Chapter XIII: Part 13

'Agreed!' said the second fairy; and that very night, while everyone else was gone quietly to bed they went, one into the palace and fetched some of the queen's clothes, and, bringing them to the tripe-seller's room, placed them by the side of her bed; and the other went to the tripe-seller's room and fetched her clothes, and took them and put them by the side of the queen's bed. They also woke them very early, and when each got up she put on the things that were by the side of the bed, thinking they were the things she had left there the night before. Thus the queen was dressed like a tripe-seller, and the tripe-seller like a queen.

Then one fairy took the queen, dressed like a tripe-seller, and put her down in the tripe-seller's shop, and the other fairy took the tripe-seller, dressed like a queen, and placed her in the palace, and both of them did their work so swiftly that neither the queen nor the tripe-seller perceived the flight at all.

The queen was very much astonished at finding herself in a tripe-shop, and began staring about, wondering how she got there.

'Here! Don't stand gaping about like that!' cried the tripe-man, [351] who was a very hot-tempered fellow; 'Why, you haven't boiled the coffee!'

'Boiled the coffee!' repeated the queen, hardly apprehending what he meant.

'Yes; you haven't boiled the coffee!' said the tripe-man. 'Don't repeat my words, but do your work!' and he took her by the shoulders, put the coffee-pot in her hand, and stood over her looking so fierce that she was frightened into doing what she had never done or seen done in all her life before.

Presently the coffee began to boil over.

'There! Don't waste all the coffee like that!' cried the tripe-man, and he got up and gave her a slap, which made the tears come in her eyes.

'Don't blubber!' said the tripe-man; 'but bring the coffee here and pour it out.'

The queen did as she was told; but when she began to drink it, though she had made it herself, it was so nasty she didn't know how to drink it. It was very different stuff from what she got at the palace; but the tripe-man had his eye on her, and she didn't dare not to drink it.

'A halfp'th of cat's-meat!' [352] sang out a small boy in the shop.

'Why don't you go and serve the customer?' said the tripe-man, knocking the cup out of the queen's hand.

Fearing another slap, she rose hastily to give the boy what he wanted, but not knowing one thing in the shop from another, she gave him a large piece of the best tripe fit for a prince.

'Oh, what fine tripe to-day!' cried the small boy, and ran away as fast as he could.

It was in vain the tripe-man halloed after him, he was in too great a hurry to secure his prize to think of returning.

'Look what you've done!' cried the tripe-man, giving the queen another slap; 'you've given that boy for a penny a bunch of tripe worth a shilling.' Luckily, other customers came in and diverted the man's attention.

Presently all the tripe hanging up had been sold, and more customers kept coming in.

'What has come to you, to-day!' roared the tripe-man, as the queen stood not knowing what to do with herself. 'Do you mean to say you haven't washed that other lot of tripe!' and this time he gave her a kick.

To escape his fury, the queen turned to do her best with washing the other tripe, but she did it so awkwardly that she got a volley of abuse and blows too.

Then came dinner-time, and nothing prepared, or even bought to prepare, for dinner. Another stormy scene ensued at the discovery, and the tripe-man went to dine at the inn, leaving her to go without any dinner at all, in punishment for having neglected to prepare it.

While he was gone she helped all the customers to the wrong things, and, when he came home, got another scolding and more blows for her stupidity. And all through the afternoon it was the same story.

But the tripe-seller, when she found herself all in a palace, with half-a-dozen maids waiting to attend her, was equally bewildered. When they kept asking her if there was nothing she pleased to want, she kept answering, 'No thank you,' in such a gentle tone, the maids began to think that a reign of peace had come to them at last.

By-and-by, when the ladies came, instead of saying, as the queen had been wont, 'What an ugly dress you have got; go and take it off!' she said, 'How nice you look; how tasteful your dress is!'

Afterwards the king came in, bringing her a rare nosegay. Instead of throwing it on one side to vex him, as the queen had been wont, she showed so much delight, and expressed her thanks so many times, that he was quite overcome.

The change that had come over the queen soon became the talk of the whole palace, and everyone congratulated himself on an improvement which made them all happy. The king was no less pleased than all the rest, and for the first time for many years he said he would drive out with the queen; for on account of her bad temper he had long given up driving with her. So the carriage came round with four prancing horses, and an escort of cavalry to ride before and behind it. The tripe-seller hardly could believe she was to drive in this splendid carriage, but the king handed her in before she knew where she was. Then, as he was so pleased with her gentle and grateful ways, he further asked her to say which way she would like to drive.

The tripe-seller, partly because she was too much frightened to think of any other place, and partly because she thought it would be nice to drive in state through her own neighbourhood, named the broader street out of which turned the lane in which she lived, for the royal carriage could hardly have turned down the lane itself. The king repeated the order, and away drove the royal cortège.

