From Cuentos Populares en Chile (Chilean Folktales) – by Ramón A. Laval
Part 2 – Myths, Traditions, Things (Mitos, Tradiciones, Casos)
045. (Otra Version) Another Version
In a country house there lived a young couple with two small children. The wife was a witch and on Thursday nights, while her husband was soundly asleep thanks to a narcotic that she administered in the wine accompanying dinner, she would go to the coven in the form of a sheep. The husband, suspecting that something was going on, once waited for his wife to rise from the table in order to bring a stew from the kitchen, and tossed the wine with the narcotic onto the front yard. When the wife returned, he pretended that he had just finished drinking it. They went to bed, but the husband, instead of sleeping, kept a close eye out on his wife. And she got up before midnight, and the husband saw her undressed herself completely, smeared her body with an ointment that she took from a small earthenware pot, and at midnight left the house in the form of a sheep. The husband waited a while, then got up, saddled his horse, put whatever money he could find in his pockets, and taking the children, he mounted his horse and left at full speed, but not before setting fire to the house, which was consumed in a few short moments along with everything that was in it, including the pot with the ointment. When the sheep returned, she did not find anything but a heap of ruins, and as the ointment had disappeared, she could not return to her human form and had to continue living under the guise of a sheep. This is the Calchona, which travels everywhere bleating forlornly in search of her children.
The peasants, who knew that she is a woman who was being purged of [paying for?] her sins, let her roam freely and gave her milk and leftovers from their meals [for food].
—– VOCABULARY —–
Suministrar – (to furnish) to supply, to provide
Trasladarse – (to relocate) to move; (to go) to travel
Trasladar – (to change location) to transfer, to move; (to change date) to postpone; (to reproduce) to copy; (to convert into) to translate
Aquelarre – witches’ sabbath, coven
Arrojar – (to fling) to throw, to hurl (with force); (to generate) to produce; (to emit) to spew out (lava, ash); to belch out (smoke); (to cast out) to throw out; (to puke) to vomit, to throw up
Atisbar – (to see) to make out, to discern; (to keep a watch on) to observe, to spy on, to watch; (to look furtively at) to peep at; (to look out) to peep out
Pote – (vessel) (Latin America) jar; (kitchenware) pot; (botany) pot; (culinary) (Spain) stew; (beverage) (Spain) drink
Loza – (material) earthenware; (tableware) crockery; (objects made of clay) pottery, earthenware
Ensillar – (horseback riding) to saddle up, to saddle
Incendiar – (to set alight) to set fire to, to burn down
Incendiarse – (to start to burn) to catch fire; (to burn) to burn down, to be burned down
Balar – (to make the cry of a sheep) to bleat, to baa
Purgar – (to rid) to purge; (to correct) to purge, to expiate; (mechanics) to drain, to bleed; (medicine) to purge
Purgarse – (medicine) to take a purge
Pecado – (immoral act) sin; (offense) sin, crime