There was a man and his wife who had a young daughter to marry; and
there was a man who was seeking a wife. So the man who was seeking
a wife came to the man who had a daughter to marry, and said, 'Give
me your daughter for a wife.'
'Yes,' said the man who had a daughter to marry; [355] 'you'll do
very well; you're just about the sort of son-in-law I want.' And
then he added: 'If our daughter is to be betrothed to-day, it is the
occasion for a feast.' So to the wife he said, 'Prepare the table;'
and to the daughter he said, 'Draw the wine.'
The daughter went down into the cellar to draw the wine. But as she
drew the wine she began to cry, saying: 'If I am to be married I
shall have a child, and the child will be a son, and the son will be
a priest, and the priest will be a bishop, and the bishop will be a
cardinal, and the cardinal will be a pope.' And she cried and cried,
and the wine was running all the time, so that the bottle [356]
she was filling ran over, and went on running over.
Then said the father and mother: 'What can the girl be doing down in
the cellar so long?' But the mother said: 'I must go and see.'
So the mother went down to see why she was so long, but the moment
she came into the cellar she, too, began to cry; so that the wine
still went on running over.
Then the father said: 'What can the girl and her mother both be doing
so long down in the cellar? I must go and see.'
So the father went down into the cellar; but the moment he got into
the cellar he, too, began to cry, and could do nothing for crying;
so the wine still went on running over.
Then he who had come to seek a wife said: 'What can these people
all be doing so long down in the cellar?' So he, too, went down to
see, and found them all crying in the cellar and the wine running
over. Only when the wine was all run out they left off crying and
came upstairs again.
Then the betrothal and the marriage were happily celebrated.
One day after they were married the husband went into the market to
buy meat, and he bought a large provision because he had invited a
friend to dinner. When the wife saw him buy such a quantity of meat
she began to cry, saying: 'What can we do with such a lot of meat?'
'Oh, never mind, don't make a misery of it,' said the husband;
'put it behind you.' [357]
The simple wife took the meat and went home, saying to her parents,
[358] and crying the while: 'My husband says I am to put all this
meat behind me! Do tell me what can I do?'
'You can't put the whole lot of it behind you, that's certain,'
replied the equally simple mother; 'but we can manage it between us.'
Then she took the meat and put all the hard, bony part on one chair,
where she made the father sit down on it; all the fat, skinny part she
put on another chair, and made the wife sit down on it; and the fleshy,
meaty part she put on another chair, and sat down on that herself.
Presently the husband came with his friend, ready for dinner, knocking
at the door. None of the three dared to move, however, that they might
not cease to be fulfilling his injunctions. Then he looked through
the keyhole, and, seeing them all sitting down without moving when
he knocked, he thought they must all be dead; so he ran and fetched
a locksmith, who opened the door for him.
'What on earth are you all doing there,' exclaimed the hungry husband,
'instead of getting dinner ready?'
'You told me to put the meat behind me, and I have done so,' answered
the simple wife.
Then he saw they were sitting on the meat. Out of all patience with
such idiocy, he exclaimed: 'This is the last you'll ever see of
me. At least I promise you not to come back till I have met three
other people as idiotic as you, and that's hardly likely to occur.'
With that he took his friend to a tavern to dine, and then put on a
pilgrim's dress and went wandering over the country.
In the first city he came to there was great public rejoicing going
on. The princess had just been married, and the court was keeping high
festival. As he came up to the palace the bride and bridegroom were
just come back from church. The bride wore one of those very high
round headdresses that they used to wear in olden time, with a long
veil hanging from it. It was so very high that she could not by any
means get in at the door, and there she stuck, not knowing what to
do. Then she began to cry, saying: 'What shall I do? what shall I do?'
'Shall I tell you what to do?' said the pilgrim-husband, drawing near.
'Oh, pray do, if you can; I will give you a hundred scudi if you will
only show me how to get in.'
So he went and made her go a few steps backward, and then bow her
head very low, and so she could pass under the door.
'Really, I have found one woman as simple as my people at home,' said
the pilgrim-husband, as he sat down to the banquet at the special
invitation of the princess, in reward for his services. Afterwards
she counted out a hundred scudi to him, and he went further.
Further along the road he came to a farm, with barns and cattle and
plenty of stock about, and a large well at which a woman was drawing
water. Instead of dipping in the pail, she had got the well-rope
knotted into a huge knot, which she kept dipping into the water and
squeezing out into the pail, and she kept crying as she did so: 'Oh,
how long shall I be filling the pail! The pail will never be full!'
'Shall I show you how to fill it?' asked the pilgrim-husband,
drawing near.
'Oh, yes, do show me if you can. I will give you a hundred scudi if
you will only show me.'
Then he took all the knots out of the rope and let down the pail by
it, and filled it in a minute.
'Here's a second woman as stupid as my people at home,' said the
pilgrim-husband, as the farmer's wife asked him in to dinner in
reward for his great services; 'if I go on at this rate I shall have
to return to her at last, in spite of my protestations.'
After that the farmer's wife counted out the hundred scudi of the
promised reward, and he went on further, having first packed six eggs
into his hollow staff as provision for the journey.
Towards nightfall he arrived at a lone cottage. Here he knocked and
asked a bed for his night's lodging.
'I can't give you that,' said a voice from the inside; 'for I am a
lone widow. I can't take a man in to sleep here.'
'But I am a pilgrim,' replied he; 'let me in at least to cook a bit
of supper.'
'That I don't mind doing,' said the good wife, and she opened the door.
'Thanks, good friend!' said the pilgrim-husband as he sat down by
the stove; 'now add to your charity a couple of eggs in a pan.' [359]
So she gave him a pan and two eggs, and a bit of butter to cook them
in; but he took the six eggs out of his staff and broke them into
the pan, too.
