The Story of Oimè (Italian: La Novella di Oimè) is an Italian fairy tale collected by folklorist Giuseppe Pitrè and sourced from Tuscany. In it, a girl marries a mysterious husband, breaks a prohibition set by him and is banished from home; later, she goes to her mother-in-law's castle where she gives birth to her child and the husband comes to rock the child with a lullaby.
It is related to the international cycle of Animal as Bridegroom or The Search for the Lost Husband, in that a human girl marries a supernatural or enchanted husband, loses him and must search for him. Similar stories have been collected from oral tradition across the Mediterranean, in Italy, Greece and Spain, and nearby countries.
Source According to Pitrè, the story was provided by informant Umiltà Minucci, from Siena.
Summary In this tale, a queen is very stingy and tries to be charitable to have a son. She gives alms to a poor old lady in church, and, after the third time, the old lady declares the queen will bear a son, but she will not be able to enjoy motherhood for long. It happens thus: a prince is indeed born and named "Oimè", but some time later, a dog enters the castle and kidnaps the baby. Years later, a poor widowed father lives with his three daughters and scavenges food for them by gathering herbs. One day, he finds a lush garden in a villa, steals some vegetables and sells them in the marketplace. He returns later to steal some more, and tries to uproot a particularly sturdy vegetable. Failing that, he sits a while and utters a sigh: "Oimè". A man appears from the villa window and asks if the man summoned him, for that is his name. Oimè discovers the man is his salad thief, and demands one of his three daughters in payment, saying he will pay him a visit and choose his bride in person. The man's elder daughters lock up their sister to try and deceive Oimè, but he asks to see the third daughter. The girl appears, and Oimè takes her as his bride to his palace.
In the palace, Oimè tells the girl the palace is also hers, but a specific room is strictly forbidden. Time passes, and the girl's sisters pay her a visit. The girl mentions the secret door, and the sisters convince her to open it. After they leave, that same night, the girl steals a key and opens the forbidden door. Inside, she finds a long corridor where woman are preparing a trousseau for Oimè's unborn son. When she reaches the last room, the woman shouts that their work was for her, and, calling the girl ungrateful, expels the girl, and the palace disappears, leaving her in the woods. The girl, pregnant, sees a light in the distance, and reaches a castle where she is given lodge by the queen. She gives birth to a son, and she is secretly visited by Oimè. Two nursemaids see the youth talking to a magic lantern, and rocking the baby with a song that laments that if the roosters never crowed and the bells never rang, he would be happy. On the following nights, the queen is informed about the youth's visit and stays awake to see him: she recognizes it is her own son, and goes to embrace him before he vanishes with the dawn. The sun rises, and the prince remains with the queen, breaking the curse cast by the old lady.
Analysis Tale type
Philologist classified the tale as Italian type 425, Lo sposo scomparso ("The Lost Husband").D'aronco, Gianfranco. "Le fiabe di magia in Italia: memoria". In: Atti dell'Accademia di scienze lettere e arti di Udine, serie 6, v. 14 (1954/1957). p. 92. The Italian type corresponds, in the international Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index, to type ATU 425, "The Search for the Lost Husband".
Renato Aprile, editor of the Italian Catalogue of Tales of Magic, sourced the tale from Siena and classified it as part of the "Amor e Psiche" cycle (type 425), as subtype 425E. In this type, the heroine's husband has a padlock on his body (or a there is a chamber she is forbidden to open); after she betrays his trust, she is expelled and takes shelter in a castle where she gives birth to their child; at night her husband comes to lull the baby with a song in which there are instructions on how to save him.Aarne, Antti; Thompson, Stith. The types of the folktale: a classification and bibliography. Folklore Fellows Communications FFC no. 184. Helsinki: Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 1961. p. 143.
Motifs
According to Renato Aprile and Jan-Öjvind Swahn, in some variants of tale type 425E, the heroine's husband watches over his wife and son and converses with a golden lamp about his family.
The prince's lullaby In his 1955 monograph, Swahn noted that the husband's lullaby to his child was "rather uniformly formed", containing instructions to extinguish "the cocks [galli] and the clocks [campane]". Similarly, according to Italian literary critic and Anna Buia, the prince's lullaby from Basile's tale is "preserved" in most of the subsequent variants. In the same vein, professor Michael Merakles argued that the prince's lullaby "dissolved" in Greek variants, but its existence can be gleamed by fragmentary references present in the texts.Merakles, Michales G. Studien zum griechischen Märchen. Eingeleitet, übers, und bearb. von Walter Puchner. Raabser Märchen-Reihe, Bd. 9. Wien: Österr. Museum für Volkskunde, 1992. p. 106 and footnote nr. 292. .
The crowing of the rooster Although they acknowledged that the crowing of the rooster marks type AaTh 425E, Mario Lavagetto and Anna Buia, as well as folklorist Letterio Di Francia, remarked that the motif is "widespread" in Italian tradition.Di Francia, Letterio (Curatore). Fiabe e novelle calabresi. Prima e seconda parte. Torino: Giovanni Chiantore. 1935. p. 41. In this regard, German folklorist noted that the rooster's crowing in Basile's tale acquires a negative connotation, since it helps prolong the prince's enchantment, and only by having the roosters killed can he be saved in a more permanent manner. Similarly, according to Di Francia, there is a widespread belief across Italy that the rooster's crowing facilitates the action of supernatural beings, and spells can be broken only by ceasing their singing.Di Francia, Letterio (Curatore). Fiabe e novelle calabresi. Prima e seconda parte. Torino: Giovanni Chiantore. 1935. p. 76.
