by T F Carthick
“I have my own reasons. You accepted to abide by my condition. So, this is my condition. Guess my name and I shall forfeit my claim on your child and depart in peace. I give you three days’ time and you can take any number of guesses. All that you need to do is get one of the guesses right. Fair, isn’t it?”
“But how do I know you are playing fair? What if I guess right and you say it is wrong?”
“Do you question my integrity?”
“No. I do not. But just wanted to be certain the contest is absolutely fair. As per the laws of our land, a contestant can’t act as the judge in his own case. So, I wanted to abide by that.”
“You don’t have to depend on me. The minute you call my true name, I shall freeze and stand still. I will not be able to move till you command me. If you know my name, you gain full power over me. I shall be bound to do whatever you bid me to do.”
“That seems fair enough. Today already half a day is gone. Let us start from tomorrow.”
He agrees and leaves. He arrives the next morning and finds her ready with a lengthy list. She has clearly been using the evening well and deploying the palace staff to good effect. She begins to reel out names from the list, one after the other. “Ackley, Acton, Addison, Adger, Aicon, Alcott…”
They seem to have done a thorough job and almost all known human names have been listed systematically in alphabetical order. But he is not worried. He lies down in the grass and relaxes while listening to the names being read out, his eyes half closed as if listening to a lullaby being sung. The whole day passes and soon it is evening. “Woodrow, Wright, Wyatt, Wylie, Wyndam, York.”
The entire list is done. He jumps up, sprightly after a good day’s rest. She, on the other hand looks completely exhausted – physically, mentally and emotionally.
When he arrives the next day, she is again ready with a list. Clearly the palace staff have been burning their midnight oil. “Aelfdane, Alberich, Alfrigg, Aston…”
Having exhausted all human names, they were now trying all the known faerie names. But they do not know that no two faeries ever share the same name. Unlike with humans, names mean much more to faerie folk. As unique as every individual is, so is the name. So, he is sure no one, human or faerie, can ever know his name. If they had, he would no longer be free.
That evening ends like the previous evening. She is almost in tears when none of the names come out right. He is feeling a bit uncomfortable. He wants his due. He does not feel emotions strongly like humans. But he does not want to hurt her. He has come to learn a lot about human emotions in his years of observing them. He knows grief. He knows loss. He knows sorrow. He realizes now that he does not want to be the cause of these emotions.
Sometime later, he sneaks into her chamber. He finds her leaning on the king’s shoulders. She is weeping inconsolably. The king is gently patting her head. It seems like he too has a softer side. His face too is clouded with sorrow.
“Don’t worry dear. I have sent my soldiers all around the country. I am sure they will find something.”
What he hoped they would find, the king does not say.
“But after the last two days, I really fear I will lose my son. I just can’t live without him.”
He finds the whole scene so heart-wrenching. This is the strongest display of human emotions he has seen yet. It stirs something deep within him.
He is very thoughtful as he makes his way back. He wonders if he is doing the right thing. He so badly wants a human child. A child that will fill his life with emotions. But would the emotions still be there in a child forcibly taken from its parents? Will the child grow up to love the one who gave such pain to its mother and father?
Thoughts rage in his mind in all directions. He is in such a state of complete turmoil that he wonders if he has begun to turn human. It is almost dawn when he finally makes up his mind.
He won’t take the child from its parents.
But there is a problem. He can’t go back on his word. That is the way with his kind. He is bound to take the child unless Sally is able to discover his name. He knows she never will. The contest was rigged from the start.
The only way is to somehow let her win. But how to do it is the question. As he ponders over it, he hears footsteps. He involuntarily looks in the directions of the sound. Soldiers! Yes. That is the answer. He knows what he will do. He will put up a show for the soldiers.
He looks for a group of soldiers entering the jungle. He finds a group doing exactly that. He too enters the jungle invisibly and uses his magic to float to the clearing in the middle of the jungle. There he lights a fire and waits. He knows fire will eventually attract them here. It is not long before the sound of boots confirms the arrival of the soldiers.
He quickly begins to jump around the fire hopping on one leg. And then on the other. The complete silence tells him the soldiers are watching keenly.
He then begins to sing.
To-day I bake, to-morrow brew,
the next I'll have the young queen's child.
Ha, glad am I that no one knew
That as Rumpelstiltskin, I am styled.
As soon as the song is complete, he vanishes. He hopes the soldiers have got the name right. His heart feels light now. He is sad that his dreams will never come true - but he is sure that he has done the right thing.
* * * * * *
The next morning, he once again appears in front of Sally. As before, she has a long list. This time, it is the names of all angels “Afriel, Ariel, Cassiel, Charmeine ……”
He is puzzled. The soldiers don’t seem to have delivered the information. He wonders if he has relied too much on intelligence of the soldiers. There are definitely those amongst humankind who can’t see a thing even if it is staring them right in the face. What if the soldiers belonged to that kind?
