LEGENDARY TALES AND ESEMPJ.

LEGENDARY TALES AND ESEMPJ.WHEN JESUS CHRIST WANDERED ON EARTH.1One day the Madonna was carrying the Bambino through a lupin-field, and the stalks of the lupins rustled so, that she thought it was a robber coming to kill the Santo Bambino.1She turned, and sent a malediction over the lupin-field, and immediately the lupins all withered away and fell flat and dry on the ground, so that she could see there was no one hidden there. When she saw there was no one hidden there, she sent a benediction over the lupin-field, and the lupins all stood up straight again, fair and flourishing, and with tenfold greater produce than they had at the first.2One day when Jesus Christ was grown up, and went about preaching, He came to a certain village and knocked at the first door, and said, ‘Give me a lodging.’2But the master of the house shut the door in his face, saying, ‘Here is nothing for you.’ He came to the next house, and received the same answer; and the next, and the next, no one in all the village would take Him in. Weary and footsore, He came to the cottage of a poor little old woman, who lived all alone on the outskirts, and knocked there. ‘Who is there?’3asked the old woman. ‘The Master with the Apostles,’ answered Jesus Christ. The old woman opened the door, and let them all in. ‘Have you no fire?’ asked Jesus Christ. ‘No fire have I,’ answered the old woman. Then Jesus Christ blessed the hearth, and there came a pile of wood on it,and a fire was soon made. ‘Have you nothing to give us to eat?’ asked Jesus Christ. ‘Nothing worth offering you,’ answered the old woman; ‘here is a little fish’ (it was a little fish, that, not so long as my hand) ‘and some crusts of bread, which they gave me at the eating-shop in charity just now, and that’s all I have;’ and she set both on the table. ‘Have you no wine?’ again asked Jesus Christ. ‘Only this flask of wine and water they gave me there, too;’ and she set it before Him.Then Jesus Christ blessed all the things, and handed them round the table, and they all dined off them, and at the end there remained just the same as at the beginning. When they had finished, He said to the old woman, ‘This fire, with the bread, and the fish, and the wine, will always remain to you, and never diminish as long as you live. And now follow Me a little way.’The Master went on before with His Apostles, and the old woman followed after, a little way behind. And behold, as they walked along, all the houses of that inhospitable village fell down one after the other, and all the inhabitants were buried under them. Only the cottage of the old woman was left standing. When the judgment was complete, Jesus Christ said to her, ‘Now, return home.’4As she turned to go, St. Peter said to her, ‘Ask for the salvation of your soul.’ And she went and asked it of Jesus Christ, and He replied, ‘Let it be granted you!’3One day as He was going into the Temple, He saw two men quarrelling before the door: a young man and an old man. The young man wanted to go in first, and the old man was vindicating the honour of his grey hairs.‘What is the matter?’ asked Jesus Christ; and they showed Him wherefore they strove.Jesus Christ said to the young man, ‘If you are desirous to go in first, you must accept the state to which honour belongs,’ and He touched him, and he became an old man, bowed in gait, feeble, and grey-haired, while to the old man He gave the compensation for the insult he had received, by investing him with the youth of the other.4In the days when Jesus Christ roamed the earth, He found Himself one day with His disciples in the Campagna, far from anything like home. The only shelter in sight was a cottage of wretched aspect. Jesus Christ knocked at the door.‘Who is there?’ said a tremulous voice from within.‘The Master with the disciples,’ answered Jesus Christ. The man didn’t know what He meant; nevertheless, the tone was too gentle to inspire fear, so he opened, and let them all in.‘Have you no fire to give us?’ asked Jesus Christ.‘I’m only a poor beggar. I never have any fire,’ said the man.‘But these poor things,’ said Jesus Christ, ‘are stiff with cold and weariness; they must have a fire.’Then Jesus Christ stood on the hearth, and blessed it, and there came a great blazing fire of heaped-up wood. When the beggar saw it, he fell on his knees in astonishment.‘Have you no food to set before us?’ asked Jesus Christ.‘I have one loaf of Indian corn,5which is at your service,’ answered the beggar.‘One loaf is not enough,’ answered Jesus Christ; ‘have you nothing else at all?’‘Nothing at all about the place that can be eaten,’ answered the beggar. ‘Leastwise, I have one ewe, which is at your service.’‘That will do,’ answered Jesus Christ; and he sent St. Peter to help the man to prepare it for dressing.‘Here is the mutton,’ said the beggar; ‘but I cannot cook it, because I have no lard.’6‘Look!’ said Jesus Christ.The beggar looked on the hearth, and saw everything that was necessary ready for use.‘Now, then, bring the wine and the bread,’ said Jesus Christ, when the meat was nearly ready.‘There is the only loaf I have,’ said the beggar, setting the polenta loaf on the table; ‘but, as for wine, I never see such a thing.’‘Is there none in the cellar?’ asked Jesus Christ.‘In the cellar are only a dozen empty old broken wine-jars that have been there these hundred years; they are well covered with mould.’ Jesus Christ told St. Peter to go down and see, and when he went down with the beggar, there was a whole ovenful of fresh-baked bread boiling hot,7and beyond, in the cellar, the jars, instead of being broken and musty, were all standing whole and upright, and filled with excellent wine.‘See how you told us falsely,’ said St. Peter, to tease him.‘Upon my word, it was even as I said, before you came.’‘Then it is the Master who has done these wonderful things,’ answered St. Peter. ‘Praise Him!’Now the meat was cooked and ready, and they all sat down to table; but Jesus Christ took a bowl and placed it in the midst of the table and said, ‘Let all the bones be put into this bowl;’ and when they had finished he took the bones and threw them out of the window, and said, ‘Behold, I give you an hundred for one.’ After that they all laid them down and slept.In the morning when they opened the door to go, behold there were an hundred sheep grazing before the door.‘These sheep are yours,’ said Jesus Christ; ‘moreover, as long as you live, neither the bread in the oven nor the wine in the cellar shall fail;’ and He passed out and the disciples after Him.But St. Peter remained behind, and said to the man who had entertained them, ‘The Master has rewarded you generously, but He has one greater gift yet which He will give you if you ask Him.’‘What is it? tell me what is it?’ said the beggar.‘The salvation of your soul,’ answeredSt. Peter.‘Signore! Signore! add to all Thou hast given this further, the salvation of my soul,’ cried the man.‘Let it be granted thee,’8answered the Lord, and passed on His way.5Another day Jesus Christ and His disciples dined at a tavern.9‘What’s to pay?’ said Jesus Christ, when they had finished their meal.‘Nothing at all,’ answered the host.But the host had a little hunchback son, who said to him, ‘I know some have found it answer to give these people food instead of making them pay for it; but suppose they forget to give us anything, we shall be worse off than if we had been paid in the regular way. I will tell you what I’ll do now, so as to have a hold over them. I’ll take one of our silver spoons and put it in the bag that one of them carries, and accuse them of stealing it.’Now St. Peter was a great eater, and when anything was left over from a good meal he was wont to put it by in a bag against a day when they had nothing. Into this bag therefore the hunchback put the silver spoon.When they had gone on a little way the young hunchback ran after them and said to Jesus Christ,—‘Signore! one of these with you has stolen a spoon from us.’‘You are mistaken, friend; there is not one of them who would do such a thing.’‘Yes,’ persevered the hunchback; ‘it isthatone who took it,’ and he pointed to St. Peter.‘I!!’ said St. Peter, getting very angry. ‘How dare you to say such a thing of me!’But Jesus Christ made him a sign that he should keep silence.‘We will go back to your house and help you to look for what you have lost, for that none of us have taken the spoon is most certain,’ He said; and He went back with the hunchback.‘There is nowhere to search,’ answered the hunchback, ‘but in that man’s bag; I know it is there, because I saw him take it.’‘Then there’s my bag inside out,’ said St. Peter, as he cast the contents upon the floor. Of course the silver spoon fell clattering upon the bricks.‘There!’ said the hunchback, insolently. ‘Didn’t I tell you it was there? You said it wasn’t!’St. Peter was so angry he could not trust himself to speak; but Jesus Christ answered for him:‘Nay, I said not it was not there, but that none of these had taken it. And now we will see who it was put it there.’ With that He motioned to them all to stand back, while He, standing in the midst and raising his eyes to Heaven, said solemnly,‘Let whoso put it in the bag be turned to stone!’Even as He spoke the hunchback was turned into stone.6There was another tavern, however, where the host was a different sort of man, and not onlysaidhe would take nothing when Jesus Christ and His disciples dined there, but really would never take anything; nor was it that by any miracle he had received advantages of another sort,but out of the respect and affection he bore the Master he deemed himself sufficiently paid by the honour of being allowed to minister to Him.One day when Jesus Christ and His disciples were going away on a journey, St. Peter went to this host and said, ‘You have been very liberal to us all this time: if you were to ask for some gift, now, you would be sure to get it.’‘I don’t know that there is anything that I want,’ said the host. ‘I have a thriving trade, which you see not only supplies all my wants, but leaves me the means of being liberal also; I have no wife to provide for, and no children to leave an inheritance to: so what should I ask for? There is one thing, to be sure, I should like. My only amusement is playing at cards: if He would give me the faculty of always winning, I should like that; it isn’t that I care for what one wins, it is that it is nice to win. Do you think I might askthat?’‘I don’t know,’ said St. Peter, gravely. ‘Still you might ask; He is very kind.’The host did ask, and Jesus Christ granted his desire. When St. Peter saw how easily He granted it, he said, ‘If I were you, I should ask something more.’‘I really don’t know what else I have to ask,’ replied the host, ‘unless it be that I have a fig-tree which bears excellent figs, but I never can get one of them for myself; they are always stolen before I get them. I wish He would order that whoever goes up to steal them might get stuck to the tree till I tell him he may come down.’‘Well,’ said St. Peter, ‘it is an odd sort of thing to ask, but you might try; He is very kind.’The host did ask, and Jesus Christ granted his request. When St. Peter saw that He granted it so easily, he said, ‘If I were you I should ask something more.’‘Do you really think I might?’ answered the host. ‘There is one thing I have wanted to ask all along, only I didn’t dare. But you encourage me, and He seems to takea pleasure in giving. I have always had a great wish to live four hundred years.’‘That is certainly a great deal to ask,’ said St. Peter, ‘but you might try; He is very kind.’The host did ask, and Jesus Christ granted his petition, and then went His way with His disciples. St. Peter remained last, and said to the host, ‘Now run after him, and ask for the salvation of your soul.’ (‘St. Peter always told them all to ask that,’ added the narrator in a confidential tone.)‘Oh, I can’t ask anything more, I have asked so much,’ said the host.‘But that is just the best thing of all, and what He grants the most willingly,’ insisted St. Peter. ‘Really?’ said the host; and he ran after Jesus Christ, and said, ‘Lord! who hast so largely shown me Thy bounty, grant me further the salvation of my soul.’‘Let it be granted!’ said Jesus Christ; and continued His journey.All the things the host had asked he received, and life passed away very pleasantly, but still even four hundred years come to an end at last, and with the end of it came Death.‘What! is that you, Mrs. Death,10come already?’ said the host.‘Why, it’s time I should come, I think; it’s not often I leave people in peace for four hundred years.’‘All right, but don’t be in a hurry. I have such a fancy for the figs of that fig-tree of mine there. I wish you would just have the kindness to go up and pluck a good provision of them to take with me, and by that time I’ll be ready to go with you.’‘I’ve no objection to oblige you so far,’ said Mrs. Death; ‘only you must mind and be quite ready by the time I do come back.’‘Never fear,’ said the host; and Mrs. Death climbed up the fig-tree.‘Now stick there!’ said the host, and for all her struggling Mrs. Death could by no means extricate herself any more.‘I can’t stay here, so take off your spell; I have my business to attend to,’ said she.‘So have I,’ answered the host; ‘and if you want to go about your business, you must promise me, on your honour, you will leave me to attend to mine.’‘I can’t do it, my man! What are you asking? It’s more than my place is worth. Every man alive has to pass through my hands. I can’t let any of them off.’‘Well, at all events, leave me alone another four hundred years, and then I’ll come with you. If you’ll promise that, I’ll let you out of the fig-tree.’‘I don’t mind another four hundred years, if you so particularly wish for them; but mind you give me your word of honour you come then, without giving me all this trouble again.’‘Yes! and here’s my hand upon it,’ said the host, as he handed Mrs. Death down from the fig-tree.And so he went on to live another four hundred years. (‘For you know in those times men lived to a very great age,’ was the running gloss of the narrator.)The end of the second four hundred years came too, and then Mrs. Death appeared again. ‘Remember your promise,’ she said, ‘and don’t try any trick on me this time.’‘Oh, yes! I always keep my word,’ said the host, and without more ado he went along with her.As she was carrying him up to Paradise, they passed the way which led down to Hell, and at the opening sat the Devil, receiving souls which his ministers brought to him from all parts. He was marshalling them into ranks, and ticketing them ready to send off in batches to the distinct place for each.‘You seem to have got plenty of souls there, Mr.Devil,’ said the host. ‘Suppose we sit down and play for them?’‘I’ve no objection,’ said the Devil. ‘Your soul against one of these. If I win, you go with them; if you win, one of them goes with you.’‘That’s it,’ said the host, and picking out a nice-looking soul, he set him for the Devil’s stake.Of course the host won, and the nice-looking soul was passed round to his side of the table.‘Shall we have another game?’ said the host, quite cock-a-hoop.The Devil hesitated for a moment, but finally he yielded. The host picked out a soul that took his fancy, for the Devil’s stake, and they sat down to play again, with the same result.So they went on and on till the host had won fifteen thousand souls of the Devil. ‘Come,’ said Death when they had got as far as this, ‘I really can’t wait any longer. I never had to do with anyone who took up so much time as you. Come along!’So the host bowed excuses to the Devil for having had all the luck, and went cheerfully the way Mrs. Death led, with all his fifteen thousand souls behind him. Thus they arrived at the gate of Paradise. There wasn’t so much business going on there as at the other place, and they had to ring before anyone appeared to open the door.‘Who’s there?’ said St. Peter.‘He of the four hundred years!’‘And what is all that rabble behind?’ asked St. Peter.‘Souls that I have won of the Devil for Paradise,’ answered the host.‘Oh, that won’t do at all, here!’ said St. Peter.‘Be kind enough to carry the message up to your Master,’ responded the host.St. Peter went up to Jesus Christ. ‘Here is he to whom you gave four hundred years of life,’ he said;‘and he has brought fifteen thousand other souls, who have no title at all to Paradise, with him.’‘Tell him he may come in himself,’ said Jesus Christ, ‘but he has nothing to do to meddle with the others.’‘Tell Him to be pleased to remember that when He came to my eating-shop I never made any difficulty how many soever He brought with Him, and if He had brought an army I should have said nothing,’ answered the host; and St. Peter took up that message too.‘That is true! that is right!’ answered Jesus Christ. ‘Let them all in! let them all in!’7PRET’ OLIVO.11When Jesus Christ was on earth, He lodged one night at a priest’s house, and when He went away in the morning He offered to give His host, in reward for his hospitality, whatever he asked. What Pret’ Olivo (for that was his host’s name) asked for was that he should live a hundred years, and that when Death came to fetch him he should be able to give her what orders he pleased, and that she must obey him.‘Let it be granted!’ said Jesus Christ.A hundred years passed away, and then, one morning early, Death came.‘Pret’ Olivo! Pret’Olivo!’ cried Death, ‘are you ready? I’m come for you at last.’‘Let me say my mass first,’ said Pret’ Olivo; ‘that’s all.’‘Well, I don’t mind that,’ answered Death; ‘only mind it isn’t a long one, because I’ve got so many people to fetch to-day.’‘A mass is a mass,’ answered Pret’ Olivo; ‘it will be neither longer nor shorter.’As he went out, however, he told his servant to heap up a lot of wood on the hearth and set fire to it. Deathwent to sit down on a bench in the far corner of the chimney, and by-and-by the wood blazed up and she couldn’t get away any more. In vain she called to the servant to come and moderate the fire. ‘Master told me to heap it up, not to moderate it,’ answered the servant; and so there was no help. Death continued calling in desperation, and nobody came. It was impossible with her dry bones to pass the blaze, so there she had to stay.‘Oh, dear! oh, dear! what can I do?’ she kept saying; ‘all this time everybody is stopped dying! Pret’ Olivo! Pret’ Olivo! come here.’At last Pret’ Olivo came in.‘What do you mean by keeping me here like this?’ said Death; ‘I told you I had so much to do.’‘Oh, you want to go, do you?’ said Pret’ Olivo, quietly.‘Of course I do. Tell some one to clear away those burning logs, and let me out.’‘Will you promise me to leave me alone for another hundred years if I do?’‘Yes, yes; anything you like. I shall be very glad to keep away from this place for a hundred years.’Then he let her go, and she set off running with those long thin legs of hers.The second hundred years came to an end.‘Are you ready, Pret’ Olivo?’ said Death one morning, putting her head in at the door.‘Pretty nearly,’ answered Pret’ Olivo. ‘Meantime, just take that basket, and gather me a couple of figs to eat before I go.’As she went away he said, ‘Stick to the tree’ (but not so that she could hear it); for you remember he had power given him to make her do what he liked. She had therefore to stick to the tree.‘Well, Lady Death, are you never going to bring those figs?’ cried Pret’ Olivo after a time.‘How can I bring them, when you know I can’t get down from this tree? Instead of making game of me, come and take me down.’‘Will you leave me alone another hundred years if I do?’‘Yes, yes; anything you like. Only make haste and let me go.’The third hundred years came to an end, and Death appeared again. ‘Are you ready this time, Pret’ Olivo?’ she cried out as she approached.‘Yes, this time I’ll come with you,’ answered Pret’ Olivo. Then he vested himself in the Church vestments, and put a cope on, and took a pack of cards in his hand, and said to Death, ‘Now take me to the gate of Hell, for I want to play a game of cards with the Devil.’‘Nonsense!’ answered Death. ‘I’m not going to waste my time like that. I’ve got orders to take you to Paradise, and to Paradise you must go.’‘You know you’ve got orders to obey whatever I tell you,’ answered Pret’ Olivo; and Death knew that was true, so she lost no more time in disputing, but took him all the way round by the gate of Hell.At the gate of Hell they knocked.‘Who’s there?’ said the Devil.‘Pret’ Olivo,’ replied Death.‘Out with you, ugly priest!’ said the Devil. ‘I’m surprised at you, Death, making game of me like that; you know that’s not the sort of ware for my market.’12‘Silence, and open the door, ugly Pluto!13I’m not come to stay. I only want to have a game of cards with you. Here’s my soul for stake on my side, against the last comer on your side,’ interposed Pret’ Olivo.Pret’ Olivo won the game, and hung the soul on to his cope.‘We must have another game,’ said the Devil.‘With all my heart!’ replied Pret’ Olivo; and he wonanother soul. Another and another he won, and his cope was covered all over with the souls clinging to it.Meantime, Death thought it was going on rather too long, so she looked through the keyhole, and, finding they were just beginning another game, she cried out loudly;‘It’s no use playing any more, for I’m not going to be bothered to carry all those souls all the way up to Heaven—a likely matter, indeed!’But Pret’ Olivo went on playing without taking any notice of her; and he hung them on to his beretta, till at last you could hardly see him at all for the number of souls he had clinging to him. There was no place for any more, so at last he stopped playing.‘I’m not going to take all those other souls,’ said Death when he came out; ‘I’ve only got orders to take you.’‘Then take me,’ answered Pret’ Olivo.Death saw that the souls were all hung on so that she could not take him without taking all the rest; so away she went with the lot of them, without disputing any more.At last they arrived at the Gate of Paradise. St. Peter opened the door when they knocked; but when he saw who was there he shut the door again.‘Make haste!’ said Death; ‘I’ve no time to waste.’‘Why did you waste your time in bringing up souls that were not properly consigned to you?’ answered St. Peter.‘It wasn’t I brought them, it was Pret’ Olivo. And your Master charged me I was to do whatever he told me.’‘My Master! Oh, then, I’m out of it,’ said St. Peter. ‘Only wait a minute, while I just go and ask Him whether it is so.’ St. Peter ran to ask; and receiving an affirmative answer, came back and opened the gate, and they all got in.8DOMINE QUO VADIS.‘You know, of course, about St. Peter, when they put him in the prisons here; he found a way of escaping through the “catacomboli,” and just as he had got out into the open road again he met Jesus Christ coming towards him carrying His cross. And St. Peter asked Him what he was doing going into the “catacomboli.” But Jesus Christ answered, “I am not going into the ‘catacomboli’ to stay; I am going back by the way you came to be crucified over again, since you refuse to die for the flock.” Then St. Peter turned and went all the way back, and was crucified with his head downwards, for he said he was not worthy to die in the same way as his Master.’[Counterparts of these stories abound in the collections of all countries; in the Norse, and Gaelic, and Russian, more of the pagan element seems to stick to them. In Grimm’s are some with both much and little of it. From Tirol I have given two, which are literally free from it, in ‘Household Stories from the Land of Hofer;’ and I have one or two picked up for me by a friend in Brittany, of which the same may be said. On the other hand, we meet them again in another form in that large group of strange compounds, of which ‘Il Rè Moro,’ p. 97, &c., are the Roman representatives, and ‘Marienkind,’ pp. 7–12, ‘Grimm Kinder und Hausmährchen,’ ed. 1870, the link between them. In the minds of the Roman narrators, however, I am quite clear no such connexion exists. See also p. 207infra.One of the quaintest legends of this class is given in Scheible’s ‘Schaltjahr.’ It is meant for a charm to drive away wolves.]‘Lord Jesus Christ and St. Peter went in the morning out.As our Lady went on before she said (turning about),“Ah, dear Lord! whither must we go in and out?We must over hill and dale (roundabout).May God guard the while my flock (devout).Let not St. Peter go his keys without;But take them and lock up the wild dogs’14snout,That they no bone of them all may flout.”’1The Holy Babe.↑2‘Date mi un po’ d’allogio;’lit., Give me a small quantity of lodging—a humble mode of expression.↑3‘Chi è?’ (‘Who’s there’); but the humour of the expression here lies in its being the invariable Roman custom to sing out ‘Chi è?’ and wait till ‘Amici!’ is answered, before any door is opened.↑4Comp. with Legend of the Marmolata in ‘Household Stories from the land of Hofer.’↑5‘Un pagnotto di polenta’ was the expression used, meaning a great coarse loaf of Indian corn. The Roman poor have much the same contempt for inferior bread that we meet with in the same class at home, none eat ‘seconds’ who can possibly avoid it; but the pagnotto di polenta is only eaten by the poorest peasants.↑6‘Strutto,’ lard, enters into the composition of almost every Roman popular dish.↑7‘Che bolliva,’ constantly applied in Roman parlance to solids as well as liquids.↑8The narrator was an admirable reciter, and as she uttered this ‘Vi sia concessa,’ in a solemn and majestic manner, she raised her hand and made the sign of the cross with a rapid and facile gesture, just as she might have seen the Pope do as he drove through Rome.↑9‘Trattoria,’ can only be translated by ‘tavern,’ but unfortunately the English word represents quite a different idea from the Roman. ‘Tavern’ suggests noise and riot, but a ‘trattoria’ is a place where a poor Roman will take his family to dine quietly with him on a festa as a treat.↑10‘Death,’ being feminine in Italian, has to be personified as a woman. The same occurs in a Spanish counterpart of this story which I have given under the title of ‘Starving John the Doctor’ in ‘Patrañas.’ The Spanish counterpart of the rest of the story will be found in ‘Where one can dine two can dine’ (‘Un Convidado invida a ciento’) in the same series.↑11‘Olive the priest.’ ‘When we were children,’ said the narrator, ‘my father used to tell us such a lot of stories of an evening, but of them all the two we used to ask for most, again and again, and the only two I remember, were “Mi butto,” and “Pret’ Olivo.” Do you know “Mi butto”? We used to shudder at it, and yet we used to ask for it.’ I incautiously admitted I did know it, instead of acquiring a fresh version. ‘Then here is “Pret’ Olivo.” I don’t suppose I was more than seven then, and now I am thirty-five, and I have never heard it since, but I’ll make the best I can of it. Of course it is not a true story; we knew that itcouldn’tbe true, as anyone can see; but it used to interest us children.’↑12‘Vaene brutto prete! Questa non è roba per me.’↑13‘Brutto Plutone!’ The traditional application of the name will not have escaped the reader.↑14‘Holzhund,’ I suppose, is used for wild dog.↑PIETRO BAILLIARDO.11What! Never heard of Pietro Bailliardo! Surely you must, if you ever heard anything at all. Why, everybody knows about Pietro Bailliardo! Why, he was here and there and everywhere in Rome; and turned everybody’s head, and they have his books now, that they took away from him, locked up in the Holy Office.2Pietro Bailliardo was a scholar boy, and went to school like other boys. One day he found at a bookstall a book of divination;3with this he was able to do whatever he would, and wherever he was, there the Devil was in command.He fell in love with a girl, and she would have nothing to do with him; and one day afterwards they found her on Mont Cavallo with a great fire burning round her, and everyone who passed had to stir the fire whether he would or not.Whatever he wanted he ordered to come and it came to him, and nobody could resist him.As to putting him in prison it was no manner of use. One day when they had put him in prison he took a piece of charcoal and drew a boat on the white prison wall, then he jumped into it, and said to all the other prisoners, ‘Get in too,’ and they got in, and he rowed away, and next morning they were all loose about Rome. But there was an old man asleep in a corner of the prison, and the guards came to him and said, ‘Where are all the prisoners gone?’ And he told them about Pietro Bailliardo drawing the boat on the prison wall with the charcoal and their all getting away in it. ‘And why didn’t you go too?’ asked the guards. ‘Because I was asleep so comfortably I did not want to move,’ said he. (‘But then, how did he see it all unless Pietro Bailliardo had him put undera spell on purpose that he might tell the authorities how he had defied them?’ added the narrator.)Another time again they shut him up in prison, and the next morning when they came to look for him they found nothing but an ass’s head in his place, which he had left there just to show his contempt for them.One day a zealous friar met him and warned him to repent. ‘What have I to repent of?’ said he. ‘I can hear mass better than you, for I can hear mass in three places at once.’ Then he went away and made the Devil take him to Constantinople and Paris to hear mass at each while all at one and the same time he was hearing one at Rome too! Then he came and told the friar what a grand thing he had done. But the friar told him it was worse than not hearing mass at all to attempt to use diabolical arts in that way.After that one day he was going up past the church of SS. John and Paul4when the Devil met him.‘Now,’ said the Devil, ‘you have had your swing long enough; I have come to fetch you!’When Pietro Bailliardo, who had set all the world at defiance all his life, saw the Devil and heard him say he had come to fetch him, he was seized with such terror that he began to repent, and ran inside the church. The Devil durst not follow him thither, but waited outside thinking he would soon be turned out.But Pietro Bailliardo took up a great stone and went and kneeled down before the crucifix and smote his bare breast with the big stone, saying the while, ‘Behold! merciful Lord, I beat my breast with this stone till Thou bow Thy head in token that Thou forgive me.’And he went on beating his breast till the blood ran down, and at last our Lord had compassion on him and bowed His head from the cross to him, and he died there. So the Devil did not get him.2‘You have told me so many stories, why have you never told me anything about Pietro Bailliardo—don’t you know about him?’‘Of course I know about him. Who in Rome doesn’t know about him? but I can’t remember it all. I know he had the book of divination, and could make the Devil do whatever he chose by its means. And then one day, I don’t remember by what circumstance, he was led to do penance; but he would do it in his own way, not in the right way, and he made a vow to the Madonna that he would pay a visit to some shrine in Rome and to S. Giacomo di Galizia,5and to theSanta Casa di Loretoall in the same night. As devils can fly through the air at a wonderful pace he called upon a devil by his divining book and told him what he wanted; then he got on the back of the devil and rode away through the air and actually visited all three in one night.‘But that sort of penance was no penance at all. After that he did penance in right earnest at some church, I forget which.’‘Was it SS. John and Paul?’ I asked.‘Yes, to be sure; SS. John and Paul. And you knew it all the time, and yet have been asking me!’3‘Do you want to know about Pietro Bailliardo too?’ said the old man who had given me No. 2 of San GiovanniBocca d’oro. ‘Oh, yes; I did know a deal about him. This is what I can remember.‘Pietro Bailliardo had a bond6with the Devil, by which he was as rich as he could be, and had whatever he wanted; but the day came when the compact came to an end, and Pietro Bailliardo quailed as that day approached, for he knew that after that time the Devil could take him and he could not resist.‘Before noon on that day, therefore, he set out to go to St. Paul’s.’‘To SS. John and Paul?’ asked I, full of the former versions.‘No, no! to the great St. Paul’s outside the walls, where the monks of St. Benedict are; and he waited there all day, for before the time was out the Devil couldn’t take him. At last evening came on, and the chierico7wanted to shut the church up; so he told Pietro Bailliardo he must go, and showed him to the door. But when he came to the door, he found the Devil there waiting for him dressed like a paino.8When he saw that, no power of the chierico could make him go; so the chierico was obliged to call the Father Abbot.‘To the Father Abbot Pietro Bailliardo told his whole story, and the Father Abbot said, “If that is so, come with me to the Inquisition, and tell your story there and receive absolution.” Then he sent for a carriage, and said to the driver, “Be of good heart, for I have many relics of saints with me, and whatever strange thing you may see or hear by the way, have no fear, it shall not harm you.”‘The Devil saw all this, and was in a great fury, for he has no power to alter future events, and so he couldn’t help Pietro Bailliardo going into the church for sanctuary before the time was up. He got a number of devils together, therefore, and made unearthly and terrible noises all the way. But the driver had confidence in the word of the Abbot, and drove on without heeding. Only when they got to the bridge of St. Angelo the noise was so tremendous he got quite bewildered; moreover the bridge heaved and rocked as though it were going to break in twain.‘“Fear nothing, fear nothing! Nothing will harm you,” said the Father Abbot; and the driver, having confidence in his words, drove on without heeding, and they arrived safely at the Palace of the Inquisition.‘The Father Abbot now delivered Pietro Bailliardo over to the Penitentiary, to whom, moreover, he made confession of his terrible crimes, and begged to remain to perform his penance and obtain reconciliation with God.‘But as Pietro Bailliardo had been used to follow his own strange ways all his life, he must needs now perform his penance too in his own strange way. Therefore he made a vow that he would perform such a penance as man never performed before; and this penance was to visit, all in one night, the SS. Crocifisso in the Chapel of the Holy Office, S. Giacomo di Galizia, and the sanctuary of Cirollo. All in one night!’‘Stop! S. Giacomo di Galizia I know; we call it S. James of Compostella; but the sanctuary of Cirollo! I never heard of that; where is it?’‘Oh, Cirollo is all the same as if you said Loreto; the Madonna di Loreto; it is all one.’I appealed to one sitting there who, I knew, had been brought up at Loreto.‘Yes, yes,’ she said. ‘That is all right; Cirollo is just a walk from Loreto.Noi altriwhen living at Loreto often go there, but those who come from far, most often don’t; so we have a saying, “Who goes to Loreto and not to Cirollo, he sees the mother, but not the son.”9‘It is a saying, and nothing more.’‘Basta!’ interposed the old man, who, like other old people, was apt to forget the thread of his story if interrupted. ‘Basta!it doesn’t matter: they were anyhow three places very far apart.10So Pietro Bailliardo, who couldn’t get out of his habit of commanding the devils, called up a number of them, and said, “Which of all you fiends can go the fastest?” and the devils, accustomed to obey him, answered the one before the other, some one way some another, each anxious to content him: “I, like lightning,” said one; “I, like the wind,” said another; but “I—I can go as fast as thought,”11said another. “Ho! Here!You fiend. You, who can travel as fast as thought. You come here, and take me to-night to St. James of Compostella, and to the sanctuary of Cirollo, and bring me back here to the Chapel of the Holy Office before morning breaks.”‘He spoke imperiously, and sprang on to the devil’s back, and all was done so quickly the devil had no time for thought or hesitation.‘Away flew the devil, and Pietro Bailliardo on his back, all the way to St. James of Compostella, and, whr-r-r-r all the way to the sanctuary of Cirollo, fast, fast as thought. Then suddenly the devil stopped midway. An idea had struck him. “What had a devil to do with going about visiting shrines in this way; no harm had been done to the sacred place; not a stone had been injured;12why then had they gone to S. Giacomo; why were they going to Cirollo?”‘“Tell me, Ser Bailliardo,” said he, “on whose account am I sweating like this? is it for your private account, or for my master’s; because I only obey you so long as you command in his name, and how can it serve him to be doing pilgrim’s work?”‘“Go on, ugly monster! don’t prate,”13answered Pietro Bailliardo, and gave him at the same time a kick in each flank; and such was his empire over him that the devil durst say no more, and completed the strange pilgrimage even as he had commanded.14‘Thus even in his penitence Pietro Bailliardo had the devils subject to him. But after that he did penance in right good earnest, only he chose a strange way of his own again.‘He knelt before the Crucifix in the Chapel of the Inquisition, and he took a great stone and beat his breast with it and said, “Lord, behold my repentance; I smite my breast thus till Thou forgive me.” And when the blood flowed down the Lord had compassion on him andbowed His head upon the cross and said, “I have forgiven thee!”‘After that he died in peace.’1Unquestionably a very exaggerated tradition of the aberrations and final submission to the Church of Abelard (Pietro Abelardo in Italian), some of whose writings were publicly burnt in Rome by the Inquisition in 1140.↑2The Office of the Inquisition behind the Colonnade of St. Peter’s.↑3‘Libro di comando.’ A book of divination.↑4St. John and Paul. The Church of the Passionists on the Cœlian.↑5I.e. St. Iago di Compostella.↑6‘Scrittura,’ a written compact.↑7‘Chierico’ of course means a cleric, but in common parlance it is reserved for the boy who, though lay, wears a clerical dress for the time he is serving mass, or attending to the church generally. In the present instance it would probably be a youth in minor orders.↑8‘Paino’ and ‘paina’ mean one, who, according to his or her condition, ought to be dressed in the national style, but who does affect to dress like a gentleman or lady.↑9‘Chi va a LoretoE non va a Cirollo,Vede la MadreE non vede il figliuolo.’↑10I took another opportunity of asking the one who was familiar with Loreto, about Cirollo, and she explained its introduction into the story to mean that he was not to pay a hasty visit, but a thorough one, even though it was done so rapidly. ‘Cirollo,’ she said, ‘is a poor village with few houses, but the church is fine, and the Crucifix is reckonedmiracolosissimo.’ In Murray’s map it is marked as Sirollo, close by the sea, without even a pathway from Loreto, about five miles to the north; and he does not mention the place at all in his text.Subsequently I was talking with another who called herself a Marchegiana, i.e. from the March of Ancona, in which Loreto is situated, and boasted of having been born at Sinigallia, the birthplace of Pio Nono. ‘Have you ever been to Loreto?’ I asked by way of beginning inquiry about Cirollo.‘Yes; six times I have made the pilgrimage from Sinigallia, and always on foot.’ she replied with something of enthusiasm. ‘And you who have travelled so far, you have been there too, of course?’‘Not yet,’ I replied; ‘but I mean to go one day;’ and just as I was coming to my question about Cirollo, she added of her own accord:‘Mind you do, and mind when you go you go to Sirollo too (she pronounced it Sirollo like the spelling in the map). ‘Everyone who goes to Loreto ought to go to Sirollo. There is a Crucifix there which ismiracolosissimo.’↑11‘Quanto la mente dell’ uomo.’↑12‘Dispetto,’ an affront, rather than an injury.↑13‘Tira via, brutta bestia,’ literally ‘fire away’—is used in all senses the same as in English.↑14The question of night flights through the air, and more, whether in the body or out of the body, than whether they were ever effected at all, was one of the most hotly contested questions of demonographers. Tartarotti, lib. I. cap. viii. § vi., winds up a long account of the subject with the following:—‘... So divided was opinion on the subject, not only of Catholics as against heterodox, but between Catholics and Catholics, that after reading in Delrio ‘qui hæc asserunt somnia esse et ludibrio certe peccant contra reverentiam Ecclesiæ matri debitam,’ and ‘Hæc opinio (somnia hæc esse) tanquam hæretica est reprobanda;’ and in Bartolomeo Spina, ‘Negare quod diabolus possit portare homines de loco in locum est hæreticum;’ you may see in Emmanuel Rodriguez, a great theologian and canonist, ‘Peccat mortaliter qui credit veneficos aut veneficas vel striges corporaliter per aëra vehi ad diversa loca, ut illi existimant;’ while Navarro mildly says, ‘Credere quod aliquando, licet raro, dæmon aliquis de loco in locum, Deo permittente, transportet non est peccatum.’Tartarotti supplies a long list of writers who, in the course of the sixteenth and two following centuries, took the opposite sides on this question, and quotes from Dr. John Weir, (Protestant) physician to the Duke of Cleves (In Apol. sec. iv. p. 582), that the Protestants were most numerous on the side which maintained that it was an actual and corporeal and not a mental or imaginative transaction. Cesare Cantù has likewise given an exposition of the treatment of the question in ‘Gli Eretici d’ltalia,’ discorso xxxiii., and ‘Storia Universale,’ epoca xv. cap. 14, p. 488. In note 1 he gives a list of a dozen of the most celebrated Protestant writers who upheld the actuality of the witches’ congress.↑

