There was once a couple well-to-do in the world, who had one only daughter.
The son of a neighbour came to ask her in marriage, and as the father thought he would do, the father asked him to dinner, and sent the daughter down into the cellar to draw the wine.
‘If I am married,’ said the girl to herself, and began to cry as she drew the wine, ‘I shall have a child, and the child will be a boy, and the boy will be called Petrillo, and by-and-by he will die, and I shall be left to lament him, and to cry all day long “Petrillo! Petrillo! where are you!”’ and she went on crying, and the wine went on running over.
Then the mother went down to see what kept her so long, and she repeated the story all over to her, and the mother answered, ‘Right you are, my girl!’ and she, too, began to cry, and the wine was all the time running over.
Then the father went down, and they repeated the story to him, and he, too, said, ‘Right you are!’ and he, too, began to cry, and the wine all the time went on running all over the floor.
Then the young man also goes down to see what is the matter, and stops the wine running, and makes them all come up.
‘But,’ he says, ‘I’ll not marry the girl till I have wandered over the world and found other three as simple as you.’ He dines with them, and sets out on his search.
The first night he goes to bed in an inn, and in the morning he hears in the room next him such lamenting and complaining that he goes in to see what is the matter. A man is sitting by the side of the bed lamenting because he cannot get his stockings on.
The young man says, ‘Take hold of one side this way, and the other side that way, and pull them up.’
‘Ah, to be sure!’ cries the man, and gives him a hundred scudi for the benefit he has done him.