The Pope who knew three languages

Once, in the town of Sovana, there was an old blacksmith who despaired of his son ever learning anything. One day, he called his son and told him: “Hildebrand, my son. I have decided to send you off to the Master Librarian of Capua, so that you may learn all you can from that wise old man.” And so off the young man went and stayed a year in Capua. When he returned, the merchant asked the youth what he had learned, expecting to hear that the boy had learned a profession. “Father,” the youth replied, “I have learned what it means when a dog barks.” “Lord have mercy on us!” the merchant cried. “How can that be all you have learned? I shall send you forthwith to the Master Craftsman of Castelseprio. Perhaps he can teach you something worthwhile.” And so the youth spent a year in Castelseprio, and upon his return, reported to his father that he had learned what fishes say. “You could not have learned how to catch fish instead?” the merchant wailed. “This time, I shall send you to the Master Huntsman of Andere. If you cannot be bothered to learn a craft, you might as well learn how to hunt at least!” One year, the youth spent in Andere, under the tutelage of the Master Huntsman there. On his return, he proudly announced that he had learned what birds say. The merchant flew into a rage and immediately disowned the boy and drove him away from home. Out on his own, the youth wandered aimlessly until, when nightfall came, he knocked on the door of an inn and begged to be let in for the night. The inn keeper told him all the rooms were occupied, but if he wanted, he could stay in the old abandoned tower close by. “But I warn you, boy, that place is filled with wild dogs and no one has ever been able to go in there.” “I have no fear of dogs,” the young man said. “Only give me some scraps of meat for my meal.” The next morning, the youth returned to inn keeper and paid him with three gold coins. “How come you by this coin, young master,” the innkeeper asked. And the boy recounted how the dogs had given him the treasure they had been guarding in exchange for the scraps he had in his bowl. Later that day, the young man found a small river and laid down in the shade of the tree that grew right beside it. Before long, he had fallen asleep. As night fell, he was awoken by the sound of some fish gurgling in the river. He listened very intently and what he heard bothered him so much that he could not get back to sleep. The following day, he caught a ride with a family traveling on a wagon to Rome, where unknown to anyone on the wagon, the Pope had died. For days, the Cardinals had tried without success to elect a successor, and so had at length decided that the Lord would send a divine sign to point out the one who ought to be Pope. When the wagon arrived in Rome, the young man bid farewell to the family. He gave the father of the family some gold coins, and in return, the youngest daughter – who had developed a sort of crush on the young man – gave him two nightingales as a keepsake. With the nightingales on his shoulder, the young man wandered through Rome and finally ended up in church. Seeing the young man with a snow white dove on each shoulder, the clergy were convinced that the Lord had finally given them the sign they were waiting for. Without delay, the young man was acclaimed Pope, just as the fish had predicted. As newly installed Pope, the young man was told that he had to sing a mass – the very thing he had dreaded so much that he could not sleep. But as he stood at the altar, the two nightingales alighted on his shoulders and, unknown to everyone, sang to him everything he needed to say. Ok. I dunno if it counts as a misremembered story if you change something in the re-telling. But that’s what I did here. After writing this down, I looked up the original and found three major differences – the first, was that there were no place names involved (which I knew but I wanted place names so…); second, the second language was the language of frogs; and third, the birds in the end were doves, not nightingales.