055. The Bird Of Diamonds (El Pájaro De Los Diamantes)
There were two friends who were both jewelers, but as it happened, one of them had his luck turned against him and lost everything that he had. [Being] In such a situation, he went to see his friend to see if he could help him get out of his lot (predicament), but the friend was very selfish and excused himself [from helping] by saying that he had a wife and two children to care for, and he could not risk what little he had to support them.
The impoverished man, in view (light) of the situation, determined to change his trade (e.g. job) and having learned that a watchman was needed for a pasture, he applied for the position. As he was a man of good reputation, they gave him the job and there he stayed to make his living. The man was a hunter and his master (e.g. employer) allowed him to hunt from time to time so he would be able to sustain himself. One day when he was hunting for food, he saw a bird so marvelously colored that he wanted to capture it, so that he shot it with only gunpowder and in that way he was able to catch it without doing any harm to the bird. As soon as he got home, he put it in a cage, being overjoyed at having possession of such a remarkable bird.
The next day he went to feed the bird and found on the floor of the cage a very shiny stone, and he, being a jeweler, realized at once that it was not an egg as dazzling as the plumage of the bird, but a true diamond. He didn’t quite know what to make of the matter until, the next day, he found another one just like it, and the following day, another, and the next, another, and he realized [then] that the bird laid diamonds instead of eggs. So he took the diamonds, went to the store of his old friend the jeweler, and sold them to him, getting a handsome sum of money for them.
Since he got a large sum of money, he gave up his position as a watchman and returned to town. The bird continued to lay diamonds, so that it was not long before he became rich. And his old jeweler friend was restless in trying to know where the man had gotten so many diamonds from. He asked and, of course, the man did not want to tell him anything, and then he threatened him that if he did not tell him, he would accuse him of stealing them. And the man, being outraged by this and to prove that he was no thief, told him how he had obtained them.
When the jeweler [friend] learned about the secret, he offered to buy the bird and the man refused; but later he thought more about it and, as he was suspicious of his old friend and, more over, he was already quite rich, he proposed an exchange [instead]: he would give him the bird in exchange for the house and jewelry store. The latter, of course, immediately said yes, because he expected to become much richer than he was and [then he’d be able] to buy a larger house and open another store. So [in the end], they closed the deal.
The jeweler, as soon as he got his hands on the first diamonds, bought a new house and kept the bird in a lavish cage in the middle of the garden. He often went over to look at it to rejoice at the trade that he had made, and on one of these occasions, saw the bird rolling around and observed that there was a sign underneath each of its wings. He picked up the bird to see these signs and read in one: “He who eats my head will be king” and in the other: “He who swallows my heart whole without chewing it shall have everyday, on getting up [in the morning], a bag full of gold under his pillow”.
The jeweler then thought [to himself], being a selfish person that he was: “This is worth more than all the diamonds the bird can give me, so that if I kill it and eat it, I will be king and immensely rich [at that].”
He thought no more about it, killed the bird and gave it to the chef to cook, saying to her:
I must eat it whole without missing anything, so if there is anything amiss, I will skin you alive.
The chef carefully prepared and cooked the bird and set it aside for eating at a later time. And it happened that, when she was away from the kitchen, the jeweler’s two sons came back tired and hungry from the field and, on seeing the stew, they did not think twice [about it]: the older one ate the head and the younger one chose the heart, as they thought these would be the least missed. But at this moment they heard the maid returning and the younger one wolfed down the heart whole so that she would not see him chewing and snitch on him to his father.
Then it was mealtime and the chef, who had not noticed anything, brought the bird to her master. The jeweler immediately looked for the head and the heart and, on not finding them, he called for the chef and asked her for the offal and the poor woman burst into tears saying that she had not eaten them.
And the jeweler said:
Didn’t I tell you that I would skin you alive if you ate them? Well now you shall see!
and he fell upon her, preparing to give her such a thrashing that his sons could not but intervene.
Let her go, father! You have no reason to hit her as it was us who ate the head and the heart with so much appetite.
On hearing this, the father calmed down little by little and at last thought that among all things, this was the least bad; for if he could not be king, at least his son would be, so he could take advantage of this situation when the moment came. So he questioned them discreetly and learned that it was the younger one who had eaten the heart whole. And as for the younger one, he (e.g. the father) resolved to not tell him anything either and made sure he would pick up the little bag of gold every morning.