The circumstance of the king and queen driving out together was sufficient to excite the attention of the whole population, and wherever they passed the people crowded into the streets; thus a volley of shouts and comments ran before the carriage towards the lane of the tripe-man. The tripe-man was at the moment engaged in administering a severe chastisement to the queen for her latest mistake, and the roar of the people's voices afforded a happy pretext for breaking away from him.

She ran with the rest to the opening of the lane just as the royal carriage was passing.

'My husband! my husband!' she screamed as the king drove by, and plaintive as was her voice, and different from her usual imperious tone, he heard it and turned his head towards her.

'My husband! my royal husband!' pleaded the humbled queen.

The king, in amazement, stopped the carriage and gazed from the queen in the gutter to the tripe-seller in royal array by his side, unable to solve the problem.

'This is certainly my wife!' he said at last, as he extended his hand to the queen. 'Who then can you be?' he added, addressing the tripe-seller.

'I will tell the truth,' replied the good tripe-seller. 'I am no queen; I am the poor wife of the tripe-seller down the lane there; but how I came into the palace is more than I can say.'

'And how come you here?' said the king, addressing the real queen.

'That, neither can I tell; I thought you had sent me hither to punish me for my bad temper; but if you will only take me back I will never be bad-tempered again; only take me away from this dreadful tripe-man, who has been beating me all day.'

Then the king made answer: 'Of course you must come back with me, for you are my wife. But,' he said to the tripe-seller; 'what shall I do with you? After you have been living in luxury in the palace, you will feel it hard to go back to sell tripe.'

'It's true I have not many luxuries at home,' answered the tripe-seller; 'but yet I had rather be with my husband than in any palace in the world;' and she descended from the carriage, while the queen got in.

'Stop!' said the king. 'This day's transformation, howsoever it was brought about, has been a good day, and you have been so well behaved, and so truth-spoken, I don't like your going back to be beaten by the tripe-man.'

'Oh, never mind that,' said the good wife; 'he never beats me unless I do something very stupid. And, after all, he's my husband, and that's enough for me.'

'Well, if you're satisfied, I won't interfere any further,' said the king; 'except to give you some mark of my royal favour.'

So he bestowed on the tripe-man and his wife a beautiful villa, with a nice casino outside the gates, on condition that he never beat her any more.

The tripe-man was so pleased with the gifts which had come to him through his wife's good conduct, that he kept his word, and was always thereafter very kind to her. And the queen was so frightened at the thought that she might find herself suddenly transformed into a tripe-seller again, that she kept a strict guard over her temper, and became the delight of her husband and the whole court.

THE BAD-TEMPERED QUEEN. [353]

They say there was a queen who was so bad-tempered that no one who could help it would come near her. All the servants ran away when she came out of her apartment, for fear she should scold and maltreat them; all the people ran away when she drove out, for fear she should vex them with some tyrannical order.

As she was rich and beautiful, and ruled over vast dominions, many princes--who in their distant kingdoms had heard nothing of her failing--came to sue for her hand, but she sent them all away and would have nothing to say to any of them. She used to say she did not want to have anyone to be her master; she had rather live and govern by herself, and have everything her own way.

As time went on, however, the council of state grew dissatisfied with this resolution. They insisted that she must marry, that there might be a family of princes to carry on the succession to the throne without dispute. When the queen found that she could not help it she agreed she would marry; but she was determined she would not marry any of the princes who had come to court her, because, as they were equal to herself in birth and state, they would want to rule over her and expect obedience from her. She declared she would marry no one but a certain duke, who, as she had observed in the council and in the state banquets and balls, was always very quiet and hardly ever spoke at all. She thought he would make a nice quiet manageable sort of husband, and she would have him if she must have one at all.

The duke was as silent as usual when he was spoken to about it; but as he made no objection he was reckoned to have consented, and the marriage was duly solemnised.

As soon as the marriage was over the queen went on making her arrangements and ordering matters in the palace just as if nothing had happened, and she were still her own mistress. In particular she issued invitations for the grandest ball she had ever given, asking to it all the ministers and their families, and all the nobility of the kingdom.

The husband said nothing to all this, only a few hours before the time appointed for the banquet he called to the queen, saying: 'Put on your travelling dress, and make haste; the carriage will be round directly.'

'I'm not going to put on my travelling dress,' answered the queen scornfully; 'I am just seeing about my evening dress for the banquet this evening.'

'If you are not ready in your travelling dress in five minutes, when the carriage comes round, it will be worse for you. Mind I have warned you.'

And he looked so determined that she quailed before him.

'How can we be going into the country, when I have invited half the kingdom to a banquet?' exclaimed the queen.

'I have invited no one,' answered the husband quietly. 'Don't stand hesitating when I tell you to do a thing; go and get ready directly! we are going into the country!' he added in his most positive voice, and, though she shed many secret tears over the loss of the banquet, she ventured to oppose nothing more to his orders, but went up and dressed, and when the carriage came round she was nearly ready. In about five minutes she came down.

