Tales Told By Bulls And Wolves

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978-1-913500-91-7

978-1-913500-13-9

978-1-913500-60-3

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Synopsis

This volume, Tales Told By Bulls And Wolves covers stories originating in what is now Italy.

Italian literature arguably began after the founding of Rome in 753 BC. Latin literature was, and still is, highly influential in the world, with numerous writers, poets, philosophers, and historians, such as Pliny the Elder, Pliny the Younger, Virgil, Horace, Propertius, Ovid and Livy.

Much later, following in the footsteps of Petrarch and Giovanni Boccaccio’s The Decameron, Italian Renaissance authors produced a number of important works such as Ludovico Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso. Giovanni Francesco Straparola and Giambattista Basile, who wrote The Facetious Nights of Straparola (1550–1555) and the Pentamerone (1634) respectively, printed some of the first known versions of fairy tales in Europe, examples of which appear in this collection.

Later still the Italian Romantic movement coincided with the Risorgimento, the patriotic movement that brought Italy political unity and freedom from foreign domination.

Italian writers embraced Romanticism in the early 19th century. The time of Italy’s rebirth was heralded by the poets Vittorio Alfieri, Ugo Foscolo, and Giacomo Leopardi. The works by Alessandro Manzoni, the leading Italian Romantic, are a symbol of the Italian political struggle.

A Sample...

Pomo And The Goblin Horse

There was in an Italian village a man named Pomo, who was so lazy that he did not like to work, so he said, “I’ll become a doctor.”

So, he went into other districts where no one knew him, and said that he could heal people. But instead he only made them die all the more. At last he died too.

One evening soon after his death, his relations were sitting quietly in their house when they heard a great noise, and looking out, saw all the air full of crows. This went on for several evenings. The house was surrounded by these birds, which flew here and there cawing loudly, and then vanished.

At last one evening there were no crows, but the family suddenly heard a great clattering of hoofs in the street. They went to the window and looked out and saw a terrible black horse with a man riding on him. The horse came to the doorsteps, put his nose down to the ground, and stood there some time, while the man looked imploringly at the terrified people, but did not speak.

The next evening the horse came again. This time he stood on the threshold, with his nose against the door, but the man did not speak. In the morning the people went to tell the parroco and beg him to save them from the devil, for they were sure the black horse could be no other. The parroco lived some way off, but he said, “If the horse comes tonight, call me at once, and I will see if I can help you.”

That night as soon as the hoofs were heard someone ran off to the parroco, and the rest huddled into the kitchen so that they might not see the dreadful sight...

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