Let’s lead out with Burton’s summary:
Belluccia, daughter of Ambruoso de Ia Varra, being obedient to her father, and acting prudently in his commands, becometh the wife of a rich youth. Narduccio hight, the first-born of Biasillo Guallecchia. Her sisters, being poor, are dowered by Biasillo, and given in marriage to his other sons.

There was a farmer, called Ambruoso, who was very poor. HJe had only a forest of garlic to his name, and he had seven daughters to support. His best friend, Biasillo, was rich and had seven sons. Now, in the parts of Central Queensland I was raised in, there would have been a pretty obvious ending to this story right here, but sexism raises its ugly head.

Biasillio’s eldest son, Narduccio, who he loves the most, because medieval people are monsters, gets deathly ill. No amount of money spent on cures seems to help. The father asks his friend, “Do you have kids?”. Ambruso is so embarrassed that he has daughters lies, and says he has fours sons and three daughters. Basillio says “You’d be doing me a great favour if you sent one of your sons to cheer mine up.”

Ambrusio, instead of saying “I’m a bit sexist and lied.” instead goes home to his girls and asks each one to cut her hair, dress like a man, and pretend to be male, to keep the handsome, rich bachelor company. In a distinct show of spirit, the first six tell him no. His eldest says that cutting hair is a sign of mourning, and she’ll chop hers off when he dies. So – over his dead body. The second says she’s not even married, so she won’t she cut her hair like a widow. The third says she has always been told that women should never wear breeches. The fourth one does a quick cat impersonation and says she won’t fish for cures where the chemists have failed. The fifth says to tell the man to cure himself, for she won’t give a single hair for “a hundred threads of men’s lilacs.” The sixth says she was born a woman, and will live and die a woman. The seventh, a shy and retiring girl, knows the rest of her sisters have refused, so she says yes. She says that if her father needs it, she’d be willing to change shape into an animal. They cut off her blond hair, and put her in an old coat, then head for Resina, where Biasillo lives.

Narduccio, not being an idiot, sees that his new companion is a woman. He thinks she’s been sent as a marital snare, and this makes him sad. His condition worsens. His mother, Cola, then goes on about how much she loves him for a couple of paragraphs, to get him to spill the beans. Narduccio says he believes his new companion’s a woman, and unless he can marry her he’s decided to die. Oddly, his mother does not tell him to wake up to himself, but plots to discover if “the land is cropped or full of trees”. You’ll need to pardon me here, but “full of trees”? How many trees is a man supposed to have in his trousers? let’s move on.

The mother designs a test. She tells Narduccio to send his new companion to ride their wildest pony. If she’s a woman, she’ll go white and nearly faint from fear, apparently. This plan falls before Belluccia’s Olympic-standard dressage skills, and Cola says to her son “Look, clearly that’s a guy. He’s the best horseman anyone’s seen.” Narduccio is still convinced, so strongly that “not even Scannarebecco” can drive it from his head. Presumably that’s one of the popular biographies of the Skanderbeg? He was a bit of a literary hit in the Fifteenth Century. His mother sees he’s still obsessed and comes up with a second test.

The mother sends for a gun, and demands Belluccia load and shoot. She does, and Narduccio, discovering that he has a kink for pentathletes, is filled with longing and desire. The mother says to her son “Women can’t do that.” and her son answers with some sexual wordplay, saying if this graceful tree will give him a fig, he’ll give a fig to all the doctors. The fig, here, is representative of female genitalia, and a rude hand gesture that is meant to look like genitalia. He also says that he will lose strength daily until he has her, and if her cannot find his way to a pit, he will fall into another kind of pit. This mother and son, it seems, are sex positive to the point of having no boundaries.

The mother returns with more wordplay, but the basic idea is to go swimming with him and see if he has a Circus Maximus or a Trajan’s Column. He continues the wordplay, but by this stage its really tedious to a modern reader. This must have been edgy stuff at the time. Narduccio gets one of his father’s apprentices to hide in the bushes, with instructions to come out while they are swimming and tell the Bellucia her father is dying and that she needs to rush to his bedside, so she will run out of the water to get dressed. The apprentice mistimes it, so that they haven’t fully undressed, let alone entered the water, before delivering the message. She leaves, and Narduccio apparently gets both anemia and jaundice for the lack of her.

His mother saves his life by pointing out he can just go to her father’s house and rush in impolitely, so she doesn’t have time to change gear if she’s a woman. He recovers some colour and goes off to try the plan, but the father manages to delay him, and Bellucia changes her clothes. Fortunately for the reader, she forgets to take out her earrings, so her gender is revealed. Narduccio asks Bellucia to marry him and her father answers “If you’re father’s good with it, I’m a hundred times good with it” which is horrible, because we never hear Bellucia say “Yes.” Still, she seems up for it, in the story, so they go to his dad’s house.

He’s fine with it. Biasilio’s just puzzled by all the crossdressing. When his friend explains he didn’t want to be known as “such an ass that Heaven sent him seven daughters”, Biasillo decides that the best way to sort all of this out, given that he’s rich and has way too many sons, is to just marry all of them off in a single service. This saves him money on weddings, or course, but I presume he saw what a whiny pain in the arse his oldest was, and decided he wasn’t going to put up with that every year or so for the next six years. We end on a wedding and a big dance number. So, it’s better than “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers”, which was where I thought we’d end up.

Why its called the Garlic Patch I don’t know. It’s probably some sort of double entendre.

Rosella

Burton’s take on this is “A sultan is recommended to bathe in the blood of a great lord, and he sendeth his folk to seize a prince. His daughter falleth in love with the prisoner, and they fly together; her mother followeth them, and her hands are cut off. She dieth with grief, cursing her daughter, so that the prince forgetteth her. After various ruses and tricks played by her, her husband remembereth her once more, and they live and enjoy themselves happily together.”

There was a Sultan with leprosy, and that his doctors could not cure. They told him to do an impossible thing, so that their professional standing would not be harmed. Bathe, they advised, in the blood of a great prince. The Sultan sent out his fleet and network of agents, and eventually they kidnap Paoluccio, te Prince of Fonte-Chiaro. They take him to Constantinople (so this story is set after the invasion).

The doctors get together and agree that when the Sultan bathes in the blood, and the cure fails, they are for it. “Sorry chief.”, they say, “He’s so sad at being captured its made his blood melancholic. No good for leprosy, that melancholic blood. You need to give him time to chill out and brighten up. Get him to be sanguine and you’ll be apples, boss. He needs good food and fine company. Party on, my Sultan. Party on.” Then if they have any sense they sell everything and move to Alexandria.

The Sultan believes this seems fair enough, and so puts the prince in a paradisal garden, where it is always spring and there are beautiful fountains. Birds call, cool breezes blow. The Sultan also send his gorgeous daughter, Rosella, with the implication the prince may marry her at some point. This gets the blood pumping, but in a twist that the Sultan did not see coming because he’s genre blind, his daughter falls of the captive.

The lad having perked up, the Sultan gets the doctors, who still haven’t headed for the hills, and tells them its time for his bath. Rosella discovers the whole plan via the arts of geomancy taught her by her mother. She’s not well pleased, and gives her beau an enchanted sword and a warning. She says to him “Head for the coast, and because of this sword, the sailors will treat you like an emperor. Hide out and wait for me.” Paoluccio, given his previous option was becoming bodywash, gets right on that plan and flees. Rosella casts a spell upon a paper and slides into her mother’s pocket, so that falls deep asleep. Then she collects a a large bundle of jewels and other valuables, and high-tails it to the boat.

The Sultan goes to the garden. No prince. No daughter. He can’t wake his wife even by pulling her nose. He calls her handmaidens and says “The Queen’s had a fit, give her a cool bath”. When they undress her, the spell is broken. She’s not well pleased. She runs to the sea, throws a leaf on the water, and turns it into a ship. She gives chase.

Rosella can’t see her mother yet, but she knows she’s coming. She says “Hey, Paul. Go stand in the stern and when you hear grappling chains, shut your eyes and just go to town with the sword, OK? I mean, just wreck anything that comes in reach.” In a lucky hit, when the battle is joined, he slashes off the sultana’s hands. She heads home, and has some final words to the king, and then her spirit goes to pay the one who taught her the dark arts. The Sultan dies of grief.

When the ship arrives at Fonte-Chiaro, Paoluccio says “Wait here while I got tell the ‘rents I’m not dead, and get you an entourage, babe.” As soon as his foot touches ground, however, he forgets Rosella exists. Rosella waits three days, then works out that Paoluccio ‘s had his memory wiped. Time to sort that out. I’m starting to hate this trope, because I feel like this is the third or fourth time we have struck it in the Pentamerone. Rosella rents a palace across from his palace, according to Burton. Is that house palaces work?

Paoluccio is having a heck of a time: feasts and parties and so forth. Sonnets and music and inebriation are the way of things. Rosella tells a knight of high birth that if he bought her a thousand ducats and a nice dress, she’ll give him proof of her affection. He borrowed the money at high interest and handed it over, because he’s a bit of a fool. Rosella meets him in her bedroom and tells him to close the door before he comes to bed. Each time he shuts it, it opens again, and he does this for hours until the day returns. Rosella satirises him as wanting to open her casket of love but not being able to close a door, and he leaves in shame.

The next night she pulls the same trick with a baron, who pawns all of his goods to get the money together. She tells him to blow out the candle and come to bed, but it won’t go out. Each time he blows, his breath acts as bellows and makes it shine brighter. She sends him on his way with mockery. She pulls the same trick on a third night, this time by having the man comb knots from her hair for the entire evening.

Slightly later, one of the men is complaining of his fate in a salon. He is overheard by the mother of one of the other men, and they agree that a problem shared is halved, so they hunt around and find the third. They form a league to seek revenge, and go to the king. He sends for Rosella, and asks “What makes you think I’ll let you get away with this?”

She answers “I did this to avenge a greater wrong.” but in a paragraph, because that’s how the Pentamerone goes. He asks what she’s talking about, and she gives her life story without identifying the prince. The king says that ingratitude is terrible, seats her nobly, and asks for the name of the man who has wronged her. She takes off her ring and says “The one whose finger fits this is the unfaithful traitor who wronged me.” It then flies to the prince’s finger and restores his memory. He begs her forgiveness, and she says that it’s not necessary, because he was under her mother’s curse. The king decides they need to marry right away, but pauses to have Rosella baptised.

I have no idea why she ripped off those three guys.

The moral is “Ever with time and straw thou mayest see the medlar ripen”. Medlars are a fruit that is used as a symbol for the female genitalia in medieval writing. This is a sort of sly joke that no longer lands.

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