KidLit Forum

Petrosinella - Parsley
by Giambattista Basile

A. Context.

Country and language: Italy, Italian
Original collector: Giambattista Basile
Title of collection, year, place: Lo cunto de li cunti (Pentamerone), 1634, Naples
Position among other collectors: First version
Number of tales in that collection: 50 (Petrosinella is the 11th tale, first tale of the second day)
English translation: There are four best known English translations by John Edward Taylor (1847), Sir Richard Francis Burton (1893), Norman N. Penzer (1934) and Nancy L. Canepa (2007)
Which volume you consulted: Giambattista Basile, The Pentamerone or The Story of Stories, translated from Neapolitan by John Edward Taylor, new edition revised by Helen Zimmern (London: T. Tihser Unwin, 1894), pp. 56-62

B. Summary

Pascadozzia, in a moment of lust, steals from the garden of an ogress a handful of parsley. As the woman comes again and again and steals parsley, one day she is caught by the ogress. Pascadozzia excuses herself blaming the craving on the child that is to be born. The ogress makes her promise to give her the child in return for her own life. The woman swears to fulfill her promise and later on she gives birth to a beautiful daughter who has a spring of parsley on her bosom. Therefore, she is named Parsley. At seven years of age, the ogress meets the girl and asks her to remind the mother of the promise she has made. Finally, the ogress receives a positive answer from the girl and snatching her by the hair puts her inside a tower that had only a small window. The only way to go up and down is by using Parsley’s hair. The son of a prince falls in love with her golden tresses and convinces her to be received in the tower. They become lovers and Parsley gives the ogress poppy juice so that they can meet at night. After many of these visits, the ogress finds out due to gossip about the deeds of Parsley. Getting away is impossible for Parsley as she is under a spell. The only way to escape is to get the three gallnuts from the rafter in the kitchen. She convinces the prince to climb and get the gallnuts and with the help of a rope ladder they escape and flee the city. The same person who has told the gossip lets the ogress know about the escape and she sets off after the lovers. Parsley throws the gallnuts one by one and they transform into a Corsican bulldog, a lion and a wolf. The ogress managed to trick the first two, but the wolf swallowed her all as she was dressed in the skin of the jackass. The lovers are free at last and with the consent of his father, they marry and live a peaceful life.

C. Position in the Aarne-Thomson-Uther Index.

According to the ATU index, Petrosinella is a type 310. This means that it falls under Tales of Magic with Supernatural Adversaries. Type 310 is for The Maiden in the Tower fairy tales and under this type fall other fairy tales like Rapunzel, The Fair Angiola, Prunella, Persinette, Parsillette, Blond Beauty and Juan and Clotilde.

D. Characters according to Vladimir Propp.

The villain – the ogress (helped by the gossip)
The dispatcher – the mother who gives up the daughter and sends her into the arms of the ogress
The princess – Parsley
The hero – the son of a prince
The victim hero – Parsley - as she is the one who uses the gallnuts to escape the ogress.

E. V. Propp’s Functions Analysis

1st Sphere: Introduction

F2: Interdiction – Pascadozzia knows it is forbidden to take parsley from the garden of the ogress.
F3: Violation of interdiction – The woman steals the parsley
F6: Trickery – The ogress deceives the victim in promising to give her the unborn child.

2nd Sphere: The Body of the Story

F8: Villainy and lack - The ogress reminds the mother to give her the child.
F9: Mediation – Parsley discovers the true intentions of the ogress.
F11: Departure – Parsley is taken by the ogress to the tower.

3rd Sphere: The Donor Sequence

F12: Testing – Parsley is challenged by the price to escape her prison.
F13: Reaction – Parsley learns about the three gallnuts.
F14: Acquisition – Parsley gets the magical gallnuts with the help of the prince.
F15: Guidance – Parsley reaches the ground and get out of the castle.
F16: Struggle – The ogress pursues Parsley.
F17: Victory – The ogress is eaten by the Lion
F19: Resolution – Parsley and the prince are free from the ogress.

4th Sphere: The Hero’s Return

F20: Return – Parsley and prince set out for the kingdom of the prince.
F31: Wedding – The prince marries Parsley.

F. Similarities with other known tales

As Petrosinella was actually the first fairy tale of her type, it is normal to compare it with the following versions of the Maiden in the Tower theme. We will look at the following fairy tales Rapunzel (Germany), The Fair Angiola (Italy), Prunella (Italy), Persinette (France), Parsillette (France), Blond Beauty (France) and Juan and Clotilde (Philippines).

