[4] ‘Cartoccio,’ a conical paper parcel. [↑]
[5] ‘Bacchettino da comando.’ [↑]
[6] ‘Biocca cogli polsini d’oro,’ a hen and chickens all of gold; ‘biocca’ is a word used by peasants for ‘gallina,’ and ‘polsini’ for ‘pollastri.’ [↑]
[7] ‘Pescheria,’ ordinarily ‘fish-market,’ but sometimes, as in this place, a tank or piece of water for preserving fish for table. That so large a fish as a whale should be kept in one, is only one of the exaggerations proper to the realm of fable. [↑]
[8] The very incident which occurs in the stepmother story of ‘How the Serpent-gods were Propitiated,’ in ‘Sagas from the Far East.’ [↑]
THE POT OF MARJORAM.[1]
They say there was once a father who was a rich, very rich, merchant, and the daughters had been used all their lives to have every thing that money could buy them, so that one day when the father was going to a distant mart where he expected to find the choicest wares, and asked them what he should bring home, they scarcely knew what to ask. But when he told them he expected to find shawls of such brilliant hues as they had never seen, with gold threads interwoven, the eldest instantly begged him to bring her one of these; and when he said he expected to find coverlets of bird plumage vieing with the rainbow in brilliancy, the second entreated him to bring her one of these.
The third daughter, however, who was distinguished by stay-at-home habits, and by her distaste for vanity of every kind, would not have any of these gay ornaments, though he not only offered her shawls and coverlets such as her sisters revelled in the idea of possessing, but precious jewelry, sparkling rubies, and rarest pearls. She would have none of these, but asked him only to bring her a pot of marjoram, which she wanted for household uses as none was to be got in the country where they were living.
The father soon after set out on his travels, and having reached his destination did not fail, while laying in his rare and precious stock, to select the choicest specimens to bestow on his two eldest daughters.