Note: Translator Pauline Bancroft Flach died in 1966, less than 70 years ago. Therefore, this work is protected by copyright, restricting your legal rights to reproduce it. However, you are welcome to view it on screen, as you do now. Read more about copyright.
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48 THE MIRACLES OF AJVTICHRIST
III
THE GOD-SISTER
In the noble island of Sicily, where there are more
old customs left than in any other place in the south,
it is always the habit of every one while yet a child
to choose a god-brother or god-sister, who shall
carry his or her children to be christened, if there
ever are any.
But this is not by any means the only use
god-brothers and sisters have of one another.
God-brothers and sisters must love one another, serve one
another, and revenge one another. In a god-brother’s
ear a man can bury his secrets. He can trust him
with both money and sweetheart, and not be deceived.
God-brothers and sisters are as faithful to each other
as if they were born of the same mother, because
their covenant is made before San Giovanni Battista,
who is the most feared of all the saints.
It is also the custom for the poor to take their
half-grown children to rich people and ask that they
may be god-brothers and sisters to their young sons
and daughters. What a glad sight it is on the holy
Baptist’s day to see all those little children in
festival array wandering through the great towns
looking for a god-brother or sister! If the parents
succeed in giving their son a rich god-brother, they
are as glad as if they were able to leave him a farm
as an inheritance.
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