108. The Golden Ball (La Bola De Oro)
Once upon a time there was a married couple who had a son, and they were so, so poor that they could not [afford to] feed him. One evening, while the child was asleep, the husband and the wife decided that, since they were starving [to death] and they could not give their son the minimum which he’d need to sustain himself, the best that they could do was to abandon him in the forest, where perhaps some elf would help and protect him.
But lo and behold, it turned out that the boy was not asleep and heard everything that his parents said. And he thought: “If they are going to throw me out of the house, it’d be better that I leave myself, because at least I will know where I’m going; whereas if they take me, they will leave me wherever they like and I won’t know where I am [will be].”
And that same night, while his parents were sleeping, he got up, tiptoed down to the door, opened it little by little while being very careful to not make any noise, and left without anyone knowing. The next morning, his parents woke up to find their son was no longer in the house.
The poor child was walking and walking without knowing which way to go nor to where, and when dusk fell on him, he was half dead with hunger, cold, and fear. He came to the base of a tree and there he stayed, curled up in a ball [fetus position] and fell asleep at once. And lo and behold, when he was deep in his sleep, a familiar humming sound woke him up. It was a pair of little birds who were chit-chatting on a tree branch next to where the child was sleeping. So he listened attentively and heard them said the following:
Well, it is true that I have one thing to tell you, mother Pía. I have heard that in the middle of this forest is a starving, cold, and afraid child wandering around, who has had to run away from home and who is lost [while] searching for a little luck. Indeed, it would not be difficult to find it if he could obtain the golden ball, since it would grant him three wishes that he asks for, and if he knows how to make good use of them, his happiness would be guaranteed.
And you think it’s possible that the golden ball can be found here, father Pío?
More difficult things have been seen, mother Pía.
And you think he would find it, father Pío?
If he doesn’t tire out and has perseverance, he would find it, mother Pía – said the bird.
Good, anyway, it’s already time to sleep. You have a good night, father Pío, and see you tomorrow, God willing.
Good night, mother Pía, have a good night’s rest and sweet dreams.
Thank you, and you too, father Pío.
And the two birds flew away, one this way and the other that way, searching for their nests.
The boy, who had listened to the birds’ conversation without missing a beat, was very happy thinking that his luck had begun to change; because he knew the language of birds and those two [birds] who had talked about him just left the branch of the tree under which he was sleeping.
So now he could not sleep, and as soon as the day began to dawn, he got up and set out on his way. He started walking without knowing where he was heading [to], but in better spirits [than yesterday]. He walked all day long, but did not find any house nor anyone. He ate only a few walnuts and hazelnuts that he found [on the way], and when dusk fell, he was once again fainting from hunger for having walked so much and eaten so little. He arrived disconsolately at a tree and found an old woman sitting there, so old that she could not be any older [than she already was]; she had a hooked nose that reached her chin and was dressed in rags like a wretch.
As soon as she saw the boy, she said to him:
Good God! What are you doing here, my poor child, being all alone at this late hour? Don’t you realize that the wolves will soon come and devour you? Come, come with me to my house, where I will give you food to eat and a place to sleep, so you won’t have to spend the night out in the open.
Although he didn’t trust the old woman much, he was greatly in need of food and sleep that he went with her. They arrived at a nice house on top of a hill not far from there. It was all made of stone, with very thick walls, and strangely enough, he did not see any door [in it]. Then the old woman said:
Open, close, open, wall.
At once the wall opened as if it was a door, and the old woman and the boy went inside. The old woman [then] said:
Open, close, close, wall.
And at once the wall closed and no one would have said that there was a door there. The old woman showed the boy to two other old women, who were her sisters. The three of them began to compete against one another with compliments and flattery to the boy, and immediately afterwards, they served him a dinner fit for a king. When he had eaten as many as seven [wheels of] cheese, they accompanied him to a bed in which there were seven mattresses, one on top of another, and the boy was a little surprised by such attentions [given to him]. And since he did not have a good feeling about the matter, he pretended to sleep and listened in on the women. And it was a good thing that he did!
As soon as they believed he had fallen asleep, the oldest among the three began to speak:
This one will die just like those others who had dared to enter this forest without asking for our permission first, as if this was their own home. Here we will do what we always do: [we’ll] light the fire, and when there are red-hot embers, we’ll throw him in it. As he is sleeping, we can [certainly] do this well between the three of us; and if he wakes up and we cannot manage this, we will use the [magic] wand of seven powers on him and the bears of the forest would come and tear him to pieces.
As soon as the boy heard this, he was trembling with fear and immediately prepared to escape from the old women before they finished their dinner and lighted the oven. He grabbed the sheets on the bed, rolled them up and knotted them tightly, and made a long rope out of them that reached the floor. As there were no windows nor anything else, he remembered the old woman’s magical words and said:
Open, close, open, wall.
And at once a hole like a window opened up. The boy lowered himself to the ground and, oh feet how I love you so, he ran through the forest so that he could be sufficiently far away from the old women when they realized that he had escaped.
At first he ran and ran, and then he walked and walked, and he spent the whole day not even daring to look behind him for fear of seeing the old women appeared. And by nightfall the poor boy was more dead than alive from walking so much and not having anything to eat. Until when, without the strength to take another step, he sat down at the foot of a large tree. And when he had recovered his breath, a charming maiden appeared, [who was] very well-dressed, with her long hair very well combed and as bright as the sun, and as soon as she saw the poor boy lying there, she said to him:
What are you doing here, unhappy soul? Don’t you see that as soon as night falls the wolves will come and devour you? Come, come with me to my house, where I will give you food to eat and a place to sleep and you won’t have to spend the night out in the open.
She took him by the hand and they began to walk [to her house]. As they were walking, the boy thought that this courteous and pretty maiden could not be as bad as the [other] old women, and that she would not want to do him harm as they did. The maiden took the boy to a large house very much like the one belonging to the old women, as it was all of stone with thick walls and no doors. The charming maiden, as soon as they were in front of the house, said:
Open, close, open, wall.
Immediately, the wall opened as if it was a door and the maiden and the boy entered. Once inside, the maiden said again:
Open, close, close, wall.
And the wall closed again. In that large house were the maiden’s two sisters, as young and pretty as she was. Between the three of them they served him a dinner seven times more splendid than that of the old women; and when he had finished dining, they took him to a bed seven times softer and prettier than that of the old women. The boy was not at all receptive of such lavish attention, and as the last time when he was at the old women’s house, he pretended to sleep and listened in to what they were saying between them, and whether they were talking about him.
And he heard the youngest of the three said thus:
To this one we will do the same as we had done to all the others who had dared to enter the forest without our permission. When he leaves tomorrow, we will accompany him as we did the others and as soon as we arrive at the first clearing in the forest, we will put a curse on him and convert him into a tree as we had done with the others; and this we will continue to do to all those who come until we have a forest so thick that, once in it, one cannot distinguish between day and night.
We will do as you have said, little sister – said the other two.
As soon as he finished hearing this, the boy decided to repeat the escape [as he had done] from the old women’s house. So he rolled up and tied the sheets as if they were a rope, and when he had made it, he said to the wall:
Open, close, open, wall.
A hole appeared in the wall like a window, and the boy lowered himself through the rope. And as soon as his feet are on the ground, he began to run at full speed to lengthen the distance between them, for he knew that as soon as they realized his escape, they would chase after him and would surely catch him if he did not get away soon, as they were younger and more agile than those old women.
After a good while, [being] tired from so much running, he sat down at the foot of a tree, and as soon as he sat down, he sighted a very, very large house not far away and decided to go there and have a look. On arriving, he found it to be an enormous house and very similar to those belonging to the old women and the maidens, with even thicker walls and also without any doors. As he now had experience [under his belt], he approached the house and said:
Open, close, open, wall.
And immediately a hole, so large that a giant as tall as a mountain could fit in it, opened up in the wall. The boy entered and understood at once that this was a house of giants, because everything was enormous: the table, the chairs, the beds, the plates, and the spoons. The boy was really scared, thinking that it’d be a lost cause if he had to deal with the inhabitants of that house, as they could send him to the end of the world with just one breath [sneeze].
So he decided to get out of there before the giants returned. And lo and behold, when he was prepared to go through the hole in the wall once more, he noticed a beautiful ball [embroidered] with beautiful flowers and such sparkles as if it was made of gold, and he thought: “What if this is the golden ball? I’m going to take it with me just in case and we’ll see what happens. If it is not, I’ll always have a chance to get rid of it.”
He took the golden ball, and as soon as he felt it in his hands, he noticed how a kind of soft music came from within him, very, very sweet [music], accompanied by a charming little voice that said:
What do you want from me?
The boy did not think twice and said:
That you get me out of here without harm nor danger [done to me].
And zas! In a moment he found himself once again in the forest, far away from the giants’ house.
He again felt the soft music and once more the charming voice asked him:
What do you want from me?
And the boy said this time:
That you take me to the king’s palace and that I can get to see and meet the princess.
And zas! in a blink of the eye he found himself inside the king’s palace. The king was dining with the queen and his daughter, who was single, and the three of them had such good appearance that the boy was so impressed and immediately fell in love with the princess.
