by Jane Yolen
Boy Beautiful arose and did as his steed told him, and the next moment they were close up to the forest.
“Now is the time, my master,” cried the good steed. “This wild monsters are now being fed, and are gathered together in one place. Now let us spring over!”
“I am with thee, and the Lord have mercy upon us both,” replied Boy Beautiful.
Then up in the air they flew, and before them lay the palace, and so gloriously bright was it that a man could sooner look into the face of the midday sun than upon the glory of the palace of Youth Without Age, and Life Without Death. Right over the forest they flew, and just as they were about to descend at the foot of the palace staircase, the steed with the tip of his hind leg touched lightly, oh, ever so lightly! a twig on the topmost summit of the tallest tree of the forest. Instantly the whole forest was alive and alert, and the monsters began to howl so awfully that, brave as he was, the hair of Boy Beautiful stood up on his head. Hastily they descended, but had not the mistress of the palace been outside there in order to feed her kittens (for so she called the monsters), Boy Beautiful and his faithful steed would have been torn to pieces. But the mistress of the monsters, for pure joy at the sight of a human being, held the monsters back, and sent them back to their places. Fair, tall, and of goodly stature was the Fairy of the Palace, and Boy Beautiful felt his heart die away within him as he beheld her. But she was full of compassion at the sight of him, and said, “Welcome, Boy Beautiful! What dost thou seek?”
“We seek Youth Without Age, and Life Without Death,” he replied.
Then he dismounted from his steed and entered the palace, and there he met two other fair dames of equal beauty: these were the elder sisters of the Fairy of the Palace. They regaled Boy Beautiful with a banquet served on gold plate, and the good steed had leave to graze where he would, and the Fairy made him known to all her monsters, that so he might wander through the woods in peace. Then the fair dames begged Boy Beautiful to abide with them always, and Boy Beautiful did not want to be asked twice, for to stay with the Fairy of the Palace was his darling desire.
Then he told them his story, and of all the dangers he had passed through to get there, and so the Fairy of the Palace became his bride, and she gave him leave to roam at will throughout her domains. “Nevertheless,” said she, “there is one valley thou must enter or it will work thee woe, and the name of that valley is the Vale of Complaint.”
There then Boy Beautiful abode, and he took no count of time, for though many days passed away, he was yet as young and strong as when he first came there. He went through leagues of forest without once feeling weary. He rejoiced in the golden palace, and lived in peace and tranquillity with his bride and her sisters. Oftentimes too he went a-hunting.
One day he was pursuing a hare, and shot an arrow after it, and then another, but neither of them hit the hare. Never before had Boy Beautiful missed his prey, and his heart was vexed within him. He pursued the hare still more hotly, and sent another arrow after her. This time he did bring her down, but in his haste the unhappy man had not perceived that in following the hare he had passed through the Vale of Complaint! He took up the hare and returned homeward, but while he was still on the way a strange yearning after his father and his mother came over him. He durst not tell his bride of it, but she and her sisters immediately guessed the cause of his heaviness.
“Wretched man!” they cried. “Thou hast passed through the Vale of Complaint!”
“I have done so, darling, without meaning it,” he replied. “But now I am perishing with longing for my father and mother. Yet need I desert thee for that? I have now been many days with thee, and am as hale and well as ever. Suffer me then to go and see my parents but once, and then I will return to thee to part no more.”
“Forsake us not, O beloved!” cried his bride and her sisters. “Hundreds of years have passed away since thy parents were alive; and thou also, if thou dost leave us, wilt never return more. Abide with us, or, an evil omen tells us, thou wilt perish!”
But the supplications of the three ladies and his faithful steed likewise could not prevail against the gnawing longing to see his parents which consumed him.
At last the horse said to him, “If thou wilt not listen to me, my master, then ’tis thine own fault alone if evil befall thee. Yet I will promise to bring thee back on one condition.”
“I consent, whatever it may be,” said Boy Beautiful. “Speak, and I will listen gratefully.”
“I will bring thee back to thy father’s palace, but if thou dismount but for a moment, I shall return without thee.”
“Be it so,” replied Boy Beautiful.
So they made them ready for their journey, and Boy Beautiful embraced his bride and departed, but the ladies stood there looking after him, and their eyes were filled with tears.
And now Boy Beautiful and his faithful steed came to the place where the domains of Scorpia had been, but the forests had become fields of corn, and cities stood thickly on what had once been desolate places. Boy Beautiful asked all whom he met concerning Scorpia and her habitations, but they only answered that these were but idle fables which their grandfathers had heard from their great-grandfathers.
“But how is that possible?” replied Boy Beautiful. “ ’Twas but the other day that I passed by—” and he told them all he knew. Then they laughed at him as at one who raves or talks in his sleep; but he rode away wrathfully without noticing that his beard and the hair of his head had grown white.
When he came to the domain of Gheonoea, he put the same questions and received the same answers. He could not understand how the whole region could have utterly changed in a few days, and again he rode away, full of anger, with a white beard that now reached down to his girdle and with legs that began to tremble beneath him.
