Part 6

"You are right," and she drinks it all.

But she could not any more get up to shut the door, she had become so sleepy.

Rose said to her: "Godmamma! I will shut the door to-day; stop where you are."

She gave her the key, and Rose turns and turns it back again and again in the keyhole as if she had locked it; and leaving it unlocked she gave the key to her godmother, and she puts it in her pocket. She goes to bed; but Rose and Pretty-Rose did not go to bed at all. At midnight the son of the king arrives with his flying chariot. Rose and Pretty-Rose get into it, and go to this young man's house. The next day Rose says to Pretty-Rose:

"You are not so pretty as you were yesterday;" and looking at her closely, "I find you very ugly to-day."

Pretty-Rose said to her: "My godmamma must have taken away my diamond glint."

And she said to Rose, "You must go to my godmamma, and ask her to give me back the glint that I had before."

Rose did not want to go there--she was afraid; but Pretty-Rose prayed her so much, that she took off the silver dress and set out. [60] When she came to the mountain, she began to call out:

"Godmamma! godmamma! Give Pretty-Rose her beautiful glint as before. I shall be angry with you for always (if you do not), and you will see what will happen to you."

The godmother said to her:

"Come here, come in, I will give you breakfast."

She said, "I am afraid you will beat me."

"No! no! come quickly, then."

"You will give Pretty-Rose her glint?"

"Yes, yes, she has it already."

She then goes in. The queen washes her feet and wipes them, and puts her upon the velvet cushion, and gives her some chocolate; and says to her, that she knows where Pretty-Rose is, and that she will be married, and to tell her from her not to trouble herself about her toilet, nor about anything that is necessary for the wedding and feast, that she would come on the morning of the day.

Rose goes off then. While she is going through the city where Pretty-Rose is, she hears two ladies, who were saying to two gentlemen, "What kind of wife is it that our brother is going to take? Not like us, because he keeps her shut up so close. Let us go and see her."

The little dog said to them, "Not a bit like you, you horrible blubber-lips, as you are. You shall see her--yes."

When the young kings heard that, they were ready to run their swords through the poor little dog. When she gets to Pretty-Rose's house she hides herself, and tells her all that has happened. Pretty-Rose gives her some good liqueur to drink, and she comes to herself. The king makes a proclamation that whoever shall (merely) spit where the little dog shall have placed her feet shall be killed, and to mind and pay attention to it.

When the marriage day had arrived, came the queen. She brought for the wedding-day a robe of diamonds; for the next day, of gold; and for the third day, of silver. Judge how beautiful she was with her glint of diamonds, and her dress of diamonds, too. They could not look at her. Her godmother told her to have her sisters-in-law there, and not to be afraid of them; that they could not come near her in beauty. When she went out (of her room) on the wedding-day, her sisters-in-law could not look at her, she dazzled them so much. They said to each other:

"The little dog was right when she said she was beautiful, this lady."

And for three days Pretty-Rose walked about, [61] and every one was astounded at her beauty. When the feast was over, the godmother went home. Rose would not leave Pretty-Rose. The godmother told Pretty-Rose that she was born of poor parents, and that she had once helped them, but that what she had given them must be already exhausted. Pretty-Rose gave them enough for all to live grandly. She herself had four children, two boys and two girls; and if they had lived well, they had died well.

Laurentine Learnt it from her mother.

V.--WITCHCRAFT AND SORCERY.