LEGENDARY TALES AND ESEMPJ.WHEN JESUS CHRIST WANDERED ON EARTH.1One day the Madonna was carrying the Bambino through a lupin-field, and the stalks of the lupins rustled so, that she thought it was a robber coming to kill the Santo Bambino.1She turned, and sent a malediction over the lupin-field, and immediately the lupins all withered away and fell flat and dry on the ground, so that she could see there was no one hidden there. When she saw there was no one hidden there, she sent a benediction over the lupin-field, and the lupins all stood up straight again, fair and flourishing, and with tenfold greater produce than they had at the first.2One day when Jesus Christ was grown up, and went about preaching, He came to a certain village and knocked at the first door, and said, ‘Give me a lodging.’2But the master of the house shut the door in his face, saying, ‘Here is nothing for you.’ He came to the next house, and received the same answer; and the next, and the next, no one in all the village would take Him in. Weary and footsore, He came to the cottage of a poor little old woman, who lived all alone on the outskirts, and knocked there. ‘Who is there?’3asked the old woman. ‘The Master with the Apostles,’ answered Jesus Christ. The old woman opened the door, and let them all in. ‘Have you no fire?’ asked Jesus Christ. ‘No fire have I,’ answered the old woman. Then Jesus Christ blessed the hearth, and there came a pile of wood on it,and a fire was soon made. ‘Have you nothing to give us to eat?’ asked Jesus Christ. ‘Nothing worth offering you,’ answered the old woman; ‘here is a little fish’ (it was a little fish, that, not so long as my hand) ‘and some crusts of bread, which they gave me at the eating-shop in charity just now, and that’s all I have;’ and she set both on the table. ‘Have you no wine?’ again asked Jesus Christ. ‘Only this flask of wine and water they gave me there, too;’ and she set it before Him.Then Jesus Christ blessed all the things, and handed them round the table, and they all dined off them, and at the end there remained just the same as at the beginning. When they had finished, He said to the old woman, ‘This fire, with the bread, and the fish, and the wine, will always remain to you, and never diminish as long as you live. And now follow Me a little way.’The Master went on before with His Apostles, and the old woman followed after, a little way behind. And behold, as they walked along, all the houses of that inhospitable village fell down one after the other, and all the inhabitants were buried under them. Only the cottage of the old woman was left standing. When the judgment was complete, Jesus Christ said to her, ‘Now, return home.’4As she turned to go, St. Peter said to her, ‘Ask for the salvation of your soul.’ And she went and asked it of Jesus Christ, and He replied, ‘Let it be granted you!’3One day as He was going into the Temple, He saw two men quarrelling before the door: a young man and an old man. The young man wanted to go in first, and the old man was vindicating the honour of his grey hairs.‘What is the matter?’ asked Jesus Christ; and they showed Him wherefore they strove.Jesus Christ said to the young man, ‘If you are desirous to go in first, you must accept the state to which honour belongs,’ and He touched him, and he became an old man, bowed in gait, feeble, and grey-haired, while to the old man He gave the compensation for the insult he had received, by investing him with the youth of the other.4In the days when Jesus Christ roamed the earth, He found Himself one day with His disciples in the Campagna, far from anything like home. The only shelter in sight was a cottage of wretched aspect. Jesus Christ knocked at the door.‘Who is there?’ said a tremulous voice from within.‘The Master with the disciples,’ answered Jesus Christ. The man didn’t know what He meant; nevertheless, the tone was too gentle to inspire fear, so he opened, and let them all in.‘Have you no fire to give us?’ asked Jesus Christ.‘I’m only a poor beggar. I never have any fire,’ said the man.‘But these poor things,’ said Jesus Christ, ‘are stiff with cold and weariness; they must have a fire.’Then Jesus Christ stood on the hearth, and blessed it, and there came a great blazing fire of heaped-up wood. When the beggar saw it, he fell on his knees in astonishment.‘Have you no food to set before us?’ asked Jesus Christ.‘I have one loaf of Indian corn,5which is at your service,’ answered the beggar.‘One loaf is not enough,’ answered Jesus Christ; ‘have you nothing else at all?’‘Nothing at all about the place that can be eaten,’ answered the beggar. ‘Leastwise, I have one ewe, which is at your service.’‘That will do,’ answered Jesus Christ; and he sent St. Peter to help the man to prepare it for dressing.‘Here is the mutton,’ said the beggar; ‘but I cannot cook it, because I have no lard.’6‘Look!’ said Jesus Christ.The beggar looked on the hearth, and saw everything that was necessary ready for use.‘Now, then, bring the wine and the bread,’ said Jesus Christ, when the meat was nearly ready.‘There is the only loaf I have,’ said the beggar, setting the polenta loaf on the table; ‘but, as for wine, I never see such a thing.’‘Is there none in the cellar?’ asked Jesus Christ.‘In the cellar are only a dozen empty old broken wine-jars that have been there these hundred years; they are well covered with mould.’ Jesus Christ told St. Peter to go down and see, and when he went down with the beggar, there was a whole ovenful of fresh-baked bread boiling hot,7and beyond, in the cellar, the jars, instead of being broken and musty, were all standing whole and upright, and filled with excellent wine.‘See how you told us falsely,’ said St. Peter, to tease him.‘Upon my word, it was even as I said, before you came.’‘Then it is the Master who has done these wonderful things,’ answered St. Peter. ‘Praise Him!’Now the meat was cooked and ready, and they all sat down to table; but Jesus Christ took a bowl and placed it in the midst of the table and said, ‘Let all the bones be put into this bowl;’ and when they had finished he took the bones and threw them out of the window, and said, ‘Behold, I give you an hundred for one.’ After that they all laid them down and slept.In the morning when they opened the door to go, behold there were an hundred sheep grazing before the door.‘These sheep are yours,’ said Jesus Christ; ‘moreover, as long as you live, neither the bread in the oven nor the wine in the cellar shall fail;’ and He passed out and the disciples after Him.But St. Peter remained behind, and said to the man who had entertained them, ‘The Master has rewarded you generously, but He has one greater gift yet which He will give you if you ask Him.’‘What is it? tell me what is it?’ said the beggar.‘The salvation of your soul,’ answeredSt. Peter.‘Signore! Signore! add to all Thou hast given this further, the salvation of my soul,’ cried the man.‘Let it be granted thee,’8answered the Lord, and passed on His way.5Another day Jesus Christ and His disciples dined at a tavern.9‘What’s to pay?’ said Jesus Christ, when they had finished their meal.‘Nothing at all,’ answered the host.But the host had a little hunchback son, who said to him, ‘I know some have found it answer to give these people food instead of making them pay for it; but suppose they forget to give us anything, we shall be worse off than if we had been paid in the regular way. I will tell you what I’ll do now, so as to have a hold over them. I’ll take one of our silver spoons and put it in the bag that one of them carries, and accuse them of stealing it.’Now St. Peter was a great eater, and when anything was left over from a good meal he was wont to put it by in a bag against a day when they had nothing. Into this bag therefore the hunchback put the silver spoon.When they had gone on a little way the young hunchback ran after them and said to Jesus Christ,—‘Signore! one of these with you has stolen a spoon from us.’‘You are mistaken, friend; there is not one of them who would do such a thing.’‘Yes,’ persevered the hunchback; ‘it isthatone who took it,’ and he pointed to St. Peter.‘I!!’ said St. Peter, getting very angry. ‘How dare you to say such a thing of me!’But Jesus Christ made him a sign that he should keep silence.‘We will go back to your house and help you to look for what you have lost, for that none of us have taken the spoon is most certain,’ He said; and He went back with the hunchback.‘There is nowhere to search,’ answered the hunchback, ‘but in that man’s bag; I know it is there, because I saw him take it.’‘Then there’s my bag inside out,’ said St. Peter, as he cast the contents upon the floor. Of course the silver spoon fell clattering upon the bricks.‘There!’ said the hunchback, insolently. ‘Didn’t I tell you it was there? You said it wasn’t!’St. Peter was so angry he could not trust himself to speak; but Jesus Christ answered for him:‘Nay, I said not it was not there, but that none of these had taken it. And now we will see who it was put it there.’ With that He motioned to them all to stand back, while He, standing in the midst and raising his eyes to Heaven, said solemnly,‘Let whoso put it in the bag be turned to stone!’Even as He spoke the hunchback was turned into stone.6There was another tavern, however, where the host was a different sort of man, and not onlysaidhe would take nothing when Jesus Christ and His disciples dined there, but really would never take anything; nor was it that by any miracle he had received advantages of another sort,but out of the respect and affection he bore the Master he deemed himself sufficiently paid by the honour of being allowed to minister to Him.One day when Jesus Christ and His disciples were going away on a journey, St. Peter went to this host and said, ‘You have been very liberal to us all this time: if you were to ask for some gift, now, you would be sure to get it.’‘I don’t know that there is anything that I want,’ said the host. ‘I have a thriving trade, which you see not only supplies all my wants, but leaves me the means of being liberal also; I have no wife to provide for, and no children to leave an inheritance to: so what should I ask for? There is one thing, to be sure, I should like. My only amusement is playing at cards: if He would give me the faculty of always winning, I should like that; it isn’t that I care for what one wins, it is that it is nice to win. Do you think I might askthat?’‘I don’t know,’ said St. Peter, gravely. ‘Still you might ask; He is very kind.’The host did ask, and Jesus Christ granted his desire. When St. Peter saw how easily He granted it, he said, ‘If I were you, I should ask something more.’‘I really don’t know what else I have to ask,’ replied the host, ‘unless it be that I have a fig-tree which bears excellent figs, but I never can get one of them for myself; they are always stolen before I get them. I wish He would order that whoever goes up to steal them might get stuck to the tree till I tell him he may come down.’‘Well,’ said St. Peter, ‘it is an odd sort of thing to ask, but you might try; He is very kind.’The host did ask, and Jesus Christ granted his request. When St. Peter saw that He granted it so easily, he said, ‘If I were you I should ask something more.’‘Do you really think I might?’ answered the host. ‘There is one thing I have wanted to ask all along, only I didn’t dare. But you encourage me, and He seems to takea pleasure in giving. I have always had a great wish to live four hundred years.’‘That is certainly a great deal to ask,’ said St. Peter, ‘but you might try; He is very kind.’The host did ask, and Jesus Christ granted his petition, and then went His way with His disciples. St. Peter remained last, and said to the host, ‘Now run after him, and ask for the salvation of your soul.’ (‘St. Peter always told them all to ask that,’ added the narrator in a confidential tone.)‘Oh, I can’t ask anything more, I have asked so much,’ said the host.‘But that is just the best thing of all, and what He grants the most willingly,’ insisted St. Peter. ‘Really?’ said the host; and he ran after Jesus Christ, and said, ‘Lord! who hast so largely shown me Thy bounty, grant me further the salvation of my soul.’‘Let it be granted!’ said Jesus Christ; and continued His journey.All the things the host had asked he received, and life passed away very pleasantly, but still even four hundred years come to an end at last, and with the end of it came Death.‘What! is that you, Mrs. Death,10come already?’ said the host.‘Why, it’s time I should come, I think; it’s not often I leave people in peace for four hundred years.’‘All right, but don’t be in a hurry. I have such a fancy for the figs of that fig-tree of mine there. I wish you would just have the kindness to go up and pluck a good provision of them to take with me, and by that time I’ll be ready to go with you.’‘I’ve no objection to oblige you so far,’ said Mrs. Death; ‘only you must mind and be quite ready by the time I do come back.’‘Never fear,’ said the host; and Mrs. Death climbed up the fig-tree.‘Now stick there!’ said the host, and for all her struggling Mrs. Death could by no means extricate herself any more.‘I can’t stay here, so take off your spell; I have my business to attend to,’ said she.‘So have I,’ answered the host; ‘and if you want to go about your business, you must promise me, on your honour, you will leave me to attend to mine.’‘I can’t do it, my man! What are you asking? It’s more than my place is worth. Every man alive has to pass through my hands. I can’t let any of them off.’‘Well, at all events, leave me alone another four hundred years, and then I’ll come with you. If you’ll promise that, I’ll let you out of the fig-tree.’‘I don’t mind another four hundred years, if you so particularly wish for them; but mind you give me your word of honour you come then, without giving me all this trouble again.’‘Yes! and here’s my hand upon it,’ said the host, as he handed Mrs. Death down from the fig-tree.And so he went on to live another four hundred years. (‘For you know in those times men lived to a very great age,’ was the running gloss of the narrator.)The end of the second four hundred years came too, and then Mrs. Death appeared again. ‘Remember your promise,’ she said, ‘and don’t try any trick on me this time.’‘Oh, yes! I always keep my word,’ said the host, and without more ado he went along with her.As she was carrying him up to Paradise, they passed the way which led down to Hell, and at the opening sat the Devil, receiving souls which his ministers brought to him from all parts. He was marshalling them into ranks, and ticketing them ready to send off in batches to the distinct place for each.‘You seem to have got plenty of souls there, Mr.Devil,’ said the host. ‘Suppose we sit down and play for them?’‘I’ve no objection,’ said the Devil. ‘Your soul against one of these. If I win, you go with them; if you win, one of them goes with you.’‘That’s it,’ said the host, and picking out a nice-looking soul, he set him for the Devil’s stake.Of course the host won, and the nice-looking soul was passed round to his side of the table.‘Shall we have another game?’ said the host, quite cock-a-hoop.The Devil hesitated for a moment, but finally he yielded. The host picked out a soul that took his fancy, for the Devil’s stake, and they sat down to play again, with the same result.So they went on and on till the host had won fifteen thousand souls of the Devil. ‘Come,’ said Death when they had got as far as this, ‘I really can’t wait any longer. I never had to do with anyone who took up so much time as you. Come along!’So the host bowed excuses to the Devil for having had all the luck, and went cheerfully the way Mrs. Death led, with all his fifteen thousand souls behind him. Thus they arrived at the gate of Paradise. There wasn’t so much business going on there as at the other place, and they had to ring before anyone appeared to open the door.‘Who’s there?’ said St. Peter.‘He of the four hundred years!’‘And what is all that rabble behind?’ asked St. Peter.‘Souls that I have won of the Devil for Paradise,’ answered the host.‘Oh, that won’t do at all, here!’ said St. Peter.‘Be kind enough to carry the message up to your Master,’ responded the host.St. Peter went up to Jesus Christ. ‘Here is he to whom you gave four hundred years of life,’ he said;‘and he has brought fifteen thousand other souls, who have no title at all to Paradise, with him.’‘Tell him he may come in himself,’ said Jesus Christ, ‘but he has nothing to do to meddle with the others.’‘Tell Him to be pleased to remember that when He came to my eating-shop I never made any difficulty how many soever He brought with Him, and if He had brought an army I should have said nothing,’ answered the host; and St. Peter took up that message too.‘That is true! that is right!’ answered Jesus Christ. ‘Let them all in! let them all in!’7PRET’ OLIVO.11When Jesus Christ was on earth, He lodged one night at a priest’s house, and when He went away in the morning He offered to give His host, in reward for his hospitality, whatever he asked. What Pret’ Olivo (for that was his host’s name) asked for was that he should live a hundred years, and that when Death came to fetch him he should be able to give her what orders he pleased, and that she must obey him.‘Let it be granted!’ said Jesus Christ.A hundred years passed away, and then, one morning early, Death came.‘Pret’ Olivo! Pret’Olivo!’ cried Death, ‘are you ready? I’m come for you at last.’‘Let me say my mass first,’ said Pret’ Olivo; ‘that’s all.’‘Well, I don’t mind that,’ answered Death; ‘only mind it isn’t a long one, because I’ve got so many people to fetch to-day.’‘A mass is a mass,’ answered Pret’ Olivo; ‘it will be neither longer nor shorter.’As he went out, however, he told his servant to heap up a lot of wood on the hearth and set fire to it. Deathwent to sit down on a bench in the far corner of the chimney, and by-and-by the wood blazed up and she couldn’t get away any more. In vain she called to the servant to come and moderate the fire. ‘Master told me to heap it up, not to moderate it,’ answered the servant; and so there was no help. Death continued calling in desperation, and nobody came. It was impossible with her dry bones to pass the blaze, so there she had to stay.‘Oh, dear! oh, dear! what can I do?’ she kept saying; ‘all this time everybody is stopped dying! Pret’ Olivo! Pret’ Olivo! come here.’At last Pret’ Olivo came in.‘What do you mean by keeping me here like this?’ said Death; ‘I told you I had so much to do.’‘Oh, you want to go, do you?’ said Pret’ Olivo, quietly.‘Of course I do. Tell some one to clear away those burning logs, and let me out.’‘Will you promise me to leave me alone for another hundred years if I do?’‘Yes, yes; anything you like. I shall be very glad to keep away from this place for a hundred years.’Then he let her go, and she set off running with those long thin legs of hers.The second hundred years came to an end.‘Are you ready, Pret’ Olivo?’ said Death one morning, putting her head in at the door.‘Pretty nearly,’ answered Pret’ Olivo. ‘Meantime, just take that basket, and gather me a couple of figs to eat before I go.’As she went away he said, ‘Stick to the tree’ (but not so that she could hear it); for you remember he had power given him to make her do what he liked. She had therefore to stick to the tree.‘Well, Lady Death, are you never going to bring those figs?’ cried Pret’ Olivo after a time.‘How can I bring them, when you know I can’t get down from this tree? Instead of making game of me, come and take me down.’‘Will you leave me alone another hundred years if I do?’‘Yes, yes; anything you like. Only make haste and let me go.’The third hundred years came to an end, and Death appeared again. ‘Are you ready this time, Pret’ Olivo?’ she cried out as she approached.‘Yes, this time I’ll come with you,’ answered Pret’ Olivo. Then he vested himself in the Church vestments, and put a cope on, and took a pack of cards in his hand, and said to Death, ‘Now take me to the gate of Hell, for I want to play a game of cards with the Devil.’‘Nonsense!’ answered Death. ‘I’m not going to waste my time like that. I’ve got orders to take you to Paradise, and to Paradise you must go.’‘You know you’ve got orders to obey whatever I tell you,’ answered Pret’ Olivo; and Death knew that was true, so she lost no more time in disputing, but took him all the way round by the gate of Hell.At the gate of Hell they knocked.‘Who’s there?’ said the Devil.‘Pret’ Olivo,’ replied Death.‘Out with you, ugly priest!’ said the Devil. ‘I’m surprised at you, Death, making game of me like that; you know that’s not the sort of ware for my market.’12‘Silence, and open the door, ugly Pluto!13I’m not come to stay. I only want to have a game of cards with you. Here’s my soul for stake on my side, against the last comer on your side,’ interposed Pret’ Olivo.Pret’ Olivo won the game, and hung the soul on to his cope.‘We must have another game,’ said the Devil.‘With all my heart!’ replied Pret’ Olivo; and he wonanother soul. Another and another he won, and his cope was covered all over with the souls clinging to it.Meantime, Death thought it was going on rather too long, so she looked through the keyhole, and, finding they were just beginning another game, she cried out loudly;‘It’s no use playing any more, for I’m not going to be bothered to carry all those souls all the way up to Heaven—a likely matter, indeed!’But Pret’ Olivo went on playing without taking any notice of her; and he hung them on to his beretta, till at last you could hardly see him at all for the number of souls he had clinging to him. There was no place for any more, so at last he stopped playing.‘I’m not going to take all those other souls,’ said Death when he came out; ‘I’ve only got orders to take you.’‘Then take me,’ answered Pret’ Olivo.Death saw that the souls were all hung on so that she could not take him without taking all the rest; so away she went with the lot of them, without disputing any more.At last they arrived at the Gate of Paradise. St. Peter opened the door when they knocked; but when he saw who was there he shut the door again.‘Make haste!’ said Death; ‘I’ve no time to waste.’‘Why did you waste your time in bringing up souls that were not properly consigned to you?’ answered St. Peter.‘It wasn’t I brought them, it was Pret’ Olivo. And your Master charged me I was to do whatever he told me.’‘My Master! Oh, then, I’m out of it,’ said St. Peter. ‘Only wait a minute, while I just go and ask Him whether it is so.’ St. Peter ran to ask; and receiving an affirmative answer, came back and opened the gate, and they all got in.8DOMINE QUO VADIS.‘You know, of course, about St. Peter, when they put him in the prisons here; he found a way of escaping through the “catacomboli,” and just as he had got out into the open road again he met Jesus Christ coming towards him carrying His cross. And St. Peter asked Him what he was doing going into the “catacomboli.” But Jesus Christ answered, “I am not going into the ‘catacomboli’ to stay; I am going back by the way you came to be crucified over again, since you refuse to die for the flock.” Then St. Peter turned and went all the way back, and was crucified with his head downwards, for he said he was not worthy to die in the same way as his Master.’[Counterparts of these stories abound in the collections of all countries; in the Norse, and Gaelic, and Russian, more of the pagan element seems to stick to them. In Grimm’s are some with both much and little of it. From Tirol I have given two, which are literally free from it, in ‘Household Stories from the Land of Hofer;’ and I have one or two picked up for me by a friend in Brittany, of which the same may be said. On the other hand, we meet them again in another form in that large group of strange compounds, of which ‘Il Rè Moro,’ p. 97, &c., are the Roman representatives, and ‘Marienkind,’ pp. 7–12, ‘Grimm Kinder und Hausmährchen,’ ed. 1870, the link between them. In the minds of the Roman narrators, however, I am quite clear no such connexion exists. See also p. 207infra.One of the quaintest legends of this class is given in Scheible’s ‘Schaltjahr.’ It is meant for a charm to drive away wolves.]‘Lord Jesus Christ and St. Peter went in the morning out.As our Lady went on before she said (turning about),“Ah, dear Lord! whither must we go in and out?We must over hill and dale (roundabout).May God guard the while my flock (devout).Let not St. Peter go his keys without;But take them and lock up the wild dogs’14snout,That they no bone of them all may flout.”’1The Holy Babe.↑2‘Date mi un po’ d’allogio;’lit., Give me a small quantity of lodging—a humble mode of expression.↑3‘Chi è?’ (‘Who’s there’); but the humour of the expression here lies in its being the invariable Roman custom to sing out ‘Chi è?’ and wait till ‘Amici!’ is answered, before any door is opened.↑4Comp. with Legend of the Marmolata in ‘Household Stories from the land of Hofer.’↑5‘Un pagnotto di polenta’ was the expression used, meaning a great coarse loaf of Indian corn. The Roman poor have much the same contempt for inferior bread that we meet with in the same class at home, none eat ‘seconds’ who can possibly avoid it; but the pagnotto di polenta is only eaten by the poorest peasants.↑6‘Strutto,’ lard, enters into the composition of almost every Roman popular dish.↑7‘Che bolliva,’ constantly applied in Roman parlance to solids as well as liquids.↑8The narrator was an admirable reciter, and as she uttered this ‘Vi sia concessa,’ in a solemn and majestic manner, she raised her hand and made the sign of the cross with a rapid and facile gesture, just as she might have seen the Pope do as he drove through Rome.↑9‘Trattoria,’ can only be translated by ‘tavern,’ but unfortunately the English word represents quite a different idea from the Roman. ‘Tavern’ suggests noise and riot, but a ‘trattoria’ is a place where a poor Roman will take his family to dine quietly with him on a festa as a treat.↑10‘Death,’ being feminine in Italian, has to be personified as a woman. The same occurs in a Spanish counterpart of this story which I have given under the title of ‘Starving John the Doctor’ in ‘Patrañas.’ The Spanish counterpart of the rest of the story will be found in ‘Where one can dine two can dine’ (‘Un Convidado invida a ciento’) in the same series.↑11‘Olive the priest.’ ‘When we were children,’ said the narrator, ‘my father used to tell us such a lot of stories of an evening, but of them all the two we used to ask for most, again and again, and the only two I remember, were “Mi butto,” and “Pret’ Olivo.” Do you know “Mi butto”? We used to shudder at it, and yet we used to ask for it.’ I incautiously admitted I did know it, instead of acquiring a fresh version. ‘Then here is “Pret’ Olivo.” I don’t suppose I was more than seven then, and now I am thirty-five, and I have never heard it since, but I’ll make the best I can of it. Of course it is not a true story; we knew that itcouldn’tbe true, as anyone can see; but it used to interest us children.’↑12‘Vaene brutto prete! Questa non è roba per me.’↑13‘Brutto Plutone!’ The traditional application of the name will not have escaped the reader.↑14‘Holzhund,’ I suppose, is used for wild dog.↑PIETRO BAILLIARDO.11What! Never heard of Pietro Bailliardo! Surely you must, if you ever heard anything at all. Why, everybody knows about Pietro Bailliardo! Why, he was here and there and everywhere in Rome; and turned everybody’s head, and they have his books now, that they took away from him, locked up in the Holy Office.2Pietro Bailliardo was a scholar boy, and went to school like other boys. One day he found at a bookstall a book of divination;3with this he was able to do whatever he would, and wherever he was, there the Devil was in command.He fell in love with a girl, and she would have nothing to do with him; and one day afterwards they found her on Mont Cavallo with a great fire burning round her, and everyone who passed had to stir the fire whether he would or not.Whatever he wanted he ordered to come and it came to him, and nobody could resist him.As to putting him in prison it was no manner of use. One day when they had put him in prison he took a piece of charcoal and drew a boat on the white prison wall, then he jumped into it, and said to all the other prisoners, ‘Get in too,’ and they got in, and he rowed away, and next morning they were all loose about Rome. But there was an old man asleep in a corner of the prison, and the guards came to him and said, ‘Where are all the prisoners gone?’ And he told them about Pietro Bailliardo drawing the boat on the prison wall with the charcoal and their all getting away in it. ‘And why didn’t you go too?’ asked the guards. ‘Because I was asleep so comfortably I did not want to move,’ said he. (‘But then, how did he see it all unless Pietro Bailliardo had him put undera spell on purpose that he might tell the authorities how he had defied them?’ added the narrator.)Another time again they shut him up in prison, and the next morning when they came to look for him they found nothing but an ass’s head in his place, which he had left there just to show his contempt for them.One day a zealous friar met him and warned him to repent. ‘What have I to repent of?’ said he. ‘I can hear mass better than you, for I can hear mass in three places at once.’ Then he went away and made the Devil take him to Constantinople and Paris to hear mass at each while all at one and the same time he was hearing one at Rome too! Then he came and told the friar what a grand thing he had done. But the friar told him it was worse than not hearing mass at all to attempt to use diabolical arts in that way.After that one day he was going up past the church of SS. John and Paul4when the Devil met him.‘Now,’ said the Devil, ‘you have had your swing long enough; I have come to fetch you!’When Pietro Bailliardo, who had set all the world at defiance all his life, saw the Devil and heard him say he had come to fetch him, he was seized with such terror that he began to repent, and ran inside the church. The Devil durst not follow him thither, but waited outside thinking he would soon be turned out.But Pietro Bailliardo took up a great stone and went and kneeled down before the crucifix and smote his bare breast with the big stone, saying the while, ‘Behold! merciful Lord, I beat my breast with this stone till Thou bow Thy head in token that Thou forgive me.’And he went on beating his breast till the blood ran down, and at last our Lord had compassion on him and bowed His head from the cross to him, and he died there. So the Devil did not get him.2‘You have told me so many stories, why have you never told me anything about Pietro Bailliardo—don’t you know about him?’‘Of course I know about him. Who in Rome doesn’t know about him? but I can’t remember it all. I know he had the book of divination, and could make the Devil do whatever he chose by its means. And then one day, I don’t remember by what circumstance, he was led to do penance; but he would do it in his own way, not in the right way, and he made a vow to the Madonna that he would pay a visit to some shrine in Rome and to S. Giacomo di Galizia,5and to theSanta Casa di Loretoall in the same night. As devils can fly through the air at a wonderful pace he called upon a devil by his divining book and told him what he wanted; then he got on the back of the devil and rode away through the air and actually visited all three in one night.‘But that sort of penance was no penance at all. After that he did penance in right earnest at some church, I forget which.’‘Was it SS. John and Paul?’ I asked.‘Yes, to be sure; SS. John and Paul. And you knew it all the time, and yet have been asking me!’3‘Do you want to know about Pietro Bailliardo too?’ said the old man who had given me No. 2 of San GiovanniBocca d’oro. ‘Oh, yes; I did know a deal about him. This is what I can remember.‘Pietro Bailliardo had a bond6with the Devil, by which he was as rich as he could be, and had whatever he wanted; but the day came when the compact came to an end, and Pietro Bailliardo quailed as that day approached, for he knew that after that time the Devil could take him and he could not resist.‘Before noon on that day, therefore, he set out to go to St. Paul’s.’‘To SS. John and Paul?’ asked I, full of the former versions.‘No, no! to the great St. Paul’s outside the walls, where the monks of St. Benedict are; and he waited there all day, for before the time was out the Devil couldn’t take him. At last evening came on, and the chierico7wanted to shut the church up; so he told Pietro Bailliardo he must go, and showed him to the door. But when he came to the door, he found the Devil there waiting for him dressed like a paino.8When he saw that, no power of the chierico could make him go; so the chierico was obliged to call the Father Abbot.‘To the Father Abbot Pietro Bailliardo told his whole story, and the Father Abbot said, “If that is so, come with me to the Inquisition, and tell your story there and receive absolution.” Then he sent for a carriage, and said to the driver, “Be of good heart, for I have many relics of saints with me, and whatever strange thing you may see or hear by the way, have no fear, it shall not harm you.”‘The Devil saw all this, and was in a great fury, for he has no power to alter future events, and so he couldn’t help Pietro Bailliardo going into the church for sanctuary before the time was up. He got a number of devils together, therefore, and made unearthly and terrible noises all the way. But the driver had confidence in the word of the Abbot, and drove on without heeding. Only when they got to the bridge of St. Angelo the noise was so tremendous he got quite bewildered; moreover the bridge heaved and rocked as though it were going to break in twain.‘“Fear nothing, fear nothing! Nothing will harm you,” said the Father Abbot; and the driver, having confidence in his words, drove on without heeding, and they arrived safely at the Palace of the Inquisition.‘The Father Abbot now delivered Pietro Bailliardo over to the Penitentiary, to whom, moreover, he made confession of his terrible crimes, and begged to remain to perform his penance and obtain reconciliation with God.‘But as Pietro Bailliardo had been used to follow his own strange ways all his life, he must needs now perform his penance too in his own strange way. Therefore he made a vow that he would perform such a penance as man never performed before; and this penance was to visit, all in one night, the SS. Crocifisso in the Chapel of the Holy Office, S. Giacomo di Galizia, and the sanctuary of Cirollo. All in one night!’‘Stop! S. Giacomo di Galizia I know; we call it S. James of Compostella; but the sanctuary of Cirollo! I never heard of that; where is it?’‘Oh, Cirollo is all the same as if you said Loreto; the Madonna di Loreto; it is all one.’I appealed to one sitting there who, I knew, had been brought up at Loreto.‘Yes, yes,’ she said. ‘That is all right; Cirollo is just a walk from Loreto.Noi altriwhen living at Loreto often go there, but those who come from far, most often don’t; so we have a saying, “Who goes to Loreto and not to Cirollo, he sees the mother, but not the son.”9‘It is a saying, and nothing more.’‘Basta!’ interposed the old man, who, like other old people, was apt to forget the thread of his story if interrupted. ‘Basta!it doesn’t matter: they were anyhow three places very far apart.10So Pietro Bailliardo, who couldn’t get out of his habit of commanding the devils, called up a number of them, and said, “Which of all you fiends can go the fastest?” and the devils, accustomed to obey him, answered the one before the other, some one way some another, each anxious to content him: “I, like lightning,” said one; “I, like the wind,” said another; but “I—I can go as fast as thought,”11said another. “Ho! Here!You fiend. You, who can travel as fast as thought. You come here, and take me to-night to St. James of Compostella, and to the sanctuary of Cirollo, and bring me back here to the Chapel of the Holy Office before morning breaks.”‘He spoke imperiously, and sprang on to the devil’s back, and all was done so quickly the devil had no time for thought or hesitation.‘Away flew the devil, and Pietro Bailliardo on his back, all the way to St. James of Compostella, and, whr-r-r-r all the way to the sanctuary of Cirollo, fast, fast as thought. Then suddenly the devil stopped midway. An idea had struck him. “What had a devil to do with going about visiting shrines in this way; no harm had been done to the sacred place; not a stone had been injured;12why then had they gone to S. Giacomo; why were they going to Cirollo?”‘“Tell me, Ser Bailliardo,” said he, “on whose account am I sweating like this? is it for your private account, or for my master’s; because I only obey you so long as you command in his name, and how can it serve him to be doing pilgrim’s work?”‘“Go on, ugly monster! don’t prate,”13answered Pietro Bailliardo, and gave him at the same time a kick in each flank; and such was his empire over him that the devil durst say no more, and completed the strange pilgrimage even as he had commanded.14‘Thus even in his penitence Pietro Bailliardo had the devils subject to him. But after that he did penance in right good earnest, only he chose a strange way of his own again.‘He knelt before the Crucifix in the Chapel of the Inquisition, and he took a great stone and beat his breast with it and said, “Lord, behold my repentance; I smite my breast thus till Thou forgive me.” And when the blood flowed down the Lord had compassion on him andbowed His head upon the cross and said, “I have forgiven thee!”‘After that he died in peace.’1Unquestionably a very exaggerated tradition of the aberrations and final submission to the Church of Abelard (Pietro Abelardo in Italian), some of whose writings were publicly burnt in Rome by the Inquisition in 1140.↑2The Office of the Inquisition behind the Colonnade of St. Peter’s.↑3‘Libro di comando.’ A book of divination.↑4St. John and Paul. The Church of the Passionists on the Cœlian.↑5I.e. St. Iago di Compostella.↑6‘Scrittura,’ a written compact.↑7‘Chierico’ of course means a cleric, but in common parlance it is reserved for the boy who, though lay, wears a clerical dress for the time he is serving mass, or attending to the church generally. In the present instance it would probably be a youth in minor orders.↑8‘Paino’ and ‘paina’ mean one, who, according to his or her condition, ought to be dressed in the national style, but who does affect to dress like a gentleman or lady.↑9‘Chi va a LoretoE non va a Cirollo,Vede la MadreE non vede il figliuolo.’↑10I took another opportunity of asking the one who was familiar with Loreto, about Cirollo, and she explained its introduction into the story to mean that he was not to pay a hasty visit, but a thorough one, even though it was done so rapidly. ‘Cirollo,’ she said, ‘is a poor village with few houses, but the church is fine, and the Crucifix is reckonedmiracolosissimo.’ In Murray’s map it is marked as Sirollo, close by the sea, without even a pathway from Loreto, about five miles to the north; and he does not mention the place at all in his text.Subsequently I was talking with another who called herself a Marchegiana, i.e. from the March of Ancona, in which Loreto is situated, and boasted of having been born at Sinigallia, the birthplace of Pio Nono. ‘Have you ever been to Loreto?’ I asked by way of beginning inquiry about Cirollo.‘Yes; six times I have made the pilgrimage from Sinigallia, and always on foot.’ she replied with something of enthusiasm. ‘And you who have travelled so far, you have been there too, of course?’‘Not yet,’ I replied; ‘but I mean to go one day;’ and just as I was coming to my question about Cirollo, she added of her own accord:‘Mind you do, and mind when you go you go to Sirollo too (she pronounced it Sirollo like the spelling in the map). ‘Everyone who goes to Loreto ought to go to Sirollo. There is a Crucifix there which ismiracolosissimo.’↑11‘Quanto la mente dell’ uomo.’↑12‘Dispetto,’ an affront, rather than an injury.↑13‘Tira via, brutta bestia,’ literally ‘fire away’—is used in all senses the same as in English.↑14The question of night flights through the air, and more, whether in the body or out of the body, than whether they were ever effected at all, was one of the most hotly contested questions of demonographers. Tartarotti, lib. I. cap. viii. § vi., winds up a long account of the subject with the following:—‘... So divided was opinion on the subject, not only of Catholics as against heterodox, but between Catholics and Catholics, that after reading in Delrio ‘qui hæc asserunt somnia esse et ludibrio certe peccant contra reverentiam Ecclesiæ matri debitam,’ and ‘Hæc opinio (somnia hæc esse) tanquam hæretica est reprobanda;’ and in Bartolomeo Spina, ‘Negare quod diabolus possit portare homines de loco in locum est hæreticum;’ you may see in Emmanuel Rodriguez, a great theologian and canonist, ‘Peccat mortaliter qui credit veneficos aut veneficas vel striges corporaliter per aëra vehi ad diversa loca, ut illi existimant;’ while Navarro mildly says, ‘Credere quod aliquando, licet raro, dæmon aliquis de loco in locum, Deo permittente, transportet non est peccatum.’Tartarotti supplies a long list of writers who, in the course of the sixteenth and two following centuries, took the opposite sides on this question, and quotes from Dr. John Weir, (Protestant) physician to the Duke of Cleves (In Apol. sec. iv. p. 582), that the Protestants were most numerous on the side which maintained that it was an actual and corporeal and not a mental or imaginative transaction. Cesare Cantù has likewise given an exposition of the treatment of the question in ‘Gli Eretici d’ltalia,’ discorso xxxiii., and ‘Storia Universale,’ epoca xv. cap. 14, p. 488. In note 1 he gives a list of a dozen of the most celebrated Protestant writers who upheld the actuality of the witches’ congress.↑

