| Chapter 4: | Sicilian Folklore and American Comics |
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the Arabs. Giufà is a simple man who often triumphs over authority figures. One story I remember my grandparents telling me begins with Giufà looking at the clouds and the moon. Sometimes the clouds hide the moon and sometimes they do not. Giufà says “come out” and “stay hidden” to the moon repeatedly. Two thieves skinning a calf hear these cries and assume someone is warning them that the police are coming and flee leaving the dead animal behind. He takes the calf to his mother. The next day she tells him she sold the meat to flies and they will pay him later. When they don’t come Giufà goes to the judge and tells him the story. The judge orders him to kill the next fly that he sees. A fly lands on the judge’s nose and Giufà punches it as the judge had ordered him to do.16
Sicilian fables featured Jesus transforming himself into different animals; princesses restored to life after being beheaded; saints with human failings. In one story Saint Peter stole pork from a friend. Indeed, in the real world saints were “hired and fired” by Sicilians. In 1624 a terrible pestilence ravaged Palermo. Their patron saint, Cristina, had not protected the inhabitants from the pestilence and many died. The people of Palermo removed Saint Cristina from her position of protector and made Saint Rosalia their new patron saint.17 In Verga’s short story “Guerra di Santi” published in 1880, villagers fight over who can protect them from a cholera epidemic, San Rocco or San Pasquale. Saints played important roles in the lives of poor Sicilians before and after the unification of Italy.
My grandparents introduced me to history with their accounts of