‘Then, when the house was full, quite full of pilgrims, there came an old man, and begged admission. “Good man,” said Giuliano’s wife, “it grieves my heart to say so, but there is not a bed, nor so much as an empty corner left;” and the old man said:
‘“If ye cannot receive me, it is because ye have done so much charity to me already; therefore take this staff:” so he gave them his pilgrim’s staff, and went his way.
‘But it was Jesus Christ who came in the semblance of that old man; and when Giuliano took the staff, behold three flowers blossomed on it, and he said:
[Now I see this story in type I am inclined to think it is not strictly traditional, like the rest; but that the narrator had acquired it from one of the rimed legends mentioned at p. vii.]
[1] ‘Discolo,’ ‘wild,’ ‘fast.’ [↑]
[2] The shrine of S. Iago di Compostella being traditionally known to the Roman poor as ‘S. Giacomo di Galizia,’ Galizia was not very unnaturally supposed by the narrator to be the name of a town. [↑]
‘Dovene siete, poveri pellegrini,