The Moon In One's Hands: Fairy stories

By Matilde Ciscognetti

These fables, conceived like allegoric stories, are characterized by a constant reflection about the meaning of one’s life through figures of fancy and real imagines. It is a mythological picture, optimistic essentially, which evidences the power that everyone can experiment and express in his short but intense existence.
Among the important prices this book has got, we cite, the Pr. ‘ALIAS’ in Melbourne, Australia. It has been catalogued in many libraries, also abroad, and used in some schools for didactic aims.
First edition in English language July 2021. Translation made by the Authoress.
First edition printed in Italian language by Tracce Edizioni in1998.
Cover ‘Fishermen’ (Pescatori) by Matilde Ciscognetti, water-colour and distemper.
We rely on the reader’s comprehension who will excuse for eventual mistakes of typewriting due to this economic edition realized in this particular and difficult social contest.

Which love is more                           
indissoluble
than the one of the leaf
that, still alive,
chooses the death
to follow the wind?...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Carta e Penna
• Release date: Jul 30, 2021
• ISBN: 9788869322563

Book preview

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Matilde Ciscognetti

THE MOON IN ONE’S HANDS

(Fairy stories)

Introduzione

These fables, conceived like allegoric stories, are characterized by a constant reflection about the meaning of one’s life through figures of fancy and real imagines. It is a mythological picture, optimistic essentially, which evidences the power that everyone can experiment and express in his short but intense existence.

Among the important prizes this book has got, we cite the Pr.’Vallesenio-Romagna’, the Pr. ‘Gesualdo Bufalino’, the Pr. ‘ALIAS’-Melbourne, Austr. It is catalogued in libraries and in some schools.

First edition in English language June 2021 Translation made by the Authoress.

First edition printed in Italian language by Tracce Edizioni, 1998.

We rely on the reader’s comprehension who will excuse for eventual mistakes of typewriting due to this economic edition realized in this particular and difficult social contest.

LEGEND OF LOVE

An ancient legend tells.

A king, one of the most powerful in the world, was very unhappy because he had lost his only son in a battle, far away in a foreign country, and his body was lying abandoned in a place which nobody knew, without receiving the last and the dearest farewell from his family and his country. The king shouted his name night and day, and the immense richness of his kingdom and his power over men didn’t give him any comfort and didn’t soothe his pain that was lacerating his heart, almost driving him to madness. He knew never again the smile and the joy, and gave up taking care of his kingdom and his subjects, because now his richness had no more any importance for him who had lost his biggest wealth, his son. The young prince was handsome and strong like an oak-tree, and he had his skin made brown by the sun and the wind which he, indomitable, dared during the long rides through the valleys…Everybody loved him because he was a courageous and loyal warrior who defended his subjects from the overbearing fellows like a brave lion, but without attacking anybody who were disarmed or had turned his back to him, and to the children he was as sweet as a puppy donating caresses, and ready to die in order to defend them from the bad people. He was like just an ancient time hero. Sometimes, when the beams of the arising dawn just were starting to light over the sea setting and the wind was carrying the echo of remote and wandering voices, it seemed as if you still heard the hoofs of his horse pawing along the moor, and then the king wandered about the woods like a vagrant, homeless and handless, invoking the name of his dead son, till he fell asleep at the feet of a beech tree, like a simple, common man, and there his pitiful servants picked him up to take him back to his castle.

I wish I could bury my dearest son at least…

That was the prayer that he more often raised to Heaven, and to think that his son was lying far off, abandoned to the violence of the storm and to the predator instinct of the wild beasts, made his heart bleed more than if he had had a sword hammered into his breast.

If I only could go to him and caress him for the last time….

I’d wrap him up in his royal mantle to warm him, and I’d take him home to let him rest here, where he was born and where he was destined to be a king one day...Let somebody help me, if he can!..." so the king called out for help to the night and to the day, and the martens and the wolves curled themselves up on the entry of their dens lightened by the full moon, pressing their puppies to their wombs and forgetting their ancient rivalry to cry together with that desperate father. The trees were fluttering in the wind which was blowing slightly, almost become shy at the man’s sorrowful prayer, and the melodious warbling of the nightingale diffused a singing full of painful nostalgia for that young man, strong and generous, who had his eyes as coloured as the cornflower gilded by the rays of the sunset. The king prayed the sun until it shone more powerful than ever, so that it could heat his son’s body during the day, and implored the moon to hide herself behind the mountains so that the jackals of the night, frightened by the dark, stayed hidden in their dens and couldn’t come near the place where his son was lying dead to hurt him. But he couldn’t go to him because nobody knew where he were, and one night the king fell asleep on the tower of the castle where he went on to scan the heaven and the horizon, and he dreamt of his son coming back home with the trophies of victory and the coat of arms of peace. God, from the Kingdom of Heaven, saw him sleeping, his head bowed on the parapets of the tower, and felt pity for him. He ordered the most beautiful and luminous stars to assemble and to form a long and rectangular cart, driven by the guardian angel of the dead prince and ordered him to patrol the earth far and wide till he had found the young prince, and to pick him up to bring him to heaven, so that at last he too could rest in peace. The angel left driving the cart and began to patrol each corner of the earth and the sea until he found, lying on a cliff dropping to the sea, the poor prince’s lifeless body, laid him in the cart made of stars, and spreading out his large, white wings to protect him from the cold and the wind, he took him to Heaven so that he could stay there forever.

While he was flying over the castle, the angel stopped the star cart so that the king might offer the last