Then the traveller said, "Just wait," and came up to the
bride and gave her a slap that made her lower her head, and then he gave
the horse a kick, and so they passed through the gate and entered the
city. The groom and the owner of the horse asked the traveller what he
wanted, for he had saved the groom his bride and the owner of the horse
his horse. He answered that he did not wish anything, and said to
himself, "Two and one make three! that is enough. Now I will go home."
He did so, and said to his wife, "Here I am, my wife; I have seen three
greater fools than you;--now let us remain in peace, and think of
nothing else." They renewed the wedding, and always remained in peace.
After a time the wife had a son, whom they named Bastianelo, and
Bastianelo did not die, but still lives with his father and mother.[4]
There is (Professor Crane remarks) a Sicilian version in Pitre's
collection, called "The Peasant of Larcara," in which the bride's mother
imagines that her daughter has a son who falls into the cistern. The
groom--they are not yet married--is disgusted, and sets out on his
travels with no fixed purpose of returning if he finds some fools
greater than his mother-in-law, as in the Venetian tale. The first fool
he meets is a mother, whose child, in playing the game called
_nocciole_.[5] tries to get his hand out of the hole whilst his
fist is full of stones.
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