Basque tales
Here are various tales Basque : the donkey and the wolf, Dominichtekun, Mari and Diego Lopez
The donkey and the wolf
Like many in the world, there was a donkey. He was leaving, laden with Malaga wine, down a ravine. wolves, because wolves love donkey meat.) He was traveling like this, when he saw a wolf coming in the distance; there was nowhere to hide.
The wolf reached him and the donkey said to him:
“Hello, hello Mr. Wolf, in case you get thirsty, I have some good malaga to offer you.
I am not thirsty ! But I'm incredibly hungry!
My meal today will be your head and your ears.
Mr. Wolf, would you be good enough to let me
hear a mass? »
He said to him: “Good! All right. »
So our donkey went away. When he entered the church he closed the door from the inside with his foot and stood there quietly.
When the wolf began to get impatient to wait, he cried out:
“Oh, la la, how long this mass is! it feels like Palm Sunday. »
The donkey said to him:
“Dirty old wolf, be patient. I stay with the angels and my life (saves) for today.
- Oh dear ! bad ass, what a brat you are. If you ever cross my path again, mass you won't hear. »
The donkey said to him:
“There are no dogs around the herd of Alagaia, if you go there you will have many sheep for you. »
The wolf gave up and went in search of the herd that the donkey had indicated to him. When the donkey saw that the wolf was gone he left the church and returned home and took good care never to approach the place where the wolf lived again.
Dominichtekun
In the past, in a house, all the children died soon after their birth. No sooner had they been in our hands than, neither one nor two, they were lost forever. Four or five little ones had already perished in this way, and now another child was about to be born. Everyone's anxiety was great, because they didn't know how to keep the child who was about to come.
While they were all in such desolation, a little angel was born, cute enough. And to think that, this time again, they would have to lose such a love!... So they were all crying, when, on hearing the news, a very old man from the neighborhood presented himself. Stunned to see them all in tears, he asks them if something bad happened.
– “No, no, there is nothing yet; the child has only just been born. But…
– “But?… what, but? What are you afraid of, that you will burst into tears like this?
“We don't think it's worth much to tell you what we haven't told anyone so far… But, since you want to know, well! here's what always happens to us: the children we've had so far, we've all lost them, without even realizing it. And now we're here wondering when this one's turn will come.
“Is that all, good people? If I had known!… We will remedy the evil, yes, we will remedy!… That is good; like this ; hold the dear little angel like this, until I decide otherwise…”
At the same time, having felt a little cold from being thus held by the knees, the child sneezed. And immediately the old man cried out to him:
- “Dominichtekun, child! »
At the same time, a very irritated voice was heard coming from behind the door:
“Cursed is he who taught you that! cursed, yourself! »
And, while he was casting this curse, a big, truly horrible lamiña went storming down the chimney… Since then, and thanks to the old man, the child is still alive. And,
- Isn't it a miracle?
– since then, too, no more children have died anywhere, at least from the disease that used to cause them to die. And this, because, with each sneeze, each mother says to her child:
“Dominichtekun, child! »
Husband and Diego Lopez
Diego Lopez who went to persecute the Moors, was captured and taken to prison in Toledo.
His son, Liiko Lopez who was very affected by it, consulted the people of his country on how to go about delivering him. They told him that they saw no solution unless he went to the mountains to look for his mother (the mysterious lady of the mountain, Mari, to whom Diego Lopez had married), in order to ask her advice, which he did.
alone, on horseback; he found her at the very top of a rock; she tells him :
– Son Liiko, come closer, because I know why you are coming.
He introduced himself to her and she said to him:
“You came to ask me how to get your father out of prison.
There was a horse going alone up the mountain, she called him by his name saying Pardal, she put a bit on him. She advised her son not to subject him to any constraint whatsoever in order to remove his saddle or his bit, to give him something to drink, to eat or to shoe him. She told him that this horse would accompany him all his life, that he would never fight without conquering, and that he would ride it and be the same day in Toledo in front of the door of his father's prison.
Then he would get down from his mount, and meeting his father in a yard, he would take him by the hand and pretend to talk with him, he would take him to the gate where the horse stands and when they got there, they would both mount him, and before nightfall would be in their lands.
And so it was.
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