There were twelve brothers who fell out with their father, and all twelve of them left home. They built themselves a house in the woods and made their living as carpenters. Meanwhile their parents had a baby girl, who was a great comfort to them. The child grew up without ever meeting her twelve brothers. She had only heard them mentioned, and she longed to see them.
One day she went to bathe at a fountain, and the first thing she did was remove her coral necklace and hang it on a twig. A raven came by, grabbed the necklace, and flew off with it. The girl ran into the woods after the raven and found her brothers' house. No one was at home, so she cooked the noodles, spooned them onto the brothers' plates, and hid under a bed. The brothers returned and, finding the noodles ready and waiting, sat down and ate. But then they grew uneasy, suspecting the witches had played a joke on them, for the woods were full of witches.
One of the twelve kept watch the next day and saw the girl jump out from under the bed. When the brothers learned she was not a witch but their own little sister, they made a great to-do over her and insisted that she remain with them. But they cautioned her to speak to no one in the woods, because the place was full of witches.
One evening when the girl went to prepare supper, she found that the fire had gone out. To save time, she went to a nearby cottage to get a light. An old woman at the cottage graciously gave her the light, but said that, in exchange, she would come to the girl on the morrow and suck a bit of blood from her little finger.
"I can't let anyone in the house," said the girl. "My brothers forbid it."
"You don't even have to open the door," replied the old woman. "When I knock, all you have to do is stick your little finger through the keyhole, and I'll suck it."
So the old woman came by every evening to suck the blood from her, while the girl grew paler and paler. Her brothers noticed it and asked her so many questions that she admitted going to an old witch for a light and having to pay for it with her blood. "Just let us take care of her," said the brothers.
The witch arrived, knocked, and when the girl failed to stick her finger through the keyhole, she poked her head through the cat door. One of the brothers had his hatchet all ready and chopped off her head. Then they pitched the remains into a ravine.
One day on the way to the fountain, the girl met another old woman, who was selling white bowls.
"I have no money," said the girl.
"In that case I'll make you a present of them," said the old woman.
So when the brothers came home thirsty, they found twelve bowels filled with water. They pitched in and drank, and instantly changed into a herd of oxen. Only the twelfth, whose thirst was slight, barely touched the water and turned into a lamb. The sister therefore found herself alone with eleven oxen and one lamb to feed every day.
A prince out hunting went astray in the woods and, turning up at the girl's house, fell in love with her. He asked her to marry him, but she replied that she had to think of her oxen brothers and couldn't possibly leave them. The prince took her to his palace along with all the brothers. The girl became his princess bride, and the eleven oxen and the lamb were put into a marble barn with gold mangers.
But the witches in the woods did not give up. One day the princess was strolling under the grape arbor with her lambkin brother that she always carried with her, when an old woman walked up to her.
"Will you give me a bunch of grapes, my good princess?"
"Yes, dear old soul, help yourself."
"I can't reach up that high, please pick them for me."
"Right away," said the princess, reaching up for a bunch.
"Pick that bunch there, they're the ripest," said the old woman, pointing to a bunch above the cistern.
To reach it, the princess had to stand on the rim of the cistern. The old woman gave her a push, and the princess fell in. The lamb started bleating, and bleated all around the cistern, but nobody understood what it was bleating about, nor did they hear the princess moaning down in the well. Meanwhile the witch had taken the princess's shape and got into her bed. When the prince came home, he asked, "What are you doing in bed?"
"I'm sick," said the false princess. "I need to eat a morsel of lamb. Slaughter me that one out there that won't stop bleating."
"Didn't you tell me some time ago," asked the prince, "that the lamb was your brother? And you want to eat him now?"
The witch had blundered and was at a loss for words. The prince, sensing that something was amiss, went into the garden and followed the lamb that was bleating so pitifully. It approached the cistern, and the prince heard his wife calling.
"What are you doing at the bottom of the cistern?" he exclaimed. "Didn't I just leave you in bed?"
"No, I've been down here ever since this morning! A witch threw me in!"
The prince ordered his wife pulled up at once. The witch was caught and burned at the stake. While the fire burned, the oxen and also the lamb slowly turned back into fine, strapping young men, and you'd have thought the castle had been invaded by a band of giants. They were all made princes, while I've stayed as poor a soul as ever.
(Monferrato)
NOTES:
"The Twelve Oxen" (I dodici buoi) from Comparetti, 47, Monferrato, Piedmont.
The folktales about the sister who rescues her brother or brothers changed into animals can be divided into two groups: the one where the seven sons are under a curse (as in Basile, IV, 8, or in Grimm, 9 and 25), and the other where the sole brother is transformed into a lamb (as in Grimm, 11, or in my no. 178). The brothers are most commonly transformed into birds (swans, ravens, doves), and the first literary manifestation of the motif dates back to the twelfth century; the latest is possibly Andersen's "Wild Swans."
Copyright: Italian Folktales Selected and Retold by Italo Calvino,
translated by George Martin,
Pantheon Books, New York 1980