There is quite as droll a version current among the people of Ceylon, to the following effect:  A gentleman once had in his employment twenty-five idiots.  In the old times it was customary with Sinhalese high families not to allow their servants to eat from plates, but every day they were supplied with plantain leaves, from which they took their food.  After eating, they were accustomed to shape the leaf into the form of a cup and drink out of it.  Now in this gentleman’s house the duty of providing the leaves devolved upon the twenty-five idiots, who were scarcely fit for any other work.  One day, when they had gone into the garden to cut the leaves, they spoke among themselves and said, “Why should we, every one of us, trouble ourselves to fetch plantain leaves, when one only could very easily do it?  Let us therefore lie down on the ground and sleep like dead men, and let him who first utters a sound or opens his eyes undertake the work.”  It was no sooner said than done.  The men lay in a heap like so many logs.  At breakfast-time that day the hungry servants went to the kitchen for their rice, only to be disappointed.  No leaves were forthcoming on which to distribute the food, and a complaint was made to the master that the twenty-five idiots had not returned to the house since they went out in the morning.  Search was at once made, and they were found fast asleep in the garden.  After vainly endeavouring to rouse them, the master concluded that they were dead, and ordered his servants to dig a deep hole and bury them.  A grave was then dug, and the idiots were, one by one, thrown into it, but still there was no noise or motion on their part.  At length, when they were all put into the grave, and were being covered up, a tool employed by one of the servants hit sharply by accident against the leg of one of the idiots, who then involuntarily moaned.  Thereupon all the others exclaimed, “You were the first to utter a sound; therefore from henceforth you must take upon yourself the duty of providing the plantain leaves."[10]

It has already been remarked that a literary Italian version of the Silent Couple is found in the Nights of Straparola, but there are other variants orally current among the common people in different parts of Italy.  This is one from Venice:  There were once a husband and a wife.  The former said one day to the latter, “Let us have some fritters.”  She replied, “What shall we do for a frying-pan?” “Go and borrow one from my godmother.”  “You go and get it; it is only a little way off.”  “Go yourself, and I will take it back when we are done with it.”  So she went and borrowed the pan, and when she returned said to her husband, “Here is the pan, but you must carry it back.”  So they cooked the fritters, and after they had eaten, the husband said, “Now let us go to work, both of us, and the one who speaks first shall carry back the pan.”  Then she began to spin, and he to draw his thread—­for he was a shoemaker—­and