Tag Archives: italian

“The Clever Girl”

Nationality: American
Age: 17
Occupation: Student
Residence: Dallas, Texas
Performance Date: 4/6/19
Primary Language: English
Language: Italian

Interviewer: Do you have any other Italian folktales?

LC: Yes another one I really like was called “The Clever Girl”. It was about a girl who came from a very poor family that lived on a farm. When the girl was a baby she was kissed by a fairy who blessed her with wit and beauty. When the girl was older her father came to her after finding a golden mortar, or bowl, in the woods, he told the girl that he would take it to the king as a gift. The girl told him that wouldn’t be smart because she thought the king would be offended that he didn’t have the pestle to go with the mortar. The father still took the mortar to the kind and the king was offended like she had guessed. The father apologized and told the king that his daughter told him this would happen. The king responded by telling him if she was so clever she would have to figure out how to make him and his army one thousand shirts out of this little cloth and spindles made of fish bones in order to save them. The man disappointingly brought the materials and news home to his daughter who wasn’t scared and told her father to tell the king that she would once he made her a loom of fish bones. The father then went and reluctantly told the king who was actually delighted by the girl’s wit. The king if the girl came to his castle neither naked or dressed and neither or on a horse or by foot he would have a husband for her. So after getting the news from her father the girl dropped her hair and it reached her toes, she wrapped herself in it and went to see the king riding on the back of her father’s ram. The king was stunned by both her wit and beauty and decided to marry the girl himself. Then they lived happily ever after. 

Interviewer: How and when did you learn of this story?

LC: I learned this one from my grandma who’s from Italy, she told it to me a lot when I was little. 

Interviewer: Does this story have any special meaning to you?

LC: Yes, I really like this one because of the girl in it. My grandma used to always tell it to me and my sister because she said we reminded of her of the girl because we were witty and beautiful. It also let me see myself as the girl who gets to marry the king and live happily ever after which every little girl loves.

Interviewer: Did you only hear this story from your grandma? 

LC: Mainly yes, but she also taught it to my mom so she could also tell it to me and my sister. 

Context: The informant is a seventeen-year-old young woman from Dallas, Texas. Her father’s parents are from Italy while both of hers are from America. She learned through her Italian grandmother telling her it. I collected this performance from the informant in person at the informant’s home in Dallas.

Analysis: I enjoyed this story because of the characteristics of the story and are embodied by the main character. I also enjoyed hearing it from my informant because it was something she felt near to both because how it was shared with her and the personal connection she felt to the girl in the story through her families folklore.

Annotation

Another version of this tale can be found in:

Crane, Thomas Frederick. Italian Popular Tales. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1885. 

 

“Al povero mancano tante cose, all’avaro tutte”

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: 4/22/19
Primary Language: English
Language: Italian

Main piece: Proverb

“Al povero mancano tante cose, all’avaro tutte”

Translation:

“the poor man is lacking many things, the greedy man all”

Background Information:

Informant is Italian and lived a portion of his life in Milan, Italy. He learned it through spending time with his father, he would tell him this when he asked for money. To my informant, it means that a greedy man will never be satisfied and truly happy. But it is also humorous to him that when he would ask his father for money as a kid that this was his joking response.

Context: This is an Italian proverb that my informant learned from his father while living in Italy. It is a proverb that warns against being greedy. It translates directly to English while still keeping its intended meaning. I received this proverb from my informant in person in his dorm. 

Analysis: I enjoyed learning this proverb from my informant for a few reasons. One is that it is something he learned while actually living in Italy as a kid and another is that I find it heartening that his father taught him this lesson about greed by using this proverb in a funny yet meaningful way. This another example of how proverbs are an important part of Italian folklore. 

 

Bad Luck Toasts (Italian Folk Belief)

Nationality: American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Maryland, USA
Performance Date: 4/23/19
Primary Language: English
Language: French

Context/Background: Subject is of Italian Descent and has heard superstitions around making toasts from her Grandfather and other family members. It was stated that one should never toast with anything but alcohol or it is bad luck. What is emphasized the most is the dire resentment towards toasting with water because it is worse than toasting with anything else.

