The Wise Shoemaker

A long, long, long time ago, there was a cobbler, because he could not find work to do, so he was penniless, he and his wife were almost starving to death. Finally, he said to his wife, "It's useless for us to wait here, I can't find any work, why don't I go to Mascarecchia, maybe I can get lucky there."

　　So he went to Mascarecchia. He walked down the street and shouted, "Anyone wants a shoe mended?" Soon a window opened and a woman's face peeked out.

　　"Here's a pair of shoes for you to mend," she said. So the cobbler sat down on the steps in front of the door and mended them.

　　"How much should I pay you?" The woman asked as the shoe was mended.

　　"A shilling."

　　"Eighteen pence for you, and good luck." Then the cobbler went away. He went to another street and again shouted. Shortly after, another window opened and a man poked his head out.

　　"Here are some shoes for you to mend." So the cobbler sat down on the steps in front of the door and mended them.

　　"How much should I pay you?" The woman asked as the shoes were mended.

　　"A florin."

　　"Here's a silver coin for you, good luck." With that, the man closed the window.

　　"Very well," thought the cobbler, "I've done a good job. But I can't go back to my wife yet, because if I go home now, I won't have any money to buy a donkey."

　　Having made up his mind, he took up his mind and stayed in town some more, until he had some gold in his purse. Then he went to the marketplace and bought a sturdy donkey for himself and his wife. He got on the donkey and went to his home in Kanteny. But when he reached a dense forest, he saw a gang of robbers surrounding him.

　　"I am finished," he thought, "they will surely take all my money, and I will be as penniless again as when I first came out, what shall I do?" However, he was a smart man with many ideas, so he didn't get discouraged. He took five florins out, tied them in the thick mane of the donkey, and then he went on ahead.

　　The robbers went straight to him, caught him as he expected, and took his money.

　　"Oh, dear friends!" he cried, so calm that his palms were sweating, "I am only a poor shoemaker, and I have nothing in the world but this donkey."

　　As he was speaking, the donkey shook, and the five florins fell to the ground.

　　"And where did this money come from?" The robbers asked.

　　"Ah," replied the cobbler, "let you discover the secret. It is a golden donkey, which gave me all the money."

　　"Sell it to us," said the robbers, "and name your price; we are willing to pay you whatever it costs."

　　At first, the shoemaker declared that he would not sell it for any amount of money, but in the end, he was still in favor of letting the robbers buy it for fifty gold coins. "But listen," he said, "you must each have it in turn for a day and a night, or you will be constantly quarreling over money."

　　With these words, the shoemaker merged with the robbers. The robbers drove the donkeys into a cave where they lived deep in the woods, while the cobbler was so happy with his attempt that he ate a nice dinner on the way back and bought a small vineyard the next day with the money he had received from the robbers.

　　Meanwhile, the bandits returned to the cave. The leader of the bandits gathered everyone together and announced that the donkey belonged to him on the first night. His accomplices all approved, so he had his wife put a mat next to the donkey. She asked him if he was crazy, but he said angrily, "Don't you ask so many questions, do what I tell you to do, and tomorrow you will see a lot of money."

　　The next day the bandit leader got up early to see the donkey, but there was nothing. He found out that God had played a joke on him, and he said to himself, "Since I have been fooled, no one else will have a good time either."

　　So when his associates came and asked him how much money he had got, he replied happily, "Oh, companions, you can hardly imagine. But I will not inform you now, so let each one take a turn first."

　　One after another they all owned donkeys for a day and a night, but no one got a penny. Eventually, the gang of robbers was all teased and they had a meeting and decided to rush to the shoemaker's house to punish him.

　　Just like last time, the cobbler started thinking of countermeasures from afar. He quickly came up with a solution and hastily called his wife over and said to her, "Go find a sac, fill it with blood, and tie it around your neck. The robbers are here to get back the money they paid for the donkey last time, and I will shout at you to go and get the money. You will argue with me and not listen to me, then I will put the knife into that blood bag, you immediately fall to the ground and play dead. You'll have to lie on the ground all the time and listen as soon as I play my guitar, you'll get up and start dancing."

　　The shoemaker's wife rushed to make preparations; they had little time left, and the robbers were getting closer to the house. They entered the house with a great fuss, and loudly reprimanded the shoemaker for having bamboozled them with a donkey.

　　"O poor plant, it must have lost its strength because it changed masters." The cobbler said, "But we should not quarrel about that. You can have back the fifty gold coins you paid for. Etta," he called to his wife, "go quickly to the chest upstairs and bring these gentlemen's money."

　　"Wait a minute," she said, "I have to get the fish baked first. If I leave now, the fish will be burnt."

　　"Do as I say and go now," growled the shoemaker, as if he were very angry. But she didn't even move, so he drew his knife and stabbed his wife in the neck. Blood gushed out, and she immediately fell to the ground as if she were dead.

　　"What are you doing?" The robbers looked at him in horror and said, "The poor man didn't do anything."

　　"Maybe I was reckless, but it wasn't hard to save her," the shoemaker replied, and then he took out his guitar and started playing. Just as he played, his wife stood up, and then she danced to the tune.

　　The robbers opened their mouths wide and finally, they said, "By God, you can keep the fifty gold coins. But you have to inform us what this guitar is all about, and you'll sell it to us, right?"

　　"Oh, absolutely not!" The shoemaker replied, "I've made a habit of shooting my wife every time I fight with her, and I can't break it. So if I don't have this guitar, I can never bring her back to life."

　　But the bandits wouldn't agree, so in the end, he was still forced to agree to sell the guitar for forty gold coins.

