A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.
Overview
Two impoverished companions from Parma separately encounter the same strange company. The first hides in a courtyard after mistaking a cheese-seller’s call for a threat against himself. At one o’clock he hears chains and a chorus repeating Saturday and Sunday. His addition of Monday pleases the singers, who find him, place him on a table, remove his hump, heal him and give him two bags of money. Their appearance and individual names remain unstated.
The second traveller follows the directions but hears that Monday has already been incorporated into the chorus. His addition of Tuesday offends the company. They beat him and place his companion’s removed hump on his chest, leaving him with both his own and the added deformity. He returns home distressed, but the first man feeds him daily. The ending treats that friendship separately from the chorus’s harsh reward-and-punishment logic. The narrative supplies a supernatural bodily operation without calling these singers by a specific fairy species or describing horns, wings or small stature.
Origins & earliest records
Crane, Italian Popular Tales (1885), XXVII: The Two Humpbacks, pp. 103–104; Tuscan source, Imbriani, Novellaja fiorentina, p. 559, I due Gobbi.
Records & interpretation
The complete selected narrative identifies the company through its song, chains and supernatural removal or transfer of a bodily hump. Its otherwise unspecified identity is preserved.
Selected bibliography
Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.
- 01
Italian Popular Tales, XXVII: The Two Humpbacks, pp. 103–104
Complete selected account, including the first traveller’s continued support of the second; no specific species identity supplied.
Family & connections
A source-supported family tree or inspiration record has not yet been compiled for this profile. Related reading below indicates a connection in subject matter, not a proven lineage or creative influence.
References
Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.
- Primary textCrane 1885: The Two HumpbacksResearch access: 2026-10-05
Image credits
A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.