Presently, when the good wife turned her head his way again,
and saw eight eggs swimming in the pan instead of two, she said:
'Lack-a-day! you must surely be some strange being from the other
world. Do you know so-and-so there' (naming her dead husband)?
'Oh, yes,' said the pilgrim-husband, enjoying the joke; 'I know him
very well; he lives just next to me.'
'Only to think of that!' replied the poor woman. 'And do tell me,
how do you get on in the other world? What sort of a life is it?'
'Oh, not so very bad; it depends what sort of a place you get. The
part where we are is not very bad, except that we get very little to
eat. Your husband, for instance, is nearly starved.'
'No, really!' cried the good wife, clasping her hands; 'only fancy! my
good husband starving out there; so fond as he was of a good dinner,
too!' Then she added, coaxingly: 'As you know him so well, perhaps you
wouldn't mind doing him the charity of taking him a little somewhat
to give him a treat. There are such lots of things I could easily
send him.'
'O, dear no, not at all; I'll do it with great pleasure,' answered he;
'but I'm not going back till to-morrow; and if I don't sleep here I
must go on further, and then I shan't come by this way.'
'That's true,' replied the widow. 'Ah, well, I mustn't mind what the
folks say, for such an opportunity as this may never occur again. You
must sleep in my bed, and I must sleep on the hearth; and in the
morning I'll load a donkey with provisions for my poor dear husband.'
'Oh, no,' replied the pilgrim; 'you shan't be disturbed in your bed;
only let me sleep on the hearth, that will do for me; and as I'm an
early riser I can be gone before anyone's astir, so folks won't have
anything to say.'
So it was done, and an hour before sunrise the woman was up loading
the donkey with the best of her stores. There were ham, and maccaroni,
and flour, and cheese, and wine. All this she committed to the pilgrim,
saying: 'You'll send the donkey back, won't you?'
'Of course I would send him back; he'd be no use to us out there:
but I shan't get out again myself for another hundred years or so, and
I fear he won't find his way back alone, for it's no easy way to find.'
'To be sure not; I ought to have thought of that,' replied the
widow. 'Ah, well, so as my poor husband gets a good meal never mind
the donkey.'
So the pretended pilgrim from the other world went his way. He hadn't
gone a hundred yards before the widow called him back.
'Ah, she's beginning to think better of it!' said he to himself;
and he continued his way, pretending not to hear.
'Good pilgrim!' shouted the widow; 'I forgot one thing. Would any
money be of use to my poor dear husband?'
'Oh dear yes, all the use in the world,' replied the pilgrim; 'you
can always get anything for money everywhere.'
'Oh, do come back then, and I'll trouble you with a hundred scudi
for him.'
The pretended pilgrim came back willingly for the hundred scudi,
and the widow counted them out to him.
'There is no help for it,' soliloquised he as he went his way;
'I must go back to those at home. I have actually found three women
each more stupid than they.'
So he went home to live, and complained no more of the simplicity of
his wife.
[We have the German of this story in 'Die Klugen Leute,' Grimm,
p. 407, and again the beginning of it in 'Die Kluge Else' (Clever
Lizzie), Grimm, p. 137 (which ends with the desperation of the wife
as the second Roman version ends with the death of the husband);
in some variants given in the 'Russian Folk Tales,' pp. 53-4; in an
Italian-Tirolese tale, 'Le donne matte' (the title resembling that
of the next Roman version); and the ending, in the Norse 'Not a pin
to choose between them.' Senhor de Saraiva told me the following
Portuguese story entitled 'Pedro da Malas Artes' (Tricky Peter),
which embodies these incidents, but opens with a different purport.
Tricky Peter was a knowing blade; so he went out on his travels to
set all the world straight; and he found plenty to do.
In the very first town he came to there was a great commotion. A bride
had come to church to be married, and there she stuck at the church
door, mounted on her mule, while the people deliberated whether they
should facilitate her ingress by cutting off some of her head or some
of the mule's legs.
'Let her alight and walk in,' said Tricky Peter; 'and the door will
be high enough.' And all the people applauded his wisdom.
At the next town he found the people all full of discontent, because
one of them had to sit up by turns to tell the others when the
sun rose.
'I'll give you a bird to perform that office,' said Tricky Peter;
and he went home and fetched a cock, and then they could all rest
comfortably.
After this the story has no more silly people to deal with; but
Peter fools a giant, and overcomes his strength with craft. He does
not seem, either, to get paid for his services, as do the heroes of
'La Sposa Cese,' and all the others.
I have also another Roman story (too long to print here) of a man
who sets out with a different purpose again, who meets with three
sets of people afflicted with similar follies, and who also makes
a good deal of money by his counsel; together with various stories
in which men go to fetch their wives back from the devil's kingdom,
get three commissions of a similar nature by the way, for executing
which they get richly paid on their return.
There is a story in the 5th Tantra given as 'Le Brahme aux vains
projets' in Abbé Dubois' translation of the 'Pantcha-Tantra,' which
has an analogous opening to that of 'La Sposa Cece.' There is another
among the 'Contes Indiens' published at the end of it, in which four
Brahmans have a great dispute as to which of them can claim to be
the greatest idiot--a strife only second in folly to that of the
'Three Indolent Boys' in Grimm, p. 551--and they each narrate such
proof of having acted with consummate folly that the decision given
is that there is not a pin to choose between them.
In a somewhat analogous story, which he calls 'Aventures du Gourou
Paramarta,' one of the disciples commits the counting mistake
'of the well-known Irishman,' in omitting to reckon himself in his
computation, also found in the Russian 'Folk Tales,' p. 54, and they
go to buy a foal's egg, just as do certain peasants of the Trentino
in an Italian-Tirolese 'storiella da rider' [360] (laughable story).]