e is a dog. This story of the Florentine
noodle--or rather Poggio's version--may have been suggested by a tale in
the _Gesta Romanorum_, in which the emperor's physician is made to
believe that he had leprosy. See my _Popular Tales and Fictions_,
where these and similar stories are compared in a paper entitled "The
Sharpers and the Simpleton."

[14] In Powell and Magnusson's _Legends of Iceland_ (Second Series,
p. 627), a woman makes her husband believe that he is dressed in fine
clothes when he is naked; another persuades her husband that he is dead,
and as he is being carried to the burying-ground, he perceives the naked
man, who asserts that he is dressed, upon which he exclaims, "How I
should laugh if I were not dead!" And in a _fabliau_ by Jean de
Boves, "Le Villain de Bailleul; _alias_, Le Femme qui fit croire a
son Mari qu'il etait mort," the husband exclaims, "Rascal of a priest,
you may well thank Heaven that I am dead, else I would belabour you
soundly with my stick."--See M. Le Grand's _Fabliaux_, ed. 1781,
tome v., pp. 192, 193.

[5] _History of the Forty Viziers; or, The Forty Morns and Forty
Eves._ Translated from the Turkish, by E.J.W. Gibb, M.R.A.S. London:
G. Redway, 1886.

[16] A variant of this is found in John Bromyard's _Summa
Praedicantium_, A 26, 34, as follows:

Quidam sedebat juxta igneum, cujus vestem ignis intrabat. Dixit socius
suus, "Vis audire rumores?" "Ita," inquit, "bonos et non alios." Cui
alius, "Nescio nisi malos." "Ergo," inquit, "nolo audire." Et quum bis
aut ter ei hoc diceret, semper idem respondit. In fine, quum sentiret
vestem combustam, iratus ait socio, "Quare non dixisti mihi?" "Quia
(inquit) dixista quod noluisti audire rumores nisi placentes et illi non
erant tales."

[17] Under the title of "The Phisitian that bare his Paciente in honde
that he had eaten an Asse" this jest occurs in _Merry Tales and Quicke
Answeres_, and Professor Crane gives a Sicilian version in his
_Italian Popular Tales_.

CHAPTER VI.

THE FOUR SIMPLE BRAHMANS.

[As a sort of supplement to the sayings and doings of the silly son, the
following highly diverting Indian tale is here inserted, from the Abbe
Dubois' French rendering of the Tamil original, appended, with others,
to his selections from the _Panchatantra_. The story is known in
the north as well as in the south of India: in the Panjabi version there
are, however, but three noodle-heroes. It will be seen that the third
Brahman