[382] The mère sotte has become proverbial in France, where, in the sixteenth century, Pierre Gringore wrote a satirical comedy with the title of Le Jeu de Mère Sotte, in which the Mère Sotte is the Catholic Church.
[383] A similar story, which, on account of its indecent details, I was not able to publish in my collection of the Novelline di Santo Stefano di Calcinaia, is narrated upon the hills of Signa, near Florence. It is also told, with some variations, in Piedmont.—Cfr. a Russian variety of the same story in the chapter on the Hen.
[384] Novelline di Santo Stefano di Calcinaia, 22.
[385] Cfr. the chapter on the Fishes.
[386] Afanassieff, vi. 59.—But in the tale v. 11, he knows how to fight well.
[387] In England the monster smells the blood of an Englishman, as in the familiar lines in Jack the Giant-Killer—
"Fe fo fum,
I smell the blood of an Englishman;
Be he alive or be he dead,
I'll grind his bones to make my bread."
[388] Cfr. Teza, The Three Golden Hairs of the Grandfather Know-all, a Bohemian tale (I tre Capelli d'oro del Nonno Satutto, Bologna, 1866).
[389] Afanassieff, ii. 7.
[390] v. 11.