La familia que mortificaban los duendes

Notas

Any consideration of this widespread legend must be based on Archer Taylor's article "The Pertinacious Cobold," in which he discusses its geographical distribution, its historical perspective, and cites an abundant bibliography. He summarizes its presence in Europe and America (p. 1): “The cobold story enjoys a distribution comparable to its age: it is told in Scandinavia, Germany (particularly in northern and eastern Germany), Russia, Italy, Spain, and in both English and Celtic regions of the British Isles. It has even found its way to the New World, where, no doubt through Spanish mediation, Mexican narrators include it in their stock. Apparently it is a west European story, for we find no clues leading eastward.” Taylor notes also that the story has long been present in oral tradition. He has been able to trace it as far back as the twelfth century and finds it again in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It is one of the most frequently encountered legends in Mexico and whenever conversation with informants has turned to activities of duendes, it has popped up. The story apparently does not have a clearly independent existence in Mexico. When I have asked for cuentos or casos, informants have not narrated it separately. In nearly all cases the informant has begun his narrative by describing the mischievous acts of duendes and then has related the kobold story. Two Hispanic items are included by Taylor (p. 9). One is Eugenio de Olavarría y Huarte, "El Folklore de Madrid," 11, 66, attributed to Spain, and the other is Aurelio M. Espinosa, "New-Mexican Spanish Folk-Lore," Journal of American Folklore, XXIII (1910), 400. The list of reported versions from Spanish-speaking regions can be expanded somewhat: Spain: Aurelio M. Espinosa, hijo, "El duende lleva los cedazos," in Cuentos populares de Castilla (Buenos Aires-Mexico, 1946), No. 54. Mexico: Mary Blake, "The Elves of Old Mexico," Journal of American Folklore, XXVIII (1914), 237-239; Paul Radin, "El duende Fihurití," in El folklore de Oaxaca, No. 165; Vicente T. Mendoza and Virginia R. R. de Mendoza, "La familia que tuvo que cambiar de casa," in Folklore de San Pedro Piedra Gorda, p. 387; Elaine K. Miller, "Mexican Folk Narrative in the Los Angeles Area," Nos. LIV, LV (both attributed to Jalisco); Stanley L. Robe, Mexican Tales and Legends from Los Altos, No. 193; Costa Rica: Víctor Lozano H., Leyendas de Costa Rica, pp. 133-134; Colombia: Arturo Escobar Uribe, Mitos de Antioquia, pp. 196-200; Chile: Julio Vicuña Cifuentes, Mitos y supersticiones, p. 71. Consuelo Olmos de Martín had just finished narrating No. 54 when she remarked in an aside to her sister that duendes had appeared to one Pedro, who formerly lived in Coatepec. She then narrated the incident in No. 57. Emeterio Mendoza, a resident of Zempoala, remarked in conversation that he had heard the same story.