Myths and Tales form Greece and Romania May 2012 | Page 111

Danila Prepeleac
by Ion Creanga
"Dănilă Haystack-Peg“
Is a fantasy short story/fairy tale, written in 1876 by Ion Creanga, one of the
greatest Romanian storytellers of all times. The story is structured around two
accounts. In the first part, the peasant hero, poor, lazy and idiotic, exposes his
incompetence and lack of foresight by becoming involved in a cycle of barters,
which results in him exchanging a pair of oxen for an empty bag. The second
portion of the text shows Dănilă's adventures inside a forest, where he
decides to become a hermit, not knowing that the land is inhabited by an
army of devils. Confronted by the latter, he survives a set of challenges by
outsmarting his adversaries, and, although losing one eye to demonic curses,
he becomes the recipient of a large fortune awarded by Satan himself.