The Good Little Devil and Other Tales

by Pierre Gripari

  “What I want? But what do I want? I haven’t a clue! I’ve never thought about it.”

  “Listen,” said the angel, kindly, “take your time, go for a walk and ask the first three people you meet for some advice.”

  “Thank you, thank you, Mister Angel,” replied the fool.

  And off he went. After just a few steps, he came across a sailor:

  “Here, sailor, would you mind giving me some advice? An angel has asked me what I want. What should I reply?”

  The sailor began to laugh:

  “What do I know! I’m not in your shoes!”

  But, seeing that the sailor was making fun of him, Outtaluck grew angry:

  “Oh, it’s like that is it?” he said.

  And paff! With one punch he cracked the sailor’s head open.

  A little farther on, he came across a peasant.

  “Could you tell me, peasant: an angel has asked me what I want. What do you think I should reply?”

  The peasant too began to laugh:

  “Ask for whatever you like. It’s none of my business, to be sure!”

  At these words, the fool grew even angrier than before:

  “Isn’t it really, now?”

  And boff! He killed the peasant with a single punch.

  Farther on again, he came to an old lady:

  “Tell me grandmother, I’m in a bit of a spot. An angel has asked me what I want…”

  The old lady looked at him. She understood right away that he wasn’t very smart. So she replied seriously:

  “That is a tough one, indeed. You could, of course, ask for wealth… But if you became too rich, you might forget about God… If I were you, I would ask for a wise wife.”

  “Thank you, kind old lady!”

  And our fool went back to the beach. The heap of incense was still glowing red, and the angel was still floating there above it in the smoke.

  “So, Outtaluck, what is it that you want?”

  “I want a wise wife!”

  “Excellent!” said the angel. “You have made a very good choice. Go for a walk in the woods tomorrow morning and you shall find her.”

  And the angel went back up to heaven.

  The next morning, the fool walked out into the nearest forest. He walked there for a long, long time without meeting anybody. Then, all of a sudden, he heard a voice pleading, from behind a bush:

  “Don’t kill me! Please don’t kill me!”

  He leant over to look—it was a wounded dove, her feathers spotted with blood, hopping about on one foot and whimpering:

  “Don’t kill me! Don’t kill me!”

  “I hadn’t the least thought of killing you!” said the fool.

  “Then take me in your arms,” begged the dove.

  “I haven’t got time,” the fool replied. “There’s someone I have to meet, you know…”

  But the dove said again, pleading:

  “Please! Take me in your arms, hold me in your arms…”

  Outtaluck took pity on her. He picked up the dove and cradled her gently, then he kissed her little head. The dove said to him:

  “That’s lovely. Again, please. And when I go to sleep, tap my right wing once lightly with your finger.”

  Outtaluck kept on stroking her. After a minute, the dove closed her eyes and her bill began to droop forward. Then the fool gave her right wing a little tap with his finger and… no longer was he holding a bird in his arms but a superb young woman, who began to sing:

  You it was who caught me

  You who knew to keep me

  And you may have me for your wife—for ever.

  Outtaluck was delighted, but also a little ashamed of himself, at the same time:

  “Alas,” he said, “I can see that you are wise and beautiful, but I have no profession by which to earn a living for us; indeed, everywhere I am known as Outtaluck.”

  The young lady laughed, kissed him and answered:

  “From today, no one will call you Outtaluck ever again; instead they’ll call you Lucky Devil!”

  “You’re kind,” said the fool, “but I have to warn you: I don’t even know where we can sleep tonight!”

  “No matter! Let’s walk straight on ahead.”

  They went straight on, letting their feet carry them forward. When night fell, they stopped beneath a tree, and the wife said to her husband:

  “Say your prayers and go to sleep. Tomorrow is another day.”

  The fool said his prayers, lay down and went to sleep. As soon as he was asleep, the young wife took a book of magic spells out of her bodice, opened it and read aloud:

  Mother’s servants, if you can

  Come, help me and my new man

  Straight away, two giants appeared:

  “Daughter of your mother, what do you want from us?”

  “I want you to build me a fabulous palace, with everything I might need: servants, furniture, a chapel and a cellar: everything, please!”

  “Daughter of your mother, you can count on us!”

  *

  The following morning, when the fool woke up, he was lying in an enormous bed, in the finest room of a magnificent palace. A dozen servants came in to serve him his breakfast. Turning over, he saw that his wife was lying next to him. He asked her:

  “What is happening to us?”

  “Oh, it’s nothing,” she yawned. “I couldn’t sleep during the night, so I did this to distract myself.”

  The fool gazed at her admiringly:

  “You really are wise!” he said.

  She giggled:

  “You haven’t seen anything yet! For now, hurry and have your breakfast. When you’ve finished, you must come and see the King to say sorry for building our palace in his kingdom.”

  The fool had a tasty breakfast, then he got dressed and was taken by horse-drawn carriage to the kingdom’s capital city, where he went to see the King.

  “What do you want from me?” asked the King.

  “I have come to apologize, Your Majesty.”