'I won't say anything this time about your keeping me waiting,' he said when she appeared; 'but mind it does not happen again, or you will be sorry for it.'

The queen had a favourite little dog, which she fondled and talked to all the way, to show she was offended with her husband and independent of his conversation.

Watching an opportunity when she was silent, the husband said to the little dog, 'Jump on to my lap.'

'He's not going to obey you,' said the queen contemptuously; 'he's my dog!'

'I keep no one about me who does not obey me,' said her husband quietly; and he took out his pistol and shot the dog through the head.

The queen began to understand that the husband she had chosen was not a person to be trifled with, nor did she venture even to utter a complaint.

When they arrived at the villa, as the queen was going to her apartment to undress, her husband called her to him into his room and bade her pull off his boots.

The queen's first impulse was to utter a haughty refusal; but by this time she had learnt that, as she would certainly have to give in to him in the end, it was better to do his bidding with a good grace at the first. So she said nothing, but knelt down and pulled off his boots.

When she had done this he got up and said: 'Now sit down in this armchair and I will take off your shoes; for my way is that one should help the other. If you behave to me as a wife should, you need never fear but that I shall behave to you as a husband should.'

By the time their visit to the country was at an end, and when they returned to the capital, everybody found their naughty queen had become the most angelic being imaginable.

[After people's bad tempers, their follies form the most prolific subject of the Ciarpe.]

THE SIMPLE WIFE. [354]

There was a man and his wife who had a young daughter to marry; and there was a man who was seeking a wife. So the man who was seeking a wife came to the man who had a daughter to marry, and said, 'Give me your daughter for a wife.'

'Yes,' said the man who had a daughter to marry; [355] 'you'll do very well; you're just about the sort of son-in-law I want.' And then he added: 'If our daughter is to be betrothed to-day, it is the occasion for a feast.' So to the wife he said, 'Prepare the table;' and to the daughter he said, 'Draw the wine.'

The daughter went down into the cellar to draw the wine. But as she drew the wine she began to cry, saying: 'If I am to be married I shall have a child, and the child will be a son, and the son will be a priest, and the priest will be a bishop, and the bishop will be a cardinal, and the cardinal will be a pope.' And she cried and cried, and the wine was running all the time, so that the bottle [356] she was filling ran over, and went on running over.

Then said the father and mother: 'What can the girl be doing down in the cellar so long?' But the mother said: 'I must go and see.'

So the mother went down to see why she was so long, but the moment she came into the cellar she, too, began to cry; so that the wine still went on running over.

Then the father said: 'What can the girl and her mother both be doing so long down in the cellar? I must go and see.'

So the father went down into the cellar; but the moment he got into the cellar he, too, began to cry, and could do nothing for crying; so the wine still went on running over.

Then he who had come to seek a wife said: 'What can these people all be doing so long down in the cellar?' So he, too, went down to see, and found them all crying in the cellar and the wine running over. Only when the wine was all run out they left off crying and came upstairs again.

Then the betrothal and the marriage were happily celebrated.

One day after they were married the husband went into the market to buy meat, and he bought a large provision because he had invited a friend to dinner. When the wife saw him buy such a quantity of meat she began to cry, saying: 'What can we do with such a lot of meat?'

'Oh, never mind, don't make a misery of it,' said the husband; 'put it behind you.' [357]

The simple wife took the meat and went home, saying to her parents, [358] and crying the while: 'My husband says I am to put all this meat behind me! Do tell me what can I do?'

'You can't put the whole lot of it behind you, that's certain,' replied the equally simple mother; 'but we can manage it between us.'

Then she took the meat and put all the hard, bony part on one chair, where she made the father sit down on it; all the fat, skinny part she put on another chair, and made the wife sit down on it; and the fleshy, meaty part she put on another chair, and sat down on that herself.

Presently the husband came with his friend, ready for dinner, knocking at the door. None of the three dared to move, however, that they might not cease to be fulfilling his injunctions. Then he looked through the keyhole, and, seeing them all sitting down without moving when he knocked, he thought they must all be dead; so he ran and fetched a locksmith, who opened the door for him.

'What on earth are you all doing there,' exclaimed the hungry husband, 'instead of getting dinner ready?'

'You told me to put the meat behind me, and I have done so,' answered the simple wife.

Then he saw they were sitting on the meat. Out of all patience with such idiocy, he exclaimed: 'This is the last you'll ever see of me. At least I promise you not to come back till I have met three other people as idiotic as you, and that's hardly likely to occur.'

With that he took his friend to a tavern to dine, and then put on a pilgrim's dress and went wandering over the country.

In the first city he came to there was great public rejoicing going on. The princess had just been married, and the court was keeping high festival. As he came up to the palace the bride and bridegroom were just come back from church. The bride wore one of those very high round headdresses that they used to wear in olden time, with a long veil hanging from it. It was so very high that she could not by any means get in at the door, and there she stuck, not knowing what to do. Then she began to cry, saying: 'What shall I do? what shall I do?'

