Histories of Witches – Historias de Brujos
From Cuentos Populares en Chile (Chilean Folktales) – by Ramón A. Laval
Part 2 – Myths, Traditions, Things (Mitos, Tradiciones, Casos)
064. The Peddling Sorcerer (El Falte Brujo)
(The young man D. Carlos Puccio from Molina, 17 years of age, told me about this in 1911)
There is a peddler in Molina called Miguel Molina, and he is a sorcerer and a poet.
They said that once, in the Cordillera, he got on a very beautiful white horse that was grazing in a pasture and suddenly disappeared [together] with the horse. They said he went to Argentina, because that [very] same day he was seen there talking to a friend of his.
Another time, he was selling his merchandise on some roads when a man driving a cart stole a handkerchief from a box of his; he pretended to not have seen anything and let the man go; but once the man had advanced some three blocks ahead, the cart began to back up until it reached the peddler and the cart driver had to return the stolen handkerchief to him.
—– VOCABULARY —–
Faltar – (to not attend; used with “a”) to miss, to not turn up at, to be absent from, to be off; (to be absent) to be missing; (to be scarce); (to remain); (to default on; used with “a”) to break, to not keep; (to insult; used with “a”) to be rude to
Falte – (Chile) el hombre que vende buhonerías)
Buhonero – (old-fashioned) peddler, pedlar; hawker
Pacer – (to eat grass) to graze; (to eat) to graze; (to feed) to pasture, to graze
Potrero – (land) pasture, field; (urban area of waste land) vacant lot used as a playground
Retroceder – (to move in reverse) to back up, to reverse, to move backwards; (to give up) to back down; (to retreat) to pull back; (firearms) to recoil
Carretero – (cart maker) cartwright; (person who drives a cart) cart driver; (rude person) boor; (related to the road) road