The Juniper Tree and Other Tales (2 page)

O
NCE UPON A TIME
there was a man who had two sons. The elder son was clever and handy, and did everything well, but the younger son was a simpleton who couldn’t seem to learn anything at all. When they saw him people used to say, “Ah, his poor father’s going to have trouble with that one!”

Whenever there was a job to be done the elder boy had to do it, but if his father sent him to fetch something late in the evening, or at night when it was dark and he would have had to pass the churchyard or some other eerie place, he said, “No, Father, I’m not going that way. It makes my flesh creep!” because he was afraid. And when stories fit to make you shudder were told around the fire in the evening, those who heard them would sometimes say, “Ooh, that really scares me!”

The younger boy, sitting in a corner and listening, didn’t understand what they meant. “People are always saying, ‘Ooh, it makes me shudder with fear!’ or ‘It makes my flesh creep,’” he said. “But I don’t know what
fear is—it must be some kind of clever trick that I don’t understand.”

One day his father said to him, “Listen, you there in the corner, you’re growing big and strong. It’s time you learnt a trade so that you can earn your own living. Just see how hard your brother works—but as for you, you’re a hopeless case.”

“Oh, Father, I’d be happy to learn a trade,” said the boy. “In fact what I’d really like to learn is how to shudder with fear. I haven’t the slightest idea how to do it.”

The elder son laughed when he heard that, and thought: Dear me, what a fool my brother is! Well, he’s been simple from birth, and he’ll never amount to anything.

The boy’s father sighed and replied, “Oh, I’m sure you’ll learn what fear is soon enough, but that won’t earn you a living.”

Soon after that the church sexton came visiting, and the boys’ father poured out his troubles and told him what a simpleton his younger son was. He knew nothing and would learn nothing, said the father. “Guess what, when I asked him what trade he’d like to learn, he said he wanted to learn to shudder with fear.”

“If that’s all,” said the sexton, “he can learn what fear is from me. Send him along and I’ll soon teach him.”

The father was glad to hear it, thinking that at least the sexton would lick the boy into shape. So the boy went home with the sexton, who gave him the job of ringing
the church bell. After a few days the sexton woke him at midnight and told him to get up, climb the church tower and ring the bell. You’ll soon learn what fear is now, he thought, going ahead of him in secret. And when the boy reached the top of the tower and turned round to take hold of the bell rope, he saw a figure all in white standing at the top of the stairs opposite the belfry window.

“Who’s there?” called the boy, but the figure gave no answer and didn’t move.

“Come on, either tell me who you are or get out,” said the boy. “You’ve no business up here by night.”

But the sexton just stood there perfectly still, to make the boy think he was a ghost.

“What are you doing here?” asked the boy for the second time. “Speak up if you’re an honest fellow, or I’ll throw you down the stairs.”

He doesn’t really mean it, thought the sexton, so he made not a sound and went on standing there as if he were carved from stone.

So the boy asked him what he was doing for the third time, and when there was still no answer he took a run-up and pushed the ghost downstairs. It fell ten steps, landed in a corner and lay there. After that the boy rang the bell, went back to bed without a word to anyone, and fell asleep again.

Meanwhile the sexton’s wife waited and waited for her husband, but he didn’t come home. At last, feeling
alarmed, she woke the boy and asked, “Do you know where my husband is? He climbed the tower ahead of you.”

“No, I don’t,” said the boy, “but there was someone standing on the stairs opposite the belfry window, and since he didn’t answer when I spoke to him and wouldn’t move, I thought it was some rascal up to no good and pushed him down the steps. Go and look, and if it’s your husband then I’m sorry.”

The sexton’s wife hurried off and found her husband lying in a corner of the staircase, moaning. He had broken a leg. She carried him down the tower and went off to see the boy’s father, complaining angrily.

“Your son has done a shocking thing,” she said. “He threw my husband down the stairs so that he broke his leg. Get that good-for-nothing out of our house!”

The horrified father went round to the sexton’s house and scolded the boy. “What sort of trick was that? The Evil One must have put it into your head.”

“No, Father, please listen to me,” said the boy. “I’m perfectly innocent. He was standing in the dark like someone up to no good, and since I didn’t know who he was I asked him three times to speak or go away.”

