How the Devil Married Three Sisters

How the Devil Married Three Sisters is an Italian fairy tale found in Thomas Frederick Crane's Italian Popular Tales (1885). It was collected and originally published in German as "Der Teufel heirathet drei Schwestern" by Widter and Wolf in 1866.

It is classified as Aarne-Thompson tale type 311, "The heroine rescues herself and her sisters".

Italo Calvino's retelling, entitled Silver Nose in his Italian Folktales (1956) is a composite, with its skeletal plot based on a Piedmont version featuring the devil-husband with a silver nose, fleshed out using variants from other localities.

The following version was given by Widter and Wolf (Thomas Frederic Crane tr.):

Once, the Devil decided to marry. He prepared a house, disguised himself as a fine gentleman, and came calling on a family to woo their three daughters. The oldest agreed to marry him. When he took her home, he forbade her to look in a door, but as soon as he left, she did so, and hellfire in the door singed the little flower bouquet that she wore on her bosom. She could not hide what had happened, so the Devil said her curiosity would be satisfied, and threw her into hell. A few months later, he wooed the second daughter, but the same fate befell her as her sister.

Then he came to woo the youngest daughter, Margerita. She was a clever one, and suspected he had murdered her sisters, but the match was so good, it would have been a challenge to find one better. When administered the same test, she too was overcome by curiosity and opened the forbidden door, making the discovery that hell lay beyond it, that her sisters were there, and the man she wedded was the Devil. Margerita pulled out her two sisters and hid them away. By happenstance, she had placed her flower in water and it remained unscathed by fire, so her action went undetected. The Devil, reassured when he saw her flowers still fresh, came to love her unconditionally.

Hatching an escape plan, Margerita asked the Devil to carry each of three chests to her parents, making him promise never to put it down along the way. She said she will be watching. The Devil was tempted to unload the chest, but every time he was stopped by a voice that cried "Don't put it down; I see you!" although the shouting had really come from the first sister he was carrying inside the chest. It was a marvel to the Devil that his wife could see so far, and around corners even. The second sister was smuggled out in the same fashion on the back of the duped Devil. The third chest was for Margerita herself to be concealed inside. A dummy posing as her was affixed to the balcony () as if to keep watch, after which the maid helped load the chest upon the Devil's back. The Devil delivered the burden with even more exertion this time, thinking she was on the lookout from higher ground this time.

...
Wikipedia