WHEN JESUS CHRIST WANDERED ON EARTH.1One day the Madonna was carrying the Bambino through a lupin-field, and the stalks of the lupins rustled so, that she thought it was a robber coming to kill the Santo Bambino.1She turned, and sent a malediction over the lupin-field, and immediately the lupins all withered away and fell flat and dry on the ground, so that she could see there was no one hidden there. When she saw there was no one hidden there, she sent a benediction over the lupin-field, and the lupins all stood up straight again, fair and flourishing, and with tenfold greater produce than they had at the first.2One day when Jesus Christ was grown up, and went about preaching, He came to a certain village and knocked at the first door, and said, ‘Give me a lodging.’2But the master of the house shut the door in his face, saying, ‘Here is nothing for you.’ He came to the next house, and received the same answer; and the next, and the next, no one in all the village would take Him in. Weary and footsore, He came to the cottage of a poor little old woman, who lived all alone on the outskirts, and knocked there. ‘Who is there?’3asked the old woman. ‘The Master with the Apostles,’ answered Jesus Christ. The old woman opened the door, and let them all in. ‘Have you no fire?’ asked Jesus Christ. ‘No fire have I,’ answered the old woman. Then Jesus Christ blessed the hearth, and there came a pile of wood on it,and a fire was soon made. ‘Have you nothing to give us to eat?’ asked Jesus Christ. ‘Nothing worth offering you,’ answered the old woman; ‘here is a little fish’ (it was a little fish, that, not so long as my hand) ‘and some crusts of bread, which they gave me at the eating-shop in charity just now, and that’s all I have;’ and she set both on the table. ‘Have you no wine?’ again asked Jesus Christ. ‘Only this flask of wine and water they gave me there, too;’ and she set it before Him.Then Jesus Christ blessed all the things, and handed them round the table, and they all dined off them, and at the end there remained just the same as at the beginning. When they had finished, He said to the old woman, ‘This fire, with the bread, and the fish, and the wine, will always remain to you, and never diminish as long as you live. And now follow Me a little way.’The Master went on before with His Apostles, and the old woman followed after, a little way behind. And behold, as they walked along, all the houses of that inhospitable village fell down one after the other, and all the inhabitants were buried under them. Only the cottage of the old woman was left standing. When the judgment was complete, Jesus Christ said to her, ‘Now, return home.’4As she turned to go, St. Peter said to her, ‘Ask for the salvation of your soul.’ And she went and asked it of Jesus Christ, and He replied, ‘Let it be granted you!’3One day as He was going into the Temple, He saw two men quarrelling before the door: a young man and an old man. The young man wanted to go in first, and the old man was vindicating the honour of his grey hairs.‘What is the matter?’ asked Jesus Christ; and they showed Him wherefore they strove.Jesus Christ said to the young man, ‘If you are desirous to go in first, you must accept the state to which honour belongs,’ and He touched him, and he became an old man, bowed in gait, feeble, and grey-haired, while to the old man He gave the compensation for the insult he had received, by investing him with the youth of the other.4In the days when Jesus Christ roamed the earth, He found Himself one day with His disciples in the Campagna, far from anything like home. The only shelter in sight was a cottage of wretched aspect. Jesus Christ knocked at the door.‘Who is there?’ said a tremulous voice from within.‘The Master with the disciples,’ answered Jesus Christ. The man didn’t know what He meant; nevertheless, the tone was too gentle to inspire fear, so he opened, and let them all in.‘Have you no fire to give us?’ asked Jesus Christ.‘I’m only a poor beggar. I never have any fire,’ said the man.‘But these poor things,’ said Jesus Christ, ‘are stiff with cold and weariness; they must have a fire.’Then Jesus Christ stood on the hearth, and blessed it, and there came a great blazing fire of heaped-up wood. When the beggar saw it, he fell on his knees in astonishment.‘Have you no food to set before us?’ asked Jesus Christ.‘I have one loaf of Indian corn,5which is at your service,’ answered the beggar.‘One loaf is not enough,’ answered Jesus Christ; ‘have you nothing else at all?’‘Nothing at all about the place that can be eaten,’ answered the beggar. ‘Leastwise, I have one ewe, which is at your service.’‘That will do,’ answered Jesus Christ; and he sent St. Peter to help the man to prepare it for dressing.‘Here is the mutton,’ said the beggar; ‘but I cannot cook it, because I have no lard.’6‘Look!’ said Jesus Christ.The beggar looked on the hearth, and saw everything that was necessary ready for use.‘Now, then, bring the wine and the bread,’ said Jesus Christ, when the meat was nearly ready.‘There is the only loaf I have,’ said the beggar, setting the polenta loaf on the table; ‘but, as for wine, I never see such a thing.’‘Is there none in the cellar?’ asked Jesus Christ.‘In the cellar are only a dozen empty old broken wine-jars that have been there these hundred years; they are well covered with mould.’ Jesus Christ told St. Peter to go down and see, and when he went down with the beggar, there was a whole ovenful of fresh-baked bread boiling hot,7and beyond, in the cellar, the jars, instead of being broken and musty, were all standing whole and upright, and filled with excellent wine.‘See how you told us falsely,’ said St. Peter, to tease him.‘Upon my word, it was even as I said, before you came.’‘Then it is the Master who has done these wonderful things,’ answered St. Peter. ‘Praise Him!’Now the meat was cooked and ready, and they all sat down to table; but Jesus Christ took a bowl and placed it in the midst of the table and said, ‘Let all the bones be put into this bowl;’ and when they had finished he took the bones and threw them out of the window, and said, ‘Behold, I give you an hundred for one.’ After that they all laid them down and slept.In the morning when they opened the door to go, behold there were an hundred sheep grazing before the door.‘These sheep are yours,’ said Jesus Christ; ‘moreover, as long as you live, neither the bread in the oven nor the wine in the cellar shall fail;’ and He passed out and the disciples after Him.But St. Peter remained behind, and said to the man who had entertained them, ‘The Master has rewarded you generously, but He has one greater gift yet which He will give you if you ask Him.’‘What is it? tell me what is it?’ said the beggar.‘The salvation of your soul,’ answeredSt. Peter.‘Signore! Signore! add to all Thou hast given this further, the salvation of my soul,’ cried the man.‘Let it be granted thee,’8answered the Lord, and passed on His way.5Another day Jesus Christ and His disciples dined at a tavern.9‘What’s to pay?’ said Jesus Christ, when they had finished their meal.‘Nothing at all,’ answered the host.But the host had a little hunchback son, who said to him, ‘I know some have found it answer to give these people food instead of making them pay for it; but suppose they forget to give us anything, we shall be worse off than if we had been paid in the regular way. I will tell you what I’ll do now, so as to have a hold over them. I’ll take one of our silver spoons and put it in the bag that one of them carries, and accuse them of stealing it.’Now St. Peter was a great eater, and when anything was left over from a good meal he was wont to put it by in a bag against a day when they had nothing. Into this bag therefore the hunchback put the silver spoon.When they had gone on a little way the young hunchback ran after them and said to Jesus Christ,—‘Signore! one of these with you has stolen a spoon from us.’‘You are mistaken, friend; there is not one of them who would do such a thing.’‘Yes,’ persevered the hunchback; ‘it isthatone who took it,’ and he pointed to St. Peter.‘I!!’ said St. Peter, getting very angry. ‘How dare you to say such a thing of me!’But Jesus Christ made him a sign that he should keep silence.‘We will go back to your house and help you to look for what you have lost, for that none of us have taken the spoon is most certain,’ He said; and He went back with the hunchback.‘There is nowhere to search,’ answered the hunchback, ‘but in that man’s bag; I know it is there, because I saw him take it.’‘Then there’s my bag inside out,’ said St. Peter, as he cast the contents upon the floor. Of course the silver spoon fell clattering upon the bricks.‘There!’ said the hunchback, insolently. ‘Didn’t I tell you it was there? You said it wasn’t!’St. Peter was so angry he could not trust himself to speak; but Jesus Christ answered for him:‘Nay, I said not it was not there, but that none of these had taken it. And now we will see who it was put it there.’ With that He motioned to them all to stand back, while He, standing in the midst and raising his eyes to Heaven, said solemnly,‘Let whoso put it in the bag be turned to stone!’Even as He spoke the hunchback was turned into stone.6There was another tavern, however, where the host was a different sort of man, and not onlysaidhe would take nothing when Jesus Christ and His disciples dined there, but really would never take anything; nor was it that by any miracle he had received advantages of another sort,but out of the respect and affection he bore the Master he deemed himself sufficiently paid by the honour of being allowed to minister to Him.One day when Jesus Christ and His disciples were going away on a journey, St. Peter went to this host and said, ‘You have been very liberal to us all this time: if you were to ask for some gift, now, you would be sure to get it.’‘I don’t know that there is anything that I want,’ said the host. ‘I have a thriving trade, which you see not only supplies all my wants, but leaves me the means of being liberal also; I have no wife to provide for, and no children to leave an inheritance to: so what should I ask for? There is one thing, to be sure, I should like. My only amusement is playing at cards: if He would give me the faculty of always winning, I should like that; it isn’t that I care for what one wins, it is that it is nice to win. Do you think I might askthat?’‘I don’t know,’ said St. Peter, gravely. ‘Still you might ask; He is very kind.’The host did ask, and Jesus Christ granted his desire. When St. Peter saw how easily He granted it, he said, ‘If I were you, I should ask something more.’‘I really don’t know what else I have to ask,’ replied the host, ‘unless it be that I have a fig-tree which bears excellent figs, but I never can get one of them for myself; they are always stolen before I get them. I wish He would order that whoever goes up to steal them might get stuck to the tree till I tell him he may come down.’‘Well,’ said St. Peter, ‘it is an odd sort of thing to ask, but you might try; He is very kind.’The host did ask, and Jesus Christ granted his request. When St. Peter saw that He granted it so easily, he said, ‘If I were you I should ask something more.’‘Do you really think I might?’ answered the host. ‘There is one thing I have wanted to ask all along, only I didn’t dare. But you encourage me, and He seems to takea pleasure in giving. I have always had a great wish to live four hundred years.’‘That is certainly a great deal to ask,’ said St. Peter, ‘but you might try; He is very kind.’The host did ask, and Jesus Christ granted his petition, and then went His way with His disciples. St. Peter remained last, and said to the host, ‘Now run after him, and ask for the salvation of your soul.’ (‘St. Peter always told them all to ask that,’ added the narrator in a confidential tone.)‘Oh, I can’t ask anything more, I have asked so much,’ said the host.‘But that is just the best thing of all, and what He grants the most willingly,’ insisted St. Peter. ‘Really?’ said the host; and he ran after Jesus Christ, and said, ‘Lord! who hast so largely shown me Thy bounty, grant me further the salvation of my soul.’‘Let it be granted!’ said Jesus Christ; and continued His journey.All the things the host had asked he received, and life passed away very pleasantly, but still even four hundred years come to an end at last, and with the end of it came Death.‘What! is that you, Mrs. Death,10come already?’ said the host.‘Why, it’s time I should come, I think; it’s not often I leave people in peace for four hundred years.’‘All right, but don’t be in a hurry. I have such a fancy for the figs of that fig-tree of mine there. I wish you would just have the kindness to go up and pluck a good provision of them to take with me, and by that time I’ll be ready to go with you.’‘I’ve no objection to oblige you so far,’ said Mrs. Death; ‘only you must mind and be quite ready by the time I do come back.’‘Never fear,’ said the host; and Mrs. Death climbed up the fig-tree.‘Now stick there!’ said the host, and for all her struggling Mrs. Death could by no means extricate herself any more.‘I can’t stay here, so take off your spell; I have my business to attend to,’ said she.‘So have I,’ answered the host; ‘and if you want to go about your business, you must promise me, on your honour, you will leave me to attend to mine.’‘I can’t do it, my man! What are you asking? It’s more than my place is worth. Every man alive has to pass through my hands. I can’t let any of them off.’‘Well, at all events, leave me alone another four hundred years, and then I’ll come with you. If you’ll promise that, I’ll let you out of the fig-tree.’‘I don’t mind another four hundred years, if you so particularly wish for them; but mind you give me your word of honour you come then, without giving me all this trouble again.’‘Yes! and here’s my hand upon it,’ said the host, as he handed Mrs. Death down from the fig-tree.And so he went on to live another four hundred years. (‘For you know in those times men lived to a very great age,’ was the running gloss of the narrator.)The end of the second four hundred years came too, and then Mrs. Death appeared again. ‘Remember your promise,’ she said, ‘and don’t try any trick on me this time.’‘Oh, yes! I always keep my word,’ said the host, and without more ado he went along with her.As she was carrying him up to Paradise, they passed the way which led down to Hell, and at the opening sat the Devil, receiving souls which his ministers brought to him from all parts. He was marshalling them into ranks, and ticketing them ready to send off in batches to the distinct place for each.‘You seem to have got plenty of souls there, Mr.Devil,’ said the host. ‘Suppose we sit down and play for them?’‘I’ve no objection,’ said the Devil. ‘Your soul against one of these. If I win, you go with them; if you win, one of them goes with you.’‘That’s it,’ said the host, and picking out a nice-looking soul, he set him for the Devil’s stake.Of course the host won, and the nice-looking soul was passed round to his side of the table.‘Shall we have another game?’ said the host, quite cock-a-hoop.The Devil hesitated for a moment, but finally he yielded. The host picked out a soul that took his fancy, for the Devil’s stake, and they sat down to play again, with the same result.So they went on and on till the host had won fifteen thousand souls of the Devil. ‘Come,’ said Death when they had got as far as this, ‘I really can’t wait any longer. I never had to do with anyone who took up so much time as you. Come along!’So the host bowed excuses to the Devil for having had all the luck, and went cheerfully the way Mrs. Death led, with all his fifteen thousand souls behind him. Thus they arrived at the gate of Paradise. There wasn’t so much business going on there as at the other place, and they had to ring before anyone appeared to open the door.‘Who’s there?’ said St. Peter.‘He of the four hundred years!’‘And what is all that rabble behind?’ asked St. Peter.‘Souls that I have won of the Devil for Paradise,’ answered the host.‘Oh, that won’t do at all, here!’ said St. Peter.‘Be kind enough to carry the message up to your Master,’ responded the host.St. Peter went up to Jesus Christ. ‘Here is he to whom you gave four hundred years of life,’ he said;‘and he has brought fifteen thousand other souls, who have no title at all to Paradise, with him.’‘Tell him he may come in himself,’ said Jesus Christ, ‘but he has nothing to do to meddle with the others.’‘Tell Him to be pleased to remember that when He came to my eating-shop I never made any difficulty how many soever He brought with Him, and if He had brought an army I should have said nothing,’ answered the host; and St. Peter took up that message too.‘That is true! that is right!’ answered Jesus Christ. ‘Let them all in! let them all in!’7PRET’ OLIVO.11When Jesus Christ was on earth, He lodged one night at a priest’s house, and when He went away in the morning He offered to give His host, in reward for his hospitality, whatever he asked. What Pret’ Olivo (for that was his host’s name) asked for was that he should live a hundred years, and that when Death came to fetch him he should be able to give her what orders he pleased, and that she must obey him.‘Let it be granted!’ said Jesus Christ.A hundred years passed away, and then, one morning early, Death came.‘Pret’ Olivo! Pret’Olivo!’ cried Death, ‘are you ready? I’m come for you at last.’‘Let me say my mass first,’ said Pret’ Olivo; ‘that’s all.’‘Well, I don’t mind that,’ answered Death; ‘only mind it isn’t a long one, because I’ve got so many people to fetch to-day.’‘A mass is a mass,’ answered Pret’ Olivo; ‘it will be neither longer nor shorter.’As he went out, however, he told his servant to heap up a lot of wood on the hearth and set fire to it. Deathwent to sit down on a bench in the far corner of the chimney, and by-and-by the wood blazed up and she couldn’t get away any more. In vain she called to the servant to come and moderate the fire. ‘Master told me to heap it up, not to moderate it,’ answered the servant; and so there was no help. Death continued calling in desperation, and nobody came. It was impossible with her dry bones to pass the blaze, so there she had to stay.‘Oh, dear! oh, dear! what can I do?’ she kept saying; ‘all this time everybody is stopped dying! Pret’ Olivo! Pret’ Olivo! come here.’At last Pret’ Olivo came in.‘What do you mean by keeping me here like this?’ said Death; ‘I told you I had so much to do.’‘Oh, you want to go, do you?’ said Pret’ Olivo, quietly.‘Of course I do. Tell some one to clear away those burning logs, and let me out.’‘Will you promise me to leave me alone for another hundred years if I do?’‘Yes, yes; anything you like. I shall be very glad to keep away from this place for a hundred years.’Then he let her go, and she set off running with those long thin legs of hers.The second hundred years came to an end.‘Are you ready, Pret’ Olivo?’ said Death one morning, putting her head in at the door.‘Pretty nearly,’ answered Pret’ Olivo. ‘Meantime, just take that basket, and gather me a couple of figs to eat before I go.’As she went away he said, ‘Stick to the tree’ (but not so that she could hear it); for you remember he had power given him to make her do what he liked. She had therefore to stick to the tree.‘Well, Lady Death, are you never going to bring those figs?’ cried Pret’ Olivo after a time.‘How can I bring them, when you know I can’t get down from this tree? Instead of making game of me, come and take me down.’‘Will you leave me alone another hundred years if I do?’‘Yes, yes; anything you like. Only make haste and let me go.’The third hundred years came to an end, and Death appeared again. ‘Are you ready this time, Pret’ Olivo?’ she cried out as she approached.‘Yes, this time I’ll come with you,’ answered Pret’ Olivo. Then he vested himself in the Church vestments, and put a cope on, and took a pack of cards in his hand, and said to Death, ‘Now take me to the gate of Hell, for I want to play a game of cards with the Devil.’‘Nonsense!’ answered Death. ‘I’m not going to waste my time like that. I’ve got orders to take you to Paradise, and to Paradise you must go.’‘You know you’ve got orders to obey whatever I tell you,’ answered Pret’ Olivo; and Death knew that was true, so she lost no more time in disputing, but took him all the way round by the gate of Hell.At the gate of Hell they knocked.‘Who’s there?’ said the Devil.‘Pret’ Olivo,’ replied Death.‘Out with you, ugly priest!’ said the Devil. ‘I’m surprised at you, Death, making game of me like that; you know that’s not the sort of ware for my market.’12‘Silence, and open the door, ugly Pluto!13I’m not come to stay. I only want to have a game of cards with you. Here’s my soul for stake on my side, against the last comer on your side,’ interposed Pret’ Olivo.Pret’ Olivo won the game, and hung the soul on to his cope.‘We must have another game,’ said the Devil.‘With all my heart!’ replied Pret’ Olivo; and he wonanother soul. Another and another he won, and his cope was covered all over with the souls clinging to it.Meantime, Death thought it was going on rather too long, so she looked through the keyhole, and, finding they were just beginning another game, she cried out loudly;‘It’s no use playing any more, for I’m not going to be bothered to carry all those souls all the way up to Heaven—a likely matter, indeed!’But Pret’ Olivo went on playing without taking any notice of her; and he hung them on to his beretta, till at last you could hardly see him at all for the number of souls he had clinging to him. There was no place for any more, so at last he stopped playing.‘I’m not going to take all those other souls,’ said Death when he came out; ‘I’ve only got orders to take you.’‘Then take me,’ answered Pret’ Olivo.Death saw that the souls were all hung on so that she could not take him without taking all the rest; so away she went with the lot of them, without disputing any more.At last they arrived at the Gate of Paradise. St. Peter opened the door when they knocked; but when he saw who was there he shut the door again.‘Make haste!’ said Death; ‘I’ve no time to waste.’‘Why did you waste your time in bringing up souls that were not properly consigned to you?’ answered St. Peter.‘It wasn’t I brought them, it was Pret’ Olivo. And your Master charged me I was to do whatever he told me.’‘My Master! Oh, then, I’m out of it,’ said St. Peter. ‘Only wait a minute, while I just go and ask Him whether it is so.’ St. Peter ran to ask; and receiving an affirmative answer, came back and opened the gate, and they all got in.8DOMINE QUO VADIS.‘You know, of course, about St. Peter, when they put him in the prisons here; he found a way of escaping through the “catacomboli,” and just as he had got out into the open road again he met Jesus Christ coming towards him carrying His cross. And St. Peter asked Him what he was doing going into the “catacomboli.” But Jesus Christ answered, “I am not going into the ‘catacomboli’ to stay; I am going back by the way you came to be crucified over again, since you refuse to die for the flock.” Then St. Peter turned and went all the way back, and was crucified with his head downwards, for he said he was not worthy to die in the same way as his Master.’[Counterparts of these stories abound in the collections of all countries; in the Norse, and Gaelic, and Russian, more of the pagan element seems to stick to them. In Grimm’s are some with both much and little of it. From Tirol I have given two, which are literally free from it, in ‘Household Stories from the Land of Hofer;’ and I have one or two picked up for me by a friend in Brittany, of which the same may be said. On the other hand, we meet them again in another form in that large group of strange compounds, of which ‘Il Rè Moro,’ p. 97, &c., are the Roman representatives, and ‘Marienkind,’ pp. 7–12, ‘Grimm Kinder und Hausmährchen,’ ed. 1870, the link between them. In the minds of the Roman narrators, however, I am quite clear no such connexion exists. See also p. 207infra.One of the quaintest legends of this class is given in Scheible’s ‘Schaltjahr.’ It is meant for a charm to drive away wolves.]‘Lord Jesus Christ and St. Peter went in the morning out.As our Lady went on before she said (turning about),“Ah, dear Lord! whither must we go in and out?We must over hill and dale (roundabout).May God guard the while my flock (devout).Let not St. Peter go his keys without;But take them and lock up the wild dogs’14snout,That they no bone of them all may flout.”’1The Holy Babe.↑2‘Date mi un po’ d’allogio;’lit., Give me a small quantity of lodging—a humble mode of expression.↑3‘Chi è?’ (‘Who’s there’); but the humour of the expression here lies in its being the invariable Roman custom to sing out ‘Chi è?’ and wait till ‘Amici!’ is answered, before any door is opened.↑4Comp. with Legend of the Marmolata in ‘Household Stories from the land of Hofer.’↑5‘Un pagnotto di polenta’ was the expression used, meaning a great coarse loaf of Indian corn. The Roman poor have much the same contempt for inferior bread that we meet with in the same class at home, none eat ‘seconds’ who can possibly avoid it; but the pagnotto di polenta is only eaten by the poorest peasants.↑6‘Strutto,’ lard, enters into the composition of almost every Roman popular dish.↑7‘Che bolliva,’ constantly applied in Roman parlance to solids as well as liquids.↑8The narrator was an admirable reciter, and as she uttered this ‘Vi sia concessa,’ in a solemn and majestic manner, she raised her hand and made the sign of the cross with a rapid and facile gesture, just as she might have seen the Pope do as he drove through Rome.↑9‘Trattoria,’ can only be translated by ‘tavern,’ but unfortunately the English word represents quite a different idea from the Roman. ‘Tavern’ suggests noise and riot, but a ‘trattoria’ is a place where a poor Roman will take his family to dine quietly with him on a festa as a treat.↑10‘Death,’ being feminine in Italian, has to be personified as a woman. The same occurs in a Spanish counterpart of this story which I have given under the title of ‘Starving John the Doctor’ in ‘Patrañas.’ The Spanish counterpart of the rest of the story will be found in ‘Where one can dine two can dine’ (‘Un Convidado invida a ciento’) in the same series.↑11‘Olive the priest.’ ‘When we were children,’ said the narrator, ‘my father used to tell us such a lot of stories of an evening, but of them all the two we used to ask for most, again and again, and the only two I remember, were “Mi butto,” and “Pret’ Olivo.” Do you know “Mi butto”? We used to shudder at it, and yet we used to ask for it.’ I incautiously admitted I did know it, instead of acquiring a fresh version. ‘Then here is “Pret’ Olivo.” I don’t suppose I was more than seven then, and now I am thirty-five, and I have never heard it since, but I’ll make the best I can of it. Of course it is not a true story; we knew that itcouldn’tbe true, as anyone can see; but it used to interest us children.’↑12‘Vaene brutto prete! Questa non è roba per me.’↑13‘Brutto Plutone!’ The traditional application of the name will not have escaped the reader.↑14‘Holzhund,’ I suppose, is used for wild dog.↑

