendom, that beasts have the gift of speech on Christmas Eve, prevails here no less. A story is told of a peasant who determined to sit up and listen to what his oxen said. ‘Where shall we have to go to-morrow?’ he heard one say. ‘We shall have to fetch the boards for our master’s coffin,’ replied his companion. The man was so shocked, that he went to bed and died next day. Animals are blessed on St. Anthony’s day (January 18), as in Rome.

Carnival is celebrated with representations partaking somewhat of the character of ‘Passion Plays,’ though always with more or less humorous treatment of their subject. Till lately there lingered a curious pastime at this season, in which on Giovedì grasso there was a contest, according to fixed rules, between the masked and unmasked inhabitants, for certain cakes (gnocchi) made of Indian corn, whence the day is still called Giovedì dei gnocchi. It commemorated a fight between the men of Trent and them of Feltre, who tried to carry off their provision while they were building the walls of Trent, in the time of Theodoric King of the Visigoths. S. Urban is considered the patron of vineyards in Etschland, and on his feast his images are hung with bunches of grapes.

Here are a few specimens of their popular sayings and customs. When it thunders the children say, Domeniddio va in carozza. The chirping of a cricket, instead of being reckoned a lucky token, forebodes death. Sponsors are regarded a person’s nearest relations, and at their funeral they go as chief mourners before all others. Marriages in May are avoided. The reason why the bramble always creeps along, instead of growing erect, is, because once a thorny bramble branch caught the hair of the Blessed Virgin; before that it grew erect like other trees. Cockchafers are blind, because one of them once flew into the Blessed Virgin’s face and startled her; before that they had sight. Swallows are called uccelli della Madonna, but I have not ascertained the reason. Scorpions, which are venomous in Italy, are not so in the Italian Tirol, because one fell once into St. Vigilius’ chalice at Mass. I will conclude with some popular riddles, showing a traditionary observation of the movements of the heavenly bodies, but not much humour:

 
Due viandanti,
Due ben stanti,
E un cardinal?²³⁹
Gh’ è ’n prà
Tutto garofalà:
 

Quanca se vien el Papa con tutta la sô paperia

En garòfol sol no l’è bon de portar via?²⁴⁰

 
Piatto sopra piatto,
Uomo ben armato,
Donna ben vestita.
Cavalleria ben fornita?²⁴¹
 

C’è un palazzo, vi son dodici camere, ognuna ne ha trenta travi, e vi son due che si corrono sempre l’uno dietro all’ altro e non si raggiungono mai?²⁴²