The Mazzariol

The story

There was a time when, in Primiero, nobody knew how to make cheese.

The cows gave milk, and the milk was drunk fresh, or left to turn sour, or thrown away. Nobody knew how to turn it into something that would last all winter. And in that valley, winters can be long.

The one who did know lived in the woods. He was a sprite dressed in red, and they called him the Mazaròl.

He was a joker, in his own way. In other stories about the same sprite, told further north in the Cadore, where they call him Mazzaruò, he is said to have enjoyed making travellers lose their way. He had a trick: along the paths he left his footprints, which nobody could see. But if someone set a foot on one without noticing, that was the end. He had to follow that trail all the way, through woods, over cliffs and among mountain pines, until he no longer knew where he was. And when the poor wretch found himself lost, from the darkness of the wood came a laugh, and an echo bouncing off the rock walls.

One day, Ninetta went out for a stroll.

She was a young woman from Primiero. She was in no hurry, she had no work to finish, she only wanted to enjoy a little sun on a road she knew well. She walked and thought of nothing, as one does at that age.

She stepped on a spot where the grass was barely bent. There was nothing, no sign. And yet, straight afterwards, she felt something strange: as if the path had grown longer, and the village farther away.

She turned. Behind her the road was gone. And in front of her stood a little man dressed in red, with a smile that promised nothing good.

"You've trodden on my footprint," said the Mazaròl. "Now you come with me."

Ninetta tried to scream. But screams in that wood echoed and came back, and nobody in the village heard her.

He took her away with him, to a hidden place. And there Ninetta became his servant, his "slave", say those who still tell this story.

But the sprite, without realising, taught her everything. Because to help him she had to watch, and to watch she had to understand. She learned to treat milk, to make it curdle, to work it until it became cheese. She learned to whip the cream for butter. She learned to make tosela, the fresh cheese still made in those valleys today. Day after day, Ninetta knew more and more, and the Mazaròl, watching her, sometimes regretted having shown her too much.

The days were all the same, and in that hidden place time seemed not to pass. She got up with the light, warmed the milk over the fire, stirred it patiently, checked the whey. The Mazaròl was always behind her, without making a sound, and when she made a mistake he laughed under his breath. Ninetta learned not to make mistakes. She also learned to stay quiet, and to remember every gesture, as one does with a song one does not want to lose.

A long time passed. Ninetta missed her home, and at last found the courage to say so.

"I want to go back to the village."

The Mazaròl stayed silent. If he let her go, she would tell everything. His secrets, which were his strength, would end up in everyone's mouths. He could not allow it.

But he did not want to keep her for ever either. So he found a trick.

"All right," he said. "But first drink this."

He handed her a bowl of milk. It was the milk of a black goat.

Ninetta drank it, because she was thirsty and because, for a moment, she trusted him. Then the world grew misty, like a fogged-up window.

When she came back to her village, nobody recognised her, and she recognised nobody. She walked through the streets looking around like a stranger. They asked her who she was, where she had been. She opened her mouth to answer, and found nothing. Not a name, not a place, not a memory.

The people of Primiero were convinced that the Mazaròl was behind this mystery. They tried to bring her memory back in every way: they showed her things, told her stories, called her by name. Nothing.

Until the day when someone, perhaps by chance, offered her a drink. It was the milk of a white goat.

Ninetta drank it. And suddenly the veil fell. The wood, the laughter, the footprints you cannot see, the sprite's house, and the cheese. Everything came back, all at once.

She spoke for hours. She told what had happened to her, and then she did not stop at telling: she showed. She took the milk, the rennet, the cream. She taught everyone how to make butter and how to make tosela. From that day, in Primiero, winter became less harsh.

The Mazaròl, when he found out, was furious. Then, to everyone's surprise, he softened. He came looking for her, and begged: "Ninetta, come back to me. I still have one secret to teach you. The last."

But Ninetta looked at him, and was no longer afraid, nor sorry for him. She shook her head. Then, without a word, she turned her back and ran off, as fast as she could, until the sprite's voice was only an echo deep in the wood.

That last secret, the Mazaròl kept to himself. It was the way of getting wax from whey, what is left when milk has become cheese.

And that is why, they say, in Primiero everyone knows how to make butter and cheese, and nobody has ever known how to make that wax.