At length he came to the empire of his father. Here there were new men and new buildings, and the old ones had so altered that he scarce knew them.
So he came to the palace where he had first seen the light of day. As he dismounted the horse kissed his hand and said, “Fare thee well, my master! I return from whence I came. But if thou also wouldst return, mount again and we’ll be off instantly.”
“Nay,” he replied, “fare thee well. I also will return soon.”
Then the horse flew away like a dart.
But when Boy Beautiful beheld the palace all in ruins and overgrown with evil weeds, he sighed deeply, and with tears in his eyes he sought to recall the glories of that fallen palace. Round about the place he went, not once nor twice: he searched in every room, in every corner for some vestige of the past; he searched the stable in which he had found his steed; and then he went down into the cellar, the entrance to which was choked up by fallen rubbish.
Here and there and everywhere he searched about, and now his long white beard reached below his knee, and his eyelids were so heavy that he had to raise them on high with his hands, and he found he could scarce totter along. All he found there was a huge old coffer, which he opened, but inside it there was nothing. Yet he lifted up the cover, and then a voice spoke to him out of the depths of the coffer and said:
“Welcome, for hadst thou kept me waiting much longer, I also would have perished.”
Then his Death, who was already shriveled up like a withered leaf at the bottom of the coffer, rose up and laid his hand upon him, and Boy Beautiful instantly fell dead to the ground and crumbled into dust. But had he remained away but a little time longer, his Death would have died, and he himself would have been living now. And so I mount my nag and utter an “Our Father” ere I go.
GOHA ON THE DEATHBED
Egypt
Once Goha got very ill and was about to die. He called his wife and said to her, “Beloved wife, put on your best clothes and perfume, and comb your hair—in short, do all you can to look as beautiful as you can be!”
She answered sobbing, “Don’t say things like that! How can I do all these things with you dying! I will never think of these th
ings again after you have passed away!”
Goha said; “Do it for me, and come and sit at the head of my bed.”
The woman did all she could to fix her looks and sat down next to him. She asked him, “Did you want to look at my beauty before you die?”
Goha answered, “No. They say ‘Death chooses the best,’ and I thought Azrael might see you and decide to take you instead of me.”
DEATH OF A MISER
Russia
There was once an old miser who had two sons and a great deal of money. When he heard Death coming, he locked himself up in his room, sat on his oaken chest, swallowed his gold coins, chewed up his bills, and thus ended his life. His sons came, laid out the dead body under the holy icons, and invited the sexton to chant the psalms. At midnight a devil in human form suddenly appeared, took the old man on his shoulders, and said, “Hold up the flap of your coat, sexton!” And he shook the dead man, saying, “The money is yours, but the bag is mine.” And he vanished, taking the body with him.
GODFATHER DEATH
Germany
A poor man had twelve children and was forced to work night and day to give them even bread. When therefore the thirteenth came into the world, he knew not what to do in his trouble, but ran out into the great highway, and resolved to ask the first person whom he met to be godfather.
The first to met him was the good God, who already knew what filled his heart, and said to him, “Poor man, I pity you. I will hold your child at its christening, and will take charge of it and make it happy on earth.”
The man said, “Who are you?”
“I am God.”
“Then I do not desire to have you for a godfather,” said the man. “You give to the rich, and leave the poor to hunger.” Thus spoke the man, for he did not know how wisely God apportions riches and poverty. He turned therefore away from the Lord, and went farther.
Then the Devil came to him and said, “What do you seek? If you will take me as a godfather for your child, I will give him gold in plenty and all the joys of the world as well.”
The man asked, “Who are you?”
“I am the Devil.”
“Then I do not desire to have you for godfather,” said the man. “You deceive men and lead them astray.”
He went onwards, and then came Death striding up to him with withered legs, and said, “Take me as godfather.”
The man asked, “Who are you?”
“I am Death, and I make all equal.”
Then said the man, “You are the right one, you take the rich as well as the poor, without distinction. You shall be godfather.”
Death answered, “I will make your child rich and famous, for he who has me for a friend can lack nothing.”
The man said, “Next Sunday is the christening; be there at the right time.”
Death appeared as he had promised, and stood godfather quite in the usual way.
When the boy had grown up, his godfather one day appeared and bade him go with him. He led him forth into a forest, and showed him a herb which grew there, and said, “Now you shall receive your godfather’s present. I make you a celebrated physician. When you are called to a patient, I will always appear to you. If I stand by the head of the sick man, you may say with confidence that you will make him well again, and if you give him of this herb he will recover; but if I stand by the patient’s feet, he is mine, and you must say that all remedies are in vain, and that no physician in the world could save him. But beware of using the herb against my will, or it might fare ill with you.”
It was not long before the youth was the most famous physician in the whole world. “He had only to look at the patient and he knew his condition at once, whether he would recover, or must needs die.” So they said of him, and from far and wide people came to him, sent for him when they had anyone ill, and gave him so much money that he soon became a rich man.
