“Will you make a wager as to who will throw a stone farthest?”
He accepted the wager. That evening our madman was very sad. While he was at his prayers, an old woman appeared to him, and asks him—
“What is the matter with you? Why are you so sad?”
He tells her the wager that he has made with the Tartaro. The old woman says to him—
“If it is only that, it is nothing.”
And so she gives him a bird, and says to him—
“Instead of a stone, throw this bird.”
The madman was very glad at this. The next day he does as the old woman told him. The Tartaro’s stone went enormously far, but at last it fell; but the madman’s bird never came down at all.
The Tartaro was astonished that he had lost his wager, and they make another—which of the two should throw a bar of iron the farthest. The madman accepted again. He was in his little house sadly in prayer. The old woman appears again. She asks him—
“What’s the matter with you?”