The blessed Mary, great and glorious as she is—she must not take it amiss—was one day too lazy to go out on behalf of her son to distribute his gifts among the children of the village. So when she left the house with the loaves of bread, some cake, and other gifts which she was to distribute, under her arm, she met the tortoise.
“Good morning,” said the one. “Welcome, daughter,” said the other. St. Mary said, “Prithee, auntie, just give this bread as alms for souls to the boys of the village.”
“That is not much, my daughter, I will willingly do it,” and taking the bread under her arms, there she went crawling along until she came to the boys.
The tortoise had scarcely left her, when St. Mary bethought herself that it might have been better if she herself had given the alms away, and not sent them through a stranger. So without more ado she followed the way the tortoise had gone, and came to the school.
What did she see there? Auntie tortoise performed her deed as she had promised, and going from boy to boy gave everyone a bit. But when at last she came to the youngest, who was her own child, she took out the cake and gave it to him. “I should like to know,” said St. Mary, “how it happened that the last piece to be given away was a cake?”
“Well, daughter, or rather mother, I had kept the cake for the most beautiful child, and I could not find anyone more beautiful than mine.” St. Mary, who had heard many things, when she heard this, could not help laughing aloud.
When she stopped laughing she was rather sorry, for why should she have laughed so loud? She said, “Verily, there is nothing more beautiful in the eyes of a mother than her own child.”
Her beautiful face grew sad, and in order that her laughter should not bewitch the little tortoise—as if struck by the evil eye for being praised as beautiful—she spat out upon the ground, and out of the spittle there grew the silkworm. St. Mary blessed it and said, “Thou shalt live upon green leaves, and thou shalt draw out fine silk threads” (like the thread of the spittle). It is therefore forbidden to say anything evil of the silkworm, or to touch it whilst it is spinning the cocoon, for no sooner is an evil word spoken or the worm touched, than it stops drawing the silk.
The variant from the Balkans is as follows: