“Then she began to lay eggs indeed—_tante_, _tante_—till they nearly filled all the room, and truly her friends were aghast at such a sight, never having heard of such a thing before; but she replied, ‘Keep quiet; it is a secret. I have found out how Furicchia gets her eggs, and we shall be as rich as she.’ And having laid her eggs, nothing would do but she must needs hatch them, and all the time for many days she sat and sat, clucking like a hen—_coccodé_! _coccodé_!—and pecking at crusts like a hen, for she would not eat in any other way. And so she sat and shrivelled up until she became a hen indeed, and was never anything else, and died one. But when the eggs hatched, there came from them not chicks, but mice, which ran away into the cellar, and so ends the story.” * * * * * This story greatly resembles one given by Peter Goldschmidt in “The Witches’ and Sorcerers’ Advocate Overthrown,” published at Hamburg in 1705, and to the same as sung in Latin song by a certain Steuccius. The Italian tale is, however, far better told in every respect, the only point in common being that a certain witch laid eggs by means of a potion, which produced the same effect on a man. It is the well-managed play of curiosity, gratitude, and character which make Furicchia so entertaining, and there is nothing in the heavy German tale like the “Song of the Hen,” or _Coccodé_, which is a masterpiece of a juvenile lyric. The clucking and pecking at crusts of the old woman, as she gradually passes into a hen, is well imagined, and also the finale of the chickens turned to mice, who all run away. One could make of it a play for the nursery or the stage. The Mercato Vecchio, in which the egg-wife dwelt, was a place of common resort in the olden time, “when there was giving and taking of talk on topics temporal:” “Where the good news fleetly flew, And the bad news ever true, Softly whispered, loudly told, Scalding hot or freezing cold.” {14} This place is recalled by a story which is indeed to be found in the facetiæ of the Florentine Poggio, yet which holds its own to this day in popular tale-telling. It is as follows: “It happened once when Florence was at war with the Duke of Milan, that a law was passed making it death for any one to speak in any way of peace. Now there was a certain Bernardo Manetti, a man _di ingegno vivacissimo_, or an extremely ready wit, who being one day in the Mercato Vecchio to buy something or other (it being the custom of the Florentines of those times to go in person to purchase their daily food), was much annoyed by one of those begging friars who go about the roads, _alla questua_, collecting alms, and who stand at street-corners imploring charity. And this brazen beggar, accosting Bernardo, said to him: “‘_Pax vobiscum_! Peace be unto you!’