'Shall I tell you what to do?' said the pilgrim-husband, drawing near.

'Oh, pray do, if you can; I will give you a hundred scudi if you will only show me how to get in.'

So he went and made her go a few steps backward, and then bow her head very low, and so she could pass under the door.

'Really, I have found one woman as simple as my people at home,' said the pilgrim-husband, as he sat down to the banquet at the special invitation of the princess, in reward for his services. Afterwards she counted out a hundred scudi to him, and he went further.

Further along the road he came to a farm, with barns and cattle and plenty of stock about, and a large well at which a woman was drawing water. Instead of dipping in the pail, she had got the well-rope knotted into a huge knot, which she kept dipping into the water and squeezing out into the pail, and she kept crying as she did so: 'Oh, how long shall I be filling the pail! The pail will never be full!'

'Shall I show you how to fill it?' asked the pilgrim-husband, drawing near.

'Oh, yes, do show me if you can. I will give you a hundred scudi if you will only show me.'

Then he took all the knots out of the rope and let down the pail by it, and filled it in a minute.

'Here's a second woman as stupid as my people at home,' said the pilgrim-husband, as the farmer's wife asked him in to dinner in reward for his great services; 'if I go on at this rate I shall have to return to her at last, in spite of my protestations.'

After that the farmer's wife counted out the hundred scudi of the promised reward, and he went on further, having first packed six eggs into his hollow staff as provision for the journey.

Towards nightfall he arrived at a lone cottage. Here he knocked and asked a bed for his night's lodging.

'I can't give you that,' said a voice from the inside; 'for I am a lone widow. I can't take a man in to sleep here.'

'But I am a pilgrim,' replied he; 'let me in at least to cook a bit of supper.'

'That I don't mind doing,' said the good wife, and she opened the door.

'Thanks, good friend!' said the pilgrim-husband as he sat down by the stove; 'now add to your charity a couple of eggs in a pan.' [359]

So she gave him a pan and two eggs, and a bit of butter to cook them in; but he took the six eggs out of his staff and broke them into the pan, too.

Presently, when the good wife turned her head his way again, and saw eight eggs swimming in the pan instead of two, she said: 'Lack-a-day! you must surely be some strange being from the other world. Do you know so-and-so there' (naming her dead husband)?

'Oh, yes,' said the pilgrim-husband, enjoying the joke; 'I know him very well; he lives just next to me.'

'Only to think of that!' replied the poor woman. 'And do tell me, how do you get on in the other world? What sort of a life is it?'

'Oh, not so very bad; it depends what sort of a place you get. The part where we are is not very bad, except that we get very little to eat. Your husband, for instance, is nearly starved.'

'No, really!' cried the good wife, clasping her hands; 'only fancy! my good husband starving out there; so fond as he was of a good dinner, too!' Then she added, coaxingly: 'As you know him so well, perhaps you wouldn't mind doing him the charity of taking him a little somewhat to give him a treat. There are such lots of things I could easily send him.'

'O, dear no, not at all; I'll do it with great pleasure,' answered he; 'but I'm not going back till to-morrow; and if I don't sleep here I must go on further, and then I shan't come by this way.'

'That's true,' replied the widow. 'Ah, well, I mustn't mind what the folks say, for such an opportunity as this may never occur again. You must sleep in my bed, and I must sleep on the hearth; and in the morning I'll load a donkey with provisions for my poor dear husband.'

'Oh, no,' replied the pilgrim; 'you shan't be disturbed in your bed; only let me sleep on the hearth, that will do for me; and as I'm an early riser I can be gone before anyone's astir, so folks won't have anything to say.'

So it was done, and an hour before sunrise the woman was up loading the donkey with the best of her stores. There were ham, and maccaroni, and flour, and cheese, and wine. All this she committed to the pilgrim, saying: 'You'll send the donkey back, won't you?'

'Of course I would send him back; he'd be no use to us out there: but I shan't get out again myself for another hundred years or so, and I fear he won't find his way back alone, for it's no easy way to find.'

'To be sure not; I ought to have thought of that,' replied the widow. 'Ah, well, so as my poor husband gets a good meal never mind the donkey.'

So the pretended pilgrim from the other world went his way. He hadn't gone a hundred yards before the widow called him back.

'Ah, she's beginning to think better of it!' said he to himself; and he continued his way, pretending not to hear.

'Good pilgrim!' shouted the widow; 'I forgot one thing. Would any money be of use to my poor dear husband?'

'Oh dear yes, all the use in the world,' replied the pilgrim; 'you can always get anything for money everywhere.'

'Oh, do come back then, and I'll trouble you with a hundred scudi for him.'

The pretended pilgrim came back willingly for the hundred scudi, and the widow counted them out to him.

'There is no help for it,' soliloquised he as he went his way; 'I must go back to those at home. I have actually found three women each more stupid than they.'