WHEN JESUS CHRIST WANDERED ON EARTH.1One day the Madonna was carrying the Bambino through a lupin-field, and the stalks of the lupins rustled so, that she thought it was a robber coming to kill the Santo Bambino.1She turned, and sent a malediction over the lupin-field, and immediately the lupins all withered away and fell flat and dry on the ground, so that she could see there was no one hidden there. When she saw there was no one hidden there, she sent a benediction over the lupin-field, and the lupins all stood up straight again, fair and flourishing, and with tenfold greater produce than they had at the first.2One day when Jesus Christ was grown up, and went about preaching, He came to a certain village and knocked at the first door, and said, ‘Give me a lodging.’2But the master of the house shut the door in his face, saying, ‘Here is nothing for you.’ He came to the next house, and received the same answer; and the next, and the next, no one in all the village would take Him in. Weary and footsore, He came to the cottage of a poor little old woman, who lived all alone on the outskirts, and knocked there. ‘Who is there?’3asked the old woman. ‘The Master with the Apostles,’ answered Jesus Christ. The old woman opened the door, and let them all in. ‘Have you no fire?’ asked Jesus Christ. ‘No fire have I,’ answered the old woman. Then Jesus Christ blessed the hearth, and there came a pile of wood on it,and a fire was soon made. ‘Have you nothing to give us to eat?’ asked Jesus Christ. ‘Nothing worth offering you,’ answered the old woman; ‘here is a little fish’ (it was a little fish, that, not so long as my hand) ‘and some crusts of bread, which they gave me at the eating-shop in charity just now, and that’s all I have;’ and she set both on the table. ‘Have you no wine?’ again asked Jesus Christ. ‘Only this flask of wine and water they gave me there, too;’ and she set it before Him.Then Jesus Christ blessed all the things, and handed them round the table, and they all dined off them, and at the end there remained just the same as at the beginning. When they had finished, He said to the old woman, ‘This fire, with the bread, and the fish, and the wine, will always remain to you, and never diminish as long as you live. And now follow Me a little way.’The Master went on before with His Apostles, and the old woman followed after, a little way behind. And behold, as they walked along, all the houses of that inhospitable village fell down one after the other, and all the inhabitants were buried under them. Only the cottage of the old woman was left standing. When the judgment was complete, Jesus Christ said to her, ‘Now, return home.’4As she turned to go, St. Peter said to her, ‘Ask for the salvation of your soul.’ And she went and asked it of Jesus Christ, and He replied, ‘Let it be granted you!’3One day as He was going into the Temple, He saw two men quarrelling before the door: a young man and an old man. The young man wanted to go in first, and the old man was vindicating the honour of his grey hairs.‘What is the matter?’ asked Jesus Christ; and they showed Him wherefore they strove.Jesus Christ said to the young man, ‘If you are desirous to go in first, you must accept the state to which honour belongs,’ and He touched him, and he became an old man, bowed in gait, feeble, and grey-haired, while to the old man He gave the compensation for the insult he had received, by investing him with the youth of the other.4In the days when Jesus Christ roamed the earth, He found Himself one day with His disciples in the Campagna, far from anything like home. The only shelter in sight was a cottage of wretched aspect. Jesus Christ knocked at the door.‘Who is there?’ said a tremulous voice from within.‘The Master with the disciples,’ answered Jesus Christ. The man didn’t know what He meant; nevertheless, the tone was too gentle to inspire fear, so he opened, and let them all in.‘Have you no fire to give us?’ asked Jesus Christ.‘I’m only a poor beggar. I never have any fire,’ said the man.‘But these poor things,’ said Jesus Christ, ‘are stiff with cold and weariness; they must have a fire.’Then Jesus Christ stood on the hearth, and blessed it, and there came a great blazing fire of heaped-up wood. When the beggar saw it, he fell on his knees in astonishment.‘Have you no food to set before us?’ asked Jesus Christ.‘I have one loaf of Indian corn,5which is at your service,’ answered the beggar.‘One loaf is not enough,’ answered Jesus Christ; ‘have you nothing else at all?’‘Nothing at all about the place that can be eaten,’ answered the beggar. ‘Leastwise, I have one ewe, which is at your service.’‘That will do,’ answered Jesus Christ; and he sent St. Peter to help the man to prepare it for dressing.‘Here is the mutton,’ said the beggar; ‘but I cannot cook it, because I have no lard.’6‘Look!’ said Jesus Christ.The beggar looked on the hearth, and saw everything that was necessary ready for use.‘Now, then, bring the wine and the bread,’ said Jesus Christ, when the meat was nearly ready.‘There is the only loaf I have,’ said the beggar, setting the polenta loaf on the table; ‘but, as for wine, I never see such a thing.’‘Is there none in the cellar?’ asked Jesus Christ.‘In the cellar are only a dozen empty old broken wine-jars that have been there these hundred years; they are well covered with mould.’ Jesus Christ told St. Peter to go down and see, and when he went down with the beggar, there was a whole ovenful of fresh-baked bread boiling hot,7and beyond, in the cellar, the jars, instead of being broken and musty, were all standing whole and upright, and filled with excellent wine.‘See how you told us falsely,’ said St. Peter, to tease him.‘Upon my word, it was even as I said, before you came.’‘Then it is the Master who has done these wonderful things,’ answered St. Peter. ‘Praise Him!’Now the meat was cooked and ready, and they all sat down to table; but Jesus Christ took a bowl and placed it in the midst of the table and said, ‘Let all the bones be put into this bowl;’ and when they had finished he took the bones and threw them out of the window, and said, ‘Behold, I give you an hundred for one.’ After that they all laid them down and slept.In the morning when they opened the door to go, behold there were an hundred sheep grazing before the door.‘These sheep are yours,’ said Jesus Christ; ‘moreover, as long as you live, neither the bread in the oven nor the wine in the cellar shall fail;’ and He passed out and the disciples after Him.But St. Peter remained behind, and said to the man who had entertained them, ‘The Master has rewarded you generously, but He has one greater gift yet which He will give you if you ask Him.’‘What is it? tell me what is it?’ said the beggar.‘The salvation of your soul,’ answeredSt. Peter.‘Signore! Signore! add to all Thou hast given this further, the salvation of my soul,’ cried the man.‘Let it be granted thee,’8answered the Lord, and passed on His way.5Another day Jesus Christ and His disciples dined at a tavern.9‘What’s to pay?’ said Jesus Christ, when they had finished their meal.‘Nothing at all,’ answered the host.But the host had a little hunchback son, who said to him, ‘I know some have found it answer to give these people food instead of making them pay for it; but suppose they forget to give us anything, we shall be worse off than if we had been paid in the regular way. I will tell you what I’ll do now, so as to have a hold over them. I’ll take one of our silver spoons and put it in the bag that one of them carries, and accuse them of stealing it.’Now St. Peter was a great eater, and when anything was left over from a good meal he was wont to put it by in a bag against a day when they had nothing. Into this bag therefore the hunchback put the silver spoon.When they had gone on a little way the young hunchback ran after them and said to Jesus Christ,—‘Signore! one of these with you has stolen a spoon from us.’‘You are mistaken, friend; there is not one of them who would do such a thing.’‘Yes,’ persevered the hunchback; ‘it isthatone who took it,’ and he pointed to St. Peter.‘I!!’ said St. Peter, getting very angry. ‘How dare you to say such a thing of me!’But Jesus Christ made him a sign that he should keep silence.‘We will go back to your house and help you to look for what you have lost, for that none of us have taken the spoon is most certain,’ He said; and He went back with the hunchback.‘There is nowhere to search,’ answered the hunchback, ‘but in that man’s bag; I know it is there, because I saw him take it.’‘Then there’s my bag inside out,’ said St. Peter, as he cast the contents upon the floor. Of course the silver spoon fell clattering upon the bricks.‘There!’ said the hunchback, insolently. ‘Didn’t I tell you it was there? You said it wasn’t!’St. Peter was so angry he could not trust himself to speak; but Jesus Christ answered for him:‘Nay, I said not it was not there, but that none of these had taken it. And now we will see who it was put it there.’ With that He motioned to them all to stand back, while He, standing in the midst and raising his eyes to Heaven, said solemnly,‘Let whoso put it in the bag be turned to stone!’Even as He spoke the hunchback was turned into stone.6There was another tavern, however, where the host was a different sort of man, and not onlysaidhe would take nothing when Jesus Christ and His disciples dined there, but really would never take anything; nor was it that by any miracle he had received advantages of another sort,but out of the respect and affection he bore the Master he deemed himself sufficiently paid by the honour of being allowed to minister to Him.One day when Jesus Christ and His disciples were going away on a journey, St. Peter went to this host and said, ‘You have been very liberal to us all this time: if you were to ask for some gift, now, you would be sure to get it.’‘I don’t know that there is anything that I want,’ said the host. ‘I have a thriving trade, which you see not only supplies all my wants, but leaves me the means of being liberal also; I have no wife to provide for, and no children to leave an inheritance to: so what should I ask for? There is one thing, to be sure, I should like. My only amusement is playing at cards: if He would give me the faculty of always winning, I should like that; it isn’t that I care for what one wins, it is that it is nice to win. Do you think I might askthat?’‘I don’t know,’ said St. Peter, gravely. ‘Still you might ask; He is very kind.’The host did ask, and Jesus Christ granted his desire. When St. Peter saw how easily He granted it, he said, ‘If I were you, I should ask something more.’‘I really don’t know what else I have to ask,’ replied the host, ‘unless it be that I have a fig-tree which bears excellent figs, but I never can get one of them for myself; they are always stolen before I get them. I wish He would order that whoever goes up to steal them might get stuck to the tree till I tell him he may come down.’‘Well,’ said St. Peter, ‘it is an odd sort of thing to ask, but you might try; He is very kind.’The host did ask, and Jesus Christ granted his request. When St. Peter saw that He granted it so easily, he said, ‘If I were you I should ask something more.’‘Do you really think I might?’ answered the host. ‘There is one thing I have wanted to ask all along, only I didn’t dare. But you encourage me, and He seems to takea pleasure in giving. I have always had a great wish to live four hundred years.’‘That is certainly a great deal to ask,’ said St. Peter, ‘but you might try; He is very kind.’The host did ask, and Jesus Christ granted his petition, and then went His way with His disciples. St. Peter remained last, and said to the host, ‘Now run after him, and ask for the salvation of your soul.’ (‘St. Peter always told them all to ask that,’ added the narrator in a confidential tone.)‘Oh, I can’t ask anything more, I have asked so much,’ said the host.‘But that is just the best thing of all, and what He grants the most willingly,’ insisted St. Peter. ‘Really?’ said the host; and he ran after Jesus Christ, and said, ‘Lord! who hast so largely shown me Thy bounty, grant me further the salvation of my soul.’‘Let it be granted!’ said Jesus Christ; and continued His journey.All the things the host had asked he received, and life passed away very pleasantly, but still even four hundred years come to an end at last, and with the end of it came Death.‘What! is that you, Mrs. Death,10come already?’ said the host.‘Why, it’s time I should come, I think; it’s not often I leave people in peace for four hundred years.’‘All right, but don’t be in a hurry. I have such a fancy for the figs of that fig-tree of mine there. I wish you would just have the kindness to go up and pluck a good provision of them to take with me, and by that time I’ll be ready to go with you.’‘I’ve no objection to oblige you so far,’ said Mrs. Death; ‘only you must mind and be quite ready by the time I do come back.’‘Never fear,’ said the host; and Mrs. Death climbed up the fig-tree.‘Now stick there!’ said the host, and for all her struggling Mrs. Death could by no means extricate herself any more.‘I can’t stay here, so take off your spell; I have my business to attend to,’ said she.‘So have I,’ answered the host; ‘and if you want to go about your business, you must promise me, on your honour, you will leave me to attend to mine.’‘I can’t do it, my man! What are you asking? It’s more than my place is worth. Every man alive has to pass through my hands. I can’t let any of them off.’‘Well, at all events, leave me alone another four hundred years, and then I’ll come with you. If you’ll promise that, I’ll let you out of the fig-tree.’‘I don’t mind another four hundred years, if you so particularly wish for them; but mind you give me your word of honour you come then, without giving me all this trouble again.’‘Yes! and here’s my hand upon it,’ said the host, as he handed Mrs. Death down from the fig-tree.And so he went on to live another four hundred years. (‘For you know in those times men lived to a very great age,’ was the running gloss of the narrator.)The end of the second four hundred years came too, and then Mrs. Death appeared again. ‘Remember your promise,’ she said, ‘and don’t try any trick on me this time.’‘Oh, yes! I always keep my word,’ said the host, and without more ado he went along with her.As she was carrying him up to Paradise, they passed the way which led down to Hell, and at the opening sat the Devil, receiving souls which his ministers brought to him from all parts. He was marshalling them into ranks, and ticketing them ready to send off in batches to the distinct place for each.‘You seem to have got plenty of souls there, Mr.Devil,’ said the host. ‘Suppose we sit down and play for them?’‘I’ve no objection,’ said the Devil. ‘Your soul against one of these. If I win, you go with them; if you win, one of them goes with you.’‘That’s it,’ said the host, and picking out a nice-looking soul, he set him for the Devil’s stake.Of course the host won, and the nice-looking soul was passed round to his side of the table.‘Shall we have another game?’ said the host, quite cock-a-hoop.The Devil hesitated for a moment, but finally he yielded. The host picked out a soul that took his fancy, for the Devil’s stake, and they sat down to play again, with the same result.So they went on and on till the host had won fifteen thousand souls of the Devil. ‘Come,’ said Death when they had got as far as this, ‘I really can’t wait any longer. I never had to do with anyone who took up so much time as you. Come along!’So the host bowed excuses to the Devil for having had all the luck, and went cheerfully the way Mrs. Death led, with all his fifteen thousand souls behind him. Thus they arrived at the gate of Paradise. There wasn’t so much business going on there as at the other place, and they had to ring before anyone appeared to open the door.‘Who’s there?’ said St. Peter.‘He of the four hundred years!’‘And what is all that rabble behind?’ asked St. Peter.‘Souls that I have won of the Devil for Paradise,’ answered the host.‘Oh, that won’t do at all, here!’ said St. Peter.‘Be kind enough to carry the message up to your Master,’ responded the host.St. Peter went up to Jesus Christ. ‘Here is he to whom you gave four hundred years of life,’ he said;‘and he has brought fifteen thousand other souls, who have no title at all to Paradise, with him.’‘Tell him he may come in himself,’ said Jesus Christ, ‘but he has nothing to do to meddle with the others.’‘Tell Him to be pleased to remember that when He came to my eating-shop I never made any difficulty how many soever He brought with Him, and if He had brought an army I should have said nothing,’ answered the host; and St. Peter took up that message too.‘That is true! that is right!’ answered Jesus Christ. ‘Let them all in! let them all in!’7PRET’ OLIVO.11When Jesus Christ was on earth, He lodged one night at a priest’s house, and when He went away in the morning He offered to give His host, in reward for his hospitality, whatever he asked. What Pret’ Olivo (for that was his host’s name) asked for was that he should live a hundred years, and that when Death came to fetch him he should be able to give her what orders he pleased, and that she must obey him.‘Let it be granted!’ said Jesus Christ.A hundred years passed away, and then, one morning early, Death came.‘Pret’ Olivo! Pret’Olivo!’ cried Death, ‘are you ready? I’m come for you at last.’‘Let me say my mass first,’ said Pret’ Olivo; ‘that’s all.’‘Well, I don’t mind that,’ answered Death; ‘only mind it isn’t a long one, because I’ve got so many people to fetch to-day.’‘A mass is a mass,’ answered Pret’ Olivo; ‘it will be neither longer nor shorter.’As he went out, however, he told his servant to heap up a lot of wood on the hearth and set fire to it. Deathwent to sit down on a bench in the far corner of the chimney, and by-and-by the wood blazed up and she couldn’t get away any more. In vain she called to the servant to come and moderate the fire. ‘Master told me to heap it up, not to moderate it,’ answered the servant; and so there was no help. Death continued calling in desperation, and nobody came. It was impossible with her dry bones to pass the blaze, so there she had to stay.‘Oh, dear! oh, dear! what can I do?’ she kept saying; ‘all this time everybody is stopped dying! Pret’ Olivo! Pret’ Olivo! come here.’At last Pret’ Olivo came in.‘What do you mean by keeping me here like this?’ said Death; ‘I told you I had so much to do.’‘Oh, you want to go, do you?’ said Pret’ Olivo, quietly.‘Of course I do. Tell some one to clear away those burning logs, and let me out.’‘Will you promise me to leave me alone for another hundred years if I do?’‘Yes, yes; anything you like. I shall be very glad to keep away from this place for a hundred years.’Then he let her go, and she set off running with those long thin legs of hers.The second hundred years came to an end.‘Are you ready, Pret’ Olivo?’ said Death one morning, putting her head in at the door.‘Pretty nearly,’ answered Pret’ Olivo. ‘Meantime, just take that basket, and gather me a couple of figs to eat before I go.’As she went away he said, ‘Stick to the tree’ (but not so that she could hear it); for you remember he had power given him to make her do what he liked. She had therefore to stick to the tree.‘Well, Lady Death, are you never going to bring those figs?’ cried Pret’ Olivo after a time.‘How can I bring them, when you know I can’t get down from this tree? Instead of making game of me, come and take me down.’‘Will you leave me alone another hundred years if I do?’‘Yes, yes; anything you like. Only make haste and let me go.’The third hundred years came to an end, and Death appeared again. ‘Are you ready this time, Pret’ Olivo?’ she cried out as she approached.‘Yes, this time I’ll come with you,’ answered Pret’ Olivo. Then he vested himself in the Church vestments, and put a cope on, and took a pack of cards in his hand, and said to Death, ‘Now take me to the gate of Hell, for I want to play a game of cards with the Devil.’‘Nonsense!’ answered Death. ‘I’m not going to waste my time like that. I’ve got orders to take you to Paradise, and to Paradise you must go.’‘You know you’ve got orders to obey whatever I tell you,’ answered Pret’ Olivo; and Death knew that was true, so she lost no more time in disputing, but took him all the way round by the gate of Hell.At the gate of Hell they knocked.‘Who’s there?’ said the Devil.‘Pret’ Olivo,’ replied Death.‘Out with you, ugly priest!’ said the Devil. ‘I’m surprised at you, Death, making game of me like that; you know that’s not the sort of ware for my market.’12‘Silence, and open the door, ugly Pluto!13I’m not come to stay. I only want to have a game of cards with you. Here’s my soul for stake on my side, against the last comer on your side,’ interposed Pret’ Olivo.Pret’ Olivo won the game, and hung the soul on to his cope.‘We must have another game,’ said the Devil.‘With all my heart!’ replied Pret’ Olivo; and he wonanother soul. Another and another he won, and his cope was covered all over with the souls clinging to it.Meantime, Death thought it was going on rather too long, so she looked through the keyhole, and, finding they were just beginning another game, she cried out loudly;‘It’s no use playing any more, for I’m not going to be bothered to carry all those souls all the way up to Heaven—a likely matter, indeed!’But Pret’ Olivo went on playing without taking any notice of her; and he hung them on to his beretta, till at last you could hardly see him at all for the number of souls he had clinging to him. There was no place for any more, so at last he stopped playing.‘I’m not going to take all those other souls,’ said Death when he came out; ‘I’ve only got orders to take you.’‘Then take me,’ answered Pret’ Olivo.Death saw that the souls were all hung on so that she could not take him without taking all the rest; so away she went with the lot of them, without disputing any more.At last they arrived at the Gate of Paradise. St. Peter opened the door when they knocked; but when he saw who was there he shut the door again.‘Make haste!’ said Death; ‘I’ve no time to waste.’‘Why did you waste your time in bringing up souls that were not properly consigned to you?’ answered St. Peter.‘It wasn’t I brought them, it was Pret’ Olivo. And your Master charged me I was to do whatever he told me.’‘My Master! Oh, then, I’m out of it,’ said St. Peter. ‘Only wait a minute, while I just go and ask Him whether it is so.’ St. Peter ran to ask; and receiving an affirmative answer, came back and opened the gate, and they all got in.8DOMINE QUO VADIS.‘You know, of course, about St. Peter, when they put him in the prisons here; he found a way of escaping through the “catacomboli,” and just as he had got out into the open road again he met Jesus Christ coming towards him carrying His cross. And St. Peter asked Him what he was doing going into the “catacomboli.” But Jesus Christ answered, “I am not going into the ‘catacomboli’ to stay; I am going back by the way you came to be crucified over again, since you refuse to die for the flock.” Then St. Peter turned and went all the way back, and was crucified with his head downwards, for he said he was not worthy to die in the same way as his Master.’[Counterparts of these stories abound in the collections of all countries; in the Norse, and Gaelic, and Russian, more of the pagan element seems to stick to them. In Grimm’s are some with both much and little of it. From Tirol I have given two, which are literally free from it, in ‘Household Stories from the Land of Hofer;’ and I have one or two picked up for me by a friend in Brittany, of which the same may be said. On the other hand, we meet them again in another form in that large group of strange compounds, of which ‘Il Rè Moro,’ p. 97, &c., are the Roman representatives, and ‘Marienkind,’ pp. 7–12, ‘Grimm Kinder und Hausmährchen,’ ed. 1870, the link between them. In the minds of the Roman narrators, however, I am quite clear no such connexion exists. See also p. 207infra.One of the quaintest legends of this class is given in Scheible’s ‘Schaltjahr.’ It is meant for a charm to drive away wolves.]‘Lord Jesus Christ and St. Peter went in the morning out.As our Lady went on before she said (turning about),“Ah, dear Lord! whither must we go in and out?We must over hill and dale (roundabout).May God guard the while my flock (devout).Let not St. Peter go his keys without;But take them and lock up the wild dogs’14snout,That they no bone of them all may flout.”’

1One day the Madonna was carrying the Bambino through a lupin-field, and the stalks of the lupins rustled so, that she thought it was a robber coming to kill the Santo Bambino.1She turned, and sent a malediction over the lupin-field, and immediately the lupins all withered away and fell flat and dry on the ground, so that she could see there was no one hidden there. When she saw there was no one hidden there, she sent a benediction over the lupin-field, and the lupins all stood up straight again, fair and flourishing, and with tenfold greater produce than they had at the first.

1

One day the Madonna was carrying the Bambino through a lupin-field, and the stalks of the lupins rustled so, that she thought it was a robber coming to kill the Santo Bambino.1She turned, and sent a malediction over the lupin-field, and immediately the lupins all withered away and fell flat and dry on the ground, so that she could see there was no one hidden there. When she saw there was no one hidden there, she sent a benediction over the lupin-field, and the lupins all stood up straight again, fair and flourishing, and with tenfold greater produce than they had at the first.

One day the Madonna was carrying the Bambino through a lupin-field, and the stalks of the lupins rustled so, that she thought it was a robber coming to kill the Santo Bambino.1She turned, and sent a malediction over the lupin-field, and immediately the lupins all withered away and fell flat and dry on the ground, so that she could see there was no one hidden there. When she saw there was no one hidden there, she sent a benediction over the lupin-field, and the lupins all stood up straight again, fair and flourishing, and with tenfold greater produce than they had at the first.

2One day when Jesus Christ was grown up, and went about preaching, He came to a certain village and knocked at the first door, and said, ‘Give me a lodging.’2But the master of the house shut the door in his face, saying, ‘Here is nothing for you.’ He came to the next house, and received the same answer; and the next, and the next, no one in all the village would take Him in. Weary and footsore, He came to the cottage of a poor little old woman, who lived all alone on the outskirts, and knocked there. ‘Who is there?’3asked the old woman. ‘The Master with the Apostles,’ answered Jesus Christ. The old woman opened the door, and let them all in. ‘Have you no fire?’ asked Jesus Christ. ‘No fire have I,’ answered the old woman. Then Jesus Christ blessed the hearth, and there came a pile of wood on it,and a fire was soon made. ‘Have you nothing to give us to eat?’ asked Jesus Christ. ‘Nothing worth offering you,’ answered the old woman; ‘here is a little fish’ (it was a little fish, that, not so long as my hand) ‘and some crusts of bread, which they gave me at the eating-shop in charity just now, and that’s all I have;’ and she set both on the table. ‘Have you no wine?’ again asked Jesus Christ. ‘Only this flask of wine and water they gave me there, too;’ and she set it before Him.Then Jesus Christ blessed all the things, and handed them round the table, and they all dined off them, and at the end there remained just the same as at the beginning. When they had finished, He said to the old woman, ‘This fire, with the bread, and the fish, and the wine, will always remain to you, and never diminish as long as you live. And now follow Me a little way.’The Master went on before with His Apostles, and the old woman followed after, a little way behind. And behold, as they walked along, all the houses of that inhospitable village fell down one after the other, and all the inhabitants were buried under them. Only the cottage of the old woman was left standing. When the judgment was complete, Jesus Christ said to her, ‘Now, return home.’4As she turned to go, St. Peter said to her, ‘Ask for the salvation of your soul.’ And she went and asked it of Jesus Christ, and He replied, ‘Let it be granted you!’

