Join us at the campfire for tales from around the world, told by storytellers of all backgrounds and creeds. From the heros and heroines of old, let us relearn and rediscover the wisdom of our ancestors. Shhh..the story begins..
On the bleached hillsides and plateaus of ancient Spain, there was ample work for the hands of Death. Plague, brigands, hunger, and the heated quarrels of both marketplace and marriage bed took their bloody toll. The justice meted out by kings and priests was unforgiving. Thieves and heretics were afforded no second chances. They learned their harsh lessons with grim finality, strangled by a twist of the garrote or roasted alive by hooded executioners.
In those ruthless times, so it was said, Death walked the world in human shape, sometimes in the form of a woman. Travelers who happened to meet her along the road would stand aside and silently pray that she would pass them by. Yet, there was once an occasion when she did not pass, but paused to strike a bargain.
The other party to the transaction was a poor peasant, slightly tipsy from a night of celebration. His wife had just presented him with a son and, drunk on wine and the joy of fatherhood, he had wandered through the mountains close to his home, pondering on how to give the boy a good start in life.
The only way a person of lowly station could rise in the world was through the help of a powerful patron. The rustic resolved to find a godparent who, linked by spiritual ties as strong as those of blood, would provide support and protection to the child.
As the man negotiated a narrow mountain path, an enormous, shrouded figure blocked his passage. He immediately recognized the pale gleam of a grinning skull within the shadow of the hood. It was Death. With his heart in his throat, the peasant asked nervously if she had come to claim his life. She replied that his hour had not yet arrived, but that she wished to offer herself as godmother to his newborn son.
Something in her tone soothed the poor man's terror. The rustic contemplated the proposal and determined it had much to recommend it. Death was indeed the most powerful figure known to humankind. She was universally feared and respected. None could escape the finality of her decisions or the incorruptible impartiality of her judgments. Looking her in the eye, the man declared that he welcomed the suggestion and asked her to attend the christening, fixed for the following week. Death expressed no felicitations, simply stating flatly that the peasant would not regret his decision. She promised that her godson would achieve wealth and position and then vanished.
With Death's hollow tones ringing in his ears, the man hurried home to spread his news. Until the day of the christening, the neighbors spoke of nothing else and, try as he might, the priest who was to conduct the baptism could find no way of avoiding his duties.
At the stroke of the appointed hour, Death's gaunt figure appeared in the doorway of the church. She moved with stately tread through the stunned and silent congregation. When the child had been christened, Death handed the father a heavy pouch of gold and informed him that she would return when the boy reached twenty years of age. As the assembly of awe-struck villagers watched with fascinated dread, Death stretched out her skeletal hand, lightly touched the infant's forehead, and glided away.
The boy grew up to be strong and healthy. Death's gift of gold ensured that the family never lacked for anything. Nevertheless, they looked forward with trepidation to her promised return.
When the youth's twentieth birthday arrived, his family marked it with a feast. Precisely at noon, a cold gust blew open the door and Death stood before them. She wished her godson happiness and, as a godmother should, expressed pleasure at finding him so strong and handsome. Then she led him into another room, her bony fingertips resting lightly but possessively upon the sleeve of his shirt.
When they were alone, Death removed from the recesses of her shroud an earthenware pot. It contained a plant unlike any the young man had ever before seen. It had leaves the color of a purple bruise and tiny white flowers that almost resembled skulls. It gave off a faint yet pervasive odor that he was unable to identify. Death explained that it was an herb of supernatural power and would make him the most successful and respected physician in the whole of Spain.
Whenever he visited a sick person, so Death told him, he was to glance immediately at the ends of the bed. If he saw Death standing at the head of the patient, he should provide a sprig of the herb to be brewed up into an infusion. When the sick person drank of this elixir, he or she would recover. But, if he saw Death's figure standing at the foot of the bed, it meant that the patient was doomed and the young man was on no account to use the magic herb to flout destiny.
Death assured her godson that the plant would stay eternally fresh and green and that no eyes, other than his own, would ever be able to discern her presence. Then she pressed his shoulder gently with the points of her fingers and slipped away.
In time, everything that Death avowed came to pass. The young man first cured an ailing neighbor, then a priest, then a wealthy merchant, next a lawyer and, finally, a duke. Stories of his success spread further and further afield until the entire country knew of his fame. No one could tell where he had studied or who his professors had been. He never quoted Hippocrates or Galen in the original Greek or Latin. He employed none of the other herbal remedies that were in common use. Nevertheless, nobody doubted his superiority, even the best-qualified and most senior of graybeards, for when he dosed a sufferer, the patient always healed within three days.