Our legends of witchcraft and sorcery are very poor, and in some of these, as said above, the witch is evidently a fairy. The reason of this is not that the belief in witchcraft is extinct among the Basques, but because it is so rife. Of stories of witchcraft (as matters of fact), and some of them very sad ones, we have heard plenty; but of legends, very few. In fact, witchcraft among the Basques has not yet arrived at the legendary stage. The difference is felt at once in taking down their recitations. In the legends they are reciting a text learnt by heart. It is "the story says so." "It is so," whether they understand it or not. But they tell their stories of witchcraft in their own words, just as they would narrate any other facts which they supposed had happened to themselves or to their neighbours. One woman told us, as a fact within her own knowledge, and persisted in it, a tale which appears both in M. Cerquand's pages and in Fr. Michel's "Pays Basque." [62] It was only after cross-examination that we could discover that it had not really happened to her own daughter, but that she had only seen the cottage and the chapel which are the scene of the alleged occurrence. We have, too, been informed on undoubted authority that, only a year or two back, a country priest was sorely puzzled by one of his parishioners, in his full senses, seriously and with contrition confessing to him that he frequented the "Sabbat."

But what is strange and unexpected is, that with this prevalence of belief in witchcraft and sorcery, and which can be traced back to our earliest notices of the Basques, there is nothing to differentiate their belief on this subject from the current European belief of three centuries back. All the Basque words for witchcraft and sorcery are evidently borrowed. The only purely Basque term is Asti, which seems to be rather a diviner than a sorcerer. The term for the "Sabbat" is "Akhelarre"--"goat pasture"--and seems to be taken from the apparition of the devil there in form of a goat, which is not uncommon elsewhere. Pierre de Lancre, by the terrors of his hideous inquisition in 1609, produced a moral epidemic, and burnt numerous victims at St. Jean de Luz; but there is not a single Basque term in all his pages. Contrary to general opinion, both the Spanish Inquisition and the French ecclesiastical tribunals were more merciful and rational, and showed far less bigotry and barbarity than the two doctrinaire lawyers and judges of Bordeaux. The last person burnt for witchcraft at St. Jean de Luz was a Portuguese lady, who was accused of having secreted the Host for purposes of magic, in 1619. While her case was being investigated before the Bishop of Bayonne, in the crypt of the church, a mob of terrified fishermen, on the eve of starting for Newfoundland, burst in, tore her out of the church, and burnt her off-hand, in the midst of the "Place." "They dared not," they said, "sail while such a crime was unpunished." The Bishop's procés-verbal of the occurrence is still extant in the archives of the Mairie.

The magic wand in all our tales is now said to be made from the hazel. In De Lancre's time it was from the "Souhandourra"--"the cornus sanguinea"--or dog-wood. This was then the witches' tree.

THE WITCHES AT THE SABBAT. [63]

Once upon a time, like many others in the world, there was a young lad. He was one day in a lime-kiln, and the witches came at night. They used to dance there, and one pretended to be the mistress of a house, who was very ill; and one day, as she was going out of the church, she let the holy wafer fall on the ground, and a toad had picked it up; and this toad is still near the door, under a stone, with the bread in his mouth. [64] And again, this same witch said that, until they took away this bread out of the toad's mouth, this lady will not be cured. This young lad had heard it all. When they had danced their rounds, the witches go away home, and our lad comes out of the lime-kiln, and goes to the house of this lady who is ill, and says to her,

"I know what must be done to cure you," and he told her all that he had heard from the witch.

The sick lady did what they told her, and the same day she was cured, and the young man was well paid.

And that very evening there came to him a hunch-backed girl, and said to him,

"I have heard that you know where the witches hold their Sabbat."

He says, "Yes."

"To-morrow I think I should like to hear what the witches say."

And he points out to her the hole of the lime-kiln. And at midnight all the witches came, some from one quarter, some from another--some laughing, and others cutting capers. The witches said one to another,

"We must look in the lime-kiln, to see what may be there."

They go to look, and they find the hunchback girl, and they send her off--

"Go, go--through hedges and hedges, through thorns and thorns, through furze-bushes and furze-bushes, scratches and pricks."

And in no way could our poor hunchback find her way home. All torn to pieces and exhausted, at last, in the morning, she arrived at her house.

Estefanella Hirigaray.