  “Apologize? Apologize for what?”

  “For building my palace on your land.”

  “Hmm!” the King pondered. “It’s not a very serious offence… But since you are here, show me this palace of yours! I am curious to see it, all the same…”

  “Of course, Your Majesty.”

  The fool brought the King along in the carriage to see his home. When the King saw the palace from outside, he gawped in amazement. When he saw inside it, he gasped in wonder. But when he saw the fool’s wife, he grew sad and couldn’t say another word, for he had fallen in love.

  Seeing the King come back home, his mother asked him:

  “Why are you so melancholy, my child?”

  “Ah!” sighed the King. “It’s because I have such wicked thoughts!”

  “What thoughts?”

  “I saw the fool’s wife and I fell in love with her there and then! I think it’s unfair that that woman does not belong to me.”

  “In that case,” said the old Queen Mother, “we shall have to steal her from him!”

  “Yes, but how? They are married!”

  “Listen,” said the Queen Mother, “I have an idea: give him something to do for you, something very, very difficult. And when he can’t do it, well then, you can chop his head off!”

  “Now that,” said the King, “is a good idea!”

  He went to bed, very pleased with his new plan.

  The next day, he summoned the fool and said to him:

  “Since you have built this beautiful palace, I have an order for you: you shall build an avenue to link your palace with mine. This avenue must be paved with gold. The trees lining it must have an emerald for every leaf and a ruby for every fruit. In every tree, there must be a pair of nesting firebirds, singing all the songs of Paradise. And at the foot of every tree there must be a pair of seafaring cats miaowing along in time with the birds. Let all this be ready by tomorrow morning, otherwise I shall cut off your head!”

&nb
sp; The fool went back to his palace home, very downcast. His wife asked:

  “Well, what’s up?”

  “Ooh, I don’t want to talk about it,” the fool replied.

  He told his wife what the King had said. She laughed out loud:

  “Is that all? But this will be a piece of cake! Off you go now, say your prayers and get to bed: tomorrow is another day.”

  The fool went to bed. As soon as he was asleep, his wife stepped outside the palace, took the magic-spell book from her bodice, opened it and began to read:

  Mother’s servants, if you can

  Come, help me and my new man

  The next morning, the King took a look out of his window and, to his great surprise, he saw the avenue paved with gold linking the two palaces, with the emerald- and ruby-bearing trees, the singing firebirds and the cats all miaowing in time. He called his mother over:

  “Look, mother! The fool is cleverer than you thought. He has built us an avenue paved with gold in a single night!”

  “Hmm!” harrumphed the Queen Mother, with a mean smile. “It isn’t he who is clever, it’s his wife! But don’t despair: I have another idea. Order the fool to go into the next world, to ask the old King, your own dead father’s soul, where he hid his gold. It will be impossible for him to get there, and then of course you can cut off his head!”

  “A brilliant idea!” said the King.

  That very day, he commanded the fool:

  “Since you are so clever, pop over to the next world and ask my father’s soul where he hid his gold. And if you can’t find the gold for me, don’t bother coming back!

  The fool went back home and told his wife what the King had said. She laughed until her sides hurt.

  “A fine plan indeed!” she said. “This time we have some work to do. Right, come with me.”

  She took a magic ball out of her bodice and threw it in front of her. The ball began to roll along the ground. The fool and his wife followed it. The ball rolled all the way to the sea. The sea divided in front of it and the ball continued to roll along the dry seabed. The fool and his wife kept on following, walking now between two walls of water. They walked and walked, and when at last the ball stopped rolling, they were in the next world.

  There they found a very old man with a crown on his head and, on his back, an immense bundle of wood, and behind him, two devils whipping tirelessly at him, to keep him moving.

  “It’s the King’s father,” said the fool’s wife.

  So the fool stepped forward and shouted, “Stop!” to the two devils.

  “What do you want?” asked the devils.

  “I need to talk to that man!”

  “Then who will carry our wood, while he is dallying with you?”

  “Just a moment,” said the wife.

  She took the spell book out of her bodice and called out:

  Mother’s servants, if you can

  Come, help me and my new man

  The two giants appeared instantly.

  “Daughter of your mother, what do you want from us?”

  “Carry these two devils’ wood, while we talk with this gentleman.”

  The two giants picked up the bundle of wood. And as they did, the old man fell to the ground, quite worn out by his eternal burden. The fool approached him:

  “Your son has sent me to you. He would like to know where you have hidden your gold.”

  “My son?” muttered the old King. “He would do better to stick to governing his country wisely, and to leave my gold alone! Tell him, if he cannot be a better king than I, he will end up just as I have done!”

  “Okay,” the fool replied, “I’ll tell him. But that’s not really what he was after. What about the gold?”

  The old King sighed deeply, then he pulled out a little key which was hanging on a string around his neck:

  “All right, then,” he said. “I quite see there’s no point trying to teach you living people about right and wrong. So, tell my son to go down into the palace cellar. He will find the door to my treasure trove behind the racks of wine bottles. This is the key to that door.”