So he kept quiet and the next morning he got up early and went to his younger son’s bed and found a little bag full of gold. And from then on he did the same thing everyday.
In short, the sons grew up and one fine day a friend invited the two brothers to go hunting on a farm he owned and where there was an abundance of wild rabbits. The father was not happy with this [invitation], but as the sons were already grown, he had no other recourse but to agree and off they went, promising to return as soon as possible.
They went off with the friend, hunted [all day], went to bed exhausted, and the next morning they went out again. And when they returned in the afternoon, a maid approached the younger [brother] and gave him a small bag, saying:
Please take this bag, which you left under the pillow this morning.
But this bag is not mine -said the young man.
Yes, it is -insisted the maid-, I found it when I was making your bed in the morning as soon as you left [the room], so it must be yours.
The young man, thinking that it was some kind of joke, replied:
Very well, if it is mine, I’ll gift it to you as a present.
The maid, naturally, went away as happy as a clam.
[Nguyen: the original text is “se fue más contenta que unas castañuelas”, which literally translates to “went away happier than the castanets”.]
The young man went to bed that night and felt like having a smoke, and after rolling a cigar, being too lazy to get up, he placed the tobacco pouch under the pillow; and the next morning, on retrieving it, he found a little bag full of gold. And as he did not know whether it was a joke that they were playing on him or something else, he decided to not say anything to see what would happen, and nothing happened; and on the next day he found another bag just like it, and this got him worried for he knew not what this meant. But when he saw this continued [to happen], he remembered that his father used to come in early in the morning to fix his pillows and it didn’t take him long to realize that what he was really looking for was the little bag of money. In view of this, when they returned to the father’s house, the younger one met with his father and his brother and said:
Father, I have noted that every morning, when I get up, I would find a little bag full of gold; and as you did not want me to go to my friend’s country estate, it seems to me that you have to know something about this matter.
The father had no choice but to tell the two brothers that by eating the bird’s head the older one was destined to be king, and that, by swallowing whole the heart, the younger one would find a little bag full of gold under his pillow every morning.
The two brothers were extremely happy upon hearing this and the younger boy said to the father that, since he was already rich and moreover, since he would gladly give him the gold he collected when he was in the country estate, that he would prefer to set out and see the world than staying [around] at home. The father, of course, tried to dissuade him [from doing so], but the younger boy did not give in. And, besides, his brother said that he would like to accompany him, so that the father had no choice but to let them leave while regretting having told them about the story of the bird.
It so happened that [after] the brothers left, they were together here and there going on [different] adventures. Until one day, when they were on the road, they saw an army of numerous knights coming towards them and, when they had arrived at his whereabouts, the most senior among them approached to offer the crown of the kingdom that they were passing through to the older brother, as they had news of his arrival and had set out in search of him. Naturally, neither of the brothers were surprised at this turn of event and the old brother immediately accepted the crown and led the retinue back to the royal palace.
The arrival of the new king was received with natural jubilation and grand festivities were organized. But after a while, the younger brother expressed his desire to continue traveling on his own, because he had yet to quench his thirst for adventures. And although the older brother promised to get him married to a princess, he decided that he [himself] would find the woman best suited for him, whether she was a princess or not, and so he set out on the road [once more].
He did this and continued to travel the world. One day he arrived at a house where lived a woman of modest means who had a beautiful niece, and the younger brother fell in love with her and decided to make her his wife. The aunt, seeing that the man did not seem to lack the means to food, agreed to the marriage and soon they celebrated the wedding [between the two].
The younger brother stayed there and lived [with his wife]. There were no shortage of curious onlookers who asked how the man supported himself. He said that he lived on rental incomes of properties he managed from afar, and although this quiet the gossips, the same did not happen with his wife’s aunt, who was a covetous woman. And the aunt tasked her niece to find a way to figure out where so much money had come from.
The niece was also curious and discreetly questioned him until the young man finally told her the story of the bird whose heart he had eaten whole, and how, because of that, he would find a little bag of gold under his pillow every morning. With that he wanted to assure her that they would never lack for any [material] things, but he told her to not say a word about what she had heard.
