The Golden RootBasile, Giambattista; Strange, E. F. (Ed.); Taylor, John Edward (translator). Stories from the Pentamerone. London: Macmillan and Co., Limited. 1911. pp. 260-272. or The Golden Trunk (Neapolitan: Lo turzo d'oro; Italian: Il ceppo d'oro) is a literary fairy tale written by Giambattista Basile in the Pentamerone, as the fourth story of the fifth day. It is considered to be one of two rewritings of the Graeco-Roman myth of "Cupid and Psyche" by Basile, the other being "Lo Catenaccio".
In spite of its origins as a literary tale, it is related to the international cycle of Animal as Bridegroom or The Search for the Lost Husband, in that a human girl marries a supernatural or enchanted husband, loses him and must search for him. Similar stories have been collected from oral tradition in Italy.
Summary
The tale focuses on Parmetella, a poor girl and youngest of three sisters: she, Pascuzza and Cice. They are daughters of a gardener, who gives them pigs to rear in hopes of getting a future dowry. Her sisters often force Parmetella to drive the pigs in another part of the meadow, where she eventually finds a fountain and a tree with golden leaves beside it. She collects some foliage and gives them to her father who sells them as she returns. She repeats the action until the tree is stripped bare of its foliage.
Some time later, Parmetella notices that the golden-leaved tree has a golden root. She takes an axe to the root and finds a staircase leading underground. She descends on the hole where the tree trunk once stood and reaches a luxurious palace. She wanders through the palace and marvels at its sights, until she sees a table with food and drink. As she approaches the table, a Moorish slave appears before her and asks her to be his wife. She accepts the proposal before the slave tells her that she must promise never to light a lamp during the night, to which she consents.
The next night however, Parmetella waits until her mysterious companion is asleep, and lights a candle out of curiosity. She sees a handsome man in the place of her companion. The man wakes up, curses her for not obeying his orders, saying he will have to suffer another seven years with his curse, and vanishes. Parmetella leaves the palace and meets a fairy just outside the cave. The fairy warns her that she is "going to a slaughterhouse", and gives her seven spindles, seven figs, a jar of honey, and seven pairs of iron shoes. She instructs her to keep walking, passing by a straight bridge, narrow as a strand of hair, and until she meets seven bone-eating ogresses who are spinning on a bone on the balcony of a house. Parmetella is to wait for them to lower the bone, which she must replace for a spindle smeared with honey and put a fig in place of a button; the ogresses will ask her to come out, but Parmetella is to deny them; they will continue to find objects to swear an oath to, until they mention Truone-e-lampe's ("Thunder-and-Lightning") name - that is when she may appear to them.
After seven years walking in her iron shoes, she reaches a large house with a balcony with seven ogresses on it, just as the fairy predicted. Following the fairy's instructions, Parmetella gives them the honey-smeared spindle and figs, and waits until they swear on Truone-e-lampe's name not to harm her. After they make the promise, Parmetella appears to them. The ogresses mock and scold her, since they blame Parmetella for their brother Truone-e-lampe living as a blackamoor in a cave for 14 years, away from them. Despite the initial friction, the seven ogresses advise Parmetella to hide before their ogress mother arrives, and, when her guard is down, to catch her by surprise by clutching her breasts and make her swear on her son's name, Truone-e-lampe, not to harm her.
Following the ogress daughter's advice, Parmetella grabs her ogress mother-in-law from behind and makes her promise on her son's name not to harm her. After being released, the ogress mother, furious, claims she will make her pay when the right opportunity appears. The ogress mother then orders Parmetella, as a first task, to separate twelve sacks of grains that have been mixed into a single heap. Her husband, Truone-e-lampe, appears again before her and summons an army of ants to separate the grains, helping her in the process. As a second task, the ogress demands that she fills a dozen mattresses with feathers, which she also accomplishes with her husband's advice: she spreads the mattresses on the ground and shouts that the king of the birds is dead, and all the birds appear to give her some of their feathers.
The last task given to her is to go to the ogress' sister's house and fetch a box of instruments from her, to be used in the future wedding of Truone-e-lampe with another bride. Following her husband's advice, she enters the sister's house, gives food to the horse and the dog, and compliments the door hinges. She then tricks the ogress's niece, who goes into the oven instead of her, and takes the box of instruments before the witch commands the door hinges, the horse and the dog to stop her. Parmetella, however, leaves unscathed due to her previous actions. At a safe distance from the witch, curiosity takes the best of her again as she opens the box; causing musical instruments to fly out in process. Truone-e-lampe fortunately reappears before her and, with a whistle, commands the instruments back into the box.
