The Peasant Astrologer

A king had lost a precious ring. He looked all over for it, but nowhere was it to be found. He issued a proclamation stating that the astrologer who could tell him where it was would be rich for the rest of his life. Now there was a peasant by the name of Gàmbara, who was penniless and could neither read nor write. "Would it be so hard to play the astrologer?" he wondered. "I think I'll try." So he went to the king.

The king took him at his word, and shut him up in a room to study. There was nothing in the room but a bed and a table with a great big astrology book on it, and paper, pen, and ink. Gàmbara sat down at the table and began leafing through the book without understanding a word. Every now and then he made marks on the paper with the pen. As he didn't know how to write, he produced some very strange marks indeed, and the servants bringing him his lunch and his dinner got the idea he was an extremely wise astrologer.

Those servants had been the very ones to steal the ring. With their guilty conscience, they imagined from the knowing looks Gàmbara gave them whenever they went in that he suspected them, although the astrologer was only trying to look like an authority in his field. Fearful of being found out, they couldn't bow and scrape enough. "Yes, honorable astrologer! Your least wishes, honorable astrologer, are orders!"

Gàmbara, who was no astrologer, but a peasant and therefore cunning, suspected right away the servants knew something about the ring. So he set a trap for them.

One day, at the hour they brought in his lunch, he hid under the bed. The head servant came in and found no one in the room. Under the bed Gàmbara said in a loud voice, "That's one of them!" The servant put the dish down and withdrew in fright.

The second servant came in and heard a voice that seemed to come from underground. "That's two of them!" He too ran off.

Then the third came in. "That's three of them!"

The servants talked things over. "We have been found out, and if the astrologer accuses us to the king, we are done for."

So they decided to go to the astrologer and confess their theft. "We are poor men," they began; "if you tell the king what you have learned, we are lost. Please take this purse of gold and don't betray us."

Gàmbara took the purse and replied, "I won't betray you, provided you do as I say. Take the ring and make that turkey out in the farmyard swallow it. Then leave everything to me."

The next day Gàmbara went to the king and said that after much study he had learned where the ring was.

"Where is it?"

"A turkey has swallowed it."

They cut the turkey open and discovered the ring. The king heaped riches on the astrologer and honored him with a banquet attended by all the counts, marquis, barons, and grandees in the kingdom.

Among the many dishes served was a platter of gamberi, which means crayfish. Now crayfish were unknown to that country. Those served at the banquet were a present from the king of another country, and it was the first time people here had seen them.

"Since you are an astrologer," said the king to the peasant, "you must know the name of these things on the platter here."

The poor soul, who'd never seen or heard of them, mumbled to himself, "Ah, Gàmbara, Gàmbara, you're done for at last."

"Bravo!" said the king, who didn't know the peasant's real name. "You guessed it, the name is gamberi\ You're the greatest astrologer in the world."