A woman sent her son one day to buy a sheep's head and pluck, and, lest he should forget his message, he kept bawling loudly as he went along, "Sheep's head and pluck! sheep's head and pluck!" In getting over a stile he fell and hurt himself, and forgot what he was sent for, so he stood a little to consider; and at last he thought he recollected it, and began to shout, "Liver and lights and gall and all!" which he was repeating when he came up to a man who was very sick. The man, thinking the booby was mocking him, laid hold of him, and after cuffing him, bade the booby cry, "Pray God, send no more up!" So he ran along uttering these words till he came to a field where a man was sowing wheat, who, on hearing what he took for a curse upon his labour, seized and thrashed him, and told him to repeat, "Pray God, send plenty more!" So the young jolterhead at once "changed his tune," and was loudly singing out these words when he met a funeral. The chief mourner punished him for what he thought his fiendish wish, and bade him say, "Pray God, send the soul to heaven!" which he was bawling when he met a he and a she-dog going to be hanged. The good people who heard him were greatly shocked at his seeming profanity, and striking him, strictly charged him to cry, "A he and a she-dog going to be hanged!" On he went, accordingly, repeating this new cry, till he met a man and a woman going to be married. When the bridegroom heard what the booby said, he gave him many a good thump, and bade him say, "I wish you much joy!" This he was crying at the top of his voice when he came to a pit into which two labourers had fallen, and one of them, enraged at what he thought his mockery of their misfortune, exerted all his strength and scrambled out, then beat the poor simpleton, and told him to say, "The one is out; I wish the other was!" Glad to be set free, the booby went on shouting these words till he met with a one-eyed man, who, like the others, taking what he was crying for a personal insult, gave him another drubbing, and then bade him cry, "The one side gives good light, and I wish the other did!" So he adopted this new cry, and continued his adventurous journey till he came to a house, one side of which was on fire. The people, hearing him bawling, "The one side gives good light, and I wish the other did!" at once concluded that he had set the house a-blazing; so they put him in prison, and the end was, the judge put on the black cap and condemned him to be hanged![5]
When the noodle is persuaded, as in the following case of a Sinhalese wittol, by a gang of thieves to join them in a plundering expedition, they have little reason to be pleased with him, for he does not make a good "cat's-paw." The Sinhalese noodle joined some thieves, took readily to their ways, and was always eager to accompany them on their marauding excursions. One night they took him with them, and boring a large hole in the wall of a house,[6] they sent him in, telling him to hand out the heaviest article he could lay hands upon. He readily went in, and seeing a large kurakkan-grinder,[7] thought that was the heaviest thing in the room, and attempted to remove it. But it proved too much for him alone, so he gently awoke a man who was sleeping in the room, and said to him, "My friend, pray help me to remove this kurakkan-grinder." The man immediately guessed that thieves had entered the house, and gave the alarm. The thieves, who were waiting outside quite expectant, rushed away, and the noodle somehow or other managed to escape with them.
Next night they again took him along with them, and after boring a hole in the wall of another house, sent him in with strict injunctions not to make a noise or wake anybody. He crept in noiselessly and entered a large room, in which was an old woman, fast asleep by the fire, with wide-open mouth. An earthen chattie, a wooden spoon, and a small bag of pease were also placed by the fire. The noodle first proceeded to roast some pease in the chattie. When they were roasted to a nice brownish colour, and emitted a very tempting smell, he thought that the old woman might also enjoy a mouthful. He considered for a while how he might best offer some to her. He did not wish to wake her, as he was ordered not to wake anybody. Suddenly a bright idea struck him. Why should he not feed her? There she was sleeping with her mouth wide open. Surely it would be no difficult task to put some pease into her mouth. Taking some of the hot, smoking pease into the wooden spoon, he put the contents into her mouth. The woman awoke, screaming with all her might. The noise roused the other inmates of the house, who came rushing to the spot to see what was the matter. This time also the noodle managed to escape with the thieves; but in a subsequent adventure he, as well as the thieves, came to grief.[8]
The silly son of Italian popular tales is represented as being sent by his mother to sell a piece of linen which she had woven, saying to him, "Now listen attentively to what I say: Walk straight along the road. Don't take less than such a price for this linen. Don't have any dealings with women who chatter. Whether you sell it to any one you meet on the way, or carry it into the market, offer it only to some quiet sort of body whom you may see standing apart and not gossiping or prating, for such as they will persuade you to take some sort of price that won't suit me at all." The booby answers, "Yes, mamma," and goes off on his errand, keeping straight on, instead of taking the turnings leading to villages. It happened, as he went along, that the wife of the syndic of the next town was driving out with her maids, and had got out of the carriage, to walk a short distance, as the day was fine. Her maid tells her that there goes the simple son of the poor widow by the brook. "What are you going to do, my good lad?" kindly asks the lady. "I'm not going to tell you," says the booby, "because you were chattering." "I see your mother has sent you to sell this linen," continues the lady; "I will buy it of you," and she offers to pay twice as much as his mother had said she wanted. "Can't sell it to you," replies he, "for you were chattering," and he continues his journey. Farther along he comes to a plaster statue by the roadside, so he says to himself, "Here's one who stands apart and doesn't chatter; this is the one to sell the linen to," then aloud, "Will you buy my linen, good friend?" The statue maintained its usual taciturnity, and the booby concluded, as it did not speak, it was all right, so he said, "The price is so-and-so; have the money ready by the time I come back, as I have to go on and buy some yarn for mother." On he went accordingly, and bought the yarn, and then came back to the statue. Some one passing by had in the meantime taken the linen. Finding it gone, "It's all right," says he to himself; "she's taken it," then aloud, "Where's the money I told you to have ready?" The statue remained silent. "If you don't give me the money, I'll hit you on the head," he exclaimed, and raising his stick, he knocked the head off, and found it filled with gold coin. "That's where you keep your money, is it? All right; I can pay myself." So saying, he filled his pockets with the coin and went home. When he handed his mother the money, and told her of his adventure with the quiet body by the roadside, she was afraid lest the neighbours should learn of her windfall if the booby knew its value, so she said to him, "You've only brought me a lot of rusty nails; but never mind: you'll know better what to do next time," and put the money in an earthen jar. In her absence, a ragman comes to the house, and the booby asks him, "Will you buy some rusty nails?" The man desires to see them. "Well," quoth he on beholding the treasure, "they're not much worth, but I'll give you twelve pauls for the lot," and having handed over the sum, went off with his prize. When his mother comes home, the booby tells her what a bargain he had made for the rusty nails. "Nails!" she echoes, in consternation. "Why, you foolish thing, they were gold coins!" "Can't help that now, mamma," he answers philosophically; "you told me they were old rusty nails." By another lucky adventure, however, the booby is enabled to make up his mother's loss, finding a treasure which a party of robbers had left behind them at the foot of a tree.
The incident of a simpleton selling something to an inanimate object and discovering a hidden treasure occurs, in different forms, in the folk-tales of Asiatic as well as European countries. In a manuscript text of the Arabian Nights, brought from Constantinople by Wortley Montague, and now preserved in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, a more elaborate version of the Italian booby's adventure with the statue is found, in the "Story of the Bang-eater and his Wife:"