THE ENCHANTED ROSE-TREE.1

THE ENCHANTED ROSE-TREE.1They say there was once a merchant who, when he was going out to buy rare merchandise, asked his daughter what rich present he should bring home to her. She, however, would hear of nothing but only a simple rose-tree.‘That,’ said her father, ‘is too easy. However, as you are bent on having a rose-tree, you shall have the most beautiful rose-tree I can find in all my travels.’In all his travels, however, he met with no rose-tree that he deemed choice enough. But one day, when he was walking outside the walls of his own city, he came to a garden which he had never observed before, filled with all manner of beautiful flowers.‘This is a wonderful garden indeed,’ said the merchant to himself; ‘I never saw it before, and yet these luxuriant plants seem to have many years’ growth in them. There must be something wonderful about them, so this is justthe place to look for my daughter’s rose-tree.’ In he went therefore to look for the rose-tree.In the midst of the garden was a casino, the door of which stood open; when he went in he found a banquet spread with the choicest dishes; and though he saw no one, a kind voice invited him to sit down and enjoy himself. So he sat down to the banquet, and very much he did enjoy himself, for there was everything he could desire.2When he had well eaten and drunk, he bethought him to go out again into the garden and seek a choice rose-tree.‘As the banquet was free,’ he thought to himself, ‘I suppose the flowers are free too.’So he selected what seemed to him the choicest rose of all; while it had petals of the richest red in the world, within it was all shining gold, and the leaves too were overlaid with shining gold. This rose-tree, therefore, he proceeded to root up.A peal of thunder attended the attempt, and with a noise of rushing winds and waters a hideous monster3suddenly appeared before him.‘How dare you root up my rose-trees?’ said the monster; ‘was it not enough that I gave you my best hospitality freely? Must you also rob me of my flowers, which are as my life to me? Now you must die!’The merchant excused himself as best he could, saying it was the very freedom of the hospitality which had emboldened him to take the rose, and that he had only ventured to take it because he had promised the prettiest rose-tree he could find to his daughter.‘Your daughter, say you?’ replied the monster. ‘If there is a daughter in the case perhaps I may forgive you; but only on condition that you bring her hither to me within three days’ time.’The father went home sad at heart, but within three days he kept his promise of taking his daughter to thegarden. The monster received them very kindly, and gave them the casino to live in, where they were well fed and lodged. At the end of eight days, however, a voice came to the father and told him he must depart; and when he hesitated to leave his daughter alone he was taken by invisible agency and turned out of the garden.The monster now often came and talked to the daughter, and he was so gentle and so kind that she began quite to like him. One day she asked him to let her go home and see her friends, and he, who refused her nothing, let her go; but begged her to promise solemnly she would come back at the end of eight days, ‘for if you are away longer than that,’ he added, ‘I know I shall die of despair.’ Then he gave her a mirror into which she could look and see how he was.Thus she went home, and the time passed quickly away, and eight days were gone and she had not thought of returning. Then by accident the mirror came under her hand, and, looking into it, she saw the monster stretched on the ground as if at the point of death. The sight filled her with compunction, and she hurried back with her best speed.Arrived at the garden, she found the monster just as she had seen him in the mirror. At sight of her he revived, and soon became so much better that she was much touched when she saw how deeply he cared for her.‘And were you really so badonlybecause I went away?’ she asked.‘No, not only because you went away, for it was right you should go and see your parents; but because I began to fear you would never come back, and if you had never come back I should quite have died.’‘And now you are all right again?’‘Yes, now you are here I am quite happy; that is, I should be quite happy if you would promise always to remain and never go away any more.’Then when she saw how earnest and sincere he was in wishing her to stay, she gave her consent never to leave him more.No sooner had she spoken the promise than in the twinkling of an eye all was changed. The monster became a handsome prince, the casino a palace, the garden a flourishing country, and each several rose-tree a city. For the prince had been enchanted by an enemy, and had to remain transformed as a monster till he should be redeemed by the love of a maiden.[The three brothers who occupy so large a space in the household tales of other countries, do not seem to be popular favourites in Rome. I have come across them but seldom. There are plenty of them in the ‘Norse Tales,’ under the name of ‘Boots’ for the unexpectedly doughty brother. The Spanish romance I have given as ‘Simple Johnny and the Spell-bound Princesses,’ in ‘Patrañas,’ makes him a knight. In the Siddhi Kür story of ‘How the Schimnu Khan was Slain,’ it is three hired companions (as in some other versions), who betray the hero; and in all but this (which is its link with the usual Three-brother stories), it is a remarkably close repetition of the details of another Spanish romance, which I have given as ‘The Ill-tempered Princess,’ and this, in its turn, is like the Tirolean ‘Laxhale’s Wives’ and the Roman ‘Diavolo che presemoglie.’ Compare, further, a number of instances collected by Mr. Ralston, pp. 72–80, and 260–7. In many parts of Tirol you meet a Three-brother story different from any of these. Three brothers go out to hunt chamois on a Sunday morning, and get so excited with the sport that they make themselves too late to hear Mass, and get turned into stone, or some other dreadful punishment. The younger brother, who has all along urged them to go down, but has been overruled by the others, is involved in the same punishment. There are three peaks on the Knie Pass, leading from Tirol to Salzburg, called ‘The Three Brothers,’ from such a legend.]1‘La Rosa fatata.’↑2According to the narrator, there was a dish of ‘pasta’ heaped up like a mountain; and ‘souplis di riso con rigaglie’ and ‘capone con contorni,’ and several kinds of wine. I give this description verbally, as it was given to me, as characteristic of the local colouring such legends receive. The dishes named are the favourites of the Roman middle class. ‘Pasta’ is the Roman equivalent for the ‘maccaroni’ of the Neapolitan. ‘Rigaglie’ is the liver, &c., of poultry minced, to put into the fried balls of rice. ‘Contorni’ means something more than ‘garnish,’ being something put round the dish, not merely for ornament, but more or less substantial, to be eaten with it, as sausages round a turkey.↑3The word used in this place was ‘mostro,’ not ‘orco,’ marking a distinct idea in the tradition, where it is the Principle of Evil himself who is intended, and where, an unfortunate mortal subjected by malice to his influence.↑SCIOCCOLONE.1Once upon a time there were three brothers, who were woodmen; their employment was not one which required great skill, and they were none of them very clever, but the youngest was the least brilliant of all. So simple was he that all the neighbours, and his very brothers—albeit they were not so very superior in intelligence themselves—gave him the nickname of ‘Scioccolone,’ the great simpleton, and accordingly Scioccolone he was called wherever he went.Every day these three brothers went out into the woods to their work, and every evening they all came home, each staggering under his load of wood, which he carried to the dealer who paid them for their toil: thus one day of labour passed away just like another in all respects. So it went on for years.Nevertheless, one day came at last which was not at all like the others, and if all days were like it the world would be quite upside down, or be at least a very different world from what it is.Oimè!that such days never occur now at all!Basta, this is what happened. It was in the noontide heat of a very hot day, the three simple brotherscommitted the imprudence of going out of the shelter of the woods into the wold beyond, and there, lying on the grass in the severest blaze of the burning sun, they saw three beautiful peasant girls lying fast asleep.‘Only look at those silly girls sleeping in the full blaze of the sun!’ cried the eldest brother.‘They’ll get bad in their heads in this heat,’ said the second.But Scioccolone said: ‘Shall we not get some sticks and boughs, and make a little shed to shelter them?’‘Just like one of Scioccolone’s fine ideas!’ laughed the eldest brother scornfully.‘Well done, Scioccolone! That’s the best thing you’ve thought of this long while. And who will build a shed over us while we’re building a shed for the girls, I should like to know?’ said the second.But Scioccolone said: ‘We can’t leave them there like that; they will be burnt to death. If you won’t help me I must build the shed alone.’‘A wise resolve, and worthy of Scioccolone!’ scoffed the eldest brother.‘Good-bye, Scioccolone!’ cried the second, as the two elder brothers walked away together. ‘Good-bye for ever! I don’t expect ever to see you alive again, of course.’And they never did see him again, but what it was that happened to him you shall hear.Without waiting to find a retort to his brothers’ gibes, Scioccolone set to work to fell four stout young saplings, and to set them up as supports of his shed in four holes he had previously scooped with the aid of his bill-hook; then he rammed them in with wedges, which he also had to cut and shape. After this he cut four large bushy branches, which he tied to the uprights with the cord he used for tying up his faggots of logs; and as the shade of these was scarcely close enough to keep out all the fierce rays of the sun, he went back to the wood and collected allthe large broad leaves he could find, and came back and spread them out over his leafy roof. All this was very hard labour indeed when performed under the dreaded sun, and just in the hours when men do no work; yet so beautiful were the three maidens that, when at last he had completed his task, he could not tear himself away from them to go and seek repose in the shade of the wood, but he must needs continue standing in the full sun gazing at them open-mouthed.At last the three beautiful maidens awoke, and when they saw what a fragrant shade had refreshed their slumbers they began pouring out their gratitude to their devoted benefactor.Do not run at hasty conclusions, however, and imagine that of course the three beautiful maidens fell in love on the spot with Scioccolone, and he had only to pick and choose which of them he would have to make him happy as his wife. A very proper ending, you say, for a fairy tale. It was not so, however. Scioccolone looked anything but attractive just then. His meaningless features and uncouth, clownish gait were never at any time likely to inspire the fair maidens with sudden affection; but just then, after his running hither and thither, his felling, digging, and hammering in the heat of the day, his face had acquired a tint which made it look rougher and redder and more repulsive than anyone ever wore before.Besides this, the three maidens were fairies, who had taken the form2of beautiful peasant girls for some reason of their own.But neither did they leave his good deed unrewarded. By no means. Each of the three declared she would give him such a precious gift that he should own to his last hour that they were not ungrateful. So they sat and thought what great gift they could think of which should be calculated to make him very happy indeed.At last the first of the three got up and exclaimed thatshe had thought of her gift, and she did not think anyone could give him a greater one; for she would promise him he should one day be a king.Wasn’t that a fine gift!Scioccolone, however, did not think so. The idea ofhisbeing a king! Simple as he was, he could see the incongruity of the idea, and the embarrassment of the situation. How should he the poor clown, everybody’s laughingstock, become a king? and if he did, kingship had no attractions for him.He was too kind-hearted, however, to say anything in disparagement of the well-meant promise, and too straightforward to assume a show of gratitude he did not feel; so after the first little burst of hilarity which he was not sufficiently master of himself to suppress, he remained standing open-mouthed after his awkward manner.Then the second fairy addressed him and said:—‘I see you don’t quite like my sister’s gift; but you may be sure she would not have promised it if it had not been a good gift, after you have been so kind to us; and when it comes true, it will somehow all turn out very nice and right. But now, meantime, that I may not similarly disappoint you with my gift by choosing it for you, I shall let you choose it for yourself; so say, what shall it be?’Scioccolone was almost as much embarrassed with the second fairy’s permission of choosing for himself as he had been with the first fairy’s choice for him. First he grinned, and then he twisted his great awkward mouth about, and then he grinned again, till, at last, ashamed of keeping the fairies waiting so long for his answer, he said, with another grin:—‘Well, to tell you what I shouldreallylike, it would be that when I have finished making up my faggot of logs this evening, instead of having to stagger homecarrying it, it should roll along by itself, and then I get astride ofit, and that it should carryme.’‘Thatwouldbe fine!’ he added, and he grinned again as he thought of the fun it would be to be carried home by the load of logs instead of carrying the load as he had been wont.‘Certainly! That wish is granted,’ replied the second fairy readily. ‘You will find it all happen just as you have described.’Then the third fairy came forward and said:—‘And now choose; what shallmygift be? You have only to ask for whatever you like and you shall have it.’Such a heap of wishes rose up in Scioccolone’s imagination at this announcement, that he could not make up his mind which to select; as fast as he fixed on one thing, he remembered it would be incomplete without some other gift, and as he went on trying to find some one wish that should be as comprehensive as possible, he suddenly blurted out—‘Promise me thatwhateverI wish may come true; that’ll be the best gift; and so if I forget a thing one moment I can wish for it the next. That’ll be the best gift to be sure!’‘Granted!’ said the third fairy. ‘You have only to wish for anything and you will find you get it immediately, whatever it is.’The fairies then took leave and went their way, and Scioccolone was reminded by the lengthening shades that it was time he betook himself to complete his day’s work. Scarcely succeeding in collecting his thoughts, so dazzled and bewildered was he by the late supernatural conversation, he yet found his way back to the spot where he had been felling wood.‘Oh, dear! how tired I am!’ he said within himself as he walked along. ‘How I wish the wood was all felled and the faggots tied up!’ and though he said thismechanically as he might have said it any other day of his life, without thinking of the fairy’s promise, which was, indeed, too vast for him to put it consciously to such a practical test then, full of astonishment as he was, yet when he got back to his working-place the woodwasfelled and laid in order, and tied into a faggot in the best manner.‘Well to be sure!’ soliloquised Scioccolone. ‘The girls have kept their promise indeed! This is just exactly what I wished. And now, let’s see what else did I wish? Oh, yes; that if I got astride on the faggot it should roll along by itself and carry me with it; let’s see if that’ll come true too!’With that he got astride on the faggot, and sure enough the faggot moved on all by itself, and carried Scioccolone along with it pleasantly enough.Only there was one thing Scioccolone had forgotten to ask for, and that was power to guide the faggot; and now, though it took a direction quite contrary to that of his homeward way, he had no means of inducing it to change its tack. After some time spent in fruitless efforts in schooling his unruly mount, Scioccolone began to reason with himself.‘After all, it does not much matter about going home. I only get laughed at and called “Scioccolone.” Maybe in some other place they may be better, and as the faggot is acting under the orders of my benefactress, it will doubtless all be for the best.’So he committed himself to the faggot to take him wherever it would. On went the faggot surely and steadily, as if quite conscious where it had to go; and thus, before nightfall, it came to a great city where were many people, who all came out to see the wonder of the faggot of logs moving along by itself, and a man riding on it.In this city was a king, who lived in a palace with an only daughter. Now this daughter had never been knownto laugh. What pains soever the king her father took to divert her were all unavailing; nothing brought a smile to her lips.Now, however, when all the people ran to the windows to see a man riding on a faggot, the king’s daughter ran to look out too; and when she saw the faggot moving by itself, and the uncouth figure of Scioccolone sitting on it, and heard all the people laughing at the sight, then the king’s daughter laughed too; laughed for the first time in her life.But Scioccolone passing under the palace, heard her clear and merry laugh resounding above the laughter of all the people, he looked up and saw her, and when he saw her looking so bright and fair he said within himself:—‘Now, if ever the fairy’s power of wishing is to be of use to me, I wish that I might have a little son, and that the beautiful princess should be the mother.’ But he did not think of wishing to stop there that he might look at her, so the faggot carried him past the palace and past all the houses into the outskirts of the city, till he got tired and weary, and just then passing a wood merchant’s yard, the thought rose to his lips,—‘I wish that wood merchant would buy this faggot of me!’Immediately the wood merchant came out and offered to buy the faggot, and as it was such a wonderful faggot, that he thought Scioccolone would never consent to sell it, he offered him such a high price that Scioccolone had enough to live on like a prince for a year.After a time there was again a great stir in the city, everyone was abroad in the streets whispering and consulting. To the king’s daughter was born a little son, and no one knew who the father was, not even the princess herself. Then the king sent for all the men in the city, and brought them to the infant, and said, ‘Is this your father?’ but the babe said ‘No!’ to them all.Last of all, Scioccolone was brought, and when the king took him up to the babe and said, ‘Is this your father?’ the babe rose joyfully from its cradle and said, ‘Yes; that is my father!’ When the king heard this and saw what a rough ugly clown Scioccolone was, he was very angry with his daughter, and said she must marry him and go away for ever from the palace. It was all in vain that the princess protested she had never seen him but for one moment from the top of the palace. The babe protested quite positively that he was his father; so the king had them married, and sent them away from the palace for ever; and the babe was right, for though Scioccolone and the princess had never met, Scioccolone had wished that he might have a son, of whom she should be the mother, and by the power of the spell3the child was born.Scioccolone was only too delighted with the king’s angry decree. He felt quite out of place in the palace, and was glad enough to be sent away from it. All he wanted was to have such a beautiful wife, and he willingly obeyed the king’s command to take her away, a long, long way off.The princess, however, was quite of a different mind. She could not cease from crying, because she was given to such an uncouth, clownish husband that no tidy peasant wench would have married.When, therefore, Scioccolone saw his beautiful bride so unhappy and distressed, he grew distressed himself; and in his distress he remembered once more the promise of the fairy, that whatever he wished he might have, and he began wishing away at once. First he wished for a pleasant villa,4prettily laid-out, and planted, and walled; then, a casino5in the midst of it, prettily furnished, and having plenty of pastimes and diversions; then, for a farm, well-stocked with beasts for all kinds of uses; for carriages and servants, for fruits and flowers,and all that can make life pleasant. And when he found that with all these things the princess did not seem much happier than before, he bethought himself of wishing that he might be furnished with a handsome person, polished manners, and an educated mind, altogether such as the princess wished. All his wishes were fulfilled, and the princess now loved him very much, and they lived very happily together.After they had been living thus some time, it happened one day that the king, going out hunting, observed this pleasant villa on the wold, where heretofore all had been bare, unplanted, and unbuilt.‘How is this!’ cried the king; and he drew rein, and went into the villa intending to inquire how the change had come about.Scioccolone came out to meet him, not only so transformed that the king never recognised him, but so distinguished by courtesy and urbanity, that the king himself felt ashamed to question him as to how the villa had grown up so suddenly. He accepted his invitation to come and rest in the casino, however; and there they fell to conversing on a variety of subjects, till the king was so struck with the sagacity and prudence of Scioccolone’s talk, that when he rose to take leave, he said:‘Such a man as you I have long sought to succeed me in the government of the kingdom. I am growing old and have no children, and you are worthy in all ways to wear the crown. Come up, therefore, if you will, to the palace and live with me, and when I die you shall be king.’Scioccolone, now no longer feeling himself so ill-adapted to live in a palace, willingly consented, and a few days after, with his wife and his little son, he went up to the palace to live with the king.But the king’s delight can scarcely be imagined when he found that the wife of the polished stranger was indeed his very own daughter.After a few years the old king died, and Scioccolone reigned in his stead. And thus the promises of all the three fairies were fulfilled.[Among the Italian-Tirolese tales is one called ‘I tre pezzi rari’ (The Three Rare Things), which begins just like ‘Scioccolone,’ and then the fairies give the three gifts of a dinner-providing table-cloth, an exhaustless purse, and a resistless cudgel, which we so often meet with, as in Grimm’s ‘Tischchen deck dich,’ p. 142; Campbell’s ‘Three Soldiers,’ i. p. 176–93, who refers to numerous other versions, in which other incidents of the two next succeeding tales occur. The Spanish version I have given by the name of ‘Matanzas’ in ‘Patrañas.’In the Roman version of the ‘Dodici palmi di naso,’ it is singular that it is the second and not the youngest son who is the hero. There is another Italian-Tirolese story, entitled ‘Il Zufolotta,’ in which only one boy and two fairies are concerned, and they only give him the one gift of the Zufoletto, which, instead of supplying every wish as in ‘Dodici palmi di naso,’ has the power of the Zauberflöte, the pipe of the ‘Pied Piper,’ and kindred instruments in all times and countries, so that, when it has got its possessor into such trouble that he is condemned to be executed, it answers the same end as the cudgel, liberating its master by setting the judge and executioner dancing, instead of by thumping them.]1‘Sciocco,’a simpleton;‘scioccolone,’a great awkward simpleton.↑2Even in this story, where the fairies really are described as fair to see, it will be observed it is only said they had assumed the forms of beautiful girls for one occasion, not that they were necessarily beautiful, like our fairies.↑3‘Fatatura,’ the virtue of enchantment.↑4‘Villa’ is more often used to express a little estate—or, as we should say, the ‘grounds’ on which a country-house stands—than for the house itself, though we have borrowed the word exclusively in the latter sense.↑5‘Casino’ a tasteful little house.↑TWELVE FEET OF NOSE.1There was a poor old father, who was very poor indeed, and very old. When he came to die, he called his three sons round his bed, and said they must summon a notary to make his will. The sons looked at each other, and thought he was doating. He repeated his desire, and then one of them ventured to say:‘But father, dear, why should we go to the expense of calling in a notary; there is not a single thing on earth you have to leave us!’But the old man told them again to call a notary, and still they hesitated, because they thought the notary would say they were making game of him.At last the old man began to get angry when he found they would not do as he said, and, just not to vex him in his last moments, they called the notary, and the notary brought his witnesses.Then the father was content, and called them all to his bedside.‘Now, pull out the old case under the bed, and take out what you find there.’They found an old broken hat, without a brim, a ragged purse that was so worn you could not have trusted any money in its keeping, and a horn.2These three things he bequeathed in due form of law, one to each of his sons; and it was only because they saw that the man was in his death agony that those who were called to act as witnesses could keep from laughing. To the notary, of course, it was all one whether it was an old hat or a new one, his part was the same, and when he had done what was needful, he went his way, and the witnesses went with him; but as they went out, they said one to another:‘Poor old man! perhaps it is a comfort to him in his last moments to fancy he has got something to leave.’When they were all gone, as the three sons were standing by, very sad, and looking at each other, not knowing what to make of the strange scene, he called the eldest, to whose portion the hat had fallen, and said:‘See what I’ve given you.’‘Why, father!’ answered he, ‘it isn’t even good enough to bind round one’s knee when one goes out hoeing!’But the father answered:‘I wouldn’t let you know its value till those people were gone, lest any should take it from you; this is its value, that if you put it on, you can go in to dine at whatever inn you please, or sit down to drink at what wineshop you please, and take what you like and drink what you like, for no one will see you while you have it on.’Then he called his second son, to whose lot the purse had fallen, and he said:‘See what I have given you.’‘Why, father!’ answered the son, ‘it isn’t even good enough to keep a little tobacco in, if I could afford to buy any!’But the father answered:‘I wouldn’t tell you its value till those people were gone, lest any should take it from you; but this is its value; if you put your fingers in, you’ll find a scudo there, and after that another, and another, as many as ever you will; there will always be one.’Then he called his youngest son, and said:‘See what I have given you.’And he answered:‘Yes, father, it’s a very nice horn; and when I am starving hungry I can cheat myself into being content by playing on it.’‘Silly boy!’ answered the father; ‘that is not its use. I wouldn’t tell you its value while those people were here, lest they should take it from you. Its value is this, that whenever you want anything you have only to sound it, and one will come who will bring whatever you want, be it a dinner, a suit of clothes, a palace, or an army.’After this the father died, and each found himself well provided with the legacy he had given him.It happened that one day as the second son3was passing under the window of the palace a waiting-maid looked out and said: ‘Can you play at cards?’‘As well as most,’ answered the youth.‘Very well, then; come up,’ answered the waiting-maid; ‘for the queen wants some one to play with her.’Very readily he went up, therefore, and played at cards with the queen, and when he had played all the evening he had lost fifty scudi.‘Never mind about paying the fifty scudi,’ said the queen, as he rose to leave. ‘We only played to pass away the time, and you don’t look by your dress as if you could afford fifty scudi.’‘Not at all!’ replied the youth. ‘I will certainly bring the fifty scudi in the morning.’And in the morning, by putting his fingers fifty times into the ragged purse, he had the required sum, and went back with it to the palace and paid the queen.The queen was very much astonished that such a shabby-looking fellow should have such command of money, and determined to find out how it was; so she made him stay and dine. After dinner she took him into her private room and said to him:‘Tell me, how comes it that you, who are but a shabby-looking fellow, have such command of money?’‘Oh!’ answered he quite unsuspectingly, ‘because my father left me a wonderful purse, in which is always a scudo.’‘Nonsense!’ answered the queen. ‘That is a very pretty fable, but such purses don’t exist.’‘Oh, but it is so indeed,’ answered the youth.‘Quite impossible,’ persisted the queen.‘But here it is; you can see for yourself!’ pursued the incautious youth, taking it out.The queen took it from him as if to try its powers, but no sooner was she in possession of it than she called in the guard to turn out a fellow who was trying to rob her, and give him a good beating.Indignant at such treatment, the youth went to his eldest brother and begged his hat of him that he might, by its means, go and punish the queen.Putting on the hat he went back to the palace at the hour of dinner and sat down to table. As soon as the queen was served he took her plate and ate up all that was in it one course after another, so that the queen got nothing, and finding it useless to call for more dishes, she gave it up as a bad job, and went into her room. The youth followed her in and demanded the return of his wonderful purse.‘How can I know it is you if I don’t see you?’ said the queen.‘Never mind about seeing me. Put the purse out on the table for me and I will take it.’‘No, I can’t if I don’t see you,’ replied the queen. ‘I can’t believe it is you unless I see you.’The youth fell into the snare and took off his hat.‘How did you manage to make yourself invisible?’ asked the queen.‘Just by putting on this old hat.’‘I don’t believe that could make you invisible,’ exclaimed the queen. ‘Let me try.’And she snatched the hat out of his hand and put it on. Of course she was now in turn invisible, and he sought her in vain; but worse than that, she rang the bellfor the guard and bid them turn the shabby youth out and give him a bastonata.Full of fresh indignation he ran to his youngest brother and told him all his story, begging the loan of his horn, that he might punish the queen by its means; and the brother lent it him.He sounds the horn and One comes.4‘I want an army with cannons to throw down the palace,’ said the youth; and instantly there was a tramp of armed men, and a rumble of artillery waggons.The queen was sitting at dinner, but when she heard all the noise she came to the window; meantime the soldiers had surrounded the palace and pointed their guns.‘What’s all this about! What’s the matter!’ cried the queen out of the window.‘The matter is, that I want my purse and my hat back,’ answered the youth.‘To be sure! you are right; here they are. I don’t want my palace battered down, so I will give them to you.’The youth went up to receive them; but when he got upstairs he found the queen sunk half fainting in a chair.‘Oh! I’m so frightened; I can’t think where I put the things. Only send away that army and I’ll look for them immediately.’The youth sent away the army, and the queen got up and began looking about for the things.‘Tell me,’ she said, as she wandered from one cupboard to another, ‘how did you, who are such a shabby-looking fellow, manage to call together such an army?’‘Because I’ve got this horn,’ answered the youth. ‘And with it I can call up whatever I want, and if you don’t make haste and find the purse and the hat, I’ll call up the army again and batter down the palace in right earnest.’‘You won’t make me believe that!’ replied the queen. ‘That sorry horn can’t work such wonders as that: let me try.’ And she took the horn out of his hands and sounded it and One appeared. ‘Two stout men!’ she commanded quickly; and when they came she bid them drive the shabby-looking youth out of the palace and give him a bastonata.He was now quite undone, and was ashamed to go back to his brothers. So he wandered away outside the town. After much walking he came to a vineyard, where he strolled in; and what struck him was, that though it was January, there was a fine fig-tree covered with ripe luscious figs.‘This is a godsend indeed,’ he said, ‘to a hungry man,’ and he began plucking and eating the figs. Before he had eaten many, however, he found his nose had begun to grow to a terrible size; a foot for every fig.‘That’ll never do!’ he cried, and left off eating the figs and wandered on. Presently he came to another vineyard, where he also strolled in: there, though it was January, he saw a tree all covered with ripe red cherries. ‘I wonder what calamity will pursue me for eating them,’ he said, as he gathered them. But when he had eaten a good many he perceived that at last his luck had turned, for in proportion as he ate his nose grew less and less, till at last it was just the right size again.‘Now I know how to punish the queen,’ he said, and he filled a bottle with the juice of the cherries, and went back and gathered a basketful of figs.These figs he cried under the palace window, and as he had got more dusty and threadbare with his late wanderings no one recognised him. ‘Figs in January! that is a treat!’ and they bought up the whole basketful. Then as they ate, their noses all began to grow, but the queen, as she was very greedy, ate twelve for her share, so that she had twelve feet of nose added to the length ofhers. It was so long that it trailed behind her on the ground as she walked along.Then there was a hue and cry! All the surgeons and physicians in the kingdom were sent for, but could do no good. They were all in despair, when our youth came up disguised as a foreign doctor.‘Noses! I can heal noses! whoever has got too much nose let him come to me!’All the inhabitants gathered round him, and the queen called to him loudest of all.‘The medicine I have to give is necessarily a very strong one to effect so extraordinary a cure; therefore I won’t give it to the queen’s majesty till she has seen it used on all her servants, beginning with the lowest.’Taking them all in order, beginning with the lowest, he gave a few drops of cherry-juice to each, and all their noses came right.Last of all the queen remained.‘The queen can’t be treated like common people,’ he said; ‘she must be treated by herself. I must go into her room with her, and I can cure her with one drop of my cordial.’‘You think yourself very clever that you talk of curing with one drop of your cordial, but you’re not the only person who can work wonders. I’ve got greater wonders than yours. I’ve got a hat which makes you invisible, a purse that never is empty, and a horn that gives you everything you call for.’‘Very pretty things to talk about,’ answered the pretended doctor, ‘but such things don’t exist.’‘Don’t they!’ said the queen. ‘There they are!’And she laid them all out on the table.This was enough for him. Taking advantage of the lesson she had given him by her example, he quickly put on the hat, making himself invisible; after that it was easy to snatch up the other things and escape; nor couldanyone follow him. He lived very comfortably for the rest of his life, taking a scudo out of his purse for whatever he had to pay, and his brothers likewise got on very well with their legacies, for he restored them as soon as he had rescued them from the queen. But the queen remained for the rest of her life withTWELVE FEET OF NOSE.1‘Dodici palmi di naso,’a nose twelve palms long. Twelve palms make a canna and a half, equal to three mètres.↑2‘Ciuffoletto.’ ‘What is a ‘ciuffoletto?’ I asked. ‘Much the same as afravodo,’ the narrator answered; and I remembered that from another, in another tale, I had made out ‘fravodo’ to be a horn.↑3That the second of the three sons should be the hero of the story is, I think, an unusual variation.↑4See Note 4, p. 146.↑

