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)
022. Juan Valiant and His Heifer (Juan Valiente, El De La Vaquilla)
(Retold by 9-year old child Samuel Antonio Letelier, from Molina. He heard it told in Linares.)
There were a King and a Queen who had many pastures full of animals, and they were cared for by a very honest man who knew not what fear was, and he was a famous herder by the name of Juan.
One day, the monarchs tasked Juan to gather all the cows, for which there were many, so they could be milked. When Juan gathered them together, the monarchs were delighted to see how fat they were and how much milk they produced.
Among the cows there was a skinny, tiny heifer. The King then said to the Queen:
Let’s give it to Juan; this man has been good to us and has helped grown our farm and makes it valuable.
Good -said the Queen- give it to him -and so they gave it to him.
Juan took great care of his heifer and in a short time she grew and fattened and became fatter than the King’s cows.
One day the Queen saw it and said to Juan:
Kill that fat heifer and we’ll make charqui out of it.
Juan replied:
That heifer is mine and I will only kill it when I want to.
The Queen insisted that he killed it, but Juan went to the King to file a complaint.
The King told him: -“You better take your heifer to another place because the Queen is very mad at you and wants to have it killed.”
Juan left with his heifer, and he had barely left the city when some bandits came out of a house at the entrance to a forest and took it away from him.
At night Juan hid himself in the hayloft of the bandits’ house to see if he could rescue his heifer; but from his hideout he saw how they killed it and then roasted it for dinner.
Juan was very sad and he said to himself while crying: -“I will make these rogues pay for this.”
While they ate and drank, the bandits had a big row. The captain silenced them and said: -“Let’s go to sleep and tomorrow we’ll go up to the lookout to see if any girl passes by, and then we’ll have fun with her.”
Juan heard this and quietly left and went to the house of a friend to borrow some woman clothes from her. He then dressed up in these, applied some rouge, powdered himself and hid a very sharp saber under his skirts.
Well into the morning, he left and passed in front of the bandits’ house, imitating the way women walked.
The bandits were at the lookout, and as soon as they saw her (Juan dressed as a girl), they came down to invite her to have a drink, for it was very hot [on that day]. She accepted and they served her liquor and handed her the guitar so she could entertain them with her plucking and singing.
In the afternoon, the captain sent the bandits to the mountains, telling them that: -“I will remain here with this darling.”
The bandits left; and while the captain, with his back turned, extracted wine from a barrel, Juan rolled up his skirts, took out the saber and gave the chief of the thieves two or three ferocious slashes and then began to hide himself in the same hayloft.
The captain, who had only been wounded, screamed like a condemned man, so much and so loudly that the bandits who were on the mountains heard his screams and believed that the captain had killed the girl, and they ran back to see what had happened.
When they entered, they found the captain’s body on the ground being seriously wounded; they picked him up and put him in bed and one of them said: -“Early tomorrow we’ll leave and search for some old herbal doctor to heal the captain.”
Juan, who heard this, immediately went to his friend’s house, and there, with ointments and cream, he painted wrinkles on the face, and he did it so well that he really looked like an old woman. And dressing himself in clothes for the poor and carrying the same saber underneath, he went at dawn to circle around in front of the bandits’ house, pretending to be looking for herbs.
The bandits, who were [standing around] at the lookout, saw her (e.g. Juan disguising as the herbal doctor), and one of them came down to ask her if she knew any doctor who knew how to heal wounds.
I am a doctor -Juan made his reply- and there’s no one better than me at healing wounds.
Then he took Juan to the captain’s presence, and the rest of the bandits followed after them.
Juan very carefully examined the wounds and immediately sent the bandits to the city to go search for a cream that was very rare, and that each one of them were to go to a different druggist, in case the others could not find it [at their designated place].
The bandits went away, some in one direction, others in another direction, and Juan climbed up to the lookout to keep an eye out on them, and once he was certain that they had gone very far away, he took out the saber and ended the captain’s life.
After that, he filled his pockets with silver, rings and gold brooches, which he found in great quantity in the captain’s room, and then he went to his friend’s house, where he bathed himself and dressed as a man [again].
When the bandits returned, they found their captain dead and said among themselves: -“We have been exposed, let’s get out of here” -and they left for Chillán.
Juan, who had followed them, spied on them, and as soon as he saw that they did not return, he went with his parents and several carts to the bandits’ house and hacked down the doors, then carried away everything that they found, leaving the house totally empty and themselves extremely rich.
