Magic from Long-Forgotten Tales

By Paul Gray

ITALIAN FOLKTALES Selected and Retold by Italo Calvino Translated by George Martin; Harcourt Brace Jovanovich; 763 pages; $25

Once upon a time there was a writer named Italo Calvino. Although he liked making up stories, he also wanted to read older ones in his own language. "Was there an Italian equivalent of the Brothers Grimm?" he wondered one day. No answer came. So he set out on a quest. He spent two years studying obscure texts and dusty monographs, rescuing long-forgotten tales from all the regions of his native land. Finally, he ended his labors and brought forth a magic book.

For Italian Folktales is assuredly that, and a classic to boot. By making these 200 stories accessible to the general reader, Calvino, 56, has considerably enriched the world's supply of a seriously depleted commodity, oral history. Tales passed on through the centuries by word of mouth tell much more than their plots. In their diversity, they suggest the variety of dreams, the possible mutations of consciousness and climates. Their frequent similarities point teasingly in the opposite direction, toward some Ur tale that generated all the others, a narrative vast and potent enough to enclose the world. Writes Calvino: "Taken all together, they offer, in their oft-repeated and constantly varying examinations of human vicissitudes, a general explanation of life preserved in the slow ripening of rustic consciences."

Until now, the best-known of these consciences ripened in central and northern Europe, thanks largely to the pioneering work of the Grimms (in Germany) and Alexander Afanasyev (in Russia). Calvino's collection throws open a sunny window to the south. A tale told in the Black Forest differed, apparently, from the one that was related on the shores of the Mediterranean. The three little pigs did not make it to Italy; they became three grownup girls named Catherine, Julia and Marietta. Italian bards had little interest in the violence and gore that sometimes make for such grimm reading. When the good characters are afflicted, they feel sadness but not pain; the villains are punished or dispatched at the end with commendable speed. In The Marriage of a Queen and a Bandit, a pesky ex-husband is discovered hiding in the bedroom of his former wife and her new mate: "At once the king awakened, sounded the trumpet he wore around his neck night and day, as is customary with kings, and the soldiers came running from all directions. They saw the bandit, slew him, and that was that."

Instead of highlighting revenge, these stories radiate an innocent acceptance of the beauty and strangeness of life. Metamorphosis is constant; the shapes of people, animals and things can dissolve in an instant. In The Little Shepherd, a maiden tells the hero about her life of late: "Ugly Slave threw me into the well, and I turned into a fish, then into fishbones thrown out the window. From fishbones I changed into a tree seed, next into a tree that grew and grew, and finally into firewood you cut. Now, every day while you're away, I become lovely Bargaglina."

When the surroundings do not change on their own, humans help. To break a spell, the young man in The Two Sea Merchants "slit open the sorcerer's belly and found the rabbit, cut open the rabbit and found the dove, cut open the dove and found the three eggs." The characters are almost never surprised by the marvelous or afraid of the supernatural. In Dauntless Little John, the hero is told that the only place he can spend the night is at a palace from which no visitor has emerged alive: "So what did Little John do but pick up a lamp, a bottle, and a sausage, and march straight to the palace."

The juxtapositions of such pragmatic concerns and the miraculous are comic and endearing. In King Crin, an heir apparent who happens to be, literally, a pig murders his second bride and provokes concern: "This incident gave the court a bad name, being the second of its kind." A father in The Calf with the Golden Horns comes home to find his daughter and son missing: "One day, to forget his sorrow, he went out to gather fennels." The Prince Who Married a Frog poses a problem for the king: "The father refused to accept the idea of a frog becoming queen."

Calvino is perhaps Italy's finest novelist; such surreal, cerebral books as Invisible Cities and The Castle of Crossed Destinies have brought him international praise. This book should recommend him to posterity. In George Martin's vivid translation, it combines the weight of history with the lift of discovery. One of the many imprisoned princesses in these tales sits in a tower and pines for her suitor on the ground. Then a witch gives her a charm: "This is a magic book. Turn the pages forward, and the man becomes a bird; turn them back, and the bird becomes a man once more." Italian Folk tales effects this same transformation. To read it is to plant feet in the soil, and to fly.

Excerpt

A rich merchant had a son named Bobo, who was both quick-witted and eager to learn. The father therefore put the boy in the charge of a learned teacher, who was to teach him all the languages. When his studies were completed, Bobo came home. One evening he was walking with his father in the garden, where the sparrows were twittering so loudly in one of the trees that you couldn't hear yourself think. These sparrows shatter my eardrums every evening,' said the merchant, sticking his fingers in his ears.

'Shall I tell you what they are saying?' asked Bobo.

His father looked at him in amazement...

'My teacher taught me the language of the various--animals.'

--By Paul Gray

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