A dog passed by, and the same happened to him as to the ox. After many animals had passed, a little mouse went by and said: "How pretty you are! do you want me for your husband?" She said: "Let me hear you sing." The mouse sang, and went pi, pi, pi! His voice pleased the ant, and she took him for her husband.
Sunday came, and while the ant was with her friends, the mouse said: "My dear little ant, I am going to see whether the meat that you have put on the fire is done." He went, and when he smelled the odor of the meat, he wanted to take a little; he put in one paw and burned it; he put in the other, and burned that too; he stuck in his nose, and the smoke drew him into the pot, and the poor little mouse was all burned. The ant waited for him to eat. She waited two, she waited three hours, the mouse did not come. When she could wait no longer, she put the dinner on the table. But when she took out the meat, out came the mouse dead. When she saw him the ant began to weep, and all her friends; and the ant remained a widow, because he who is a mouse must be a glutton. If you don't believe it, go to her house and you will see her.
17. Other Italian versions are: Pitrè, No. 136, "Li Vecchi" ("The Old Folks"); and Nov. fior. p. 567, "The Story of Signor Donato."
18. There are two versions of this story in Pitrè, No. 139, and notes. They differ but little from the one we have translated. An Istrian version is in Ive, Fiabe pop. rovignesi, 1878, No. 4, "I tri fardai," and a Corsican one in Ortoli, p. 278.
19. Other Italian versions are: Coronedi-Berti, p. 49, "La Fola d' Zanninein;" and Bernoni, Trad. pop. p. 79, "Rosseto."
20. There is another Italian version in Fiabe Mantovane, No. 31, "The Wolf." The only parallel I can find to this story out of Italy is a negro story in Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1877, "Folk-Lore of the Southern Negroes," p. 753, "Tiny Pig." Allusion is made to the Anglo-Saxon story of the "Three Blue Pigs," but I have been unable to find it.
21. A Sicilian version is in Pitrè, No. 278, "L' Acidduzzu" ("Little Bird"), and one from Tuscany in Nerucci, Cincelle da Bambini, No. 12.
22. Köhler, in his notes to this story, gives parallels from various parts of Europe. To these may be added Asbjørnsen and Moe, Nos. 42, 102 [Dasent, Tales from the Fjeld, p. 35, "The Greedy Cat"]. Comp. Halliwell, p. 29, "The story of Chicken-licken." A French version is in the Romania, No. 32, p. 554 (Cosquin, No. 45), where copious references to this class of stories may be found. Add to these those by Köhler in Zeitschrift für rom. Phil. III. p. 617.
