In this wood was the house of an ogre, whose eyes having been blinded whilst asleep by a woman, he was such an enemy to the sex that he devoured all whom he could catch.
This is the sort of tidbit that makes me go “Wait-wait-stop with the kids who won’t leave home, I want to know THIS story! Were they an item? Was this a lover’s quarrel gone horribly wrong? Was she an ogress? Did he kidnap her and she bided her time and decided to hell with waiting for a rescuer and got him in the eyes with a sharpened chicken bone in the middle of the night?
This is important stuff!
Anyway, the ogre’s still a jerk. Just because everyone who’s ever broken my heart has been male, you don’t see me killing and eating them, now do you? Because that would be overreacting.
When the youths arrived at the ogre’s house, tired out with walking and exhausted with hunger, they begged him for pity’s sake to give them a morsel of bread. And the ogre replied, that if they would serve him, he would give them food, and they would have nothing else to do but to watch over him, like a dog, each in turn for a day.
Seeing-eye dog, in this case. “No, this is a service human. I’m allowed to bring him inside.”
The youths, upon hearing this, thought they had found mother and father; so they consented, and remained in the service of the ogre, who having gotten their names by heart, called one time Giangrazio, at another Cecchitiello, now Pascale, now Nuccio, now Pone, now Pezzillo, and now Carcavecchia, for so the brothers were named; and giving them a room in the lower part of his house, he allowed them enough to live upon.
This is the only time that the brothers will be named. No word as to the number of bathrooms they will be forced to share, but they are living in the woods, so essentially the world is now their bathroom.
Also, they just replaced both parents with a blind cannibal monster. That’s gratitude for you.
Meanwhile their sister had grown up; and hearing that her seven brothers, owing to the stupidity of the nurse,
(Yep. Stupid nurse! Ha ha! Seriously, whatever we’re paying you, double it.)
had set out to walk through the world, and that no tidings of them had ever been received, she took it into her head to go in search of them. And she begged and prayed her mother so long, that at last, overcome by her entreaties, she gave her leave to go, and dressed her like a pilgrim.
Frankly, I’m just tired of this whole kid thing. Eight kids, and all they do is pester me about their siblings, like I have any damn control in the matter. The nurse and I are gonna stay here, with our exquisitely clean bathrooms, and drink. Have you looked at the bathroom? You could eat off that floor. Occasionally I do, just to remind myself how far I’ve come.
Then the maiden walked and walked, asking at every place she came to whether anyone had seen seven brothers. And thus she journeyed on, until at length she got news of them at an inn, where having inquired the way to the wood, one morning, she arrived at the ogre’s house, where she was recognized by her brothers with great joy, who cursed the inkstand and pen for writing falsely such misfortune for them.
The only explanation I can come up with for how they know about the brothers at the inn given that this little girl is old enough to wander around, meaning that she’s got to be at least nine or ten, so it’s been seven years since the brothers went into the forest is that the ogre likes to go in occasionally with his Seeing-Eye Human and have a drink, maybe play a little trivia. As long as there are no women in the bar, but then again, he’s blind. “Err ... yeah, no women here. Completely woman-free. We’re just ... um ... hosting a drag night. Your serving wench is really named Steve.”
You note that the brothers do not ask about Mom. It’s just “Curse that inkstand!” and “by the way, we’ve been adopted by an ogre.” I am really starting to think that Mom was glad to have her sewing room back.
Then giving her a thousand caresses, they told her to remain quiet in their chamber, that the ogre might not see her; bidding her at the same time give a portion of whatever she had to eat to a cat which was in the room, or otherwise she would do her some harm. Cianna (for so the sister was named) wrote down this advice in the pocket book of her heart, and shared everything with the cat, like a good companion, always cutting justly, and saying, “This for me, this for thee, this for the daughter of the king!” giving the cat a share to the last morsel.
I am going to assume the daughter-of-the-king bit is some local idiom of the time. I do rather like the notion of writing advice in the pocket book of one’s heart, though.
Note that the cat is female. Apparently the ogre only has a problem with human females, which is lending credence to my sharpened-chicken-bone theory.
Now it happened one day that the brothers, going to hunt for the ogre, left Cianna a little basket of chickpeas to cook; and as she was picking them, by ill luck she found among them a hazelnut, which was the stone of disturbance to her quiet; for having swallowed it without giving half to the cat, the latter out of spite ran up to the hearth and put out the fire.
Ah ... okay. This is a nut-eating cat ...? In fairness, I don’t think Cianna can
