17
Here is another Chapman tale. Time and place have no meaning for the characters of our tale, so let’s just say it happened a while ago, in this place and that.
Davie was a traveller boy who had, after many years, come wearily home from a seafaring life. On his return he was looking for his family. When he at last arrived at the campsite where he’d last seen them, he was sad to see it deserted, empty of old and young, with not even a dog or pony.
Sitting down on a stone, head in hand, he looked around the place where so many children had played and he felt heart-heavy. Scanning the site one last time before heading off, he noticed that where his tent usually stood was a mound of earth, perhaps only a foot wide. As he began to scrape away small handfuls from this mound, he recalled his father saying to him as a little boy, ‘If I have a message for you, I’ll bury it.’
And yes, this was a message from his father, because in the hollow he had dug lay a box. In it were three biscuits and a note. The note read: ‘If you be hungry, my son, don’t eat these biscuits until you have shared them.’
What a strange thing for his father to say, he thought. Still, his father was a wise man, and he had taken the time to conceal the box for Davie, who by the way was beginning to feel quite hungry. However, he would abstain from touching a morsel until he met somebody hungrier than himself.
This opportunity was just around the corner, because there he found an old bent-backed woman who asked him for a small crumb of food.
‘I only have three biscuits, old wife,’ he told her, ‘but you are welcome to share one with me.’
The wizened wife thanked him, ate the half biscuit and went away at a snail’s pace.
Soon he came upon another old lady and she too asked him for food. ‘There are only two biscuits in my bag,’ he said, ‘but I’ll share one with you.’ Again the elderly soul thanked him for his kindness and tottered off.
Two days later, his hunger had taken on a life of its own, and was gnawing at his innards. ‘I must eat this last biscuit,’ he thought in desperation, scanning the skyline in the hope that someone would appear. Just as he was putting the biscuit to his lips, a voice from the roadside reached his ears. ‘Help me, please, I am starving to death!’
Davie made over to a patch of rough grass to find, lying in a dreadful state, another ancient woman. This one was even sicklier than the others.
‘Help me to sit up, young man,’ she begged, ‘I have no strength in these bones.’ Davie bent down and gently seated her at the foot of a tree trunk.
‘Here, old wife, I have only one biscuit left, but you can have it all.’
‘Thank you, my good man,’ she said, handing him a woven sack. ‘You deserve much more than a biscuit.’
Davie thought the old woman was perhaps losing her marbles, for what good was an empty sack to one who was in the last throes of hunger?
‘When I am gone down that road, you open the sack and ask it for whatever you desire, but never for a thing of badness or greed.’
Those parting words left Davie totally confused. He scratched his head and sat down upon the same patch of grass that the old woman had sat on no more than minutes before. The hunger returned with a vengeance, eating steadily deep into his gut. He peered inside the sack, and making sure no one should see him and think his actions were those of a madman, whispered, ‘Can I please have food?’
And had he food? Did he ever! For there, to astonish his eyes, was a table bigger than one set in a banqueting hall, laden with every kind of eatable one could wish for. For someone who only had the merest crumbs of shared biscuits in his belly, was that not a feast! Davie ate until the last bite swelled in his throat and nearly choked the once hungry lad.
Then he lay down among the sun-warmed grass and slept like a baby – he slept and dreamed of steak and vegetables, puddings and creams, salmon and fruits, all produced from his old hessian sack. Yes, if ever there was a happy traveller man, then he’d be hard pushed to be more pleased than Davie.
Awakening much refreshed, he carefully folded the magic sack and tied it over his shoulder. Little knowing or caring where his wandering footsteps would lead him, Davie set off down the road that led to somewhere or nowhere.
By the day’s end he’d arrived at a town nestled within high stone walls, in the middle of which was a castle. ‘This is a strange place,’ he thought, noticing that there did not seem to be a single inhabitant.
As he looked all over for a place to shelter for the night, it soon became apparent that not one of the houses had a light or open shutters. Finding no one to ask about this, he went and knocked loudly at the castle gate. He waited some time, before at last the gate creaked open, and standing peering out from behind the heavy wooden gate was an old man who asked Davie his business.
‘I need digs for the night, where can I lodge?’
The elderly man told Davie that he would find nothing in this place, because the Ancient One had eaten most of the people. The rest had taken to the hills, in fear that they too would be feasted upon.
‘The Ancient One,’ asked our traveller lad, ‘and who might he be? And can he not eat food like the rest of us?’
The old man was rather taken aback by Davie’s response, and asked him where he had been for the last ten years and more. After realising Davie had been away on the high seas, the old man beckoned to him to come in and share his supper. Davie didn’t feel the need for food, having eaten enough to choke a horse, but thought it best not to offend the man and said a drink of tea would be fine.
They drank down tea and then Davie discovered what had been happening to the people of that place. He drew on his pipe, did the old man, stared into the fire and began. ‘One night, when Her Majesty the Queen was alone in her chambers, she made a wish that the King’s dungeon would be filled crammed full of gold.
Suddenly she turned to see a tiny man dancing in the flames of her fireplace. He said that if she wanted her wish to come true, then she had to bring two handmaidens over to the fire for his master. Without question, the greedy monarch did as he asked.
The most terrible thing happened next. A dozen little men, just like the first, grabbed the two innocent maidens and drew them into the fire, never to be seen again.’
He went on to tell how the King, on hearing this, was horrified at the evil greed of his wife, scolding her for dealing with the underworld. She said that, before he judged her, should they not see if the tiny man had kept his part of the bargain. So down into the dungeon they went, and yes, there it was, a mountain of sun-coloured gold filled every corner.