More sinister, but equally impressive, was the fact that if he declined to treat a patient then, without exception, the victim died soon afterward. To watch the famous young physician turn sorrowfully away from a sickbed was to feel the chill breath of the grave. With such testimonials, Death's godson soon became the most sought-after doctor in the kingdom. His fees were as high as he chose to set them, and his peasant origins were left far behind. He came to be accepted as a scholar, a gentleman, and an equal in all the greatest houses of Spain.
One day, the doctor was summoned to the bedside of the king himself. The monarch was ailing and fading fast. He had been a just and merciful ruler and his loss would be most sincerely mourned, but worse, since he had no son, his successor would be a cold and corrupt nephew whose rule was certain to bring nothing but evil.
Arriving at the palace, the doctor was greeted by the king's daughter. She begged him to do everything in his power to save her father's life. The young physician was not immune to the beauty of the princess nor to the trusting candor of her gaze. Devoutly hoping that he would find his godmother in the place that signified continued life, he hurried into the royal apartments. On the magnificent, ornate bed lay the emaciated body of the king, as unmoving as an effigy on a tomb. Empty shadows shrouded the head of the bed and at the foot was the darkly veiled figure of Death.
Unable to contain his disappointment, the doctor spent several minutes pretending to examine the king. He opened his mouth to explain that it was not possible to save Spain's beloved monarch, but he found himself swallowing the words and promising instead that the patient would recover. He then administered the healing herb.
Fear made him postpone going home until late in the day. As dusk began to gather, he returned with a dragging tread to a house that was as dark and gloomy as the grave. He walked, footsteps echoing, from one empty room to the next until he reached his study. There, in her shroud, stood Death, incandescent with anger. The physician pleaded that he had disobeyed her in spite of himself, his pity for the princess and his anxiety for the country's welfare having prevailed over his better judgment. After a pause, Death said that she would pardon him once and once only. She knew that he had not acted out of selfish ambition. But if he defied her again, then she would show no mercy. The doctor kept his own counsel about the events that had transpired that night and, if he thought of Death's cautionary words, he gave no sign.
The two years which followed were happy ones. The young man was appointed personal physician to the king and became one of the monarch's most trusted advisors. His wealth and power outstripped all of the court grandees, but his greatest joy was his love for the princess. The king made it quite plain that, in spite of the doctor's humble birth, the couple would be permitted to marry.
Then, without warning, a shadow fell across their happiness. The princess became ill in the night. The next day, when her fiancé came to pay his respects, as was his custom, he was told of her condition. A maidservant told him that the princess had taken to her bed shortly after supper, complaining of chills and fever, but she had refused to permit her attendants to summon the doctor from his home. She had insisted that her beloved be allowed to rest from his daily labors undisturbed and that she would not countenance her own petty ailments being the cause of any inconvenience to him. As the night drew on, however, the condition of the princess had rapidly grown worse.
The physician pushed past the maidservant and entered the bedchamber. He lifted his eyes, with dread in his heart, to the foot of his betrothed's bed. There...it was as if he had known it already...he saw Godmother Death gazing blankly toward him. He did not glance in her direction again but busied himself with comforting and tending to his fiancée. Bending down close to the princess' burning cheek, the doctor murmured that she was to be afraid of nothing, for he would make her well again. The princess smiled through her pain, trusting implicitly in his skill.
Pushing Death's threats from his mind, the young doctor concentrated only on rescuing his beloved. He hurried home to fetch the herb but his godmother was there before him and stood waiting in his study. She stood in front of the hearth, tearing up the leaves of the plant that she had given him and tossing the shredded fragments into the fire. The pot that had held the herb lay broken at her feet. She expressed no anger. The time for that was past. Instead, she commanded him to follow her, informing her godson that she had something to show him.
Without knowing how, he traveled with Death as she passed soundlessly over mountains, plains and broad rivers, finally arriving at a barren valley littered with chalk-white boulders and naked stones. She paused at the dark mouth of a gigantic cavern and beckoned the young man to follow her inside. The floor of the great cave stretched as far as the eye could see and was covered with countless thousands of lighted candles...some tall, some short.
Death explained that every candle represented a human life. The tallest were those of newborn children who had the longest to live. The medium-sized ones were those of people who had reached the prime of their life. And those candles with only short lengths left to burn belonged to the old or the mortally ill.
As she passed between the flickering candles, Death stopped in front of a guttering flame that seemed to be on the point of extinguishment. Sick at heart, the doctor asked whose it was. His godmother told him what he had already guessed. It was the candle of his cherished princess, whose demise no force in the world could prevent. Another, much stronger taper burned brightly at its side.
"This one is yours," said Death. "You say you cannot live without her. Very well. Then take this as a gift and not as a punishment."
With a single, icy breath, she blew out both candles. Death's godson fell in a lifeless heap at her feet and, far away in the capital, a church bell began to solemnly toll.
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