So he went home to live, and complained no more of the simplicity of his wife.

[We have the German of this story in 'Die Klugen Leute,' Grimm, p. 407, and again the beginning of it in 'Die Kluge Else' (Clever Lizzie), Grimm, p. 137 (which ends with the desperation of the wife as the second Roman version ends with the death of the husband); in some variants given in the 'Russian Folk Tales,' pp. 53-4; in an Italian-Tirolese tale, 'Le donne matte' (the title resembling that of the next Roman version); and the ending, in the Norse 'Not a pin to choose between them.' Senhor de Saraiva told me the following Portuguese story entitled 'Pedro da Malas Artes' (Tricky Peter), which embodies these incidents, but opens with a different purport.

Tricky Peter was a knowing blade; so he went out on his travels to set all the world straight; and he found plenty to do.

In the very first town he came to there was a great commotion. A bride had come to church to be married, and there she stuck at the church door, mounted on her mule, while the people deliberated whether they should facilitate her ingress by cutting off some of her head or some of the mule's legs.

'Let her alight and walk in,' said Tricky Peter; 'and the door will be high enough.' And all the people applauded his wisdom.

At the next town he found the people all full of discontent, because one of them had to sit up by turns to tell the others when the sun rose.

'I'll give you a bird to perform that office,' said Tricky Peter; and he went home and fetched a cock, and then they could all rest comfortably.

After this the story has no more silly people to deal with; but Peter fools a giant, and overcomes his strength with craft. He does not seem, either, to get paid for his services, as do the heroes of 'La Sposa Cese,' and all the others.

I have also another Roman story (too long to print here) of a man who sets out with a different purpose again, who meets with three sets of people afflicted with similar follies, and who also makes a good deal of money by his counsel; together with various stories in which men go to fetch their wives back from the devil's kingdom, get three commissions of a similar nature by the way, for executing which they get richly paid on their return.

There is a story in the 5th Tantra given as 'Le Brahme aux vains projets' in Abbé Dubois' translation of the 'Pantcha-Tantra,' which has an analogous opening to that of 'La Sposa Cece.' There is another among the 'Contes Indiens' published at the end of it, in which four Brahmans have a great dispute as to which of them can claim to be the greatest idiot--a strife only second in folly to that of the 'Three Indolent Boys' in Grimm, p. 551--and they each narrate such proof of having acted with consummate folly that the decision given is that there is not a pin to choose between them.

In a somewhat analogous story, which he calls 'Aventures du Gourou Paramarta,' one of the disciples commits the counting mistake 'of the well-known Irishman,' in omitting to reckon himself in his computation, also found in the Russian 'Folk Tales,' p. 54, and they go to buy a foal's egg, just as do certain peasants of the Trentino in an Italian-Tirolese 'storiella da rider' [360] (laughable story).]

LA SPOSA CECE.

2

Another version of this story was told me, or rather an entirely different story embodying the same purport, which, though full of fun, turned on the double meanings of common words of household use too homely for the most part, and some too coarse to please the English reader. The husband, among other things, tells his wife to prepare dinner for a friend and to mind she has 'brocoli strascinati' and 'uovi spersi,' [361] as they are his favourite dishes. 'Strascinare' is to drag anything along, but is technically used to express brocoli chopped up and fried, the commonest Roman dish. 'Spergere' is to scatter, but the word is used among common people to express eggs poached in broth, a favourite delicacy; (eggs poached as in England are called 'uova in bianco'). The wife, taking the words literally, drags the brocoli all over the house and all over the yard, till it is so nasty it cannot be eaten, instead of frying it, and scatters the eggs all about the place instead of poaching them, and so on through a number of other absurdities difficult to explain in detail. In the end the husband falls ill, partly from her bad cooking and partly from annoyance; a doctor is called in, who tells her (among other directions which she similarly misunderstands), that he must have nothing but 'brodo,' [362] but she is to make it 'alto, alto.' 'Alto' is literally 'high,' but he uses it for 'good,' 'strong;' she, however, understands him to mean her to make it in a high place, and goes up on the roof to make it. When the husband asks for it she says she cannot get it for him then as it is up on the roof.

Ultimately the husband dies of vexation.

There is a very familiar German story which everyone who has any acquaintance with the people must have met, of a lady who complains to her servant that the tea has not 'drawn,' and the simple girl answers, 'It is not my fault, I have drawn it all about the place enough I'm sure' (Ich hab' es genug umhergezogen).

THE FOOLISH WOMAN. [363]

There was once a couple well-to-do in the world, who had one only daughter.

The son of a neighbour came to ask her in marriage, and as the father thought he would do, the father asked him to dinner, and sent the daughter down into the cellar to draw the wine.

'If I am married,' said the girl to herself, and began to cry as she drew the wine, 'I shall have a child, and the child will be a boy, and the boy will be called Petrillo, and by-and-by he will die, and I shall be left to lament him, and to cry all day long "Petrillo! Petrillo! where are you!"' and she went on crying, and the wine went on running over.

