ground, it is changed into a pomegranate which bursts, and scatters its seeds in every direction. The master transforms himself into a cock, in order to pick up the seeds, but one of them hides itself and is not observed by him. This one little seed changes itself into a fox which seizes the cock by the throat and kills him. Thereupon the king gives the youth his daughter to wife.
X. 3. The Faithful Animals (Schmidt, 215). The German version of this, see The Two Brothers, No. 60, is more complete. No. 7 in the Pentamerone has some affinity to it.
XI. 1. The He-cat (Schmidt, 180). See No. 4 in the Fragments. Gagliuso in the Pentamerone, 2, 4. Le Chat Botté in Perrault.
2. The Simpleton. Omitted in the expurgated edition, and in Schmidt.
Bertuccio, a simpleton, is not to receive what he has inherited from his father, until his thirtieth year, but his mother is to give him three hundred ducats whenever he demands them. He gets one hundred from her, and goes away and finds a man who is still striking a dead man whom he has murdered. In his compassion, the simpleton gives this man eighty pieces of gold, rescues the corpse, and spends the remaining twenty pieces in having it honourably buried. His mother is vexed at his stupidity, but he asks for the other two hundred ducats, goes away, and with the money rescues the king's daughter from some robbers. Afterwards when she is taken away to her father's court again, she tells him that she will marry none but him, and that when he comes to court he is to hold his right hand on his head, and by that she will recognize him. He rides thither on a sorry beast, and on the way meets a knight, who gives him his beautiful horse and magnificent apparel, in return for which the simpleton has to promise that when be comes back he will share with the knight all that he has gained. The handsome knight pleases the King, so Bertuccio obtains his beloved. On the way home the knight meets him, and demands half of everything. The simpleton at once divides everything which he had received on his marriage. But then the stranger knight demands half of his wife also. "How can that be done?" enquires Bertuccio. "We must cut her in two." "Nay, rather than do that, take the whole of her!" said the simpleton, "I love her far too much to consent to that." Then the stranger knight said, "Keep the whole, and take everything back again; I am the ghost of that murdered man, and I desired to repay thee for what thou didst for me."
XII. 3. Good Counsel (Schmidt, 188). A cock is beaten in order to cure a froward woman of her obstinacy. This story is borrowed from No. 71 in Morlini. It is also told in The Thousand and One Nights, but with a different beginning (1. 36, and follow-
