ake my advice and
you will be saved. If any one asks you whose this castle is, say, Messer
Constantine's." So they did; and when the noble company reached the
handsome castle they asked the keepers whose it was, and all answered
boldly Messer Constantine the Lucky's. Then they entered, and were
honorably entertained. Now the castellan of that place was Signor
Valentino, a brave soldier, who, a short time before, had left the
castle to bring home the wife he had lately married; and to his
misfortune, before he reached the place where his wife was he was
overtaken on the way by a sudden and fatal accident, from which he
straightway died, and Constantine remained master of the castle. Before
long, Morando, King of Bohemia, died, and the people elected for their
king Constantine the Lucky because he was the husband of Elisetta, the
dead king's daughter, to whom the kingdom fell by right of succession.
And so Constantine, from being poor and a beggar, remained Lord and
King, and lived a long time with his Elisetta, leaving children by her
to succeed him in the kingdom.

* * * * *

For copious references to other European versions, see Koehler's notes to
Gonz., No. 65 (II. p. 242), and Benfey, _Pant._ I. p. 222.

[12] The earliest Italian versions are in the _Cento nov. ant., Testo
Papanti_ (_Romania_, No. 10, p. 191), and Straparola, XI. 2. Later
popular versions, besides the Istrian one in the text, are: Nerucci, p.
430, and Bernoni, III. p. 91, both of which are much distorted. Some of
the episodes are found in other stories, as, for instance, the division
of the property, including the wife, which occurs in Gonz., No. 74. "The
Thankful Dead" is also the subject of an Italian novel, _Novella di
Messer Danese e di Messer Gigliotto_, Pisa, 1868 (privately printed),
and of a popular poem, _Istoria bellissima di Stellante Costantina_
composta da Giovanni Orazio Brunetto.

The extensive literature of this interesting story can best be found in
D'Ancona's notes to the version in the _Cento nov. ant._, cited above.
To these may be added: Ive's notes to the story in the text, Cosquin's
notes to No. 19 of the _Contes pop. lorrains_ (_Rom._ No. 24, p. 534),
and Nisard, _Hist. des Livres pop._ II. p. 450. Basque and Spanish
versions have been published recently, the former in Webster's _Basque
Legends_, pp. 146, 151, and the latter in Caballero, _Cuentos,
oraciones_, etc., Leipzig, 1878, p. 23. A ve