The second part of this story is evidently a blundered version, transferred from fairies to witches, of Croker's "Legend of Knochgrafton" ("Fairy Legends of South of Ireland," p. 10); and M. Cerquand, Part II., p. 17, has a Basque version, "Les Deux Bossus," almost identical with this Irish legend. The tale, as given in Croker, is found in the Bearnais Gascon, in Spanish, Italian, and German. It is evident, we think, that the Basque land is not its home, but that it has travelled there. We have also another Basque variation of the first part, in which two lads hear the witches at the Sabbat say that a king's daughter can only be cured by eating an ox's heart. The opening of this story is so different, that we here give it:--

THE WITCHES AND THE IDIOTS.

Once upon a time there were two brothers, the one an idiot, and the other a fool. They had an old mother, old, old, very old. One morning early the elder arranges to go with his sheep to the mountain, and he leaves the fool at home with his old, old, mother, and said to him:

"I will give my mother some chocolate now, and you will give her a hot bath (afterwards), quite, quite, hot."

He goes to the mountain with his sheep. The second son put the water on to boil, and said to his mother:

"My mother, the water is hot, what bath would you like?" [65]

She says to him:

"A bath with wood-ashes."

And he carries it to the bed while it is boiling; and as she did not get up, he said to her:

"Would you like a little broth?" And she said "Yes."

"My mother, get up quickly!" and she did not get up.

He takes her, and puts her himself into this boiling water, so that he boiled his poor mother. And he said to her,

"My mother, get up again; the water is not cold."

She did not answer. The night comes, and the other brother returns from the mountains, and says to him:

"How is our mother?"

"All right."

"Have you given her the bath?"

"Yes; but she is still there, and she is asleep in her bath."

"Go and see if she is still asleep."

He goes, and says, "No, no; she is laughing--she keeps on laughing."

The other brother goes there, and perceives that their mother is quite dead. He did not know what to do. They both go into the garden, and there they make a great hole and bury her.

They then burn the house, go into the woods, see the witches, cure the king's daughter, whom one of them marries, and they live happily. [66]

It is possible that this first part may be a narrative of fact. We knew at Asté, near Bagnères de Bigorre, a brother, an idiot "crétin," who deliberately began to chop up his sister (also an idiot and "crétin"), who offered no resistance. He had chopped off several of her fingers, when they were accidently interrupted. In spite of the blood and pain, she was only laughing at it.

We have another tale of this kind, which may be also founded on fact, so sad is often the condition of the crétins in the mountains. It is of a mother and her imbecile son; he nearly kills himself by chopping off the branch of the tree on which he was sitting. Then he believes himself dead, and commits various other follies. His mother thinks a wife might be able to take care of him, and tells him to cast sheeps' eyes at the young girls coming out of church after mass. He takes this literally, cuts out the eyes of all their flock, and so kills their sheep, the only thing they had, and throws these at the girls, who are disgusted, and quarrel with him. He goes home, and mother and son end their lives together in wretchedness.

THE WITCH AND THE NEW-BORN INFANT.

Like many others in the world, there was a man and woman, labourers, who lived by their toil. They were at ease. They had a mule, and the man lived by his mule carrying wine. Sometimes he was a week away from home. He always went to the same inn, where there was a woman and her daughter. One day the labourer sets off with his loaded mule, and his wife was very near her confinement. She was expecting it hourly; but, as he had orders upon orders, he was obliged to set off. He goes then, and comes to this inn. It was a market-day, and they had not kept a bedroom for him as usual, because there were so many people there, and he is put into a dark room without windows near the kitchen. He had not yet gone to sleep, when he hears the woman say to her daughter,

"You are not aware that the wife of the man who is there is confined? Go and see if he is asleep."

When the man heard that, he began to snore; and when the young girl heard through a slit in the door that he was snoring, she said to her mother,

"Yes, yes, he is asleep."

The mother said to her then (you may guess whether he was listening)--

"I must go and charm this newly-born infant."