THE ENCHANTED ROSE-TREE.1They say there was once a merchant who, when he was going out to buy rare merchandise, asked his daughter what rich present he should bring home to her. She, however, would hear of nothing but only a simple rose-tree.‘That,’ said her father, ‘is too easy. However, as you are bent on having a rose-tree, you shall have the most beautiful rose-tree I can find in all my travels.’In all his travels, however, he met with no rose-tree that he deemed choice enough. But one day, when he was walking outside the walls of his own city, he came to a garden which he had never observed before, filled with all manner of beautiful flowers.‘This is a wonderful garden indeed,’ said the merchant to himself; ‘I never saw it before, and yet these luxuriant plants seem to have many years’ growth in them. There must be something wonderful about them, so this is justthe place to look for my daughter’s rose-tree.’ In he went therefore to look for the rose-tree.In the midst of the garden was a casino, the door of which stood open; when he went in he found a banquet spread with the choicest dishes; and though he saw no one, a kind voice invited him to sit down and enjoy himself. So he sat down to the banquet, and very much he did enjoy himself, for there was everything he could desire.2When he had well eaten and drunk, he bethought him to go out again into the garden and seek a choice rose-tree.‘As the banquet was free,’ he thought to himself, ‘I suppose the flowers are free too.’So he selected what seemed to him the choicest rose of all; while it had petals of the richest red in the world, within it was all shining gold, and the leaves too were overlaid with shining gold. This rose-tree, therefore, he proceeded to root up.A peal of thunder attended the attempt, and with a noise of rushing winds and waters a hideous monster3suddenly appeared before him.‘How dare you root up my rose-trees?’ said the monster; ‘was it not enough that I gave you my best hospitality freely? Must you also rob me of my flowers, which are as my life to me? Now you must die!’The merchant excused himself as best he could, saying it was the very freedom of the hospitality which had emboldened him to take the rose, and that he had only ventured to take it because he had promised the prettiest rose-tree he could find to his daughter.‘Your daughter, say you?’ replied the monster. ‘If there is a daughter in the case perhaps I may forgive you; but only on condition that you bring her hither to me within three days’ time.’The father went home sad at heart, but within three days he kept his promise of taking his daughter to thegarden. The monster received them very kindly, and gave them the casino to live in, where they were well fed and lodged. At the end of eight days, however, a voice came to the father and told him he must depart; and when he hesitated to leave his daughter alone he was taken by invisible agency and turned out of the garden.The monster now often came and talked to the daughter, and he was so gentle and so kind that she began quite to like him. One day she asked him to let her go home and see her friends, and he, who refused her nothing, let her go; but begged her to promise solemnly she would come back at the end of eight days, ‘for if you are away longer than that,’ he added, ‘I know I shall die of despair.’ Then he gave her a mirror into which she could look and see how he was.Thus she went home, and the time passed quickly away, and eight days were gone and she had not thought of returning. Then by accident the mirror came under her hand, and, looking into it, she saw the monster stretched on the ground as if at the point of death. The sight filled her with compunction, and she hurried back with her best speed.Arrived at the garden, she found the monster just as she had seen him in the mirror. At sight of her he revived, and soon became so much better that she was much touched when she saw how deeply he cared for her.‘And were you really so badonlybecause I went away?’ she asked.‘No, not only because you went away, for it was right you should go and see your parents; but because I began to fear you would never come back, and if you had never come back I should quite have died.’‘And now you are all right again?’‘Yes, now you are here I am quite happy; that is, I should be quite happy if you would promise always to remain and never go away any more.’Then when she saw how earnest and sincere he was in wishing her to stay, she gave her consent never to leave him more.No sooner had she spoken the promise than in the twinkling of an eye all was changed. The monster became a handsome prince, the casino a palace, the garden a flourishing country, and each several rose-tree a city. For the prince had been enchanted by an enemy, and had to remain transformed as a monster till he should be redeemed by the love of a maiden.[The three brothers who occupy so large a space in the household tales of other countries, do not seem to be popular favourites in Rome. I have come across them but seldom. There are plenty of them in the ‘Norse Tales,’ under the name of ‘Boots’ for the unexpectedly doughty brother. The Spanish romance I have given as ‘Simple Johnny and the Spell-bound Princesses,’ in ‘Patrañas,’ makes him a knight. In the Siddhi Kür story of ‘How the Schimnu Khan was Slain,’ it is three hired companions (as in some other versions), who betray the hero; and in all but this (which is its link with the usual Three-brother stories), it is a remarkably close repetition of the details of another Spanish romance, which I have given as ‘The Ill-tempered Princess,’ and this, in its turn, is like the Tirolean ‘Laxhale’s Wives’ and the Roman ‘Diavolo che presemoglie.’ Compare, further, a number of instances collected by Mr. Ralston, pp. 72–80, and 260–7. In many parts of Tirol you meet a Three-brother story different from any of these. Three brothers go out to hunt chamois on a Sunday morning, and get so excited with the sport that they make themselves too late to hear Mass, and get turned into stone, or some other dreadful punishment. The younger brother, who has all along urged them to go down, but has been overruled by the others, is involved in the same punishment. There are three peaks on the Knie Pass, leading from Tirol to Salzburg, called ‘The Three Brothers,’ from such a legend.]1‘La Rosa fatata.’↑2According to the narrator, there was a dish of ‘pasta’ heaped up like a mountain; and ‘souplis di riso con rigaglie’ and ‘capone con contorni,’ and several kinds of wine. I give this description verbally, as it was given to me, as characteristic of the local colouring such legends receive. The dishes named are the favourites of the Roman middle class. ‘Pasta’ is the Roman equivalent for the ‘maccaroni’ of the Neapolitan. ‘Rigaglie’ is the liver, &c., of poultry minced, to put into the fried balls of rice. ‘Contorni’ means something more than ‘garnish,’ being something put round the dish, not merely for ornament, but more or less substantial, to be eaten with it, as sausages round a turkey.↑3The word used in this place was ‘mostro,’ not ‘orco,’ marking a distinct idea in the tradition, where it is the Principle of Evil himself who is intended, and where, an unfortunate mortal subjected by malice to his influence.↑SCIOCCOLONE.1Once upon a time there were three brothers, who were woodmen; their employment was not one which required great skill, and they were none of them very clever, but the youngest was the least brilliant of all. So simple was he that all the neighbours, and his very brothers—albeit they were not so very superior in intelligence themselves—gave him the nickname of ‘Scioccolone,’ the great simpleton, and accordingly Scioccolone he was called wherever he went.Every day these three brothers went out into the woods to their work, and every evening they all came home, each staggering under his load of wood, which he carried to the dealer who paid them for their toil: thus one day of labour passed away just like another in all respects. So it went on for years.Nevertheless, one day came at last which was not at all like the others, and if all days were like it the world would be quite upside down, or be at least a very different world from what it is.Oimè!that such days never occur now at all!Basta, this is what happened. It was in the noontide heat of a very hot day, the three simple brotherscommitted the imprudence of going out of the shelter of the woods into the wold beyond, and there, lying on the grass in the severest blaze of the burning sun, they saw three beautiful peasant girls lying fast asleep.‘Only look at those silly girls sleeping in the full blaze of the sun!’ cried the eldest brother.‘They’ll get bad in their heads in this heat,’ said the second.But Scioccolone said: ‘Shall we not get some sticks and boughs, and make a little shed to shelter them?’‘Just like one of Scioccolone’s fine ideas!’ laughed the eldest brother scornfully.‘Well done, Scioccolone! That’s the best thing you’ve thought of this long while. And who will build a shed over us while we’re building a shed for the girls, I should like to know?’ said the second.But Scioccolone said: ‘We can’t leave them there like that; they will be burnt to death. If you won’t help me I must build the shed alone.’‘A wise resolve, and worthy of Scioccolone!’ scoffed the eldest brother.‘Good-bye, Scioccolone!’ cried the second, as the two elder brothers walked away together. ‘Good-bye for ever! I don’t expect ever to see you alive again, of course.’And they never did see him again, but what it was that happened to him you shall hear.Without waiting to find a retort to his brothers’ gibes, Scioccolone set to work to fell four stout young saplings, and to set them up as supports of his shed in four holes he had previously scooped with the aid of his bill-hook; then he rammed them in with wedges, which he also had to cut and shape. After this he cut four large bushy branches, which he tied to the uprights with the cord he used for tying up his faggots of logs; and as the shade of these was scarcely close enough to keep out all the fierce rays of the sun, he went back to the wood and collected allthe large broad leaves he could find, and came back and spread them out over his leafy roof. All this was very hard labour indeed when performed under the dreaded sun, and just in the hours when men do no work; yet so beautiful were the three maidens that, when at last he had completed his task, he could not tear himself away from them to go and seek repose in the shade of the wood, but he must needs continue standing in the full sun gazing at them open-mouthed.At last the three beautiful maidens awoke, and when they saw what a fragrant shade had refreshed their slumbers they began pouring out their gratitude to their devoted benefactor.Do not run at hasty conclusions, however, and imagine that of course the three beautiful maidens fell in love on the spot with Scioccolone, and he had only to pick and choose which of them he would have to make him happy as his wife. A very proper ending, you say, for a fairy tale. It was not so, however. Scioccolone looked anything but attractive just then. His meaningless features and uncouth, clownish gait were never at any time likely to inspire the fair maidens with sudden affection; but just then, after his running hither and thither, his felling, digging, and hammering in the heat of the day, his face had acquired a tint which made it look rougher and redder and more repulsive than anyone ever wore before.Besides this, the three maidens were fairies, who had taken the form2of beautiful peasant girls for some reason of their own.But neither did they leave his good deed unrewarded. By no means. Each of the three declared she would give him such a precious gift that he should own to his last hour that they were not ungrateful. So they sat and thought what great gift they could think of which should be calculated to make him very happy indeed.At last the first of the three got up and exclaimed thatshe had thought of her gift, and she did not think anyone could give him a greater one; for she would promise him he should one day be a king.Wasn’t that a fine gift!Scioccolone, however, did not think so. The idea ofhisbeing a king! Simple as he was, he could see the incongruity of the idea, and the embarrassment of the situation. How should he the poor clown, everybody’s laughingstock, become a king? and if he did, kingship had no attractions for him.He was too kind-hearted, however, to say anything in disparagement of the well-meant promise, and too straightforward to assume a show of gratitude he did not feel; so after the first little burst of hilarity which he was not sufficiently master of himself to suppress, he remained standing open-mouthed after his awkward manner.Then the second fairy addressed him and said:—‘I see you don’t quite like my sister’s gift; but you may be sure she would not have promised it if it had not been a good gift, after you have been so kind to us; and when it comes true, it will somehow all turn out very nice and right. But now, meantime, that I may not similarly disappoint you with my gift by choosing it for you, I shall let you choose it for yourself; so say, what shall it be?’Scioccolone was almost as much embarrassed with the second fairy’s permission of choosing for himself as he had been with the first fairy’s choice for him. First he grinned, and then he twisted his great awkward mouth about, and then he grinned again, till, at last, ashamed of keeping the fairies waiting so long for his answer, he said, with another grin:—‘Well, to tell you what I shouldreallylike, it would be that when I have finished making up my faggot of logs this evening, instead of having to stagger homecarrying it, it should roll along by itself, and then I get astride ofit, and that it should carryme.’‘Thatwouldbe fine!’ he added, and he grinned again as he thought of the fun it would be to be carried home by the load of logs instead of carrying the load as he had been wont.‘Certainly! That wish is granted,’ replied the second fairy readily. ‘You will find it all happen just as you have described.’Then the third fairy came forward and said:—‘And now choose; what shallmygift be? You have only to ask for whatever you like and you shall have it.’Such a heap of wishes rose up in Scioccolone’s imagination at this announcement, that he could not make up his mind which to select; as fast as he fixed on one thing, he remembered it would be incomplete without some other gift, and as he went on trying to find some one wish that should be as comprehensive as possible, he suddenly blurted out—‘Promise me thatwhateverI wish may come true; that’ll be the best gift; and so if I forget a thing one moment I can wish for it the next. That’ll be the best gift to be sure!’‘Granted!’ said the third fairy. ‘You have only to wish for anything and you will find you get it immediately, whatever it is.’The fairies then took leave and went their way, and Scioccolone was reminded by the lengthening shades that it was time he betook himself to complete his day’s work. Scarcely succeeding in collecting his thoughts, so dazzled and bewildered was he by the late supernatural conversation, he yet found his way back to the spot where he had been felling wood.‘Oh, dear! how tired I am!’ he said within himself as he walked along. ‘How I wish the wood was all felled and the faggots tied up!’ and though he said thismechanically as he might have said it any other day of his life, without thinking of the fairy’s promise, which was, indeed, too vast for him to put it consciously to such a practical test then, full of astonishment as he was, yet when he got back to his working-place the woodwasfelled and laid in order, and tied into a faggot in the best manner.‘Well to be sure!’ soliloquised Scioccolone. ‘The girls have kept their promise indeed! This is just exactly what I wished. And now, let’s see what else did I wish? Oh, yes; that if I got astride on the faggot it should roll along by itself and carry me with it; let’s see if that’ll come true too!’With that he got astride on the faggot, and sure enough the faggot moved on all by itself, and carried Scioccolone along with it pleasantly enough.Only there was one thing Scioccolone had forgotten to ask for, and that was power to guide the faggot; and now, though it took a direction quite contrary to that of his homeward way, he had no means of inducing it to change its tack. After some time spent in fruitless efforts in schooling his unruly mount, Scioccolone began to reason with himself.‘After all, it does not much matter about going home. I only get laughed at and called “Scioccolone.” Maybe in some other place they may be better, and as the faggot is acting under the orders of my benefactress, it will doubtless all be for the best.’So he committed himself to the faggot to take him wherever it would. On went the faggot surely and steadily, as if quite conscious where it had to go; and thus, before nightfall, it came to a great city where were many people, who all came out to see the wonder of the faggot of logs moving along by itself, and a man riding on it.In this city was a king, who lived in a palace with an only daughter. Now this daughter had never been knownto laugh. What pains soever the king her father took to divert her were all unavailing; nothing brought a smile to her lips.Now, however, when all the people ran to the windows to see a man riding on a faggot, the king’s daughter ran to look out too; and when she saw the faggot moving by itself, and the uncouth figure of Scioccolone sitting on it, and heard all the people laughing at the sight, then the king’s daughter laughed too; laughed for the first time in her life.But Scioccolone passing under the palace, heard her clear and merry laugh resounding above the laughter of all the people, he looked up and saw her, and when he saw her looking so bright and fair he said within himself:—‘Now, if ever the fairy’s power of wishing is to be of use to me, I wish that I might have a little son, and that the beautiful princess should be the mother.’ But he did not think of wishing to stop there that he might look at her, so the faggot carried him past the palace and past all the houses into the outskirts of the city, till he got tired and weary, and just then passing a wood merchant’s yard, the thought rose to his lips,—‘I wish that wood merchant would buy this faggot of me!’Immediately the wood merchant came out and offered to buy the faggot, and as it was such a wonderful faggot, that he thought Scioccolone would never consent to sell it, he offered him such a high price that Scioccolone had enough to live on like a prince for a year.After a time there was again a great stir in the city, everyone was abroad in the streets whispering and consulting. To the king’s daughter was born a little son, and no one knew who the father was, not even the princess herself. Then the king sent for all the men in the city, and brought them to the infant, and said, ‘Is this your father?’ but the babe said ‘No!’ to them all.Last of all, Scioccolone was brought, and when the king took him up to the babe and said, ‘Is this your father?’ the babe rose joyfully from its cradle and said, ‘Yes; that is my father!’ When the king heard this and saw what a rough ugly clown Scioccolone was, he was very angry with his daughter, and said she must marry him and go away for ever from the palace. It was all in vain that the princess protested she had never seen him but for one moment from the top of the palace. The babe protested quite positively that he was his father; so the king had them married, and sent them away from the palace for ever; and the babe was right, for though Scioccolone and the princess had never met, Scioccolone had wished that he might have a son, of whom she should be the mother, and by the power of the spell3the child was born.Scioccolone was only too delighted with the king’s angry decree. He felt quite out of place in the palace, and was glad enough to be sent away from it. All he wanted was to have such a beautiful wife, and he willingly obeyed the king’s command to take her away, a long, long way off.The princess, however, was quite of a different mind. She could not cease from crying, because she was given to such an uncouth, clownish husband that no tidy peasant wench would have married.When, therefore, Scioccolone saw his beautiful bride so unhappy and distressed, he grew distressed himself; and in his distress he remembered once more the promise of the fairy, that whatever he wished he might have, and he began wishing away at once. First he wished for a pleasant villa,4prettily laid-out, and planted, and walled; then, a casino5in the midst of it, prettily furnished, and having plenty of pastimes and diversions; then, for a farm, well-stocked with beasts for all kinds of uses; for carriages and servants, for fruits and flowers,and all that can make life pleasant. And when he found that with all these things the princess did not seem much happier than before, he bethought himself of wishing that he might be furnished with a handsome person, polished manners, and an educated mind, altogether such as the princess wished. All his wishes were fulfilled, and the princess now loved him very much, and they lived very happily together.After they had been living thus some time, it happened one day that the king, going out hunting, observed this pleasant villa on the wold, where heretofore all had been bare, unplanted, and unbuilt.‘How is this!’ cried the king; and he drew rein, and went into the villa intending to inquire how the change had come about.Scioccolone came out to meet him, not only so transformed that the king never recognised him, but so distinguished by courtesy and urbanity, that the king himself felt ashamed to question him as to how the villa had grown up so suddenly. He accepted his invitation to come and rest in the casino, however; and there they fell to conversing on a variety of subjects, till the king was so struck with the sagacity and prudence of Scioccolone’s talk, that when he rose to take leave, he said:‘Such a man as you I have long sought to succeed me in the government of the kingdom. I am growing old and have no children, and you are worthy in all ways to wear the crown. Come up, therefore, if you will, to the palace and live with me, and when I die you shall be king.’Scioccolone, now no longer feeling himself so ill-adapted to live in a palace, willingly consented, and a few days after, with his wife and his little son, he went up to the palace to live with the king.But the king’s delight can scarcely be imagined when he found that the wife of the polished stranger was indeed his very own daughter.After a few years the old king died, and Scioccolone reigned in his stead. And thus the promises of all the three fairies were fulfilled.[Among the Italian-Tirolese tales is one called ‘I tre pezzi rari’ (The Three Rare Things), which begins just like ‘Scioccolone,’ and then the fairies give the three gifts of a dinner-providing table-cloth, an exhaustless purse, and a resistless cudgel, which we so often meet with, as in Grimm’s ‘Tischchen deck dich,’ p. 142; Campbell’s ‘Three Soldiers,’ i. p. 176–93, who refers to numerous other versions, in which other incidents of the two next succeeding tales occur. The Spanish version I have given by the name of ‘Matanzas’ in ‘Patrañas.’In the Roman version of the ‘Dodici palmi di naso,’ it is singular that it is the second and not the youngest son who is the hero. There is another Italian-Tirolese story, entitled ‘Il Zufolotta,’ in which only one boy and two fairies are concerned, and they only give him the one gift of the Zufoletto, which, instead of supplying every wish as in ‘Dodici palmi di naso,’ has the power of the Zauberflöte, the pipe of the ‘Pied Piper,’ and kindred instruments in all times and countries, so that, when it has got its possessor into such trouble that he is condemned to be executed, it answers the same end as the cudgel, liberating its master by setting the judge and executioner dancing, instead of by thumping them.]1‘Sciocco,’a simpleton;‘scioccolone,’a great awkward simpleton.↑2Even in this story, where the fairies really are described as fair to see, it will be observed it is only said they had assumed the forms of beautiful girls for one occasion, not that they were necessarily beautiful, like our fairies.↑3‘Fatatura,’ the virtue of enchantment.↑4‘Villa’ is more often used to express a little estate—or, as we should say, the ‘grounds’ on which a country-house stands—than for the house itself, though we have borrowed the word exclusively in the latter sense.↑5‘Casino’ a tasteful little house.↑TWELVE FEET OF NOSE.1There was a poor old father, who was very poor indeed, and very old. When he came to die, he called his three sons round his bed, and said they must summon a notary to make his will. The sons looked at each other, and thought he was doating. He repeated his desire, and then one of them ventured to say:‘But father, dear, why should we go to the expense of calling in a notary; there is not a single thing on earth you have to leave us!’But the old man told them again to call a notary, and still they hesitated, because they thought the notary would say they were making game of him.At last the old man began to get angry when he found they would not do as he said, and, just not to vex him in his last moments, they called the notary, and the notary brought his witnesses.Then the father was content, and called them all to his bedside.‘Now, pull out the old case under the bed, and take out what you find there.’They found an old broken hat, without a brim, a ragged purse that was so worn you could not have trusted any money in its keeping, and a horn.2These three things he bequeathed in due form of law, one to each of his sons; and it was only because they saw that the man was in his death agony that those who were called to act as witnesses could keep from laughing. To the notary, of course, it was all one whether it was an old hat or a new one, his part was the same, and when he had done what was needful, he went his way, and the witnesses went with him; but as they went out, they said one to another:‘Poor old man! perhaps it is a comfort to him in his last moments to fancy he has got something to leave.’When they were all gone, as the three sons were standing by, very sad, and looking at each other, not knowing what to make of the strange scene, he called the eldest, to whose portion the hat had fallen, and said:‘See what I’ve given you.’‘Why, father!’ answered he, ‘it isn’t even good enough to bind round one’s knee when one goes out hoeing!’But the father answered:‘I wouldn’t let you know its value till those people were gone, lest any should take it from you; this is its value, that if you put it on, you can go in to dine at whatever inn you please, or sit down to drink at what wineshop you please, and take what you like and drink what you like, for no one will see you while you have it on.’Then he called his second son, to whose lot the purse had fallen, and he said:‘See what I have given you.’‘Why, father!’ answered the son, ‘it isn’t even good enough to keep a little tobacco in, if I could afford to buy any!’But the father answered:‘I wouldn’t tell you its value till those people were gone, lest any should take it from you; but this is its value; if you put your fingers in, you’ll find a scudo there, and after that another, and another, as many as ever you will; there will always be one.’Then he called his youngest son, and said:‘See what I have given you.’And he answered:‘Yes, father, it’s a very nice horn; and when I am starving hungry I can cheat myself into being content by playing on it.’‘Silly boy!’ answered the father; ‘that is not its use. I wouldn’t tell you its value while those people were here, lest they should take it from you. Its value is this, that whenever you want anything you have only to sound it, and one will come who will bring whatever you want, be it a dinner, a suit of clothes, a palace, or an army.’After this the father died, and each found himself well provided with the legacy he had given him.It happened that one day as the second son3was passing under the window of the palace a waiting-maid looked out and said: ‘Can you play at cards?’‘As well as most,’ answered the youth.‘Very well, then; come up,’ answered the waiting-maid; ‘for the queen wants some one to play with her.’Very readily he went up, therefore, and played at cards with the queen, and when he had played all the evening he had lost fifty scudi.‘Never mind about paying the fifty scudi,’ said the queen, as he rose to leave. ‘We only played to pass away the time, and you don’t look by your dress as if you could afford fifty scudi.’‘Not at all!’ replied the youth. ‘I will certainly bring the fifty scudi in the morning.’And in the morning, by putting his fingers fifty times into the ragged purse, he had the required sum, and went back with it to the palace and paid the queen.The queen was very much astonished that such a shabby-looking fellow should have such command of money, and determined to find out how it was; so she made him stay and dine. After dinner she took him into her private room and said to him:‘Tell me, how comes it that you, who are but a shabby-looking fellow, have such command of money?’‘Oh!’ answered he quite unsuspectingly, ‘because my father left me a wonderful purse, in which is always a scudo.’‘Nonsense!’ answered the queen. ‘That is a very pretty fable, but such purses don’t exist.’‘Oh, but it is so indeed,’ answered the youth.‘Quite impossible,’ persisted the queen.‘But here it is; you can see for yourself!’ pursued the incautious youth, taking it out.The queen took it from him as if to try its powers, but no sooner was she in possession of it than she called in the guard to turn out a fellow who was trying to rob her, and give him a good beating.Indignant at such treatment, the youth went to his eldest brother and begged his hat of him that he might, by its means, go and punish the queen.Putting on the hat he went back to the palace at the hour of dinner and sat down to table. As soon as the queen was served he took her plate and ate up all that was in it one course after another, so that the queen got nothing, and finding it useless to call for more dishes, she gave it up as a bad job, and went into her room. The youth followed her in and demanded the return of his wonderful purse.‘How can I know it is you if I don’t see you?’ said the queen.‘Never mind about seeing me. Put the purse out on the table for me and I will take it.’‘No, I can’t if I don’t see you,’ replied the queen. ‘I can’t believe it is you unless I see you.’The youth fell into the snare and took off his hat.‘How did you manage to make yourself invisible?’ asked the queen.‘Just by putting on this old hat.’‘I don’t believe that could make you invisible,’ exclaimed the queen. ‘Let me try.’And she snatched the hat out of his hand and put it on. Of course she was now in turn invisible, and he sought her in vain; but worse than that, she rang the bellfor the guard and bid them turn the shabby youth out and give him a bastonata.Full of fresh indignation he ran to his youngest brother and told him all his story, begging the loan of his horn, that he might punish the queen by its means; and the brother lent it him.He sounds the horn and One comes.4‘I want an army with cannons to throw down the palace,’ said the youth; and instantly there was a tramp of armed men, and a rumble of artillery waggons.The queen was sitting at dinner, but when she heard all the noise she came to the window; meantime the soldiers had surrounded the palace and pointed their guns.‘What’s all this about! What’s the matter!’ cried the queen out of the window.‘The matter is, that I want my purse and my hat back,’ answered the youth.‘To be sure! you are right; here they are. I don’t want my palace battered down, so I will give them to you.’The youth went up to receive them; but when he got upstairs he found the queen sunk half fainting in a chair.‘Oh! I’m so frightened; I can’t think where I put the things. Only send away that army and I’ll look for them immediately.’The youth sent away the army, and the queen got up and began looking about for the things.‘Tell me,’ she said, as she wandered from one cupboard to another, ‘how did you, who are such a shabby-looking fellow, manage to call together such an army?’‘Because I’ve got this horn,’ answered the youth. ‘And with it I can call up whatever I want, and if you don’t make haste and find the purse and the hat, I’ll call up the army again and batter down the palace in right earnest.’‘You won’t make me believe that!’ replied the queen. ‘That sorry horn can’t work such wonders as that: let me try.’ And she took the horn out of his hands and sounded it and One appeared. ‘Two stout men!’ she commanded quickly; and when they came she bid them drive the shabby-looking youth out of the palace and give him a bastonata.He was now quite undone, and was ashamed to go back to his brothers. So he wandered away outside the town. After much walking he came to a vineyard, where he strolled in; and what struck him was, that though it was January, there was a fine fig-tree covered with ripe luscious figs.‘This is a godsend indeed,’ he said, ‘to a hungry man,’ and he began plucking and eating the figs. Before he had eaten many, however, he found his nose had begun to grow to a terrible size; a foot for every fig.‘That’ll never do!’ he cried, and left off eating the figs and wandered on. Presently he came to another vineyard, where he also strolled in: there, though it was January, he saw a tree all covered with ripe red cherries. ‘I wonder what calamity will pursue me for eating them,’ he said, as he gathered them. But when he had eaten a good many he perceived that at last his luck had turned, for in proportion as he ate his nose grew less and less, till at last it was just the right size again.‘Now I know how to punish the queen,’ he said, and he filled a bottle with the juice of the cherries, and went back and gathered a basketful of figs.These figs he cried under the palace window, and as he had got more dusty and threadbare with his late wanderings no one recognised him. ‘Figs in January! that is a treat!’ and they bought up the whole basketful. Then as they ate, their noses all began to grow, but the queen, as she was very greedy, ate twelve for her share, so that she had twelve feet of nose added to the length ofhers. It was so long that it trailed behind her on the ground as she walked along.Then there was a hue and cry! All the surgeons and physicians in the kingdom were sent for, but could do no good. They were all in despair, when our youth came up disguised as a foreign doctor.‘Noses! I can heal noses! whoever has got too much nose let him come to me!’All the inhabitants gathered round him, and the queen called to him loudest of all.‘The medicine I have to give is necessarily a very strong one to effect so extraordinary a cure; therefore I won’t give it to the queen’s majesty till she has seen it used on all her servants, beginning with the lowest.’Taking them all in order, beginning with the lowest, he gave a few drops of cherry-juice to each, and all their noses came right.Last of all the queen remained.‘The queen can’t be treated like common people,’ he said; ‘she must be treated by herself. I must go into her room with her, and I can cure her with one drop of my cordial.’‘You think yourself very clever that you talk of curing with one drop of your cordial, but you’re not the only person who can work wonders. I’ve got greater wonders than yours. I’ve got a hat which makes you invisible, a purse that never is empty, and a horn that gives you everything you call for.’‘Very pretty things to talk about,’ answered the pretended doctor, ‘but such things don’t exist.’‘Don’t they!’ said the queen. ‘There they are!’And she laid them all out on the table.This was enough for him. Taking advantage of the lesson she had given him by her example, he quickly put on the hat, making himself invisible; after that it was easy to snatch up the other things and escape; nor couldanyone follow him. He lived very comfortably for the rest of his life, taking a scudo out of his purse for whatever he had to pay, and his brothers likewise got on very well with their legacies, for he restored them as soon as he had rescued them from the queen. But the queen remained for the rest of her life withTWELVE FEET OF NOSE.1‘Dodici palmi di naso,’a nose twelve palms long. Twelve palms make a canna and a half, equal to three mètres.↑2‘Ciuffoletto.’ ‘What is a ‘ciuffoletto?’ I asked. ‘Much the same as afravodo,’ the narrator answered; and I remembered that from another, in another tale, I had made out ‘fravodo’ to be a horn.↑3That the second of the three sons should be the hero of the story is, I think, an unusual variation.↑4See Note 4, p. 146.↑

