[549] Cfr. the first of the Tuscan stories of Santo Stefano di Calcinaia.—In the preceding chapter, we have seen how the apples of a certain apple-tree cause horns to grow on whoever eats them. In an unpublished Italian story, instead of the apple-tree, we have the fig-tree, and instead of horns, the tail. It is narrated by an old man of Osimo, in the Marches:—Three poor brothers, having but little inclination for work, go in search of fortune round the world. Overtaken in the country by night, they fall asleep in the open air. A fairy, under the aspect of a hideous old woman, comes up and wakens them, offering herself as their wife. The three brothers excuse themselves, and declare that they wish for nothing except a little money with which to make merry. The fairy answers, "Tell me what you wish for, and you shall have it." The first asks for a purse, which shall always be full of money; the second for a whistle, by blowing into which a whole army of brave combatants would be summoned to his side; the third a mantle, which would make its wearer invisible. The fairy satisfies them, and then disappears in flames, like the devil. The eldest brother, Stephen, goes with his purse into Portugal, where he plays and loses, but still remains rich. This comes to the queen-dowager's ears, who wishes to see the stranger, hoping to possess herself of his secret; she feigns to love him, and the wedding-day is fixed; but before it comes she has already gained his confidence, and taking the purse from him, she orders him to be flogged. Stephen returns to his brothers, relates his grievance, and proposing to revenge himself upon the queen, induces them to lend him the whistle, which calls armies into existence. The queen softens towards him, protesting that she expected to the last that he would have appeared on the day appointed for the wedding, and that he had been flogged without her knowledge. Stephen gives way, and the whistle passes out of his hands into those of the queen. He is flogged again, but twice as severely as before. Again he has recourse to his brothers; he implores, supplicates, and promises to get everything back by the miraculous mantle; but having obtained it, he allows himself to be deceived once more by the queen. Deprived of everything, he wanders about in despair, reduced to beggary. In the middle of January, he sees a tree covered with beautiful figs; desirous of them, he eats with avidity; but for every fig that he swallows, a span of tail as thick as a boa grows on to him. He goes on his way, still more desperate, till he finds more figs, of a smaller size; he eats them, and the tail disappears. Contented with this discovery, he fills a basket with the first figs, and disguised as a countryman, comes to the palace of the Queen of Portugal. Every one marvels on seeing such fine figs in January. The queen buys the basket, and every one eats; but tails immediately grow on their backs. Stephen then dresses himself as a doctor, and with the little figs, cures many persons. The queen has him called; he obliges her to confess to him first, and in the confession makes her say where the three marvellous gifts of the fairy are kept. Having recovered them, he leaves the queen with ten spans of tail, and returns rich and happy to his brothers. In this story there must be some parts wanting; it is probable that the fairy warned the brothers not to discover their secret to any one. The last enterprise, moreover, is more likely to have been undertaken by the third brother, who always assumes in fairy tales the part of the cunning one, than by the first-born, who in this story represents the part of the fool.—Polydorus speaks of the horse's tail as a chastisement for an insult to Thomas Archbishop of Canterbury, in the thirteenth book of his Hist. Angl.:—"Irridentes Archiepiscopum, caudam equi cui insidebat, amputarunt. At postea nutu Dei ita accidit, ut omnes ex eo hominum genere qui id facinus fecissent, nati sunt instar brutorum caudati."
[550] Hiraṇyakarṇam maṇigrîvam arṇas; Ṛigv. i. 122, 14.
[551] Ilíou Halôsis, 65-72.
[552] In the before-quoted collection of Radloff, Täktäbäi Märgän.
Longa solitos caligine pasci
Terruit orbis equos; pressis hæsere lupatis
Attoniti meliore polo; rursusque verendum
In chaos obliquo pugnant temone reverti.
Claudianus, De Raptu Proserpinæ, ii. 193.
[554] Phainomena, 215.
[555] Mbh. i. 1470, 1471.
[556] Quelli cavalli che sono de pilo morello se fanno de humore colerico impero che e più caldo humore et sicco che non e lo sangue et per questo produce ad nigredine el pelo. I tre Libri della Natura Dei Cavalli et del Modo di medicar le Loro Infermità, composti da Maestro Agostino Columbre; Prologo. 6, Vinegia, 1547.