So she settled herself comfortably and began the following curious tale, in which ever and anon one seems to recognise a likeness to the old Greek legend of Cupid and Psyche; but a likeness all distorted in transmission through ignorant, unimaginative minds:—
Once upon a time there was a widow with three daughters. (“Women always have three daughters in fairy tales,” she added, by way of parenthesis.) This widow was very poor, so that when a famine came over the country she and her children were almost dying with hunger, and had to go out into the fields and get grass to eat. Once as they were looking for food they found a beautiful golden cabbage. The eldest girl took a zappa (a sort of pickaxe with only one arm to it) and tried to root up the cabbage. This she could not succeed in doing, but she broke off a leaf which she took to the market, and sold for a hundred gold scudi.
The next day the second daughter went, worked all day at the cabbage, and broke off two leaves. Away she went with them to the market, and got two hundred gold scudi.
The third morning the youngest daughter took the zappa, and went into the field. At the very first stroke the whole cabbage came up, and a little man jumped out of the earth; a very tiny little man he was, but beautifully dressed. He took the maiden by the hand, and led her down a flight of stairs underground. There she found herself in a beautiful palace, such as she had never dreamt of, all golden and shining. The little man gave her a bunch of keys, and said:—
“This palace is yours, you may do what you like, and go where you like in it. You are the mistress of it. The master of it, your husband, you will not see, he will only come to you at night. Be happy, and make no effort to look at him, or you will lose everything. If you want anything in the daytime call Monte Rochettino.”
With that the little man vanished. The maiden wandered all over the new dwelling, and when it was dark she laid herself down and waited for her husband, the master of the palace. So time went on. She loved her husband, although she had never seen him, and felt that she would be very happy if only she could know something about her mother and sisters.
At last she could bear the suspense no longer, and one morning she called “Monte Rochettino!”
In an instant the little man stood before her.
“Oh, Monte Rochettino,” said she, “let me go home and see my mother and sisters. Poor things, they must be so sad at losing me; they’ll think I am dead.”
“You’ll betray me,” said Monte Rochettino.