object other than the rock or its lord is pronounced occurs in Sicily. In a tale from Termini-Imerese, told by a fisherman to Signor Giuseppe Patiri, the hero, Mastru Juseppi, is captured and enslaved by a band of twelve robbers, and he thus learns their magical formula, which is "Open, pepper!" He escapes, and enriches himself at the robbers' expense. The story follows that of Ali Baba, with adaptations, until, after his brother's funeral, the hero, who is a shoemaker, opens a new and larger shop than he had hitherto had. One day the leader of the band, disguised as a cavalier, comes and orders a pair of boots, and thenceforth gradually worming himself into the hero's confidence, he at length makes an offer of marriage with his daughter. The offer is accepted; and on a subsequent visit the robber introduces his followers into the house, with instructions to rush out of their hiding-place at a signal from him. But the hero's daughter, going into the pantry to get supper, is mistaken by one of the robbers for their leader, and asked: "Is it time, corporal?" This blunder, of course, issues in their discovery. Mastru Juseppi calls in the police; and the robbers are captured and punished for their crimes with death.[1] Here the magical word has diverged yet further from the German type. All similarity of sound has been abandoned. To the Sicilian peasant both sesame and pepper would be foreign plants vaguely known by name only. The reason which in the mind of an Oriental might have caused the German name for the mountain to be mistaken for that of a familiar grain, and which would have perpetuated the mistake once made, would have no application in Sicily; and only remembering that the word was the name of a plant he knew little about, the Sicilian peasant would adopt whichever of such names came easiest to him. The termination of the story has been adapted too; but it is a somewhat odd ending when the honest Mastru Juseppi runs for the police and gives the robbers up to justice.
Variants differing more widely than this from the tale of Ali Baba are found elsewhere on the northern and eastern shores of the island. "Open, pepper!" "Open, magpie!" (cicca, possibly a corruption of cece, chick-pease), "Open, tétima!" (perhaps a corruption of sesame), and "Open, door!" are the formulæ
- ↑ Pitré, Biblioteca, v, 391.
