Italo Calvino‘s collection “Italian Folktales” includes this fairytale as coming from the region of Liguria, and that makes perfect sense, as it’s a region known for its coastal landscapes and maritime culture (and the parsimony of its inhabitants, but that’s a different story). You can read the story on my Patreon.
“The Two Cakes” is a story from The Pentameron, or The Story of Stories by Giambattista Basile, here given in the translation by John Edward Taylor. You can also read the story on my Patreon. I have always heard say, that he who gives pleasure finds it: the bell of Manfredonia says, “Give me, I give […]
On day 2 of Giambattista Basile‘s 1634 Tale of Tales, also known as The Pentameron, the sixth tale features a story that’s close to “Allerleirauh” by the Grimm Brothers and features some typical tropes in folklore, including shapeshifting through a magical object. Henriette-Julie de Murat, a XVII Century aristocratic French writer, uses this same device […]