“Oh, dear me,” said his father, “you’re nothing but bad luck! Get out of my sight. I never want to set eyes on you again.”

“Very well, Father, anything you say. Just wait until day and I’ll set out to learn to learn what fear is. Then at least I’ll know a trade that will earn me a living.”

“Learn what you like,” said his father, “I don’t care. Here are fifty talers. Take them, go out into the world, and don’t put me to shame by telling a soul where you come from or who your father is.”

“Very well, Father,” said the boy. “If that’s all you want, I can easily remember it.”

So when day dawned the boy put his fifty talers in his pocket and started out along the high road, saying to himself out loud all the time, “Oh, if only I could shudder with fear! If only I knew what fear is!”

A man caught up with the boy and heard him talking to himself, and when they had gone a little further and a gallows came in sight, the man said to him, “Look, there’s the tree where seven men married the ropemaker’s daughter, and now they’re learning to fly. Sit down under it and wait for night, and you’ll soon learn what fear is.”

“If that’s all there is to it, it’s easily done,” said the boy. “And if I learn what fear is so quickly then you can have my fifty talers. Come back and see me tomorrow morning.”

So the boy went over to the gallows, sat down underneath it and waited for evening to come. It was chilly, so he lit a fire, but around midnight such a cold wind blew that in spite of the fire he couldn’t get warm. And
when the wind moved the hanged men in the air, and made them bump into each other, he thought: If I’m cold down by this fire, then those poor fellows dangling up there must be freezing.

He felt so sorry for them that he put up a ladder, climbed it, untied the nooses around the hanged men’s necks one by one and brought all seven down. After that he stirred up the fire, blew on the flames and settled them around it to get warm. But there they sat, never moving, until the fire set their clothes alight. “Mind what you’re doing, or I shall hang you up again,” said the boy. However, the dead men couldn’t hear him. They gave no answer and let their rags go on burning. So the boy grew angry with them and said, “If you can’t take better care of yourselves there’s nothing I can do for you. I don’t want to burn too.” And he hung them all up on the gallows again one by one. Then he lay down by his fire and went to sleep.

Next morning the man came back hoping for the fifty talers. “Well,” he asked, “have you learnt to shudder with fear now?”

“No, how could I?” said the boy. “Those fellows up there never opened their mouths, and they were stupid enough to let the few old rags they’re wearing catch fire.”

The man saw that he wasn’t going to get the fifty talers today, so off he went, saying to himself: I never met such an oddity before.

The boy went on his way too, and once again he began saying to himself, “Oh, if only I could shudder with fear! If only I knew what fear is.”

A carter coming up the road behind him overheard what he was saying and asked, “Who are you?”

“I don’t know,” said the boy.

“Well, where do you come from?” asked the carter.

“I don’t know.”

“Who’s your father, then?”

“I mustn’t say.”

“And what’s that you keep muttering to yourself?”

“Oh,” said the boy, “I want to learn to shudder with fear, but no one can teach me how.”

“Don’t talk such nonsense,” said the carter. “Come along with me, and I’ll find you a place to sleep.”

The boy went with the carter, and in the evening they reached an inn and decided to spend the night there. As they went in the boy said again, “Oh, if only I could shudder with fear! If only I knew what fear is.”

Hearing him, the landlord laughed and said, “If that’s what you want, then this is your big chance.”

“Oh, do be quiet,” said the landlord’s wife. “So many rash folk have already lost their lives. It would be a shame for a fine young man like this never to see the light of day again.”

But the boy said, “However hard it is to shudder with fear, I really want to learn. That’s why I’m on my travels.”

And he would give the landlord no peace, but pestered him to say what he meant. Not far from there, the landlord told him, there was a haunted castle, and anyone who spent three nights in it was bound to learn what fear is. The King had promised his daughter’s hand in marriage to anyone who dared to do it, and the Princess was the loveliest girl in the world. This castle, said the landlord, was full of treasures, enough to make a poor man rich, but they were guarded by evil spirits. Many men had already gone into the castle, but none of them ever came out again.

Next morning the boy went to see the King and said, “I’d like to spend three nights in the haunted castle, Your Majesty.”

