Читать книгу Legends of Florence: Collected from the People, First Series - Charles Godfrey Leland - Страница 12

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“When looking down into a well,

You’ll see a fairy, so they tell,

Although she constantly appears

With your own face instead of hers;

And if you cry aloud, you’ll hear

Her voice in the ringing echo clear;

Thus every one unto himself

May be a fairy, or an elf.”

“And truly those nymphs and fairies who inhabit wells, or are found in springs and fountains, can predict or know what is to take place, as may be read in Pausanias, and this power they derive from their habitat, or, as Creuzer declares (Symbolik, part iv. 72), they are called Muses, inasmuch as they dwell in Hippocrene and Aganippe, the inspiring springs of the Muses.”—On the Mysteries of Water. Friedrich (Symbolik).

Long after Christianity had come in, there were many places in the vast edifice of society whence the old heathen deities refused to go out, and there are even yet nooks and corners in the mountains where they receive a kind of sorcerer’s worship as folletti. A trace of this lingering in a faith outworn, in nymphs, dryads, and fata, is found in the following story:

Le Due Ninfe del Pozzo.

“There once lived in Florence a young nobleman, who had grown up putting great faith in fate, ninfe, and similar spirits, believing that they were friendly, and brought good fortune to those who showed them respect. Now there was in his palazzo in the Via Calzaioli, at the corner of the Condotta, a very old well or fountain, on which were ancient and worn images, and in which there was a marvellous echo, and it was said that two nymphs had their home in it. And the Signore, believing in them, often cast into the spring wine or flowers, uttering a prayer to them, and at table he would always cast a little wine into water, or sprinkle water on the ground to do them honour.

“One day he had with him at table two friends, who ridiculed him when he did this, and still more when he sang a song praising nymphs and fairies, in answer to their remarks. Whereupon one said to him:

“ ‘Truly, I would like to see

An example, if ’t may be,

How a fairy in a fountain,

Or a goblin of the mountain,

Or a nymph of stream or wood,

Ever did one any good;

For such fays of air or river,

One might wait, I ween, for ever,

And if even such things be,

They are devils all to me.’

“Then the young Signore, being somewhat angered, replied:

“ ‘In the wood and by the stream,

Not in reverie or dream,

Where the ancient oak-trees blow,

And the murmuring torrents flow,

Men whose wisdom none condemn

Oft have met and talked with them.

Demons for you they may be,

But are angels unto me.’

“To which his friend sang in reply, laughing:

“ ‘Only prove that they exist,

And we will no more resist;

Let them come before we go,

With ha! ha! ha! and ho!ho! ho!’

“And as they sang this, they heard a peal of silvery laughter without, or, as it seemed, actually singing in the hall and making a chorus with their voices. And at the instant a servant came and said that two very beautiful ladies were without, who begged the young Signore to come to them immediately, and that it was on a matter of life and death.

“So he rose and stepped outside, but he had hardly crossed the threshold before the stone ceiling of the hall fell in with a tremendous crash, and just where the young Signore had sat was a great stone weighing many quintale or hundredweights, so that it was plain that if he had not been called away, in an instant more he would have been crushed like a fly under a hammer. As for his two friends, they had broken arms and cut faces, bearing marks in memory of the day to the end of their lives.

“When the young Signore was without the door and looked for the ladies, they were gone, and a little boy, who was the only person present, declared that he had seen them, that they were wonderfully beautiful, and that, merrily laughing, they had jumped or gone down into the well.

“Therefore it was generally believed by all who heard the tale that it was the Fairies of the Well, or Fonte, who thus saved the life of the young Signore, who from that day honoured them more devoutly than ever; nor did his friends any longer doubt that there are spirits of air or earth, who, when treated with pious reverence, can confer benefits on their worshippers.

“ ‘For there are fairies all around

Everywhere, and elves abound

Even in our homes unseen:

They go wherever we have been,

And often by the fireside sit,

A-laughing gaily at our wit;

And when the ringing echo falls

Back from the ceiling or the walls,

’Tis not our voices to us thrown

In a reflection, but their own;

For they are near at every turn,

As he who watches soon may learn.’

“And the young Signore, to do honour to the fairies, because they had saved his life, put them one on either side of his coat-of-arms, as you may see by the shield which is on the house at the corner of the Via Calzaioli.”