You take the mace; you, the hammer;
you, the tongs!" Brother Giovannone asked: "What are you going to do
with these instruments?" "We are going to beat you." "In the name of
Brother Giovannone, into my pouch with you, all you devils!" Then he
hung the pouch about his neck and carried all the devils to a smith who
had eight apprentices, and the master, nine. "Master-smith, how much do
you want to hammer this pouch eight days and nights?" They agreed upon
forty ounces, and hammered day and night and the pouch was not reduced
to powder, and Brother Giovannone was always present. The last day the
smiths said: "What the devil are these; for they cannot be pounded
fine!" Brother Giovannone answered: "They are indeed devils! Pound
hard!" After they were through hammering, he took the pouch and emptied
it out in the plain; the devils were so bruised and mangled that they
could hardly drag themselves back to hell. Then Brother Giovannone went
and knocked again at paradise. "Who is there?" "Brother Giovannone."
"There is no room for you." "Peter, if you don't let me in I will call
you baldhead." "Now that you have called me baldhead," said St. Peter,
"you shall not enter." Brother Giovannone said: "Ah, what is that you
say? I will be even with you!" So he stood near the gate of paradise
and said to all the souls who were going to enter: "In the name of
Brother Giovannone, into my pouch, all you souls!" and no more souls
entered paradise. One day St. Peter said to the Master: "Why do no more
souls enter?" The Lord answered: "Because Brother Giovannone is behind
the gate putting them all in his pouch." "What shall we do?" said St.
Peter. The Lord answered: "See if you can get hold of the pouch and
bring them all in together." Brother Giovannone heard all this outside.
What did he do? He said: "Into the pouch with myself!" and in a moment
was in his own pouch. When St. Peter looked Brother Giovannone was not
to be seen, so he seized the pouch and dragged it into paradise and shut
the gate at once, and opened the pouch. The first one who came out was
Brother Giovannone himself, who began at once to quarrel with St. Peter
because St. Peter wished to put him out, and Brother Giovannone did not
want to go. Then the Lord said: "When one once enters the house of
Jesus, he does not leave it again."[20]

* * * * *

These stories have close parallels in two Roman legends collected by
Miss Busk. In the first, t