But the King was not impressed, and went into his wife’s chamber to see if the magic forces could be summoned. At once the little man appeared to him and said, if he wanted things to be as they used to be, then he must bring the Queen over to the fire. This he did, and in an instant she too was seized and swallowed up by the fiery imps.
Then the rooms began to shake. Flames shot forth from the fire to curl and slither up the wall. The fireplace was glowing like a furnace. Then the master of all terror, of all horror, and in the most grotesque form, the Devil himself, shot out and held the King by the throat. ‘You will bring me and mine food – living, screaming, kicking food! Do you hear me, mortal?’
The quivering King nodded his head vigorously. The Devil, as suddenly as he had come, was gone, leaving a cold fireplace and a wreck of a king.
‘So now you see where the townsfolk have gone,’ the old man concluded.
Davie thought long and hard before saying that he might be able to help. He asked to see the King. After climbing several flights of winding stairs, the pair were ushered in to sit before a bent-backed and sad-faced man. He was not old, yet he had the appearance of one who had lived a dreadful existence.
‘I have a young man here who thinks he may be of assistance, your eminence, sire,’ said Davie’s companion, with a note of despair in his croaky voice. The king hardly lifted his head to look at Davie, but bade him to sit anyway.
Davie told him that he too had a powerful magic, one not to be used for greed or evil but only for deeds of goodness.
‘Take him away to do what he wishes,’ said the King to his faithful old servant, though neither of them had the slightest belief in the help offered by Davie, or anyone else for that matter.
Davie was taken into the royal chambers, and soon had the fire kindled, spreading a warming yet menacing heat throughout the room. He didn’t have long to wait before the tiny man he had heard of came flickering over the flames.
‘Have you food for my master?’ he enquired.
‘Yes, I have,’ answered Davie.
‘Then give it here,’ squealed the demon.
Davie shook his head several times before saying he had to see the Ancient One first. The last word had no sooner left his mouth when the ruler of demons whooshed up from the fire and hovered in the room like a tower of solid flame. Davie felt his toes curl inside his boots and his tongue swell with fear.
‘Where is my meal?’ roared the earth-shattering one. ‘I need to be fed!’
‘Sire, I have a meal better than any living, scrawny person – would you like to taste it?’ Before the Devil could do to him what he’d done to all the other mortals, Davie spread his sack on the floor, peered inside and summoned it to produce its best. It did not disappoint: the whole room began to fill with every possible edible morsel.
‘Come, eat, fill yourselves up,’ the Devil called to the demons, who were pushing and shoving to be able to feast upon Davie’s gifts. The Devil was the first to gorge himself, spewing and slavering his way through fruits, beef stews, fishes and fry ups, until not a single crumb was left.
The Ancient One liked these new delights, and ordered Davie to be there again the next night. Davie came again as he was told, and the next night also. After a week, when he was certain he’d gained the trust of the king of the demons, he set about his plan.
‘Keep all the doors open leading from the chambers and down the stairs, and also open the castle gate,’ he told the old guard. ‘This night we will see the end of the Ancient One and his family of gargoyles. Trust me, old man.’
That evening, as usual, when the fire was lit those wicked vipers from the pits of Hell came forth to feast. With drooling, slavery lips they waited impatiently, scratching at Davie and then at the sack. The Devil ordered Davie to produce food, or else they’d eat him instead.
‘Now, listen here, you lot,’ said the bold hero, ‘why do you wait night after night for a feasting, when you can enjoy the pleasures of the sack all the time?’
‘Well, tell us more, then, Davie boy, please come closer and tell us more.’ The Devil pushed aside his family of ghouls in anticipation, curling long fiendish fingers round Davie’s neck.
‘It’s easy, my lord of the underworld – jump inside!’ The drooling band gathered in a tight circle and peered inside the sack. ‘I see nothing,’ said one. ‘Nor I,’ hissed another.
‘Of course you can’t see anything, because you must all jump deep inside. Only then can the sack work its magic.’
Davie felt the Devil’s bony fingers loosen their grasp as he bent down to sniff and peer into the blackness of the sack. His followers, waiting for his orders, gathered round.
‘Let’s try this, my wiry little worshippers,’ the Devil cried, then leapt into the sack. In an instant the rest of his band did the same. Davie waited until the last cloven foot had disappeared from view before whipping a strong length of rope around the opening.
‘Look out,’ he screamed, ‘I’m coming through, I’ve got the Devil on my back!’
Out of the room and down the stairs he darted, with the bag of Hell on his back. Out through the main door, out through the courtyard, out through the castle gate, on to the street he ran and ran, with all the demons of hell scraping and screaming on his shoulders. The King, who had heard the commotion, was standing on his castle wall shouting from the high turrets, ‘Haste on, Davie, haste on my man, you’ll do it!’ His old guard was leaping and dancing in the air, cloth hat whirling above his head.
Davie went round the bend in the cobbled street, and with one last dash began emptying Hell’s cargo down into the town well. Down, down, they went, tumbling and rolling and screeching, never to escape the blessed water of the well again.
Davie had used his sack as was asked of him by the old sick lady – ‘Never ask for anything out of greed, only need!’ Well, folks, if ever a sack was used for need, then it certainly was this one.
Before long, word spread that the Devil was defeated, and soon the townsfolk came from where they had been hiding back to their houses. The King began to do his duty, and soon found a worthier Queen than the last one. And as for brave Davie, well, one day while washing at a quiet river, he met and was reunited with his family and never needed to ask his magic sack for anything again. He kept it safe, however, just in case.