“To-morrow you must go to court. Put the bird in a box and carry it with you; and when the king asks for it, put it on the table, that it may declare the wickedness of the dowager-queen, and the innocence of your mother.” So the next day the three went to the palace and were invited to dine with the king. There were the queen-mother and the witch also present. “Ah,” said the latter sneeringly, “you’ve kept your promise finely, haven’t you?” “Certainly we have,” they answered. “Why,” said the king, “where is the bird?” They opened the box, and the Sound and Song of the Lovely Sibyl flew on to the table and told the whole black tale of deceit. Then the queen-mother was burnt in the great public square, and the witch in a smaller square; but the children’s mother was crowned queen again amid the shouts of the people, and her husband and her children loved her dearly. * * * * * “So,” concluded old ’Drea, “innocence triumphs over vice.” THE SNAKE’S BOUDOIR THIS story was told me by a woman who lives here in Genoa during the winter, but goes up into the mountains for the summer. She says she is quite sure it is true: “_ma poi non lo so_.” I wish I could tell it as well as she did:— * * * * * Not far from the villa where she goes in the summer, a stream makes a pool where the women go to do their washing. The pool is surrounded by stones and rocks, and once when the women were washing they noticed a very large snake (_biscia_) gliding among the rocks. They watched him and saw that at a certain place he stopped, put something down behind a stone, and went away. The women went to look, and found his poison like two little horns. In the evening he came back, went to the place where he had hidden his fangs, found them, and fixed them in position again. This happened several days in succession, until one of the women suggested that they should steal the poison-fangs, and see what happened. So the next day they took them into the house with them, and stood at the window to watch the _biscia_. When he came back and could not find his poison fangs, he gave every sign of the utmost surprise; he looked again and again behind the stone where he had left them, as though to say:—“This was certainly the place!” He examined all the stones round the pool, and at last, hissing with rage, began to dash his head against the stones. And the women were watching him all the time from the window. After a while he was so overcome with despair that he gave his head an extra hard knock and split open his skull so that he died. POMO AND THE GOBLIN HORSE