As chance would have it, when the queen gave birth, in the king's court there was also a bitch who gave birth to three botoli cubs, which by combination also had a star on their foreheads and a white mark on their necks. Then the envious sisters were taken by a diabolical instinct, and took away the puppies that were still attached to the mother's womb, and brought them to the king's mother; they bowed long and said, "Our Lady, we know that you dislike our sister, and rightly so, for marrying your child despite her humble beginnings, and this makes her unworthy and unfit in your eyes to occupy the throne. And so, knowing this, we have come to bring you just these three trapdoor dogs that, just like the children born of our sister, have this star on their foreheads.
Now tell us, what do you think?" Which immediately caught the perverse imagination of her mother-in-law, who had the idea of showing the dogs to Chiaretta and tell her that those were the children she had just given birth; she knew she could do it, since the poor girl had not yet seen her offspring, and therefore could easily be deceived. And to ensure that the truth never came out, she ordered the comar that had acted as a midwife during childbirth, to keep the secret, and confirm to the queen that she had actually given birth to three dogs instead of three children. When this was done, her mother-in-law and sisters went to Chiaretta's bed, put the three dogs in her lap and said, "Here is the fruit of your breast, Queen. Serve carefully these precious gifts you have given to your husband, so he will be happy when he returns: "And they mockedly added that these are things that sometimes happen. Thus, the three wicked men had fulfilled their diabolical mission, destining three innocent creatures to cruel death. They had a box made where the three children rested, and left them to their destiny by entrusting them to the river, sure that they would soon have a bad end; but the Lord God, who is good and just, could not allow the crime of three innocent creatures, and so made sure that no harm happened to them: At that very moment, a miller named Marmiate passed by the river bank, who, seeing the strange box, grabbed it and opened it, and saw that inside there were three puppets laughing; and seeing that they were very beautiful, he thought that they were children of some noblewoman, who had abandoned them for some shady reason. He then closed the box and took it home and showed it to his wife, who was called Gordiana, and said to her, "Look, my wife, what I found on the river bank: I'll give it to you. When the good woman, seeing those poor unfortunate children, welcomed them into her house and loved them as if they were her children, and because they had been found in the middle of the water, they called the two males Acquirino and Fluvio, and gave the female the beautiful name of Serena.
Meanwhile, King Ancillotto was looking forward to his return, and happy as an Easter, he could not wait to meet the beautiful little children that his wife had promised him, but unfortunately for him things did not go as he hoped, because the astute mother, seeing him return, ran to meet him, and immediately told him that his good wife, instead of three Christians, had given birth to three dogs. He took him to the room where Chiaretta still lay desperately, and showed him the three puppies. Chiaretta wept desperately, and denied having given birth to them, but the wicked sisters played the game of her mother-in-law, confirming that it was all true. Then the king got into a lot of trouble for this fact, and almost fainted from sorrow; and when he found out, he remained in doubt for a long time, because he did not know whether to believe his mother and sisters-in-law, or his wife. In the end she was convinced to prove them right, and since the poor queen endured with stoic patience and nobility the contempt of her sisters and mother-in-law, she did not have the heart to condemn her to death, but ordered that she be locked up under the kitchens of the palace, and that for food she have the scraps and rubbish that threw down in that stinking cell.
While the unfortunate queen was relegated to that unseemly life, the miller's good wife had a son they called Borghino, and with love and care grew all three children as brothers. Every month Gordiana cut and popped out their beautiful ringed hair to the twins, and in doing so, from their foliage fell large precious stones and white pearls, which made the joys of the miller, who soon became a great lord. So he, Gordiana, with Borghino and the three twins lived for years in economic tranquillity. When they were teenagers, they overheard Marmiate and Gordiana talking about their origins, and so they discovered that they had been adopted. Their sorrow was great, but they asked their adoptive parents to leave to make a fortune; Marmiate and Gordiana at the time would not have wanted to let them go.
The continuation should be...