and "I told you" day
after day, she got him to go to the wood for a faggot, saying, "Come
now, it is time for us to get a morsel to eat, so run off for some
sticks, and don't forget yourself on the way, but come back as quick as
you can, and we will boil ourselves some cabbage, to keep the life in
us."

Away went the stupid Peruonto, hanging down his head as if he was going
to gaol. Away he went, walking as if he were a jackdaw, or treading on
eggs, counting his steps, at the pace of a snail's gallop, and making
all sorts of zigzags and excursions on his way to the wood, to come
there after the fashion of a raven. And when he reached the middle of a
plain, through which ran a river growling and murmuring at the bad
manners of the stones that were stopping its way, he saw three youths
who had made themselves a bed of grass and a pillow of a great flint
stone, and were lying sound asleep under the blaze of the Sun, who was
shooting his rays down on them point blank. When Peruonto saw these
poor creatures, looking as if they were in the midst of a fountain of
fire, he felt pity for them, and cutting some branches of oak, he made
a handsome arbour over them. Meanwhile, the youths, who were the sons
of a fairy, awoke, and, seeing the kindness and courtesy of Peruonto,
they gave him a charm, that every thing he asked for should be done.

Peruonto, having performed this good action, went his ways towards the
wood, where he made up such an enormous faggot that it would have
needed an engine to draw it; and, seeing that he could not in any way
get in on his back, he set himself astride of it and cried, "Oh, what a
lucky fellow I should be if this faggot would carry me riding
a-horseback!" And the word was hardly out of his mouth when the faggot
began to trot and gallop like a great horse, and when it came in front
of the King's palace it pranced and capered and curvetted in a way that
would amaze you. The ladies who were standing at one of the windows, on
seeing such a wonderful sight, ran to call Vastolla, the daughter of
the King, who, going to the window and observing the caracoles of a
faggot and the bounds of a bundle of wood, burst out a-laughing--a
thing which, owing to a natural melancholy, she never remembered to
have done before. Peruonto raised his head, and, seeing that it was at
him that they were laughing, exclaimed, "Oh, Vastolla, I wish that I
could be your husband and I would soon cure you of laughing at me!"