Grimm's Household Tales

A poor man had twelve children and was forced to work night and day to give them even bread. So when the thirteenth came into the world, he did not know what to do in his trouble, but ran out onto the great highway and resolved to ask the first person he met to be godfather. The first to meet 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 I will take charge of it and make it happy on earth.” The man said, “Who are you?” “I am God.” “Then I do not want 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. So he turned away from the Lord and went farther. Then the Devil came to him and said, “What are you looking for? 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 want you for a godfather,” said the man. “You deceive men and lead them astray.” He went onward, and then Death came striding up to him on withered legs and said, “Take me as godfather.” The man asked, “Who are you?” “I am Death, and I make all equal.” Then the man said, “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 in the usual way.

When the boy had grown up, his godfather appeared one day and ordered him to go with him. He led him into a forest, showed him a herb that grew there, and said, “Now you shall receive your godfather’s present. I am making 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 some 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 go badly for 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, and whether he would recover or must die.” So they said of him, and people came from far and wide, sent for him when they had anyone ill, and gave him so much money that he soon became a rich man. Now it so happened that the King became ill, and the physician was summoned and was to say whether recovery was possible. But when he came to the bed, Death was standing by the feet of the sick man, and the herb that could save him did not grow. “If I could only cheat Death for once,” thought the physician. “He is sure to take it badly if I do, but since I am his godson, he will shut one eye. I will risk it.” So he took up the sick man and laid him the other way, so that Death was now 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 outwitted me. This time I will pardon it, since you are my godson. But if you dare to do it again, it will cost you your neck, for I will take you yourself away with me.”

Soon afterward 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 had it announced that whoever rescued her from death would 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 his godfather had given, but he was so infatuated by the great beauty of the King’s daughter and by the happiness of becoming her husband that he flung all thought to the winds. He did not see that Death was casting angry glances at him, that he was raising his hand in the air, and that he was 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 second time he had been cheated of his own property, he walked up to the physician with long strides and said, “All is over with you, and now the lot falls on you.” He seized him so firmly with his ice-cold hand that the physician could not resist, and he led him into a cave below the earth. There the physician saw thousands and thousands of candles burning in countless rows, some large, others half-sized, others small. Every instant some were extinguished and others burned up again, so that the flames seemed to leap here and there in perpetual change. “See,” said Death, “these are the lights of men’s lives. The large ones belong to children, the half-sized ones to married people in their prime, and the little ones to old people. But children and young people also often have only a tiny candle.” “Show me the light of my life,” said the physician, and he thought it would still be very tall. Death pointed to a little stub that was just about to go out and said, “Behold, it is there.” “Ah, dear godfather,” said the horrified physician, “light a new one for me. Do it out of love for me, so that I may enjoy my life, be King, and be 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, so that it 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 because he wanted to take revenge, he purposely made a mistake in fixing it, and the little piece fell down and was extinguished. Immediately the physician fell to the ground, and now he himself was in the hands of Death.