The Mason and His Son

One block can cause so many problems.

Hello, reader! My apologies for missing last week. I was on a quest to restore a prince to his rightful throne. Luckily, it only took a week to sort that out.

This week, we're looking at a fairy tale from Italy called The Mason and His Son. This story is absolutely full of events escalating far too quickly. You'll see what I mean if you read the story in the link above. Once you've done that, continue reading below to dig into this story with me.



Firstly, I have to admit that I wasn't expecting the mason to ask for his son to murder him just because the mason got stuck in a bathtub of pitch. He tried to pull himself out and couldn't, so the next logical step is to have his son cut off his head? Apparently if the mason couldn't get himself out it would be better for his son to kill him. I can't speak to the logic of this idea, but that's what the mason decided to ask for and the son carried it through.

This escalation seems to run in the family because later in the story, the son, Ninu, cuts off his fingers to remove suspicion about why his mom was crying. Which also meant that Ninu couldn't work anymore. Not really sure if it was worth it to conceal his dead father's identity to lose his ability to work, but I'm not the one making the calls here.

The final outrageous reaction was when Ninu saw the beggar woman leaving his house with a piece of meat. Figuring that the king would know everything based on this, Ninu decided it was best to throw the old woman in the well. Killing her and poisoning the water supply.

I can't handle this family.

What kills me, though, is the king's reaction. The king sees he's been outsmarted in this whole adventure, so he offers to either pay the guy who did it or marry him off to the princess. Now, I thought this would be a trap and the king would have Ninu jailed or killed or something. But, no. The king was entirely genuine in his offer and Ninu married the princess. This double murderer with no fingers on one hand.

Looking at this story, we have a peasant outsmarting a king. Usually in stories with this set-up, it's a woman doing the outsmarting, but it isn't so bloody. It's kind of an interesting comparison. In stories like this where the woman is outsmarting a king, she uses really clever answers to riddles and solves problems in an out of the box way. In this story, Ninu does use unconventional methods to solve his problems, but they mostly seem to involve murder. Not so great.

I suppose the moral of this story is if you're going to start out an adventure by murdering your father, then you'd better just keep that mindset going until you marry the princess. Alternatively, if you don't know a trade and all you can do is steal to make money, maybe it's time to make some different life choices.

Confused at how the hero of this story was so murderous? Wondering why he didn't get a name until halfway through? Have a different moral? Have a different story you want me to talk about? Comment below! And if you like this blog, don't forget to subscribe.