Thus, in one Gaelic version of this diverting story--in which our old friends the Gothamites reappear on the scene to enact their unconscious drolleries--a lad marries a farmer’s daughter, and one day while they are all busily engaged in peat cutting, she is sent to the house to fetch the dinner. On entering the house, she perceives the speckled pony’s packsaddle hanging from the roof, and says to herself, “Oh, if that packsaddle were to fall and kill me, what should I do?” and here she began to cry, until her mother, wondering what could be detaining her, comes, when she tells the old woman the cause of her grief, whereupon the mother, in her turn, begins to cry, and when the old man next comes to see what is the matter with his wife and daughter, and is informed about the speckled pony’s packsaddle, he too, “mingles his tears” with theirs. At last the young husband arrives, and finding the trio of noodles thus grieving at an imaginary misfortune, he there and then leaves them, declaring his purpose not to return until he has found three as great fools as themselves. In the course of his travels he meets with some strange folks: men whose wives make them believe whatever they please--one, that he is dead; another, that he is clothed, when he is stark naked; a third, that he is not himself. He meets with the twelve fishers who always miscounted their number; the noodles who went to drown an eel in the sea; and a man trying to get his cow on the roof of his house, in order that she might eat the grass growing there. * * * * * In Russian variants the old parents of a youth named Lutonya weep over the supposititious death of a potential grandchild, thinking how sad it would have been if a log which the old woman had dropped had killed that hypothetical infant. The parents’ grief appears to Lutonya so uncalled for that he leaves the house, declaring he will not return until he has met with people more foolish than they. He travels long and far, and sees several foolish doings. In one place a horse is being inserted into its collar by sheer force; in another, a woman is fetching milk from the cellar a spoonful at a time; and in a third place some carpenters are attempting to stretch a beam which is not long enough, and Lutonya earns their gratitude by showing them how to join a piece to it. * * * * *