2

One day when Jesus Christ was grown up, and went about preaching, He came to a certain village and knocked at the first door, and said, ‘Give me a lodging.’2But the master of the house shut the door in his face, saying, ‘Here is nothing for you.’ He came to the next house, and received the same answer; and the next, and the next, no one in all the village would take Him in. Weary and footsore, He came to the cottage of a poor little old woman, who lived all alone on the outskirts, and knocked there. ‘Who is there?’3asked the old woman. ‘The Master with the Apostles,’ answered Jesus Christ. The old woman opened the door, and let them all in. ‘Have you no fire?’ asked Jesus Christ. ‘No fire have I,’ answered the old woman. Then Jesus Christ blessed the hearth, and there came a pile of wood on it,and a fire was soon made. ‘Have you nothing to give us to eat?’ asked Jesus Christ. ‘Nothing worth offering you,’ answered the old woman; ‘here is a little fish’ (it was a little fish, that, not so long as my hand) ‘and some crusts of bread, which they gave me at the eating-shop in charity just now, and that’s all I have;’ and she set both on the table. ‘Have you no wine?’ again asked Jesus Christ. ‘Only this flask of wine and water they gave me there, too;’ and she set it before Him.Then Jesus Christ blessed all the things, and handed them round the table, and they all dined off them, and at the end there remained just the same as at the beginning. When they had finished, He said to the old woman, ‘This fire, with the bread, and the fish, and the wine, will always remain to you, and never diminish as long as you live. And now follow Me a little way.’The Master went on before with His Apostles, and the old woman followed after, a little way behind. And behold, as they walked along, all the houses of that inhospitable village fell down one after the other, and all the inhabitants were buried under them. Only the cottage of the old woman was left standing. When the judgment was complete, Jesus Christ said to her, ‘Now, return home.’4As she turned to go, St. Peter said to her, ‘Ask for the salvation of your soul.’ And she went and asked it of Jesus Christ, and He replied, ‘Let it be granted you!’

One day when Jesus Christ was grown up, and went about preaching, He came to a certain village and knocked at the first door, and said, ‘Give me a lodging.’2But the master of the house shut the door in his face, saying, ‘Here is nothing for you.’ He came to the next house, and received the same answer; and the next, and the next, no one in all the village would take Him in. Weary and footsore, He came to the cottage of a poor little old woman, who lived all alone on the outskirts, and knocked there. ‘Who is there?’3asked the old woman. ‘The Master with the Apostles,’ answered Jesus Christ. The old woman opened the door, and let them all in. ‘Have you no fire?’ asked Jesus Christ. ‘No fire have I,’ answered the old woman. Then Jesus Christ blessed the hearth, and there came a pile of wood on it,and a fire was soon made. ‘Have you nothing to give us to eat?’ asked Jesus Christ. ‘Nothing worth offering you,’ answered the old woman; ‘here is a little fish’ (it was a little fish, that, not so long as my hand) ‘and some crusts of bread, which they gave me at the eating-shop in charity just now, and that’s all I have;’ and she set both on the table. ‘Have you no wine?’ again asked Jesus Christ. ‘Only this flask of wine and water they gave me there, too;’ and she set it before Him.

Then Jesus Christ blessed all the things, and handed them round the table, and they all dined off them, and at the end there remained just the same as at the beginning. When they had finished, He said to the old woman, ‘This fire, with the bread, and the fish, and the wine, will always remain to you, and never diminish as long as you live. And now follow Me a little way.’

The Master went on before with His Apostles, and the old woman followed after, a little way behind. And behold, as they walked along, all the houses of that inhospitable village fell down one after the other, and all the inhabitants were buried under them. Only the cottage of the old woman was left standing. When the judgment was complete, Jesus Christ said to her, ‘Now, return home.’4

As she turned to go, St. Peter said to her, ‘Ask for the salvation of your soul.’ And she went and asked it of Jesus Christ, and He replied, ‘Let it be granted you!’

3One day as He was going into the Temple, He saw two men quarrelling before the door: a young man and an old man. The young man wanted to go in first, and the old man was vindicating the honour of his grey hairs.‘What is the matter?’ asked Jesus Christ; and they showed Him wherefore they strove.Jesus Christ said to the young man, ‘If you are desirous to go in first, you must accept the state to which honour belongs,’ and He touched him, and he became an old man, bowed in gait, feeble, and grey-haired, while to the old man He gave the compensation for the insult he had received, by investing him with the youth of the other.

3

One day as He was going into the Temple, He saw two men quarrelling before the door: a young man and an old man. The young man wanted to go in first, and the old man was vindicating the honour of his grey hairs.‘What is the matter?’ asked Jesus Christ; and they showed Him wherefore they strove.Jesus Christ said to the young man, ‘If you are desirous to go in first, you must accept the state to which honour belongs,’ and He touched him, and he became an old man, bowed in gait, feeble, and grey-haired, while to the old man He gave the compensation for the insult he had received, by investing him with the youth of the other.

One day as He was going into the Temple, He saw two men quarrelling before the door: a young man and an old man. The young man wanted to go in first, and the old man was vindicating the honour of his grey hairs.

‘What is the matter?’ asked Jesus Christ; and they showed Him wherefore they strove.

Jesus Christ said to the young man, ‘If you are desirous to go in first, you must accept the state to which honour belongs,’ and He touched him, and he became an old man, bowed in gait, feeble, and grey-haired, while to the old man He gave the compensation for the insult he had received, by investing him with the youth of the other.

4In the days when Jesus Christ roamed the earth, He found Himself one day with His disciples in the Campagna, far from anything like home. The only shelter in sight was a cottage of wretched aspect. Jesus Christ knocked at the door.‘Who is there?’ said a tremulous voice from within.‘The Master with the disciples,’ answered Jesus Christ. The man didn’t know what He meant; nevertheless, the tone was too gentle to inspire fear, so he opened, and let them all in.‘Have you no fire to give us?’ asked Jesus Christ.‘I’m only a poor beggar. I never have any fire,’ said the man.‘But these poor things,’ said Jesus Christ, ‘are stiff with cold and weariness; they must have a fire.’Then Jesus Christ stood on the hearth, and blessed it, and there came a great blazing fire of heaped-up wood. When the beggar saw it, he fell on his knees in astonishment.‘Have you no food to set before us?’ asked Jesus Christ.‘I have one loaf of Indian corn,5which is at your service,’ answered the beggar.‘One loaf is not enough,’ answered Jesus Christ; ‘have you nothing else at all?’‘Nothing at all about the place that can be eaten,’ answered the beggar. ‘Leastwise, I have one ewe, which is at your service.’‘That will do,’ answered Jesus Christ; and he sent St. Peter to help the man to prepare it for dressing.‘Here is the mutton,’ said the beggar; ‘but I cannot cook it, because I have no lard.’6‘Look!’ said Jesus Christ.The beggar looked on the hearth, and saw everything that was necessary ready for use.‘Now, then, bring the wine and the bread,’ said Jesus Christ, when the meat was nearly ready.‘There is the only loaf I have,’ said the beggar, setting the polenta loaf on the table; ‘but, as for wine, I never see such a thing.’‘Is there none in the cellar?’ asked Jesus Christ.‘In the cellar are only a dozen empty old broken wine-jars that have been there these hundred years; they are well covered with mould.’ Jesus Christ told St. Peter to go down and see, and when he went down with the beggar, there was a whole ovenful of fresh-baked bread boiling hot,7and beyond, in the cellar, the jars, instead of being broken and musty, were all standing whole and upright, and filled with excellent wine.‘See how you told us falsely,’ said St. Peter, to tease him.‘Upon my word, it was even as I said, before you came.’‘Then it is the Master who has done these wonderful things,’ answered St. Peter. ‘Praise Him!’Now the meat was cooked and ready, and they all sat down to table; but Jesus Christ took a bowl and placed it in the midst of the table and said, ‘Let all the bones be put into this bowl;’ and when they had finished he took the bones and threw them out of the window, and said, ‘Behold, I give you an hundred for one.’ After that they all laid them down and slept.In the morning when they opened the door to go, behold there were an hundred sheep grazing before the door.‘These sheep are yours,’ said Jesus Christ; ‘moreover, as long as you live, neither the bread in the oven nor the wine in the cellar shall fail;’ and He passed out and the disciples after Him.But St. Peter remained behind, and said to the man who had entertained them, ‘The Master has rewarded you generously, but He has one greater gift yet which He will give you if you ask Him.’‘What is it? tell me what is it?’ said the beggar.‘The salvation of your soul,’ answeredSt. Peter.‘Signore! Signore! add to all Thou hast given this further, the salvation of my soul,’ cried the man.‘Let it be granted thee,’8answered the Lord, and passed on His way.

4

In the days when Jesus Christ roamed the earth, He found Himself one day with His disciples in the Campagna, far from anything like home. The only shelter in sight was a cottage of wretched aspect. Jesus Christ knocked at the door.‘Who is there?’ said a tremulous voice from within.‘The Master with the disciples,’ answered Jesus Christ. The man didn’t know what He meant; nevertheless, the tone was too gentle to inspire fear, so he opened, and let them all in.‘Have you no fire to give us?’ asked Jesus Christ.‘I’m only a poor beggar. I never have any fire,’ said the man.‘But these poor things,’ said Jesus Christ, ‘are stiff with cold and weariness; they must have a fire.’Then Jesus Christ stood on the hearth, and blessed it, and there came a great blazing fire of heaped-up wood. When the beggar saw it, he fell on his knees in astonishment.‘Have you no food to set before us?’ asked Jesus Christ.‘I have one loaf of Indian corn,5which is at your service,’ answered the beggar.‘One loaf is not enough,’ answered Jesus Christ; ‘have you nothing else at all?’‘Nothing at all about the place that can be eaten,’ answered the beggar. ‘Leastwise, I have one ewe, which is at your service.’‘That will do,’ answered Jesus Christ; and he sent St. Peter to help the man to prepare it for dressing.‘Here is the mutton,’ said the beggar; ‘but I cannot cook it, because I have no lard.’6‘Look!’ said Jesus Christ.The beggar looked on the hearth, and saw everything that was necessary ready for use.‘Now, then, bring the wine and the bread,’ said Jesus Christ, when the meat was nearly ready.‘There is the only loaf I have,’ said the beggar, setting the polenta loaf on the table; ‘but, as for wine, I never see such a thing.’‘Is there none in the cellar?’ asked Jesus Christ.‘In the cellar are only a dozen empty old broken wine-jars that have been there these hundred years; they are well covered with mould.’ Jesus Christ told St. Peter to go down and see, and when he went down with the beggar, there was a whole ovenful of fresh-baked bread boiling hot,7and beyond, in the cellar, the jars, instead of being broken and musty, were all standing whole and upright, and filled with excellent wine.‘See how you told us falsely,’ said St. Peter, to tease him.‘Upon my word, it was even as I said, before you came.’‘Then it is the Master who has done these wonderful things,’ answered St. Peter. ‘Praise Him!’Now the meat was cooked and ready, and they all sat down to table; but Jesus Christ took a bowl and placed it in the midst of the table and said, ‘Let all the bones be put into this bowl;’ and when they had finished he took the bones and threw them out of the window, and said, ‘Behold, I give you an hundred for one.’ After that they all laid them down and slept.In the morning when they opened the door to go, behold there were an hundred sheep grazing before the door.‘These sheep are yours,’ said Jesus Christ; ‘moreover, as long as you live, neither the bread in the oven nor the wine in the cellar shall fail;’ and He passed out and the disciples after Him.But St. Peter remained behind, and said to the man who had entertained them, ‘The Master has rewarded you generously, but He has one greater gift yet which He will give you if you ask Him.’‘What is it? tell me what is it?’ said the beggar.‘The salvation of your soul,’ answeredSt. Peter.‘Signore! Signore! add to all Thou hast given this further, the salvation of my soul,’ cried the man.‘Let it be granted thee,’8answered the Lord, and passed on His way.

In the days when Jesus Christ roamed the earth, He found Himself one day with His disciples in the Campagna, far from anything like home. The only shelter in sight was a cottage of wretched aspect. Jesus Christ knocked at the door.

‘Who is there?’ said a tremulous voice from within.

‘The Master with the disciples,’ answered Jesus Christ. The man didn’t know what He meant; nevertheless, the tone was too gentle to inspire fear, so he opened, and let them all in.

‘Have you no fire to give us?’ asked Jesus Christ.

‘I’m only a poor beggar. I never have any fire,’ said the man.

‘But these poor things,’ said Jesus Christ, ‘are stiff with cold and weariness; they must have a fire.’

Then Jesus Christ stood on the hearth, and blessed it, and there came a great blazing fire of heaped-up wood. When the beggar saw it, he fell on his knees in astonishment.

‘Have you no food to set before us?’ asked Jesus Christ.

‘I have one loaf of Indian corn,5which is at your service,’ answered the beggar.

‘One loaf is not enough,’ answered Jesus Christ; ‘have you nothing else at all?’

‘Nothing at all about the place that can be eaten,’ answered the beggar. ‘Leastwise, I have one ewe, which is at your service.’

‘That will do,’ answered Jesus Christ; and he sent St. Peter to help the man to prepare it for dressing.

‘Here is the mutton,’ said the beggar; ‘but I cannot cook it, because I have no lard.’6

‘Look!’ said Jesus Christ.

The beggar looked on the hearth, and saw everything that was necessary ready for use.

‘Now, then, bring the wine and the bread,’ said Jesus Christ, when the meat was nearly ready.

‘There is the only loaf I have,’ said the beggar, setting the polenta loaf on the table; ‘but, as for wine, I never see such a thing.’

‘Is there none in the cellar?’ asked Jesus Christ.

‘In the cellar are only a dozen empty old broken wine-jars that have been there these hundred years; they are well covered with mould.’ Jesus Christ told St. Peter to go down and see, and when he went down with the beggar, there was a whole ovenful of fresh-baked bread boiling hot,7and beyond, in the cellar, the jars, instead of being broken and musty, were all standing whole and upright, and filled with excellent wine.

‘See how you told us falsely,’ said St. Peter, to tease him.

‘Upon my word, it was even as I said, before you came.’

‘Then it is the Master who has done these wonderful things,’ answered St. Peter. ‘Praise Him!’

Now the meat was cooked and ready, and they all sat down to table; but Jesus Christ took a bowl and placed it in the midst of the table and said, ‘Let all the bones be put into this bowl;’ and when they had finished he took the bones and threw them out of the window, and said, ‘Behold, I give you an hundred for one.’ After that they all laid them down and slept.

In the morning when they opened the door to go, behold there were an hundred sheep grazing before the door.

‘These sheep are yours,’ said Jesus Christ; ‘moreover, as long as you live, neither the bread in the oven nor the wine in the cellar shall fail;’ and He passed out and the disciples after Him.

But St. Peter remained behind, and said to the man who had entertained them, ‘The Master has rewarded you generously, but He has one greater gift yet which He will give you if you ask Him.’

‘What is it? tell me what is it?’ said the beggar.

‘The salvation of your soul,’ answeredSt. Peter.

‘Signore! Signore! add to all Thou hast given this further, the salvation of my soul,’ cried the man.

‘Let it be granted thee,’8answered the Lord, and passed on His way.

5Another day Jesus Christ and His disciples dined at a tavern.9‘What’s to pay?’ said Jesus Christ, when they had finished their meal.‘Nothing at all,’ answered the host.But the host had a little hunchback son, who said to him, ‘I know some have found it answer to give these people food instead of making them pay for it; but suppose they forget to give us anything, we shall be worse off than if we had been paid in the regular way. I will tell you what I’ll do now, so as to have a hold over them. I’ll take one of our silver spoons and put it in the bag that one of them carries, and accuse them of stealing it.’Now St. Peter was a great eater, and when anything was left over from a good meal he was wont to put it by in a bag against a day when they had nothing. Into this bag therefore the hunchback put the silver spoon.When they had gone on a little way the young hunchback ran after them and said to Jesus Christ,—‘Signore! one of these with you has stolen a spoon from us.’‘You are mistaken, friend; there is not one of them who would do such a thing.’‘Yes,’ persevered the hunchback; ‘it isthatone who took it,’ and he pointed to St. Peter.‘I!!’ said St. Peter, getting very angry. ‘How dare you to say such a thing of me!’But Jesus Christ made him a sign that he should keep silence.‘We will go back to your house and help you to look for what you have lost, for that none of us have taken the spoon is most certain,’ He said; and He went back with the hunchback.‘There is nowhere to search,’ answered the hunchback, ‘but in that man’s bag; I know it is there, because I saw him take it.’‘Then there’s my bag inside out,’ said St. Peter, as he cast the contents upon the floor. Of course the silver spoon fell clattering upon the bricks.‘There!’ said the hunchback, insolently. ‘Didn’t I tell you it was there? You said it wasn’t!’St. Peter was so angry he could not trust himself to speak; but Jesus Christ answered for him:‘Nay, I said not it was not there, but that none of these had taken it. And now we will see who it was put it there.’ With that He motioned to them all to stand back, while He, standing in the midst and raising his eyes to Heaven, said solemnly,‘Let whoso put it in the bag be turned to stone!’Even as He spoke the hunchback was turned into stone.

5

Another day Jesus Christ and His disciples dined at a tavern.9‘What’s to pay?’ said Jesus Christ, when they had finished their meal.‘Nothing at all,’ answered the host.But the host had a little hunchback son, who said to him, ‘I know some have found it answer to give these people food instead of making them pay for it; but suppose they forget to give us anything, we shall be worse off than if we had been paid in the regular way. I will tell you what I’ll do now, so as to have a hold over them. I’ll take one of our silver spoons and put it in the bag that one of them carries, and accuse them of stealing it.’Now St. Peter was a great eater, and when anything was left over from a good meal he was wont to put it by in a bag against a day when they had nothing. Into this bag therefore the hunchback put the silver spoon.When they had gone on a little way the young hunchback ran after them and said to Jesus Christ,—‘Signore! one of these with you has stolen a spoon from us.’‘You are mistaken, friend; there is not one of them who would do such a thing.’‘Yes,’ persevered the hunchback; ‘it isthatone who took it,’ and he pointed to St. Peter.‘I!!’ said St. Peter, getting very angry. ‘How dare you to say such a thing of me!’But Jesus Christ made him a sign that he should keep silence.‘We will go back to your house and help you to look for what you have lost, for that none of us have taken the spoon is most certain,’ He said; and He went back with the hunchback.‘There is nowhere to search,’ answered the hunchback, ‘but in that man’s bag; I know it is there, because I saw him take it.’‘Then there’s my bag inside out,’ said St. Peter, as he cast the contents upon the floor. Of course the silver spoon fell clattering upon the bricks.‘There!’ said the hunchback, insolently. ‘Didn’t I tell you it was there? You said it wasn’t!’St. Peter was so angry he could not trust himself to speak; but Jesus Christ answered for him:‘Nay, I said not it was not there, but that none of these had taken it. And now we will see who it was put it there.’ With that He motioned to them all to stand back, while He, standing in the midst and raising his eyes to Heaven, said solemnly,‘Let whoso put it in the bag be turned to stone!’Even as He spoke the hunchback was turned into stone.

Another day Jesus Christ and His disciples dined at a tavern.9

‘What’s to pay?’ said Jesus Christ, when they had finished their meal.

‘Nothing at all,’ answered the host.

But the host had a little hunchback son, who said to him, ‘I know some have found it answer to give these people food instead of making them pay for it; but suppose they forget to give us anything, we shall be worse off than if we had been paid in the regular way. I will tell you what I’ll do now, so as to have a hold over them. I’ll take one of our silver spoons and put it in the bag that one of them carries, and accuse them of stealing it.’

Now St. Peter was a great eater, and when anything was left over from a good meal he was wont to put it by in a bag against a day when they had nothing. Into this bag therefore the hunchback put the silver spoon.

When they had gone on a little way the young hunchback ran after them and said to Jesus Christ,—

‘Signore! one of these with you has stolen a spoon from us.’

‘You are mistaken, friend; there is not one of them who would do such a thing.’

‘Yes,’ persevered the hunchback; ‘it isthatone who took it,’ and he pointed to St. Peter.

‘I!!’ said St. Peter, getting very angry. ‘How dare you to say such a thing of me!’

But Jesus Christ made him a sign that he should keep silence.

‘We will go back to your house and help you to look for what you have lost, for that none of us have taken the spoon is most certain,’ He said; and He went back with the hunchback.

‘There is nowhere to search,’ answered the hunchback, ‘but in that man’s bag; I know it is there, because I saw him take it.’

‘Then there’s my bag inside out,’ said St. Peter, as he cast the contents upon the floor. Of course the silver spoon fell clattering upon the bricks.

‘There!’ said the hunchback, insolently. ‘Didn’t I tell you it was there? You said it wasn’t!’

St. Peter was so angry he could not trust himself to speak; but Jesus Christ answered for him:

‘Nay, I said not it was not there, but that none of these had taken it. And now we will see who it was put it there.’ With that He motioned to them all to stand back, while He, standing in the midst and raising his eyes to Heaven, said solemnly,

‘Let whoso put it in the bag be turned to stone!’

Even as He spoke the hunchback was turned into stone.

6There was another tavern, however, where the host was a different sort of man, and not onlysaidhe would take nothing when Jesus Christ and His disciples dined there, but really would never take anything; nor was it that by any miracle he had received advantages of another sort,but out of the respect and affection he bore the Master he deemed himself sufficiently paid by the honour of being allowed to minister to Him.One day when Jesus Christ and His disciples were going away on a journey, St. Peter went to this host and said, ‘You have been very liberal to us all this time: if you were to ask for some gift, now, you would be sure to get it.’‘I don’t know that there is anything that I want,’ said the host. ‘I have a thriving trade, which you see not only supplies all my wants, but leaves me the means of being liberal also; I have no wife to provide for, and no children to leave an inheritance to: so what should I ask for? There is one thing, to be sure, I should like. My only amusement is playing at cards: if He would give me the faculty of always winning, I should like that; it isn’t that I care for what one wins, it is that it is nice to win. Do you think I might askthat?’‘I don’t know,’ said St. Peter, gravely. ‘Still you might ask; He is very kind.’The host did ask, and Jesus Christ granted his desire. When St. Peter saw how easily He granted it, he said, ‘If I were you, I should ask something more.’‘I really don’t know what else I have to ask,’ replied the host, ‘unless it be that I have a fig-tree which bears excellent figs, but I never can get one of them for myself; they are always stolen before I get them. I wish He would order that whoever goes up to steal them might get stuck to the tree till I tell him he may come down.’‘Well,’ said St. Peter, ‘it is an odd sort of thing to ask, but you might try; He is very kind.’The host did ask, and Jesus Christ granted his request. When St. Peter saw that He granted it so easily, he said, ‘If I were you I should ask something more.’‘Do you really think I might?’ answered the host. ‘There is one thing I have wanted to ask all along, only I didn’t dare. But you encourage me, and He seems to takea pleasure in giving. I have always had a great wish to live four hundred years.’‘That is certainly a great deal to ask,’ said St. Peter, ‘but you might try; He is very kind.’The host did ask, and Jesus Christ granted his petition, and then went His way with His disciples. St. Peter remained last, and said to the host, ‘Now run after him, and ask for the salvation of your soul.’ (‘St. Peter always told them all to ask that,’ added the narrator in a confidential tone.)‘Oh, I can’t ask anything more, I have asked so much,’ said the host.‘But that is just the best thing of all, and what He grants the most willingly,’ insisted St. Peter. ‘Really?’ said the host; and he ran after Jesus Christ, and said, ‘Lord! who hast so largely shown me Thy bounty, grant me further the salvation of my soul.’‘Let it be granted!’ said Jesus Christ; and continued His journey.All the things the host had asked he received, and life passed away very pleasantly, but still even four hundred years come to an end at last, and with the end of it came Death.‘What! is that you, Mrs. Death,10come already?’ said the host.‘Why, it’s time I should come, I think; it’s not often I leave people in peace for four hundred years.’‘All right, but don’t be in a hurry. I have such a fancy for the figs of that fig-tree of mine there. I wish you would just have the kindness to go up and pluck a good provision of them to take with me, and by that time I’ll be ready to go with you.’‘I’ve no objection to oblige you so far,’ said Mrs. Death; ‘only you must mind and be quite ready by the time I do come back.’‘Never fear,’ said the host; and Mrs. Death climbed up the fig-tree.‘Now stick there!’ said the host, and for all her struggling Mrs. Death could by no means extricate herself any more.‘I can’t stay here, so take off your spell; I have my business to attend to,’ said she.‘So have I,’ answered the host; ‘and if you want to go about your business, you must promise me, on your honour, you will leave me to attend to mine.’‘I can’t do it, my man! What are you asking? It’s more than my place is worth. Every man alive has to pass through my hands. I can’t let any of them off.’‘Well, at all events, leave me alone another four hundred years, and then I’ll come with you. If you’ll promise that, I’ll let you out of the fig-tree.’‘I don’t mind another four hundred years, if you so particularly wish for them; but mind you give me your word of honour you come then, without giving me all this trouble again.’‘Yes! and here’s my hand upon it,’ said the host, as he handed Mrs. Death down from the fig-tree.And so he went on to live another four hundred years. (‘For you know in those times men lived to a very great age,’ was the running gloss of the narrator.)The end of the second four hundred years came too, and then Mrs. Death appeared again. ‘Remember your promise,’ she said, ‘and don’t try any trick on me this time.’‘Oh, yes! I always keep my word,’ said the host, and without more ado he went along with her.As she was carrying him up to Paradise, they passed the way which led down to Hell, and at the opening sat the Devil, receiving souls which his ministers brought to him from all parts. He was marshalling them into ranks, and ticketing them ready to send off in batches to the distinct place for each.‘You seem to have got plenty of souls there, Mr.Devil,’ said the host. ‘Suppose we sit down and play for them?’‘I’ve no objection,’ said the Devil. ‘Your soul against one of these. If I win, you go with them; if you win, one of them goes with you.’‘That’s it,’ said the host, and picking out a nice-looking soul, he set him for the Devil’s stake.Of course the host won, and the nice-looking soul was passed round to his side of the table.‘Shall we have another game?’ said the host, quite cock-a-hoop.The Devil hesitated for a moment, but finally he yielded. The host picked out a soul that took his fancy, for the Devil’s stake, and they sat down to play again, with the same result.So they went on and on till the host had won fifteen thousand souls of the Devil. ‘Come,’ said Death when they had got as far as this, ‘I really can’t wait any longer. I never had to do with anyone who took up so much time as you. Come along!’So the host bowed excuses to the Devil for having had all the luck, and went cheerfully the way Mrs. Death led, with all his fifteen thousand souls behind him. Thus they arrived at the gate of Paradise. There wasn’t so much business going on there as at the other place, and they had to ring before anyone appeared to open the door.‘Who’s there?’ said St. Peter.‘He of the four hundred years!’‘And what is all that rabble behind?’ asked St. Peter.‘Souls that I have won of the Devil for Paradise,’ answered the host.‘Oh, that won’t do at all, here!’ said St. Peter.‘Be kind enough to carry the message up to your Master,’ responded the host.St. Peter went up to Jesus Christ. ‘Here is he to whom you gave four hundred years of life,’ he said;‘and he has brought fifteen thousand other souls, who have no title at all to Paradise, with him.’‘Tell him he may come in himself,’ said Jesus Christ, ‘but he has nothing to do to meddle with the others.’‘Tell Him to be pleased to remember that when He came to my eating-shop I never made any difficulty how many soever He brought with Him, and if He had brought an army I should have said nothing,’ answered the host; and St. Peter took up that message too.‘That is true! that is right!’ answered Jesus Christ. ‘Let them all in! let them all in!’

6

There was another tavern, however, where the host was a different sort of man, and not onlysaidhe would take nothing when Jesus Christ and His disciples dined there, but really would never take anything; nor was it that by any miracle he had received advantages of another sort,but out of the respect and affection he bore the Master he deemed himself sufficiently paid by the honour of being allowed to minister to Him.One day when Jesus Christ and His disciples were going away on a journey, St. Peter went to this host and said, ‘You have been very liberal to us all this time: if you were to ask for some gift, now, you would be sure to get it.’‘I don’t know that there is anything that I want,’ said the host. ‘I have a thriving trade, which you see not only supplies all my wants, but leaves me the means of being liberal also; I have no wife to provide for, and no children to leave an inheritance to: so what should I ask for? There is one thing, to be sure, I should like. My only amusement is playing at cards: if He would give me the faculty of always winning, I should like that; it isn’t that I care for what one wins, it is that it is nice to win. Do you think I might askthat?’‘I don’t know,’ said St. Peter, gravely. ‘Still you might ask; He is very kind.’The host did ask, and Jesus Christ granted his desire. When St. Peter saw how easily He granted it, he said, ‘If I were you, I should ask something more.’‘I really don’t know what else I have to ask,’ replied the host, ‘unless it be that I have a fig-tree which bears excellent figs, but I never can get one of them for myself; they are always stolen before I get them. I wish He would order that whoever goes up to steal them might get stuck to the tree till I tell him he may come down.’‘Well,’ said St. Peter, ‘it is an odd sort of thing to ask, but you might try; He is very kind.’The host did ask, and Jesus Christ granted his request. When St. Peter saw that He granted it so easily, he said, ‘If I were you I should ask something more.’‘Do you really think I might?’ answered the host. ‘There is one thing I have wanted to ask all along, only I didn’t dare. But you encourage me, and He seems to takea pleasure in giving. I have always had a great wish to live four hundred years.’‘That is certainly a great deal to ask,’ said St. Peter, ‘but you might try; He is very kind.’The host did ask, and Jesus Christ granted his petition, and then went His way with His disciples. St. Peter remained last, and said to the host, ‘Now run after him, and ask for the salvation of your soul.’ (‘St. Peter always told them all to ask that,’ added the narrator in a confidential tone.)‘Oh, I can’t ask anything more, I have asked so much,’ said the host.‘But that is just the best thing of all, and what He grants the most willingly,’ insisted St. Peter. ‘Really?’ said the host; and he ran after Jesus Christ, and said, ‘Lord! who hast so largely shown me Thy bounty, grant me further the salvation of my soul.’‘Let it be granted!’ said Jesus Christ; and continued His journey.All the things the host had asked he received, and life passed away very pleasantly, but still even four hundred years come to an end at last, and with the end of it came Death.‘What! is that you, Mrs. Death,10come already?’ said the host.‘Why, it’s time I should come, I think; it’s not often I leave people in peace for four hundred years.’‘All right, but don’t be in a hurry. I have such a fancy for the figs of that fig-tree of mine there. I wish you would just have the kindness to go up and pluck a good provision of them to take with me, and by that time I’ll be ready to go with you.’‘I’ve no objection to oblige you so far,’ said Mrs. Death; ‘only you must mind and be quite ready by the time I do come back.’‘Never fear,’ said the host; and Mrs. Death climbed up the fig-tree.‘Now stick there!’ said the host, and for all her struggling Mrs. Death could by no means extricate herself any more.‘I can’t stay here, so take off your spell; I have my business to attend to,’ said she.‘So have I,’ answered the host; ‘and if you want to go about your business, you must promise me, on your honour, you will leave me to attend to mine.’‘I can’t do it, my man! What are you asking? It’s more than my place is worth. Every man alive has to pass through my hands. I can’t let any of them off.’‘Well, at all events, leave me alone another four hundred years, and then I’ll come with you. If you’ll promise that, I’ll let you out of the fig-tree.’‘I don’t mind another four hundred years, if you so particularly wish for them; but mind you give me your word of honour you come then, without giving me all this trouble again.’‘Yes! and here’s my hand upon it,’ said the host, as he handed Mrs. Death down from the fig-tree.And so he went on to live another four hundred years. (‘For you know in those times men lived to a very great age,’ was the running gloss of the narrator.)The end of the second four hundred years came too, and then Mrs. Death appeared again. ‘Remember your promise,’ she said, ‘and don’t try any trick on me this time.’‘Oh, yes! I always keep my word,’ said the host, and without more ado he went along with her.As she was carrying him up to Paradise, they passed the way which led down to Hell, and at the opening sat the Devil, receiving souls which his ministers brought to him from all parts. He was marshalling them into ranks, and ticketing them ready to send off in batches to the distinct place for each.‘You seem to have got plenty of souls there, Mr.Devil,’ said the host. ‘Suppose we sit down and play for them?’‘I’ve no objection,’ said the Devil. ‘Your soul against one of these. If I win, you go with them; if you win, one of them goes with you.’‘That’s it,’ said the host, and picking out a nice-looking soul, he set him for the Devil’s stake.Of course the host won, and the nice-looking soul was passed round to his side of the table.‘Shall we have another game?’ said the host, quite cock-a-hoop.The Devil hesitated for a moment, but finally he yielded. The host picked out a soul that took his fancy, for the Devil’s stake, and they sat down to play again, with the same result.So they went on and on till the host had won fifteen thousand souls of the Devil. ‘Come,’ said Death when they had got as far as this, ‘I really can’t wait any longer. I never had to do with anyone who took up so much time as you. Come along!’So the host bowed excuses to the Devil for having had all the luck, and went cheerfully the way Mrs. Death led, with all his fifteen thousand souls behind him. Thus they arrived at the gate of Paradise. There wasn’t so much business going on there as at the other place, and they had to ring before anyone appeared to open the door.‘Who’s there?’ said St. Peter.‘He of the four hundred years!’‘And what is all that rabble behind?’ asked St. Peter.‘Souls that I have won of the Devil for Paradise,’ answered the host.‘Oh, that won’t do at all, here!’ said St. Peter.‘Be kind enough to carry the message up to your Master,’ responded the host.St. Peter went up to Jesus Christ. ‘Here is he to whom you gave four hundred years of life,’ he said;‘and he has brought fifteen thousand other souls, who have no title at all to Paradise, with him.’‘Tell him he may come in himself,’ said Jesus Christ, ‘but he has nothing to do to meddle with the others.’‘Tell Him to be pleased to remember that when He came to my eating-shop I never made any difficulty how many soever He brought with Him, and if He had brought an army I should have said nothing,’ answered the host; and St. Peter took up that message too.‘That is true! that is right!’ answered Jesus Christ. ‘Let them all in! let them all in!’

