Roman Legends: A collection of the fables and folk-lore of Rome

by Rachel Harriette Busk

Presently the husband came with his friend, ready for dinner, knocking at the door. None of the three dared to move, however, that they might not cease to be fulfilling his injunctions. Then he looked through the keyhole, and, seeing them all sitting down without moving when he knocked, he thought they must all be dead; so he ran and fetched a locksmith, who opened the door for him.

‘What on earth are you all doing there,’ exclaimed the hungry husband, ‘instead of getting dinner ready?’

‘You told me to put the meat behind me, and I have done so,’ answered the simple wife.

Then he saw they were sitting on the meat. Out of all patience with such idiocy, he exclaimed: ‘This is the last you’ll ever see of me. At least I promise you not to come back till I have met three other people as idiotic as you, and that’s hardly likely to occur.’

With that he took his friend to a tavern to dine, and then put on a pilgrim’s dress and went wandering over the country.

In the first city he came to there was great public rejoicing going on. The princess had just been married, and the court was keeping high festival. As he came up to the palace the bride and bridegroom were just come back from church. The bride wore one of those very high round headdresses that they used to wear in olden time, with a long veil hanging from it. It was so very high that she could not by any means get in at the door, and there she stuck, not knowing what to do. Then she began to cry, saying: ‘What shall I do? what shall I do?’

‘Shall I tell you what to do?’ said the pilgrim-husband, drawing near.

‘Oh, pray do, if you can; I will give you a hundred scudi if you will only show me how to get in.’

So he went and made her go a few steps backward, and then bow her head very low, and so she could pass under the door.

‘Really, I have found one woman as simple as my people at home,’ said the pilgrim-husband, as he sat down to the banquet at the special invitation of the princess, in reward for his services. Afterwards she counted out a hundred scudi to him, and he went further.