Raised from the Ground

was sacristan. Laureano Carranca flew into a great rage, saying that he never wanted to see his daughter again if, heaven forbid, she went back to that useless, drunken scoundrel of a son-in-law. A much-chastened Domingos Mau-Tempo went to talk to him and assured him that he had changed his ways, and that this absence had shown him, blind as he was, how much he loved his wife and his dear children, I swear this to you, sir, on bended knee if necessary. Having somewhat assuaged their anger with all his tears, he and his family set off for a nearby hamlet, Cortiçadas de Monte Lavre, almost within sight of the paternal home. Having lost all the equipment that had allowed him, as he preferred, to work for himself, Domingos Mau-Tempo was forced to take employment with Master Gramicho, while Sara da Conceição labored away stitching uppers to soles, to help out her husband and keep her children fed and clothed. And the fates? Domingos Mau-Tempo once again began to slide into sadness, like a monster in exile, for that is the worst of all sadnesses, as you can see from the tale of Beauty and the Beast, and it wasn’t long before he said to his wife, It’s time to move on, I don’t feel comfortable here, wait for a few days with the children while I go and look for work elsewhere. Sara da Conceição, not believing that her husband would come back, waited for two months, what else could she do, and was once more the abandoned widow, then up he popped again, happy as a lark, full of sweet words, Sara, I’ve found work and a really nice house in Ciborro. And so they left for Ciborro, and things went quite well for them, because the people there were pleasant and paid their bills promptly. There was no shortage of work, and the shoemaker seemed to have lost his taste for the taberna, not entirely, that would be asking too much, but enough to make him seem a respectable man. And this happened at an opportune moment because, meanwhile, a primary school had been set up there, and João Mau-Tempo, who was the right age, went there to learn to read and write and count.

And the fates? For some reason werewolves are drawn to crossroads, the poor wretches, not that I claim to understand such mysteries, dear reader, it’s as if they were under an evil spell, but on a particular day of the week, they leave their houses and at the first crossroads they come to, they take off their clothes, throw themselves on the ground, roll around in the dust, and are transformed into whatever animal has left its trail there, You mean any trail, or only the trail left by a mammal, Any trail, sir, once, a man was transformed into a cartwheel, and he went spinning and spinning along, it was terrible, but it’s more common for them to be changed into animals, as was the case with a man, whose name I can’t now recall, who lived with his wife in Monte do Curral da Légua, near Pedra Grande, and his fate was to go out every Tuesday night, but he knew what would happen, and so he warned his wife never to open the door when he was outside, no matter what noises she heard, because he uttered cries and howls that would freeze the blood of any Christian, no one could sleep a wink, but one night, his wife screwed up her courage, because women are very curious and always want to know everything, and resolved to open the door. And what did she see, oh dear God, she saw before her a huge pig, like a rampant boar, with a head this size, this big, and it hurled itself at her like a lion ready to devour her, but luckily she managed to slam the door shut, although not before the pig had bitten off a piece of her skirt, and imagine her horror when her husband returned home at dawn with that same piece of cloth still in his mouth, but at least it gave him an opportunity to explain that whenever he went out on Tuesday nights, he was changed into an animal, and that night he had been a pig, and he could have done her real harm, so next time she must on no account open the door, because he couldn’t answer for his actions, How dreadful, Anyway, his wife went to speak to her in-laws, who were most upset to learn that their son had become a werewolf, because there weren’t any others in the family, and so they went to a holy woman who recited the prayers of exorcism appropriate to such cases, and she told them that the next time he was changed into a werewolf, they must burn his hat, and then it would never happen again, and this proved to be a sovereign remedy, because they burned his hat and he was cured, Do you think burning his hat cured him because the sickness was in his head, I have no idea, the woman never said, but let me tell you of another, similar case, a man and his wife lived on a farm near Ciborro, why these things only happen between couples, I don’t know, where they raised chickens and other livestock, and every night, because it happened every night, her husband would get out of bed, go into the garden and start clucking, can you imagine, and when his wife peered around the door, she saw that he had been turned into a huge chicken, What, the same size as that pig, You may laugh, but just hear me out, this couple had a daughter, and when their daughter was about to get married, they killed a lot of chickens for the wedding feast, because that was what they had most of, but that night, the wife