Page:Crane Italian Popular Tales.djvu/313



the Reformation, Europe was, by its religion and the culture growing out of it, a homogeneous state. Not only, however, did the legends of the Church find access to the people everywhere, but the stories imported from the Orient were equally popular and widespread. The absence of other works of entertainment and the monotonous character of the legends increased the popularity of tales which were amusing and interesting. We have considered in other places the fairy tales and those stories which are of more direct Oriental origin. In the present chapter we shall examine those stories which are of the character of jests or amusing stories, some of which are also Oriental, but may more appropriately be classed in this chapter. The first story we shall mention is familiar to the reader from the ballad of "King John and the Abbot of Canterbury," in Percy and Burger's poem of Der Kaiser und der Abt. There are two popular versions in Italian, as well as several literary ones. The shortest is from Milan (Imbriani, Nov. fior. p. 621), and is entitled:

There was once a lord whose name was "Abbot-who-eats-and-drinks-without-thinking." The king went there and saw this name on the door, and said that if he had nothing to think of, he would give him something to think of. He told him that he must do in a week the three things which he told him. First, to tell him how many stars there were in heaven, how many fathoms of rope it would take to reach to heaven, and what he, the king, was thinking of.