THE ENCHANTED ROSE-TREE.1They say there was once a merchant who, when he was going out to buy rare merchandise, asked his daughter what rich present he should bring home to her. She, however, would hear of nothing but only a simple rose-tree.‘That,’ said her father, ‘is too easy. However, as you are bent on having a rose-tree, you shall have the most beautiful rose-tree I can find in all my travels.’In all his travels, however, he met with no rose-tree that he deemed choice enough. But one day, when he was walking outside the walls of his own city, he came to a garden which he had never observed before, filled with all manner of beautiful flowers.‘This is a wonderful garden indeed,’ said the merchant to himself; ‘I never saw it before, and yet these luxuriant plants seem to have many years’ growth in them. There must be something wonderful about them, so this is justthe place to look for my daughter’s rose-tree.’ In he went therefore to look for the rose-tree.In the midst of the garden was a casino, the door of which stood open; when he went in he found a banquet spread with the choicest dishes; and though he saw no one, a kind voice invited him to sit down and enjoy himself. So he sat down to the banquet, and very much he did enjoy himself, for there was everything he could desire.2When he had well eaten and drunk, he bethought him to go out again into the garden and seek a choice rose-tree.‘As the banquet was free,’ he thought to himself, ‘I suppose the flowers are free too.’So he selected what seemed to him the choicest rose of all; while it had petals of the richest red in the world, within it was all shining gold, and the leaves too were overlaid with shining gold. This rose-tree, therefore, he proceeded to root up.A peal of thunder attended the attempt, and with a noise of rushing winds and waters a hideous monster3suddenly appeared before him.‘How dare you root up my rose-trees?’ said the monster; ‘was it not enough that I gave you my best hospitality freely? Must you also rob me of my flowers, which are as my life to me? Now you must die!’The merchant excused himself as best he could, saying it was the very freedom of the hospitality which had emboldened him to take the rose, and that he had only ventured to take it because he had promised the prettiest rose-tree he could find to his daughter.‘Your daughter, say you?’ replied the monster. ‘If there is a daughter in the case perhaps I may forgive you; but only on condition that you bring her hither to me within three days’ time.’The father went home sad at heart, but within three days he kept his promise of taking his daughter to thegarden. The monster received them very kindly, and gave them the casino to live in, where they were well fed and lodged. At the end of eight days, however, a voice came to the father and told him he must depart; and when he hesitated to leave his daughter alone he was taken by invisible agency and turned out of the garden.The monster now often came and talked to the daughter, and he was so gentle and so kind that she began quite to like him. One day she asked him to let her go home and see her friends, and he, who refused her nothing, let her go; but begged her to promise solemnly she would come back at the end of eight days, ‘for if you are away longer than that,’ he added, ‘I know I shall die of despair.’ Then he gave her a mirror into which she could look and see how he was.Thus she went home, and the time passed quickly away, and eight days were gone and she had not thought of returning. Then by accident the mirror came under her hand, and, looking into it, she saw the monster stretched on the ground as if at the point of death. The sight filled her with compunction, and she hurried back with her best speed.Arrived at the garden, she found the monster just as she had seen him in the mirror. At sight of her he revived, and soon became so much better that she was much touched when she saw how deeply he cared for her.‘And were you really so badonlybecause I went away?’ she asked.‘No, not only because you went away, for it was right you should go and see your parents; but because I began to fear you would never come back, and if you had never come back I should quite have died.’‘And now you are all right again?’‘Yes, now you are here I am quite happy; that is, I should be quite happy if you would promise always to remain and never go away any more.’Then when she saw how earnest and sincere he was in wishing her to stay, she gave her consent never to leave him more.No sooner had she spoken the promise than in the twinkling of an eye all was changed. The monster became a handsome prince, the casino a palace, the garden a flourishing country, and each several rose-tree a city. For the prince had been enchanted by an enemy, and had to remain transformed as a monster till he should be redeemed by the love of a maiden.[The three brothers who occupy so large a space in the household tales of other countries, do not seem to be popular favourites in Rome. I have come across them but seldom. There are plenty of them in the ‘Norse Tales,’ under the name of ‘Boots’ for the unexpectedly doughty brother. The Spanish romance I have given as ‘Simple Johnny and the Spell-bound Princesses,’ in ‘Patrañas,’ makes him a knight. In the Siddhi Kür story of ‘How the Schimnu Khan was Slain,’ it is three hired companions (as in some other versions), who betray the hero; and in all but this (which is its link with the usual Three-brother stories), it is a remarkably close repetition of the details of another Spanish romance, which I have given as ‘The Ill-tempered Princess,’ and this, in its turn, is like the Tirolean ‘Laxhale’s Wives’ and the Roman ‘Diavolo che presemoglie.’ Compare, further, a number of instances collected by Mr. Ralston, pp. 72–80, and 260–7. In many parts of Tirol you meet a Three-brother story different from any of these. Three brothers go out to hunt chamois on a Sunday morning, and get so excited with the sport that they make themselves too late to hear Mass, and get turned into stone, or some other dreadful punishment. The younger brother, who has all along urged them to go down, but has been overruled by the others, is involved in the same punishment. There are three peaks on the Knie Pass, leading from Tirol to Salzburg, called ‘The Three Brothers,’ from such a legend.]1‘La Rosa fatata.’↑2According to the narrator, there was a dish of ‘pasta’ heaped up like a mountain; and ‘souplis di riso con rigaglie’ and ‘capone con contorni,’ and several kinds of wine. I give this description verbally, as it was given to me, as characteristic of the local colouring such legends receive. The dishes named are the favourites of the Roman middle class. ‘Pasta’ is the Roman equivalent for the ‘maccaroni’ of the Neapolitan. ‘Rigaglie’ is the liver, &c., of poultry minced, to put into the fried balls of rice. ‘Contorni’ means something more than ‘garnish,’ being something put round the dish, not merely for ornament, but more or less substantial, to be eaten with it, as sausages round a turkey.↑3The word used in this place was ‘mostro,’ not ‘orco,’ marking a distinct idea in the tradition, where it is the Principle of Evil himself who is intended, and where, an unfortunate mortal subjected by malice to his influence.↑