That was what they agreed to, but the niece could not resist telling this to the aunt, and she [in turn], who was not only avaricious but also mean-spirited, prepared a special brew for her to mix with her husband’s soup, telling her that in this way they could find out if what he had said was true.
They did this and the young man ate his soup calmly and without any suspicion.
Shortly after, he began to feel tired and decided to retire to rest; then he had chills and finally vomited everything he had in his stomach and at last fell asleep. Then the old woman went to look among the foods he had thrown up and discovered the heart of the bird, which was as whole as when he had swallowed it; she picked up, washed it well and swallowed it whole [herself].
The next morning the young man did not find the bag of gold under the pillow and asked his wife if she had picked it up, but [she said that] she had not taken it. This [also] happened the next day and the day after that and by the fourth day he was getting suspicious and got angry with his wife thinking that it was her who had taken the bag. But the aunt intervened in the dispute in favor of her niece and threw him out on the street, telling him to never come back there again.
Then he said to himself: “If you throw me out on the street [then] it is not because you are stealing my bag [of gold], because for that you would need me to remain sleeping in the house. This must have been my wife’s doing for she [had] told her aunt what I forbade her to say, and the aunt must have done something to remove my [special] power.”
Then he went back to the house through the backdoor and questioned the maid and she told him that nothing had happened in the house since the day he became ill and threw up everything; and he [then] asked her if she had cleaned the room and the maid said no, that the aunt had sent her away from there and had cleaned everything herself. The young man, on hearing this, understood what had happened and promised himself that it won’t end like this.
Having nowhere to go, he went to the countryside and wandered about until he was thirsty and searched for a fountain; then he was hungry and looked around to see what he could eat and saw a fig tree full of figs; and without thinking about it twice, he went straight to it and ate a fig; and as soon as he ate it, he was transformed into a donkey.
When he saw himself in this way, he fell to the ground in [great] distress thinking what bad luck he had had, that in addition to losing his power of obtaining the [daily] bags of gold, he had [also] transformed into an animal like this. And the wailing lasted until hunger struck him again, so he stood up and, as he was a donkey, began to eat the grass in that area. And soon after he began to eat, he noticed with [great] satisfaction that he had turned back into a man again.
And he said to himself:
Well, it is true that every cloud has a silver lining, for look at what I found, these figs are going to provide me with the revenge that I was longing for.
He picked some of the best looking figs on the fig tree, put them in a basket and headed back to town where his wife lived with her aunt.
There he searched for someone whom he asked to go and see if the people from the aunt’s house would buy the figs, and that the person could keep whatever they would give him for them. The man did this [as he was asked to do], and as soon as the people in the house saw how good the figs looked, they bought them all and immediately the aunt, the niece, and the maid ate them without waiting a moment longer.
Soon the young man came by the house and found the three of them had turned into donkeys; he took them to the stable, put muzzles on them so that they could not eat any grass, and left them tied up in there [the stable]. Then he went searching for the apothecary in town, whom he had known before, and proposed to go on a hunting trip [with him]. As soon as they agreed, they went to sleep and the following morning the apothecary showed up at the house and [together] they harnessed the donkeys. The young man mounted the donkey that was the niece, the apothecary on the maid, and they put the whole load [of hunting gear] on the back of the aunt.
The way there was an ordeal for the aunt, both physically and mentally, but the young man kept thrashing her [with whips] until they arrived at a fountain where they unloaded. Then the aunt could no longer withstand [the torture], her legs were giving in, and she threw up everything that she had in her stomach. The young man searched among the things that she had thrown up, found the heart, washed it in the fountain and swallowed it whole, saying thus:
Let’s see if you can take it from me now!
He asked the apothecary to go ahead and he himself went in the opposite direction. But he immediately retraced his steps, removed the muzzles from the donkeys, left them there to graze so they could regain their human form, and then left the area for good. When the apothecary returned he found neither the young man nor the donkeys, so on his way back to town he stopped by the house of his companion and there he found the maid, who told him that the old woman was in her final moments (e.g. last gasps) and the niece was worn out with exhaustion; but she was very careful in not telling him that she was the donkey on which he had ridden.
And the young man returned to his brother and told him that, now yes, he could search for a princess for him to marry, and that he was [finally] done with his adventures in the world.