Then the mother went down to see what kept her so long, and she repeated the story all over to her, and the mother answered, 'Right you are, my girl!' and she, too, began to cry, and the wine was all the time running over.

Then the father went down, and they repeated the story to him, and he, too, said, 'Right you are!' and he, too, began to cry, and the wine all the time went on running all over the floor.

Then the young man also goes down to see what is the matter, and stops the wine running, and makes them all come up.

'But,' he says, 'I'll not marry the girl till I have wandered over the world and found other three as simple as you.' He dines with them, and sets out on his search.

The first night he goes to bed in an inn, and in the morning he hears in the room next him such lamenting and complaining that he goes in to see what is the matter. A man is sitting by the side of the bed lamenting because he cannot get his stockings on.

The young man says, 'Take hold of one side this way, and the other side that way, and pull them up.'

'Ah, to be sure!' cries the man, and gives him a hundred scudi for the benefit he has done him.

'There's one of my three simpletons, at all events,' says the young man, and journeys on.

The next day, at the inn where he spends the night, he hears a noise bru, bru! goes in to see, and finds a man fruitlessly trying to put walnuts into a sack by sticking a fork into them.

'You'll never do it that way,' says the young man; and he shows him how to scoop them up with both his hands and so pour them in.

'Ah, to be sure!' answers the man, and gives him a hundred scudi for the favour he has done him.

'There is my second simpleton,' says the young man, and goes further.

The third day----Ah! I can't remember what he meets the third day; but it is something equally stupid, and he gets another hundred scudi, and goes back and marries the girl as he had promised.

When they had been married some time, he goes out for two or three days to shoot.

'I'll come with you,' says the wife.

'Well, it's not quite the thing,' answered he; 'but perhaps it's better than leaving you at home; but mind you pull the door after you.'

'Oh yes, of course,' answers the simple wife, and pulls it so effectually that she lifts it off its hinges and carries it along with her.

When they had gone some way he looks back and sees her carrying the door.

'What on earth are you bringing the door along for!' he cries.

'You told me to pull it after me,' answers she.

'Of course, I only meant you to pull it to, to make the house secure,' he says.

'If merely pulling it to, made the house secure, how much securer it must be when I pull it all this way!' answers she.

He finds it useless to reason with her, and they go on. At night they climb up into a tree to sleep, the woman still carrying the door with her. A band of robbers come and count their gains under the tree; the woman from sheer weariness, and though she believes it will rouse the robbers to come and kill them, drops the door upon them. They take it for an earthquake and run away. The man and his wife then gather up the money, and are rich for the rest of their lives.

2

[A version from Sinigaglia was very like the last. It only took up the story, however, after the husband and wife are married. The first silly thing the wife does is the feat of the 'brocoli strascinati,' as in 'La Sposa Cece,' No. 2. Some variety is always thrown in in the way of telling. This wife was represented as having a very sweet voice, and saying, 'Si, si, marito mio!' in the gentlest and tenderest way in the world, to everything her husband tells her, though she mismanages everything so. After the brocoli affair he tells her to cook some beans for dinner. 'Si, si, marito mio,' she says in her sweet tone, but takes four beans only and boils them in a pot of water. When he comes in and asks if the beans are done, she says, 'Si, si, marito mio!' She says she has cooked two beans apiece, but one has boiled away, so she will only take one for her share.

He finds it impossible to live with her, and goes away, but she in her simplicity says if he goes away she will go with him! When he finds he can't prevent this he tells her to pull the door after her, and the story has the same ending as the last.

After tales of simple wives come similar tales of simple boys. Compare 'Russian Folktales,' pp. 10 and 49. An analogous incident to the selling of the linen to a statue in the following is told of a grown-up peasant in Grimm's 'Der gute Handel,' p. 30, which story is not unlike one called 'How the poorest became the richest' I have given from the German-Tirolese province of Vorarlberg at the end of 'Household Stories from the Land of Höfer,' a close counterpart of which I have met in a Roman periodical, told as collected at Modena. The Italian-Tirolese counterpart bears the name of 'Turlulù,' and resembles the Roman very closely. There is a place in German Tirol where they not only tell the story, but point out the Bildstocklein (the wayside image), to which the simple boy sold his linen; I cannot recall the place now, though I remember having occasion to mention it in 'Traditions of Tirol' in the 'Monthly Packet.' In the German there is also 'Der gescheidte Hans,' which is somewhat different in structure; but Scheible, 'Schaltjahr,' i. 493, gives a story which contains both ways of telling.]

THE BOOBY. [364]

They say there was once a widow woman who had a very simple son. Whatever she set him to do he muddled in some way or other.

'What am I to do?' said the poor mother to a neighbour one day. 'The boy eats and drinks, and has to be clothed; what am I to do if I am to make no profit of him?'