A short time later the bandits returned and found nothing but the bare walls. Then they began to verify who in the city had suddenly become rich in the last few days, and they found that Juan Valiente, the owner of the heifer, was the one [matching this description].
They then decided to rob and kill him, because they did not doubt [for one second] that he was the one who had killed their captain and stole all of their treasures; but Juan, who was very careful, knew that the bandits had returned and that they were going to attack him at any moment.
So it was that when the bandits came to rob him, they found him at the door armed with his saber, and as Juan had seen them from afar, he had time to ask his father to notify the police.
Juan was starting to fight against the bandits and had already killed one and left another badly injured when the police arrived and apprehended all of the robbers, who after being judged, were hanged, which allowed Juan and his parents to [continue to] live in peace, enjoying the wealth that Juan had taken from those thieves.
And with this the story of Periquito Sarmiento ended, which floats away with the smell of guatita in the air and potito in the wind.
—– VOCABULARY —–
Campaña – (politics) campaign; (military) campaign; (geography) countryside; (period of time) season
Ordeñar – (dairy farming) to milk; (olive picking) to pick (olives), to harvest (olives), to handpick the olives from (olive trees); (to take advantage of) to milk
Ordenar – (to organize) to order, to arrange, to tidy; (to command) to order; (religion) to ordain
Ordenarse – (religion) to be ordained
Recrearse – (to take delight in) to take pleasure in, to enjoy; (to amuse oneself) to entertain oneself
Lechar – (to draw milk) to milk; (to cover with a lime wash) to whitewash; (to nurse) to suckle
Vaquilla – (animal) heifer
Flacuchento – skinny; very thin
Démoselo – (imperative; first person plural) let’s give it to him; let’s give it to her
Portarse – (to act) to behave
Portar – (to hold) to carry, to bear; (to have on) to wear
Reclamo – (protest) complaint; (hunting) decoy (bird), lure (bird), birdcall (whistle); (bird’s cry) call; (enticement) attraction, lure
Pena – (sympathy) pity, shame, sad; (sadness) sorrow; (trouble) problem; (legal) sentence; (effort) trouble; (humiliation) embarrassment
Pajar – hayloft
Badulaque – nincompoop; idiot; rogue
Badulaquear – to be an idiot, act like an idiot; to be a rogue, be dishonest
Zalagarda – ambush, trap; skirmish; ruse; row, din; noisy quarrel; shindy
Mirador – (lookout point) viewpoint, vantage point, lookout; (architecture) enclosed balcony, bay window
Colorete – (make-up for the cheeks) rouge, blusher, blush; (make-up for lips) lipstick
Pollera – (clothing) (Southern Cone) skirt, overskirt; (clothing) (Andes) (Panama) pollera, embroidered national dress
Prenda – (clothing) garment, item of clothing, article of clothing, piece of clothing; (guarantee) security, token, pledge; (term of endearment) darling, sweetheart; (quality) talent, gift
Remangar – (to fold over) to roll up, to hitch up
Remangarse – (to fold over one’s clothes) to roll up one’s sleeves, to roll up one’s pants
Unto – (lotion) ointment; (oily substance) animal fat, grease; (corrupt money) bribe, pay-off; (blacking) (Chile) shoe polish
Pomada – (medicine) ointment, cream; (influential group) cream; (cosmetics) cream; (shoeshine) shoe polish
Arrugar – (to rumple) to wrinkle, to crease, to crumple (paper); (to pucker) to knit (brow), to wrinkle (nose), to screw up (face)
Botica – (old-fashioned) (establishment) pharmacy, drugstore, chemist’s, chemist’s shop
Aguaitar – (to await) (Panama) (South America) to wait for; (to snoop) (Panama) (South America) to watch, to spy on; (to keep an eye on) (Chile) (Peru) to watch
Prendedor – (jewelry) brooch, broach
Catear – (to not pass) (Spain) to fail, to flunk; (to raid) (Latin America) to search; (mining) (Latin America) to prospect
Pelado – (without money) broke, skint, penniless; (hairless) (Southern Cone) bald, shaved; (flaking) peeling; (culinary) peeled; (without objects) bare, treeless; (plain) barely; (rounded off) exact, round; (uncouth) (Mexico) coarse, rude
Saltear – (culinary) to sauté, to stir-fry; (to plunder) to hold up, to rob
Saltearse – (to omit) (River Plate) to skip, to jump, to miss out
Ahorcar – (to dangle) to hang
Ahorcarse – (to strangle oneself) to hang oneself