But when the king saw before him a boy in tatters who seemed like a poor beggar, he became furious; he called the servants and told them to take him away, but first of all, to give him a good beating for having dared to trespass into the palace, and while they were at it, to give another beating to the porters who had let him entered. The boy, frightened and stunned, did not know how to leave this predicament when he again felt the soft music and the little voice that said to him:
What do you want from me?
And the boy said:
To have the princess fall in love with me so that I can marry her.
And he barely finished saying this when the princess began to cry and said to the king:
Father, father, do not punish him, for he is so handsome and likeable that I would like to marry him.
And the king said:
Very well, daughter of mine, if you want him as your spouse, well I, too, want him as my son-in-law. And let us at this very hour, without waiting any longer, begin preparations for the wedding.
And everyone in the palace began to prepare for the wedding. The boy sent for his parents to be present at the wedding and to spend the rest of their days with their son. And lo and behold, on the eve of the wedding, the groom, as he went to sleep, heard a familiar chatter in the garden. He opened the window to see who were chatting and noticed that they were two little birds perching on the branches of a nearby tree. And he heard they said the following:
Good evening, father Pío.
Good evening, mother Pía.
Don’t you have anything good to share?
Yes, indeed, father Pío. Do you remember that boy you told me about a few days ago, the one who was lost in the woods? Well, you must know that he’s been very fortunate, thanks to how clever he is and what a good boy he is. The three old women and the three maidens of the forest caught him and trapped him in their houses [with the intention] to kill him, but with his wit he managed to escape. Then he ended up at the house of the seven giants, where he found the golden ball; he was so clever that he took possession of it without the giants realizing and took good advantage of the three wishes granted by the golden ball that tomorrow he will marry the king’s daughter, and one day he will become king himself. Rarely has anyone seen a person getting, in so short a time, such luck and happiness.
You are quite right in what you say, father Pío.
I believe so, mother Pía. Anyway, have a good night and rest well.
Good night and see you tomorrow, father Pío.
And the groom closed the window and went to sleep, calm and satisfied as he had never been before.
—– VOCABULARY —–
Advertir – (to forewarn) to warn; (to counsel) to advise; (to detect) to notice
Agasajo – (greeting) warm reception, lavish attention, hospitality;
Agujero – (opening) hole; (commerce) hold, deficit
Al punto – (literary) (in no time) at once, immediately, right away, then and there; (culinary) medium
Andrajo – (old cloth)
Anudar – (to make a knot in) to tie, to knot
Apoderar – (legal) to authorize, to empower, to grant power of attorney; apoderarse – (to appropriate, use with “de”) to seize, to take possession of, to take control of; (to overpower, use with “de”) to overcome, to grip
Apoderar de – over
Arrimarse – (to get close; often used with “a”) to come closer, to move closer, to go up to
Atardecer – (twilight) dusk, evening; (to darken) to get dark
Atrapar – (to grasp) to catch; (to take captive) to capture; (to immobilize) to trap
Aturdido – (in a state of shock) dazed, stunned, in a daze; (confused) bewildered
Avellana – hazelnut
Barbilla – (anatomy) chin, tip of one’s chin
Bola – (spherical body) ball; (culinary) scoop; (games) boules; (gossip) rumor
Brasa – ember, hot coal
Caber – (to have enough space) to fit, to be room for; (to pass through; used with “por”) to fit, to go
Casona – (big house) large house, mansion
Castigar – (to impose a sentence on or for) to punish (a person or crime)
Cerro – (geography) hill; (pile) (Andes) mountain
Cháchara – (smalltalk) chatter, chitchat
Clarear – (to make paler) to lighten, to make lighter; (to throw light on) to light up
Colchón – (furniture) mattress; (savings) cushion, emergency fund, rainy day fund
Conseguir – (to acquire) to get, to obtain, to win; (to realize an objective) to achieve, to manage
Constancia – (determination) perseverance; (evidence) (Latin America) proof, record
Cortés – (well-mannered) polite; (kind) courteous
Cuchara – (tableware) spoon; (measure) spoonful
Cuerda – (thick cord) rope; (thin cord) string; (anatomy) string; (weaponry) bowstring
Cumplido – (praise) compliment; (courtesy) duty; (considerate) polite, courteous, thoughtful
Dar vueltas – (to move in circles) to go round; to turn; to spin; to revolve; to rotate
De palique – making small talk; talkative; chatting; to have a chat
