Latin American Folktales

by John Bierhorst

  Young lady, grant me your best appraisal: How many leaves on your clump of basil?

  Without hesitation Pepita called back,

  Caballero, give me your best reply: How many stars are in the sky?

  Having imagined that the girl would be caught off guard like her sisters, the king was embarrassed. He rode away without answering, but promised himself he would get even.

  A few days later the king appeared again, this time disguised as a street vendor selling candies. Since the carpenter’s daughters had a taste for sweets, they called to the vendor the moment they saw him. He came into the house and announced he would sell his candies only for kisses.

  The two older daughters were indignant. They showed him the door. But the youngest struck him a bargain and gave him one kiss for each of the candies he had in his jar.

  After returning to the palace, the king changed his clothes and waited until he knew it was time for the basil to receive its daily watering. Just at the right moment he rode by the house and called to Pepita,

  Young lady, grant me your best appraisal: How many leaves on your clump of basil?

  She answered,

  Caballero, give me your best reply: How many stars are in the sky?

  But the king called back,

  You with your answers so smart and handy, How many kisses did you give for candy?

  And Pepita, ashamed, ran back into the house.

  The days passed and the king did not come riding by the garden. Pepita heard from someone that the king was deathly ill. Without a moment’s hesitation she knew what to do. She dressed up as Death and went to the palace leading a mule. Frightened, the palace guards stepped aside and allowed her to enter the king’s bedroom. She said to the king, “I’ve come to take you. Your years and days are counted up.”

  The king begged, “Let me live. I’ll do anything you ask. Just give me a few more years.” So Pepita told him, “There’s only one way.” And what was it? To kiss the mule under its tail. And since the king wanted so badly to live, he raised up the tail and began kissing, and kept on until he had planted a great many in that very spot. Death promised him a year of life for each kiss.

  Then Pepita, still dressed as Death, left with the mule. The king began to improve and was soon completely well.

  Before long he appeared once again in the street, rode past the garden, and found Pepita watering the basil. He said,

  Young lady, grant me your best appraisal: How many leaves on your clump of basil?

  She answered,

  Caballero, give me your best reply: How many stars are in the sky?

  The king called back,

  You with your answers so smart and handy, How many kisses did you give for candy?

  To which she replied,

  Clever, my lord! But answer without fail: How many times did you lift the mule’s tail?

  In spite of himself the king began thinking, “This wise young woman will be my wife.” Still, he would have to find a way to get even with her. He had the old carpenter brought before him. “I’ll take your daughter to be my queen,” he declared, “but she must come to the palace neither naked nor dressed, neither riding on horseback nor sitting in a carriage nor simply walking. And if she doesn’t do it, both you and she will be put to death instantly.”

  The poor carpenter returned to his house in despair. But when Pepita heard what the king had commanded, she sent for a fisherman’s net and wrapped it around her body. Then she told her father to hitch her up behind the mule. Off she went to the palace, neither naked nor dressed, neither riding nor sitting nor simply walking. The king, seeing how clever she really was and knowing she would make an excellent queen, married her without further delay.

  Their life thereafter was perfectly nice; They even gave me some chicken with rice.

  Puerto Rico

  Riddles

  PART FIVE

  44. The Charcoal Peddler’s Chicken

  There was a charcoal peddler always down-and-out. He would say to God, “Please someday let me have an extra fifty centavos, just an extra fifty, to get a chicken I could sit down and eat all by myself.” And the day came when he had the fifty, and he bought the chicken.

  When he’d put it on the fire, and it was still in the pot, a handsomely dressed man stopped by, claiming to be hungry. The peddler said, “Who are you?”

  “I’m Luck, come to help you eat your chicken.”

  “Scram, you handsome dog. You don’t help me. Luck helps only the rich.”

  The well-dressed man went on. A moment later another man, badly dressed, showed up. “And who are you?” said the peddler.

  “I’m Death, come to help you eat your chicken.”

  “Come, sit down,” said the charcoal man. “Let’s eat. Take half and enjoy it, for Death treats everyone the same, rich or poor. Luck may be a dog, but he isn’t faithful to his owner.”

  Puerto Rico

  45. The Three Counsels

  A man in need of work set out from home, leaving his wife and his sixteen-year-old son. In a remote country he found a master who hired him and treated him well. Seven years passed and he went to the master for his pay. They had agreed he would be given seven bags of money for seven years’ work.

  The master knew what the man had come for and said, “Very well. You’ve earned your wages. But let me ask, would you rather have seven bags of money or three counsels?”

  The man thought a moment. Which would be better? Then he said out loud, “I’ll take the three counsels.”

  The good master answered, “You’ve chosen well. And here they are. The first is: Never leave the road for a bypath. The second: Never question what doesn’t concern you. The third: Never act on the first piece of news.”

  The man took the counsels to heart, and when he had bid the good master farewell he started for home. After traveling a few leagues he came to a spot where a couple of paths branched off. Some men were standing there, and one of them said, “Come along with us and take this short cut. You’ll get home faster.” The man refused, remembering the first of his master’s counsels: Never leave the road for a bypath.