THE ENCHANTED ROSE-TREE.1

They say there was once a merchant who, when he was going out to buy rare merchandise, asked his daughter what rich present he should bring home to her. She, however, would hear of nothing but only a simple rose-tree.‘That,’ said her father, ‘is too easy. However, as you are bent on having a rose-tree, you shall have the most beautiful rose-tree I can find in all my travels.’In all his travels, however, he met with no rose-tree that he deemed choice enough. But one day, when he was walking outside the walls of his own city, he came to a garden which he had never observed before, filled with all manner of beautiful flowers.‘This is a wonderful garden indeed,’ said the merchant to himself; ‘I never saw it before, and yet these luxuriant plants seem to have many years’ growth in them. There must be something wonderful about them, so this is justthe place to look for my daughter’s rose-tree.’ In he went therefore to look for the rose-tree.In the midst of the garden was a casino, the door of which stood open; when he went in he found a banquet spread with the choicest dishes; and though he saw no one, a kind voice invited him to sit down and enjoy himself. So he sat down to the banquet, and very much he did enjoy himself, for there was everything he could desire.2When he had well eaten and drunk, he bethought him to go out again into the garden and seek a choice rose-tree.‘As the banquet was free,’ he thought to himself, ‘I suppose the flowers are free too.’So he selected what seemed to him the choicest rose of all; while it had petals of the richest red in the world, within it was all shining gold, and the leaves too were overlaid with shining gold. This rose-tree, therefore, he proceeded to root up.A peal of thunder attended the attempt, and with a noise of rushing winds and waters a hideous monster3suddenly appeared before him.‘How dare you root up my rose-trees?’ said the monster; ‘was it not enough that I gave you my best hospitality freely? Must you also rob me of my flowers, which are as my life to me? Now you must die!’The merchant excused himself as best he could, saying it was the very freedom of the hospitality which had emboldened him to take the rose, and that he had only ventured to take it because he had promised the prettiest rose-tree he could find to his daughter.‘Your daughter, say you?’ replied the monster. ‘If there is a daughter in the case perhaps I may forgive you; but only on condition that you bring her hither to me within three days’ time.’The father went home sad at heart, but within three days he kept his promise of taking his daughter to thegarden. The monster received them very kindly, and gave them the casino to live in, where they were well fed and lodged. At the end of eight days, however, a voice came to the father and told him he must depart; and when he hesitated to leave his daughter alone he was taken by invisible agency and turned out of the garden.The monster now often came and talked to the daughter, and he was so gentle and so kind that she began quite to like him. One day she asked him to let her go home and see her friends, and he, who refused her nothing, let her go; but begged her to promise solemnly she would come back at the end of eight days, ‘for if you are away longer than that,’ he added, ‘I know I shall die of despair.’ Then he gave her a mirror into which she could look and see how he was.Thus she went home, and the time passed quickly away, and eight days were gone and she had not thought of returning. Then by accident the mirror came under her hand, and, looking into it, she saw the monster stretched on the ground as if at the point of death. The sight filled her with compunction, and she hurried back with her best speed.Arrived at the garden, she found the monster just as she had seen him in the mirror. At sight of her he revived, and soon became so much better that she was much touched when she saw how deeply he cared for her.‘And were you really so badonlybecause I went away?’ she asked.‘No, not only because you went away, for it was right you should go and see your parents; but because I began to fear you would never come back, and if you had never come back I should quite have died.’‘And now you are all right again?’‘Yes, now you are here I am quite happy; that is, I should be quite happy if you would promise always to remain and never go away any more.’Then when she saw how earnest and sincere he was in wishing her to stay, she gave her consent never to leave him more.No sooner had she spoken the promise than in the twinkling of an eye all was changed. The monster became a handsome prince, the casino a palace, the garden a flourishing country, and each several rose-tree a city. For the prince had been enchanted by an enemy, and had to remain transformed as a monster till he should be redeemed by the love of a maiden.[The three brothers who occupy so large a space in the household tales of other countries, do not seem to be popular favourites in Rome. I have come across them but seldom. There are plenty of them in the ‘Norse Tales,’ under the name of ‘Boots’ for the unexpectedly doughty brother. The Spanish romance I have given as ‘Simple Johnny and the Spell-bound Princesses,’ in ‘Patrañas,’ makes him a knight. In the Siddhi Kür story of ‘How the Schimnu Khan was Slain,’ it is three hired companions (as in some other versions), who betray the hero; and in all but this (which is its link with the usual Three-brother stories), it is a remarkably close repetition of the details of another Spanish romance, which I have given as ‘The Ill-tempered Princess,’ and this, in its turn, is like the Tirolean ‘Laxhale’s Wives’ and the Roman ‘Diavolo che presemoglie.’ Compare, further, a number of instances collected by Mr. Ralston, pp. 72–80, and 260–7. In many parts of Tirol you meet a Three-brother story different from any of these. Three brothers go out to hunt chamois on a Sunday morning, and get so excited with the sport that they make themselves too late to hear Mass, and get turned into stone, or some other dreadful punishment. The younger brother, who has all along urged them to go down, but has been overruled by the others, is involved in the same punishment. There are three peaks on the Knie Pass, leading from Tirol to Salzburg, called ‘The Three Brothers,’ from such a legend.]

They say there was once a merchant who, when he was going out to buy rare merchandise, asked his daughter what rich present he should bring home to her. She, however, would hear of nothing but only a simple rose-tree.

‘That,’ said her father, ‘is too easy. However, as you are bent on having a rose-tree, you shall have the most beautiful rose-tree I can find in all my travels.’

In all his travels, however, he met with no rose-tree that he deemed choice enough. But one day, when he was walking outside the walls of his own city, he came to a garden which he had never observed before, filled with all manner of beautiful flowers.

‘This is a wonderful garden indeed,’ said the merchant to himself; ‘I never saw it before, and yet these luxuriant plants seem to have many years’ growth in them. There must be something wonderful about them, so this is justthe place to look for my daughter’s rose-tree.’ In he went therefore to look for the rose-tree.

In the midst of the garden was a casino, the door of which stood open; when he went in he found a banquet spread with the choicest dishes; and though he saw no one, a kind voice invited him to sit down and enjoy himself. So he sat down to the banquet, and very much he did enjoy himself, for there was everything he could desire.2

When he had well eaten and drunk, he bethought him to go out again into the garden and seek a choice rose-tree.

‘As the banquet was free,’ he thought to himself, ‘I suppose the flowers are free too.’

So he selected what seemed to him the choicest rose of all; while it had petals of the richest red in the world, within it was all shining gold, and the leaves too were overlaid with shining gold. This rose-tree, therefore, he proceeded to root up.

A peal of thunder attended the attempt, and with a noise of rushing winds and waters a hideous monster3suddenly appeared before him.

‘How dare you root up my rose-trees?’ said the monster; ‘was it not enough that I gave you my best hospitality freely? Must you also rob me of my flowers, which are as my life to me? Now you must die!’

The merchant excused himself as best he could, saying it was the very freedom of the hospitality which had emboldened him to take the rose, and that he had only ventured to take it because he had promised the prettiest rose-tree he could find to his daughter.

‘Your daughter, say you?’ replied the monster. ‘If there is a daughter in the case perhaps I may forgive you; but only on condition that you bring her hither to me within three days’ time.’

The father went home sad at heart, but within three days he kept his promise of taking his daughter to thegarden. The monster received them very kindly, and gave them the casino to live in, where they were well fed and lodged. At the end of eight days, however, a voice came to the father and told him he must depart; and when he hesitated to leave his daughter alone he was taken by invisible agency and turned out of the garden.

The monster now often came and talked to the daughter, and he was so gentle and so kind that she began quite to like him. One day she asked him to let her go home and see her friends, and he, who refused her nothing, let her go; but begged her to promise solemnly she would come back at the end of eight days, ‘for if you are away longer than that,’ he added, ‘I know I shall die of despair.’ Then he gave her a mirror into which she could look and see how he was.

Thus she went home, and the time passed quickly away, and eight days were gone and she had not thought of returning. Then by accident the mirror came under her hand, and, looking into it, she saw the monster stretched on the ground as if at the point of death. The sight filled her with compunction, and she hurried back with her best speed.

Arrived at the garden, she found the monster just as she had seen him in the mirror. At sight of her he revived, and soon became so much better that she was much touched when she saw how deeply he cared for her.

‘And were you really so badonlybecause I went away?’ she asked.

‘No, not only because you went away, for it was right you should go and see your parents; but because I began to fear you would never come back, and if you had never come back I should quite have died.’

‘And now you are all right again?’

‘Yes, now you are here I am quite happy; that is, I should be quite happy if you would promise always to remain and never go away any more.’

Then when she saw how earnest and sincere he was in wishing her to stay, she gave her consent never to leave him more.

No sooner had she spoken the promise than in the twinkling of an eye all was changed. The monster became a handsome prince, the casino a palace, the garden a flourishing country, and each several rose-tree a city. For the prince had been enchanted by an enemy, and had to remain transformed as a monster till he should be redeemed by the love of a maiden.

