The Salvanèl

The story

In the Fassa Valley, long ago, there was a travelling pedlar who could sell anything to anyone. Combs, ribbons, needles, buttons, holy cards, a little pocket knife. He walked from village to village with his load on his back, so heavy that the straps had dug two grooves into his shoulders.

That day he was climbing a path through the woods, and the woods were so quiet that he could hear his own breathing.

Too quiet. The fir trees stood still, without a single needle moving, as if they were all holding their breath to keep from laughing.

"Strange," muttered the pedlar. "Someone is watching me here."

There was nobody. Until, at the bend, on the boulder beside the path, a little man appeared.

He was small, with shining eyes. He looked like someone who knows a joke and is saving it for later. He loved to tease people, you could tell from the way he kept his hands behind his back.

"Good day, merchant," he said. "You look tired."

"I am," replied the pedlar. "And I have sold little."

"Then I shall give you a present." The little man pulled from behind his back a box of snuff, round, made of wood, with the lid shut tight. "It is mountain snuff. The best. Open it this evening, when you stop, and you will see."

The pedlar was no fool. He knew that nobody gives anything for nothing, especially in the woods. But he also knew that refusing a gift, with a creature looking at you like that, is more dangerous than accepting it. He took the box, thanked him, and slipped it into his bag.

When he looked up again, there was nobody on the boulder. Only a bit of moss swaying, as if someone had just jumped down.

He walked until evening. Every now and then he heard a small sound in his bag, tick, tick, like a fingernail on wood. He pretended not to notice. When dusk began to fall he stopped under a rock, lit a little fire, ate the bread and cheese he had left, and then, inevitably, he remembered the box.

He took it out. He turned it over. It was light, almost empty.

"A little snuff never hurt anybody," he said aloud, to give himself courage.

And he opened the lid.

For a moment nothing happened. Then, out of the box, came a hand as big as a button. Then an arm. Then a pointed red cap, then a sly little face, then a red jacket, red trousers, red shoes. A little man, red from head to foot, as tall as a candle, who stretched like someone who has slept too long and sat on the rim of the box, legs dangling.

"At last!" he said. "What a bore in there. You can't even have a sip of milk."

The pedlar was no longer breathing.

The Salvanèl, for it was he, looked at him with a very satisfied expression. He was the sprite of the woods, the one who crept into the shepherds' stables at night to drink their milk, the one who made fun of travellers, the one who flew into a rage if anyone picked a flower, cut down a tree or lit a fire without taking care. And now he was there, a hand's breadth from his nose.

"Do you know what I have to do now?" asked the Salvanèl, smiling. "I have to thank you, because you let me out. That is how it works. Tell me what you wish for, and I will give it to you."

A wish. The pedlar felt his knees turn to butter. He remembered all the stories he had heard in the stables, in winter: the one about the fellow who asked for a purse full of gold and ended up with a purse full of stones; the one about the fellow who asked never to die and found himself turned into a tree. With sprites, he thought, wishes are not gifts: they are traps with a ribbon on.

"Well?" said the Salvanèl, tapping a little foot on the wood. "I have not got all night. Actually, I have, and I like it. But you look like someone in a hurry."

The pedlar looked at the sprite. He looked at the fire. He looked at the darkness all around.

And then he did the only thing that seemed sensible.

He shut the lid. With a sharp snap, like closing a mousetrap.

From the box came an offended little voice: "Hey! But I haven't said yet..."

The pedlar did not listen. He leapt to his feet, the box clutched in his hands, and looked around for somewhere to make it disappear. A little further on, in the rock wall, there was a crack, narrow and black, as deep as an arm. He ran there, pushed the box in with all his strength, and heard it slide down, down, down, knocking against the stones, further and further away, until the sound died.

He stood still, his heart pounding in his throat, listening.

Nothing. Only the wind, which at last had begun to blow again among the firs, and the fire crackling softly.

Some say that the pedlar, that night, could not close his eyes. He waited for a little voice, a tick tick, a laugh. But the next day, and the day after, and for the rest of the journey, nothing more was heard.

Of the Salvanèl nothing was ever known again. Not where he had ended up, nor whether he was still there, at the bottom of the rock, with his red cap and his thirst for milk. Whether he was waiting for someone braver, or more imaginative, or who would really ask him for something. Or whether he got bored, found another way out and went back to the woods to do what he did best: play tricks.

And the pedlar? He went on selling combs and ribbons for many years. But whenever, on winter evenings, someone in the stable offered him a pinch of snuff, he shook his head and always answered the same way.

"No, thank you. I have given it up. It lets things out."