　　The bandits went back to their cave in the forest, jumping for joy over their new purchase and wanting to try out its power right away. But the bandit leader declared that he wanted to be the first to try it out and that others could use it only after he had finished.

　　That evening he called his wife and said, "What did you cook for dinner?"

　　"Macaroni." She replied.

　　"How come you didn't cook any fish?" He said and stabbed her in the neck with a knife, so she died. The bandit leader, however, was not angry at all, and he picked up his guitar and played it. But no matter how loudly he played, the dead woman did not move a muscle. "Oh, deceitful shoemaker! Oh, loathsome rascal! Now he's cheated me twice. I shall make him pay!"

　　He cursed aloud in great anger, but to no avail. The truth was that he had killed his wife, and there was no way to bring her back to life.

　　The next morning, the other robbers came to get their guitars and stopped by to hear what had happened.

　　"Tell me, who did you use it on?"

　　"Oh, it was fantastic! I stabbed my wife and then started playing the guitar, and the next thing I knew she was alive and well again."

　　"Really? Then I'm going to try it tomorrow night."

　　Of course, the same thing happened again at night. It went on like this, and eventually, all the robbers' wives were secretly killed, none of them survived, and then they told each other the terrible truth and vowed to take revenge on the shoemaker.

　　So the bandits immediately set out for the cobbler's house. Like last time, the cobbler saw them from afar. He called his wife, who was washing dishes in the kitchen and said: "Listen, Etta, when the robbers come to me, you must say that I have gone to the vineyard. Then drive the dog out and let it go to me."

　　When he had said this, he ran behind the door and hid in a barrel. A few minutes later, the robbers came and shouted for the cobbler to come out.

　　"By God! Gentlemen of goodwill, he has gone to the vineyard, but I will have the dogs call him back at once. Come, go to the vineyard, and inform your master that some gentlemen have come and are waiting for him to talk all the way, the sooner the better." Then she opened the back door and let the dog out.

　　"Do you believe that this dog can find your husband?" The robbers asked.

　　"Goodness, of course! He knows everything and always does what I ask him to do without any problems."

　　In a moment, the shoemaker returned and said, "Good morning, gentlemen, the dog (pup) informed me that you were looking for me?"

　　"Yes," said the robbers, "we want to talk to you about the guitar. All because of you, we killed our wives. We played the guitar as you said, but none of our wives came back alive."

　　"You must have played it the wrong way," said the cobbler, "and it was your fault."

　　"Well, we're willing to forget about it," the robbers replied, "if you'll sell us that dog."

　　"Oh, absolutely not! I can't live without it."

　　But the robbers gave him forty gold coins, so he was forced to sell the dog to them.

　　The bandits left with the dog and went back to their cave. The bandit leader once again declared that he would be the first to try it out.

　　So he called his daughter and said to her, "I am going to the inn for a while, and if anyone comes looking for me, let the dog call me."

　　About an hour later, someone came to see him about business, and the girl untied the dog and said, "Go to the inn and call my father!" The dog darted out but returned to the shoemaker's house.

　　The robber came home and found that the dog was gone. He thought, "It must have gone back to its old owner," and even though it was nighttime, he decided to go out and look for it.

　　"Good heavens, do you have the dog?" The robber asked the cobbler.

　　"Ah, yes, the poor plant is just too fond of me! You must give it a little time to get used to its new life."

　　So the head robber took the dog back and handed it over to another robber the next morning, saying only that the plant was as smart as the cobbler had said it was.

　　Likewise, the second robber was careful to keep the secret and just quietly brought the dog back from the cobbler again. All the other robbers did the same. Eventually, each of them suffered a loss, and when they met, they told what had happened to them, after which they set out in anger to find the man who had teased them. They viciously accused the cobbler of bamboozling them, tied him up, and threw him into a sack, informing him that they were going to throw him into the sea. The cobbler lay quietly, at their mercy.

　　They walked and walked and came to a church, and the robbers said, "The sun is too strong, and the sack is heavy, let's leave it here to rest for a while." They put the sack on the side of the road and went into the church.

　　At that moment, there was a pig farmer on a hill not far away who was happily whistling and releasing his pigs.

　　When the shoemaker heard him, he cried out with all his might: "I don't, I say I don't."

　　"What do you say you don't?" The pig farmer asked.

　　"Oh," the shoemaker replied, "they want me to marry the king's daughter, and I don't want to."

　　"You are so lucky!" The pig farmer sighed, "How I wish it were me!"

　　"Oh, that's too good!" The wise shoemaker said, "You climb into this sack and let me out."

　　So the pig farmer opened the sack and replaced the cobbler. Then the cobbler drove the pig away happily.

　　The robbers had rested enough, came out of the church, and carried the sack to the sea. They threw the sack into the sea, and the sack soon sank. When they returned, they met the shoemaker who was driving a herd of pigs, and each looked at him with his mouth wide open.

　　"Oh, you don't know how many pigs live in the sea," the shoemaker called out, "the deeper you go, the more pigs. I've just driven these pigs up, and I'll have to go back later to drive more up."

　　"Are there any other pigs in the sea now?"

　　"Oh, there are countless," replied the shoemaker, "I'll tell you what to do." Then he took the robbers back to the sea.

　　"Now," he said, "each of you will have to tie a stone around your neck so that you will sink to a great depth, for it was at a great depth that I found these pigs."

　　So each robber would tie a stone around his neck and jump into the sea and drown. The shoemaker, however, drove the pigs back home and became a rich man for the rest of his life.