'You have kept him at home long enough;' answered the neighbour. 'Try sending him out, now; maybe that will answer better.'

The mother took the advice, and the next time she had got a piece of linen spun she called her boy, and said to him:

'If I send you out to sell this piece of linen, do you think you can manage to do it without committing any folly?'

'Yes, mama,' answered the booby.

'You always say "yes mama," but you do contrive to muddle everything all the same,' replied the mother. 'Now, listen attentively to all I say. Walk straight along the road without turning to right or left; don't take less than such and such a price for it. Don't have anything to say to women who chatter; whether you sell it to anyone you meet by the way, or carry it into the market, offer it only to some quiet sort of body whom you may see standing apart, and not gossiping and prating, for such as they will persuade you to take some sort of a price that won't suit me at all.'

The booby promised to follow these directions very exactly, and started on his way.

On he walked, turning neither to the right hand nor to the left, thus passing the turnings which led to the villages, to one or other of which he ought to have gone. But his mother had only meant that he was not to turn off the pathway and lose himself.

Presently he met the wife of the syndic of the next town, who was driving out with her maids, but had got out to walk a little stretch of the way, as the day was fine. The syndic's wife was talking cheerfully with her maids, and when one of them caught sight of the simpleton, she said to her mistress:

'Here is the simple son of the poor widow by the brook.'

'What are you going to do, my good lad?' said the syndic's wife kindly.

'Not going to tell you, because you were chattering and gossiping,' replied the booby boorishly, and tried to pass on.

The syndic's wife forgave his boorishness, and added:

'I see your mother has sent you to sell this piece of linen. I will buy it of you, and that will save you walking further; put it in the carriage, and I'll give you so much for it.'

Though she had offered him twice as much as his mother had told him to get for it, he would only answer:

'Can't sell it to you, because you were chattering and gossiping.'

Nor could they prevail on him to stop a moment longer.

Further along he came to a statue by the roadside.

'Here's one who stands apart and doesn't chatter,' said the booby to himself. 'This is the one to sell the linen to.' Then aloud to the statue, 'Will you buy my linen, good friend?' Then to himself. 'She doesn't speak, so it's all right.' Then to the statue, 'The price is so-and-so; have the money ready against I come back, as I have to go on and buy some yarn for mother.'

On he went and bought the yarn, and then came back to the statue. Some one passing by meanwhile, and seeing the linen lie there had picked it up and walked off with it.

Finding it gone, the booby said to himself, 'It's all right, she's taken it.' Then to the statue, 'Where's the money I told you to have ready against I came back?' As the statue remained silent, the booby began to get uneasy. 'My mother will be finely angry if I go back without the linen or the money,' he said to himself. Then to the statue, 'If you don't give me the money directly I'll hit you on the head.'

The booby was as good as his word; lifting his thick rough walking-stick, he gave the statue such a blow that he knocked the head off.

But the statue was hollow, and filled with gold coin.

'That's where you keep your money, is it?' said the booby, 'all right, I can pay myself.' So he filled his pockets with money and went back to his mother.

'Look, mama! here's the price of the piece of linen.'

'All right!' said the mother out loud; but to herself she said, 'where can I ever hide all this lot of money? I have got no place to hide it but in this earthen jar, and if he knows how much it is worth, he will be letting out the secret to other people, and I shall be robbed.'

So she put the money in the earthen jar, and said to the boy:

'They've cheated you in making you think that was coin; it's nothing but a lot of rusty nails; [365] but never mind, you'll know better next time.' And she went out to her work.

While she was gone out to her work there came by an old rag-merchant.

'Ho! here, rag-merchant!' said the booby, who had acquired a taste for trading. 'What will you give me for this lot of rusty nails?' and he showed him the jar full of gold coin.

The rag-merchant saw that he had to do with an idiot, so he said:

'Well, old nails are not worth very much; but as I'm a good-natured old chap, I'll give you twelve pauls for them,' because he knew he must offer enough to seem a prize to the idiot.

'You may have them at that,' said the booby. And the rag-merchant poured the coin out into his sack, and gave the fool the twelve pauls.

'Look mama, look! I've sold that lot of old rusty worthless nails for twelve pauls. Isn't that a good bargain?'

'Sold them for twelve pauls!' cried the widow, tearing her hair, 'Why, it was a fortune all in gold coin.'

'Can't help it, mama,' replied the booby; 'you told me they were rusty nails.'

Another day she told him to shut the door of the cottage; but as he went to do it he lifted the door off its hinges. His mother called after him in an angry voice, which so frightened him that he ran away, carrying the door on his back.

As he went along, some one to tease him, said, 'Where did you steal that door?' which frightened him still more, and he climbed up in a tree with it to hide it.

At night there came a band of robbers under the tree, and counted out all their gains in large bags of money. The booby was so frightened at the sight of so many fierce-looking robbers, that he began to tremble and let go of the door.

