st
st
# 85 NOVEMBER 21 , 2016
to this mythical tail of hay.
I remember that I once
forgot the milk out of the
fridge, but I pretended I
didn’t do it, and my mom
told me I had a tail of hay.
And then, there was that
time in which my brother
and I broke a ceramic angel on top of the shelf, but
we glued it back together,
and just by looking at our
expressions she asked us
if we had a tail of hay for
some reason. Well, it kind
of seems that every time I
did something wrong, and
I really, really feared I was
going to get caught, I had
a tail of hay. Mystery solved! Having a tail of hay,
in fact, means exactly that:
the feeling you get while
trying to avoid humiliation
or shame for your actions.
Even though in my case,
I actually always got busted.
# 85 November 21 2016
had to parade all around
town. Moreover, the town
people might light the tail
on fire as an additional punishment. Not really a gesture of kindness. The tail
was put as a symbol of degradation from human to
the state of animals. This
punishment would not
only create a sense of humiliation, but also of guilt,
responsibility of the mistake made, and mistrust of
all the people around the
humiliated. All emotions
that a person, like me, who
had a tail of hay felt before.
This version also seems to
have some historical base.
In Manipulus Florum, Galvano Fiamma describes
an event in which the Milanese people made the
defeated people of Pavia
walk out of their town with
a tail of hay attached.
an ancient tale in which a
fox got his tail caught in
a trap while trying to get
some chickens in a farm.
The fox managed to free
itself and run away, but it
lost its beautiful tail. Too
ashamed to go around
and be seen without its
tail, the fox decided to attached a fake tail, made
out of hay, trying to fool
the other animals. However, the farm owners notice
the fake tail and lit a fire in
front of every chicken-coop. The fox, afraid of catching on fire, couldn’t get
close to the chicken-coop
Whichever you decide to
and
to
the
chickens
anyThe origin of the expresbelieve, the fable or the
more.
The
fox
hasn’t
been
sion is not really clear, themore vicious historical
that
cleaver
after
all.
re are many theories, and,
version, either one didn’t
as it is with all things like
end very well for the proThe
second
version
goes
this, everyone wants to be
tagonists of the stories. It’s
back
to
an
old
Medieval
the one who used it first
really up to you to decide.
custom.
As
a
humiliation
or invented it. However, I’ll
Anyhow, you have to be
to
defeated
enemies
or
narrow it down to my two
careful, if you have a tail of
as
a
punishment
to
crimifavorites.
hay, it won’t be long befonals, people used to attare it catches on fire!
ch
a
tail
made
out
of
hay
In the first version, the
expression derives from to them, with which they
read more #Italian Little Italies
ITALIAN LITTLE ITALIES:
Fornelli, The country of
the seven towers
By I Borghi più belli d’Italia
One of the best preserved village of Molise with
planning system that still
reflects the original one,
to make it interesting is
the small village of stoves,
of course excluding the
buildings recently built,
anonymous and of poor
quality, that extends outside of the historic center. It
is almost a miracle that the
curtain wall is preserved,
even if the towers were
adapted to the needs of
the inhabitants.
Although not having buildings of particular architectural rec alls, this
small village is therefore
valuable for the compactness of its historic urban
structure, a rarity in other
34 | WE THE ITALIANS
WE THE ITALIANS | 35
www.wetheitalians.com
www.wetheitalians.com