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After doing his mother a hundred bad services, Vardiello, who is a beast, loses a piece of her cloth. When he foolishly tries to get it back from a statue, he becomes rich. When Meneca had finished her tale, which was judged to be no less wonderful than the others, packed as it had been with curious events that had kept her audience hanging by its tail right up until the end, Tolla, following the prince’s command, followed. Without wasting time she spoke in this manner : “If Nature had given animals the need to clothe themselves and spend money for meals, the race of quadrupeds would without a doubt have been destroyed. But they are able to find food without a farmer having to pick it, a buyer to purchase it, a cook to prepare it, or a steward to carve it, and their own hide defends them from rain and snow without a merchant to give them fabric, a tailor to make them clothing, or an errand boy to ask for a tip. But Nature didn’t think about giving man, who has intelligence, this convenience, because man knows how to procure what he needs by himself. That’s the reason why it’s normal to see the wise penniless and the beastly rich, as you’ll be able to gather from the tale that I am about to tell you. “Grannonia of Aprano1 was a woman of great judgment, but she had a son named Vardiello who was the most good-for-nothing simpleton of the 4 Vardiello Fourth Entertainment of the First Day 70 AT 1381: The Talkative Wife and the Discovered Treasure, and AT 1381B: The Sausage Rain (or Rain of figs, fishes, or milk). Penzer notes that “this is one of the well-known ‘fool’ or ‘noodle’ stories.” Grimm 59 (“Freddy and Katy”) follows it closely, and nos. 7, 32, and 185 contain some similar motifs. The motif of “the trick by which the fool is made to appear mad” also appears in the “Tale of Sinbad” in Arabian Nights. There are numerous Italian versions of similar fool tales; in southern Italy, especially Sicily, the fool often goes by the name of Giufà. “The closest to ‘Vardiello’ is Gonzenbach 37 (‘Giufà’), where Giufà says, ‘Don’t you remember when I brought you home the pot, and in the night the Christ child rained figs and raisins from heaven into my mouth?’” (1:48). Croce also cites variants in Pitrè, Fiabe, nove. e racc. siciliani 190 (“Giufà”) and Nov. e legg. toscane 32 (“Giucca”), G. Morlini, Novellae, fabulae, comoedia (1528) 49, and Giulio Cesare Croce’s Bertoldino (Croce, Lo cunto de li cunti, 286). 1. A small town twenty kilometers from Naples, near Aversa. town. Even so, since a mother’s eyes are bewitched and see things that aren’t there, she had an unbounded love for him and brooded and preened him as if he were the most lovely creature in the world. “Grannonia had a mother hen that was brooding her chicks, in whom she had placed all her expectations, hoping that it would be a good hatch from which she could squeeze a nice profit. And so when she had to go out on an errand, she called her son and said to him, ‘Mommy’s dear little boy, listen here: keep an eye on that hen, and if she gets up to peck, take care to make her get back into the nest, or else the eggs will get cold and then you won’t have eggies or cheep-cheeps.’ ‘This fellow will take care of it,’ said Vardiello, ‘you’re not talking to deaf ears.’ ‘One more thing,’ replied his mother. ‘Look, my blessed son: inside that cupboard there’s a little jar of some poisonous stuff. Make sure not to commit the awful sin of touching it, or you’ll stretch out your legs for the last time.’ ‘God forbid!’ answered Vardiello. ‘Poison won’t get me; and you’re a crazy-headed wise woman for warning me, since I might have bumped straight into it and then neither fishbones nor gristle could have blocked its way.’ “And so his mother left, and Vardiello was there by himself. So as not to waste any time he went out to the garden and set about making little ditches covered with twigs and earth for children to fall into. But right when he was in the middle of the job...

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