Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 4 1886.djvu/348

 340 upon him. It rests upon the outcast youth. Meantime, his mother has died of grief, and his father is tormented with remorse. The latter confesses, but his confessor refuses him absolution, referring him to the bishop. The bishop, in turn, refers him to the pope. The new pope hears his confession, and, finding him truly penitent, "Your son is not dead," he cries, "he occupies a high rank which he even owes to you. If you had not been so cruel to him, he would not be to-day sovereign pontiff. Embrace me, my father!"

The Mantuan story of Bobo differs but in unimportant details. The father's rage at the folly of his son's acquirements is told with full appreciation of its comic side. A dog's heart is the proof of the execution of this father's murderous commands. The robbers have not undermined the house where the hero finds shelter, but attack it in a more commonplace manner. The sick maiden, whom he heals, has for six years been punished with disease for the impiety of flinging the sacred host into a pond, where it has become a plaything for frogs. The youth falls in with two men reposing one hot day under a chestnut tree. They are going to Rome to the election of pope. Sparrows on the tree foretell that one of the three will be elected pope that day. Arrived in the church where the new pontiff is to be revealed, a dove alights on the hero's head, and he is conducted to the throne. Meantime, in a corner of the church a cry is heard. It is his father, dying with remorse. Bobo recognizes, and has just time to pardon him ere he expires.

A variant from Upper Brittany is less severe to the parents. Here it is the mother who first becomes indignant at the hero's folly; but at last the father's patience also is worn out, and the youth is