Italo Calvino's 'Italian Folktales' Quiz

Answer: He distracts the merchant's daughter by telling stories.

The parrot isn't any old parrot - he's a king who turned into a parrot because he was in love with the merchant's daughter, and knew that the other king was in love with her. He keeps the merchant's daughter entertained while her father is away, by telling her an elaborate story.

The king makes attempts to woo the merchant's daughter by sending an old woman and some servants over with letters for her, but she's so eager to know what happens next in the story that she refuses to see anyone or accept letters.

The parrot runs out of ideas just in time for the merchant to return home, and changes back into a human and marries the merchant's daughter. The rival king dies of rage.

Answer: A lion

This story bears similarities to the Grimms' 'Faithful John' and the French story 'Princess Felicity', in that one character has to do strange things to save the life of another, only to be killed because of it. In this instance, the wizard puts three curses on his daughter: firstly, she will see three horses, one white, one black and one red, and if she gets on the white horse, she will die. If she survives, she will see three little dogs, one white, one black and one red, and want to pet the black one, which will kill her. If she survives that, a snake will enter her bedroom and kill her. Peel overhears some fairies talking about the curses, and how the only way to save the wizard's daughter is to kill the white horse, the black dog and the snake; they also say that the person who kills the horse, dog and dragon must not tell anyone, or he will be turned to stone.

The wizard's daughter does not take kindly to Peel killing the horse or the dog, and when she sees Peel in her bedroom with a sword, she assumes the worst and screams for help, and Pome has Peel sentenced to death.

As Peel is about to die, he tells them the truth and turns to stone. Feeling guilty, the wizard's daughter asks her father to bring Peel back to life, which he does.

Answer: She spends all day going to the toilet.

The more well-known version of this tale has the good woman, who is often poor (and sometimes a weaver's widow), spending all day weaving and/or measuring cloth, which she takes to the market and sells for lots of money. The bad woman, who is often rich, wants to count money, but she decides to make bags for all her money first, and ends up cutting every bit of cloth in her house to shreds.

In the Italian version, the woman who refuses to let Jesus and Peter stay with her sees all the cloth in her neighbour's house, and has a change of heart.

When Jesus tells her that she will spend all day doing the task which she starts that morning, she plans to go to the toilet before weaving, as she'll be spending all day at the loom...and ends up spending all day on the dung heap!

Answer: Wash

Sandrino is also banned from cutting his hair or nails. As a result, he ends up covered in grime, with long fingernails and toenails, a massive beard and matted hair. However, he is able to use his money to buy a palace, which he also uses as a store for his growing cash stash.

The king is at war with the neighbouring country and the war is costing him greatly, and Sandrino offers to help him out with money, on condition that the king allow him to marry one of his daughters. The two older daughters are horrified by Sandrino's portrait, but Zosa, the youngest, believes he is handsome underneath all that hair. By this time, the seven years are up, and before the wedding, Sandrino washes himself in four different tubs and has his hair, beard and nails cut and styled, and Zosa does a double take when she realises who he is.

The older girls are jealous and say that they would sell their souls to the Devil to have some of Zosa's happiness. The Devil comes back for his breeches, and says that he should take Sandrino's soul, but decides to take the older sisters' souls instead, and they both end up in Hell.

Answer: No

This is one fairy tail which doesn't have a happy ending. Menichino, the son in question, is abandoned by his father and older brother and meets an old woman, who happens to be a fairy, and offers to help him seek his fortune. She tells him that the princess of Portugal can solve any riddle, and her father the king has promised her hand in marriage to the man who creates a riddle too tricky for her.

She gives Menichino a dog called Bello and tells him he will be the key to the riddle. Menichino takes Bello to an inn, where the dog eats a poisoned pizza meant for Menichino and dies. Three crows then die after eating Bello's body, and six robbers die after eating the dead crows. Menichino shoots at a bird in a tree and hits its nest instead, and eats the baby birds, roasted on a fire made with the pages of a book.

He sleeps in a tree. He uses all this to make a riddle which the princess can't solve, but she isn't interested in him and gives him a magic wand instead, which he uses to win a tournament.

Unfortunately, his brother steals the wand and Menichino ends up losing everything, and gets murdered by robbers. His brother turns to crime and is executed.

