There was once a couple well-to-do in the world, who had one only
daughter.
The son of a neighbour came to ask her in marriage, and as the father
thought he would do, the father asked him to dinner, and sent the
daughter down into the cellar to draw the wine.
'If I am married,' said the girl to herself, and began to cry as
she drew the wine, 'I shall have a child, and the child will be a
boy, and the boy will be called Petrillo, and by-and-by he will
die, and I shall be left to lament him, and to cry all day long
"Petrillo! Petrillo! where are you!"' and she went on crying, and
the wine went on running over.
Then the mother went down to see what kept her so long, and she
repeated the story all over to her, and the mother answered, 'Right
you are, my girl!' and she, too, began to cry, and the wine was all
the time running over.
Then the father went down, and they repeated the story to him, and he,
too, said, 'Right you are!' and he, too, began to cry, and the wine
all the time went on running all over the floor.
Then the young man also goes down to see what is the matter, and
stops the wine running, and makes them all come up.
'But,' he says, 'I'll not marry the girl till I have wandered over
the world and found other three as simple as you.' He dines with them,
and sets out on his search.
The first night he goes to bed in an inn, and in the morning he hears
in the room next him such lamenting and complaining that he goes in
to see what is the matter. A man is sitting by the side of the bed
lamenting because he cannot get his stockings on.
The young man says, 'Take hold of one side this way, and the other
side that way, and pull them up.'
'Ah, to be sure!' cries the man, and gives him a hundred scudi for
the benefit he has done him.
'There's one of my three simpletons, at all events,' says the young
man, and journeys on.
The next day, at the inn where he spends the night, he hears a noise
bru, bru! goes in to see, and finds a man fruitlessly trying to put
walnuts into a sack by sticking a fork into them.
'You'll never do it that way,' says the young man; and he shows him
how to scoop them up with both his hands and so pour them in.
'Ah, to be sure!' answers the man, and gives him a hundred scudi for
the favour he has done him.
'There is my second simpleton,' says the young man, and goes further.
The third day----Ah! I can't remember what he meets the third day;
but it is something equally stupid, and he gets another hundred scudi,
and goes back and marries the girl as he had promised.
When they had been married some time, he goes out for two or three
days to shoot.
'I'll come with you,' says the wife.
'Well, it's not quite the thing,' answered he; 'but perhaps it's
better than leaving you at home; but mind you pull the door after you.'
'Oh yes, of course,' answers the simple wife, and pulls it so
effectually that she lifts it off its hinges and carries it along
with her.
When they had gone some way he looks back and sees her carrying
the door.
'What on earth are you bringing the door along for!' he cries.
'You told me to pull it after me,' answers she.
'Of course, I only meant you to pull it to, to make the house secure,'
he says.
'If merely pulling it to, made the house secure, how much securer it
must be when I pull it all this way!' answers she.
He finds it useless to reason with her, and they go on. At night they
climb up into a tree to sleep, the woman still carrying the door with
her. A band of robbers come and count their gains under the tree; the
woman from sheer weariness, and though she believes it will rouse the
robbers to come and kill them, drops the door upon them. They take
it for an earthquake and run away. The man and his wife then gather
up the money, and are rich for the rest of their lives.
2
[A version from Sinigaglia was very like the last. It only took up the
story, however, after the husband and wife are married. The first silly
thing the wife does is the feat of the 'brocoli strascinati,' as in
'La Sposa Cece,' No. 2. Some variety is always thrown in in the way
of telling. This wife was represented as having a very sweet voice,
and saying, 'Si, si, marito mio!' in the gentlest and tenderest
way in the world, to everything her husband tells her, though she
mismanages everything so. After the brocoli affair he tells her to
cook some beans for dinner. 'Si, si, marito mio,' she says in her
sweet tone, but takes four beans only and boils them in a pot of
water. When he comes in and asks if the beans are done, she says,
'Si, si, marito mio!' She says she has cooked two beans apiece,
but one has boiled away, so she will only take one for her share.
He finds it impossible to live with her, and goes away, but she in
her simplicity says if he goes away she will go with him! When he
finds he can't prevent this he tells her to pull the door after her,
and the story has the same ending as the last.
After tales of simple wives come similar tales of simple boys. Compare
'Russian Folktales,' pp. 10 and 49. An analogous incident to the
selling of the linen to a statue in the following is told of a grown-up
peasant in Grimm's 'Der gute Handel,' p. 30, which story is not unlike
one called 'How the poorest became the richest' I have given from the
German-Tirolese province of Vorarlberg at the end of 'Household Stories
from the Land of Höfer,' a close counterpart of which I have met in
a Roman periodical, told as collected at Modena. The Italian-Tirolese
counterpart bears the name of 'Turlulù,' and resembles the Roman very
closely. There is a place in German Tirol where they not only tell the
story, but point out the Bildstocklein (the wayside image), to which
the simple boy sold his linen; I cannot recall the place now, though I
remember having occasion to mention it in 'Traditions of Tirol' in the
'Monthly Packet.' In the German there is also 'Der gescheidte Hans,'
which is somewhat different in structure; but Scheible, 'Schaltjahr,'
i. 493, gives a story which contains both ways of telling.]