I also kind of want to know how a cat puts out the fire. Particularly a female cat.
Cianna seeing this, and not knowing what to do, left the room, contrary to the command of her brothers, and going into the ogre’s chamber begged him for a little fire.
She can, however, be blamed for being too stupid to live. What part of cannibal ogre was unclear? “Hmm, he does eat women, but on the other hand, the fire’s out! I might have to wait until my brothers get home! HORRORS!”
Then the ogre, hearing a woman’s voice, said, “Welcome, madam! Wait a while, you have found what you are seeking.”
Steve? Is that — hey! You’re not Steve! And suddenly I am suspicious of trivia night!
And so saying he took a Genoa stone, and daubing it with oil he fell to whetting his tusks.
You hate to have blunt tusks. That would be uncivilized.
But Cianna, who saw that she had made a mistake, seizing a lighted stick, ran to her chamber; and bolting the door inside, she placed against it bars, stools, bedsteads, tables, stones, and everything there was in the room.
I’m not going to judge someone for keeping stones in the bedroom. My parents kept stones in the shower. I used to keep a big rock in my car. Useful objects, stones.
As soon as the ogre had put an edge on his teeth he ran to the chamber of the brothers, and finding the door fastened, he fell to kicking it to break it open.
Well, you wouldn’t blunt a freshly honed tusk on a door. That would be very uncivilized.
At this noise and disturbance the seven brothers came home, and hearing themselves accused by the ogre of treachery for making their chamber the abode of his women-enemies, Giangrazio, who was the eldest and had more sense than the others, and saw matters going badly, said to the ogre, “We know nothing of this affair, and it may be that this wicked woman has perchance come into the room whilst we were at the chase; but as she has fortified herself inside, come with me, and I will take you to a place where we can seize her without her being able to defend herself.”
Because it is absolutely plausible that a little girl wandered into the deep dark forest and turned up inside the house to ask to borrow a cup of fire.
Then they took the ogre by the hand, and led him to a deep, deep pit, where giving him a push they sent him headlong to the bottom; and taking a shovel, which they found on the ground, they covered him with earth.
Bear in mind this was their adoptive mother and father. You know, I hope Mom has parties in her sewing room. And all the guests comment on the immaculate bathroom with the hot tub and the attractive rocks in the shower.
Then they bade their sister unfasten the door, and they rated her soundly for the fault she had committed, and the danger in which she had placed herself; telling her to be more careful in future, and to beware of plucking grass upon the spot where the ogre was buried, or they would be turned into seven doves.
“Yeah, it’s no big thing. That’s dove grass. You know how it is.”
“Heaven keep me from bringing such a misfortune upon you!” replied Cianna.
So taking possession of all the ogre’s goods and chattels, and making themselves masters of the whole house, they lived there merrily enough, waiting until winter should pass away.
Now it happened one day, when the brothers were gone to the mountains to get firewood, to defend themselves against the cold, which increased from day to day, that a poor pilgrim came to the ogre’s wood, and made faces at an ape that was perched up in a pine tree; whereupon the ape threw down one of the fir apples from the tree upon the man’s pate, which made such a terrible bump that the poor fellow set up a loud cry.
.... why are there apes in Italy?
I mean, Arzano is right by Naples. Where the hell is this taking place, that there are both pine trees and random apes?
Cianna hearing the noise went out, and taking pity on his disaster, she quickly plucked a sprig of rosemary from a tuft which grew upon the ogre’s grave; then she made him a plaster of it with chewed bread and salt, and after giving the man some breakfast she sent him away.
Whilst Cianna was laying the cloth, and expecting her brothers, lo! she saw seven doves come flying, who said to her, “Ah! better that your hand had been cut off, you cause of all our misfortune, ere it plucked that accursed rosemary and brought such a calamity upon us
Okay, okay, hold on just a damn minute here!
Grass is not rosemary. They specifically warned her against plucking grass and she plucked rosemary. Rosemary is a shrub.
I am protesting this curse on the grounds of botanical inaccuracy! You cannot warn people against grass and then get mad when they start stripping needles off a woody perennial!
Have you eaten the brains of a cat, O sister, that you have driven our advice from your mind?
I ... well, I admit, eating the brains of a cat tends to drive a lot of things out of my mind, in favor of, “What the hell is going on and what is this in front of me and do I know them, because if this is a cat I know, I am going to make you so dead that dead people will go, ‘Wow, that guy’s really dead.’”
Ahem. Moving on.
Behold us turned to birds, a prey to the talons of kites, hawks, and falcons! Behold us made companions of water-hens, snipes, goldfinches, woodpeckers,
