Bastianelo

An Italian Folktale

By: Bill Gordh

Narrated by: Bill Gordh

Length: 12 mins

Publisher's summary

Award-winning storyteller Bill Gordh (Film Advisory Board Award of Excellence winner, National Association of Parenting Periodicals Gold Award winner) presents this folktale live with no script, accompanied only by his own dynamic banjo playing.

A young man married, and at the wedding dinner at the bride's house, the bride excused herself to go in the cellar and draw some wine. While she was there, she noticed that an ax was stuck in one of the rafters. She thought that if one day she had a son and named him Bastianelo, and they were visiting her parents, and they asked him to get some wine, and he came down, and the ax fell and struck him in the head, then her son might be killed, and she began to cry while the wine poured out of the keg. The bride's mother wondered what was taking so long, so she went down, and her daughter explained, and the mother started crying. A little later the father came, and the same thing happened. Finally the groom came down, and when he heard what they were crying about he could not believe it. He declared that he was off, and until he found three as silly as his wife he would not return. Before he left he pulled the ax out of the rafter. He traveled.

There are variations on the three silly ones he met, including:

1. A man trying to jump from a tree while his wife held his pants, to get into them. The bridegroom suggested he lean his back against a tree and pull them on.
2. A man trying to fill a tub with water using a sieve to collect the water from a well. The groom brought him a bucket.
3. A village where people were trying to catch sunlight in a bucket to throw into a darkened house. The groom suggested cutting a window.
4. A horseman and a bride's father debating whether to cut off the bride's head or the horses' legs in order for her to ride under an archway for the wedding ceremony. The groom suggested she duck.
5. Two friends digging a hole in order to have a place to put the pile of dirt that they had created when digging a well.
6. A village where they cut trees up on the hill and carried them down. When the bridegroom suggested it would be easier to roll them, they carried the trees back up the hill to roll them down.

After three of these, he turned around, went back home, and enjoyed being with his wife. They had a son and named him Bastianelo; he did not get struck by an ax and still lives with his parents.

©2013 Bill Gordh (P)2014 Audible Inc.