There was another tavern, however, where the host was a different sort of man, and not onlysaidhe would take nothing when Jesus Christ and His disciples dined there, but really would never take anything; nor was it that by any miracle he had received advantages of another sort,but out of the respect and affection he bore the Master he deemed himself sufficiently paid by the honour of being allowed to minister to Him.

One day when Jesus Christ and His disciples were going away on a journey, St. Peter went to this host and said, ‘You have been very liberal to us all this time: if you were to ask for some gift, now, you would be sure to get it.’

‘I don’t know that there is anything that I want,’ said the host. ‘I have a thriving trade, which you see not only supplies all my wants, but leaves me the means of being liberal also; I have no wife to provide for, and no children to leave an inheritance to: so what should I ask for? There is one thing, to be sure, I should like. My only amusement is playing at cards: if He would give me the faculty of always winning, I should like that; it isn’t that I care for what one wins, it is that it is nice to win. Do you think I might askthat?’

‘I don’t know,’ said St. Peter, gravely. ‘Still you might ask; He is very kind.’

The host did ask, and Jesus Christ granted his desire. When St. Peter saw how easily He granted it, he said, ‘If I were you, I should ask something more.’

‘I really don’t know what else I have to ask,’ replied the host, ‘unless it be that I have a fig-tree which bears excellent figs, but I never can get one of them for myself; they are always stolen before I get them. I wish He would order that whoever goes up to steal them might get stuck to the tree till I tell him he may come down.’

‘Well,’ said St. Peter, ‘it is an odd sort of thing to ask, but you might try; He is very kind.’

The host did ask, and Jesus Christ granted his request. When St. Peter saw that He granted it so easily, he said, ‘If I were you I should ask something more.’

‘Do you really think I might?’ answered the host. ‘There is one thing I have wanted to ask all along, only I didn’t dare. But you encourage me, and He seems to takea pleasure in giving. I have always had a great wish to live four hundred years.’

‘That is certainly a great deal to ask,’ said St. Peter, ‘but you might try; He is very kind.’

The host did ask, and Jesus Christ granted his petition, and then went His way with His disciples. St. Peter remained last, and said to the host, ‘Now run after him, and ask for the salvation of your soul.’ (‘St. Peter always told them all to ask that,’ added the narrator in a confidential tone.)

‘Oh, I can’t ask anything more, I have asked so much,’ said the host.

‘But that is just the best thing of all, and what He grants the most willingly,’ insisted St. Peter. ‘Really?’ said the host; and he ran after Jesus Christ, and said, ‘Lord! who hast so largely shown me Thy bounty, grant me further the salvation of my soul.’

‘Let it be granted!’ said Jesus Christ; and continued His journey.

All the things the host had asked he received, and life passed away very pleasantly, but still even four hundred years come to an end at last, and with the end of it came Death.

‘What! is that you, Mrs. Death,10come already?’ said the host.

‘Why, it’s time I should come, I think; it’s not often I leave people in peace for four hundred years.’

‘All right, but don’t be in a hurry. I have such a fancy for the figs of that fig-tree of mine there. I wish you would just have the kindness to go up and pluck a good provision of them to take with me, and by that time I’ll be ready to go with you.’

‘I’ve no objection to oblige you so far,’ said Mrs. Death; ‘only you must mind and be quite ready by the time I do come back.’

‘Never fear,’ said the host; and Mrs. Death climbed up the fig-tree.

‘Now stick there!’ said the host, and for all her struggling Mrs. Death could by no means extricate herself any more.

‘I can’t stay here, so take off your spell; I have my business to attend to,’ said she.

‘So have I,’ answered the host; ‘and if you want to go about your business, you must promise me, on your honour, you will leave me to attend to mine.’

‘I can’t do it, my man! What are you asking? It’s more than my place is worth. Every man alive has to pass through my hands. I can’t let any of them off.’

‘Well, at all events, leave me alone another four hundred years, and then I’ll come with you. If you’ll promise that, I’ll let you out of the fig-tree.’

‘I don’t mind another four hundred years, if you so particularly wish for them; but mind you give me your word of honour you come then, without giving me all this trouble again.’

‘Yes! and here’s my hand upon it,’ said the host, as he handed Mrs. Death down from the fig-tree.

And so he went on to live another four hundred years. (‘For you know in those times men lived to a very great age,’ was the running gloss of the narrator.)

The end of the second four hundred years came too, and then Mrs. Death appeared again. ‘Remember your promise,’ she said, ‘and don’t try any trick on me this time.’

‘Oh, yes! I always keep my word,’ said the host, and without more ado he went along with her.

As she was carrying him up to Paradise, they passed the way which led down to Hell, and at the opening sat the Devil, receiving souls which his ministers brought to him from all parts. He was marshalling them into ranks, and ticketing them ready to send off in batches to the distinct place for each.

‘You seem to have got plenty of souls there, Mr.Devil,’ said the host. ‘Suppose we sit down and play for them?’

‘I’ve no objection,’ said the Devil. ‘Your soul against one of these. If I win, you go with them; if you win, one of them goes with you.’

‘That’s it,’ said the host, and picking out a nice-looking soul, he set him for the Devil’s stake.

Of course the host won, and the nice-looking soul was passed round to his side of the table.

‘Shall we have another game?’ said the host, quite cock-a-hoop.

The Devil hesitated for a moment, but finally he yielded. The host picked out a soul that took his fancy, for the Devil’s stake, and they sat down to play again, with the same result.

So they went on and on till the host had won fifteen thousand souls of the Devil. ‘Come,’ said Death when they had got as far as this, ‘I really can’t wait any longer. I never had to do with anyone who took up so much time as you. Come along!’

So the host bowed excuses to the Devil for having had all the luck, and went cheerfully the way Mrs. Death led, with all his fifteen thousand souls behind him. Thus they arrived at the gate of Paradise. There wasn’t so much business going on there as at the other place, and they had to ring before anyone appeared to open the door.

‘Who’s there?’ said St. Peter.

‘He of the four hundred years!’

‘And what is all that rabble behind?’ asked St. Peter.

‘Souls that I have won of the Devil for Paradise,’ answered the host.

‘Oh, that won’t do at all, here!’ said St. Peter.

‘Be kind enough to carry the message up to your Master,’ responded the host.

St. Peter went up to Jesus Christ. ‘Here is he to whom you gave four hundred years of life,’ he said;‘and he has brought fifteen thousand other souls, who have no title at all to Paradise, with him.’

‘Tell him he may come in himself,’ said Jesus Christ, ‘but he has nothing to do to meddle with the others.’

‘Tell Him to be pleased to remember that when He came to my eating-shop I never made any difficulty how many soever He brought with Him, and if He had brought an army I should have said nothing,’ answered the host; and St. Peter took up that message too.

‘That is true! that is right!’ answered Jesus Christ. ‘Let them all in! let them all in!’

7PRET’ OLIVO.11When Jesus Christ was on earth, He lodged one night at a priest’s house, and when He went away in the morning He offered to give His host, in reward for his hospitality, whatever he asked. What Pret’ Olivo (for that was his host’s name) asked for was that he should live a hundred years, and that when Death came to fetch him he should be able to give her what orders he pleased, and that she must obey him.‘Let it be granted!’ said Jesus Christ.A hundred years passed away, and then, one morning early, Death came.‘Pret’ Olivo! Pret’Olivo!’ cried Death, ‘are you ready? I’m come for you at last.’‘Let me say my mass first,’ said Pret’ Olivo; ‘that’s all.’‘Well, I don’t mind that,’ answered Death; ‘only mind it isn’t a long one, because I’ve got so many people to fetch to-day.’‘A mass is a mass,’ answered Pret’ Olivo; ‘it will be neither longer nor shorter.’As he went out, however, he told his servant to heap up a lot of wood on the hearth and set fire to it. Deathwent to sit down on a bench in the far corner of the chimney, and by-and-by the wood blazed up and she couldn’t get away any more. In vain she called to the servant to come and moderate the fire. ‘Master told me to heap it up, not to moderate it,’ answered the servant; and so there was no help. Death continued calling in desperation, and nobody came. It was impossible with her dry bones to pass the blaze, so there she had to stay.‘Oh, dear! oh, dear! what can I do?’ she kept saying; ‘all this time everybody is stopped dying! Pret’ Olivo! Pret’ Olivo! come here.’At last Pret’ Olivo came in.‘What do you mean by keeping me here like this?’ said Death; ‘I told you I had so much to do.’‘Oh, you want to go, do you?’ said Pret’ Olivo, quietly.‘Of course I do. Tell some one to clear away those burning logs, and let me out.’‘Will you promise me to leave me alone for another hundred years if I do?’‘Yes, yes; anything you like. I shall be very glad to keep away from this place for a hundred years.’Then he let her go, and she set off running with those long thin legs of hers.The second hundred years came to an end.‘Are you ready, Pret’ Olivo?’ said Death one morning, putting her head in at the door.‘Pretty nearly,’ answered Pret’ Olivo. ‘Meantime, just take that basket, and gather me a couple of figs to eat before I go.’As she went away he said, ‘Stick to the tree’ (but not so that she could hear it); for you remember he had power given him to make her do what he liked. She had therefore to stick to the tree.‘Well, Lady Death, are you never going to bring those figs?’ cried Pret’ Olivo after a time.‘How can I bring them, when you know I can’t get down from this tree? Instead of making game of me, come and take me down.’‘Will you leave me alone another hundred years if I do?’‘Yes, yes; anything you like. Only make haste and let me go.’The third hundred years came to an end, and Death appeared again. ‘Are you ready this time, Pret’ Olivo?’ she cried out as she approached.‘Yes, this time I’ll come with you,’ answered Pret’ Olivo. Then he vested himself in the Church vestments, and put a cope on, and took a pack of cards in his hand, and said to Death, ‘Now take me to the gate of Hell, for I want to play a game of cards with the Devil.’‘Nonsense!’ answered Death. ‘I’m not going to waste my time like that. I’ve got orders to take you to Paradise, and to Paradise you must go.’‘You know you’ve got orders to obey whatever I tell you,’ answered Pret’ Olivo; and Death knew that was true, so she lost no more time in disputing, but took him all the way round by the gate of Hell.At the gate of Hell they knocked.‘Who’s there?’ said the Devil.‘Pret’ Olivo,’ replied Death.‘Out with you, ugly priest!’ said the Devil. ‘I’m surprised at you, Death, making game of me like that; you know that’s not the sort of ware for my market.’12‘Silence, and open the door, ugly Pluto!13I’m not come to stay. I only want to have a game of cards with you. Here’s my soul for stake on my side, against the last comer on your side,’ interposed Pret’ Olivo.Pret’ Olivo won the game, and hung the soul on to his cope.‘We must have another game,’ said the Devil.‘With all my heart!’ replied Pret’ Olivo; and he wonanother soul. Another and another he won, and his cope was covered all over with the souls clinging to it.Meantime, Death thought it was going on rather too long, so she looked through the keyhole, and, finding they were just beginning another game, she cried out loudly;‘It’s no use playing any more, for I’m not going to be bothered to carry all those souls all the way up to Heaven—a likely matter, indeed!’But Pret’ Olivo went on playing without taking any notice of her; and he hung them on to his beretta, till at last you could hardly see him at all for the number of souls he had clinging to him. There was no place for any more, so at last he stopped playing.‘I’m not going to take all those other souls,’ said Death when he came out; ‘I’ve only got orders to take you.’‘Then take me,’ answered Pret’ Olivo.Death saw that the souls were all hung on so that she could not take him without taking all the rest; so away she went with the lot of them, without disputing any more.At last they arrived at the Gate of Paradise. St. Peter opened the door when they knocked; but when he saw who was there he shut the door again.‘Make haste!’ said Death; ‘I’ve no time to waste.’‘Why did you waste your time in bringing up souls that were not properly consigned to you?’ answered St. Peter.‘It wasn’t I brought them, it was Pret’ Olivo. And your Master charged me I was to do whatever he told me.’‘My Master! Oh, then, I’m out of it,’ said St. Peter. ‘Only wait a minute, while I just go and ask Him whether it is so.’ St. Peter ran to ask; and receiving an affirmative answer, came back and opened the gate, and they all got in.

7PRET’ OLIVO.11

When Jesus Christ was on earth, He lodged one night at a priest’s house, and when He went away in the morning He offered to give His host, in reward for his hospitality, whatever he asked. What Pret’ Olivo (for that was his host’s name) asked for was that he should live a hundred years, and that when Death came to fetch him he should be able to give her what orders he pleased, and that she must obey him.‘Let it be granted!’ said Jesus Christ.A hundred years passed away, and then, one morning early, Death came.‘Pret’ Olivo! Pret’Olivo!’ cried Death, ‘are you ready? I’m come for you at last.’‘Let me say my mass first,’ said Pret’ Olivo; ‘that’s all.’‘Well, I don’t mind that,’ answered Death; ‘only mind it isn’t a long one, because I’ve got so many people to fetch to-day.’‘A mass is a mass,’ answered Pret’ Olivo; ‘it will be neither longer nor shorter.’As he went out, however, he told his servant to heap up a lot of wood on the hearth and set fire to it. Deathwent to sit down on a bench in the far corner of the chimney, and by-and-by the wood blazed up and she couldn’t get away any more. In vain she called to the servant to come and moderate the fire. ‘Master told me to heap it up, not to moderate it,’ answered the servant; and so there was no help. Death continued calling in desperation, and nobody came. It was impossible with her dry bones to pass the blaze, so there she had to stay.‘Oh, dear! oh, dear! what can I do?’ she kept saying; ‘all this time everybody is stopped dying! Pret’ Olivo! Pret’ Olivo! come here.’At last Pret’ Olivo came in.‘What do you mean by keeping me here like this?’ said Death; ‘I told you I had so much to do.’‘Oh, you want to go, do you?’ said Pret’ Olivo, quietly.‘Of course I do. Tell some one to clear away those burning logs, and let me out.’‘Will you promise me to leave me alone for another hundred years if I do?’‘Yes, yes; anything you like. I shall be very glad to keep away from this place for a hundred years.’Then he let her go, and she set off running with those long thin legs of hers.The second hundred years came to an end.‘Are you ready, Pret’ Olivo?’ said Death one morning, putting her head in at the door.‘Pretty nearly,’ answered Pret’ Olivo. ‘Meantime, just take that basket, and gather me a couple of figs to eat before I go.’As she went away he said, ‘Stick to the tree’ (but not so that she could hear it); for you remember he had power given him to make her do what he liked. She had therefore to stick to the tree.‘Well, Lady Death, are you never going to bring those figs?’ cried Pret’ Olivo after a time.‘How can I bring them, when you know I can’t get down from this tree? Instead of making game of me, come and take me down.’‘Will you leave me alone another hundred years if I do?’‘Yes, yes; anything you like. Only make haste and let me go.’The third hundred years came to an end, and Death appeared again. ‘Are you ready this time, Pret’ Olivo?’ she cried out as she approached.‘Yes, this time I’ll come with you,’ answered Pret’ Olivo. Then he vested himself in the Church vestments, and put a cope on, and took a pack of cards in his hand, and said to Death, ‘Now take me to the gate of Hell, for I want to play a game of cards with the Devil.’‘Nonsense!’ answered Death. ‘I’m not going to waste my time like that. I’ve got orders to take you to Paradise, and to Paradise you must go.’‘You know you’ve got orders to obey whatever I tell you,’ answered Pret’ Olivo; and Death knew that was true, so she lost no more time in disputing, but took him all the way round by the gate of Hell.At the gate of Hell they knocked.‘Who’s there?’ said the Devil.‘Pret’ Olivo,’ replied Death.‘Out with you, ugly priest!’ said the Devil. ‘I’m surprised at you, Death, making game of me like that; you know that’s not the sort of ware for my market.’12‘Silence, and open the door, ugly Pluto!13I’m not come to stay. I only want to have a game of cards with you. Here’s my soul for stake on my side, against the last comer on your side,’ interposed Pret’ Olivo.Pret’ Olivo won the game, and hung the soul on to his cope.‘We must have another game,’ said the Devil.‘With all my heart!’ replied Pret’ Olivo; and he wonanother soul. Another and another he won, and his cope was covered all over with the souls clinging to it.Meantime, Death thought it was going on rather too long, so she looked through the keyhole, and, finding they were just beginning another game, she cried out loudly;‘It’s no use playing any more, for I’m not going to be bothered to carry all those souls all the way up to Heaven—a likely matter, indeed!’But Pret’ Olivo went on playing without taking any notice of her; and he hung them on to his beretta, till at last you could hardly see him at all for the number of souls he had clinging to him. There was no place for any more, so at last he stopped playing.‘I’m not going to take all those other souls,’ said Death when he came out; ‘I’ve only got orders to take you.’‘Then take me,’ answered Pret’ Olivo.Death saw that the souls were all hung on so that she could not take him without taking all the rest; so away she went with the lot of them, without disputing any more.At last they arrived at the Gate of Paradise. St. Peter opened the door when they knocked; but when he saw who was there he shut the door again.‘Make haste!’ said Death; ‘I’ve no time to waste.’‘Why did you waste your time in bringing up souls that were not properly consigned to you?’ answered St. Peter.‘It wasn’t I brought them, it was Pret’ Olivo. And your Master charged me I was to do whatever he told me.’‘My Master! Oh, then, I’m out of it,’ said St. Peter. ‘Only wait a minute, while I just go and ask Him whether it is so.’ St. Peter ran to ask; and receiving an affirmative answer, came back and opened the gate, and they all got in.

When Jesus Christ was on earth, He lodged one night at a priest’s house, and when He went away in the morning He offered to give His host, in reward for his hospitality, whatever he asked. What Pret’ Olivo (for that was his host’s name) asked for was that he should live a hundred years, and that when Death came to fetch him he should be able to give her what orders he pleased, and that she must obey him.

‘Let it be granted!’ said Jesus Christ.

A hundred years passed away, and then, one morning early, Death came.

‘Pret’ Olivo! Pret’Olivo!’ cried Death, ‘are you ready? I’m come for you at last.’

‘Let me say my mass first,’ said Pret’ Olivo; ‘that’s all.’

‘Well, I don’t mind that,’ answered Death; ‘only mind it isn’t a long one, because I’ve got so many people to fetch to-day.’

‘A mass is a mass,’ answered Pret’ Olivo; ‘it will be neither longer nor shorter.’

As he went out, however, he told his servant to heap up a lot of wood on the hearth and set fire to it. Deathwent to sit down on a bench in the far corner of the chimney, and by-and-by the wood blazed up and she couldn’t get away any more. In vain she called to the servant to come and moderate the fire. ‘Master told me to heap it up, not to moderate it,’ answered the servant; and so there was no help. Death continued calling in desperation, and nobody came. It was impossible with her dry bones to pass the blaze, so there she had to stay.

‘Oh, dear! oh, dear! what can I do?’ she kept saying; ‘all this time everybody is stopped dying! Pret’ Olivo! Pret’ Olivo! come here.’

At last Pret’ Olivo came in.

‘What do you mean by keeping me here like this?’ said Death; ‘I told you I had so much to do.’

‘Oh, you want to go, do you?’ said Pret’ Olivo, quietly.

‘Of course I do. Tell some one to clear away those burning logs, and let me out.’

‘Will you promise me to leave me alone for another hundred years if I do?’

‘Yes, yes; anything you like. I shall be very glad to keep away from this place for a hundred years.’

Then he let her go, and she set off running with those long thin legs of hers.

The second hundred years came to an end.

‘Are you ready, Pret’ Olivo?’ said Death one morning, putting her head in at the door.

‘Pretty nearly,’ answered Pret’ Olivo. ‘Meantime, just take that basket, and gather me a couple of figs to eat before I go.’

As she went away he said, ‘Stick to the tree’ (but not so that she could hear it); for you remember he had power given him to make her do what he liked. She had therefore to stick to the tree.

‘Well, Lady Death, are you never going to bring those figs?’ cried Pret’ Olivo after a time.

‘How can I bring them, when you know I can’t get down from this tree? Instead of making game of me, come and take me down.’

‘Will you leave me alone another hundred years if I do?’

‘Yes, yes; anything you like. Only make haste and let me go.’

The third hundred years came to an end, and Death appeared again. ‘Are you ready this time, Pret’ Olivo?’ she cried out as she approached.

‘Yes, this time I’ll come with you,’ answered Pret’ Olivo. Then he vested himself in the Church vestments, and put a cope on, and took a pack of cards in his hand, and said to Death, ‘Now take me to the gate of Hell, for I want to play a game of cards with the Devil.’

‘Nonsense!’ answered Death. ‘I’m not going to waste my time like that. I’ve got orders to take you to Paradise, and to Paradise you must go.’

‘You know you’ve got orders to obey whatever I tell you,’ answered Pret’ Olivo; and Death knew that was true, so she lost no more time in disputing, but took him all the way round by the gate of Hell.

At the gate of Hell they knocked.

‘Who’s there?’ said the Devil.

‘Pret’ Olivo,’ replied Death.

‘Out with you, ugly priest!’ said the Devil. ‘I’m surprised at you, Death, making game of me like that; you know that’s not the sort of ware for my market.’12

‘Silence, and open the door, ugly Pluto!13I’m not come to stay. I only want to have a game of cards with you. Here’s my soul for stake on my side, against the last comer on your side,’ interposed Pret’ Olivo.

Pret’ Olivo won the game, and hung the soul on to his cope.

‘We must have another game,’ said the Devil.

‘With all my heart!’ replied Pret’ Olivo; and he wonanother soul. Another and another he won, and his cope was covered all over with the souls clinging to it.

Meantime, Death thought it was going on rather too long, so she looked through the keyhole, and, finding they were just beginning another game, she cried out loudly;

‘It’s no use playing any more, for I’m not going to be bothered to carry all those souls all the way up to Heaven—a likely matter, indeed!’

But Pret’ Olivo went on playing without taking any notice of her; and he hung them on to his beretta, till at last you could hardly see him at all for the number of souls he had clinging to him. There was no place for any more, so at last he stopped playing.

‘I’m not going to take all those other souls,’ said Death when he came out; ‘I’ve only got orders to take you.’

‘Then take me,’ answered Pret’ Olivo.

Death saw that the souls were all hung on so that she could not take him without taking all the rest; so away she went with the lot of them, without disputing any more.

At last they arrived at the Gate of Paradise. St. Peter opened the door when they knocked; but when he saw who was there he shut the door again.

‘Make haste!’ said Death; ‘I’ve no time to waste.’

‘Why did you waste your time in bringing up souls that were not properly consigned to you?’ answered St. Peter.

‘It wasn’t I brought them, it was Pret’ Olivo. And your Master charged me I was to do whatever he told me.’

‘My Master! Oh, then, I’m out of it,’ said St. Peter. ‘Only wait a minute, while I just go and ask Him whether it is so.’ St. Peter ran to ask; and receiving an affirmative answer, came back and opened the gate, and they all got in.

8DOMINE QUO VADIS.‘You know, of course, about St. Peter, when they put him in the prisons here; he found a way of escaping through the “catacomboli,” and just as he had got out into the open road again he met Jesus Christ coming towards him carrying His cross. And St. Peter asked Him what he was doing going into the “catacomboli.” But Jesus Christ answered, “I am not going into the ‘catacomboli’ to stay; I am going back by the way you came to be crucified over again, since you refuse to die for the flock.” Then St. Peter turned and went all the way back, and was crucified with his head downwards, for he said he was not worthy to die in the same way as his Master.’[Counterparts of these stories abound in the collections of all countries; in the Norse, and Gaelic, and Russian, more of the pagan element seems to stick to them. In Grimm’s are some with both much and little of it. From Tirol I have given two, which are literally free from it, in ‘Household Stories from the Land of Hofer;’ and I have one or two picked up for me by a friend in Brittany, of which the same may be said. On the other hand, we meet them again in another form in that large group of strange compounds, of which ‘Il Rè Moro,’ p. 97, &c., are the Roman representatives, and ‘Marienkind,’ pp. 7–12, ‘Grimm Kinder und Hausmährchen,’ ed. 1870, the link between them. In the minds of the Roman narrators, however, I am quite clear no such connexion exists. See also p. 207infra.One of the quaintest legends of this class is given in Scheible’s ‘Schaltjahr.’ It is meant for a charm to drive away wolves.]‘Lord Jesus Christ and St. Peter went in the morning out.As our Lady went on before she said (turning about),“Ah, dear Lord! whither must we go in and out?We must over hill and dale (roundabout).May God guard the while my flock (devout).Let not St. Peter go his keys without;But take them and lock up the wild dogs’14snout,That they no bone of them all may flout.”’

8DOMINE QUO VADIS.

‘You know, of course, about St. Peter, when they put him in the prisons here; he found a way of escaping through the “catacomboli,” and just as he had got out into the open road again he met Jesus Christ coming towards him carrying His cross. And St. Peter asked Him what he was doing going into the “catacomboli.” But Jesus Christ answered, “I am not going into the ‘catacomboli’ to stay; I am going back by the way you came to be crucified over again, since you refuse to die for the flock.” Then St. Peter turned and went all the way back, and was crucified with his head downwards, for he said he was not worthy to die in the same way as his Master.’[Counterparts of these stories abound in the collections of all countries; in the Norse, and Gaelic, and Russian, more of the pagan element seems to stick to them. In Grimm’s are some with both much and little of it. From Tirol I have given two, which are literally free from it, in ‘Household Stories from the Land of Hofer;’ and I have one or two picked up for me by a friend in Brittany, of which the same may be said. On the other hand, we meet them again in another form in that large group of strange compounds, of which ‘Il Rè Moro,’ p. 97, &c., are the Roman representatives, and ‘Marienkind,’ pp. 7–12, ‘Grimm Kinder und Hausmährchen,’ ed. 1870, the link between them. In the minds of the Roman narrators, however, I am quite clear no such connexion exists. See also p. 207infra.One of the quaintest legends of this class is given in Scheible’s ‘Schaltjahr.’ It is meant for a charm to drive away wolves.]‘Lord Jesus Christ and St. Peter went in the morning out.As our Lady went on before she said (turning about),“Ah, dear Lord! whither must we go in and out?We must over hill and dale (roundabout).May God guard the while my flock (devout).Let not St. Peter go his keys without;But take them and lock up the wild dogs’14snout,That they no bone of them all may flout.”’

‘You know, of course, about St. Peter, when they put him in the prisons here; he found a way of escaping through the “catacomboli,” and just as he had got out into the open road again he met Jesus Christ coming towards him carrying His cross. And St. Peter asked Him what he was doing going into the “catacomboli.” But Jesus Christ answered, “I am not going into the ‘catacomboli’ to stay; I am going back by the way you came to be crucified over again, since you refuse to die for the flock.” Then St. Peter turned and went all the way back, and was crucified with his head downwards, for he said he was not worthy to die in the same way as his Master.’

[Counterparts of these stories abound in the collections of all countries; in the Norse, and Gaelic, and Russian, more of the pagan element seems to stick to them. In Grimm’s are some with both much and little of it. From Tirol I have given two, which are literally free from it, in ‘Household Stories from the Land of Hofer;’ and I have one or two picked up for me by a friend in Brittany, of which the same may be said. On the other hand, we meet them again in another form in that large group of strange compounds, of which ‘Il Rè Moro,’ p. 97, &c., are the Roman representatives, and ‘Marienkind,’ pp. 7–12, ‘Grimm Kinder und Hausmährchen,’ ed. 1870, the link between them. In the minds of the Roman narrators, however, I am quite clear no such connexion exists. See also p. 207infra.

One of the quaintest legends of this class is given in Scheible’s ‘Schaltjahr.’ It is meant for a charm to drive away wolves.]

‘Lord Jesus Christ and St. Peter went in the morning out.As our Lady went on before she said (turning about),“Ah, dear Lord! whither must we go in and out?We must over hill and dale (roundabout).May God guard the while my flock (devout).Let not St. Peter go his keys without;But take them and lock up the wild dogs’14snout,That they no bone of them all may flout.”’

‘Lord Jesus Christ and St. Peter went in the morning out.

As our Lady went on before she said (turning about),

“Ah, dear Lord! whither must we go in and out?

We must over hill and dale (roundabout).

May God guard the while my flock (devout).

Let not St. Peter go his keys without;

But take them and lock up the wild dogs’14snout,

That they no bone of them all may flout.”’