[The three brothers who occupy so large a space in the household tales of other countries, do not seem to be popular favourites in Rome. I have come across them but seldom. There are plenty of them in the ‘Norse Tales,’ under the name of ‘Boots’ for the unexpectedly doughty brother. The Spanish romance I have given as ‘Simple Johnny and the Spell-bound Princesses,’ in ‘Patrañas,’ makes him a knight. In the Siddhi Kür story of ‘How the Schimnu Khan was Slain,’ it is three hired companions (as in some other versions), who betray the hero; and in all but this (which is its link with the usual Three-brother stories), it is a remarkably close repetition of the details of another Spanish romance, which I have given as ‘The Ill-tempered Princess,’ and this, in its turn, is like the Tirolean ‘Laxhale’s Wives’ and the Roman ‘Diavolo che presemoglie.’ Compare, further, a number of instances collected by Mr. Ralston, pp. 72–80, and 260–7. In many parts of Tirol you meet a Three-brother story different from any of these. Three brothers go out to hunt chamois on a Sunday morning, and get so excited with the sport that they make themselves too late to hear Mass, and get turned into stone, or some other dreadful punishment. The younger brother, who has all along urged them to go down, but has been overruled by the others, is involved in the same punishment. There are three peaks on the Knie Pass, leading from Tirol to Salzburg, called ‘The Three Brothers,’ from such a legend.]

1‘La Rosa fatata.’↑2According to the narrator, there was a dish of ‘pasta’ heaped up like a mountain; and ‘souplis di riso con rigaglie’ and ‘capone con contorni,’ and several kinds of wine. I give this description verbally, as it was given to me, as characteristic of the local colouring such legends receive. The dishes named are the favourites of the Roman middle class. ‘Pasta’ is the Roman equivalent for the ‘maccaroni’ of the Neapolitan. ‘Rigaglie’ is the liver, &c., of poultry minced, to put into the fried balls of rice. ‘Contorni’ means something more than ‘garnish,’ being something put round the dish, not merely for ornament, but more or less substantial, to be eaten with it, as sausages round a turkey.↑3The word used in this place was ‘mostro,’ not ‘orco,’ marking a distinct idea in the tradition, where it is the Principle of Evil himself who is intended, and where, an unfortunate mortal subjected by malice to his influence.↑

1‘La Rosa fatata.’↑

2According to the narrator, there was a dish of ‘pasta’ heaped up like a mountain; and ‘souplis di riso con rigaglie’ and ‘capone con contorni,’ and several kinds of wine. I give this description verbally, as it was given to me, as characteristic of the local colouring such legends receive. The dishes named are the favourites of the Roman middle class. ‘Pasta’ is the Roman equivalent for the ‘maccaroni’ of the Neapolitan. ‘Rigaglie’ is the liver, &c., of poultry minced, to put into the fried balls of rice. ‘Contorni’ means something more than ‘garnish,’ being something put round the dish, not merely for ornament, but more or less substantial, to be eaten with it, as sausages round a turkey.↑

3The word used in this place was ‘mostro,’ not ‘orco,’ marking a distinct idea in the tradition, where it is the Principle of Evil himself who is intended, and where, an unfortunate mortal subjected by malice to his influence.↑

SCIOCCOLONE.1Once upon a time there were three brothers, who were woodmen; their employment was not one which required great skill, and they were none of them very clever, but the youngest was the least brilliant of all. So simple was he that all the neighbours, and his very brothers—albeit they were not so very superior in intelligence themselves—gave him the nickname of ‘Scioccolone,’ the great simpleton, and accordingly Scioccolone he was called wherever he went.Every day these three brothers went out into the woods to their work, and every evening they all came home, each staggering under his load of wood, which he carried to the dealer who paid them for their toil: thus one day of labour passed away just like another in all respects. So it went on for years.Nevertheless, one day came at last which was not at all like the others, and if all days were like it the world would be quite upside down, or be at least a very different world from what it is.Oimè!that such days never occur now at all!Basta, this is what happened. It was in the noontide heat of a very hot day, the three simple brotherscommitted the imprudence of going out of the shelter of the woods into the wold beyond, and there, lying on the grass in the severest blaze of the burning sun, they saw three beautiful peasant girls lying fast asleep.‘Only look at those silly girls sleeping in the full blaze of the sun!’ cried the eldest brother.‘They’ll get bad in their heads in this heat,’ said the second.But Scioccolone said: ‘Shall we not get some sticks and boughs, and make a little shed to shelter them?’‘Just like one of Scioccolone’s fine ideas!’ laughed the eldest brother scornfully.‘Well done, Scioccolone! That’s the best thing you’ve thought of this long while. And who will build a shed over us while we’re building a shed for the girls, I should like to know?’ said the second.But Scioccolone said: ‘We can’t leave them there like that; they will be burnt to death. If you won’t help me I must build the shed alone.’‘A wise resolve, and worthy of Scioccolone!’ scoffed the eldest brother.‘Good-bye, Scioccolone!’ cried the second, as the two elder brothers walked away together. ‘Good-bye for ever! I don’t expect ever to see you alive again, of course.’And they never did see him again, but what it was that happened to him you shall hear.Without waiting to find a retort to his brothers’ gibes, Scioccolone set to work to fell four stout young saplings, and to set them up as supports of his shed in four holes he had previously scooped with the aid of his bill-hook; then he rammed them in with wedges, which he also had to cut and shape. After this he cut four large bushy branches, which he tied to the uprights with the cord he used for tying up his faggots of logs; and as the shade of these was scarcely close enough to keep out all the fierce rays of the sun, he went back to the wood and collected allthe large broad leaves he could find, and came back and spread them out over his leafy roof. All this was very hard labour indeed when performed under the dreaded sun, and just in the hours when men do no work; yet so beautiful were the three maidens that, when at last he had completed his task, he could not tear himself away from them to go and seek repose in the shade of the wood, but he must needs continue standing in the full sun gazing at them open-mouthed.At last the three beautiful maidens awoke, and when they saw what a fragrant shade had refreshed their slumbers they began pouring out their gratitude to their devoted benefactor.Do not run at hasty conclusions, however, and imagine that of course the three beautiful maidens fell in love on the spot with Scioccolone, and he had only to pick and choose which of them he would have to make him happy as his wife. A very proper ending, you say, for a fairy tale. It was not so, however. Scioccolone looked anything but attractive just then. His meaningless features and uncouth, clownish gait were never at any time likely to inspire the fair maidens with sudden affection; but just then, after his running hither and thither, his felling, digging, and hammering in the heat of the day, his face had acquired a tint which made it look rougher and redder and more repulsive than anyone ever wore before.Besides this, the three maidens were fairies, who had taken the form2of beautiful peasant girls for some reason of their own.But neither did they leave his good deed unrewarded. By no means. Each of the three declared she would give him such a precious gift that he should own to his last hour that they were not ungrateful. So they sat and thought what great gift they could think of which should be calculated to make him very happy indeed.At last the first of the three got up and exclaimed thatshe had thought of her gift, and she did not think anyone could give him a greater one; for she would promise him he should one day be a king.Wasn’t that a fine gift!Scioccolone, however, did not think so. The idea ofhisbeing a king! Simple as he was, he could see the incongruity of the idea, and the embarrassment of the situation. How should he the poor clown, everybody’s laughingstock, become a king? and if he did, kingship had no attractions for him.He was too kind-hearted, however, to say anything in disparagement of the well-meant promise, and too straightforward to assume a show of gratitude he did not feel; so after the first little burst of hilarity which he was not sufficiently master of himself to suppress, he remained standing open-mouthed after his awkward manner.Then the second fairy addressed him and said:—‘I see you don’t quite like my sister’s gift; but you may be sure she would not have promised it if it had not been a good gift, after you have been so kind to us; and when it comes true, it will somehow all turn out very nice and right. But now, meantime, that I may not similarly disappoint you with my gift by choosing it for you, I shall let you choose it for yourself; so say, what shall it be?’Scioccolone was almost as much embarrassed with the second fairy’s permission of choosing for himself as he had been with the first fairy’s choice for him. First he grinned, and then he twisted his great awkward mouth about, and then he grinned again, till, at last, ashamed of keeping the fairies waiting so long for his answer, he said, with another grin:—‘Well, to tell you what I shouldreallylike, it would be that when I have finished making up my faggot of logs this evening, instead of having to stagger homecarrying it, it should roll along by itself, and then I get astride ofit, and that it should carryme.’‘Thatwouldbe fine!’ he added, and he grinned again as he thought of the fun it would be to be carried home by the load of logs instead of carrying the load as he had been wont.‘Certainly! That wish is granted,’ replied the second fairy readily. ‘You will find it all happen just as you have described.’Then the third fairy came forward and said:—‘And now choose; what shallmygift be? You have only to ask for whatever you like and you shall have it.’Such a heap of wishes rose up in Scioccolone’s imagination at this announcement, that he could not make up his mind which to select; as fast as he fixed on one thing, he remembered it would be incomplete without some other gift, and as he went on trying to find some one wish that should be as comprehensive as possible, he suddenly blurted out—‘Promise me thatwhateverI wish may come true; that’ll be the best gift; and so if I forget a thing one moment I can wish for it the next. That’ll be the best gift to be sure!’‘Granted!’ said the third fairy. ‘You have only to wish for anything and you will find you get it immediately, whatever it is.’The fairies then took leave and went their way, and Scioccolone was reminded by the lengthening shades that it was time he betook himself to complete his day’s work. Scarcely succeeding in collecting his thoughts, so dazzled and bewildered was he by the late supernatural conversation, he yet found his way back to the spot where he had been felling wood.‘Oh, dear! how tired I am!’ he said within himself as he walked along. ‘How I wish the wood was all felled and the faggots tied up!’ and though he said thismechanically as he might have said it any other day of his life, without thinking of the fairy’s promise, which was, indeed, too vast for him to put it consciously to such a practical test then, full of astonishment as he was, yet when he got back to his working-place the woodwasfelled and laid in order, and tied into a faggot in the best manner.‘Well to be sure!’ soliloquised Scioccolone. ‘The girls have kept their promise indeed! This is just exactly what I wished. And now, let’s see what else did I wish? Oh, yes; that if I got astride on the faggot it should roll along by itself and carry me with it; let’s see if that’ll come true too!’With that he got astride on the faggot, and sure enough the faggot moved on all by itself, and carried Scioccolone along with it pleasantly enough.Only there was one thing Scioccolone had forgotten to ask for, and that was power to guide the faggot; and now, though it took a direction quite contrary to that of his homeward way, he had no means of inducing it to change its tack. After some time spent in fruitless efforts in schooling his unruly mount, Scioccolone began to reason with himself.‘After all, it does not much matter about going home. I only get laughed at and called “Scioccolone.” Maybe in some other place they may be better, and as the faggot is acting under the orders of my benefactress, it will doubtless all be for the best.’So he committed himself to the faggot to take him wherever it would. On went the faggot surely and steadily, as if quite conscious where it had to go; and thus, before nightfall, it came to a great city where were many people, who all came out to see the wonder of the faggot of logs moving along by itself, and a man riding on it.In this city was a king, who lived in a palace with an only daughter. Now this daughter had never been knownto laugh. What pains soever the king her father took to divert her were all unavailing; nothing brought a smile to her lips.Now, however, when all the people ran to the windows to see a man riding on a faggot, the king’s daughter ran to look out too; and when she saw the faggot moving by itself, and the uncouth figure of Scioccolone sitting on it, and heard all the people laughing at the sight, then the king’s daughter laughed too; laughed for the first time in her life.But Scioccolone passing under the palace, heard her clear and merry laugh resounding above the laughter of all the people, he looked up and saw her, and when he saw her looking so bright and fair he said within himself:—‘Now, if ever the fairy’s power of wishing is to be of use to me, I wish that I might have a little son, and that the beautiful princess should be the mother.’ But he did not think of wishing to stop there that he might look at her, so the faggot carried him past the palace and past all the houses into the outskirts of the city, till he got tired and weary, and just then passing a wood merchant’s yard, the thought rose to his lips,—‘I wish that wood merchant would buy this faggot of me!’Immediately the wood merchant came out and offered to buy the faggot, and as it was such a wonderful faggot, that he thought Scioccolone would never consent to sell it, he offered him such a high price that Scioccolone had enough to live on like a prince for a year.After a time there was again a great stir in the city, everyone was abroad in the streets whispering and consulting. To the king’s daughter was born a little son, and no one knew who the father was, not even the princess herself. Then the king sent for all the men in the city, and brought them to the infant, and said, ‘Is this your father?’ but the babe said ‘No!’ to them all.Last of all, Scioccolone was brought, and when the king took him up to the babe and said, ‘Is this your father?’ the babe rose joyfully from its cradle and said, ‘Yes; that is my father!’ When the king heard this and saw what a rough ugly clown Scioccolone was, he was very angry with his daughter, and said she must marry him and go away for ever from the palace. It was all in vain that the princess protested she had never seen him but for one moment from the top of the palace. The babe protested quite positively that he was his father; so the king had them married, and sent them away from the palace for ever; and the babe was right, for though Scioccolone and the princess had never met, Scioccolone had wished that he might have a son, of whom she should be the mother, and by the power of the spell3the child was born.Scioccolone was only too delighted with the king’s angry decree. He felt quite out of place in the palace, and was glad enough to be sent away from it. All he wanted was to have such a beautiful wife, and he willingly obeyed the king’s command to take her away, a long, long way off.The princess, however, was quite of a different mind. She could not cease from crying, because she was given to such an uncouth, clownish husband that no tidy peasant wench would have married.When, therefore, Scioccolone saw his beautiful bride so unhappy and distressed, he grew distressed himself; and in his distress he remembered once more the promise of the fairy, that whatever he wished he might have, and he began wishing away at once. First he wished for a pleasant villa,4prettily laid-out, and planted, and walled; then, a casino5in the midst of it, prettily furnished, and having plenty of pastimes and diversions; then, for a farm, well-stocked with beasts for all kinds of uses; for carriages and servants, for fruits and flowers,and all that can make life pleasant. And when he found that with all these things the princess did not seem much happier than before, he bethought himself of wishing that he might be furnished with a handsome person, polished manners, and an educated mind, altogether such as the princess wished. All his wishes were fulfilled, and the princess now loved him very much, and they lived very happily together.After they had been living thus some time, it happened one day that the king, going out hunting, observed this pleasant villa on the wold, where heretofore all had been bare, unplanted, and unbuilt.‘How is this!’ cried the king; and he drew rein, and went into the villa intending to inquire how the change had come about.Scioccolone came out to meet him, not only so transformed that the king never recognised him, but so distinguished by courtesy and urbanity, that the king himself felt ashamed to question him as to how the villa had grown up so suddenly. He accepted his invitation to come and rest in the casino, however; and there they fell to conversing on a variety of subjects, till the king was so struck with the sagacity and prudence of Scioccolone’s talk, that when he rose to take leave, he said:‘Such a man as you I have long sought to succeed me in the government of the kingdom. I am growing old and have no children, and you are worthy in all ways to wear the crown. Come up, therefore, if you will, to the palace and live with me, and when I die you shall be king.’Scioccolone, now no longer feeling himself so ill-adapted to live in a palace, willingly consented, and a few days after, with his wife and his little son, he went up to the palace to live with the king.But the king’s delight can scarcely be imagined when he found that the wife of the polished stranger was indeed his very own daughter.After a few years the old king died, and Scioccolone reigned in his stead. And thus the promises of all the three fairies were fulfilled.[Among the Italian-Tirolese tales is one called ‘I tre pezzi rari’ (The Three Rare Things), which begins just like ‘Scioccolone,’ and then the fairies give the three gifts of a dinner-providing table-cloth, an exhaustless purse, and a resistless cudgel, which we so often meet with, as in Grimm’s ‘Tischchen deck dich,’ p. 142; Campbell’s ‘Three Soldiers,’ i. p. 176–93, who refers to numerous other versions, in which other incidents of the two next succeeding tales occur. The Spanish version I have given by the name of ‘Matanzas’ in ‘Patrañas.’In the Roman version of the ‘Dodici palmi di naso,’ it is singular that it is the second and not the youngest son who is the hero. There is another Italian-Tirolese story, entitled ‘Il Zufolotta,’ in which only one boy and two fairies are concerned, and they only give him the one gift of the Zufoletto, which, instead of supplying every wish as in ‘Dodici palmi di naso,’ has the power of the Zauberflöte, the pipe of the ‘Pied Piper,’ and kindred instruments in all times and countries, so that, when it has got its possessor into such trouble that he is condemned to be executed, it answers the same end as the cudgel, liberating its master by setting the judge and executioner dancing, instead of by thumping them.]1‘Sciocco,’a simpleton;‘scioccolone,’a great awkward simpleton.↑2Even in this story, where the fairies really are described as fair to see, it will be observed it is only said they had assumed the forms of beautiful girls for one occasion, not that they were necessarily beautiful, like our fairies.↑3‘Fatatura,’ the virtue of enchantment.↑4‘Villa’ is more often used to express a little estate—or, as we should say, the ‘grounds’ on which a country-house stands—than for the house itself, though we have borrowed the word exclusively in the latter sense.↑5‘Casino’ a tasteful little house.↑