The door fell with a bang in the midst of the robbers, who thinking it must be that the police were upon them, decamped, leaving all their money behind.

The booby came down from the tree and carried the money home to his mother, and they became so rich that she was able to appoint a servant to attend to him, and keep him from doing any more mischief.

[After the boys, the girls come in for their share of hard jokes; here is one who figures both as a daughter and a wife. Grimm has the same, with a slight variation, as 'Rumpelstilzchen,' p. 219, and the Italian-Tirol Tales give it as 'Tarandandò;' the incident on which these two hinge of a supernatural being giving his help on condition of the person he favours remembering his name, is of frequent occurrence. I have met it in two German-Tirolese stories, 'The Wilder Jäger and the Baroness,' and in 'Klein-Else' in 'Household Stories,' and in a local tradition told me at Salzburg, which I have given in 'Traditions of Tirol,' No. XVI. in 'Monthly Packet,' each time the sprite gets a new name; in this one it was 'Hahnenzuckerl.' The supernatural helper delivering the girl from future as well as present labour occurs in the Spanish equivalent, 'What Ana saw in the Sunbeam,' in 'Patrañas,' but in favour of a good, instead of a lazy or greedy girl; and so with the girl in the Norse tale of 'The Three Aunts.' 'Die faule Spinnerin,' Grimm, p. 495, helps herself to the same end without supernatural aid.]

THE GLUTTONOUS GIRL. [366]

There was a poor woman who went out to work by the day. She had one idle, good-for-nothing daughter, who would never do any work, and cared for nothing but eating, always taking the best of everything for herself, and not caring how her mother fared.

One day the mother, when she went out to her work, left the girl some beans to cook for dinner, and some pieces of bacon-rind [367] to stew along with them. When the pieces of bacon-rind were nicely done, she took them out and ate them herself, and then found a pair of dirty old shoe-soles, which she pared in slices, and put them into the stew for her mother.

When the poor mother came home, not only were there no pieces of bacon which she could eat, but the beans themselves were rendered so nasty by the shoe-soles that she could not eat them either. Determined to give her daughter a good lesson, once for all, on this occasion, she took her outside her cottage door, and beat her well with a stick.

Just as she was administering this chastisement, a farmer [368] came by.

'What are you beating this pretty lass for?' asked the man.

'Because she will work so hard at her household duties that she works on Sundays and holidays the same as common days,' answered the mother, who, bad as her daughter was, yet had not the heart to give her a bad character.

'That is the first time I ever heard of a mother beating her child for doing too much work; the general complaint is that they do too little. Will you let me have her for a wife? I should like such a wife as that.'

'Impossible!' replied the mother, in order to enhance her daughter's value; 'she does all the work of the house, I can't spare her; what shall I do without her?'

'I must give you something to make up for the loss,' replied the merchant; 'but such a notable wife as this I have long been in search of, and I must not miss the chance.'

'But I cannot spare such a notable daughter, either,' persisted the mother.

'What do you say if I give you five hundred scudi?'

'If I let her go, it is not because of the five hundred scudi,' said the mother; 'it is because you seem a husband, who will really appreciate her; though I don't say five hundred scudi will not be a help to a poor lone widow.'

'Let it be agreed then. I am going now to the fair; when I come back let the girl be ready, and I'll take her back with me.'

Accordingly, when the farmer returned from the fair, he fetched the girl away.

When he got home his mother came out to ask how his affairs had prospered at the fair.

'Middling well, at the fair,' replied the man; 'but, by the way, I found a treasure, and I have brought her home to make her my wife. She is so hardworking that she can't be kept from working, even on Sundays.'

'She doesn't look as if there was much work in her,' observed the mother dryly; 'but if you're satisfied that's enough.'

All went well enough the first week, because she was not expected to do much just at first, but at the end of that time the husband had to go to a distant fair which would keep him absent three weeks. Before he went he took his new wife up into the store-room, and said, 'Here are provisions of all sorts, and you will have all you like to eat and drink; and here is a quantity of hemp, which you can amuse yourself with spinning and weaving if you want more employment than merely keeping the place in order.'

Then he gave her a set of rooms to herself, next the store-chamber, that there might be no cause of quarrel with the mother-in-law, who, he knew, was inclined to be jealous of her, and said good-bye.

Left to herself, she did no more work than she could help; all the nice things she found she cooked and ate, and that was all the work she did. As to the hemp, she never touched it; nor did she even clean up the place, or attempt to put it tidy.

When the husband had been gone a fortnight, the mother-in-law came up to see how she was going on, and when she saw the hemp untouched, and the place in disorder, she said, 'So this is how you go on when your husband is away!'

'You mind your affairs, and I'll mind mine,' [369] answered the wife, and the mother-in-law went away offended.

Nevertheless, it was true that in eight days the husband would be back, and might expect to see something done, so she took up a lot of hemp and began trying to spin it; but, as she had no idea of how to do it, she went on in the most absurd way imaginable with it.