Answer: Challenge her to a duel

The king's mother's logic is this: if Fanta-Ghirò is a man, she will take an interest in the weapons in the armoury, but if she is a woman, she will just ignore them. When they go into the garden, if Fanta-Ghirò is a man, she will pick a Catalonian jasmine and stick it behind her ear but if she is a woman, she will pin a violet to her breast.

As for the bread, the king's mother believes that if Fanta-Ghirò holds it against her chest while cutting it, she is a woman, but if she holds it in the air, she is a man. Fanta-Ghirò examines the weapons, wears a Catalonian jasmine behind her ear and cuts the bread while holding it in the air, but the enemy king is still not convinced and asks her to bathe with him. Fanta-Ghirò gets out of it by asking Tonino, her father's squire, to forge a letter saying her father has been taken ill, and she is to go home immediately.

She leaves a letter behind telling the enemy king that she was a woman, and the king goes after her and asks her to marry him.

Answer: A fishing net

If you've seen 'Vikings', you'll have seen one of the characters doing a similar task. Catherine shows up before daybreak, riding a nanny goat with one foot in the air and one on the ground, wearing a fishing net (since technically it isn't clothing), and having eaten a lupin.

The king is impressed and marries her, but orders her to stay out of his business. After she interferes one too many times, he kicks her out, but allows her to take home the thing she likes best. Catherine has the servants prepare a heavy meal with lots of wine, and when the king falls asleep in his armchair, she has him brought back to her father's house. Luckily, the king sees the funny side.

Answer: Parsley

There are a few differences between 'Rapunzel' and 'Prezzemolina'. Although both stories begin with a pregnant woman craving a vegetable in a supernatural being's garden and naming her baby daughter after said vegetable, before said daughter goes to live with the aforementioned supernatural being, the parsley in 'Prezzemolina' belongs to fairies, not a witch. Neither does Prezzemolina have long hair, and instead of a prince, the man who saves her is Memé, the fairies' cousin.

The fairies ask her to paint a wall white and cover it in pictures of birds, and fetch a magical box from Morgan le Fay, queen of the fairies, or they will eat her. Memé helps her in both cases; when Prezzemolina fetches the magical box, she gains several allies on the way, usign things Memé gives her.

She oils a gate, feeds two dogs some bread, gives a cobbler a thread and awl to use instead of his own hair, and gives a baker a broom to save her using her hands to clean her oven. In return, they all allow her to pass, and refuse to stop her on her way back. Prezzemolina and Memé kill the fairies by blowing out the candles which contain their souls, and they get married, taking over Morgan le Fay's palace, making the cobbler and the baker rich, and keeping the dogs as pets.

Answer: Possessing straw which freezes things

This is one of my favourite stories in the book. The peasant with the icy straw is from 'The Fool of the World and the Flying Ship', a Russian story with a similar premise. In order of appearance, the man from Maglie's companions are Lightning Streak, an extremely fast runner; Blindstraight, a talented sharpshooter; Rabbitears, who has super hearing; Strongback, who has superhuman strength; and Puffarello, who acts as a human fan and can create strong winds by blowing.

When they get to the palace and hear about the contest, Lightning Streak beats the princess in a race.

In a second race, he has to wear a ring that weighs him down, but Blindstraight shoots it off and he wins again. One of the king's councillors offers them money instead of the princess' hand, so the man from Maglie sends Strongback to take an enormous pile of goods from the palace.

When the king sends troops after them, Puffarello blows them away. Rabbitears relays information throughout the story by eavesdropping on conversations in the palace.

Answer: Priest

The oldest sister marries a swineherd, the middle sister marries a fowler and the youngest sister marries a gravedigger. The prince, now a king, tries to stop an old woman on the street, and she curses him, saying, "Go look for Lovely Floret." The king becomes obsessed with looking for Lovely Floret and each of his brothers-in-law, who have all become rich, give him something to help him in a crisis; the swineherd gives him three pig bristles, the fowler gives him three feathers, and the gravedigger gives him a bone.

The king finds Lovely Floret's palace, and her father gives him three tasks. Firstly, he has to eat a roomful of fruit, so he uses the pig bristles to summon a herd of pigs, who eat all the fruit. The he has to put Lovely Floret to sleep with birdsong, so he uses the feathers to summon a flock of songbirds. Finally, he has to provide an heir, and he throws the bone on the floor and it turns into a baby boy.

Answer: Her hands

In 'Olive', a Jewish man leaves his daughter Olive with a Christian family, who raise her as a Christian. He returns for her and orders her to become Jewish, but she practices Christianity in secret, and he punishes her by cutting off her hands and abandoning her.

