The Children Of Two Rich Men
:
The Folk-tales Of The Magyars
There lived, at the two corners of a country, far away from each other,
two rich men; one of them had a son, the other a daughter; these two men
asked each other to be godfather to their children, and, during the
christening they agreed that the babes should wed. The children grew up,
but did no work, and so were spoilt. As soon as they were old enough
their parents compelled them to marry. Shortly afterwards their parents
/>
died and they were left alone; they knew nothing of the world and did
not understand farming, so the serfs and farm-labourers had it all their
own way. Soon their fields were all overgrown with weeds and their
corn-bins empty; in a word they became poor. One day the master
bethought himself that he ought to go to market, as he had seen his
father do; so he set off, and drove with him a pair of beautiful young
oxen that were still left. On his way he met a wedding-party, and
greeted them thus, "May the Lord preserve you from such a sorrowful
change, and may He give consolation to those who are in trouble," Words
he had once heard his father use upon the occasion of a funeral. The
wedding-party got very vexed, and, as they were rather flushed with
wine, gave him a good drubbing, and told him that the next time he saw
such a ceremony he was to put his hat on the end of his stick, lift it
high in the air, and shout for joy. He went on further till he came to
the outskirts of a forest, where he met some butcher-like looking people
who were driving fat pigs, whereupon he seized his hat, put it on the
end of his stick, and began to shout: which so frightened the pigs that
they rushed off on all sides into the wood; the butchers got hold of him
and gave him a sound beating, and told him that the next time he saw
such a party he was to say, "May the Lord bless you with two for every
one you have." He went on again and saw a man clearing out the weeds
from his field, and greeted him, "My brother, may the Lord bless you
with two for every one you have." The man, who was very angry about
the weeds, caught him and gave him a sound beating, and told him that
the next time he saw such things he had better help to pull out one or
two. In another place he met two men fighting, so he went up and began
to pull first at one and then at the other, whereupon they left off
fighting with each other and pitched into him. Somehow or other he at
last arrived at the market, and, looking round, he saw an unpainted cart
for sale, whereupon he remembered that his father used to go into the
wood in a cart, and so he asked the man who had it for sale whether he
would change it for his two oxen--not knowing that having once parted
with the oxen he would not get them back again. The man was at first
angry, because he thought he was making fun of the cart, but he soon saw
that the man with the oxen was not quite right in his head, and so he
struck the bargain with the young farmer, who, when he got the cart,
went dragging it to and fro in the market. He met a blacksmith and
changed the cart for a hatchet; soon the hatchet was changed for a
whetstone; then he started off home as if he had settled matters in the
most satisfactory manner. Near his village he saw a lake, and on it a
flock of wild ducks. He immediately threw his whetstone at them, which
sank to the bottom, whilst every one of the ducks flew away.
He undressed and got into the lake, in order to recover his whetstone,
but in the meantime his clothes were stolen from the bank, and, having
no clothes, he had to walk home as naked as when he was born. His wife
was not at home when he arrived. He took a slice of bread from the
drawer, and went into the cellar to draw himself some wine; having put
the bread on the door-sill of the cellar, he went back to get his wine,
as he did so he saw a dog come up and run away with his bread; he at
once threw the spigot after the thief, so the spigot was lost, the bread
was lost, and every drop of wine was lost, for it all ran out. Now there
was a sack of flour in the cellar, and in order that his wife might not
notice the wine he spread the flour over it. A goose was sitting on eggs
in the cellar, and as he worked she hissed at him. Thinking that the
bird was saying, that it was going to betray him to his wife, he asked
it two or three times, "Will you split?" Going up to the goose, it
hissed still more, so he caught hold of it by the neck, and dashed it
upon the ground with such force that it died on the spot. He was now
more frightened than ever, and in order to amend his error he plucked
off the feathers, rolled himself about in the floury mess, then amongst
the feathers, and then sat on the nest as if he were sitting. His wife
came home, and, as she found the cellar door wide open, she went down
stairs, and found her husband sitting in the nest and hissing like a
goose; but his wife soon recognised him, and, picking up a log of wood,
she attacked him, saying, "Good Heavens, what an animal, let me kill it
at once!" Up he jumped from the nest, and cried out in a horrible
fright, "Don't touch me, my dear wife, it's I!" His wife then questioned
him about his transactions, and he gave a full account of all that had
happened; so his wife drove him away and said, "Don't come before my
eyes again till you have made good your faults." She then gave him a
slice of bread and a small flask of spirit, which he put in his pocket
and went on his way, his wife wishing him "a happy journey, if the road
is not muddy." On his way he met Our Lord Christ and said to him, "I'm
not going to divide my bread with you, because you have not made a rich
man of me." Then he met Death, with him he divided his bread and his
spirits, therefore Death did not carry him off, and he asked Death to be
his child's godfather.
Then said Death, "Now you will see a wonder"; with this he slipped into
the spirit flask, and was immediately corked up by the young man. Death
implored to be set free, but the young farmer said, "Promise me then
that you will make me a rich man, and then I will let you out." Death
promised him this, and they agreed that the man was to be a doctor, and
whenever Death stood at the patient's feet, he or she was not to die,
and could be cured by any sort of medicine whatever: but if Death stood
at the patient's head he was to die: with this they parted.
Our man reached a town where the king's daughter was very ill. The
doctors had tried all they could, but were not able to cure her, so he
said that he was going to cure her, if she could be cured, if not, he
would tell them; so thereupon he went into the patient and saw Death
standing at her feet. He burnt a stack of hay, and made a bath for her
of the ashes, and she recovered so soon as she had bathed in it. The
king made him so many presents that he became a very rich man: he
removed to the town, brought his wife there, and lived in great style as
a doctor. Once however he fell sick, and his koma [his child's
godfather] came and stood at his head, and the patient begged hard for
him to go and stand at his feet, but his koma replied, "Not if I know
it," and then the doctor also departed to the other world.