The nights of Straparola, volume 1 [of 2]Straparola, Giovanni Francesco
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The nights of Straparola, volume 1 [of 2]
Straparola, Giovanni Francesco
Fairy tales -- Italy; Tales -- Italy
When the evening had come Adamantina, according to the habit of young
girls, sat down by the fireside, and, having taken some oil out of the
lamp, she anointed therewith the doll’s stomach and loins. Then she
wrapped the doll carefully in some bits of tattered cloth, and placed it
in her own bed, and a very short time afterwards she went to bed herself
and lay down beside the doll. Scarcely had Adamantina fallen into her
first sleep when the doll began to cry out: ‘The stool, mother, the
stool.’ Whereupon Adamantina, wakening from her sleep, said: ‘What is
the matter with you, my daughter?’ and to this the doll replied in the
same words as before. Then Adamantina said: ‘Wait a little, my
daughter;’ and she straightway arose and ministered to the doll as if it
had been a young child, and to her amazement she found that the doll
filled the stool with a great quantity of coins of all sorts.
As soon as Adamantina saw what had happened she straightway awakened her
sister Cassandra and showed her the money which had come to her in this
strange fashion. Cassandra, when she marked what a great sum of money
was there, stood as one stricken with wonder, and rendered hearty thanks
to God for sending them such welcome succour in their want and misery,
and, turning to Adamantina, she begged pardon of her for the blows which
she had so cruelly and unjustly given to her, and she took the doll and
caressed it tenderly and kissed it, holding it closely in her arms. And
when the next day had come, the two sisters took of the money and
purchased therewith bread and wine and oil and wood, and all other sorts
of provisions which are suitable to a well-ordered house, taking care
every evening to anoint the stomach of the doll with oil, and to wrap it
in a piece of the finest linen, and the doll on its part never failed to
supply them with money in abundance whenever they had need thereof.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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