The names continue to be reeled out, one after the other, like the previous day. He wonders if his plans have failed. What happened to the soldiers? Had they drunk themselves silly at a tavern and were they still lying there in drunken stupor? Did they not report their sighting to the king and the queen? Are all his efforts in vain?
After lunch, Sally continues on. Soon it is close to sunset. In a little while, she will lose the contest and the child will be his. Well, he did what he could. If fate still decides he can have the child, so be it. At least he is not filled with guilt anymore. After all it is not an unfair contest as such.. He did give Sally a fighting chance. If her husband’s soldiers lack loyalty, intelligence or diligence, he can hardly be blamed for it.
He is now mentally visualizing himself bringing up the baby. He is imagining how he would care for it and how the baby would come to him for everything. How he would have a strong bond with the baby like the one Sally had with her mother and grandmother.
His reverie is interrupted by Sally’s ringing voice.
“RUMPELSTILTSKIN!”
It echoes through his mind and his entire body freezes. So, the soldiers had done their duty after all. He has lost. Sally has won. Bitter disappointment sweeps through him. He stands like cold marble and watches helplessly as his dreams float away, out of his reach. He can’t even muster a yell.
“Ha Ha Ha! Now the child is mine, you foul vermin. You really thought you could outsmart us, you little creep?” He can sense viciousness in her laughter.“Last night the soldiers came and told us what they saw and heard. We decided we would play a trick on you. We wanted to make you feel you are winning and then in the last-minute snatch the prize away from you when you thought you have almost won. The look of disappointment on your face was priceless, you little buffoon. Ha ha ha!”
She seems to be thoroughly enjoying his plight. He has always known humans to have a cruel streak. But it seems he got carried away by the softer emotions and had forgotten this side of humans.
“How you have made me suffer, you evil creature. You stole all my precious belongings and now you even wanted to take away the one thing I loved most in the world – my
son. But now you are bound to obey me. You made a mistake by telling me the power your name would give us. See what I do to you. Hop on one leg towards the fireplace!”
He helplessly hops towards the fire. He wonders what she is up to.
“It is working! It is working! You are fully under my control. Now perform a tap dance for me.”
His hands and legs move involuntarily and he begins to perform ridiculous dance motions. By now, all the palace staff have joined to watch.
“Stand up on your head.”
He has no option but to obey. He hopes she will let him go once she has had her fun.
“Jump into the fire!”
The sudden command sends shock waves through him. He can’t believe what he has just heard. But his disbelief makes no difference for she knows his name and has given the command. His legs start moving on their own and he is drawn towards the fire.
“Stop!” she says.
Has better sense prevailed on her finally? But he is so uncomfortably close to the fire already and it is singeing his skin. Why doesn’t she release him?
“This is your end, you monster. With this I ensure no other hapless girl falls prey to your nefarious designs?”
Nefarious designs? He wonders if using his magic to aid damsels in distress comes under the category of nefarious designs. It is due to him that today this miller’s daughter is the queen and she accuses him of preying on her? He rues the day he decided to directly communicate with humans. But he does not have much time to brood.
“Jump,” she says, and he jumps into the fire. The fire rapidly eats away his flesh. Soon there is nothing left of him.
The Hunger Diaries
The third horseman I am called. Not first, not second, but third. A black horse I ride. Wielding a mere balance, I may not seem as deadly as my brother horsemen. But I hold the greatest sway in the affairs of men. Both in times of war and in times of peace. Not just in the affairs of men but in affairs of every being on this earth that purports to have a life. You may turn up your nose and say, “I don’t live to eat”, but each and every being on this earth has to eat to live. I glide quietly in the shadows, working my will upon the hapless denizens of this earth. I have caused kingdoms to rise and fall. I have incited the meekest of people to rise in greatest of revolutions. I have had the greatest of the greatest bow down to me in abject servility in a matter of days. Before me, the king and the knave stand equal. No. I am not death, the leveler. I am hunger, the ravager.
I have been the puppeteer behind the scene, enacting so many human dramas. While I play on the big stage and cause revolutions, coups and wars, the ones dearest to me are the smaller personal stories. At heart, I am what you would call a sentimentalist, and one of my favorite stories is that of the German children, Hansel and Gretel.
* * * * *
They lived sometime during the fourteenth century. The time when my brother Pestilence was galloping through all of Europe atop his white horse, laying to waste everything that stood in his path. The Black Plague they called it – the disasters he wreaked upon the populace. Such was his impact that, for the first time, human population actually declined.
But while he took the honors, I too was working in the background. That is how I always like to work. In the background. I let my brothers - Pestilence and War take all the limelight while I keep toiling silently, behind the scenes.
So, coming back to Hansel and Gretel. They were the children of a wood-cutter. Wood was very much in demand in the pre-industrial age. But still a wood-cutter was no Arab Sheikh owning multiple oil wells. More like a worker at an oil drill. Probably worse than that, for he has to struggle with his axe to bring down every branch. Even to keep a small stove going, bundles and bundles of firewood are needed. Consequently, there is only so much money he can make, even if he toiled from dawn to dusk. And it is no easy task to support a family of four. This woodcutter’s home used to be one of my favorite haunts. In some of the other homes I used to haunt, the parents would cut down their share of food so that they could sustain their children. It is touching to see the extent to which parents go for their children. But here it was a different story.
