and went. Arriving there, they took out the stone, and the father
entered. As he entered he stuck fast in the pitch. He tried to help
himself and get his feet loose, but his hands stuck fast. Then he said
to his son: "Do you hear what I tell you, my son? Cut off my head, tear
my coat to pieces, put back the stone as it was, and throw my head in
the river, so that I shall not be known." The son did as he was told,
and returned home. When he told his mother what had become of his
father, she began to tear her hair. After a few days, the son, who did
not know any trade, entered the service of a carpenter, and told his
mother not to say anything, as if nothing had happened.

Let us leave these and return to the king, who went the next day with
his councillors to the country-house. They entered and saw the body, and
the king said: "But it has no head! How shall we find out who it is?"
The councillors said: "Take him and carry him through the streets three
days; where you see weeping you will know who it is." They took the
body, and called Filippu Carruba and Brasi Vuturu,[D] and made them
carry it about. When they passed through the street where the mason's
widow lived, she began to weep. The son, whose shop was near by, heard
it, and gave himself a blow in the hand with an axe and cut off his
fingers. The police arrested the mother, saying: "We have found out who
it is." Meanwhile the son arrived there and said: "She is not weeping
for that; she is weeping because I have cut off my fingers and can no
longer work and earn my bread." The police saw it was so, believed him,
and departed. At night they carried the body to the palace and built
outside a scaffold to put the body on, because they had to carry it
around three days. About the scaffold they placed nine sentinels--eight
soldiers and a corporal. Now it was in the winter and was very cold; so
the son took a mule and loaded it with drugged wine, and passed up and
down. When the soldiers saw him they cried: "Friend, are you selling
that wine?" He said: "I am." "Wait until we drink, for we are trembling
with the cold." After they had drunk they threw themselves down and went
to sleep, and the son took the body, and, after he had buried it outside
of the town, returned home.

[Footnote D: Names of two undertakers in Salaparuta, where the story was
collected.]

[In the morning the soldiers awoke and told the king what had happened,
and he issued a proclamation that whoever