The Devil and the Smith

Once there was a Smith, rumored to have made a deal with the Devil.

One day, an old Hag walked up the road. She asked for bread and a place to rest by the fire.

The Hag and the Smith began to talk. He boasted of his abilities. Before his talk was through, the Hag said, “Well, can your smithing do this?”

Her staff burst into flowers.

Before the Smith could react, or say much more, a customer was at the door. It was the Miller, with his only horse: a sad, decrepit, broken down nag, just skin and bones.

“I am in need of new shoes for my horse,” said the Miller.

“Very well,” said the blacksmith. Work came first!

The Smith went to work shoeing the four shoes for the Miller’s horse. It was hard work, hot work, but nothing he had not done before. He hammered each shoe into shape, and then he nailed it onto the horse’s hard, insensible hoof. The job was done.

He looked again.

The horse had changed. Suddenly the horse was young, fresh, vigorous, in the bloom of health. The ribs had filled in. The sores were gone. Where before the horse was a pallid brownish-grey, now his coat gleamed almost golden. The Hag stood nearby.

The Smith was in shock. “I have to go outside,” he said.

The Smith worked out the payment details with the Miller. Oddly enough, the Miller did not seemed concerned that he might be getting the wrong horse. The Miller was more than happy to take this fresh, youthful steed back to his humble abode. Inside, the hag waited.

“Now, what was that?” said the Smith.

“One moment,” said the Hag.

The smith stared at her. He looked deeply wounded, or confused -- like something had been stolen from him, and he could not remember what it was.

“All is well,” she said.

He looked again and she was a beautiful maiden. She smiled, and laughed, just slightly, and her blue eyes sparkled. “Thank you for your hospitality. I have revealed my true form.”

The Smith’s jaw fell wide open. But not for long.

“So wait, is that all I get?”

She told him he could have three wishes.

"Well," said the Smith, "first and foremost, I wish that any one whom I ask to climb up into the pear-tree that stands outside by the wall of my forge, may stay sitting there till I ask him to come down again. The second wish I wish is that any one whom I ask to sit down in my easy chair which stands inside the workshop yonder, may stay sitting there till I ask him to get up. Last of all, I wish that any one whom I ask to creep into the steel purse which I have in my pocket, may stay in it till I give him leave to creep out again."

"You have wished as a wicked man," said the Lady. "First and foremost, you should have wished for grace and the blessing of Heaven.”

"I dare not look so high as that," said the Smith.

After that the Lady bade him goodbye, took her staff covered in roses, and went on her way.

Well, the years went on and on. When the time was up, the Devil came to fetch the Smith, as was written in their bargain.

"Are you ready?" he said, as he stuck his nose in at the door of the forge.

"Oh," said the Smith, "I must just hammer the head of this tenpenny nail first; meantime you can just climb up into the pear-tree, and pluck yourself a pear to gnaw at; you must be both hungry and thirsty after your journey."

So the Devil thanked him for his kind offer, and climbed up into the pear-tree.

"Very good," said the Smith. "but now, on thinking the matter over, I find I shall never be able to have done hammering the head of this nail till four years are out at least, this iron is so hard. You may sit up there and rest your bones until I'm done."

When the Devil heard this, he begged and prayed till his voice was as thin as a silver penny that he might have leave to come down; but there was no help for it. There he was, and there he must stay. At last he had to give his word of honor not to come again till the four years were out, which the Smith had spoken of.

Then the Smith said, "Very well, now you may come down."

So when the time was up, the Devil came again to fetch the Smith.

"You're ready now, of course," said the Devil. "You've had time enough to hammer the head of that nail, I should think."

"Yes, the head is right enough now," said the Smith, "but still you have come a little tiny bit too soon, for I haven't quite done sharpening the point; such hard iron I never hammered in all my born days. So while I work at the point, you may just as well sit down in my easy chair and rest yourself. I'll be bound you're weary after coming so far."

"Thank you kindly," said the Devil, and down he plumped into the easy chair. But just as he had made himself comfortable, the Smith told him that on second thought, he found he wouldn't be able to get the point sharp till four more years were out.

At first, the Devil begged prettily to be let out of the chair, and afterwards, waxing wroth, he began to threaten and scold. But the Smith kept on, all the while excusing himself, and saying it was all the iron's fault, it was so damnably hard. He told the Devil he was not so badly off to have to sit quietly in an easy chair, and that he would let him out to the minute when the four years were over.

