The Cunning Shoemaker

The Cunning Shoemaker is an Italian fairy tale collected by Laura Gonzenbach in "Sicilianische Mahrchen". Andrew Lang included it in "The Pink Fairy Book". [Andrew Lang, "The Pink Fairy Book", [http://www.mythfolklore.net/andrewlang/415.htm "The Cunning Shoemaker"] ]

ynopsis

A shoemaker went to another town to make money. He made enough to buy a donkey and went back to his wife, but on the way, he saw robbers. He tried to hide some money in the donkey's mane. When the donkey shook its head and let the money drop, he told them that the donkey gave him his money. The robbers wanted to buy it, and he sold it for fifty gold pieces, and warned them that they must each keep it one night, to avoid quarrels over the money. Each one learned the trick in turn, and said nothing, so the others would be fooled, too. Finally, they set out after the shoemaker.

The shoemaker saw them coming and had his wife put a bladder of blood around her neck. When they arrived, he told them he would give them the money and sent his wife for it. When she lagged, he stabbed the bladder, and she fell down as if dead. Then he played the guitar and she got up again, and the robbers bought the guitar for forty more gold pieces. Each one stabbed his wife and tried to revive her again.

They set after the shoemaker again, and the shoemaker hid in the vineyard, telling his wife to free the dog when they came, saying she is sending it after him. She did, and the shoemaker came, and the robbers buy it from him for forty more gold pieces. When each one freed it in turn, it merely ran back to the shoemaker.

Finally, the robbers put him in a bag and lugged him to the sea, but they rested in a church because it was hot. A swineherd came by, and the shoemaker told that he was in the bag because they wanted him to marry the king's daughter and he wouldn't. The swineherd traded places with him, the shoemaker drove off the sheep, and the robbers threw the bag into the sea. When they saw him with the herd of pigs, the shoemaker told them there were pigs in the sea and they had to tie a stone around their necks to make sure they reached those depths. They did so and drowned.

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