nothing but
a milliner's form, and the body, a bundle of rags. Raging, he rushed
down and rummaged through the whole house, but in vain; he found only
his wife's empty jewel-box. "Ha!" he cried; "she has been stolen from
me, and her jewels, too!" and he immediately ran to inform her parents
of the misfortune. But when he came near the house, to his great
surprise he saw on the balcony above the door all three sisters, his
wives, who were looking down on him with scornful laughter.

Three wives at once terrified the Devil so much that he took his flight
with all possible speed.

Since that time he has lost his taste for marrying.[27]

* * * * *

We have already mentioned, in the class of "Bride Won by Solving
Riddle," the story in Gonzenbach of "The Robber who had a Witch's Head."
In this story, after the robber has married the first princess, he takes
her home, and learns from the witch's head, which hangs over the window
in a basket, what his wife says of him in his absence. The counterpart
of the witch's head is found in several very curious Italian stories. In
these a magician is substituted for the robber, and marries, in the same
way, several sisters. In the version in Gonzenbach, No. 23 ("The Story
of Ohime"), Ohime, the magician, leaves his wife for a few days, and
before he goes gives her a human bone, telling her she must eat it
before his return. The wife throws the bone away; but when the magician
returns he calls out: "Bone, where are you?" "Here I am." "Come here,
then." Then the bone came, and the magician murdered his wife because
she had not done her duty. The second sister is married and killed in
the same way. Then the youngest becomes the magician's bride. In her
perplexity and grief at her husband's command to eat a human arm during
his absence, she invokes her mother's spirit, which tells her to burn
the arm to a coal, powder it, and bind it about her body. When the
magician returns and asks the arm where it is, it replies: "In Maruzza's
body." Then her husband trusted her, and treated her kindly, showing
her, among other things, a closet containing flasks of salve which
restored the dead to life. He forbade her, however, to open a certain
door. Maruzza could not restrain her curiosity, and the first
opportunity she had she opened the door, and found in the room a
handsome young prince murdered. She restored him to life, heard his
story, and then killed him again,