—– VOCABULARY —–
Acallar – to silence, to quiet
Acoger – to welcome, to receive
Además – besides, also, furthermore
Alborozo – jubilation, rejoicing, delight
Almohada – pillow
A menudo – often
Aparejar – (to arrange) to get ready, to prepare; (to bridle) to harness
Apetito – appetite
Apuro – (difficulty) predicament, difficult situation, tough spot
Arreglarse – (to get tidied up) to get ready; (to be solved) to get sorted out
Arrepentirse de – to regret, to be sorry about
Arriesgar – (to expose to harm or danger) to risk, to endanger
Arrojar – to puke, to vomit, to throw up
Así que como – so as
Asunto – issue, matter
Atar – to bind, to tie
Atravesar – to come across, to cross; to penetrate, to go through, to pierce
Averiguar – to find out, to discover
Boticario – pharmacist
Bozal – muzzle; bridle, halter
Broma – (farce) joke, prank
Cansancio – fatigue, tiredness
Casi – (virtually) almost, nearly, hardly
Casorio – wedding
Castañuela – castanet, Spanish percussion instrument
Cejar – to give up, to cease
Cesta – basket
Codicioso – greedy, covetous
Comitiva – retinue, procession
Comprobar – to notice, to realize
Convenir – to be advisable, to agree, to be a good idea, to be worth
Daño – destruction, damage; (injury) hurt, pain
Deambular – to wander, to roam
Dehesa – meadow, pasture
Descansar – to rest, to take a break
Desconfiado – distrustful, mistrustful
Deslumbrante – spectacular, dazzling, stunning
Desollar – to flay, to skin
Despojos – leftovers; (animal leftovers) offal
Desuello – skinning, flaying
De vez en cuando – once in a while
Diamante – diamond
Dispuesto – willing, prepared; ready, arranged
Disuadir – to dissuade, to deter, to talk out of
Doblar – to double; (to crease) to fold, to bend
Egoísta – (caring for only oneself) selfish
Elegir – to choose
Empobrecido – impoverished
Encabezar – to head, to lead
Encontrarse – (to experience a state or situation) to find oneself
En cuanto a – with regard to, as for
En lugar de seguir – instead of following
Enterarse de – to discover, to find out; to know, to hear; to perceive, to notice
Entrarse ganas – to desire, to want (???)
Escalofrío – fever, chill
Espalda – back; backstroke
Fastuoso – lavish, sumptuous, magnificent
Finca – (rural real estate) property, country house, country estate
Ganas – desires
Guardés – guard, gatekeeper, doorkeeper
Guisa – way, manner
Guisar – to cook
Hierba – herb, grass
Higuera – fig tree
Indignado – outraged, indignant, angry
Inquieto – restless, anxious, worried
Inquietud – (care) worry; (uneasiness) anxiety; (curiosity) affinity, interest
Jaula – cage, jail
Joyero – jeweler; jewelry box
Letrero – sign, notice
Liar – (to prepare) to roll (cigarettes)
Lomo – back, lower back; (book) spine
Mandar – to send, to order, to tell
Masticar – to chew, to masticate
Mezclar – to mix
Ocuparse – (to tackle) to deal with; (to take responsibility) to be in charge of
Partida – (leaving) departure; (group of people) party, squad
Pasos – traveling; paso – step
Pastar – (to eat grass) to graze
Pegarse – to hit each other
Pereza – laziness
Petaca – cigarette case
Pólvora – gunpowder
Prendarse – to fall in love
Probar – to demonstrate, to prove
Proporcionar – to provide, to supply
Puesto – job, position
Puesto que – since
Que a más de – that more than
Recelar – to distrust, to suspect, to fear
Recobrar – to recover, to get back
Regocijarse – to take pleasure, to rejoice, to delight
Rendido – (tired out) exhausted, worn-out
Renta – income, interest
Reparar en – (to become aware) to notice; (to consider) to think about
Repletar – to fill completely
Retirarse – to retire, to stop working
Reunir – to gather, to collect
Revolcarse – to roll, to roll around, to wallow
Suplicio – torture, nightmare
Temprano – (before expected) early
Tragarse – to ingest, to swallow
Trague – swallow
Tranquilizarse – to calm down, to feel reassured
Tunda – beating, thrashing
Yerba – also hierba: herb, grass
Zampar – to wolf down; (to move hurriedly) to shove; (to say) to come out and say