From Cuentos Populares en Chile (Chilean Folktales) – by Ramón A. Laval
Part 1 – Magnificent Stories, Stories of Animals, Anecdotes (Cuentos maravillosos, Cuentos de animales, Anécdotas)
030. The Three Nasal Sisters (Las Tres Gangosas)
[Nguyen: Gangoso is someone with nasal voice.]
(Told by the 12-year old boy Alfonso González, a native of Santiago, in 1912.)
To know and tell one has to listen and learn. There was a lady who had three good looking daughters with nasal voice, who had managed to endear themselves to three young men, with whom they had gone through courtship through signs and letters, because the mother had prohibited them from speaking to the young men, so as to prevent them from knowing her daughters’ defect.
One day the mother had to leave home and she instructed the girls to not speak to their suitors under any circumstances; and she placed the eldest in charge of the pots that were left on the fire, so that they wouldn’t boil over.
The young men, when they saw the mother leaving the house, wanted to talk to the girls, and as soon as she was out of sight they sneaked into the house, and the girls had no other recourse but to go to the living room to attend to them; but none of them spoke, even though the young men asked them thousands of questions.
Suddenly they heard a noise that was as if a liquid had spilled into the fire; and then the middle daughter, speaking more from her nose than from her mouth, said to the eldest:
Sisteg, go and see the pots for they are boiling over.
And the eldest replied:
Truwy, wittle sisteg, I’ve fowwotten motheg’s task fog me.
And the middle sister asked:
Didn’t motheg well us wo not speak?
Truwy! My God, now I wememweg! and you also spoke!
Wut I didn’t say wothing -said the youngest;- you wa woing to make mother mad and she is woing to spank you.
On hearing their nasal voices and impending return to the living room, the visitors took their hats and quickly left the house without even saying goodbye.
The mother returned a little later, and once she learned what had happened, she gave the three of them a good spanking, and while she was hitting them, she said:
Take these, you nasal idiots! Just when I was about to be able to get rid of you all, you ruined everything.
—– VOCABULARY —–
Gangoso – nasal, twangy
Buenamoza – (illness) (Colombia) jaundice
Entenderse – (to communicate well) to understand each other; (to be friends; used with “con”) to get along with; (to cheat on someone; used with “con”) to have an affair with
Entender – (to comprehend) to understand; (to be empathetic to) to understand; (to have knowledge of) to understand; (to find reasonable) to understand; (to trust) to believe; (to be of the opinion that) to think; (to be very knowledgeable; often used with “de”) to know about, to understand about; (legal; used with “en”) to hear; (to comprehend) to understand
Olla – (cookware) pot
Colarse – (to enter furtively) to sneak in, to slip in, to crash; (to move forward in a line) to cut in line, to jump the queue; (to fall in love) (Spain) to fall for somebody; (to make a mistake) (Spain) to get wrong
Atender a – (to comply to) to meet, to fulfill, to take care of; (to consider) to bear in mind, to take into account, to go by; (to be attentive to) to pay attention to; (to provide a service to) to serve, to attend to, to see, to look after
Derramar – (to knock from its container) to spill; (to emit) to shed; (to disseminate) to spread
Derramarse – (from its container) to spill
Presuroso – quick, hasty, speedy
Imponerse – (to obligate oneself) to set oneself to (schedule, task); (to assert power or authority) to prevail, to assert one’s authority, to assert oneself; (sports) to win, to prevail; (to catch on) to become fashionable; (to get used to) to become accustomed to; (to become familiar with) to acquaint oneself with
Felpa – (rich, velvety fabric) plush; (soft, absorbent fabric) toweling; (scolding) telling-off, ticking-off