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)
063. The Man Who Wanted To Fly (063. El Hombre Que Quiso Volar)
(Told by D. Francisco Vásquez in 1911, who heard it told in Santiago.)
There lived in the countryside a lady with her two daughters, and once a man who worked on a neighboring farm came by to ask for lodgings, and this they gave to him.
It was around 12 o’clock at night when the man woke up, and hearing noises in the neighboring room, he got up barefoot and [still] in his underwear, as he was, and spied through the lock [e.g. keyhole] of the door which connects his room to that of the owner of the house. There he saw the lady and one of her daughters, while being entirely naked, put on a black ointment all over their bodies. And when they were completely smeared [with it], he heard them said: “From village to village, from place to place (De villa en villa, de lugar en lugar)”, and he saw them fly through a window that was open and overlooked the courtyard. After a long while, he went into the lady’s room through the window, undressed himself and smeared his body with the black ointment; then he said: “From life to life, from place to place (De vida en vida, de lugar en lugar)” and immediately he flew up to the roof and fell from that height, delivering himself such a fierce blow that he became stunned. (He could not properly fly because he got the saying wrong, he said “from life to life, from place to place”, instead of saying “from village to village, from place to place, which was how the lady and her daughter said it.)
[Nguyen: note that “Villa” and “Vida” are very close in pronunciation in Spanish.]
When the mother and daughter came back to their room at dawn, they found the unconscious body of the farmer, and, to punish him, the lady transformed him into a donkey, and tasked him from then on out to carry firewood that they fetched from a nearby hill. Much time passed by in this way, until one night when the younger daughter (not the one who flew that night) said to the donkey: -“I am going to turn you back into human form, but on the condition that you will go far away from here and to never come back.” And she took him to a place where the lady had a cabbage farm, and taking a very small cabbage, she gave it to him to eat. As soon as the donkey devoured the small cabbage, he turned back into human form, and [then] left after giving his thanks to his benefactor. He found himself in a very dark forest the next day, and some woodcutters who happened to be in that area went to search for clothes for him when they saw him walking around naked. The man stayed to gather firewood with them and told them what had happened to him.
—– VOCABULARY —–
Chacra – (agriculture) (South America) farm, small farm; (religious) chakra
Alojamiento – (place to stay) accommodations; lodging; lodgings; (act of accommodating) accommodation
Pieza – (portion or constituent) piece, part, element; (one of a class of things) piece; (living space) room; (theater) play; (music) piece; (capture) catch (fishing), kill (hunting); (sewing) roll, patch;
Paños – (garments) clothes; (art) drapes, drapery
Aguaitar – (to await) to wait for; (to snoop) to watch, to spy on; (to keep an eye on) to watch
Cerradura – (mechanism) lock
Betún – (product used to polish shoes) shoe polish; (chemistry) bitumen; (culinary) (Chile) (Mexico) icing, topping
Embadurnado – smeared
Embadurnar – (to daub) to smear
Embadurnarse – (to daub oneself) to smear oneself
Villa – (country house) villa; (history) town; (area with huts or houses in bad condition) (Argentina) slum, shantytown
Techo – (exterior construction) roof; (interior construction) ceiling; (furthest extent) limit; (home) (Latin America) place
Aturdido – (in a state of shock) dazed, stunned, in a daze; (confused) bewildered
Chacarero – (agriculture) farmer, owner of a small farm
Repollo – (vegetable) cabbage