  He’d walked another league when he heard shouts. Somebody was running up behind him. It was one of the men who’d been at the fork in the road. The man was wounded. “We were attacked by highway-men, and they murdered my friends. I was the only one who got away.” Then the traveler congratulated himself, realizing that his master’s good counsels had saved him from death.

  He walked on, traveling the main road. In a while he came to a house, large and grand, yet strangely quiet. He knocked at the door, and a tall, thin man received him courteously, inviting him to enter and make himself comfortable. He settled himself in a chair. The hours went by. He didn’t dare move a muscle for fear of breaking the silence.

  When it was time for dinner the thin man appeared in a doorway and motioned him to come forward. He led him into a magnificent dining hall, to a table laden with all the delicacies you could ever wish for. There were wines and liquors of all kinds, rare game meats, pastries, and fruits from different countries. The dishes were gold and silver, the knives and spoons were silver.

  When the two men had seated themselves, the host’s wife came into the room carrying a skull. She placed it on the table with loving care and began to eat the food it contained, dipping it up with her fingers. The guest could barely conceal his amazement and was at the point of asking what it all meant when he remembered the second of the three counsels: Never question what doesn’t concern you.

  Afterward the host directed him to a bedchamber and left him to spend the night, terrified by what he had seen at dinner.

  The next morning he was called to breakfast, and he witnessed the same thing. The woman appeared with the skull and sat down to eat from it. The guest pretended not to notice, and when it was time for him to be on his way he said his good-byes. The host drew him aside. “I’m surprised you never asked about the skull. Why not?”

  “Because
I was given a piece of advice that I’ve vowed to follow: Never question what doesn’t concern you.”

  “Since you didn’t ask,” said the host, “I’m going to tell you. My wife and I are not of this world. During our time on earth we were as rich as could be and as greedy. God punished us by putting us here, where my wife would take every meal from a human skull and every traveler would stop at our door. As each guest would ask, ‘Why the skull?’ he would go to his death. Come, I want you to see how many have perished for asking the question you never asked.”

  The lord of the manor took him into a cavernous cellar, piled with cadavers, skeletons, and loose skulls, some freshly dead, some old and dry. He continued, “We have remained prisoners in this terrible place, waiting for the traveler who would ask no questions. You are that traveler, and now we are free.”

  With those words he handed his guest the keys to the manor. “Great riches are hidden here. Now they are yours.” As he was speaking he vanished together with his wife, and the traveler found himself alone with all that wealth. He was not sorry to have followed his master’s counsels. Seeing how rich he now was, he set off contentedly for home, where he had left his wife and son.

  As he approached his house it was getting dark. The lights were on, and he looked through a window and saw his wife reclining on the bed, caressing the hair of a young priest who was holding the woman’s head in his arms. The poor traveler, finding his wife in the arms of a lover, was about to rush in and plant a knife in the man’s throat. Then he remembered the last of his master’s three counsels: Never act on the first piece of news. Restraining himself, he went to the door and knocked.

  The woman and the priest came to greet him, and when he asked, “Who is this?” his wife replied, “This priest is your son, who was still a boy when you left home.”

  The traveler embraced his wife and his son joyfully and told them all that had happened in his travels, how he had received the three counsels, and how he had made his way home. Then together they went off to the manor house to enjoy their wealth.

  The master, who had wished to reward the good worker by giving him three counsels, was Our Lord Jesus Christ.

  New Mexico

  46. Seven Blind Queens

  In a faraway country there was a cruel king who took pleasure in making his people suffer.

  One day while out hunting in the woods, he saw a beautiful young woman standing at the door of a cottage. He brought her back to the palace and married her.

  The new queen’s happiness lasted no more than a month. At first, charmed by her loveliness, the king behaved himself. But as the novelty wore off he revealed his true nature and began tormenting everybody. Since the queen was closest to him she paid the heaviest price. One morning he woke up in a fury, ordered the queen’s eyes plucked out, then shouted to his guards, “Take her to the dungeon! And keep her on bread and water!”

  Not long after that the king married a second young woman, and she, too, had her month of happiness, then her troubles began. Before another month had gone by the king had blinded her and thrown her into the dungeon with the first queen. The same fate befell five additional brides, one after another.

  Each of the imprisoned queens gave birth. But only the first of the seven was able to protect her child. The others, driven by hunger, ate their newborn infants. The first queen carefully hid her little boy, and as though he knew what would happen if his mother’s companions discovered him he never made the slightest cry.

  He was a beautiful child and grew quickly. At night, while the other queens were asleep, his mother taught him to speak. Bit by bit she passed along to him what little knowledge she had. He absorbed it without having to be told twice, for he was blessed with a quick mind.

  One day the boy found a key that had been dropped on the floor of the dungeon. Playing with it, he poked it into the damp wall, and the mortar crumbled away. There was a tiny shaft of light. He kept working at the stones until he made a hole large enough to crawl through. “Mother,” he said, “I’m going out to see what I can find. Stand in front of the hole so the warden won’t notice.”

