s remained in peace.
After a time the wife had a son, whom they named Bastianelo, and
Bastianelo did not die, but still lives with his father and mother.[4]

There is (Professor Crane remarks) a Sicilian version in Pitre's
collection, called "The Peasant of Larcara," in which the bride's mother
imagines that her daughter has a son who falls into the cistern. The
groom--they are not yet married--is disgusted, and sets out on his
travels with no fixed purpose of returning if he finds some fools
greater than his mother-in-law, as in the Venetian tale. The first fool
he meets is a mother, whose child, in playing the game called
_nocciole_.[5] tries to get his hand out of the hole whilst his
fist is full of stones. He cannot, of course, and the mother thinks they
will have to cut off his hand. The traveller tells the child to drop the
stones, and then he draws out his hand easily enough. Next he finds a
bride who cannot enter the church because she is very tall and wears a
high comb. The difficulty is settled as in the former story. After a
while he comes to a woman who is spinning and drops her spindle. She
calls out to the pig, whose name is Tony, to pick it up for her. The pig
does nothing but grunt, and the woman in anger cries, "Well, you won't
pick it up? May your mother die!" The traveller, who had overheard all
this, takes a piece of paper, which he folds up like a letter, and then
knocks at the door. "Who is there?" "Open the door, for I have a letter
for you from Tony's mother, who is ill and wishes to see her son before
she dies." The woman wonders that her imprecation has taken effect so
soon, and readily consents to Tony's visit. Not only this, but she loads
a mule with everything necessary for the comfort of the body and soul of
the dying pig. The traveller leads away the mule with Tony, and returns
home so pleased with having found that the outside world contains so
many fools that he marries as he had first intended.[6]

In other Italian versions, a man is trying to jump into his stockings;
another endeavours to put walnuts into a sack with a fork; and a woman
dips a knotted rope into a deep well, and then having drawn it up,
squeezes the water out of the knots into a pail. The final adventure of
the traveller in quest of the greatest noodles is thus related in Miss
Busk's _Folk-lore of Rome_:

Towards nightfall he arrived at a lone cottage, where he knocked, and
asked for a night's lodging. "I can't give y