Autolʹycus

The craftiest of thieves. He stole the flocks of his neighbours, and changed their marks. Siʹsyphos outwitted him by marking his sheep under their feet, a device which so tickled the rogue that he instantly “cottoned” to him. Shakespeare introduces him in The Winter’s Tale as a pedlar, and says he was called the son of Mercury, because he was born under that “thieving planet.”