Page:Crane Italian Popular Tales.djvu/421

Rh R. F. T. p. 30. The literature of the story of "The Clever Girl" may be found in Child's English and Scottish Popular Ballads, Part I. p. 6, "The Elfin Knight."

28. Fiabe Mantovane, No. 41, "Gàmbara." The Italian for crab is gambero. There is a Tuscan story (Nov. pop. tosc. p. 8), "Il Medico grillo" ("Doctor Cricket"), with reference perhaps to the other meaning of grillo, whim, fancy, which reminds one of the story in the text. The pretended doctor cures a king's daughter by making her laugh so hard that she dislodges a fish-bone that had stuck in her throat. Doctor Cricket becomes so popular that the other doctors starve, and finally ask the king to kill him. The king refuses, but sets him a difficult task to do, namely, to cure all the patients in the hospital; failing to accomplish this, he is to be killed or dismissed. Doctor Cricket has a huge cauldron of water heated, and then goes into the wards and tells the patients that when the water is hot they are all to be put into it, but if any one wishes to depart he can go away then. Of course they all run away in haste, and when the king comes the hospital is empty. The doctor is then richly rewarded, and returns to his home.

For parallels to our story see Pitrè's notes, vol. IV. p. 442, and to the Tuscan story above-mentioned.

Another Tuscan version has recently been published in Nov. tosc. No. 60. See also Grimm, No. 98; Asbjørnsen, Ny Sam. No. 82 [Dasent, Tales from the Fjeld, p. 139, "The Charcoal Burner"]; Caballero, Cuentos, p. 68; Orient und Occident, I. 374; and Benfey, Pant. I. 374. There is a story in Straparola (XIII. 6) that recalls the story in our text. A mother sends her stupid son to find "good day" (il buon dì). The youth stretched himself in the road near the city gate where he could observe all those who entered or left the town. Now it happened that three citizens had gone out into the fields to take possession of a treasure that they had discovered. On their return they greeted the youth in the road with "good day." The youth said, when the first one saluted him: "I have one of them," meaning one of the good days, and so on with the other two. The citizens who had found the treasure, believing that they were discovered, and that the youth would inform the magistrates of the find, shared the treasure with him.