Meaning of the name - The name Parsley is retained only in the French versions Persinette and Parsillette. In Rapunzel, name means also an aromatic herb. However, in Prunella, we have a small plum, while in The Fair Angiola and the Blond Beauty, the name refers to the beauty of the maiden. In Juan and Clotilde, the name of Clotilde means “famous battle”.

Parents – The single mother is also present in The Fair Angiola, Prunella and Blond Beauty. The rest of the tales feature a mother and a father with the exception of Juan and Clotilde, where there is only Ludovico, the father.

Object of lust – The parsley as the object of the woman’s lust appears only in Petrosinella and Persinette. In the rest of the fairy tales the women crave rapunzel (Rapunzel), jujubes (The Fair Angiola), wild plum (Prunella), fruit (Parsillette). In the Blond Beauty, the woman is frightened by the threat that she would give birth to a frog, while in Juan and Clotilde there is no object of lust.

The villain – The ogress is only featured in Petrosinella. In the other tales, the villain is an enchantress (Rapunzel), witch (The Fair Angiola, Prunella), a fairy godmother (Persinette, Parsillette, Blond Beauty) and an aged magician (Juan and Clotilde).

The age of dispatchment – The girl is given away to the villain at 7 years old in Petrosinella, The Fair Angiola and Prunella. In Persinette, Parsillette and Blond Beauty, the girl is just a baby when she is dispatched. In Rapunzel, she is 12 and also in Juan and Clotilde she is said to be a teenager, but no actual age is mentioned.

Relationship with the prince – The girl falls in love with the prince as a general rule. In Petrosinella, they have multiple meetings whereas in Rapunzel, they fall in love after one meeting. In Persinette, the girl gets pregnant. The singing is the trigger of love in Rapunzel, Persinette and Parsillette. They all run away with the prince except in Juan and Clotilde, where Juan in on a quest for survival. During their escape, in Petrosinella, the lovers use three magical objects. The magical objects are also present in The Fair Angiola (three yarns) and Prunella (four objects). In Prunella, the prince figure is actually the son of the witch Bensiabel, who fights his mother. In Blond Beauty and Parsillette, there is a parrot that gives them away, much like the gossip in Petrosinella.

The revenge of the villain – In Petrosinella, the ogress follows them, but she is defeated. However, in the other fairy tales the revenge is more severe. Cutting the braids and blinding the prince are present in Persinette and Rapunzel. Taking away the beauty of the girl appears in The Fair Angiolo (she gets a dog face), Parsillette (she is ugly with no gifts and the prince dies) and Blond Beauty (she is turned into a frog). In Prunella, the witch intends to eat her, while Juan is exiled and suffers from poverty and starvation.

The solution – In Petrosinella, they marry and live happily. The same solution is also valid in the case of all the other fairy tales, but with slight variations. In Rapunzel, Persinette and Juan, the prince is reunited with the girl and in the first two tales with the twins and they live happily. In The Fair Angiola, Parsilette and Blond Beauty, the villain removes the curse and forgives the girl, while giving her other gifts. In Prunella, Bensiabel saves the girl from his mother and marries her.

The timeline of the evolution of this type of fairy tale looks like this:

Petrosinella (1634) – Persinette (1698) – Rapunzel (1812) – The Fair Angiola (1885) – Parsillette (1891) – Blond Beauty (1891) – Juan and Clotilde (1921)

(For more details about the comparison of these fairy tales, check this file: http://bit.do/rapunzel-comparison)


Sources:
1. The fairy tales’ texts are taken from D.L. Ashliman’s online library - https://www.pitt.edu/~dash/type0310.html
2. Myers Scott, Vladimir Propp’s “31 Narratemes”: Another approach to story structure (https://gointothestory.blcklst.com/vlad ... 756027ed13)
3. Propp, Vladimir, Morphology of the Folktale. Trans., Laurence Scott. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1968
4. ATU Classification - http://research.omicsgroup.org/index.ph ... ion_system
5. Giambattista Basile, The Pentamerone or The Story of Stories, translated from Neapolitan by John Edward Taylor, new edition revised by Helen Zimmern (London: T. Tihser Unwin, 1894), pp. 56-62