SCIOCCOLONE.1

Once upon a time there were three brothers, who were woodmen; their employment was not one which required great skill, and they were none of them very clever, but the youngest was the least brilliant of all. So simple was he that all the neighbours, and his very brothers—albeit they were not so very superior in intelligence themselves—gave him the nickname of ‘Scioccolone,’ the great simpleton, and accordingly Scioccolone he was called wherever he went.Every day these three brothers went out into the woods to their work, and every evening they all came home, each staggering under his load of wood, which he carried to the dealer who paid them for their toil: thus one day of labour passed away just like another in all respects. So it went on for years.Nevertheless, one day came at last which was not at all like the others, and if all days were like it the world would be quite upside down, or be at least a very different world from what it is.Oimè!that such days never occur now at all!Basta, this is what happened. It was in the noontide heat of a very hot day, the three simple brotherscommitted the imprudence of going out of the shelter of the woods into the wold beyond, and there, lying on the grass in the severest blaze of the burning sun, they saw three beautiful peasant girls lying fast asleep.‘Only look at those silly girls sleeping in the full blaze of the sun!’ cried the eldest brother.‘They’ll get bad in their heads in this heat,’ said the second.But Scioccolone said: ‘Shall we not get some sticks and boughs, and make a little shed to shelter them?’‘Just like one of Scioccolone’s fine ideas!’ laughed the eldest brother scornfully.‘Well done, Scioccolone! That’s the best thing you’ve thought of this long while. And who will build a shed over us while we’re building a shed for the girls, I should like to know?’ said the second.But Scioccolone said: ‘We can’t leave them there like that; they will be burnt to death. If you won’t help me I must build the shed alone.’‘A wise resolve, and worthy of Scioccolone!’ scoffed the eldest brother.‘Good-bye, Scioccolone!’ cried the second, as the two elder brothers walked away together. ‘Good-bye for ever! I don’t expect ever to see you alive again, of course.’And they never did see him again, but what it was that happened to him you shall hear.Without waiting to find a retort to his brothers’ gibes, Scioccolone set to work to fell four stout young saplings, and to set them up as supports of his shed in four holes he had previously scooped with the aid of his bill-hook; then he rammed them in with wedges, which he also had to cut and shape. After this he cut four large bushy branches, which he tied to the uprights with the cord he used for tying up his faggots of logs; and as the shade of these was scarcely close enough to keep out all the fierce rays of the sun, he went back to the wood and collected allthe large broad leaves he could find, and came back and spread them out over his leafy roof. All this was very hard labour indeed when performed under the dreaded sun, and just in the hours when men do no work; yet so beautiful were the three maidens that, when at last he had completed his task, he could not tear himself away from them to go and seek repose in the shade of the wood, but he must needs continue standing in the full sun gazing at them open-mouthed.At last the three beautiful maidens awoke, and when they saw what a fragrant shade had refreshed their slumbers they began pouring out their gratitude to their devoted benefactor.Do not run at hasty conclusions, however, and imagine that of course the three beautiful maidens fell in love on the spot with Scioccolone, and he had only to pick and choose which of them he would have to make him happy as his wife. A very proper ending, you say, for a fairy tale. It was not so, however. Scioccolone looked anything but attractive just then. His meaningless features and uncouth, clownish gait were never at any time likely to inspire the fair maidens with sudden affection; but just then, after his running hither and thither, his felling, digging, and hammering in the heat of the day, his face had acquired a tint which made it look rougher and redder and more repulsive than anyone ever wore before.Besides this, the three maidens were fairies, who had taken the form2of beautiful peasant girls for some reason of their own.But neither did they leave his good deed unrewarded. By no means. Each of the three declared she would give him such a precious gift that he should own to his last hour that they were not ungrateful. So they sat and thought what great gift they could think of which should be calculated to make him very happy indeed.At last the first of the three got up and exclaimed thatshe had thought of her gift, and she did not think anyone could give him a greater one; for she would promise him he should one day be a king.Wasn’t that a fine gift!Scioccolone, however, did not think so. The idea ofhisbeing a king! Simple as he was, he could see the incongruity of the idea, and the embarrassment of the situation. How should he the poor clown, everybody’s laughingstock, become a king? and if he did, kingship had no attractions for him.He was too kind-hearted, however, to say anything in disparagement of the well-meant promise, and too straightforward to assume a show of gratitude he did not feel; so after the first little burst of hilarity which he was not sufficiently master of himself to suppress, he remained standing open-mouthed after his awkward manner.Then the second fairy addressed him and said:—‘I see you don’t quite like my sister’s gift; but you may be sure she would not have promised it if it had not been a good gift, after you have been so kind to us; and when it comes true, it will somehow all turn out very nice and right. But now, meantime, that I may not similarly disappoint you with my gift by choosing it for you, I shall let you choose it for yourself; so say, what shall it be?’Scioccolone was almost as much embarrassed with the second fairy’s permission of choosing for himself as he had been with the first fairy’s choice for him. First he grinned, and then he twisted his great awkward mouth about, and then he grinned again, till, at last, ashamed of keeping the fairies waiting so long for his answer, he said, with another grin:—‘Well, to tell you what I shouldreallylike, it would be that when I have finished making up my faggot of logs this evening, instead of having to stagger homecarrying it, it should roll along by itself, and then I get astride ofit, and that it should carryme.’‘Thatwouldbe fine!’ he added, and he grinned again as he thought of the fun it would be to be carried home by the load of logs instead of carrying the load as he had been wont.‘Certainly! That wish is granted,’ replied the second fairy readily. ‘You will find it all happen just as you have described.’Then the third fairy came forward and said:—‘And now choose; what shallmygift be? You have only to ask for whatever you like and you shall have it.’Such a heap of wishes rose up in Scioccolone’s imagination at this announcement, that he could not make up his mind which to select; as fast as he fixed on one thing, he remembered it would be incomplete without some other gift, and as he went on trying to find some one wish that should be as comprehensive as possible, he suddenly blurted out—‘Promise me thatwhateverI wish may come true; that’ll be the best gift; and so if I forget a thing one moment I can wish for it the next. That’ll be the best gift to be sure!’‘Granted!’ said the third fairy. ‘You have only to wish for anything and you will find you get it immediately, whatever it is.’The fairies then took leave and went their way, and Scioccolone was reminded by the lengthening shades that it was time he betook himself to complete his day’s work. Scarcely succeeding in collecting his thoughts, so dazzled and bewildered was he by the late supernatural conversation, he yet found his way back to the spot where he had been felling wood.‘Oh, dear! how tired I am!’ he said within himself as he walked along. ‘How I wish the wood was all felled and the faggots tied up!’ and though he said thismechanically as he might have said it any other day of his life, without thinking of the fairy’s promise, which was, indeed, too vast for him to put it consciously to such a practical test then, full of astonishment as he was, yet when he got back to his working-place the woodwasfelled and laid in order, and tied into a faggot in the best manner.‘Well to be sure!’ soliloquised Scioccolone. ‘The girls have kept their promise indeed! This is just exactly what I wished. And now, let’s see what else did I wish? Oh, yes; that if I got astride on the faggot it should roll along by itself and carry me with it; let’s see if that’ll come true too!’With that he got astride on the faggot, and sure enough the faggot moved on all by itself, and carried Scioccolone along with it pleasantly enough.Only there was one thing Scioccolone had forgotten to ask for, and that was power to guide the faggot; and now, though it took a direction quite contrary to that of his homeward way, he had no means of inducing it to change its tack. After some time spent in fruitless efforts in schooling his unruly mount, Scioccolone began to reason with himself.‘After all, it does not much matter about going home. I only get laughed at and called “Scioccolone.” Maybe in some other place they may be better, and as the faggot is acting under the orders of my benefactress, it will doubtless all be for the best.’So he committed himself to the faggot to take him wherever it would. On went the faggot surely and steadily, as if quite conscious where it had to go; and thus, before nightfall, it came to a great city where were many people, who all came out to see the wonder of the faggot of logs moving along by itself, and a man riding on it.In this city was a king, who lived in a palace with an only daughter. Now this daughter had never been knownto laugh. What pains soever the king her father took to divert her were all unavailing; nothing brought a smile to her lips.Now, however, when all the people ran to the windows to see a man riding on a faggot, the king’s daughter ran to look out too; and when she saw the faggot moving by itself, and the uncouth figure of Scioccolone sitting on it, and heard all the people laughing at the sight, then the king’s daughter laughed too; laughed for the first time in her life.But Scioccolone passing under the palace, heard her clear and merry laugh resounding above the laughter of all the people, he looked up and saw her, and when he saw her looking so bright and fair he said within himself:—‘Now, if ever the fairy’s power of wishing is to be of use to me, I wish that I might have a little son, and that the beautiful princess should be the mother.’ But he did not think of wishing to stop there that he might look at her, so the faggot carried him past the palace and past all the houses into the outskirts of the city, till he got tired and weary, and just then passing a wood merchant’s yard, the thought rose to his lips,—‘I wish that wood merchant would buy this faggot of me!’Immediately the wood merchant came out and offered to buy the faggot, and as it was such a wonderful faggot, that he thought Scioccolone would never consent to sell it, he offered him such a high price that Scioccolone had enough to live on like a prince for a year.After a time there was again a great stir in the city, everyone was abroad in the streets whispering and consulting. To the king’s daughter was born a little son, and no one knew who the father was, not even the princess herself. Then the king sent for all the men in the city, and brought them to the infant, and said, ‘Is this your father?’ but the babe said ‘No!’ to them all.Last of all, Scioccolone was brought, and when the king took him up to the babe and said, ‘Is this your father?’ the babe rose joyfully from its cradle and said, ‘Yes; that is my father!’ When the king heard this and saw what a rough ugly clown Scioccolone was, he was very angry with his daughter, and said she must marry him and go away for ever from the palace. It was all in vain that the princess protested she had never seen him but for one moment from the top of the palace. The babe protested quite positively that he was his father; so the king had them married, and sent them away from the palace for ever; and the babe was right, for though Scioccolone and the princess had never met, Scioccolone had wished that he might have a son, of whom she should be the mother, and by the power of the spell3the child was born.Scioccolone was only too delighted with the king’s angry decree. He felt quite out of place in the palace, and was glad enough to be sent away from it. All he wanted was to have such a beautiful wife, and he willingly obeyed the king’s command to take her away, a long, long way off.The princess, however, was quite of a different mind. She could not cease from crying, because she was given to such an uncouth, clownish husband that no tidy peasant wench would have married.When, therefore, Scioccolone saw his beautiful bride so unhappy and distressed, he grew distressed himself; and in his distress he remembered once more the promise of the fairy, that whatever he wished he might have, and he began wishing away at once. First he wished for a pleasant villa,4prettily laid-out, and planted, and walled; then, a casino5in the midst of it, prettily furnished, and having plenty of pastimes and diversions; then, for a farm, well-stocked with beasts for all kinds of uses; for carriages and servants, for fruits and flowers,and all that can make life pleasant. And when he found that with all these things the princess did not seem much happier than before, he bethought himself of wishing that he might be furnished with a handsome person, polished manners, and an educated mind, altogether such as the princess wished. All his wishes were fulfilled, and the princess now loved him very much, and they lived very happily together.After they had been living thus some time, it happened one day that the king, going out hunting, observed this pleasant villa on the wold, where heretofore all had been bare, unplanted, and unbuilt.‘How is this!’ cried the king; and he drew rein, and went into the villa intending to inquire how the change had come about.Scioccolone came out to meet him, not only so transformed that the king never recognised him, but so distinguished by courtesy and urbanity, that the king himself felt ashamed to question him as to how the villa had grown up so suddenly. He accepted his invitation to come and rest in the casino, however; and there they fell to conversing on a variety of subjects, till the king was so struck with the sagacity and prudence of Scioccolone’s talk, that when he rose to take leave, he said:‘Such a man as you I have long sought to succeed me in the government of the kingdom. I am growing old and have no children, and you are worthy in all ways to wear the crown. Come up, therefore, if you will, to the palace and live with me, and when I die you shall be king.’Scioccolone, now no longer feeling himself so ill-adapted to live in a palace, willingly consented, and a few days after, with his wife and his little son, he went up to the palace to live with the king.But the king’s delight can scarcely be imagined when he found that the wife of the polished stranger was indeed his very own daughter.After a few years the old king died, and Scioccolone reigned in his stead. And thus the promises of all the three fairies were fulfilled.[Among the Italian-Tirolese tales is one called ‘I tre pezzi rari’ (The Three Rare Things), which begins just like ‘Scioccolone,’ and then the fairies give the three gifts of a dinner-providing table-cloth, an exhaustless purse, and a resistless cudgel, which we so often meet with, as in Grimm’s ‘Tischchen deck dich,’ p. 142; Campbell’s ‘Three Soldiers,’ i. p. 176–93, who refers to numerous other versions, in which other incidents of the two next succeeding tales occur. The Spanish version I have given by the name of ‘Matanzas’ in ‘Patrañas.’In the Roman version of the ‘Dodici palmi di naso,’ it is singular that it is the second and not the youngest son who is the hero. There is another Italian-Tirolese story, entitled ‘Il Zufolotta,’ in which only one boy and two fairies are concerned, and they only give him the one gift of the Zufoletto, which, instead of supplying every wish as in ‘Dodici palmi di naso,’ has the power of the Zauberflöte, the pipe of the ‘Pied Piper,’ and kindred instruments in all times and countries, so that, when it has got its possessor into such trouble that he is condemned to be executed, it answers the same end as the cudgel, liberating its master by setting the judge and executioner dancing, instead of by thumping them.]

Once upon a time there were three brothers, who were woodmen; their employment was not one which required great skill, and they were none of them very clever, but the youngest was the least brilliant of all. So simple was he that all the neighbours, and his very brothers—albeit they were not so very superior in intelligence themselves—gave him the nickname of ‘Scioccolone,’ the great simpleton, and accordingly Scioccolone he was called wherever he went.

Every day these three brothers went out into the woods to their work, and every evening they all came home, each staggering under his load of wood, which he carried to the dealer who paid them for their toil: thus one day of labour passed away just like another in all respects. So it went on for years.

Nevertheless, one day came at last which was not at all like the others, and if all days were like it the world would be quite upside down, or be at least a very different world from what it is.Oimè!that such days never occur now at all!Basta, this is what happened. It was in the noontide heat of a very hot day, the three simple brotherscommitted the imprudence of going out of the shelter of the woods into the wold beyond, and there, lying on the grass in the severest blaze of the burning sun, they saw three beautiful peasant girls lying fast asleep.

‘Only look at those silly girls sleeping in the full blaze of the sun!’ cried the eldest brother.

‘They’ll get bad in their heads in this heat,’ said the second.

But Scioccolone said: ‘Shall we not get some sticks and boughs, and make a little shed to shelter them?’

‘Just like one of Scioccolone’s fine ideas!’ laughed the eldest brother scornfully.

‘Well done, Scioccolone! That’s the best thing you’ve thought of this long while. And who will build a shed over us while we’re building a shed for the girls, I should like to know?’ said the second.

But Scioccolone said: ‘We can’t leave them there like that; they will be burnt to death. If you won’t help me I must build the shed alone.’

‘A wise resolve, and worthy of Scioccolone!’ scoffed the eldest brother.

‘Good-bye, Scioccolone!’ cried the second, as the two elder brothers walked away together. ‘Good-bye for ever! I don’t expect ever to see you alive again, of course.’

And they never did see him again, but what it was that happened to him you shall hear.

Without waiting to find a retort to his brothers’ gibes, Scioccolone set to work to fell four stout young saplings, and to set them up as supports of his shed in four holes he had previously scooped with the aid of his bill-hook; then he rammed them in with wedges, which he also had to cut and shape. After this he cut four large bushy branches, which he tied to the uprights with the cord he used for tying up his faggots of logs; and as the shade of these was scarcely close enough to keep out all the fierce rays of the sun, he went back to the wood and collected allthe large broad leaves he could find, and came back and spread them out over his leafy roof. All this was very hard labour indeed when performed under the dreaded sun, and just in the hours when men do no work; yet so beautiful were the three maidens that, when at last he had completed his task, he could not tear himself away from them to go and seek repose in the shade of the wood, but he must needs continue standing in the full sun gazing at them open-mouthed.

At last the three beautiful maidens awoke, and when they saw what a fragrant shade had refreshed their slumbers they began pouring out their gratitude to their devoted benefactor.

Do not run at hasty conclusions, however, and imagine that of course the three beautiful maidens fell in love on the spot with Scioccolone, and he had only to pick and choose which of them he would have to make him happy as his wife. A very proper ending, you say, for a fairy tale. It was not so, however. Scioccolone looked anything but attractive just then. His meaningless features and uncouth, clownish gait were never at any time likely to inspire the fair maidens with sudden affection; but just then, after his running hither and thither, his felling, digging, and hammering in the heat of the day, his face had acquired a tint which made it look rougher and redder and more repulsive than anyone ever wore before.

Besides this, the three maidens were fairies, who had taken the form2of beautiful peasant girls for some reason of their own.

But neither did they leave his good deed unrewarded. By no means. Each of the three declared she would give him such a precious gift that he should own to his last hour that they were not ungrateful. So they sat and thought what great gift they could think of which should be calculated to make him very happy indeed.

At last the first of the three got up and exclaimed thatshe had thought of her gift, and she did not think anyone could give him a greater one; for she would promise him he should one day be a king.

Wasn’t that a fine gift!

Scioccolone, however, did not think so. The idea ofhisbeing a king! Simple as he was, he could see the incongruity of the idea, and the embarrassment of the situation. How should he the poor clown, everybody’s laughingstock, become a king? and if he did, kingship had no attractions for him.

He was too kind-hearted, however, to say anything in disparagement of the well-meant promise, and too straightforward to assume a show of gratitude he did not feel; so after the first little burst of hilarity which he was not sufficiently master of himself to suppress, he remained standing open-mouthed after his awkward manner.

Then the second fairy addressed him and said:—

‘I see you don’t quite like my sister’s gift; but you may be sure she would not have promised it if it had not been a good gift, after you have been so kind to us; and when it comes true, it will somehow all turn out very nice and right. But now, meantime, that I may not similarly disappoint you with my gift by choosing it for you, I shall let you choose it for yourself; so say, what shall it be?’

Scioccolone was almost as much embarrassed with the second fairy’s permission of choosing for himself as he had been with the first fairy’s choice for him. First he grinned, and then he twisted his great awkward mouth about, and then he grinned again, till, at last, ashamed of keeping the fairies waiting so long for his answer, he said, with another grin:—

‘Well, to tell you what I shouldreallylike, it would be that when I have finished making up my faggot of logs this evening, instead of having to stagger homecarrying it, it should roll along by itself, and then I get astride ofit, and that it should carryme.’

‘Thatwouldbe fine!’ he added, and he grinned again as he thought of the fun it would be to be carried home by the load of logs instead of carrying the load as he had been wont.

‘Certainly! That wish is granted,’ replied the second fairy readily. ‘You will find it all happen just as you have described.’

Then the third fairy came forward and said:—

‘And now choose; what shallmygift be? You have only to ask for whatever you like and you shall have it.’

Such a heap of wishes rose up in Scioccolone’s imagination at this announcement, that he could not make up his mind which to select; as fast as he fixed on one thing, he remembered it would be incomplete without some other gift, and as he went on trying to find some one wish that should be as comprehensive as possible, he suddenly blurted out—

‘Promise me thatwhateverI wish may come true; that’ll be the best gift; and so if I forget a thing one moment I can wish for it the next. That’ll be the best gift to be sure!’

‘Granted!’ said the third fairy. ‘You have only to wish for anything and you will find you get it immediately, whatever it is.’

The fairies then took leave and went their way, and Scioccolone was reminded by the lengthening shades that it was time he betook himself to complete his day’s work. Scarcely succeeding in collecting his thoughts, so dazzled and bewildered was he by the late supernatural conversation, he yet found his way back to the spot where he had been felling wood.

‘Oh, dear! how tired I am!’ he said within himself as he walked along. ‘How I wish the wood was all felled and the faggots tied up!’ and though he said thismechanically as he might have said it any other day of his life, without thinking of the fairy’s promise, which was, indeed, too vast for him to put it consciously to such a practical test then, full of astonishment as he was, yet when he got back to his working-place the woodwasfelled and laid in order, and tied into a faggot in the best manner.

‘Well to be sure!’ soliloquised Scioccolone. ‘The girls have kept their promise indeed! This is just exactly what I wished. And now, let’s see what else did I wish? Oh, yes; that if I got astride on the faggot it should roll along by itself and carry me with it; let’s see if that’ll come true too!’

With that he got astride on the faggot, and sure enough the faggot moved on all by itself, and carried Scioccolone along with it pleasantly enough.

Only there was one thing Scioccolone had forgotten to ask for, and that was power to guide the faggot; and now, though it took a direction quite contrary to that of his homeward way, he had no means of inducing it to change its tack. After some time spent in fruitless efforts in schooling his unruly mount, Scioccolone began to reason with himself.

