Italian Folktales (Fiabe italiane) is a collection of 200 Italian folktales published in 1956 by Italo Calvino. Calvino began the project in 1954, influenced by Vladimir Propp's Morphology of the Folktale; his intention was to emulate the Straparola in producing a popular collection of Italian fairy tales for the general reader.[1] He did not compile tales from listeners, but made extensive use of the existing work of folklorists; he noted the source of each individual tale, but warned that was merely the version he used.[2]
He included extensive notes on his alterations to make the tales more readable and the logic of his selections, such as renaming the heroine of The Little Girl Sold with the Pears Perina rather than Margheritina to connect to the pears,[3] and selecting Bella Venezia as the Italian variant of Snow White because it featured robbers, rather than the variants containing dwarfs, which he suspected were imported from Germany.[4]
It was first translated into English in 1962; a further translation is by Sylvia Mulcahy (Dent, 1975) and constituted the first comprehensive collection of Italian folktales.[5]
List of tales
Dauntless Little John (Giovannin senza paura; Fearless Giovannino [Johnny])
The Man Wreathed in Seaweed (Riviera di Ponente) (L'uomo verde d'alghe; The man's green algae)
The Ship with Three Decks (Riviera di Ponente (Il bastimento a tre piani)
The King of Spain and the English Milord (Palermo)
The Bejeweled Boot (Palermo)
The Left-Hand Squire (Palermo)
Rosemary (Palermo)
Lame Devil (Palermo)
Three Tales by Three Sons of Three Merchants (Palermo)
The Dove Girl (Palermo)
Jesus and St. Peter in Sicily (Palermo)
The Barber's Timepiece (Inland vicinity of Palermo)
The Count's Sister (Inland vicinity of Palermo)
Master Francesco Sit-Down-and-Eat (Inland vicinity of Palermo)
The Marriage of Queen and a Bandit (Madonie)
The Seven Lamb Heads (Ficarazzi)
The Two Sea Merchants (Province of Palermo)
Out in the World (Salaparuta)
A Boat Loaded with… (Salaparuta)
The King's Son in the Henhouse (Salaparuta)
The Mincing Princess (Province of Trapani)
The Great Narbone (Province of Agrigento)
Animal Talk and the Nosy Wife (Province of Agrigento)
The Calf with the Golden Horns (Province of Agrigento)
The Captain and the General (Province of Agrigento)
The Peacock Feather (Province of Caltanissetta)
The Garden Witch (Province of Caltanissetta)
The Mouse with the Long Tail (Caltanissetta)
The Two Cousins (Province of Ragusa)
The Two Muleteers (Province of Ragusa)
Giovannuzza the Fox (Catania)
The Child that Fed the Crucifix (Catania)
Steward Truth (Catania)
The Foppish King (Acireale)
The Princess with the Horns (Acireale)
Giufa (Sicily)
Fra Ignazio (Campidano)
Solomon's Advice (Campidano)
The Man Who Robbed the Robbers (ampidano)
The Lions' Grass (Nurra)
The Convent of Nuns and the Monastery of Monks (Nurra)
The Male Fern (Gallura)
St. Anthony's Gift (Logudoro)
March and the Shepherd (Marzo e il Pastore) (Corsica)
John Balento (Corsica)
Jump into My Sack (Corsica)
Reception
Reviewing the book in The New Republic, Ursula K. Le Guin wrote: "Essentially this book is to Italian literature what the Grimms' collection is to German literature. It is both the first and the standard. And its particular glory is that it was done not by a scholar-specialist but by a great writer of fiction... With absolute sureness of touch he selected, combined, rewove, reshaped so that each tale and the entire collection would show at its best, clear and strong, without obscurity or repetition. It was, of course, both his privilege and his responsibility as a teller of tales to do so. He assumed his privilege without question, and fulfilled his responsibility magnificently. One of the best storytellers alive telling us some of the best stories in the world—what luck!"[6]