  And the old King gave the fool the key. The fool said thank you, and he and his wife set out on their long way back home. Meanwhile, the devils returned and began, once again, to crack their whips and drive the old King ever onwards.

  The next day, the fool went back to the King’s palace. The King asked him:

  “Haven’t you left yet?”

  “I have left,” the fool replied, “and I’ve come back too. I met Your Majesty’s father.”

  “You met him? Where?”

  “In the next world, Your Majesty.”

  “And what is he up to there?”

  “He carries wood for some devils there,” said the fool, “and the devils whip him to make him go faster.”

  The King made a sour face. This kind of thing is never very nice to hear, especially, as was the case now, in front of the whole royal court. The King looked down and asked the fool:

  “Are you making fun of me?”

  “Of course not, Your Majesty!”

  “All right. And what did my father say?”

  “He said you would do better to stick to governing the country wisely, and to leave his gold alone, if you don’t want to end up like him…”

  “You’re lying!”

  “No, I’m not lying, Your Majesty!”

  “Well… what about the secret hiding place? Didn’t he say anything about where he hid his treasure?”

  “He did, Your Majesty. You must go down to the cellar and, behind the racks of wine bottles, you will find a little door, which this little key will open…”

  The King snatched the key out of the fool’s hand and left the court room, saying:

  “I shall go and see right away. And if it isn’t true, I will cut off your head!”

  He went down to the cellar, pushed aside the racks of bottles, and there he did find a little door. He opened it with the key: it was indeed the door to the old King’s treasure trove.

  That evening, the King said to his mother:

  “The fool is far cleverer than we thought. He has brought me the key to the treasure trove!”

  “No he isn’t!” said the old Queen Mother. “It’s his wife who is clever, not him! But don’t worry, I have one more idea: command him to go to Nowhere-land, to find Nowhere-man, and to ask him for je-ne-sais-quoi. This time he won’t come back and you’ll be able to take his wife!”

  “What a brilliant idea!” exclaimed the King, thrilled. The next morning he called the fool and commanded him:

  “Off you go, to Nowhere-land, where you must find Nowhere-man and ask him to give you je-ne-sais-quoi. If you are unlucky enough to come back without it, I will have your head cut off.

  And, just as the fool was leaving, the King added:

  “Oh—I almost forgot. You must leave your wife here. She is banned from going with you.”

  For the third time, the fool went home and told his wife what the King had said. This time, his wife looked thoughtful:

  “This one,” she said, “this one is a real toughie. And you have to go alone…”

  She thought for a long time, then she gave her husband an embroidered towel, saying:

  “Listen carefully. You must leave here and keep on walking straight ahead until you reach the end of the earth. In every place you stop along the way, ask to take a bath. And only dry yourself with this towel, which I embroidered myself!”

  Then she took the magic-spell book from her bodice and read aloud:

  Mother’s servants, if you can

  Come, help me and my new man

  “Daughter of your mother, what do you want from us?” asked the two giants.

  “As soon as my husband has left,” she said, “transform this palace into a mountain and me into a rock on the mountain. That way the King won’t be able to do anything to me.”

  The fool kissed his wife, then, taking the towel, he went on his way. After just a
few steps, he turned round to look, and what did he see? Instead of his palace he saw a tall mountain, and instead of his wife, he saw a rock.

  On he went, straight ahead, going wherever his feet led him, for days, weeks and months. He crossed a sea, then another land, then yet another sea, then other lands and seas… so far and for so long that one day he found himself at the end of the earth. Before him was nothing but a river of fire. And beside the river stood a little house.

  He looked inside the little house and there, in the middle of the living room, sitting in a great armchair, he found an ancient witch who instantly began to sniff the air:

  “Pouf! Pouf! There’s a smell of Christians in here!”

  “Excuse me, Granny,” said the fool, “but I’m looking for a place called ‘Nowhere-land’.”

  “You’ve no need to look any further,” said the old crone, “for I shall eat you here and now!”

  “Well! As you wish,” said the fool. “But may I take a bath first?”

  “Certainly!” said the old witch. “That will save my having to wash you myself.”

  She let him run a hot bath. The fool washed and, when he had finished, she handed him a towel.

  “Here—dry yourself off.”

  “No thanks,” he said, “I have my own towel.”

  And he took out his embroidered towel. When she saw the towel, the old witch was astonished. She asked:

  “Where did you take that towel from?”

  “I didn’t take it from anywhere. My wife embroidered it.”

  “Your wife? But in that case… you have married my daughter! Only she and I can embroider in that way… Come to my arms, my son-in-law!”

  And the old lady hugged and kissed the fool. Then she asked:

  “But what are you doing coming all the way here?”

  The fool told her his whole story: about his two clever brothers, his champion cat, the angel, the injured dove and the King’s commands.

  “Tell me, Mother, do you know of a place called Nowhere-land?”

  “No,” said the old lady, “never heard of it. But wait a moment, I’ll go and find out more!”

  She went outside, where she stood facing the forest and called as loudly as she could: