Note 19 — Chapter XII

Wilson remarks that this presents some analogy to the story in the Decamerone (Nov. 7 Gior. 8) of the scholar and the widow “la quale egli poi, con un suo consiglio, di mezzo Luglio, ignuda, tutto un dì fa stare in su una torre.” It also bears some resemblance to the story of the Master Thief in Thorpe’s Yule-tide Stories, page 272. The Master thief persuades the priest that he will take him to heaven. He thus induces him to get into a sack, and then he throws him into the goose-house, and when the geese peck him, tells him that he is in purgatory. The story is Norwegian. See also Sir G. W. Cox’s Mythology of the Aryan Nations, Vol. 1. p. 127.