Transcript of “The Devil’s Daughter is Getting Married”
Hello, welcome to A Way with Words.
Thank you. My name is Luciano Moral.
I am calling from Augusta, Kentucky, but I am a Cuban man that came from Cuba in 1962.
Okay, wow.
Augusta is my home now, and it is a beautiful town right on the Ohio River.
What’s on your mind, Luciano?
Well, I was listening to your program about the different ideas of the way people talk about raining when it rains and the sun shines.
And so happens that in Cuba, when it rains and the sun is shining, they say that the devil’s daughter is getting married.
But years ago, I worked at a restaurant that belonged to Trudy Siebel, better known as Trudy Russell at that time.
And it was at Forest View Gardens in Cincinnati.
I was a cook there, and there were the people that raised me.
And she was also my voice teacher because I’m an opera singer.
And the lady that worked there with me was called Mildred Battle.
And I mentioned to her that the devil’s daughter was getting married because the sun was shining.
And Mildred Battle was from Alabama, an African-American woman.
And she says, oh, no, no, the devil’s daughter is getting beaten.
So I found that very, very amazing that the correlation between the people in Cuba and the people in Alabama had this connection.
My question was, do you think that this idea came from the slaves that came from Africa to the New World, or was it something that Europeans used to say?
Wow, you’ve got the whole story there, Luciano.
Yeah, give us a Spanish for that.
It would be something like, la hija del diablo se está casando.
Mm-Se está casando.
Yeah, and it means the devil’s daughter is getting married.
But then you had a friend who said, oh, no, no, no, it’s not that.
It’s that the devil is beating his wife.
That’s right.
Mildred Battle.
She was from Alabama.
When I said this, she says, oh, no, no, no.
The devil is beating his daughter.
And since then I’ve been thinking, well, how does these two things happen to come together?
And it has to be something that must have been brought from Africa by the slaves, you know, that came to work in Cuba.
Well, Luciano, what’s really interesting about those two expressions is that they are part of a huge family of expressions from all over the world involving those sun showers is what I call them.
You know, when it’s raining while the sun is still shining.
And all of these expressions, some involving the devil and some involving other things, they all suggest that something very rare and supernatural is happening.
But they’re not all as grim as the one that your friend described, the devil is beating his wife.
In Mexico, actually, sometimes they say, las conejas están pariendo.
Sí.
The rabbits are giving birth.
Yeah, they’re having babies.
Yeah, have you heard that one before?
Nunca.
Never, never did I listen to that.
Or in Puerto Rico, they say, están casando una bruja.
They are marrying a witch.
Yes.
I never heard that either.
So, Martha, these are all over the world.
We’re not just talking Spanish-speaking or English-speaking cultures, right?
Right.
In Korea, it’s tigers are getting married.
In Bulgaria, it’s bears are getting married.
Really?
In some Arabic-speaking countries, rats are getting married.
And if you go to South Africa, you’ll hear people talk about a monkey’s wedding.
And, you know, they look out the window and they say, oh, it’s a monkey’s wedding, meaning the monkeys are getting married because it’s this weird supernatural event that’s happening.
Well, that’s very cool.
Thank you so much for sharing that expression.
I certainly enjoy and I love your program.
Oh, thank you so much.
Thanks for calling.
Thank you.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