De paso – (making use of the occasion) while one’s at it; (related to migration) migratory
Desastrado – (ragged) scruffy, untidy; (ill-fated) ill-starred, unlucky
Descansar – (to take a break) to rest, to have a break, to take it easy
Descolgar – (to get down) to take down (a painting or the curtains); (to move down) to lower; (to lift a telephone receiver) to pick up; descolgarse – (to descend) to lower oneself
Desconsolado – disconsolate, heartbroken, inconsolable
Deshacerse de – (to throw away) to get rid of, to dispose of; (figurative) (to kill) to get rid of
Deslumbrar – (to blind) to dazzle; (to impress) to dazzle; (to be fascinated) to be astonished
Desmayarse – (to lose consciousness) to faint; desmayar – (to be come disheartened) to lose heart, to falter, to become demoralized
Despedazar – (to tear apart) to tear to shreds, to rip to pieces, to tear up; (to cut to pieces) to cut up
Divisar – (to detect) to make out, to spot, to spy, to sight
Doncella – maiden, damsel, virgin
Duende – (supernatural being) elf, goblin, imp, spirit; (attractive quality) charm, magic
Enrollar – (to wrap) to roll up, to coil up, to wind up; (to implicate) (Spain) to get involved; (to attract) to be into
Espabilar – (to awaken) to wake up; (to smarten up) to open someone’s eyes, to wise up
Espantado – frightened, scared, frightened
Espina – (botany) thorn (of a rose), prickle (of a cactus); (anatomy) spine; (of fish) bone
Esquina – corner
Fingir – to pretend, to feign, to fake; (to mimic) to imitate, to put on
Fogón – stove, woodstove
Fuga – (getaway) escape, jailbreak, elopement (of lovers); (leakage) leak;
Ganchudo – hooked
Gentil – (pleasant) courteous, kind, nice, helpful; (graceful) elegant, charming
Grueso – (measurement) thickness; (main part) main body; (not thin) thick; (corpulent) fat, stout
Hábil – (proficient) skillful, skilled, good; (astute) clever; (business) working, work; (qualified) competent
Halagos – (insincere praise) flattery; compliment; (approval) praise
Harapiento – tattered, ragged, in rags
Hueco – (empty space) hole, hollow; (free time) opening, spare time; (free space) space, gap
Lecho – (place to lie down) bed; (bottom) bed (of a river), floor (of an ocean); (geology) layer
Mantenerse – (to provide for oneself) to support oneself; (to feed oneself) to live on
Mas cuando – but when
Menos mal que – it’s a good thing that, luckily, thank God!
Mira por dónde – lo and behold
Mismísimo – (used for emphasis) very (thing); very same (thing); himself; herself
Mullido – (not hard) soft, springy, fluffy
Muro – (vertical structure) wall; (Internet) wall
Musiquilla – music, tune
Nido – (nesting or breeding place) nest; (lair) den; (area for newborn) nursery
Nuez – (culinary) nut, walnut; (Mexico) pecan; (anatomy) Adam’s apple
Osar – (to have the courage) to dare
Ovillo – ball
Palique – chat; chit-chat
Paliza – (battering) beating, thrashing; (defeat) beating, thrashing
Pareja – pair, couple
Parlotear – to chatter, to prattle on
Pegar ojo – to sleep
Perseguir – (to run after) to purse, to follow, to chase; (to try to accomplish) to pursue; (to pester) to harass, (to oppress) to persecute
Por cierto – (incidentally) by the way; (certainly) indeed
Por medio – (blocking the way) in the way; (everywhere) all over the place
Por si acaso – just in case; in case
Posarse – (to settle on a surface after flying) to land, to alight, to perch
Precioso – (pretty) beautiful, gorgeous, lovely; (of value) precious, valuable
Puntilla – (sewing) lace edging; (bullfighting) dagger; (hardware) tack; (final blow) coup de grace
Quitar – (to eliminate) to remove; (to grab) to take away, to take; (to ease) to relieve
Raso – (even) level, flat, open (country); (near ground level) low; (without clouds) cloudless
Recobrar – (to have or take back) to recover, to to get back; to recover, to regain
Resuello – (gasp) panting, heavy breathing; (respiration) breath
Revieja – very old; withered branch of a tree
Ripio – (fragments from something destroyed) rubble, debris; (garbage) waste, refuse
Rivalizar – to compete
Runrún – (repetitive sound) whir, hum; (gossip) buzz, rumor
Sentenciar – (legal) to sentence, to condemn; (to determine) to decide; (to state) to declare
Simpático – (agreeable) nice, likeable, pleasant, friendly, kind; (anatomy) sympathetic
Siquiera – (if only) even if; at least; (in negative phrases) even
Soltera – (not married woman) single woman, unmarried woman, spinster
¡Válgame, Dios! – (used to express surprise or annoyance) Good God! Oh my goodness!
Varita – (small staff) wand; (old-fashioned) (police officer) (River Plate) traffic cop
Ventura – (joy) happiness; (fortuity) luck, fortune; (fate) chance, luck
Víspera – (previous day) eve, day before
Vocecita – little voice
Yerno – (relative) son-in-law