Variants Scholar Nancy Canepa locates similar stories in Turkey and Greece. Likewise, according to the Greek Folktale Catalogue, type 425E is "popular" in Turkey and Greece, while type 425L (a close subtype) is known across the Greek Aegean Islands and in Asia Minor.Angelopoulou, Anna; Brouskou, Aígle. "ΚΑΤΑΛΟΓΟΣ ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΩΝ ΠΑΡΑΜΥΘΙΩΝ". Vol. 3: ΕΠΕΞΕΡΓΑΣΙΑ ΤΥΠΩΝ ΚΑΙ ΠΑΡΑΛΛΑΓΩΝ AT 300-499. Athens: ΚΕΝΤΡΟ ΝΕΟΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΩΝ ΕΡΕΥΝΩΝ Ε.Ι.Ε, 1999. pp. 775, 779. . On the other hand, Swahn restricted the former subtype to Italy and Catalonia.Swahn, Jan Öjvind. The Tale of Cupid and Psyche. Lund, C.W.K. Gleerup. 1955. p. 318. In the same vein, Renato Aprile described subtype 425E as "almost exclusively" of Central and Southern Italian provenance, barring some Catalan texts.
Italy L'Ombrion Author collected a tale from Florence with the title L'Ombrion, which Imbriani related to Lo Catenaccio.Imbriani, Vittorio. La Novellaja Fiorentina. Florence: Coi tipi di F. Vigo. 1887. pp. 328 (footnote "i"). In this tale, a man has three daughters and is so poor he lives on alms. One day, the man finds a lush garden and fetches some herbs, when a man appears to him like an ombre (a shadow). The somber creature asks the man the purpose of his visit, and demands one of his daughters be delivered to him, unless he wishes to forfeit his life. The old man returns home and asks which of daughters will go to the ombre to save their father's life: the elder two refuse, while the youngest agrees to go with him. The old man takes his youngest to the ombre, and they descend a staircase to splendid underground quarters, where they begin to live together. However, the girl is forbidden to light any candle in their quarters, and she senses someone snoring at her side. One day, the girl begins to miss home, and the ombrion allows her to visit her sisters for a period of 24 hours, then she must be back. The girl visits her sisters and is given a candle to use at night when she goes back to her mysterious husband. She follows her sisters' suggestion and finds a handsome youth beside her, with a key next to his neck. She steals the key and uses it to open the doors of the underground palace, where she finds women working in some preparations for the king's son. She leaves the door and her husband, the youth, banishes her from his palace, but advises her to go to the king's court, where she will be given lodge and whose royal family is searching for him. While the girl is away at the castle, the youth resumes the ombrion form and converses to a magical lantern about his wife. One night, the lantern tells him his wife is sleeping soundly, and he sings a poem about if the roosters cannot crow and the bells cannot ring, then he will remain. A servant of the castle listens to the song another night and reports to the king, who fulfills the command: he orders the roosters to be killed all over the kingdom and bells to be muffled. The next morning, the servants enter the girl's room with breakfast, and sees a man by her side. The king comes to her room and recognizes the man as his son, and marries him to the girl.Imbriani, Vittorio. La Novellaja Fiorentina. Florence: Coi tipi di F. Vigo. 1887. pp. 327-331.
The Celery Austrian philologist collected and translated a tale from Wälschtirol with the title Der Selleri (Italian: Lo sellem; English: "The Celery"). In this tale, a father has three daughters, and asks them to fetch some rice for him, because he wants some soup. The elder daughter finds a bush of celery in their garden and tries to pull it, but cannot do so. The middle sister joins and tries to help her, to no avail. The third sister, also the youngest and the most beautiful, decides to pull the herb herself, but instead she is pulled down into the ground, and reaches a meadow in front of a castle. The girl enters the castle and is welcomed by a small man with a large beard. They live together in the underground castle, but the man forbids her to open a certain door. One day, however, while the small man is away, the girl opens the forbidden room and discovers women preparing linen clothes, and sees a cradle of pure gold. The girl asks whom the women are preparing for, and the women retort in a harsh answer that everything was for her. The girl locks the door behind her and the old man appears to her, explaining he is an enchanted prince who was just about to be free from his curse, but his companion betrayed him. The girl leaves the palace and wanders off until she reaches a castle where she is given lodge by the queen. Some time later, the girl gives birth to a son, who is cared for by two nursemaids. One night, the old man talks to his magic lantern about his wife and son, calling it golden lantern with silver wick, and visits their chambers in the castle. While there, he sings a lullaby and mentions that he would be with his son if the rooster never crowed and the bells never rang the hours. This happens on the following two nights, and the queen, on the third night, manages to run after before he vanishes and grabs a celery he left behind. The next morning, the queen, advised by the nursemaids, throws the celery in the fireplace. All of a sudden, the sounds of trampling horses and a carriage are heard approaching the castle: it is the queen's son, the prince, released from his curse. Author Ruth Manning-Sanders translated and published the tale as Celery, in her book Gianni and the Ogre.
The Golden Lamp (Sardinia)