ood. At the end of nine months a
knocking was heard at the door; and, descending, she found two giants,
who caught her up on their shoulders, and unceremoniously ran off with
her. They carried her to a lady who needed her offices, and she assisted
to bring into the world two fine boys. The lady evidently was fully
alive to her own dignity, for she kept the woman a proper human month,
to the distress of her husband, who, not knowing what had become of her,
searched the city night and day, and at last gave her up for dead. Then
the lady (a fairy princess she was) asked her if she wished to go, and
whether she would be paid by blows or pinches. The poor midwife deemed
her last hour was come, and said to herself that if she must die it
would be better to die quickly; so she chose blows. Accordingly the
princess called the two giants, and sent her home with a large sack of
money, which enabled her to relinquish business, set up her carriage,
and become one of the first ladies in Palermo. Ten years passed; and one
day a grand carriage stopped at her door. A lady alighted and entered
her palace. When she had her face to face, the lady said: "Gossip, do
you know me?" "No, madam." "What! do you not remember that I am the lady
to whom you came ten years ago, when these children were born? I, too,
am she who held out her hand and asked for food. I was the fairies'
captive; and if you had not been generous enough to give me to eat, I
should have died in the night. And because you were generous you have
become rich. Now I am freed, and here I am with my sons." The quondam
midwife, with tears in her eyes, looked at her, and blessed the moment
she had done a generous act. So they became lifelong friends.[29]

I have given the foregoing tale almost at full length because it has
not, so far as I know, appeared before in any other than its native
Sicilian dress, and because analogous stories are not common in
collections from Mediterranean countries. This rarity is not, I need
hardly say, from any absence of the mythological material, and perhaps
it may be due to accident in the formation of the collections. If the
story were really wanting elsewhere in Southern Europe, we might be
permitted the conjecture that its presence in Sicily was to be accounted
for by the Norman settlements there. One such story, however, is
recorded from the Island of Kimolos, one of the Cyclades, but without
the human captivity in Elfland, without the acts of c