l and large trees together, and a handsome youth cutting down now a
large tree, now a small one, with a single stroke of a bright axe. Then
he passed through a door with the ass, and sees St. Joseph, and St.
Peter, and all the saints, and among them God the Father. Farther on
Peppe sees many saints, and among them the parents of Spadonia. Finally
Peppe comes where the Saviour and his Mother are on a throne. The Lord
says to him that Spadonia must marry a maiden named Secula, and open an
inn, in which any one may eat and lodge without cost. The Lord then
explains what Peppe has seen. The river of water is the good deeds of
men which aid and refresh the poor souls in purgatory; the river of milk
is that with which Christ was nourished; and the river of blood that
shed for sinners. The thin cattle are the usurers, the fat, the poor who
trust in God, the youth felling the trees is Death.

Peppe returns and tells his master all he had seen, and Spadonia wanders
forth in search of a maiden called Secula. He finds at last a poor girl
so called, and marries her, and opens an inn as he had been directed.
After a time the Lord and his Apostles visit the inn, and the king and
his wife wait on them, and treat them with the utmost consideration. The
next day after they had departed Spadonia and his wife find out who
their guests were, and hasten after them in spite of a heavy storm. When
they overtake the Lord they ask pardon for their sins, and eternal
happiness for all belonging to them. The Lord grants their request, and
tells them to be prepared at Christmas, when he will come for them. They
return home, give all their property to the poor, and at Christmas they
confess, take communion, and die peacefully near each other, together
with Secula's old parents.

This curious legend has no parallels in Italy out of Sicily. It is,
however, found in the rest of Europe, the best parallel being _L'Homme
aux dents rouges_, in Blade, _Agenais_, p. 52. Koehler cites Blade,
_Contes et proverbes pop. rec. en Armagnac_, p. 59, and Asbjornsen, No.
62 [Dasent, _Tales from the Fjeld_, p. 160, "Friends in Life and
Death"]. To these may be added the story in Schneller, p. 215, and the
references given by Koehler in his notes to Gonz., No. 88.

[19] See Champfleury, _De la litterature populaire en France. Recherches
sur les origines et les variations de la legende du bonhomme Misere_,
Paris, 1861. It contains a reprint of the oldest yet known editi