  On the other side of the wall was a garden filled with flowers and fruit trees. The boy gathered as much fruit as he could carry and brought it to his mother. Only then did she tell her companions that she had a son, and she said to her boy, “Share the fruit with the other queens!”

  From that moment on he was the darling of them all. He repaid their affection by bringing them fresh provisions from the garden each day.

  Every time he went out his mother felt her heart pounding. She thought, “What if the gardeners find him and take him to the king?” Finally she said to him, “Son, if they catch you they’ll ask you, ‘Where are you from? What is your name? Who are your parents?’ Tell them, ‘My home is the world, my name is Wind, my father and mother are Thunder and Rain.’ ”

  More than a year went by without anyone discovering him, because the boy made his excursions first thing in the morning, and the gardeners were not early risers. At last, however, one of the gardeners got up earlier than usual, caught the boy, and took him to the king. But the child found favor with the king, and when the king began questioning him, “Where are you from?” the boy answered, “My home is the world.”

  “And who is your father?”

  “My father is Thunder.”

  “And who is your mother.”

  “My mother is Rain.”

  And so the king suspected nothing.

  Now, shortly after gouging out the eyes of the seventh queen and locking her up in the dungeon, the king had married again. This time he had met his match. The new wife was a strong-minded woman with a heart of stone, who lorded it over her husband until he gave in to all her demands and became soft and weak.

  I’ve already told you how the boy pleased the king at first sight, and even more so with his ready answers to the king’s questions. The king had issued these orders: “Dress him well! Give him free run of the palace and the grounds!”

  The boy lived with the palace staff, who adored him. They gave him his fill at every meal, and when he got up from the table he gathered the leftovers and brought them to the blind queens. He would stay and chat for a while with his mother and the other women, especially in the evenings before retiring to his room.

  Eventually the boy’s reputation reached the ears of the new queen, who demanded to see him. She, too, wanted to hear his smart answers, and when she had satisfied herself that he was as confident and strong-willed as everyone said, she made up her mind to have him killed.

  Pretending to be ill, she called the king and said, “My dreams tell me that nothing will cure me except the milk of a lioness, which must be delivered by a lion—and in a lion’s skin. And no one but the young man must go after it.”

  The king, who obeyed all the queen’s orders, even if they were distasteful, sent the boy to get the cure. Alarmed, the boy went first to his mother to tell her what the queen had commanded, and his mother then advised him:

  “The queen only wants to get rid of you, but you won’t be harmed if you follow my instructions. Before you go, ask the cook for bread, milk, a saucepan, and salt for seasoning. Keep traveling until you reach an open country where you will see a cliff rising beside a stream shaded by trees. Make a milk sop with the bread and leave it next to the water. Then hide behind a tree. A lion will come along, sniff the sop, and gulp it down. He’ll say, ‘What a sop! Who brought this?’ You’ll come out of hiding and say, ‘It was I, sir.’ And the grateful lion will do your bidding.”

  So the boy did as his mother instructed, and when the lion had licked the last of the sop from his jowls he looked around and said, “What a sop! Who could have brought it?”

  “Sir Lion, it was I!”

  “What can I do to show my gratitude?” asked the lion.

  “Here’s what I need,” said the boy, “the milk of a lioness in a lion’s skin, brought to the palace by a lion, to cure the queen, who is deathly il
l.”

  “Nothing could be easier,” said the lion. “A little lion cub will go with you. Just take this wand, and when you get to the palace, tap the lion cub on the head three times and say, ‘Go back where you came from!’ ” And before the lion had finished speaking, the lion cub appeared, carrying a lion’s skin on its shoulders.

  When they got to the palace, the queen was out on her balcony. She caught sight of the lion cub carrying the lion’s skin and flew into a rage.

  Just at the palace gate the boy lifted the skin onto his own shoulders and gave the cub three taps, saying, “Go back where you came from!” and the cub disappeared.

  After this the queen hated the boy more than ever and swore to herself that she would see him killed. In no time she took sick again. She said to the king, “I’ve dreamed of a cure, and nothing else can save me. I must lay my eyes on the singing towers and the dancing battlements, and the young man must be the one to bring them to me.”

  The king gave the order to the boy, who went directly to the dungeon to ask his mother what to do.

  She said, “My son, don’t worry. The queen wants you to die. But follow my instructions and you’ll be protected. Before you go, ask the gardener for a burro and tell the gardener’s wife to give you a guitar. Saddle up the burro and keep traveling for seven hours. You’ll reach the Enchanted City, where you’ll see no one but the old sorceress who lives there. Strike up the guitar, and she’ll come out. As long as you keep playing, she’ll be under your spell, and from then on you’ll know what to do.”

  When he reached the gates of the Enchanted City, he began to play. An old woman came out and asked if she could buy the guitar. “Later!” promised the boy. “First you must show me the sights of the city.”

  He continued playing without a moment’s pause, as the old woman shuffled along beside him in her slippers. They came to a piglet in a beautiful little pigpen. “Grandmother, what’s this?” he asked. “You mean the little pig? It’s the life of your father’s new queen. Now please, give me the guitar!”