Who was the most astonished? Truly the king and the Princess, when the latter only succeeded in watering her stockings, for the charming channel, wherein the young man had laboured with the girl, from being narrow, had grown great.
Judge then if the peasant was satisfied. The Princess, though she did not let the youth perceive it, was likewise satisfied. And the king gave his daughter to the young man, their nuptials were celebrated, the young peasants became princes, and all lived happily ever afterward.
THE COMB.[83]
An old man bought a sheep’s cloak for his wife, and he futtered her the whole night long at the foot of the fence. In the morning the weather was damp, and the old woman, with back bent, went weeping; but the old man followed and mounted her. Said the woman to her husband:
“Tear me not in this fashion, Gabriel!”
But the man was hard of hearing, knew not what she said, thrust his yard into her, and futtered her dog-fashion.... The eye is ne’er too weary to see, nor the backside to fizzle, nor the nose to take snuff, nor the coynte to lose the chance of a goodly futter.... But this by way of a prelude ... a foreword.
Once there lived a pope,[84] who possessed a daughter, a virgin and an artless. And when summer came the pope was wont to hire workmen to mow the hay; and he hired them in this wise: