Basque tales 1

Basque tales

Here are three tales Basque : The two brothers, the age of the devil, Don diego and Mari

The two brothers

A woman had two sons, one wise and the other crazy. The sage ran the house, because the mother was sick. As a remedy for her pains, she took baths which the sage prepared very well. Now, one day when the sage had gone out, the madman was given the task of preparing the bath. Very happy with this job, he imagines that he is obliged to surpass his brother in the preparation; he puts his mother in the bathtub and pours a boiler of boiling water into it. The poor woman was burnt by it immediately.

Thus, only the two brothers remained at home. They went to the market one day to buy a pig. The purchase finished, the sage, still having business in the market, entrusts the pig to his brother to lead him home with a rope. On the way, the pig spoke in his own language; and the madman, annoyed to hear it:
- "Let's bet," he said, "to whom the earliest will arrive at our place".

He lets go of the rope, and starts running. In the evening, the wise man comes home and asks about the pig. The madman recounts what had happened.
- "Another time," said the wise man, "remember that you must always pull by the rope what you bought at the market".
- "Good, said the madman".

At the next market, the two brothers go to buy a jug, which the madman is responsible for bringing back. But as he had not forgotten his brother's advice, he tied a rope to the jug which he began to drag along the road: it was shattered into a thousand pieces. The sage, seeing that he was not succeeding in anything, and that, moreover, his resources were lacking, gave the madman to understand that they were reduced to begging. They go, and the wise man, having gone out first, tells the madman to open the door; after which he went ahead.

The madman understood that he had to put the door on his back. So he snapped her off its hinges and took her with him. And, although his brother had told him it would be pointless, he refused to relinquish it. In the evening, they arrived in a forest and, in order not to lie down on the bare earth, climbed a tree, the madman still holding his door. At midnight, ten thieves stopped at the foot of the tree to share a bag of gold.

While they were doing the count, the madman said to his brother:
- "I can no longer support this door, and he let it fall. The thieves, frightened, believed that God was throwing a piece of the sky on them and scampered off in haste. The sage did not bother to count the gold. The two brothers built themselves a beautiful castle and lived at their ease.

The age of the devil

There was once a poor coalman who had so many children that he could not feed them, no matter how hard he tried. One day when he was busy with his work, he saw an old, old man approaching him who, after looking at him for a long time, finally asked him, with a semblance of interest, if he was really happy with his life. position.

- "How could I be? said the coalman. In vain I sweat and toil after this damned stove, from morning to evening and often from evening to morning; in spite of everything, my wife and my children, of whom I do not know the count, suffer from hunger ”.

The old man, assuming a sweet air, said to the coalman:
- "Laborious and honest as you appear, you deserve to be happier, I can see it. However, I want to be pleasant to you and I promise you as much money as you can carry, on one small condition: that is that you tell me my age, within eight days ”.

The coalman immediately accepted. However, now that he thought about it, he saw fit to talk to his wife about the market. The coalman's wife was not stupid:
- "Don't worry," she said to her husband; in the week, I'll find a way to find out how old this old man is ”.

The past week, the coalman and his wife go to the forest. Arrived at the coal stove, the coal pit takes off its clothes, rubs itself with honey and begins to splash around in a barrel full of feathers, brought there for this purpose. The old man arrives at the appointed hour and sees a fantastic beast coming out of the barrel, neither quadruped nor bird, and frolicking in front of him, with all kinds of grimaces and extraordinary gestures.

He is surprised and without thinking about it:
- "I have been in the world for nine hundred years, and I have never seen anything like it".

Above, the feathered woman disappears, and the coalman, with a shrewd air, takes the old man's arm and says in his ear:
- "You are nine hundred years old.
- "I cannot deny it," said the old man, "and you have won your bag of gold".
The sack being heavy, and the coalman, his wife and all his children, however many, no longer had to suffer from hunger.

Don Diego and Mari

Don Diego Lopez de Haro was a very good mountaineer. One day he had gone wild boar hunting when he heard a woman singing out loud on a hill. He approached, he saw that she was very beautiful and very well dressed, he fell strongly in love with her and asked her who she was.

She told him that she was of very high lineage. He told her that since that was the case he would marry her if she wished, for he was the Lord of this earth.
She accepted but on one condition, that he promises her never to make the sign of the cross.

He promised her, she left with him. That Lady was very beautiful, she had a shapely body other than this, she had a goat's foot.

They lived together for a long time and had two children, boy and girl. The son's name was Iñigo Guerra.

Then, one day, Don Diego crossed himself while he was at the table and eating with his family. Instantly, his wife threw herself out of the room with her daughter, by the window of the palace and she fled through the mountains, so that she was no longer seen; neither her nor her daughter.