What the beggar really wished for the Dutch lady was as many children at one birth as there were days in the year in which the conversation occurred--namely three, for the encounter was on January 3rd.

Or so I have somewhere read.

But it is more amusing to believe in the greater number, especially as a Dutch author has put it on record that he saw the children with his own eyes.

They were of the size of shrimps, and were baptised either singly or collectively by Guy, Bishop of Utrecht.

All the boys were named John and all the girls Elizabeth, They died the same day.
Thomas Coryate of the _Crudities_, who also tells the tale, believed it implicitly.