The King looked at the boy and liked him, so he said, “You may ask for three gifts to take into the castle with you, but they mustn’t be living things.”

“In that case,” said the boy, “I’ll have a fire, a lathe and a woodworker’s bench with a clamp and knife.”

The King had all these things brought to the castle by daylight. As darkness began to fall, the boy went in, lit a bright fire in one of the rooms of the castle, put the woodworker’s bench and the knife beside the fire, and sat down at the lathe. “Oh, if only I knew what fear is!” he said. “But I don’t suppose I shall learn here either.”

Around midnight, as he was about to stir up the fire and was blowing on it, he heard a sudden yowling from a corner. “Meow, meow! Oh, we’re so cold!”

“Then why are you making such a noise about it, you fools?” called the boy. “If you’re cold, come and sit down by my fire and get warm.”

When he had said that, two big black cats came leaping up, sat down one on each side of him and stared fiercely at him with their fiery eyes. After a while, when they were warmer, they said, “How about a game of cards, friend?”

“Why not?” said the boy. “But show me your paws first.”

The cats put out their paws.

“My word, what long nails you have!” said the boy, seeing their claws. “Wait a moment, I must trim them for you first.” So saying, he took the cats by the scruff of the neck, put them on the woodworker’s bench and clamped their paws down. “Now that I’ve seen your fingers,” he said, “I don’t think I fancy a game of cards with you after all.” So he killed them and threw them into the water of the lake outside the castle.

But once he had dealt with those two monsters and was going to sit down by his fire again, black cats and black dogs on red-hot fiery chains came pouring out of every nook and cranny, more and more of them, and he couldn’t fend them off. They howled horribly and trampled over his fire, scattering the embers and trying to put it out. He sat and watched for a while, but when he felt they had gone too far he picked up his knife and said, “Get away from here, you nuisances!” and made for them. Some ran away, and he killed the others and threw them into
the lake. Then he came back, blew up the sparks of his fire again and warmed himself.

As he sat there his eyelids began to close, and he felt sleepy. Looking around, he saw a big bed in a corner. “Just what I need,” said he, lying down in it. But as he was about to close his eyes the bed began moving of its own accord, and it went all around the castle. “Go on then,” said the boy, “keep it up.” Then the bed went faster than ever, as if six horses were harnessed to it, through doorways and up and down stairs, and suddenly it turned over and fell on top of him like a mountain. However, he threw off the blankets and pillows and clambered out. “Well, anyone else who likes may ride in you now!” he said, and he lay down by his fire and slept until it was day.

Next morning the King came in. When he saw him lying there on the floor, he thought that the ghosts had killed him, and he was dead. “What a shame,” said the King, “what a shame about that fine young man!”

Hearing him, the boy sat up and said, “Oh, I’m not dead yet.”

The King was astonished, but very glad too, and asked how he had passed the night.

“Very well,” said the boy. “That’s one night gone, and the other two will soon be over as well.”

When he went back to the inn the landlord stared in surprise. “I never thought to see you alive again,” he said. “Well, have you learnt what fear is yet?”

“No,” said the boy, “it’s useless. I only wish someone could tell me.”

On the second night he went back to the old castle, sat down by his fire and took up the same old refrain: “Oh, if only I could shudder with fear!” As midnight approached there was a noise and a clattering, quiet at first but then louder and louder, and at last half of a man came tumbling down the chimney with a great shout and landed in front of him.

“Hello there!” said the boy. “There’s not enough of you. You need your other half.”

Then the noise began again. There was a howling and a roaring, and the other half of the man fell down the chimney.

“Wait a minute,” said the boy. “I’ll just blow up the fire for you.” And when he had done so and looked around, the two halves had joined together, and he saw a fearsome figure of a man sitting on his bench.

“That’s not part of the deal,” said the boy. “This bench is mine.” The man tried to shove him aside, but the boy was having none of that. He pushed him off by force and sat down in his own place again. Then more men came tumbling down the chimney one by one. They had nine human leg bones and two human skulls with them, and they stood the bones up and began playing skittles. The boy thought he would like to play too, and asked, “Hey there, you, can I join in?”