There once was a king who had three sons of marriageable age. This is how a folktale from Piedmont, told by Italo Calvino, begins. There was rivalry, so the king decided to sort out their inheritance with three stones. One after the other, the kids would use a slingshot to send their stone as far as they possibly could. Where the stone fell, they would find a partner.
The first stone, of the eldest son, landed on the roof of a bakery, and the second on the house of a weaver, while the stone of the youngest’s landed in a ditch. Each grabbing a ring, the three boys charged off to meet their match. Arriving at the bakery, the first met a girl as beautiful as a just-baked focaccia. At the weaver’s house, meanwhile, there was a young woman with hair like silken thread. And, from the ditch, emerged a frog.