Now it so befell that the king became ill, and the physician was summoned, and was to say if recovery were possible. But when he came to the bed, Death was standing by the feet of the sick man, and the herb did not grow which could save him. “If I could but cheat Death for once,” thought the physician, “he is sure to take it ill if I do but, as I am his godson, he will shut one eye. I will risk it.” He therefore took up the sick man, and laid him the other way, so that now Death was standing by his head. Then he gave the king some of the herb, and he recovered and grew healthy again.
But Death came to the physician, looking very black and angry, threatened him with his finger, and said, “You have betrayed me. This time I will pardon it, as you are my godson; but if you venture it again, it will cost you your neck, for I will take you yourself away with me.”
Soon afterwards the king’s daughter fell into a severe illness. She was his only child, and he wept day and night, so that he began to lose the sight of his eyes, and he caused it to be made known that whosoever rescued her from death should be her husband and inherit the crown.
When the physician came to the sick girl’s bed, he saw Death by her feet. He ought to have remembered the warning given by his godfather, but he was so infatuated by the great beauty of the king’s daughter, and the happiness of becoming her husband, that he flung all thought to the winds. He did not see that Death was casting angry glances on him, that he was raising his hand in the air, and threatening him with his withered fist. He raised up the sick girl, and placed her head where her feet had lain. Then he gave her some of the herb, and instantly her cheeks flushed red, and life stirred afresh in her.
When Death saw that for a seconed time his own property had been misused, he walked up to the physician with long strides, and said, “All is over with you, and now the lot falls on you,” and seized him so firmly with his ice-cold hand that he could not resist, and led him into a cave below the earth. There he saw how thousands and thousands of candles were burning in countless rows, some large, some medium-sized, others small. Every instant some were extinguished, and others again burnt up, so that the flames seemed to leap hither and thither in perpetual change.
“See,” said Death, “these are the lights of men’s lives. The large ones belong to children, the medium-sized ones to married people in their prime, the little ones belong to old people; but children and young folks likewise have often only a tiny candle.”
“Show me the light of my life,” said the physician, and he thought that it would be still very tall. Death pointed to a little end which was just threatening to go out, and said, “Behold, it is there.”
“Ah, dear godfather,” said the horrified physician, “light a new one for me, do it for love of me, that I may enjoy my life, be king, and the husband of the king’s beautiful daughter.”
“I cannot,” answered Death, “one must go out before a new one is lighted.”
“Then place the old one on a new one, that will go on burning at once when the old one has come to an end,” pleaded the physician.
Death behaved as if he were going to fulfill his wish, and took hold of a tall new candle; but as he desired to revenge himself, he purposely made a mistake in fixing it, and the little piece fell down and was extinguished. Immediately the physician fell on the ground, and now he himself was in the hands of Death.
THE HUNGRY PEASANT, GOD, AND DEATH
Mexico
Not far from the city of Zacatecas there lived a poor peasant, whose harvest was never sufficient to keep hunger away from himself, his wife and children. Every year his harvests grew worse, his family more numerous. Thus as time passed, the man had less and less to eat for himself, since he sacrificed a part of his own rations on behalf of his wife and children.
One day, tired of so much privation, the peasant stole a chicken with the determination to go far away, very far, to eat it, where no one could see him and expect him to share it. He took a pot and climbed up the most broken side of a nearby mountain. Upon finding a suitable spot, he made a fire, cleaned his chicken, and put it to cook with herbs.
When it
was ready, he took the pot off the fire and waited impatiently for it to cool off. As he was about to eat it, he saw a man coming along one of the paths in his direction. The peasant hurriedly hid the pot in the bushes and said to himself, “Curse the luck! Not even here in the mountains is one permitted to eat in peace.”
At this moment the stranger approached and greeted, “Good morning, friend!”
“May God grant you a good morning,” he answered.
“What are you doing here, friend?”
“Well, nothing, señor, just resting. And, Your Grace, where are you going?”
“Oh, I was just passing by and stopped to see if you could give me something to eat.”
“No, señor, I haven’t anything.”
“How’s that, when you have a fire burning?”
“Oh, this little fire; that’s just for warming myself.”
“Don’t tell me that. Haven’t you a pot hidden in the bushes? Even from here I can smell the cooked hen.”
“Well yes, señor, I have some chicken but I shall not give you any; I would not even give any to my own children. I came way up here because for once in my life I wanted to eat my fill. I shall certainly not share my food with you.”
“Come friend, don’t be unkind. Give me just a little of it!”
“No, señor, I shall not give you any. In my whole life I have not been able to satisfy my hunger, not even for one day.”
“Yes, you will give me some. You refuse because you don’t know who I am.
“I shall not give you anything, no matter who you are, I shall not give you anything!”
“Yes, you will as soon as I tell you who I am.”
“Well then, who are you?”
“I am God, your Lord.”
“Uh, hm, now less than ever shall I share my food with you. You are very bad to the poor. You only give to those whom you like. To some you give haciendas, palaces, trains, carriages, horses; to others, like me, nothing. You have never even given me enough to eat. So I shall not give you any chicken.”