‘After all, it does not much matter about going home. I only get laughed at and called “Scioccolone.” Maybe in some other place they may be better, and as the faggot is acting under the orders of my benefactress, it will doubtless all be for the best.’

So he committed himself to the faggot to take him wherever it would. On went the faggot surely and steadily, as if quite conscious where it had to go; and thus, before nightfall, it came to a great city where were many people, who all came out to see the wonder of the faggot of logs moving along by itself, and a man riding on it.

In this city was a king, who lived in a palace with an only daughter. Now this daughter had never been knownto laugh. What pains soever the king her father took to divert her were all unavailing; nothing brought a smile to her lips.

Now, however, when all the people ran to the windows to see a man riding on a faggot, the king’s daughter ran to look out too; and when she saw the faggot moving by itself, and the uncouth figure of Scioccolone sitting on it, and heard all the people laughing at the sight, then the king’s daughter laughed too; laughed for the first time in her life.

But Scioccolone passing under the palace, heard her clear and merry laugh resounding above the laughter of all the people, he looked up and saw her, and when he saw her looking so bright and fair he said within himself:—

‘Now, if ever the fairy’s power of wishing is to be of use to me, I wish that I might have a little son, and that the beautiful princess should be the mother.’ But he did not think of wishing to stop there that he might look at her, so the faggot carried him past the palace and past all the houses into the outskirts of the city, till he got tired and weary, and just then passing a wood merchant’s yard, the thought rose to his lips,—

‘I wish that wood merchant would buy this faggot of me!’

Immediately the wood merchant came out and offered to buy the faggot, and as it was such a wonderful faggot, that he thought Scioccolone would never consent to sell it, he offered him such a high price that Scioccolone had enough to live on like a prince for a year.

After a time there was again a great stir in the city, everyone was abroad in the streets whispering and consulting. To the king’s daughter was born a little son, and no one knew who the father was, not even the princess herself. Then the king sent for all the men in the city, and brought them to the infant, and said, ‘Is this your father?’ but the babe said ‘No!’ to them all.

Last of all, Scioccolone was brought, and when the king took him up to the babe and said, ‘Is this your father?’ the babe rose joyfully from its cradle and said, ‘Yes; that is my father!’ When the king heard this and saw what a rough ugly clown Scioccolone was, he was very angry with his daughter, and said she must marry him and go away for ever from the palace. It was all in vain that the princess protested she had never seen him but for one moment from the top of the palace. The babe protested quite positively that he was his father; so the king had them married, and sent them away from the palace for ever; and the babe was right, for though Scioccolone and the princess had never met, Scioccolone had wished that he might have a son, of whom she should be the mother, and by the power of the spell3the child was born.

Scioccolone was only too delighted with the king’s angry decree. He felt quite out of place in the palace, and was glad enough to be sent away from it. All he wanted was to have such a beautiful wife, and he willingly obeyed the king’s command to take her away, a long, long way off.

The princess, however, was quite of a different mind. She could not cease from crying, because she was given to such an uncouth, clownish husband that no tidy peasant wench would have married.

When, therefore, Scioccolone saw his beautiful bride so unhappy and distressed, he grew distressed himself; and in his distress he remembered once more the promise of the fairy, that whatever he wished he might have, and he began wishing away at once. First he wished for a pleasant villa,4prettily laid-out, and planted, and walled; then, a casino5in the midst of it, prettily furnished, and having plenty of pastimes and diversions; then, for a farm, well-stocked with beasts for all kinds of uses; for carriages and servants, for fruits and flowers,and all that can make life pleasant. And when he found that with all these things the princess did not seem much happier than before, he bethought himself of wishing that he might be furnished with a handsome person, polished manners, and an educated mind, altogether such as the princess wished. All his wishes were fulfilled, and the princess now loved him very much, and they lived very happily together.

After they had been living thus some time, it happened one day that the king, going out hunting, observed this pleasant villa on the wold, where heretofore all had been bare, unplanted, and unbuilt.

‘How is this!’ cried the king; and he drew rein, and went into the villa intending to inquire how the change had come about.

Scioccolone came out to meet him, not only so transformed that the king never recognised him, but so distinguished by courtesy and urbanity, that the king himself felt ashamed to question him as to how the villa had grown up so suddenly. He accepted his invitation to come and rest in the casino, however; and there they fell to conversing on a variety of subjects, till the king was so struck with the sagacity and prudence of Scioccolone’s talk, that when he rose to take leave, he said:

‘Such a man as you I have long sought to succeed me in the government of the kingdom. I am growing old and have no children, and you are worthy in all ways to wear the crown. Come up, therefore, if you will, to the palace and live with me, and when I die you shall be king.’

Scioccolone, now no longer feeling himself so ill-adapted to live in a palace, willingly consented, and a few days after, with his wife and his little son, he went up to the palace to live with the king.

But the king’s delight can scarcely be imagined when he found that the wife of the polished stranger was indeed his very own daughter.

After a few years the old king died, and Scioccolone reigned in his stead. And thus the promises of all the three fairies were fulfilled.

[Among the Italian-Tirolese tales is one called ‘I tre pezzi rari’ (The Three Rare Things), which begins just like ‘Scioccolone,’ and then the fairies give the three gifts of a dinner-providing table-cloth, an exhaustless purse, and a resistless cudgel, which we so often meet with, as in Grimm’s ‘Tischchen deck dich,’ p. 142; Campbell’s ‘Three Soldiers,’ i. p. 176–93, who refers to numerous other versions, in which other incidents of the two next succeeding tales occur. The Spanish version I have given by the name of ‘Matanzas’ in ‘Patrañas.’

In the Roman version of the ‘Dodici palmi di naso,’ it is singular that it is the second and not the youngest son who is the hero. There is another Italian-Tirolese story, entitled ‘Il Zufolotta,’ in which only one boy and two fairies are concerned, and they only give him the one gift of the Zufoletto, which, instead of supplying every wish as in ‘Dodici palmi di naso,’ has the power of the Zauberflöte, the pipe of the ‘Pied Piper,’ and kindred instruments in all times and countries, so that, when it has got its possessor into such trouble that he is condemned to be executed, it answers the same end as the cudgel, liberating its master by setting the judge and executioner dancing, instead of by thumping them.]

1‘Sciocco,’a simpleton;‘scioccolone,’a great awkward simpleton.↑2Even in this story, where the fairies really are described as fair to see, it will be observed it is only said they had assumed the forms of beautiful girls for one occasion, not that they were necessarily beautiful, like our fairies.↑3‘Fatatura,’ the virtue of enchantment.↑4‘Villa’ is more often used to express a little estate—or, as we should say, the ‘grounds’ on which a country-house stands—than for the house itself, though we have borrowed the word exclusively in the latter sense.↑5‘Casino’ a tasteful little house.↑

1‘Sciocco,’a simpleton;‘scioccolone,’a great awkward simpleton.↑

2Even in this story, where the fairies really are described as fair to see, it will be observed it is only said they had assumed the forms of beautiful girls for one occasion, not that they were necessarily beautiful, like our fairies.↑

3‘Fatatura,’ the virtue of enchantment.↑

4‘Villa’ is more often used to express a little estate—or, as we should say, the ‘grounds’ on which a country-house stands—than for the house itself, though we have borrowed the word exclusively in the latter sense.↑

5‘Casino’ a tasteful little house.↑

TWELVE FEET OF NOSE.1There was a poor old father, who was very poor indeed, and very old. When he came to die, he called his three sons round his bed, and said they must summon a notary to make his will. The sons looked at each other, and thought he was doating. He repeated his desire, and then one of them ventured to say:‘But father, dear, why should we go to the expense of calling in a notary; there is not a single thing on earth you have to leave us!’But the old man told them again to call a notary, and still they hesitated, because they thought the notary would say they were making game of him.At last the old man began to get angry when he found they would not do as he said, and, just not to vex him in his last moments, they called the notary, and the notary brought his witnesses.Then the father was content, and called them all to his bedside.‘Now, pull out the old case under the bed, and take out what you find there.’They found an old broken hat, without a brim, a ragged purse that was so worn you could not have trusted any money in its keeping, and a horn.2These three things he bequeathed in due form of law, one to each of his sons; and it was only because they saw that the man was in his death agony that those who were called to act as witnesses could keep from laughing. To the notary, of course, it was all one whether it was an old hat or a new one, his part was the same, and when he had done what was needful, he went his way, and the witnesses went with him; but as they went out, they said one to another:‘Poor old man! perhaps it is a comfort to him in his last moments to fancy he has got something to leave.’When they were all gone, as the three sons were standing by, very sad, and looking at each other, not knowing what to make of the strange scene, he called the eldest, to whose portion the hat had fallen, and said:‘See what I’ve given you.’‘Why, father!’ answered he, ‘it isn’t even good enough to bind round one’s knee when one goes out hoeing!’But the father answered:‘I wouldn’t let you know its value till those people were gone, lest any should take it from you; this is its value, that if you put it on, you can go in to dine at whatever inn you please, or sit down to drink at what wineshop you please, and take what you like and drink what you like, for no one will see you while you have it on.’Then he called his second son, to whose lot the purse had fallen, and he said:‘See what I have given you.’‘Why, father!’ answered the son, ‘it isn’t even good enough to keep a little tobacco in, if I could afford to buy any!’But the father answered:‘I wouldn’t tell you its value till those people were gone, lest any should take it from you; but this is its value; if you put your fingers in, you’ll find a scudo there, and after that another, and another, as many as ever you will; there will always be one.’Then he called his youngest son, and said:‘See what I have given you.’And he answered:‘Yes, father, it’s a very nice horn; and when I am starving hungry I can cheat myself into being content by playing on it.’‘Silly boy!’ answered the father; ‘that is not its use. I wouldn’t tell you its value while those people were here, lest they should take it from you. Its value is this, that whenever you want anything you have only to sound it, and one will come who will bring whatever you want, be it a dinner, a suit of clothes, a palace, or an army.’After this the father died, and each found himself well provided with the legacy he had given him.It happened that one day as the second son3was passing under the window of the palace a waiting-maid looked out and said: ‘Can you play at cards?’‘As well as most,’ answered the youth.‘Very well, then; come up,’ answered the waiting-maid; ‘for the queen wants some one to play with her.’Very readily he went up, therefore, and played at cards with the queen, and when he had played all the evening he had lost fifty scudi.‘Never mind about paying the fifty scudi,’ said the queen, as he rose to leave. ‘We only played to pass away the time, and you don’t look by your dress as if you could afford fifty scudi.’‘Not at all!’ replied the youth. ‘I will certainly bring the fifty scudi in the morning.’And in the morning, by putting his fingers fifty times into the ragged purse, he had the required sum, and went back with it to the palace and paid the queen.The queen was very much astonished that such a shabby-looking fellow should have such command of money, and determined to find out how it was; so she made him stay and dine. After dinner she took him into her private room and said to him:‘Tell me, how comes it that you, who are but a shabby-looking fellow, have such command of money?’‘Oh!’ answered he quite unsuspectingly, ‘because my father left me a wonderful purse, in which is always a scudo.’‘Nonsense!’ answered the queen. ‘That is a very pretty fable, but such purses don’t exist.’‘Oh, but it is so indeed,’ answered the youth.‘Quite impossible,’ persisted the queen.‘But here it is; you can see for yourself!’ pursued the incautious youth, taking it out.The queen took it from him as if to try its powers, but no sooner was she in possession of it than she called in the guard to turn out a fellow who was trying to rob her, and give him a good beating.Indignant at such treatment, the youth went to his eldest brother and begged his hat of him that he might, by its means, go and punish the queen.Putting on the hat he went back to the palace at the hour of dinner and sat down to table. As soon as the queen was served he took her plate and ate up all that was in it one course after another, so that the queen got nothing, and finding it useless to call for more dishes, she gave it up as a bad job, and went into her room. The youth followed her in and demanded the return of his wonderful purse.‘How can I know it is you if I don’t see you?’ said the queen.‘Never mind about seeing me. Put the purse out on the table for me and I will take it.’‘No, I can’t if I don’t see you,’ replied the queen. ‘I can’t believe it is you unless I see you.’The youth fell into the snare and took off his hat.‘How did you manage to make yourself invisible?’ asked the queen.‘Just by putting on this old hat.’‘I don’t believe that could make you invisible,’ exclaimed the queen. ‘Let me try.’And she snatched the hat out of his hand and put it on. Of course she was now in turn invisible, and he sought her in vain; but worse than that, she rang the bellfor the guard and bid them turn the shabby youth out and give him a bastonata.Full of fresh indignation he ran to his youngest brother and told him all his story, begging the loan of his horn, that he might punish the queen by its means; and the brother lent it him.He sounds the horn and One comes.4‘I want an army with cannons to throw down the palace,’ said the youth; and instantly there was a tramp of armed men, and a rumble of artillery waggons.The queen was sitting at dinner, but when she heard all the noise she came to the window; meantime the soldiers had surrounded the palace and pointed their guns.‘What’s all this about! What’s the matter!’ cried the queen out of the window.‘The matter is, that I want my purse and my hat back,’ answered the youth.‘To be sure! you are right; here they are. I don’t want my palace battered down, so I will give them to you.’The youth went up to receive them; but when he got upstairs he found the queen sunk half fainting in a chair.‘Oh! I’m so frightened; I can’t think where I put the things. Only send away that army and I’ll look for them immediately.’The youth sent away the army, and the queen got up and began looking about for the things.‘Tell me,’ she said, as she wandered from one cupboard to another, ‘how did you, who are such a shabby-looking fellow, manage to call together such an army?’‘Because I’ve got this horn,’ answered the youth. ‘And with it I can call up whatever I want, and if you don’t make haste and find the purse and the hat, I’ll call up the army again and batter down the palace in right earnest.’‘You won’t make me believe that!’ replied the queen. ‘That sorry horn can’t work such wonders as that: let me try.’ And she took the horn out of his hands and sounded it and One appeared. ‘Two stout men!’ she commanded quickly; and when they came she bid them drive the shabby-looking youth out of the palace and give him a bastonata.He was now quite undone, and was ashamed to go back to his brothers. So he wandered away outside the town. After much walking he came to a vineyard, where he strolled in; and what struck him was, that though it was January, there was a fine fig-tree covered with ripe luscious figs.‘This is a godsend indeed,’ he said, ‘to a hungry man,’ and he began plucking and eating the figs. Before he had eaten many, however, he found his nose had begun to grow to a terrible size; a foot for every fig.‘That’ll never do!’ he cried, and left off eating the figs and wandered on. Presently he came to another vineyard, where he also strolled in: there, though it was January, he saw a tree all covered with ripe red cherries. ‘I wonder what calamity will pursue me for eating them,’ he said, as he gathered them. But when he had eaten a good many he perceived that at last his luck had turned, for in proportion as he ate his nose grew less and less, till at last it was just the right size again.‘Now I know how to punish the queen,’ he said, and he filled a bottle with the juice of the cherries, and went back and gathered a basketful of figs.These figs he cried under the palace window, and as he had got more dusty and threadbare with his late wanderings no one recognised him. ‘Figs in January! that is a treat!’ and they bought up the whole basketful. Then as they ate, their noses all began to grow, but the queen, as she was very greedy, ate twelve for her share, so that she had twelve feet of nose added to the length ofhers. It was so long that it trailed behind her on the ground as she walked along.Then there was a hue and cry! All the surgeons and physicians in the kingdom were sent for, but could do no good. They were all in despair, when our youth came up disguised as a foreign doctor.‘Noses! I can heal noses! whoever has got too much nose let him come to me!’All the inhabitants gathered round him, and the queen called to him loudest of all.‘The medicine I have to give is necessarily a very strong one to effect so extraordinary a cure; therefore I won’t give it to the queen’s majesty till she has seen it used on all her servants, beginning with the lowest.’Taking them all in order, beginning with the lowest, he gave a few drops of cherry-juice to each, and all their noses came right.Last of all the queen remained.‘The queen can’t be treated like common people,’ he said; ‘she must be treated by herself. I must go into her room with her, and I can cure her with one drop of my cordial.’‘You think yourself very clever that you talk of curing with one drop of your cordial, but you’re not the only person who can work wonders. I’ve got greater wonders than yours. I’ve got a hat which makes you invisible, a purse that never is empty, and a horn that gives you everything you call for.’‘Very pretty things to talk about,’ answered the pretended doctor, ‘but such things don’t exist.’‘Don’t they!’ said the queen. ‘There they are!’And she laid them all out on the table.This was enough for him. Taking advantage of the lesson she had given him by her example, he quickly put on the hat, making himself invisible; after that it was easy to snatch up the other things and escape; nor couldanyone follow him. He lived very comfortably for the rest of his life, taking a scudo out of his purse for whatever he had to pay, and his brothers likewise got on very well with their legacies, for he restored them as soon as he had rescued them from the queen. But the queen remained for the rest of her life withTWELVE FEET OF NOSE.1‘Dodici palmi di naso,’a nose twelve palms long. Twelve palms make a canna and a half, equal to three mètres.↑2‘Ciuffoletto.’ ‘What is a ‘ciuffoletto?’ I asked. ‘Much the same as afravodo,’ the narrator answered; and I remembered that from another, in another tale, I had made out ‘fravodo’ to be a horn.↑3That the second of the three sons should be the hero of the story is, I think, an unusual variation.↑4See Note 4, p. 146.↑

