and said: "Dear
parents, tell me, am I truly not your son?" The fisherman's wife said:
"How should you not be my son? Have I not nursed you when you were a
baby?" The fisherman forbade his children very strictly to call little
Crivoliu a "foundling."

When the child was larger, the fisherman sent him to school with his
sons. The children, when they were out of their father's hearing, began
again to mock little Crivoliu and to call him "foundling," and the other
children in the school did the same. Then Crivoliu went again to his
foster-parents and asked them if he was not their son. They persuaded
him out of it, however, and put him off until he was fourteen. Then he
could no longer stand being called "foundling," and went to the
fisherman and his wife, and said: "Dear parents, I entreat you to tell
me whether I am your child or not." Then the fisherman told him how he
had found him and what was written on his shoulders. "Then I will go
forth, and do penance for the sins of my parents," said Crivoliu. The
fisherman's wife wept and lamented and would not let him go; but
Crivoliu would not be detained and wandered out into the wide world.

After he had wandered about a long time, he came one day to a lonely
place where there was only an inn. He asked the hostess: "Tell me, good
woman, is there a cave near by, to which you alone know the entrance?"
She answered: "Yes, my handsome youth, I know such a cave and will take
you to it willingly." Then Crivoliu took two _grani's_ worth of bread
and a little pitcher of water with him and had the hostess show him the
cave. It was some distance from the inn, and the entrance was so covered
with thorns and bushes that he could scarcely penetrate into the cave.
He sent the hostess back, crept into the cave, put the bread and water
on the ground, knelt with folded arms, and so did penance for the sins
of his parents.

Many, many years passed, I know not how many, but so many, that his
knees took root and he grew fast to the ground.

Now it happened that the Pope died at Rome, and a new one was to be
chosen. The cardinals all assembled, and a white dove was let loose: for
he on whom it should alight was to be Pope. The white dove made several
circles in the air, but alighted on no one. Then all the archbishops and
bishops were summoned, and the dove was again let loose, but it did not
settle on any one. Then all the priests and monks and hermits were
collected, but the white dove w