to Valencia; and when asked how her underskirt
happened to be there in the palace, she asked in turn who had brought
it. "Fortunato," she was told. Then she said, "The underskirt is
mine. The knight Fortunato declared his love to me, but I rejected
it because I am married. He stole the underskirt while I was taking
a bath, and ought to be punished." When confronted with the charge,
Fortunato denied the theft, and maintained that he had been given the
garment by Estela as a token of her love for him. When Rodolfo heard
this denial, he begged the king to assemble all the dignitaries and
judges in the kingdom. Before the court Rodolfo asked Fortunato for
definite proof to back up his assertions. He was unable to give any,
and was consequently sentenced to be deported for ten years to a
lonely island. Rodolfo and his wife were now honored by the king,
and Rodolfo was finally made a knight.

Although this portion of the romance is only a distant analogue
of out story, inasmuch as it lacks both the wager and the clever
trick of the wife to get her maligner to convict himself, I give it,
because this same combination of the "chastity-wager" motive with the
"hen-divided" motive (see first part of "Rodolfo," notes to No. 7)
occurs in a Mentonese story, "La Femme Avisee" (Romania, II : 415-416).
The tale may be briefly summarized:--

A prince benighted in a forest is entertained for the night at a
countryman's house. At dinner the prince carves the fowl, and gives the
head to the father, the stomach to the mother, and the heart to the
daughter. On the old man's complaining later of his guest's strange
division of the bird, the girl explains to her father just why the
prince acted as he did. The prince overhears her, admires her wit,
falls in love with her, and marries her. Some time afterward the
prince is called to Egypt on business. He leaves his wife behind at
home, and she promises to be very discreet. The prince communicates
her promise to a friend, who wagers that he will be able to tell the
prince of any defects on her body. The friend goes to the home of
the prince and bribes the lady-in-waiting. She informs him, that,
beautiful as the young wife is, she has a strawberry-mark on her
shoulder. When the prince, on his return, is told this intimate detail
by his friend, he is very angry, and, going home, accuses his wife of
faithlessness. She proves her innocence by going before the king and
swearing that her maligner h