‘Willingly,’ replied the king, stooping over the oven. But on the brink he paused a moment and called to Ciccu, ‘Tell me, Ciccu, how did you manage to prevent the fire burning you?’
Now Ciccu could not forgive his master, whom he had served so faithfully, for sending him to his death without a thought, so he answered, ‘I rubbed myself over with fat, and I am not even singed.’
When he heard these words, the king, whose head was full of the princess, never stopped to inquire if they could be true, and smeared himself over with fat, and sprang into the oven. And in a moment the fire caught him, and he was burned up.
Then the fairest in the world held out her hand to Ciccu and smiled, saying, ‘Now we will be man and wife.’ So Ciccu married the fairest in the world, and became king of the country.
Don Giovanni De La Fortuna
Sicilianische Mahrchen
There was once a man whose name was Don Giovanni de la Fortuna, and he lived in a beautiful house that his father had built, and spent a great deal of money. Indeed, he spent so much that very soon there was none left, and Don Giovanni, instead of being a rich man with everything he could wish for, was forced to put on the dress of a pilgrim, and to wander from place to place begging his bread.
One day he was walking down a broad road when he was stopped by a handsome man he had never seen before, who, little as Don Giovanni knew it, was the devil himself.
‘Would you like to be rich,’ asked the devil, ‘and to lead a pleasant life?’