Finally, the ogress mother prepares her son's wedding: she gives a torch to each of her seven daughters, and two to Parmetella to hold, and places her near a well so that, when she falls asleep, she may fall into it. Truone-e-lampe's ugly bride passes by Parmetella and mocks her for not kissing the bridegroom after claiming she has kissed a herdsman for some chestnuts. Truone-e-lampe overhears the bride's confession and fumes silently. After the wedding party is over, in his nuptial chambers, Truone-e-lampe kills his bride.
The ogress mother later sees her son in Parmetella's arms. Infuriated, she decides to conspire with her sister to get rid of her. When she enters her sister's house, the ogress discovers that, out of grief for losing her baby, her sister has jumped into the oven to die alongside her. The ogress turns into a ram and butts its head against the wall, leaving her fate unknown. Truone-e-lampe and Parmetella ultimately make peace with their sisters-in-law and live happily.Maggi, Armando. Preserving the Spell: Basile's "The Tale of Tales" and Its Afterlife in the Fairy-Tale Tradition. The University of Chicago Press, 2015. pp. 41-43. .
Analysis Tale type The tale belongs to the international cycle of the Animal as Bridegroom or The Search for the Lost Husband, which corresponds, in the Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index, to tale type ATU 425, "The Search for the Lost Husband", and its subtypes. Philologist classified the tale as Italian type 425, Lo sposo scomparso ("The Lost Husband").D'aronco, Gianfranco "Le fiabe di magia in Italia: memoria". In: Atti dell'Accademia di scienze lettere e arti di Udine, serie 6, v. 14 (1954/1957). pp. 92-93. Nancy Canepa indexes it as type 425A, "The Animal as Bridegroom". Renato Aprile, editor of the Italian Catalogue of Tales of Magic, sourced the tale from Campania and classified it as part of the "Amor e Psiche" cycle (type 425), as subtype 425B.
Scholars have called attention to structural similarities between the tale and the Graeco-Roman myth of Cupid and Psyche, as related by Apuleius in the 2nd century AD. In fact, The Golden Root is considered to be one of Basile's renditions of the myth, the other being Il catenaccio ("The Padlock", former tale type AaTh 425L, "The Padlock on the Enchanted Husband").Maggi, Armando. Preserving the Spell: Basile's "The Tale of Tales" and Its Afterlife in the Fairy-Tale Tradition. The University of Chicago Press, 2015. p. 34. . Folklorist Joseph Jacobs stated that The Golden Root is the first appearance in modern times of the "Cupid and Psyche story" (invisible husband, breaking a taboo, heroine's tasks for mother-in-law).Jacobs, Joseph. European Folk and Fairy Tales. New York, London: G. P. Putnam's sons. 1916. p. 247.
Motifs The heroine's tasks
Scholars commonly noticed the resemblance between Parmetella's quest for the box of instruments and Psyche's quest for Persephone's casket, and the result of curiosity for both women.Gonzenbach, Laura. Fiabe Siciliane. Rilette da Vincenzo Consolo. A cura di Luisa Rubini. Roma: Donzelli editore, 1999. p. 492. . Catalan scholarship located the motif of the box of musical instruments in Greek, Turkish and South Italian variants.Poveda, Jaume Albero. "Rondalla «El castell d'entorn i no entorn» d'Enric Valor. Anàlisi hermenèutic i folklòrica". In: Miscel·lània Joan Veny. Volume 7. Estudis de llengua i literatura catalanes/LI. L'Abadia de Montserrat, 2005. p. 229. . In that regard, Swahn, in his study on Cupid and Psyche, remarked that the instruments as the contents of the box are "common" to Mediterranean tradition.
The heroine is also helped by ants to carry grains from one place to the other. A similar event occurs in the myth of Psyche and in other fairy tales, such as The Queen Bee, by the Brothers Grimm.Deulin, Charles. Les Contes De Ma Mère L'Oye Avant Perrault. Paris: E. Dentu, 1879. p. 89. Swedish scholar remarked that, in tales of "The Search for the Lost Husband" type, the task of sorting seeds or grains occurs in Mediterranean and Near Eastern variants of type ATU 425B, "The Witch's Tasks".Swahn, Jan Öjvind. The Tale of Cupid and Psyche. Lund, C.W.K. Gleerup. 1955. p. 375.
Variants Italy Marvizia