Well, at last there was no help for it, and the Devil had to give his word of honor not to fetch the Smith till the four years were out.

Then the Smith said, "Well now, you may get up and be off about your business." Away went the Devil as fast as he could.

When the four years were over the Devil came again to fetch the Smith, and he called out, as he stuck his nose in at the door of the forge. "Now, I know you must be ready."

"Ready, ay, ready," answered the Smith. "We can go now as soon as you please. But hark ye, there is one thing I have stood here and thought, and wondered. I would ask you to tell me. Is it true what people say, that the Devil can make himself as small as he pleases?"

"God knows, it is the very truth," said the Devil.

"Oh!" said the Smith; "It is true, is it? Then I wish you would just be so good as to creep into this steel purse of mine, and see whether it is sound at the bottom, for, to tell you the truth, I'm afraid my traveling money will drop out."

"With all my heart," said the Devil, who made himself small in a trice, and crept into the purse; but he was scarcely inside when the Smith snapped to the clasp.

"Yes," called out the Devil inside the purse. "It's right and tight everywhere."

"Very good," said the Smith. "I'm glad to hear you say so, but 'More haste the worse speed,' says the old saw, and 'Forewarned is forearmed,' says another; so I'll just weld these links a little together, just for safety's sake."

And with that he laid the purse in the furnace, and made it red hot.

"Are you mad?" the Devil screamed, "Don't you know I'm inside the purse?"

"Yes, I do!" said the Smith. "But I can't help you, for another old saw says, 'One must strike while the iron is hot.'"

As he said this, he took up his sledge-hammer, laid the purse on the anvil, and let fly at it as hard as he could.

"Owww! Owww! Owww!" bellowed the Devil, inside the purse. "Dear friend, do let me out, and I'll never come near you again."

"Very well," said the Smith. "Now I think the links are pretty well welded and you may come out."

So he unclasped the purse, and away went the Devil in such a hurry that he didn't once look behind him.

It came across the Smith's mind that he had done a silly thing in making the Devil his enemy, for he said to himself, "If they won’t have me in Heaven, wherever shall I go?”

So the Smith got out of his deal with the Devil, but he could not escape Death. He live to a ripe old age, and died comfortably in his bed.

Being a shade felt little different than being a living Smith. But he had no more smithing work, and no appetite for the pears from his pear tree. The Smith now found himself in need of direction.

The Smith waited and watched, as spirits and mortal folk came and went along the highway by his smithy, now haunted by its former owner. One day he cunningly followed a poor Tailor, virtuous and deserving, up a steep mountain wilderness path.

As he had suspected, the path led to Heaven.

There he came face to face with same beautiful maiden who had visited him so many years before. As nearly as he could see, she had not aged a day.

“I am concerned about your security,” the Smith told her.

"Pray tell?" said the Lady.

“If just anybody can get into Heaven, it isn’t really secure. Yes, the path is difficult to follow -- but I followed it. I wasn’t supposed to be here, remember? The next person along the path might not be so nice as me.”

The Smith had come prepared. He noticed that he felt far more solid and corporeal here on the mountaintop than in the valley below. His muscles bulged.

“You need protection. You need to keep certain people out.”

The Lady tried to think of a good objection, but she could not.

“You need a wall. Here, I have the blueprints. And here are the keys.”

After that, Heaven was never quite the same.

Mothers missed their sons who had done horrible things. Sons missed their first loves -- even the ones who left them for a wealthier man. Friends who had quarreled wished the quarrel had not lasted for all eternity. Where before, everyone had been harmonious -- now the people wondered, what about the ones who did not make it to Heaven? Why not them?

Before they had believed that their loved ones might someday make it up to the mountain, to this miraculous place, now they knew they would be barred from the door.

The Smith carried messages ‘twixt Heaven and Hell, as best as he could. He was not a man to pin down. Or so he told himself. Not everyone might like the new order of things, but he could go where he wished. He had work and purpose for eternity.

As for the Devil, would he be so easily fooled again?

Some souls wish to leave Heaven. Others would like to gain entrance. Nowadays, people scarcely remember what the afterlife was like, before the wall went up.

Who would you trust with power? For keys may be stolen. Locks may be broken. Nobody dares speak the answer. But everyone would like a key.

--

This story is a retelling of a legend believed to be the oldest in the world. Many different variants exist. It is most closely based on the version in this 1859 Norwegian fairy tale, now in the public domain.