024. The Forbidden Room (El Cuarto Prohibido)
There was a woodcutter who had three very beautiful daughters. The woodcutter [himself] was a poor man and lived from hand to mouth. Every day he would go to the mountain to cut wood and, on one of those days, he was chopping a tree with his axe when a giant came out from its interior and said to the woodcutter:
What are you doing? How dare you cut down this tree that is my house?
The frightened woodcutter replied:
For God’s sake, señor Giant, don’t do anything to me for I did not know that it was your house.
That is fine – said the giant-, I won’t do anything to you. But tell me, how many children do you have?
To which the woodcutter replied:
I have three daughters. I go to the forest to cut wood to make a living and to feed my daughters and my wife, who is a seamstress, and between the sewing and the firewood we barely have enough to support ourselves.
Look -said the giant-, I will give you this bag of gold if you will bring me your eldest daughter.
The woodcutter took the bag of gold and, when he arrived home, he told [his family] what had happened to him and the eldest daughter agreed to go meet the giant. The woodcutter [then] returned with his daughter to where the tree was and left her there. [It turned out that] The tree had a large door which led to a stairs that descended into the ground and there the giant made his house.
And the giant said to the girl:
You will be the master and mistress of everything here if you behave as I tell you. And the first thing that you have to do is this -he told her-: here is an ear that you have to eat raw. I need to leave now, but when I return you will have eaten it raw or, if not, I will kill you.
The girl saw that it was a person’s ear and felt terribly disgusted; and she said to herself: “Woe is me! How can I eat this ear, and [it being] raw too?”
And then she thought: “But [how] does the giant know whether I have eaten it or not?”
And without thinking twice about it, she threw it behind the hayloft.
[When] The giant returned, the first thing he asked was:
What? Have you already eaten the ear?
The girl replied yes, and then the giant said aloud:
Ear! Little ear!
And the ear replied:
What do you want?
And the giant said:
Where are you, ear?
And the ear said:
Here, behind the hayloft.
And the giant [then] said to the girl:
Didn’t you say that you had eaten it? Well, now you’ll see [what I will do to you].
He took the girl, carried her to a room in the house and there he slit her throat and left her for dead.
The next day, the woodcutter was in the forest chopping wood when the giant came to him and said:
Listen, woodcutter, your eldest daughter said that she misses her middle sibling and that she wants to have her company. If you bring her to me, I’ll give you this other bag of gold.
The woodcutter took the bag, went to look for the middle daughter and convinced her to go and keep her older sister company, alleging that she was very lonely [living with the giant]. And the middle daughter went with the wood cutter to the giant’s house and entered the tree.
And the giant said to her:
You can use the house as you please, except for this room -and he pointed to the room where he slit her sister’s throat-, where you must never enter under any condition. I need to leave now, but I’m leaving this ear here where you must finish eating it by the time I return.
and he left after having said thus.
The poor girl [then] said to herself: “Oh, how disgusting! How am I going to eat this ear which is not from an animal?”
Then she thought that the giant had no way to know that she had not eaten it, and so she went and threw it into a well.
So when the giant came back, he asked her:
Have you eaten the ear?
And she said:
Yes, I have eaten it.
Then the giant said aloud:
Ear! Little Ear!
And the ear answered him:
What do you want?
And the giant said:
Where are you, ear?
And the ear said:
Here, in the well.
And the giant said [to the girl]:
Now go down the well and take out the ear.
She then lowered the bucket and brought the ear up in it. And [then] the giant took the girl, put her in the forbidden room, slit her throat and left her for dead next to her sister.
The next day, the father went to the tree hoping that he’d be able to see his daughters, whom he missed dearly, and out came the giant who said to him:
I will give you another bag of gold if you will bring me your youngest daughter, for they want all three [sisters] to be together and cannot do without one another.
The father, although he was [greatly] distressed, said yes and took his youngest daughter, who was called Mariquilla, and said to her:
Your sisters are asking for you.
He took her to the tree where the giant lived and here he [the giant] carried her down the stairs, and when they had arrived at his house, he said:
You are going to be the mistress of everything here if you will eat that raw ear on the table [over there].
The youngest sister was very surprised to not see her sisters coming out to greet her and she was overcome with fear, but she kept this to herself and said to the giant:
Very well, I will eat it.
When the giant left, she thought that she did not want to eat an ear that did not belong to an animal, so she decided to hide it under her clothes and tucked it next to her belly so that it will not fall off.
After a while the giant returned and said to her:
So, have you already eaten the ear?
And she said:
I have already eaten it.
Then the giant said aloud:
Ear! Little Ear!
And the ear replied:
What do you want?
And the giant said:
Where are you, ear?
And the ear said:
In Mariquilla’s belly.
On hearing this, the giant jumped up with joy and he said to Mariquilla:
You have got to be[come] my wife! Now you are the owner of everything I have, and [here] I give you [all of] my keys. But there is a room that you must never open -and he pointed to the room where her sisters lied dead inside- under any condition.
Having said that, he went away as happy as a clam.
