pay you with ringing coin (good money); we have each eight satchels, four with holes and full of wind, and four without bottom." While she prepared the stew a strong pain came into the sole of her foot. "Oh, I am dying, I am dying!" "Well, fair lady, this is nothing. Go out and throw aside the earth, for there is a horse dead these fifty days. Take a piece, pound it and anoint the sole of the foot with it, and at once the pain will be gone."
The foregoing is from Borghetto and is in rhyme. A variant is given from Vicari:
There were once three brothers, one naked and two stripped. They had three guns, one without a trigger and two of which the triggers were gone. They went to hunt and caught three rabbits, two fled and one escaped. The one that escaped they put into the sack. They came to an open space, where there was a cottage without roof and without walls. They knocked at one that was not there. A woman answered them who was not dwelling there: "What do you want, sirs?" "We are three brothers, one naked and two stripped; we have three guns, one without a trigger and two of which the triggers are gone. We went hunting and caught three rabbits; two fled and one escaped. The one that escaped we have put into the bag; and now we come here and want it cooked." "Gentlemen!" answered the woman, "I have three pots, one without bottom, and two bottomless; if you are satisfied I will cook it in that which is without bottom." While she stood cooking the rabbit in the pot without bottom, bang! It struck one of the brothers with a pain in the little bone which corresponds with the floor of the palace. "Oh, I am dying, I am dying!" They called a doctor. The doctor said: "Take a horse, take out the entrails, pound them in a mortar, and make a plaster (?)" They did so, and the brother was cured.