Informant:

“So, it’s bad luck to toast with anything that’s not… alcohol… because… if it’s not alcohol, first… it doesn’t mean anything because it’s not a toast. But, it’s especially bad luck to toast with water… because it like… signifies death… or something? Like, I think it comes from Greek Mythology where it has to do with like the underworld. I don’t really know though; But, it was always just a thing that it was bad luck to toast with water, so you never toast with water! And you shouldn’t toast with something that isn’t alcohol, but it doesn’t really matter as much.”

KA: And where did you hear this from?

“So it’s an Italian thing I think, um, but they have it in like other cultures. I don’t think it’s that specific to Italy, but my grandfather family was from Italy and it was a lot of brothers and sisters and I spent a lot of time with [them].”

Introduction: The informant was introduced by their Italian grandfather and extended family.

Analysis/Interpretation: It’s notable that one would consider water to signify death, as indicated by the interviewee when in many regions, it popularly serves as a symbol of life. I think this serves an interesting dynamic in the idea of “toasting” overall since it indicates a sense of dismissal of a vital life sign in many cultures.

Italian Family tradition

Nationality: American, Italian
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 3/29/18
Primary Language: English

I asked Mae her earliest memories of traveling to Chicago to visit her extended family, she responded:

“My great- great grandma moved to the U.S. directly from Italy so obviously they had a really Italian family and they ended up living in south side Chicago. She owned chickens, and every Sunday she would go into her coop, ring a chickens neck, clean it kill it, and make pasta Bolognese using the meat.”

I then asked, “When did you first learn the recipe or heard about the story?”:

“I must have first made the Bolognese sauce in 4th grade. I know I didn’t hear the story until later because I remember in 9th grade for an art class I did an art painting about my family and I painted a chicken head on the front”

 

Background: Mae is a 19 year old girl raised in Westwood, CA and currently living in Los Angeles, CA. Her parents are originally from Chicago and Little Rock, and she lived in Princeton, NJ briefly as a young girl.

Context:Mae shared this story with me while we were cleaning the dishes in our apartment.

Analysis: It is incredibly easy to overlook elements of someone’s culture that affect their folkloric practices simply by never asking questions. Mae is one of my closest friends, and I had no idea that her grandma immigrated from Italy or lived in south side Chicago. Understanding where someone comes from culturally and geographically creates the opportunity to really understand more about their identity. Hearing this story about Mae’s grandmother I felt like I was seeing a new side of her and gaining a clearer understanding of the origins to her stories she tells every day. I was reminded of recipes I have learned from my family members that have truly become a part of my own identity and my family’s identity like my mom’s banana bread and my grandmother’s scalloped potatoes.

Feasts Natalae

Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 3/15/2016
Primary Language: English

Background: A.S. is a 22-year-old student at USC studying Occupational Therapy. She was born and raised in Los Angeles, and both of her parents are professors at USC. The informant’s mother told this story to the informant multiple times, especially when describing her childhood or her favorite holiday. This was her mother’s favorite time of the year, because it was the one time that she could be all together with her family and celebrate, even though they were Jewish and the tradition revolved around a Christian holiday.

Main piece: “My mom was born in Rome but grew up in New Jersey. Her mother was Italian and she was also Jewish…which is interesting since there aren’t too many Italian Jews. Anyways, she still celebrated Christmas because her father was raised Catholic. So my grandmother would prepare a traditional Italian meal for Christmas in the house when they lived in New Jersey. It wasn’t like other Christmas dinners in the states…it was like specifically Italian. So they would have a bunch of courses, seven I think, because of the seven sacraments or something, and almost all of them included some sort of fish plate, but no meat. I think my mom told me it was called um.. oh it was called Feasts Natalae. It was traditional in Italy to have the dinner on Christmas eve but it was still called Christmas dinner I think. Each course was fish because it’s like a kind of fasting…they just don’t eat meat. My mom said this was a really special time for her because she knew her family would be together. And it wasn’t even about the holiday or religion or anything, it was about being with her family.”

Performance Context: I interviewed the informant while we were both together, sitting on a couch, in the house where she lives on west 28th Street in Los Angeles. Feasts Natalae would typically be practiced on Christmas Eve, and is a prominent tradition in Italy. This tradition would be practiced by Anna’s mom’s family every year.

My Thoughts: I think that this story is representative of the fact that each culture and each family has a different way of celebrating Christmas, both culturally and religiously. Each nationality and each individual family has a way of making the holiday special for them. There are a lots of Christmas traditions around the world that aren’t officially coming from the church, but are still important to families and have to do with Christmas.