"Le Tre Vecchie" is an Italian fairy tale by Italo Calvino. It tells the story of three very old sisters that deceive a young king. The oldest sister drops her handkerchief off of her balcony and the young king finds it. The king assumes that since the handkerchief is beautiful its owner must be beautiful. He goes to the house to ask for what he thinks is the young woman that dropped it. One of the old sisters answers the door. She tells him that there is a young and beautiful woman in the house and he may only see her after he marries her. So the king agrees, despite a warning from his mother. The king goes back to the house and asks to see a finger of the woman. The old women deceive him and show him a fake finger. The next day they are married. The old woman wears seven veils to conceal herself. Even then he is not allowed to see the bride. Finally, that night the king steals a candle and while the old woman was sleeping he looks under the blanket. When he realizes they tricked him into marrying an old woman he becomes so angry he throws the woman out the window. On her way down she becomes stuck on a vine trellis. While she is hanging there three fairies come along. At first, they laugh at her. Then to make amends they make her a beautiful young woman and promise that she will live a happy life with her husband. In the morning the prince looks out the window to make sure the night before was not a dream. He sees the beautiful woman and pulls her up with a sheet. Once he leaves her sisters ask how she became so beautiful. She tells them she went to the carpenter and he used one of his tools on her face. One of her sisters runs to the carpenter and asks him to do the same to her. The carpenter ends up killing her. It is unknown what happened to the third sister. The oldest sister lives happily ever after with the king.
The story is originally Venetian. The original story has the old woman spitting a wad of jam into the king's hand. Calvino changed it so the woman dropped a handkerchief. This story is part of Calvino's book
Italian Folktales.
I found this fairy tale very interesting. In many of the fairy tales I have read good usually wins over evil. However, in this one that is not the case. The oldest sister should have been punished for deceiving the king, but she is the one that lives happily ever after. There is no moral as many other stories from this genre have. I can tell the story was meant to be humorous, not only from the plot, but also from the writing. When the story is read in Italian, there are many sarcastic lines. For example, at one point Calvino refers to the sisters as young, even though they are in their sixties, seventies, and nineties. This, in my opinion, made the story more enjoyable. I also found it interesting that only one name was mentioned in the entire story and it was not even the name of a main character. The name of the middle sister, the one that dies, is mentioned. Her name is Clementina. I found it difficult to read this story critically. I had to just accept all of the events and not think to hard because some of the events are so ridiculous. All in all I enjoyed it very much.