In 'The Turkey Hen', a prince falls in love with a beggar girl, who turns him against his sister and orders her to be taken into the woods and killed, and her hands and bloodstained dress brought back as proof. The assassins hired to kill the princess feel sorry for her and only chop off her hands, and abandoned her in the forest, where a king finds her. Both the princess and Olive end up having children in their respective stories, and while they are drinking from a pool, their children fall in and when both women put their stumps in the water, their hands grow back.

In 'The Turkey Hen', the old man who tells the princess to put her stumps in the water is actually St Joseph.

Answer: A date palm branch

'Gràttula-Beddàttula' is the spell Ninetta recites to her date palm branch after her two older sisters have gone to the ball. Unlike Cinderella, Ninetta is not mistreated by her sisters, and the prince is holding balls because he has fallen in love with a girl who keeps stealing fruit and flowers from his garden, which she enters through a hole in a well. That girl is Ninetta.

She asks her father, a poor merchant, to bring her back a date palm branch from his travels, and asks the date palm branch to make her beautiful for each ball. Ninetta does not have a glass slipper, and when the king tries to catch her the first two times, she distracts the servants by throwing money at them.

However, the king catches her the third time and asks her to marry the prince.

Answer: A cock

The cat is the animal who tells the farmer not to tell anyone about his new power, on pain of death. The farmer then offers to guard a flock, as sheep have recently been going missing, and finds out that the guard dogs are in league with local wolves, as the dogs warn the wolves not to approach. He has the dogs killed and replaced with loyal ones, who threaten to kill the wolves. The farmer is rewarded with a mare and a mule, and he laughs when he hears the mare telling the mule to hurry up. His wife is curious and insists on him sharing the joke, and he sends for a priest to give the last rites. Meanwhile, the farmer's cock is driving his hens, and scolds the farmer for letting his wife push him around and make him risk his life. The farmer beats his wife up, and she leaves him alone after that.

There is a similar Russian story about a hunter who gains the power to speak in return for rescuing a snake from a fire, and he also takes advice from a cock.

Answer: Puss in Boots

Just as 'Puss in Boots' featured a clever cat who claimed his master was the Marquis of Carabas, Giovannuzza brings baskets of pears from Joseph's tree to the king, and claims that they belong to her master, Count Peartree. When the king and his daughter, the princess, plan to visit Joseph, Giovannuzza goes on ahead.

She meets several people tending animals belonging to an ogre, and tells them that the king has declared war on the ogre and that if the king asks who the animals belong to, they are to say, "Count Peartree." She then goes to the ogre's palace and tricks him and his wife into hiding in an oven, and burns them to death. Joseph gets the palace and marries the prince, but Giovannuzza asks him to give her a proper funeral when she dies.

She decides to test his loyalty by playing dead, and the princess wants to give her a funeral, but Joseph says he'll throw her out the window instead. Giovannuzza is disgusted at Joseph's betrayal, and runs away.

Answer: It brings people and animals back to life.

Mariaorsola pines for Peppino, and the two are married. However, she falls ill and dies. Peppino goes into her tomb to pray, and sees two lions fighting in the church. One lion kills the other, and brings him back to life by picking some grass that grows outside the church and rubbing it on his teeth. Peppino uses the grass to bring Mariaorsola back to life. Her mother and a maid both are shocked to hear Mariaorsola's voice, fall down some stairs and die, but Peppino resurrects both of them with the grass. Mariaorsola later runs off with the king of Muscovy, and Peppino goes to work for him as a footman, but Mariaorsola has him framed for theft and sentenced to death. Before the execution, Peppino asked the confessor to tell the executioner not to break his neck, and to rub his teeth with the grass after he dies. Peppino goes to the land of the king of the seven crowns, and the king appoints him his heir as a reward for bringing his wife back to life with the grass. The king of Muscovy is invited to the coronation, and brings Mariaorsola with him. Peppino gets everyone to tell a story and when his turn comes, he tells his own story, of Mariaorsola's betrayal, and refuses to allow her to leave. He asks what such a woman deserves, and the king of Muscovy says that she deserves to be hanged and burned, with her ashes scattered to the wind. Peppino gets his revenge and has Mariaorsola strangled to death.

A similar story by the Brothers Grimm features leaves instead of grass, and it is snakes which are resurrected by the magic plant and not lions, but both stories end with the faithless woman dying, for good this time.