Italian Folktales by Italo Calvino

heavy bag has broken my back, and I want to go home with nothing to carry.”
    When he had gone, the washerwoman anxiously opened the bag and embraced her second daughter. But she was more worried than ever about Lucia, who was now alone in the Devil’s hands.
    What did Lucia do? Not long afterward she started up again about news of her mother. By now the Devil was sick and tired of carrying laundry, but he had grown too fond of this obedient girl to say no to her. As soon as it grew dark, Lucia announced she had a bad headache and would go to bed early. “I’ll prepare the laundry and leave the bag out for you, so if I don’t feel like getting up in the morning, you can be on your way.”
    Now Lucia had made a rag doll the same size as herself. She put it in bed under the covers, cut off her own braids, and sewed them on the doll’s head. The doll then looked like Lucia asleep, and Lucia closed herself up in the bag.
    In the morning the Devil saw the girl snuggled down under the covers and set out with the bag over his shoulder. “She’s sick this morning,” he said to himself, “and won’t be looking. It’s the perfect time to see if this really is nothing but laundry.” At that, he put the bag down and was about to open it. “I see you, I see you!” cried Lucia.
    â€œBy Jove, it’s her voice to a tee, as though she were right here! Better not joke with such a girl.” He took up the bag again and carried it to the washerwoman. “I’ll come back later for everything,” he said rapidly. “I have to get home right away because Lucia is sick.”
    So the family was finally reunited. Since Lucia had also carried off great sums of the Devil’s money, they were now able to live in comfort and happiness. They planted a cross before the door, and from then on, the Devil kept his distance.
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    (
Langhe
)

10
The Count’s Beard
    The town of Pocapaglia was perched on the pinnacle of a hill so steep that its inhabitants tied little bags on the tail feathers of their hens to catch each freshly laid egg that otherwise would have gone rolling down the slopes into the woods below.
    All of which goes to show that the people of Pocapaglia were not the dunces they were said to be, and that the proverb,
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In Pocapaglian ways
The donkey whistles, the master brays,
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    merely reflected the malicious grudge the neighboring townspeople bore the Pocapaglians for their peaceful ways and their reluctance to quarrel with anyone.
    â€œYes, yes,” was all the Pocapaglians would reply, “but just wait until Masino returns, and you will see who brays more, we or you.”
    Everybody in Pocapaglia loved Masino, the smartest boy in town. He was no stronger physically than anybody else; in fact, he even looked rather puny. But he had always been very clever. Concerned over how little he was at birth, his mother had bathed him in warm wine to keep him alive and make him a little stronger. His father had heated the wine with a red-hot horseshoe. That way Masino absorbed the subtlety of wine and the endurance of iron. To cool him off after his bath, his mother cradled him in the shell of an unripened chestnut; it was bitter and gave him understanding.
    At the time the Pocapaglians were awaiting the return of Masino, whom no one had seen since the day he went off to be a soldier (and who was now most likely somewhere in Africa), strange things started happening in Pocapaglia. Every evening as the cattle came back from pasture in the plain below, an animal was whisked away by Micillina the Witch.
    The witch would hide in the woods at the foot of the hill, and all she needed to do was give one hearty puff, and she had herself an ox. When the farmers heard her steal through the thicket after dark, their teeth would chatter, and everyone would fall down in a swoon. That became so common that people took to saying:
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Beware of Micillina, that old