She takes up a stone under the hearth, and takes from under it a saucepan, in which there was an ointment. She takes a brush, and well rubs herself over her whole body, saying, [67]

"Under all the clouds and over all the hedges, half an hour on the road, another half-hour there, and another to return."

As soon as she had said that, off she went. When the man saw that she was gone, he comes out of his room. He had seen what she did. He anoints himself like her, and says,

"Over the clouds, and under the hedges"--(he made a blunder there [68])--"a quarter of an hour to go there, half an hour to stop, and a quarter of an hour for the return."

He arrives at his house, but torn to pieces by the thorns, and his clothes in strips, but that was all the same to him; he places himself behind the door of his wife's bedroom with a big stick. There comes a great white cat, "Miau, miau!" [69] When the man heard that, he goes out of the place where he was hiding, and with his stick he almost killed this cat, and set out directly afterwards for the inn, but not easily, under all the hedges. In spite of that, he arrives at the woman's house. He goes to bed quickly. The next day, when he gets up, he sees only the daughter. He asks her where her mother is. "She is ill, and you must pay me."

"No! I prefer to see your mother."

He goes to the mother, and finds her very ill. From this day he goes no more to that inn. When he gets home, he tells his wife what had happened, and how he had saved the child. But all was not ended there. They had misfortune upon misfortune. All their cows died, and all their other animals too. They were sinking into the deepest misery. [70] They did not know what would become of them. This man was brooding sadly in thought, when he met an old woman, who asked him what was the matter with him. He told her all his troubles, how many misfortunes they had had--all his cows lost. He had bought others, and they too had died directly. He is charmed by witches.

"If you are like that you have only to put a consecrated taper under the peck measure in the stable, and you will catch her."

He does as the old woman told him, and hides himself in the manger. At midnight she comes under the form of a cat, and gets astride the ox, saying:

"The others before were fine, but this is very much finer."

When our man heard that he comes out from where he was hiding, and with his stick he leaves her quite dead; although when he had done that our man was without any resources; (he had) neither bread, nor maize, nor cows, nor pigs, and his wife and children were starving.

He goes off to see if he can do anything. There meets him a gentleman, who says to him:

"What is the matter, man, that you are so sad?"

"It is this misery that I am in that torments me so."

"If you have only that, we will arrange all that if you like. I will give you as much money as you wish, if at the end of the year you can guess, and if you tell me with what the devil makes his chalice; and if you do not guess it then your soul shall be for us."

When our man has got his money, he goes off home without thinking at all of the future. He lived happily for some time with his wife and child; but as the time approached he grew sad, and said nothing to his wife. One day he had gone a long way, wishing and trying to find out his secret, and the night overtakes him. He stops at a cross-roads, and hides himself. (You know that the witches come to the cross-roads [71] to meet together.) They come then, "hushta" from one side, "fushta" from the other, dancing. When they had well amused themselves like that, they begin to tell each other the news. One says:

"You do not know, then, such a man has sold his head to the devil; certainly he will not guess with what the devil makes his chalice. I do not know myself; tell it me."

"With the parings of the finger-nails which Christians cut on the Sunday."

Our man with difficulty, with great difficulty, kept from showing himself, through his joy and delight. As soon as the day appeared all the witches went off to their homes, and our man too went off to his. He was no more sad. He waited till the day arrived, and went to the cross-roads. This gentleman was already there, come with a lot of devils, thinking that he would be for hell. He asks him:

"You know what the devil makes his chalice of?"

"I do not know, but I will try. With the parings of the finger-nails which Christians cut on Sundays?"

As soon as he heard that, the devil goes off with all the others in fire and flame to the bottom of hell. Our man went off home, and lived a long time with his wife and daughter. If they had lived well, they would have died well too.

THE CHANGELING.

Like many others in the world, there was a gentleman and lady. They were very well off, but they could not keep any of their children. They had had ever so many, and all died. The lady was again in a hopeful condition. At the beginning of the night she was confined of a fine boy.

