a glove, and a ring. In a Tuscan tale published by Signor Nerucci,[1] the heroine is cursed and driven away by her father. Her nurse accompanies her for a while, and buys the skin of an old woman recently dead as a disguise for her. The maiden enters the service of another king; but she is, as in the Venetian variant, discovered by his son.
In the Sicilian version[2] several interesting variations occur. It is the elder sisters who contrive the heroine's escape from the death to which her father has condemned her. They provide a bitch, which is killed, and the heroine's shift, bearing the marks of blows, is dipped in its blood, and carried back to the king, together with the beast's tongue. Meantime the girl falls in with a "Savage Man," to whom she tells her story. He takes her home and feeds her. The next morning as she dresses she hears a turkey-cock on the windows of a royal palace opposite, warning her that in vain she adorns herself, for the savage man will eat her. This she tells her patron, and the following day, according to his advice, when the turkey repeats his song, she replies that she will make a pillow of his feathers and a mouthful of his flesh, for she will marry his master. The turkey, hearing this, starts with fear, and his feathers fall out. The king's son, seeing him naked, is astonished, and watches. The day after he witnesses a repetition of the scene, and falls in love with the heroine, whom he marries with her patron's consent. The savage man, by his own directions, is put to death before the wedding, and his flesh and blood strewn about his dwelling, where they turn to gold and jewels. The heroine's father attends the feast, with the usual result.
The brothers Grimm[3] give an Austrian story, which wears a somewhat more literary shape. Here the heroine's father exclaims, "If thou love me like salt, thy love shall be rewarded with salt!" Dividing the kingdom between the two elder daughters, he therefore
- ↑ Sessanta Novelle Popolari Montalesi, Story No. 13, p. 106. See also Comparetti, Novelline Popolari Italiane, Story No. 61, vol. i. p. 264.
- ↑ Pitré, Fiabe Novelle e Racconti Popolari Slciliani, Story No. 10, vol. i. p. 83. An English translation in Crane, Italian Popular Tales, p. 333. In a variant the ill-omened bird is a parrot. Pitré, p. 90.
- ↑ Kinder und Hausmärchen, Story No. 179, 7th edition, Berlin, 1880, p. 614. Margaret Hunt's English translation, vol. ii. p. 282.