1The Holy Babe.↑2‘Date mi un po’ d’allogio;’lit., Give me a small quantity of lodging—a humble mode of expression.↑3‘Chi è?’ (‘Who’s there’); but the humour of the expression here lies in its being the invariable Roman custom to sing out ‘Chi è?’ and wait till ‘Amici!’ is answered, before any door is opened.↑4Comp. with Legend of the Marmolata in ‘Household Stories from the land of Hofer.’↑5‘Un pagnotto di polenta’ was the expression used, meaning a great coarse loaf of Indian corn. The Roman poor have much the same contempt for inferior bread that we meet with in the same class at home, none eat ‘seconds’ who can possibly avoid it; but the pagnotto di polenta is only eaten by the poorest peasants.↑6‘Strutto,’ lard, enters into the composition of almost every Roman popular dish.↑7‘Che bolliva,’ constantly applied in Roman parlance to solids as well as liquids.↑8The narrator was an admirable reciter, and as she uttered this ‘Vi sia concessa,’ in a solemn and majestic manner, she raised her hand and made the sign of the cross with a rapid and facile gesture, just as she might have seen the Pope do as he drove through Rome.↑9‘Trattoria,’ can only be translated by ‘tavern,’ but unfortunately the English word represents quite a different idea from the Roman. ‘Tavern’ suggests noise and riot, but a ‘trattoria’ is a place where a poor Roman will take his family to dine quietly with him on a festa as a treat.↑10‘Death,’ being feminine in Italian, has to be personified as a woman. The same occurs in a Spanish counterpart of this story which I have given under the title of ‘Starving John the Doctor’ in ‘Patrañas.’ The Spanish counterpart of the rest of the story will be found in ‘Where one can dine two can dine’ (‘Un Convidado invida a ciento’) in the same series.↑11‘Olive the priest.’ ‘When we were children,’ said the narrator, ‘my father used to tell us such a lot of stories of an evening, but of them all the two we used to ask for most, again and again, and the only two I remember, were “Mi butto,” and “Pret’ Olivo.” Do you know “Mi butto”? We used to shudder at it, and yet we used to ask for it.’ I incautiously admitted I did know it, instead of acquiring a fresh version. ‘Then here is “Pret’ Olivo.” I don’t suppose I was more than seven then, and now I am thirty-five, and I have never heard it since, but I’ll make the best I can of it. Of course it is not a true story; we knew that itcouldn’tbe true, as anyone can see; but it used to interest us children.’↑12‘Vaene brutto prete! Questa non è roba per me.’↑13‘Brutto Plutone!’ The traditional application of the name will not have escaped the reader.↑14‘Holzhund,’ I suppose, is used for wild dog.↑

1The Holy Babe.↑

2‘Date mi un po’ d’allogio;’lit., Give me a small quantity of lodging—a humble mode of expression.↑

3‘Chi è?’ (‘Who’s there’); but the humour of the expression here lies in its being the invariable Roman custom to sing out ‘Chi è?’ and wait till ‘Amici!’ is answered, before any door is opened.↑

4Comp. with Legend of the Marmolata in ‘Household Stories from the land of Hofer.’↑

5‘Un pagnotto di polenta’ was the expression used, meaning a great coarse loaf of Indian corn. The Roman poor have much the same contempt for inferior bread that we meet with in the same class at home, none eat ‘seconds’ who can possibly avoid it; but the pagnotto di polenta is only eaten by the poorest peasants.↑

6‘Strutto,’ lard, enters into the composition of almost every Roman popular dish.↑

7‘Che bolliva,’ constantly applied in Roman parlance to solids as well as liquids.↑

8The narrator was an admirable reciter, and as she uttered this ‘Vi sia concessa,’ in a solemn and majestic manner, she raised her hand and made the sign of the cross with a rapid and facile gesture, just as she might have seen the Pope do as he drove through Rome.↑

9‘Trattoria,’ can only be translated by ‘tavern,’ but unfortunately the English word represents quite a different idea from the Roman. ‘Tavern’ suggests noise and riot, but a ‘trattoria’ is a place where a poor Roman will take his family to dine quietly with him on a festa as a treat.↑

10‘Death,’ being feminine in Italian, has to be personified as a woman. The same occurs in a Spanish counterpart of this story which I have given under the title of ‘Starving John the Doctor’ in ‘Patrañas.’ The Spanish counterpart of the rest of the story will be found in ‘Where one can dine two can dine’ (‘Un Convidado invida a ciento’) in the same series.↑

11‘Olive the priest.’ ‘When we were children,’ said the narrator, ‘my father used to tell us such a lot of stories of an evening, but of them all the two we used to ask for most, again and again, and the only two I remember, were “Mi butto,” and “Pret’ Olivo.” Do you know “Mi butto”? We used to shudder at it, and yet we used to ask for it.’ I incautiously admitted I did know it, instead of acquiring a fresh version. ‘Then here is “Pret’ Olivo.” I don’t suppose I was more than seven then, and now I am thirty-five, and I have never heard it since, but I’ll make the best I can of it. Of course it is not a true story; we knew that itcouldn’tbe true, as anyone can see; but it used to interest us children.’↑

12‘Vaene brutto prete! Questa non è roba per me.’↑

13‘Brutto Plutone!’ The traditional application of the name will not have escaped the reader.↑

14‘Holzhund,’ I suppose, is used for wild dog.↑

PIETRO BAILLIARDO.11What! Never heard of Pietro Bailliardo! Surely you must, if you ever heard anything at all. Why, everybody knows about Pietro Bailliardo! Why, he was here and there and everywhere in Rome; and turned everybody’s head, and they have his books now, that they took away from him, locked up in the Holy Office.2Pietro Bailliardo was a scholar boy, and went to school like other boys. One day he found at a bookstall a book of divination;3with this he was able to do whatever he would, and wherever he was, there the Devil was in command.He fell in love with a girl, and she would have nothing to do with him; and one day afterwards they found her on Mont Cavallo with a great fire burning round her, and everyone who passed had to stir the fire whether he would or not.Whatever he wanted he ordered to come and it came to him, and nobody could resist him.As to putting him in prison it was no manner of use. One day when they had put him in prison he took a piece of charcoal and drew a boat on the white prison wall, then he jumped into it, and said to all the other prisoners, ‘Get in too,’ and they got in, and he rowed away, and next morning they were all loose about Rome. But there was an old man asleep in a corner of the prison, and the guards came to him and said, ‘Where are all the prisoners gone?’ And he told them about Pietro Bailliardo drawing the boat on the prison wall with the charcoal and their all getting away in it. ‘And why didn’t you go too?’ asked the guards. ‘Because I was asleep so comfortably I did not want to move,’ said he. (‘But then, how did he see it all unless Pietro Bailliardo had him put undera spell on purpose that he might tell the authorities how he had defied them?’ added the narrator.)Another time again they shut him up in prison, and the next morning when they came to look for him they found nothing but an ass’s head in his place, which he had left there just to show his contempt for them.One day a zealous friar met him and warned him to repent. ‘What have I to repent of?’ said he. ‘I can hear mass better than you, for I can hear mass in three places at once.’ Then he went away and made the Devil take him to Constantinople and Paris to hear mass at each while all at one and the same time he was hearing one at Rome too! Then he came and told the friar what a grand thing he had done. But the friar told him it was worse than not hearing mass at all to attempt to use diabolical arts in that way.After that one day he was going up past the church of SS. John and Paul4when the Devil met him.‘Now,’ said the Devil, ‘you have had your swing long enough; I have come to fetch you!’When Pietro Bailliardo, who had set all the world at defiance all his life, saw the Devil and heard him say he had come to fetch him, he was seized with such terror that he began to repent, and ran inside the church. The Devil durst not follow him thither, but waited outside thinking he would soon be turned out.But Pietro Bailliardo took up a great stone and went and kneeled down before the crucifix and smote his bare breast with the big stone, saying the while, ‘Behold! merciful Lord, I beat my breast with this stone till Thou bow Thy head in token that Thou forgive me.’And he went on beating his breast till the blood ran down, and at last our Lord had compassion on him and bowed His head from the cross to him, and he died there. So the Devil did not get him.2‘You have told me so many stories, why have you never told me anything about Pietro Bailliardo—don’t you know about him?’‘Of course I know about him. Who in Rome doesn’t know about him? but I can’t remember it all. I know he had the book of divination, and could make the Devil do whatever he chose by its means. And then one day, I don’t remember by what circumstance, he was led to do penance; but he would do it in his own way, not in the right way, and he made a vow to the Madonna that he would pay a visit to some shrine in Rome and to S. Giacomo di Galizia,5and to theSanta Casa di Loretoall in the same night. As devils can fly through the air at a wonderful pace he called upon a devil by his divining book and told him what he wanted; then he got on the back of the devil and rode away through the air and actually visited all three in one night.‘But that sort of penance was no penance at all. After that he did penance in right earnest at some church, I forget which.’‘Was it SS. John and Paul?’ I asked.‘Yes, to be sure; SS. John and Paul. And you knew it all the time, and yet have been asking me!’3‘Do you want to know about Pietro Bailliardo too?’ said the old man who had given me No. 2 of San GiovanniBocca d’oro. ‘Oh, yes; I did know a deal about him. This is what I can remember.‘Pietro Bailliardo had a bond6with the Devil, by which he was as rich as he could be, and had whatever he wanted; but the day came when the compact came to an end, and Pietro Bailliardo quailed as that day approached, for he knew that after that time the Devil could take him and he could not resist.‘Before noon on that day, therefore, he set out to go to St. Paul’s.’‘To SS. John and Paul?’ asked I, full of the former versions.‘No, no! to the great St. Paul’s outside the walls, where the monks of St. Benedict are; and he waited there all day, for before the time was out the Devil couldn’t take him. At last evening came on, and the chierico7wanted to shut the church up; so he told Pietro Bailliardo he must go, and showed him to the door. But when he came to the door, he found the Devil there waiting for him dressed like a paino.8When he saw that, no power of the chierico could make him go; so the chierico was obliged to call the Father Abbot.‘To the Father Abbot Pietro Bailliardo told his whole story, and the Father Abbot said, “If that is so, come with me to the Inquisition, and tell your story there and receive absolution.” Then he sent for a carriage, and said to the driver, “Be of good heart, for I have many relics of saints with me, and whatever strange thing you may see or hear by the way, have no fear, it shall not harm you.”‘The Devil saw all this, and was in a great fury, for he has no power to alter future events, and so he couldn’t help Pietro Bailliardo going into the church for sanctuary before the time was up. He got a number of devils together, therefore, and made unearthly and terrible noises all the way. But the driver had confidence in the word of the Abbot, and drove on without heeding. Only when they got to the bridge of St. Angelo the noise was so tremendous he got quite bewildered; moreover the bridge heaved and rocked as though it were going to break in twain.‘“Fear nothing, fear nothing! Nothing will harm you,” said the Father Abbot; and the driver, having confidence in his words, drove on without heeding, and they arrived safely at the Palace of the Inquisition.‘The Father Abbot now delivered Pietro Bailliardo over to the Penitentiary, to whom, moreover, he made confession of his terrible crimes, and begged to remain to perform his penance and obtain reconciliation with God.‘But as Pietro Bailliardo had been used to follow his own strange ways all his life, he must needs now perform his penance too in his own strange way. Therefore he made a vow that he would perform such a penance as man never performed before; and this penance was to visit, all in one night, the SS. Crocifisso in the Chapel of the Holy Office, S. Giacomo di Galizia, and the sanctuary of Cirollo. All in one night!’‘Stop! S. Giacomo di Galizia I know; we call it S. James of Compostella; but the sanctuary of Cirollo! I never heard of that; where is it?’‘Oh, Cirollo is all the same as if you said Loreto; the Madonna di Loreto; it is all one.’I appealed to one sitting there who, I knew, had been brought up at Loreto.‘Yes, yes,’ she said. ‘That is all right; Cirollo is just a walk from Loreto.Noi altriwhen living at Loreto often go there, but those who come from far, most often don’t; so we have a saying, “Who goes to Loreto and not to Cirollo, he sees the mother, but not the son.”9‘It is a saying, and nothing more.’‘Basta!’ interposed the old man, who, like other old people, was apt to forget the thread of his story if interrupted. ‘Basta!it doesn’t matter: they were anyhow three places very far apart.10So Pietro Bailliardo, who couldn’t get out of his habit of commanding the devils, called up a number of them, and said, “Which of all you fiends can go the fastest?” and the devils, accustomed to obey him, answered the one before the other, some one way some another, each anxious to content him: “I, like lightning,” said one; “I, like the wind,” said another; but “I—I can go as fast as thought,”11said another. “Ho! Here!You fiend. You, who can travel as fast as thought. You come here, and take me to-night to St. James of Compostella, and to the sanctuary of Cirollo, and bring me back here to the Chapel of the Holy Office before morning breaks.”‘He spoke imperiously, and sprang on to the devil’s back, and all was done so quickly the devil had no time for thought or hesitation.‘Away flew the devil, and Pietro Bailliardo on his back, all the way to St. James of Compostella, and, whr-r-r-r all the way to the sanctuary of Cirollo, fast, fast as thought. Then suddenly the devil stopped midway. An idea had struck him. “What had a devil to do with going about visiting shrines in this way; no harm had been done to the sacred place; not a stone had been injured;12why then had they gone to S. Giacomo; why were they going to Cirollo?”‘“Tell me, Ser Bailliardo,” said he, “on whose account am I sweating like this? is it for your private account, or for my master’s; because I only obey you so long as you command in his name, and how can it serve him to be doing pilgrim’s work?”‘“Go on, ugly monster! don’t prate,”13answered Pietro Bailliardo, and gave him at the same time a kick in each flank; and such was his empire over him that the devil durst say no more, and completed the strange pilgrimage even as he had commanded.14‘Thus even in his penitence Pietro Bailliardo had the devils subject to him. But after that he did penance in right good earnest, only he chose a strange way of his own again.‘He knelt before the Crucifix in the Chapel of the Inquisition, and he took a great stone and beat his breast with it and said, “Lord, behold my repentance; I smite my breast thus till Thou forgive me.” And when the blood flowed down the Lord had compassion on him andbowed His head upon the cross and said, “I have forgiven thee!”‘After that he died in peace.’1Unquestionably a very exaggerated tradition of the aberrations and final submission to the Church of Abelard (Pietro Abelardo in Italian), some of whose writings were publicly burnt in Rome by the Inquisition in 1140.↑2The Office of the Inquisition behind the Colonnade of St. Peter’s.↑3‘Libro di comando.’ A book of divination.↑4St. John and Paul. The Church of the Passionists on the Cœlian.↑5I.e. St. Iago di Compostella.↑6‘Scrittura,’ a written compact.↑7‘Chierico’ of course means a cleric, but in common parlance it is reserved for the boy who, though lay, wears a clerical dress for the time he is serving mass, or attending to the church generally. In the present instance it would probably be a youth in minor orders.↑8‘Paino’ and ‘paina’ mean one, who, according to his or her condition, ought to be dressed in the national style, but who does affect to dress like a gentleman or lady.↑9‘Chi va a LoretoE non va a Cirollo,Vede la MadreE non vede il figliuolo.’↑10I took another opportunity of asking the one who was familiar with Loreto, about Cirollo, and she explained its introduction into the story to mean that he was not to pay a hasty visit, but a thorough one, even though it was done so rapidly. ‘Cirollo,’ she said, ‘is a poor village with few houses, but the church is fine, and the Crucifix is reckonedmiracolosissimo.’ In Murray’s map it is marked as Sirollo, close by the sea, without even a pathway from Loreto, about five miles to the north; and he does not mention the place at all in his text.Subsequently I was talking with another who called herself a Marchegiana, i.e. from the March of Ancona, in which Loreto is situated, and boasted of having been born at Sinigallia, the birthplace of Pio Nono. ‘Have you ever been to Loreto?’ I asked by way of beginning inquiry about Cirollo.‘Yes; six times I have made the pilgrimage from Sinigallia, and always on foot.’ she replied with something of enthusiasm. ‘And you who have travelled so far, you have been there too, of course?’‘Not yet,’ I replied; ‘but I mean to go one day;’ and just as I was coming to my question about Cirollo, she added of her own accord:‘Mind you do, and mind when you go you go to Sirollo too (she pronounced it Sirollo like the spelling in the map). ‘Everyone who goes to Loreto ought to go to Sirollo. There is a Crucifix there which ismiracolosissimo.’↑11‘Quanto la mente dell’ uomo.’↑12‘Dispetto,’ an affront, rather than an injury.↑13‘Tira via, brutta bestia,’ literally ‘fire away’—is used in all senses the same as in English.↑14The question of night flights through the air, and more, whether in the body or out of the body, than whether they were ever effected at all, was one of the most hotly contested questions of demonographers. Tartarotti, lib. I. cap. viii. § vi., winds up a long account of the subject with the following:—‘... So divided was opinion on the subject, not only of Catholics as against heterodox, but between Catholics and Catholics, that after reading in Delrio ‘qui hæc asserunt somnia esse et ludibrio certe peccant contra reverentiam Ecclesiæ matri debitam,’ and ‘Hæc opinio (somnia hæc esse) tanquam hæretica est reprobanda;’ and in Bartolomeo Spina, ‘Negare quod diabolus possit portare homines de loco in locum est hæreticum;’ you may see in Emmanuel Rodriguez, a great theologian and canonist, ‘Peccat mortaliter qui credit veneficos aut veneficas vel striges corporaliter per aëra vehi ad diversa loca, ut illi existimant;’ while Navarro mildly says, ‘Credere quod aliquando, licet raro, dæmon aliquis de loco in locum, Deo permittente, transportet non est peccatum.’Tartarotti supplies a long list of writers who, in the course of the sixteenth and two following centuries, took the opposite sides on this question, and quotes from Dr. John Weir, (Protestant) physician to the Duke of Cleves (In Apol. sec. iv. p. 582), that the Protestants were most numerous on the side which maintained that it was an actual and corporeal and not a mental or imaginative transaction. Cesare Cantù has likewise given an exposition of the treatment of the question in ‘Gli Eretici d’ltalia,’ discorso xxxiii., and ‘Storia Universale,’ epoca xv. cap. 14, p. 488. In note 1 he gives a list of a dozen of the most celebrated Protestant writers who upheld the actuality of the witches’ congress.↑

PIETRO BAILLIARDO.11What! Never heard of Pietro Bailliardo! Surely you must, if you ever heard anything at all. Why, everybody knows about Pietro Bailliardo! Why, he was here and there and everywhere in Rome; and turned everybody’s head, and they have his books now, that they took away from him, locked up in the Holy Office.2Pietro Bailliardo was a scholar boy, and went to school like other boys. One day he found at a bookstall a book of divination;3with this he was able to do whatever he would, and wherever he was, there the Devil was in command.He fell in love with a girl, and she would have nothing to do with him; and one day afterwards they found her on Mont Cavallo with a great fire burning round her, and everyone who passed had to stir the fire whether he would or not.Whatever he wanted he ordered to come and it came to him, and nobody could resist him.As to putting him in prison it was no manner of use. One day when they had put him in prison he took a piece of charcoal and drew a boat on the white prison wall, then he jumped into it, and said to all the other prisoners, ‘Get in too,’ and they got in, and he rowed away, and next morning they were all loose about Rome. But there was an old man asleep in a corner of the prison, and the guards came to him and said, ‘Where are all the prisoners gone?’ And he told them about Pietro Bailliardo drawing the boat on the prison wall with the charcoal and their all getting away in it. ‘And why didn’t you go too?’ asked the guards. ‘Because I was asleep so comfortably I did not want to move,’ said he. (‘But then, how did he see it all unless Pietro Bailliardo had him put undera spell on purpose that he might tell the authorities how he had defied them?’ added the narrator.)Another time again they shut him up in prison, and the next morning when they came to look for him they found nothing but an ass’s head in his place, which he had left there just to show his contempt for them.One day a zealous friar met him and warned him to repent. ‘What have I to repent of?’ said he. ‘I can hear mass better than you, for I can hear mass in three places at once.’ Then he went away and made the Devil take him to Constantinople and Paris to hear mass at each while all at one and the same time he was hearing one at Rome too! Then he came and told the friar what a grand thing he had done. But the friar told him it was worse than not hearing mass at all to attempt to use diabolical arts in that way.After that one day he was going up past the church of SS. John and Paul4when the Devil met him.‘Now,’ said the Devil, ‘you have had your swing long enough; I have come to fetch you!’When Pietro Bailliardo, who had set all the world at defiance all his life, saw the Devil and heard him say he had come to fetch him, he was seized with such terror that he began to repent, and ran inside the church. The Devil durst not follow him thither, but waited outside thinking he would soon be turned out.But Pietro Bailliardo took up a great stone and went and kneeled down before the crucifix and smote his bare breast with the big stone, saying the while, ‘Behold! merciful Lord, I beat my breast with this stone till Thou bow Thy head in token that Thou forgive me.’And he went on beating his breast till the blood ran down, and at last our Lord had compassion on him and bowed His head from the cross to him, and he died there. So the Devil did not get him.2‘You have told me so many stories, why have you never told me anything about Pietro Bailliardo—don’t you know about him?’‘Of course I know about him. Who in Rome doesn’t know about him? but I can’t remember it all. I know he had the book of divination, and could make the Devil do whatever he chose by its means. And then one day, I don’t remember by what circumstance, he was led to do penance; but he would do it in his own way, not in the right way, and he made a vow to the Madonna that he would pay a visit to some shrine in Rome and to S. Giacomo di Galizia,5and to theSanta Casa di Loretoall in the same night. As devils can fly through the air at a wonderful pace he called upon a devil by his divining book and told him what he wanted; then he got on the back of the devil and rode away through the air and actually visited all three in one night.‘But that sort of penance was no penance at all. After that he did penance in right earnest at some church, I forget which.’‘Was it SS. John and Paul?’ I asked.‘Yes, to be sure; SS. John and Paul. And you knew it all the time, and yet have been asking me!’3‘Do you want to know about Pietro Bailliardo too?’ said the old man who had given me No. 2 of San GiovanniBocca d’oro. ‘Oh, yes; I did know a deal about him. This is what I can remember.‘Pietro Bailliardo had a bond6with the Devil, by which he was as rich as he could be, and had whatever he wanted; but the day came when the compact came to an end, and Pietro Bailliardo quailed as that day approached, for he knew that after that time the Devil could take him and he could not resist.‘Before noon on that day, therefore, he set out to go to St. Paul’s.’‘To SS. John and Paul?’ asked I, full of the former versions.‘No, no! to the great St. Paul’s outside the walls, where the monks of St. Benedict are; and he waited there all day, for before the time was out the Devil couldn’t take him. At last evening came on, and the chierico7wanted to shut the church up; so he told Pietro Bailliardo he must go, and showed him to the door. But when he came to the door, he found the Devil there waiting for him dressed like a paino.8When he saw that, no power of the chierico could make him go; so the chierico was obliged to call the Father Abbot.‘To the Father Abbot Pietro Bailliardo told his whole story, and the Father Abbot said, “If that is so, come with me to the Inquisition, and tell your story there and receive absolution.” Then he sent for a carriage, and said to the driver, “Be of good heart, for I have many relics of saints with me, and whatever strange thing you may see or hear by the way, have no fear, it shall not harm you.”‘The Devil saw all this, and was in a great fury, for he has no power to alter future events, and so he couldn’t help Pietro Bailliardo going into the church for sanctuary before the time was up. He got a number of devils together, therefore, and made unearthly and terrible noises all the way. But the driver had confidence in the word of the Abbot, and drove on without heeding. Only when they got to the bridge of St. Angelo the noise was so tremendous he got quite bewildered; moreover the bridge heaved and rocked as though it were going to break in twain.‘“Fear nothing, fear nothing! Nothing will harm you,” said the Father Abbot; and the driver, having confidence in his words, drove on without heeding, and they arrived safely at the Palace of the Inquisition.‘The Father Abbot now delivered Pietro Bailliardo over to the Penitentiary, to whom, moreover, he made confession of his terrible crimes, and begged to remain to perform his penance and obtain reconciliation with God.‘But as Pietro Bailliardo had been used to follow his own strange ways all his life, he must needs now perform his penance too in his own strange way. Therefore he made a vow that he would perform such a penance as man never performed before; and this penance was to visit, all in one night, the SS. Crocifisso in the Chapel of the Holy Office, S. Giacomo di Galizia, and the sanctuary of Cirollo. All in one night!’‘Stop! S. Giacomo di Galizia I know; we call it S. James of Compostella; but the sanctuary of Cirollo! I never heard of that; where is it?’‘Oh, Cirollo is all the same as if you said Loreto; the Madonna di Loreto; it is all one.’I appealed to one sitting there who, I knew, had been brought up at Loreto.‘Yes, yes,’ she said. ‘That is all right; Cirollo is just a walk from Loreto.Noi altriwhen living at Loreto often go there, but those who come from far, most often don’t; so we have a saying, “Who goes to Loreto and not to Cirollo, he sees the mother, but not the son.”9‘It is a saying, and nothing more.’‘Basta!’ interposed the old man, who, like other old people, was apt to forget the thread of his story if interrupted. ‘Basta!it doesn’t matter: they were anyhow three places very far apart.10So Pietro Bailliardo, who couldn’t get out of his habit of commanding the devils, called up a number of them, and said, “Which of all you fiends can go the fastest?” and the devils, accustomed to obey him, answered the one before the other, some one way some another, each anxious to content him: “I, like lightning,” said one; “I, like the wind,” said another; but “I—I can go as fast as thought,”11said another. “Ho! Here!You fiend. You, who can travel as fast as thought. You come here, and take me to-night to St. James of Compostella, and to the sanctuary of Cirollo, and bring me back here to the Chapel of the Holy Office before morning breaks.”‘He spoke imperiously, and sprang on to the devil’s back, and all was done so quickly the devil had no time for thought or hesitation.‘Away flew the devil, and Pietro Bailliardo on his back, all the way to St. James of Compostella, and, whr-r-r-r all the way to the sanctuary of Cirollo, fast, fast as thought. Then suddenly the devil stopped midway. An idea had struck him. “What had a devil to do with going about visiting shrines in this way; no harm had been done to the sacred place; not a stone had been injured;12why then had they gone to S. Giacomo; why were they going to Cirollo?”‘“Tell me, Ser Bailliardo,” said he, “on whose account am I sweating like this? is it for your private account, or for my master’s; because I only obey you so long as you command in his name, and how can it serve him to be doing pilgrim’s work?”‘“Go on, ugly monster! don’t prate,”13answered Pietro Bailliardo, and gave him at the same time a kick in each flank; and such was his empire over him that the devil durst say no more, and completed the strange pilgrimage even as he had commanded.14‘Thus even in his penitence Pietro Bailliardo had the devils subject to him. But after that he did penance in right good earnest, only he chose a strange way of his own again.‘He knelt before the Crucifix in the Chapel of the Inquisition, and he took a great stone and beat his breast with it and said, “Lord, behold my repentance; I smite my breast thus till Thou forgive me.” And when the blood flowed down the Lord had compassion on him andbowed His head upon the cross and said, “I have forgiven thee!”‘After that he died in peace.’

1What! Never heard of Pietro Bailliardo! Surely you must, if you ever heard anything at all. Why, everybody knows about Pietro Bailliardo! Why, he was here and there and everywhere in Rome; and turned everybody’s head, and they have his books now, that they took away from him, locked up in the Holy Office.2Pietro Bailliardo was a scholar boy, and went to school like other boys. One day he found at a bookstall a book of divination;3with this he was able to do whatever he would, and wherever he was, there the Devil was in command.He fell in love with a girl, and she would have nothing to do with him; and one day afterwards they found her on Mont Cavallo with a great fire burning round her, and everyone who passed had to stir the fire whether he would or not.Whatever he wanted he ordered to come and it came to him, and nobody could resist him.As to putting him in prison it was no manner of use. One day when they had put him in prison he took a piece of charcoal and drew a boat on the white prison wall, then he jumped into it, and said to all the other prisoners, ‘Get in too,’ and they got in, and he rowed away, and next morning they were all loose about Rome. But there was an old man asleep in a corner of the prison, and the guards came to him and said, ‘Where are all the prisoners gone?’ And he told them about Pietro Bailliardo drawing the boat on the prison wall with the charcoal and their all getting away in it. ‘And why didn’t you go too?’ asked the guards. ‘Because I was asleep so comfortably I did not want to move,’ said he. (‘But then, how did he see it all unless Pietro Bailliardo had him put undera spell on purpose that he might tell the authorities how he had defied them?’ added the narrator.)Another time again they shut him up in prison, and the next morning when they came to look for him they found nothing but an ass’s head in his place, which he had left there just to show his contempt for them.One day a zealous friar met him and warned him to repent. ‘What have I to repent of?’ said he. ‘I can hear mass better than you, for I can hear mass in three places at once.’ Then he went away and made the Devil take him to Constantinople and Paris to hear mass at each while all at one and the same time he was hearing one at Rome too! Then he came and told the friar what a grand thing he had done. But the friar told him it was worse than not hearing mass at all to attempt to use diabolical arts in that way.After that one day he was going up past the church of SS. John and Paul4when the Devil met him.‘Now,’ said the Devil, ‘you have had your swing long enough; I have come to fetch you!’When Pietro Bailliardo, who had set all the world at defiance all his life, saw the Devil and heard him say he had come to fetch him, he was seized with such terror that he began to repent, and ran inside the church. The Devil durst not follow him thither, but waited outside thinking he would soon be turned out.But Pietro Bailliardo took up a great stone and went and kneeled down before the crucifix and smote his bare breast with the big stone, saying the while, ‘Behold! merciful Lord, I beat my breast with this stone till Thou bow Thy head in token that Thou forgive me.’And he went on beating his breast till the blood ran down, and at last our Lord had compassion on him and bowed His head from the cross to him, and he died there. So the Devil did not get him.

1

What! Never heard of Pietro Bailliardo! Surely you must, if you ever heard anything at all. Why, everybody knows about Pietro Bailliardo! Why, he was here and there and everywhere in Rome; and turned everybody’s head, and they have his books now, that they took away from him, locked up in the Holy Office.2Pietro Bailliardo was a scholar boy, and went to school like other boys. One day he found at a bookstall a book of divination;3with this he was able to do whatever he would, and wherever he was, there the Devil was in command.He fell in love with a girl, and she would have nothing to do with him; and one day afterwards they found her on Mont Cavallo with a great fire burning round her, and everyone who passed had to stir the fire whether he would or not.Whatever he wanted he ordered to come and it came to him, and nobody could resist him.As to putting him in prison it was no manner of use. One day when they had put him in prison he took a piece of charcoal and drew a boat on the white prison wall, then he jumped into it, and said to all the other prisoners, ‘Get in too,’ and they got in, and he rowed away, and next morning they were all loose about Rome. But there was an old man asleep in a corner of the prison, and the guards came to him and said, ‘Where are all the prisoners gone?’ And he told them about Pietro Bailliardo drawing the boat on the prison wall with the charcoal and their all getting away in it. ‘And why didn’t you go too?’ asked the guards. ‘Because I was asleep so comfortably I did not want to move,’ said he. (‘But then, how did he see it all unless Pietro Bailliardo had him put undera spell on purpose that he might tell the authorities how he had defied them?’ added the narrator.)Another time again they shut him up in prison, and the next morning when they came to look for him they found nothing but an ass’s head in his place, which he had left there just to show his contempt for them.One day a zealous friar met him and warned him to repent. ‘What have I to repent of?’ said he. ‘I can hear mass better than you, for I can hear mass in three places at once.’ Then he went away and made the Devil take him to Constantinople and Paris to hear mass at each while all at one and the same time he was hearing one at Rome too! Then he came and told the friar what a grand thing he had done. But the friar told him it was worse than not hearing mass at all to attempt to use diabolical arts in that way.After that one day he was going up past the church of SS. John and Paul4when the Devil met him.‘Now,’ said the Devil, ‘you have had your swing long enough; I have come to fetch you!’When Pietro Bailliardo, who had set all the world at defiance all his life, saw the Devil and heard him say he had come to fetch him, he was seized with such terror that he began to repent, and ran inside the church. The Devil durst not follow him thither, but waited outside thinking he would soon be turned out.But Pietro Bailliardo took up a great stone and went and kneeled down before the crucifix and smote his bare breast with the big stone, saying the while, ‘Behold! merciful Lord, I beat my breast with this stone till Thou bow Thy head in token that Thou forgive me.’And he went on beating his breast till the blood ran down, and at last our Lord had compassion on him and bowed His head from the cross to him, and he died there. So the Devil did not get him.