“We are starving. If I don’t have a little more to eat, I will surely die as will the baby inside me.”
“Baby inside you?”
“Yes. I am pregnant.”
The wood cutter furrowed his eye brows. What would he do now? This was going to be interesting. This is what they call being on the horns of a dilemma.
“Hm….I don’t know. We can’t afford to have one more child thrust upon us now. There is a wise woman in the village. Maybe she can find some herbs to…”
“How can you even think of such a thing? This is our first child and you want to kill it at birth? How cruel!”
Curiouser and curiouser! He looked as if he had been hit. What would he do now? The wife would not let the unborn child die. So, food was to be provided for both of them. He himself had to eat. If not, who would bring home the bacon, in a manner of speaking? Not that they ever got to taste bacon. If wishes were bacon, beggars would dine. And I would have to go for a ride! Having ruled out the two adults, that left only the two kids – the children he had with his first wife. The wood-cutter seemed to have come to the same conclusion.
“My children! I can’t starve them to death! No. I would rather die.”
“But you would let my child die? Even before it is born?”
“I think we should share out whatever we have equally and hope for the best.”
“So that all of us can die together? Me and my baby first. Then you all will have enough to eat. You don’t love me at all.”
“What do you want me to do now?”
“Why don’t you take your children and leave them somewhere? I am sure they will find some way of fending for themselves. They are quite grown up.”
You may be thinking what a wicked stepmother she is - plotting the death of her stepchildren. But this was not about stepmothers’ legendary hatred for their stepchildren. This was something rawer! Something more primitive! Hunger! The hunger to live!
“This somehow doesn’t feel right.”
“And trying to get me herbs from the wise woman to kill my child does? I wonder what our town priest will say if he comes to know.”
“Okay. Fine. As you wish. But I don’t have the heart to tell the children to leave home.”
“You don’t have to. Tomorrow, we will say we are taking them to the middle to the jungle to gather wood. We will light a fire and sit to eat. And while they are eating, let us quietly slip away.”
“And they?”
“They can live in the forest. There are a lot of fruits and berries growing in the forest. I am sure if they set their mind to it, they can forage for food.”
Now while the two of them were conversing, the two children were listening at the door. True, it is not good manners to listen at doors. But manners are for well-fed children. In my realm, you need to be alert all the time to survive. Alert and cunning.
“So, what do we do, Gretel? Our parents are going to leave us in the jungle. If we don’t die of hunger, some wild animals will kill us.”
Now this was a boy after my own heart. He understood my ways too well. He did not harbor any charming illusions about foraging in the jungle.
The girl reassured him. “Don’t worry, Hansel. I will think of something. You go to sleep now.”
While he slept, she went outside and collected pebbles. I wondered what she was up to. Was she literally going to eat stones when left in the jungle? Having stones for supper was a metaphorical way of talking about the poor going hungry. But I have never seen anyone really do that. But here she was, really collecting stones. What was she going to do?
The next day, the parents took the children to the jungle as planned. Every now and then Gretel paused a bit, as if to collect wood, and when she bent down, she quietly dropped a pebble on the ground. Now what was her game?
Soon they we
re at the clearing. As planned, the parents slipped away while the children were eating their bread. Dry, stale, moldy bread. But still bread. Much more than what they normally got. So it was worth their while to play along.
After a few minutes, Hansel lifted his head and looked at his sister. “So, they have abandoned us here and gone, just like they were discussing last night. What do we do now? You better have a plan, my dear Gretel.”
“Don’t worry, little brother. We will find our way back home. Come along.”
I wondered how she was so confident. Then it came to me – the pebbles! That’s what she had been doing with the pebbles. The clever child!
The stepmother looked as if she had seen a ghost when she saw the children. The father just gave a resigned smile. So, things were back to status quo. This was going to be fun. Gretel had made her move. The ball was back in the stepmother’s court.
One day, when Gretel was out on some chore, she approached Hansel. “Did you know, my dear boy, I was so worried when we lost you in the jungle.”
“Really? But I thought you wanted to be rid of us.”
Now if it had been Gretel, she would have known where her wily step mother was getting at. But Hansel did not have his sister’s devious mind.
“How could you even imagine something like that? We just went for a stroll and got lost in the jungle. With great difficulty, we could find the way back home. By then it was too late in the night and your father said it was late to go looking for you. We were going to come for you in the morning. But before that, you yourself somehow managed to find your way back.”
“But the night before we heard…”
Before he could complete, she burst into copious tears. Hansel’s soft heart could not withstand the onslaught of tears. “Don’t cry, mother. After all, nothing happened and everything turned out well.”
“Yes, my boy. I would have never forgiven myself if something had happened to you. However, I was wondering how you managed to find your way back. Your father is the only one who knows the ways through the jungles.”