Then Mariquilla said to herself: “And why should that be? Why shouldn’t I be able to open that room?”, and her curiosity became even stronger than her fear.
[So] she opened the [door to the] room and, as she opened it, she saw a large puddle of blood and became so frightened that she dropped the key in the middle of the puddle and it got blood all over it. But when she looked at it again, she saw many people who were hung by their feet and by their head, and among them she recognized her sisters. And then she saw that on a table there was a small cooking pot with a concoction and a bottle of water.
As soon as she left the room, she rushed off to wash the key, but no matter how hard she scrubbed, the [stained] blood did not go away. Then she heard the giant coming [back] and, in a hurry, she cut one of her fingers and stained the key to the forbidden room with her [own] blood.
So [then] the giant arrived back and said to her:
Have you gotten to know everything in the house?
And she said yes, that she did.
And did you enter the forbidden room?
She denied having done so. And the giant then told her:
Well, show me the key.
And on seeing the key being stained with blood, the giant became infuriated and told her:
And what is this blood stain that I see on the key?
And Mariquilla showed him her cut finger and said:
This blood stain is because I cut myself [earlier] in the kitchen.
So that the giant was satisfied [with her reply] and gave her his trust.
The next day the giant went away again to attend to his business, and said to her that this time he would take three days before coming back and that she should take care of the house until his return. As soon as Mariquilla was sure that the giant had left and that he was not lying to her, for now she already had his trust, she took the blood-stained key and ran back to the prohibited room and went to the table where the little pot and the water were. She smeared the heads of her sisters with the concoction and joined them by the neck to their bodies and afterwards washed them with the water. And as she washed them, the two sisters came back to life and the three of them [then] embraced one another with great joy and exhilaration.
Then they went to the back of the room, which led to a deep cave where there were many great treasures and riches, and they loaded everything into sacks [to be carried off]. And after smearing [the concoction] on all the other people who were hung [in the forbidden room] and washing them with the [magic] water, they all came back to life. And carrying off the riches, the three sisters went away to search for their parents. And it happened that among the people who were in the room was a king with his three daughters, who ordered his soldiers to seize the giant and cut off his head, and then he invited the woodcutter and his family to come live in his kingdom and they all went there happily and full of contentment, and enriched with all the treasures that Mariquilla found in the cave together with what the king gave them as a reward for saving his family. And they never had any more worries afterwards.
—– VOCABULARY —–
Acaso – maybe, perhaps
Alegar – to claim, to allege
Apesadumbrado – sorrowful, sad, distressed
Apretar – to press, to squeeze
Asco – disgust, revulsion
Asegurarse – to make sure
Asustar – (to cause fear) to frighten, to scare; (to alarm) to startle
Atacar – to strike, to attack
A toda prisa – very quickly
Atreverse – (to have the courage) to dare
Avenirse – to agree to, to accept
Barriga – stomach, belly, tummy
Castañuela – castanet, also known as clackers or palillos, are a percussion instrument, used in Spanish, Kalo, Moorish, Ottoman, Italian, Sephardic, Swiss, and Portuguese music.
Charco – puddle, pool
Comportarse – (to act) to behave
Conque – so, so then, thus
Costura – sewing, needlework
Costurero/a – sewing box, basket; seamstress, seamster
Cruda – raw, crude
Cuarto – fourth; room
Cubo – container, bucket, pail
Cuello – neck
Dar – to overlook, to face
Dedicarse – to do for a living; to devote oneself to
Dedo – finger, toe
Degollar – to slit the throat of
Disimular – to hide, to conceal
Echar de menos – to long for, to miss
Encontrarse – to be, to feel
Enfurecer – to infuriate
Entregar – (to hand in or over) to turn in, to submit, to give
Extrañar – (to feel the absence of) to miss; (to amaze) to surprise
Frotar – to rub, to scrub
Ganarse – to earn, to secure
Gozo – joy, pleasure
Hacha – ax
Leñador – woodcutter, lumberjack
Mancharse – to get dirty, to get stained
Mejunje – concoction, brew
Mentir – to tell a falsehood, to lie
Meterse – to enter, to go in
Ocuparse – to deal with, to take care of
Oreja – ear
Pajar – hayloft. A hayloft is a space above a barn, stable or cow-shed, traditionally used for storage of hay or other fodder for the animals below. Haylofts were used mainly before the widespread use of very large hay bales, which allow simpler handling of bulk hay
Placer – satisfaction, pleasure; (to satisfy) to please
Pozo – (source of water or oil) well
Premio – reward, award
Prender – to apprehend, to catch
Preocupación – concern, worry, fear
Prisa – rush, hurry
Puchero – cooking pot, stewpot
Pudo más – got the better, was stronger
Reclamar – to ask for, to claim, to demand
Requezar – wealth, richness
Resulta que – it turns out that
Según – just as; as
Señalar – (to indicate) to show, to point out
Sostener – to sustain, to support
Subir – (to raise up) to lift
Susto – (sudden fear) scare, fright
Tardar – to spend time, to take; to take too long, to be long
Temor – fear, dread
Unir – to join, to unite, to bind