In other Italian versions, a man is trying to jump into his stockings; another endeavours to put walnuts into a sack with a fork; and a woman dips a knotted rope into a deep well, and then having drawn it up, squeezes the water out of the knots into a pail.  The final adventure of the traveller in quest of the greatest noodles is thus related in Miss Busk’s Folk-lore of Rome: 

Towards nightfall he arrived at a lone cottage, where he knocked, and asked for a night’s lodging.  “I can’t give you that,” said a voice from the inside; “for I am a lone widow.  I can’t take a man in to sleep here.”  “But I am a pilgrim,” replied he; “let me in at least to cook a bit of supper.”

“That I don’t mind doing,” said the good wife, and she opened the door.  “Thanks, good friend,” said the pilgrim, as he sat down by the stove.  “Now add to your charity a couple of eggs in a pan.”  So she gave him a pan and two eggs, and a bit of butter to cook them in; but he took the six eggs out of his staff and broke them into the pan too.  Presently, when the good wife turned her head his way again, and saw eight eggs swimming in the pan instead of two, she said, “Lack-a-day! you must surely be some strange being from the other world.  Do you know So-and-so?” naming her husband.  “Oh yes,” said he, enjoying the joke; “I know him very well:  he lives just next to me.”  “Only to think of that!” replied the poor woman.  “And, do tell me, how do you get on in the other world?  What sort of a life is it?” “Oh, not so very bad; it depends what sort of a place you get.  The part where we are is pretty good, except that we get very little to eat.  Your husband, for instance, is nearly starved.”  “No, really?” cried the good wife, clasping her hands.  “Only fancy, my good husband starving out there, so fond as he was of a good dinner, too!” Then she added, coaxingly, “As you know him so well, perhaps you wouldn’t mind doing him the charity of taking him a little somewhat, to give him a treat.  There are such lots of things I could easily send him.”  “Oh dear, no, not at all.  I’ll do so with pleasure,” answered he.  “But I’m not going back till to-morrow, and if I don’t sleep here I must go on farther, and then I shan’t come by this way.”  “That’s true,” replied the widow.  “Ah, well, I mustn’t mind what the folks say; for such an opportunity as this may never occur again.  You must sleep in my bed, and I must sleep on the hearth; and in the morning I’ll load a donkey with provisions for my poor husband.”  “Oh, no,” replied the pilgrim, “you shan’t be disturbed in your bed.  Only let me sleep on the hearth—­that will do for me; and as I am an early riser, I can be gone before any one’s astir, so folks won’t have anything to say.”