Page:Crane Italian Popular Tales.djvu/321

Rh to see her son before she dies." The woman wonders that her imprecation has taken effect so soon, and readily consents to Tony's visit. Not only this, but she loads a mule with everything necessary for the comfort of the body and soul of the dying pig.

The traveller leads away the mule with Tony, and returns home so pleased with having found that the outside world contains so many fools that he marries as he had first intended.

The credulity of the woman in the last version, in allowing Tony to visit his sick mother, finds a parallel in a Neapolitan story (Imbriani, Pomiglianesi, p. 226) called:

Once upon a time there was a husband who had a wife who was a little foolish. One day he said to her: "Come, put the house in order, for Christmas is coming." As soon as he left the house his wife went out on the balcony and asked every one who passed if his name was Christmas. All said No; but finally, one—to see why she asked—said Yes. Then she made him come in, and gave him everything that she had (in order to clean out the house). When her husband returned he asked her what she had done with things. She responded that she had given them to Christmas, as he had ordered. Her husband was so enraged at what he heard that he seized her and gave her a good beating.

Another time she asked her husband when he was going to kill the pig. He answered: "At Christmas." The wife did as before, and when she spied the man called Christmas she called him and gave him the pig, which she had adorned with her earrings and necklace, saying that her husband had so commanded her. When her husband returned and learned what she had done, he gave her a sound thrashing; and from that time he learned to say nothing more to his wife.3