e he met a butcher and said to him: "Would you like to
buy these swine? I will sell them to you at half price if you will give
me back the ears and tails." The butcher bought the whole herd, and paid
Giufa the money, together with the ears and tails.

Giufa then went to a bog near by and planted two ears close together and
three spans off a tail, and so with all of them. Then he ran in great
trouble to the farmer and cried: "Sir, imagine what a great misfortune
has happened to me. I had fattened your swine beautifully and was
driving them home when they fell into a bog and are all swallowed up in
it. The ears and tails only are still sticking out." The farmer hastened
with all his people to the bog, where the ears and tails still stuck
out. They tried to pull the swine out, but whenever they seized an ear
or a tail it came right off and Giufa exclaimed: "You see how fat the
swine were: they have disappeared in the marsh from pure fatness." The
farmer was obliged to return home without his swine, while Giufa took
the money home to his mother and remained a time with her.

One day his mother said to him: "Giufa, we have nothing to eat to-day;
what shall we do?" "Leave it to me," said he, and went to a butcher.
"Gossip, give me half a _rotulu_ of meat; I will give you the money
to-morrow." The butcher gave him the meat and he went in the same way to
the baker, the oil-merchant, the wine-dealer, and the cheese-merchant
and took home to his mother the meat, macaroni, bread, oil, wine, and
cheese which he had bought on credit, and they ate together merrily.

The next day Giufa pretended he was dead and his mother wept and
lamented. "My son is dead, my son is dead!" He was put in an open
coffin and carried to the church and the priests sang the mass for the
dead over him. When, however, every one in the city heard that Giufa was
dead, the butcher, the baker, the oil-merchant, and the wine-dealer
said: "What we gave him yesterday is as good as lost. Who will pay us
for it now?" The cheese-dealer, however, thought: "Giufa, it is true,
owes me only four _grani_[T] but I will not give them to him. I will go
and take his cap from him." So he crept into the church, but there was
still a priest there praying over Giufa's coffin. "As long as the priest
is there, it is not fitting for me to take his cap," thought the
cheese-merchant, and hid himself behind the altar. When it was night the
last priest departed and the cheese-merchant w