What! Never heard of Pietro Bailliardo! Surely you must, if you ever heard anything at all. Why, everybody knows about Pietro Bailliardo! Why, he was here and there and everywhere in Rome; and turned everybody’s head, and they have his books now, that they took away from him, locked up in the Holy Office.2

Pietro Bailliardo was a scholar boy, and went to school like other boys. One day he found at a bookstall a book of divination;3with this he was able to do whatever he would, and wherever he was, there the Devil was in command.

He fell in love with a girl, and she would have nothing to do with him; and one day afterwards they found her on Mont Cavallo with a great fire burning round her, and everyone who passed had to stir the fire whether he would or not.

Whatever he wanted he ordered to come and it came to him, and nobody could resist him.

As to putting him in prison it was no manner of use. One day when they had put him in prison he took a piece of charcoal and drew a boat on the white prison wall, then he jumped into it, and said to all the other prisoners, ‘Get in too,’ and they got in, and he rowed away, and next morning they were all loose about Rome. But there was an old man asleep in a corner of the prison, and the guards came to him and said, ‘Where are all the prisoners gone?’ And he told them about Pietro Bailliardo drawing the boat on the prison wall with the charcoal and their all getting away in it. ‘And why didn’t you go too?’ asked the guards. ‘Because I was asleep so comfortably I did not want to move,’ said he. (‘But then, how did he see it all unless Pietro Bailliardo had him put undera spell on purpose that he might tell the authorities how he had defied them?’ added the narrator.)

Another time again they shut him up in prison, and the next morning when they came to look for him they found nothing but an ass’s head in his place, which he had left there just to show his contempt for them.

One day a zealous friar met him and warned him to repent. ‘What have I to repent of?’ said he. ‘I can hear mass better than you, for I can hear mass in three places at once.’ Then he went away and made the Devil take him to Constantinople and Paris to hear mass at each while all at one and the same time he was hearing one at Rome too! Then he came and told the friar what a grand thing he had done. But the friar told him it was worse than not hearing mass at all to attempt to use diabolical arts in that way.

After that one day he was going up past the church of SS. John and Paul4when the Devil met him.

‘Now,’ said the Devil, ‘you have had your swing long enough; I have come to fetch you!’

When Pietro Bailliardo, who had set all the world at defiance all his life, saw the Devil and heard him say he had come to fetch him, he was seized with such terror that he began to repent, and ran inside the church. The Devil durst not follow him thither, but waited outside thinking he would soon be turned out.

But Pietro Bailliardo took up a great stone and went and kneeled down before the crucifix and smote his bare breast with the big stone, saying the while, ‘Behold! merciful Lord, I beat my breast with this stone till Thou bow Thy head in token that Thou forgive me.’

And he went on beating his breast till the blood ran down, and at last our Lord had compassion on him and bowed His head from the cross to him, and he died there. So the Devil did not get him.

2‘You have told me so many stories, why have you never told me anything about Pietro Bailliardo—don’t you know about him?’‘Of course I know about him. Who in Rome doesn’t know about him? but I can’t remember it all. I know he had the book of divination, and could make the Devil do whatever he chose by its means. And then one day, I don’t remember by what circumstance, he was led to do penance; but he would do it in his own way, not in the right way, and he made a vow to the Madonna that he would pay a visit to some shrine in Rome and to S. Giacomo di Galizia,5and to theSanta Casa di Loretoall in the same night. As devils can fly through the air at a wonderful pace he called upon a devil by his divining book and told him what he wanted; then he got on the back of the devil and rode away through the air and actually visited all three in one night.‘But that sort of penance was no penance at all. After that he did penance in right earnest at some church, I forget which.’‘Was it SS. John and Paul?’ I asked.‘Yes, to be sure; SS. John and Paul. And you knew it all the time, and yet have been asking me!’

2

‘You have told me so many stories, why have you never told me anything about Pietro Bailliardo—don’t you know about him?’‘Of course I know about him. Who in Rome doesn’t know about him? but I can’t remember it all. I know he had the book of divination, and could make the Devil do whatever he chose by its means. And then one day, I don’t remember by what circumstance, he was led to do penance; but he would do it in his own way, not in the right way, and he made a vow to the Madonna that he would pay a visit to some shrine in Rome and to S. Giacomo di Galizia,5and to theSanta Casa di Loretoall in the same night. As devils can fly through the air at a wonderful pace he called upon a devil by his divining book and told him what he wanted; then he got on the back of the devil and rode away through the air and actually visited all three in one night.‘But that sort of penance was no penance at all. After that he did penance in right earnest at some church, I forget which.’‘Was it SS. John and Paul?’ I asked.‘Yes, to be sure; SS. John and Paul. And you knew it all the time, and yet have been asking me!’

‘You have told me so many stories, why have you never told me anything about Pietro Bailliardo—don’t you know about him?’

‘Of course I know about him. Who in Rome doesn’t know about him? but I can’t remember it all. I know he had the book of divination, and could make the Devil do whatever he chose by its means. And then one day, I don’t remember by what circumstance, he was led to do penance; but he would do it in his own way, not in the right way, and he made a vow to the Madonna that he would pay a visit to some shrine in Rome and to S. Giacomo di Galizia,5and to theSanta Casa di Loretoall in the same night. As devils can fly through the air at a wonderful pace he called upon a devil by his divining book and told him what he wanted; then he got on the back of the devil and rode away through the air and actually visited all three in one night.

‘But that sort of penance was no penance at all. After that he did penance in right earnest at some church, I forget which.’

‘Was it SS. John and Paul?’ I asked.

‘Yes, to be sure; SS. John and Paul. And you knew it all the time, and yet have been asking me!’

3‘Do you want to know about Pietro Bailliardo too?’ said the old man who had given me No. 2 of San GiovanniBocca d’oro. ‘Oh, yes; I did know a deal about him. This is what I can remember.‘Pietro Bailliardo had a bond6with the Devil, by which he was as rich as he could be, and had whatever he wanted; but the day came when the compact came to an end, and Pietro Bailliardo quailed as that day approached, for he knew that after that time the Devil could take him and he could not resist.‘Before noon on that day, therefore, he set out to go to St. Paul’s.’‘To SS. John and Paul?’ asked I, full of the former versions.‘No, no! to the great St. Paul’s outside the walls, where the monks of St. Benedict are; and he waited there all day, for before the time was out the Devil couldn’t take him. At last evening came on, and the chierico7wanted to shut the church up; so he told Pietro Bailliardo he must go, and showed him to the door. But when he came to the door, he found the Devil there waiting for him dressed like a paino.8When he saw that, no power of the chierico could make him go; so the chierico was obliged to call the Father Abbot.‘To the Father Abbot Pietro Bailliardo told his whole story, and the Father Abbot said, “If that is so, come with me to the Inquisition, and tell your story there and receive absolution.” Then he sent for a carriage, and said to the driver, “Be of good heart, for I have many relics of saints with me, and whatever strange thing you may see or hear by the way, have no fear, it shall not harm you.”‘The Devil saw all this, and was in a great fury, for he has no power to alter future events, and so he couldn’t help Pietro Bailliardo going into the church for sanctuary before the time was up. He got a number of devils together, therefore, and made unearthly and terrible noises all the way. But the driver had confidence in the word of the Abbot, and drove on without heeding. Only when they got to the bridge of St. Angelo the noise was so tremendous he got quite bewildered; moreover the bridge heaved and rocked as though it were going to break in twain.‘“Fear nothing, fear nothing! Nothing will harm you,” said the Father Abbot; and the driver, having confidence in his words, drove on without heeding, and they arrived safely at the Palace of the Inquisition.‘The Father Abbot now delivered Pietro Bailliardo over to the Penitentiary, to whom, moreover, he made confession of his terrible crimes, and begged to remain to perform his penance and obtain reconciliation with God.‘But as Pietro Bailliardo had been used to follow his own strange ways all his life, he must needs now perform his penance too in his own strange way. Therefore he made a vow that he would perform such a penance as man never performed before; and this penance was to visit, all in one night, the SS. Crocifisso in the Chapel of the Holy Office, S. Giacomo di Galizia, and the sanctuary of Cirollo. All in one night!’‘Stop! S. Giacomo di Galizia I know; we call it S. James of Compostella; but the sanctuary of Cirollo! I never heard of that; where is it?’‘Oh, Cirollo is all the same as if you said Loreto; the Madonna di Loreto; it is all one.’I appealed to one sitting there who, I knew, had been brought up at Loreto.‘Yes, yes,’ she said. ‘That is all right; Cirollo is just a walk from Loreto.Noi altriwhen living at Loreto often go there, but those who come from far, most often don’t; so we have a saying, “Who goes to Loreto and not to Cirollo, he sees the mother, but not the son.”9‘It is a saying, and nothing more.’‘Basta!’ interposed the old man, who, like other old people, was apt to forget the thread of his story if interrupted. ‘Basta!it doesn’t matter: they were anyhow three places very far apart.10So Pietro Bailliardo, who couldn’t get out of his habit of commanding the devils, called up a number of them, and said, “Which of all you fiends can go the fastest?” and the devils, accustomed to obey him, answered the one before the other, some one way some another, each anxious to content him: “I, like lightning,” said one; “I, like the wind,” said another; but “I—I can go as fast as thought,”11said another. “Ho! Here!You fiend. You, who can travel as fast as thought. You come here, and take me to-night to St. James of Compostella, and to the sanctuary of Cirollo, and bring me back here to the Chapel of the Holy Office before morning breaks.”‘He spoke imperiously, and sprang on to the devil’s back, and all was done so quickly the devil had no time for thought or hesitation.‘Away flew the devil, and Pietro Bailliardo on his back, all the way to St. James of Compostella, and, whr-r-r-r all the way to the sanctuary of Cirollo, fast, fast as thought. Then suddenly the devil stopped midway. An idea had struck him. “What had a devil to do with going about visiting shrines in this way; no harm had been done to the sacred place; not a stone had been injured;12why then had they gone to S. Giacomo; why were they going to Cirollo?”‘“Tell me, Ser Bailliardo,” said he, “on whose account am I sweating like this? is it for your private account, or for my master’s; because I only obey you so long as you command in his name, and how can it serve him to be doing pilgrim’s work?”‘“Go on, ugly monster! don’t prate,”13answered Pietro Bailliardo, and gave him at the same time a kick in each flank; and such was his empire over him that the devil durst say no more, and completed the strange pilgrimage even as he had commanded.14‘Thus even in his penitence Pietro Bailliardo had the devils subject to him. But after that he did penance in right good earnest, only he chose a strange way of his own again.‘He knelt before the Crucifix in the Chapel of the Inquisition, and he took a great stone and beat his breast with it and said, “Lord, behold my repentance; I smite my breast thus till Thou forgive me.” And when the blood flowed down the Lord had compassion on him andbowed His head upon the cross and said, “I have forgiven thee!”‘After that he died in peace.’

3

‘Do you want to know about Pietro Bailliardo too?’ said the old man who had given me No. 2 of San GiovanniBocca d’oro. ‘Oh, yes; I did know a deal about him. This is what I can remember.‘Pietro Bailliardo had a bond6with the Devil, by which he was as rich as he could be, and had whatever he wanted; but the day came when the compact came to an end, and Pietro Bailliardo quailed as that day approached, for he knew that after that time the Devil could take him and he could not resist.‘Before noon on that day, therefore, he set out to go to St. Paul’s.’‘To SS. John and Paul?’ asked I, full of the former versions.‘No, no! to the great St. Paul’s outside the walls, where the monks of St. Benedict are; and he waited there all day, for before the time was out the Devil couldn’t take him. At last evening came on, and the chierico7wanted to shut the church up; so he told Pietro Bailliardo he must go, and showed him to the door. But when he came to the door, he found the Devil there waiting for him dressed like a paino.8When he saw that, no power of the chierico could make him go; so the chierico was obliged to call the Father Abbot.‘To the Father Abbot Pietro Bailliardo told his whole story, and the Father Abbot said, “If that is so, come with me to the Inquisition, and tell your story there and receive absolution.” Then he sent for a carriage, and said to the driver, “Be of good heart, for I have many relics of saints with me, and whatever strange thing you may see or hear by the way, have no fear, it shall not harm you.”‘The Devil saw all this, and was in a great fury, for he has no power to alter future events, and so he couldn’t help Pietro Bailliardo going into the church for sanctuary before the time was up. He got a number of devils together, therefore, and made unearthly and terrible noises all the way. But the driver had confidence in the word of the Abbot, and drove on without heeding. Only when they got to the bridge of St. Angelo the noise was so tremendous he got quite bewildered; moreover the bridge heaved and rocked as though it were going to break in twain.‘“Fear nothing, fear nothing! Nothing will harm you,” said the Father Abbot; and the driver, having confidence in his words, drove on without heeding, and they arrived safely at the Palace of the Inquisition.‘The Father Abbot now delivered Pietro Bailliardo over to the Penitentiary, to whom, moreover, he made confession of his terrible crimes, and begged to remain to perform his penance and obtain reconciliation with God.‘But as Pietro Bailliardo had been used to follow his own strange ways all his life, he must needs now perform his penance too in his own strange way. Therefore he made a vow that he would perform such a penance as man never performed before; and this penance was to visit, all in one night, the SS. Crocifisso in the Chapel of the Holy Office, S. Giacomo di Galizia, and the sanctuary of Cirollo. All in one night!’‘Stop! S. Giacomo di Galizia I know; we call it S. James of Compostella; but the sanctuary of Cirollo! I never heard of that; where is it?’‘Oh, Cirollo is all the same as if you said Loreto; the Madonna di Loreto; it is all one.’I appealed to one sitting there who, I knew, had been brought up at Loreto.‘Yes, yes,’ she said. ‘That is all right; Cirollo is just a walk from Loreto.Noi altriwhen living at Loreto often go there, but those who come from far, most often don’t; so we have a saying, “Who goes to Loreto and not to Cirollo, he sees the mother, but not the son.”9‘It is a saying, and nothing more.’‘Basta!’ interposed the old man, who, like other old people, was apt to forget the thread of his story if interrupted. ‘Basta!it doesn’t matter: they were anyhow three places very far apart.10So Pietro Bailliardo, who couldn’t get out of his habit of commanding the devils, called up a number of them, and said, “Which of all you fiends can go the fastest?” and the devils, accustomed to obey him, answered the one before the other, some one way some another, each anxious to content him: “I, like lightning,” said one; “I, like the wind,” said another; but “I—I can go as fast as thought,”11said another. “Ho! Here!You fiend. You, who can travel as fast as thought. You come here, and take me to-night to St. James of Compostella, and to the sanctuary of Cirollo, and bring me back here to the Chapel of the Holy Office before morning breaks.”‘He spoke imperiously, and sprang on to the devil’s back, and all was done so quickly the devil had no time for thought or hesitation.‘Away flew the devil, and Pietro Bailliardo on his back, all the way to St. James of Compostella, and, whr-r-r-r all the way to the sanctuary of Cirollo, fast, fast as thought. Then suddenly the devil stopped midway. An idea had struck him. “What had a devil to do with going about visiting shrines in this way; no harm had been done to the sacred place; not a stone had been injured;12why then had they gone to S. Giacomo; why were they going to Cirollo?”‘“Tell me, Ser Bailliardo,” said he, “on whose account am I sweating like this? is it for your private account, or for my master’s; because I only obey you so long as you command in his name, and how can it serve him to be doing pilgrim’s work?”‘“Go on, ugly monster! don’t prate,”13answered Pietro Bailliardo, and gave him at the same time a kick in each flank; and such was his empire over him that the devil durst say no more, and completed the strange pilgrimage even as he had commanded.14‘Thus even in his penitence Pietro Bailliardo had the devils subject to him. But after that he did penance in right good earnest, only he chose a strange way of his own again.‘He knelt before the Crucifix in the Chapel of the Inquisition, and he took a great stone and beat his breast with it and said, “Lord, behold my repentance; I smite my breast thus till Thou forgive me.” And when the blood flowed down the Lord had compassion on him andbowed His head upon the cross and said, “I have forgiven thee!”‘After that he died in peace.’

‘Do you want to know about Pietro Bailliardo too?’ said the old man who had given me No. 2 of San GiovanniBocca d’oro. ‘Oh, yes; I did know a deal about him. This is what I can remember.

‘Pietro Bailliardo had a bond6with the Devil, by which he was as rich as he could be, and had whatever he wanted; but the day came when the compact came to an end, and Pietro Bailliardo quailed as that day approached, for he knew that after that time the Devil could take him and he could not resist.

‘Before noon on that day, therefore, he set out to go to St. Paul’s.’

‘To SS. John and Paul?’ asked I, full of the former versions.

‘No, no! to the great St. Paul’s outside the walls, where the monks of St. Benedict are; and he waited there all day, for before the time was out the Devil couldn’t take him. At last evening came on, and the chierico7wanted to shut the church up; so he told Pietro Bailliardo he must go, and showed him to the door. But when he came to the door, he found the Devil there waiting for him dressed like a paino.8When he saw that, no power of the chierico could make him go; so the chierico was obliged to call the Father Abbot.

‘To the Father Abbot Pietro Bailliardo told his whole story, and the Father Abbot said, “If that is so, come with me to the Inquisition, and tell your story there and receive absolution.” Then he sent for a carriage, and said to the driver, “Be of good heart, for I have many relics of saints with me, and whatever strange thing you may see or hear by the way, have no fear, it shall not harm you.”

‘The Devil saw all this, and was in a great fury, for he has no power to alter future events, and so he couldn’t help Pietro Bailliardo going into the church for sanctuary before the time was up. He got a number of devils together, therefore, and made unearthly and terrible noises all the way. But the driver had confidence in the word of the Abbot, and drove on without heeding. Only when they got to the bridge of St. Angelo the noise was so tremendous he got quite bewildered; moreover the bridge heaved and rocked as though it were going to break in twain.

‘“Fear nothing, fear nothing! Nothing will harm you,” said the Father Abbot; and the driver, having confidence in his words, drove on without heeding, and they arrived safely at the Palace of the Inquisition.

‘The Father Abbot now delivered Pietro Bailliardo over to the Penitentiary, to whom, moreover, he made confession of his terrible crimes, and begged to remain to perform his penance and obtain reconciliation with God.

‘But as Pietro Bailliardo had been used to follow his own strange ways all his life, he must needs now perform his penance too in his own strange way. Therefore he made a vow that he would perform such a penance as man never performed before; and this penance was to visit, all in one night, the SS. Crocifisso in the Chapel of the Holy Office, S. Giacomo di Galizia, and the sanctuary of Cirollo. All in one night!’

‘Stop! S. Giacomo di Galizia I know; we call it S. James of Compostella; but the sanctuary of Cirollo! I never heard of that; where is it?’

‘Oh, Cirollo is all the same as if you said Loreto; the Madonna di Loreto; it is all one.’

I appealed to one sitting there who, I knew, had been brought up at Loreto.

‘Yes, yes,’ she said. ‘That is all right; Cirollo is just a walk from Loreto.Noi altriwhen living at Loreto often go there, but those who come from far, most often don’t; so we have a saying, “Who goes to Loreto and not to Cirollo, he sees the mother, but not the son.”9‘It is a saying, and nothing more.’

‘Basta!’ interposed the old man, who, like other old people, was apt to forget the thread of his story if interrupted. ‘Basta!it doesn’t matter: they were anyhow three places very far apart.10So Pietro Bailliardo, who couldn’t get out of his habit of commanding the devils, called up a number of them, and said, “Which of all you fiends can go the fastest?” and the devils, accustomed to obey him, answered the one before the other, some one way some another, each anxious to content him: “I, like lightning,” said one; “I, like the wind,” said another; but “I—I can go as fast as thought,”11said another. “Ho! Here!You fiend. You, who can travel as fast as thought. You come here, and take me to-night to St. James of Compostella, and to the sanctuary of Cirollo, and bring me back here to the Chapel of the Holy Office before morning breaks.”

‘He spoke imperiously, and sprang on to the devil’s back, and all was done so quickly the devil had no time for thought or hesitation.

‘Away flew the devil, and Pietro Bailliardo on his back, all the way to St. James of Compostella, and, whr-r-r-r all the way to the sanctuary of Cirollo, fast, fast as thought. Then suddenly the devil stopped midway. An idea had struck him. “What had a devil to do with going about visiting shrines in this way; no harm had been done to the sacred place; not a stone had been injured;12why then had they gone to S. Giacomo; why were they going to Cirollo?”

‘“Tell me, Ser Bailliardo,” said he, “on whose account am I sweating like this? is it for your private account, or for my master’s; because I only obey you so long as you command in his name, and how can it serve him to be doing pilgrim’s work?”

‘“Go on, ugly monster! don’t prate,”13answered Pietro Bailliardo, and gave him at the same time a kick in each flank; and such was his empire over him that the devil durst say no more, and completed the strange pilgrimage even as he had commanded.14

‘Thus even in his penitence Pietro Bailliardo had the devils subject to him. But after that he did penance in right good earnest, only he chose a strange way of his own again.

‘He knelt before the Crucifix in the Chapel of the Inquisition, and he took a great stone and beat his breast with it and said, “Lord, behold my repentance; I smite my breast thus till Thou forgive me.” And when the blood flowed down the Lord had compassion on him andbowed His head upon the cross and said, “I have forgiven thee!”

‘After that he died in peace.’

1Unquestionably a very exaggerated tradition of the aberrations and final submission to the Church of Abelard (Pietro Abelardo in Italian), some of whose writings were publicly burnt in Rome by the Inquisition in 1140.↑2The Office of the Inquisition behind the Colonnade of St. Peter’s.↑3‘Libro di comando.’ A book of divination.↑4St. John and Paul. The Church of the Passionists on the Cœlian.↑5I.e. St. Iago di Compostella.↑6‘Scrittura,’ a written compact.↑7‘Chierico’ of course means a cleric, but in common parlance it is reserved for the boy who, though lay, wears a clerical dress for the time he is serving mass, or attending to the church generally. In the present instance it would probably be a youth in minor orders.↑8‘Paino’ and ‘paina’ mean one, who, according to his or her condition, ought to be dressed in the national style, but who does affect to dress like a gentleman or lady.↑9‘Chi va a LoretoE non va a Cirollo,Vede la MadreE non vede il figliuolo.’↑10I took another opportunity of asking the one who was familiar with Loreto, about Cirollo, and she explained its introduction into the story to mean that he was not to pay a hasty visit, but a thorough one, even though it was done so rapidly. ‘Cirollo,’ she said, ‘is a poor village with few houses, but the church is fine, and the Crucifix is reckonedmiracolosissimo.’ In Murray’s map it is marked as Sirollo, close by the sea, without even a pathway from Loreto, about five miles to the north; and he does not mention the place at all in his text.Subsequently I was talking with another who called herself a Marchegiana, i.e. from the March of Ancona, in which Loreto is situated, and boasted of having been born at Sinigallia, the birthplace of Pio Nono. ‘Have you ever been to Loreto?’ I asked by way of beginning inquiry about Cirollo.‘Yes; six times I have made the pilgrimage from Sinigallia, and always on foot.’ she replied with something of enthusiasm. ‘And you who have travelled so far, you have been there too, of course?’‘Not yet,’ I replied; ‘but I mean to go one day;’ and just as I was coming to my question about Cirollo, she added of her own accord:‘Mind you do, and mind when you go you go to Sirollo too (she pronounced it Sirollo like the spelling in the map). ‘Everyone who goes to Loreto ought to go to Sirollo. There is a Crucifix there which ismiracolosissimo.’↑11‘Quanto la mente dell’ uomo.’↑12‘Dispetto,’ an affront, rather than an injury.↑13‘Tira via, brutta bestia,’ literally ‘fire away’—is used in all senses the same as in English.↑14The question of night flights through the air, and more, whether in the body or out of the body, than whether they were ever effected at all, was one of the most hotly contested questions of demonographers. Tartarotti, lib. I. cap. viii. § vi., winds up a long account of the subject with the following:—‘... So divided was opinion on the subject, not only of Catholics as against heterodox, but between Catholics and Catholics, that after reading in Delrio ‘qui hæc asserunt somnia esse et ludibrio certe peccant contra reverentiam Ecclesiæ matri debitam,’ and ‘Hæc opinio (somnia hæc esse) tanquam hæretica est reprobanda;’ and in Bartolomeo Spina, ‘Negare quod diabolus possit portare homines de loco in locum est hæreticum;’ you may see in Emmanuel Rodriguez, a great theologian and canonist, ‘Peccat mortaliter qui credit veneficos aut veneficas vel striges corporaliter per aëra vehi ad diversa loca, ut illi existimant;’ while Navarro mildly says, ‘Credere quod aliquando, licet raro, dæmon aliquis de loco in locum, Deo permittente, transportet non est peccatum.’Tartarotti supplies a long list of writers who, in the course of the sixteenth and two following centuries, took the opposite sides on this question, and quotes from Dr. John Weir, (Protestant) physician to the Duke of Cleves (In Apol. sec. iv. p. 582), that the Protestants were most numerous on the side which maintained that it was an actual and corporeal and not a mental or imaginative transaction. Cesare Cantù has likewise given an exposition of the treatment of the question in ‘Gli Eretici d’ltalia,’ discorso xxxiii., and ‘Storia Universale,’ epoca xv. cap. 14, p. 488. In note 1 he gives a list of a dozen of the most celebrated Protestant writers who upheld the actuality of the witches’ congress.↑

1Unquestionably a very exaggerated tradition of the aberrations and final submission to the Church of Abelard (Pietro Abelardo in Italian), some of whose writings were publicly burnt in Rome by the Inquisition in 1140.↑

2The Office of the Inquisition behind the Colonnade of St. Peter’s.↑

3‘Libro di comando.’ A book of divination.↑

4St. John and Paul. The Church of the Passionists on the Cœlian.↑

5I.e. St. Iago di Compostella.↑

6‘Scrittura,’ a written compact.↑

7‘Chierico’ of course means a cleric, but in common parlance it is reserved for the boy who, though lay, wears a clerical dress for the time he is serving mass, or attending to the church generally. In the present instance it would probably be a youth in minor orders.↑

8‘Paino’ and ‘paina’ mean one, who, according to his or her condition, ought to be dressed in the national style, but who does affect to dress like a gentleman or lady.↑

9

‘Chi va a LoretoE non va a Cirollo,Vede la MadreE non vede il figliuolo.’

‘Chi va a LoretoE non va a Cirollo,Vede la MadreE non vede il figliuolo.’

‘Chi va a LoretoE non va a Cirollo,Vede la MadreE non vede il figliuolo.’

‘Chi va a LoretoE non va a Cirollo,Vede la MadreE non vede il figliuolo.’

‘Chi va a Loreto

E non va a Cirollo,

Vede la Madre

E non vede il figliuolo.’

↑

10I took another opportunity of asking the one who was familiar with Loreto, about Cirollo, and she explained its introduction into the story to mean that he was not to pay a hasty visit, but a thorough one, even though it was done so rapidly. ‘Cirollo,’ she said, ‘is a poor village with few houses, but the church is fine, and the Crucifix is reckonedmiracolosissimo.’ In Murray’s map it is marked as Sirollo, close by the sea, without even a pathway from Loreto, about five miles to the north; and he does not mention the place at all in his text.

Subsequently I was talking with another who called herself a Marchegiana, i.e. from the March of Ancona, in which Loreto is situated, and boasted of having been born at Sinigallia, the birthplace of Pio Nono. ‘Have you ever been to Loreto?’ I asked by way of beginning inquiry about Cirollo.

‘Yes; six times I have made the pilgrimage from Sinigallia, and always on foot.’ she replied with something of enthusiasm. ‘And you who have travelled so far, you have been there too, of course?’

‘Not yet,’ I replied; ‘but I mean to go one day;’ and just as I was coming to my question about Cirollo, she added of her own accord:

‘Mind you do, and mind when you go you go to Sirollo too (she pronounced it Sirollo like the spelling in the map). ‘Everyone who goes to Loreto ought to go to Sirollo. There is a Crucifix there which ismiracolosissimo.’↑

11‘Quanto la mente dell’ uomo.’↑

12‘Dispetto,’ an affront, rather than an injury.↑

13‘Tira via, brutta bestia,’ literally ‘fire away’—is used in all senses the same as in English.↑

14The question of night flights through the air, and more, whether in the body or out of the body, than whether they were ever effected at all, was one of the most hotly contested questions of demonographers. Tartarotti, lib. I. cap. viii. § vi., winds up a long account of the subject with the following:—‘... So divided was opinion on the subject, not only of Catholics as against heterodox, but between Catholics and Catholics, that after reading in Delrio ‘qui hæc asserunt somnia esse et ludibrio certe peccant contra reverentiam Ecclesiæ matri debitam,’ and ‘Hæc opinio (somnia hæc esse) tanquam hæretica est reprobanda;’ and in Bartolomeo Spina, ‘Negare quod diabolus possit portare homines de loco in locum est hæreticum;’ you may see in Emmanuel Rodriguez, a great theologian and canonist, ‘Peccat mortaliter qui credit veneficos aut veneficas vel striges corporaliter per aëra vehi ad diversa loca, ut illi existimant;’ while Navarro mildly says, ‘Credere quod aliquando, licet raro, dæmon aliquis de loco in locum, Deo permittente, transportet non est peccatum.’

Tartarotti supplies a long list of writers who, in the course of the sixteenth and two following centuries, took the opposite sides on this question, and quotes from Dr. John Weir, (Protestant) physician to the Duke of Cleves (In Apol. sec. iv. p. 582), that the Protestants were most numerous on the side which maintained that it was an actual and corporeal and not a mental or imaginative transaction. Cesare Cantù has likewise given an exposition of the treatment of the question in ‘Gli Eretici d’ltalia,’ discorso xxxiii., and ‘Storia Universale,’ epoca xv. cap. 14, p. 488. In note 1 he gives a list of a dozen of the most celebrated Protestant writers who upheld the actuality of the witches’ congress.↑

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