'Do you know the story of Giuseppe l'Ebreo?'
'Not by that name. Tell it me, and I'll tell you if I've heard
it before.'
'There was once a moglie e marito who had seven sons.'
'Oh, do you mean the Machabees?'
'No. I don't think they were called Machabees--I don't know. But
the youngest of the seven was called Joseph, and he was his father's
Benjamin, and that made the others jealous of him. They used to go
out in the Campagna together to feed the flocks, for in those days
all were shepherds; and when the others had Joseph out there all
alone they said, "Let us kill him;" and they were going to kill him;
but one said, "No, we must not kill him: we will put him down a well;"
and so they did.
'The next day it happened that a great king went by hunting, and as
his dogs passed the well where Joseph was they scented human blood
and made a great barking, and the king said, "See what the dogs have
found." So they took the stone from the mouth of the well and let
a cord down, and behold a beautiful boy came up--for Joseph was a
beautiful boy--and he pleased the king, and he took him home and kept
him as a precious jewel, he was so fair. So handsome was he, that
the Queen fell in love with him; and when he wouldn't listen to her
she accused him of having insulted her, and had him put into prison.
'After that the King had a strange dream: he saw three lean cows and
three fat cows; and he saw the three lean cows eat up the three fat
cows; and he sent for all the theologians in the country, and none
of them could tell what the dream meant; but Joseph said, "I can tell
what the dream means."... The rest as in the Bible.'
[Dr. Dasent gives one Norse story of a stepmother, with a stepson and
daughter, which begins like the one of which I have given an abstract,
but runs off into quite different incidents.]