Two young men heard this news, and they said to each other:

"We ought to have a feast; we must steal a sheep out of this house. They will not pay attention to us with all their bustle and their joy."

One of the lads then goes after eleven o'clock towards the house. He meets an old woman, who said to him:

"Where are you off to, lad? There is nothing like the truth."

"I was going, then, to such a house; the lady has been confined, and I wish to take advantage of it to steal a sheep. They will not pay any attention to-day. And you, where are you going?"

"I too am going to the house. I am a witch, and it is I who have killed all their children."

"And how do you do that?"

"Easily. When the infant sneezes nobody says, 'Domine stekan,' [72] and then I become mistress of the child."

The witch enters, doubtless as she liked, much more easily than our lad; but nevertheless he got in himself too. He was busy choosing his sheep, when he hears the infant sneeze. He says very, very loudly:

"Domine stekan; even if I should not get my sheep."

They go to see who is there, and what he was saying. The lad relates what the old woman had told him. As you may imagine they thanked him well, and told him to choose the finest sheep. The father and mother were delighted that they would save this child; but, poor wretches, they had not seen everything. A devil had come, who took their child and carried it to the roadside, and left it there. A coachman passing by sees this child, and takes it with him. He was married, but had no children. They had a great desire to have one. They were very well off also. His wife was delighted to see this fine child; they gave it a good nurse, and the child grew fast and became wonderfully handsome. The devil had placed himself in the child's cradle. This mother gave him suck, and, contrary to the other, he did not grow at all. The parents were vexed at having such a child; they did not know what to think of it. Their true child was more than extraordinarily clever. The coachman and his wife were dazed with joy, and they loved him as (if he were) their own child. When he was twelve years old, he said to his father and mother that he wished to become a monk. The coachman and his wife were very sorry, and they asked him to become only a priest. But after having seen his great desire they allow him to do as he wished.

He went away then, and at the age of eighteen years he was able to say mass. When he was there, one day two men were passing in front of the garden of his real father, and they began to quarrel. They got so enraged that one killed the other, and threw him into his father's garden. This father was tried and condemned to death for having killed this man.

While this young monk was saying mass, there comes to him a white pigeon and tells him what was taking place in his father's house, and that the pigeon will assume the form of the monk, "and you shall go off in my shape." The monk willingly does what he tells him, and arrives when they are leading his father to execution. He was being followed by the judges and by a crowd of people. He asks what he has done. They tell him that he has killed a man. He asks if they would do him a favour before they put him to death--if they would accompany him to the grave of the man whom he has killed. They tell him, "Yes."

They all go off then. The monk has the grave opened, restores him to life, and asks him, pointing to his father:

"Is this the man who has killed you?"

The dead man says to him, "No!"

After having said that he dies again. The monk did not wish to know who had killed him; he knew all he wanted with that. The father wished to take the monk home with him to dinner, but he would not go that day. He said to him:

"I will come on such a day."

As you may fancy they made a splendid dinner; nothing was wanting there. They invited all their friends and acquaintances to rejoice with them. When the monk arrives, the lady, before sitting down to table, wished to show him her child, how she had suckled him with her own milk eighteen years, and that he did not grow at all, but was always just as he was when he was born. The monk betook himself to prayer, and he saw that which they believed to be a child fly away under the shape of a devil in fire and flame, and he carried off with him part of the house. He told his mother not to vex herself because she had had the devil there, and that she would be happier without such a child.

All the world was astonished at the power of this monk; but the mother was still grieved. The monk, to console her, told her his history; how he was her true child; how the devil had taken him and carried him to the roadside; how he had been found and brought up by a coachman; and that it was he himself who had been made priest, and her son. All were astounded at his words. After they had well dined, the monk went back into his convent, and the father and mother lived honourably, as they did before; and as they lived well, they died well too.

Catherine Elizondo.

VI.--CONTES DES FÉES.