TWELVE FEET OF NOSE.1

There was a poor old father, who was very poor indeed, and very old. When he came to die, he called his three sons round his bed, and said they must summon a notary to make his will. The sons looked at each other, and thought he was doating. He repeated his desire, and then one of them ventured to say:‘But father, dear, why should we go to the expense of calling in a notary; there is not a single thing on earth you have to leave us!’But the old man told them again to call a notary, and still they hesitated, because they thought the notary would say they were making game of him.At last the old man began to get angry when he found they would not do as he said, and, just not to vex him in his last moments, they called the notary, and the notary brought his witnesses.Then the father was content, and called them all to his bedside.‘Now, pull out the old case under the bed, and take out what you find there.’They found an old broken hat, without a brim, a ragged purse that was so worn you could not have trusted any money in its keeping, and a horn.2These three things he bequeathed in due form of law, one to each of his sons; and it was only because they saw that the man was in his death agony that those who were called to act as witnesses could keep from laughing. To the notary, of course, it was all one whether it was an old hat or a new one, his part was the same, and when he had done what was needful, he went his way, and the witnesses went with him; but as they went out, they said one to another:‘Poor old man! perhaps it is a comfort to him in his last moments to fancy he has got something to leave.’When they were all gone, as the three sons were standing by, very sad, and looking at each other, not knowing what to make of the strange scene, he called the eldest, to whose portion the hat had fallen, and said:‘See what I’ve given you.’‘Why, father!’ answered he, ‘it isn’t even good enough to bind round one’s knee when one goes out hoeing!’But the father answered:‘I wouldn’t let you know its value till those people were gone, lest any should take it from you; this is its value, that if you put it on, you can go in to dine at whatever inn you please, or sit down to drink at what wineshop you please, and take what you like and drink what you like, for no one will see you while you have it on.’Then he called his second son, to whose lot the purse had fallen, and he said:‘See what I have given you.’‘Why, father!’ answered the son, ‘it isn’t even good enough to keep a little tobacco in, if I could afford to buy any!’But the father answered:‘I wouldn’t tell you its value till those people were gone, lest any should take it from you; but this is its value; if you put your fingers in, you’ll find a scudo there, and after that another, and another, as many as ever you will; there will always be one.’Then he called his youngest son, and said:‘See what I have given you.’And he answered:‘Yes, father, it’s a very nice horn; and when I am starving hungry I can cheat myself into being content by playing on it.’‘Silly boy!’ answered the father; ‘that is not its use. I wouldn’t tell you its value while those people were here, lest they should take it from you. Its value is this, that whenever you want anything you have only to sound it, and one will come who will bring whatever you want, be it a dinner, a suit of clothes, a palace, or an army.’After this the father died, and each found himself well provided with the legacy he had given him.It happened that one day as the second son3was passing under the window of the palace a waiting-maid looked out and said: ‘Can you play at cards?’‘As well as most,’ answered the youth.‘Very well, then; come up,’ answered the waiting-maid; ‘for the queen wants some one to play with her.’Very readily he went up, therefore, and played at cards with the queen, and when he had played all the evening he had lost fifty scudi.‘Never mind about paying the fifty scudi,’ said the queen, as he rose to leave. ‘We only played to pass away the time, and you don’t look by your dress as if you could afford fifty scudi.’‘Not at all!’ replied the youth. ‘I will certainly bring the fifty scudi in the morning.’And in the morning, by putting his fingers fifty times into the ragged purse, he had the required sum, and went back with it to the palace and paid the queen.The queen was very much astonished that such a shabby-looking fellow should have such command of money, and determined to find out how it was; so she made him stay and dine. After dinner she took him into her private room and said to him:‘Tell me, how comes it that you, who are but a shabby-looking fellow, have such command of money?’‘Oh!’ answered he quite unsuspectingly, ‘because my father left me a wonderful purse, in which is always a scudo.’‘Nonsense!’ answered the queen. ‘That is a very pretty fable, but such purses don’t exist.’‘Oh, but it is so indeed,’ answered the youth.‘Quite impossible,’ persisted the queen.‘But here it is; you can see for yourself!’ pursued the incautious youth, taking it out.The queen took it from him as if to try its powers, but no sooner was she in possession of it than she called in the guard to turn out a fellow who was trying to rob her, and give him a good beating.Indignant at such treatment, the youth went to his eldest brother and begged his hat of him that he might, by its means, go and punish the queen.Putting on the hat he went back to the palace at the hour of dinner and sat down to table. As soon as the queen was served he took her plate and ate up all that was in it one course after another, so that the queen got nothing, and finding it useless to call for more dishes, she gave it up as a bad job, and went into her room. The youth followed her in and demanded the return of his wonderful purse.‘How can I know it is you if I don’t see you?’ said the queen.‘Never mind about seeing me. Put the purse out on the table for me and I will take it.’‘No, I can’t if I don’t see you,’ replied the queen. ‘I can’t believe it is you unless I see you.’The youth fell into the snare and took off his hat.‘How did you manage to make yourself invisible?’ asked the queen.‘Just by putting on this old hat.’‘I don’t believe that could make you invisible,’ exclaimed the queen. ‘Let me try.’And she snatched the hat out of his hand and put it on. Of course she was now in turn invisible, and he sought her in vain; but worse than that, she rang the bellfor the guard and bid them turn the shabby youth out and give him a bastonata.Full of fresh indignation he ran to his youngest brother and told him all his story, begging the loan of his horn, that he might punish the queen by its means; and the brother lent it him.He sounds the horn and One comes.4‘I want an army with cannons to throw down the palace,’ said the youth; and instantly there was a tramp of armed men, and a rumble of artillery waggons.The queen was sitting at dinner, but when she heard all the noise she came to the window; meantime the soldiers had surrounded the palace and pointed their guns.‘What’s all this about! What’s the matter!’ cried the queen out of the window.‘The matter is, that I want my purse and my hat back,’ answered the youth.‘To be sure! you are right; here they are. I don’t want my palace battered down, so I will give them to you.’The youth went up to receive them; but when he got upstairs he found the queen sunk half fainting in a chair.‘Oh! I’m so frightened; I can’t think where I put the things. Only send away that army and I’ll look for them immediately.’The youth sent away the army, and the queen got up and began looking about for the things.‘Tell me,’ she said, as she wandered from one cupboard to another, ‘how did you, who are such a shabby-looking fellow, manage to call together such an army?’‘Because I’ve got this horn,’ answered the youth. ‘And with it I can call up whatever I want, and if you don’t make haste and find the purse and the hat, I’ll call up the army again and batter down the palace in right earnest.’‘You won’t make me believe that!’ replied the queen. ‘That sorry horn can’t work such wonders as that: let me try.’ And she took the horn out of his hands and sounded it and One appeared. ‘Two stout men!’ she commanded quickly; and when they came she bid them drive the shabby-looking youth out of the palace and give him a bastonata.He was now quite undone, and was ashamed to go back to his brothers. So he wandered away outside the town. After much walking he came to a vineyard, where he strolled in; and what struck him was, that though it was January, there was a fine fig-tree covered with ripe luscious figs.‘This is a godsend indeed,’ he said, ‘to a hungry man,’ and he began plucking and eating the figs. Before he had eaten many, however, he found his nose had begun to grow to a terrible size; a foot for every fig.‘That’ll never do!’ he cried, and left off eating the figs and wandered on. Presently he came to another vineyard, where he also strolled in: there, though it was January, he saw a tree all covered with ripe red cherries. ‘I wonder what calamity will pursue me for eating them,’ he said, as he gathered them. But when he had eaten a good many he perceived that at last his luck had turned, for in proportion as he ate his nose grew less and less, till at last it was just the right size again.‘Now I know how to punish the queen,’ he said, and he filled a bottle with the juice of the cherries, and went back and gathered a basketful of figs.These figs he cried under the palace window, and as he had got more dusty and threadbare with his late wanderings no one recognised him. ‘Figs in January! that is a treat!’ and they bought up the whole basketful. Then as they ate, their noses all began to grow, but the queen, as she was very greedy, ate twelve for her share, so that she had twelve feet of nose added to the length ofhers. It was so long that it trailed behind her on the ground as she walked along.Then there was a hue and cry! All the surgeons and physicians in the kingdom were sent for, but could do no good. They were all in despair, when our youth came up disguised as a foreign doctor.‘Noses! I can heal noses! whoever has got too much nose let him come to me!’All the inhabitants gathered round him, and the queen called to him loudest of all.‘The medicine I have to give is necessarily a very strong one to effect so extraordinary a cure; therefore I won’t give it to the queen’s majesty till she has seen it used on all her servants, beginning with the lowest.’Taking them all in order, beginning with the lowest, he gave a few drops of cherry-juice to each, and all their noses came right.Last of all the queen remained.‘The queen can’t be treated like common people,’ he said; ‘she must be treated by herself. I must go into her room with her, and I can cure her with one drop of my cordial.’‘You think yourself very clever that you talk of curing with one drop of your cordial, but you’re not the only person who can work wonders. I’ve got greater wonders than yours. I’ve got a hat which makes you invisible, a purse that never is empty, and a horn that gives you everything you call for.’‘Very pretty things to talk about,’ answered the pretended doctor, ‘but such things don’t exist.’‘Don’t they!’ said the queen. ‘There they are!’And she laid them all out on the table.This was enough for him. Taking advantage of the lesson she had given him by her example, he quickly put on the hat, making himself invisible; after that it was easy to snatch up the other things and escape; nor couldanyone follow him. He lived very comfortably for the rest of his life, taking a scudo out of his purse for whatever he had to pay, and his brothers likewise got on very well with their legacies, for he restored them as soon as he had rescued them from the queen. But the queen remained for the rest of her life withTWELVE FEET OF NOSE.

There was a poor old father, who was very poor indeed, and very old. When he came to die, he called his three sons round his bed, and said they must summon a notary to make his will. The sons looked at each other, and thought he was doating. He repeated his desire, and then one of them ventured to say:

‘But father, dear, why should we go to the expense of calling in a notary; there is not a single thing on earth you have to leave us!’

But the old man told them again to call a notary, and still they hesitated, because they thought the notary would say they were making game of him.

At last the old man began to get angry when he found they would not do as he said, and, just not to vex him in his last moments, they called the notary, and the notary brought his witnesses.

Then the father was content, and called them all to his bedside.

‘Now, pull out the old case under the bed, and take out what you find there.’

They found an old broken hat, without a brim, a ragged purse that was so worn you could not have trusted any money in its keeping, and a horn.2

These three things he bequeathed in due form of law, one to each of his sons; and it was only because they saw that the man was in his death agony that those who were called to act as witnesses could keep from laughing. To the notary, of course, it was all one whether it was an old hat or a new one, his part was the same, and when he had done what was needful, he went his way, and the witnesses went with him; but as they went out, they said one to another:

‘Poor old man! perhaps it is a comfort to him in his last moments to fancy he has got something to leave.’

When they were all gone, as the three sons were standing by, very sad, and looking at each other, not knowing what to make of the strange scene, he called the eldest, to whose portion the hat had fallen, and said:

‘See what I’ve given you.’

‘Why, father!’ answered he, ‘it isn’t even good enough to bind round one’s knee when one goes out hoeing!’

But the father answered:

‘I wouldn’t let you know its value till those people were gone, lest any should take it from you; this is its value, that if you put it on, you can go in to dine at whatever inn you please, or sit down to drink at what wineshop you please, and take what you like and drink what you like, for no one will see you while you have it on.’

Then he called his second son, to whose lot the purse had fallen, and he said:

‘See what I have given you.’

‘Why, father!’ answered the son, ‘it isn’t even good enough to keep a little tobacco in, if I could afford to buy any!’

But the father answered:

‘I wouldn’t tell you its value till those people were gone, lest any should take it from you; but this is its value; if you put your fingers in, you’ll find a scudo there, and after that another, and another, as many as ever you will; there will always be one.’

Then he called his youngest son, and said:

‘See what I have given you.’

And he answered:

‘Yes, father, it’s a very nice horn; and when I am starving hungry I can cheat myself into being content by playing on it.’

‘Silly boy!’ answered the father; ‘that is not its use. I wouldn’t tell you its value while those people were here, lest they should take it from you. Its value is this, that whenever you want anything you have only to sound it, and one will come who will bring whatever you want, be it a dinner, a suit of clothes, a palace, or an army.’

After this the father died, and each found himself well provided with the legacy he had given him.

It happened that one day as the second son3was passing under the window of the palace a waiting-maid looked out and said: ‘Can you play at cards?’

‘As well as most,’ answered the youth.

‘Very well, then; come up,’ answered the waiting-maid; ‘for the queen wants some one to play with her.’

Very readily he went up, therefore, and played at cards with the queen, and when he had played all the evening he had lost fifty scudi.

‘Never mind about paying the fifty scudi,’ said the queen, as he rose to leave. ‘We only played to pass away the time, and you don’t look by your dress as if you could afford fifty scudi.’

‘Not at all!’ replied the youth. ‘I will certainly bring the fifty scudi in the morning.’

And in the morning, by putting his fingers fifty times into the ragged purse, he had the required sum, and went back with it to the palace and paid the queen.

The queen was very much astonished that such a shabby-looking fellow should have such command of money, and determined to find out how it was; so she made him stay and dine. After dinner she took him into her private room and said to him:

‘Tell me, how comes it that you, who are but a shabby-looking fellow, have such command of money?’

‘Oh!’ answered he quite unsuspectingly, ‘because my father left me a wonderful purse, in which is always a scudo.’

‘Nonsense!’ answered the queen. ‘That is a very pretty fable, but such purses don’t exist.’

‘Oh, but it is so indeed,’ answered the youth.

‘Quite impossible,’ persisted the queen.

‘But here it is; you can see for yourself!’ pursued the incautious youth, taking it out.

The queen took it from him as if to try its powers, but no sooner was she in possession of it than she called in the guard to turn out a fellow who was trying to rob her, and give him a good beating.

Indignant at such treatment, the youth went to his eldest brother and begged his hat of him that he might, by its means, go and punish the queen.

Putting on the hat he went back to the palace at the hour of dinner and sat down to table. As soon as the queen was served he took her plate and ate up all that was in it one course after another, so that the queen got nothing, and finding it useless to call for more dishes, she gave it up as a bad job, and went into her room. The youth followed her in and demanded the return of his wonderful purse.

‘How can I know it is you if I don’t see you?’ said the queen.

‘Never mind about seeing me. Put the purse out on the table for me and I will take it.’

‘No, I can’t if I don’t see you,’ replied the queen. ‘I can’t believe it is you unless I see you.’

The youth fell into the snare and took off his hat.

‘How did you manage to make yourself invisible?’ asked the queen.

‘Just by putting on this old hat.’

‘I don’t believe that could make you invisible,’ exclaimed the queen. ‘Let me try.’

And she snatched the hat out of his hand and put it on. Of course she was now in turn invisible, and he sought her in vain; but worse than that, she rang the bellfor the guard and bid them turn the shabby youth out and give him a bastonata.

Full of fresh indignation he ran to his youngest brother and told him all his story, begging the loan of his horn, that he might punish the queen by its means; and the brother lent it him.

He sounds the horn and One comes.4

‘I want an army with cannons to throw down the palace,’ said the youth; and instantly there was a tramp of armed men, and a rumble of artillery waggons.

The queen was sitting at dinner, but when she heard all the noise she came to the window; meantime the soldiers had surrounded the palace and pointed their guns.

‘What’s all this about! What’s the matter!’ cried the queen out of the window.

‘The matter is, that I want my purse and my hat back,’ answered the youth.

‘To be sure! you are right; here they are. I don’t want my palace battered down, so I will give them to you.’

The youth went up to receive them; but when he got upstairs he found the queen sunk half fainting in a chair.

‘Oh! I’m so frightened; I can’t think where I put the things. Only send away that army and I’ll look for them immediately.’

The youth sent away the army, and the queen got up and began looking about for the things.

‘Tell me,’ she said, as she wandered from one cupboard to another, ‘how did you, who are such a shabby-looking fellow, manage to call together such an army?’

‘Because I’ve got this horn,’ answered the youth. ‘And with it I can call up whatever I want, and if you don’t make haste and find the purse and the hat, I’ll call up the army again and batter down the palace in right earnest.’

‘You won’t make me believe that!’ replied the queen. ‘That sorry horn can’t work such wonders as that: let me try.’ And she took the horn out of his hands and sounded it and One appeared. ‘Two stout men!’ she commanded quickly; and when they came she bid them drive the shabby-looking youth out of the palace and give him a bastonata.

He was now quite undone, and was ashamed to go back to his brothers. So he wandered away outside the town. After much walking he came to a vineyard, where he strolled in; and what struck him was, that though it was January, there was a fine fig-tree covered with ripe luscious figs.

‘This is a godsend indeed,’ he said, ‘to a hungry man,’ and he began plucking and eating the figs. Before he had eaten many, however, he found his nose had begun to grow to a terrible size; a foot for every fig.

‘That’ll never do!’ he cried, and left off eating the figs and wandered on. Presently he came to another vineyard, where he also strolled in: there, though it was January, he saw a tree all covered with ripe red cherries. ‘I wonder what calamity will pursue me for eating them,’ he said, as he gathered them. But when he had eaten a good many he perceived that at last his luck had turned, for in proportion as he ate his nose grew less and less, till at last it was just the right size again.

‘Now I know how to punish the queen,’ he said, and he filled a bottle with the juice of the cherries, and went back and gathered a basketful of figs.

These figs he cried under the palace window, and as he had got more dusty and threadbare with his late wanderings no one recognised him. ‘Figs in January! that is a treat!’ and they bought up the whole basketful. Then as they ate, their noses all began to grow, but the queen, as she was very greedy, ate twelve for her share, so that she had twelve feet of nose added to the length ofhers. It was so long that it trailed behind her on the ground as she walked along.

Then there was a hue and cry! All the surgeons and physicians in the kingdom were sent for, but could do no good. They were all in despair, when our youth came up disguised as a foreign doctor.

‘Noses! I can heal noses! whoever has got too much nose let him come to me!’

All the inhabitants gathered round him, and the queen called to him loudest of all.

‘The medicine I have to give is necessarily a very strong one to effect so extraordinary a cure; therefore I won’t give it to the queen’s majesty till she has seen it used on all her servants, beginning with the lowest.’

Taking them all in order, beginning with the lowest, he gave a few drops of cherry-juice to each, and all their noses came right.

Last of all the queen remained.

‘The queen can’t be treated like common people,’ he said; ‘she must be treated by herself. I must go into her room with her, and I can cure her with one drop of my cordial.’

‘You think yourself very clever that you talk of curing with one drop of your cordial, but you’re not the only person who can work wonders. I’ve got greater wonders than yours. I’ve got a hat which makes you invisible, a purse that never is empty, and a horn that gives you everything you call for.’

‘Very pretty things to talk about,’ answered the pretended doctor, ‘but such things don’t exist.’

‘Don’t they!’ said the queen. ‘There they are!’

And she laid them all out on the table.

This was enough for him. Taking advantage of the lesson she had given him by her example, he quickly put on the hat, making himself invisible; after that it was easy to snatch up the other things and escape; nor couldanyone follow him. He lived very comfortably for the rest of his life, taking a scudo out of his purse for whatever he had to pay, and his brothers likewise got on very well with their legacies, for he restored them as soon as he had rescued them from the queen. But the queen remained for the rest of her life withTWELVE FEET OF NOSE.

1‘Dodici palmi di naso,’a nose twelve palms long. Twelve palms make a canna and a half, equal to three mètres.↑2‘Ciuffoletto.’ ‘What is a ‘ciuffoletto?’ I asked. ‘Much the same as afravodo,’ the narrator answered; and I remembered that from another, in another tale, I had made out ‘fravodo’ to be a horn.↑3That the second of the three sons should be the hero of the story is, I think, an unusual variation.↑4See Note 4, p. 146.↑

1‘Dodici palmi di naso,’a nose twelve palms long. Twelve palms make a canna and a half, equal to three mètres.↑

2‘Ciuffoletto.’ ‘What is a ‘ciuffoletto?’ I asked. ‘Much the same as afravodo,’ the narrator answered; and I remembered that from another, in another tale, I had made out ‘fravodo’ to be a horn.↑

3That the second of the three sons should be the hero of the story is, I think, an unusual variation.↑

4See Note 4, p. 146.↑

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