Brother Lustig

Long ago a great war came to an end, and the soldiers were sent home. Brother Lustig left the army with nothing but a hard loaf of bread and four small coins in his pocket, and off he went on foot. Before long a poor beggar stopped him on the road and asked for alms. Brother Lustig broke his loaf into four pieces. He gave the beggar one piece and one coin and said, "I was a soldier, and now I am free. This bread and these coins are all I own. When they are gone, I will have to beg beside you. Still, you shall have your share." The beggar thanked him and walked on ahead. He did not know that the beggar was Saint Peter in disguise. A little later a second beggar met him, and after that a third, and each time Brother Lustig said the same words and shared his bread and his coins. By the time the third beggar went away, he had only a quarter of the loaf and one coin left. He did not grumble. He simply shrugged and said, "A man must share what he has. What a man gives away never goes to waste."

With his last quarter of bread and his last coin, Brother Lustig turned into an inn. He ate the bread and spent the coin on a mug of beer, and drank it to the last drop. When he came out, a stranger in soldier's clothes met him on the road. It was Saint Peter again, though Brother Lustig did not know him. "Good day, comrade," said the stranger. "I know something of healing," he went on. "Walk with me, and I will give you half of everything I earn. You will never go hungry with me." Brother Lustig laughed. "That sounds like a fine bargain. Agreed!" And off they went together. Saint Peter had watched him give his last bread to beggar after beggar, and he was pleased. "Here is a generous man," he thought. "He gives without counting the cost. He has his faults, but his heart is in the right place."

Soon they came to a farmhouse, and from inside came loud crying. They went in, and there lay the farmer, sick almost to death, while his wife wept at his bedside. "Stop your crying," said Saint Peter. "I will make him well again." He took a box of salve from his pocket, and in a moment the sick man rose from his bed, healthy and strong. The couple was overjoyed. "How can we thank you?" they asked. "What can we give you?" Saint Peter refused everything. "I want nothing," he said. "I will take no payment." The more they pressed him, the more he shook his head. Brother Lustig poked him in the ribs and whispered, "Take something! Goodness knows we need it." At last the wife brought a lamb and begged Saint Peter to accept it. He still refused, and Brother Lustig cried out, "Take it, you great fool!" So Saint Peter said, "Very well, I take the lamb — but I will not carry it. If you want it so much, you carry it." Brother Lustig laughed. "That is nothing at all!" he said, and he swung the lamb onto his shoulder.

They walked into a wood, and Brother Lustig began to feel the lamb heavy on his shoulder, and his stomach began to growl. He lit a fire and put the meat in a kettle. "I will take a little walk," said Saint Peter. "Do not start eating until I come back." While he was gone, Brother Lustig cooked the lamb until it was tender. He cut up the meat and found the heart. "They say this is the best part!" he said, and he tasted it. It was so good that he could not stop, and soon the whole heart was gone. When Saint Peter came back, he said, "You may eat the whole lamb. All I want is the heart. Give it to me." Brother Lustig hunted through the meat with his knife and fork, turning it this way and that. "There is no heart here," he said at last. "A lamb has no heart at all. Think about it, brother, and you will see that it is true." Saint Peter did not argue. "Very well," he said. "Then I want none of the lamb. Eat it by yourself." Brother Lustig ate half the lamb and packed the rest into his knapsack. Later they came to a deep river. "You go first," said Saint Peter. Brother Lustig thought to himself, "If the water is too deep, I will not follow." So he said, "No, you go first." Saint Peter strode across, and the water came only to his knee. Then Brother Lustig started across too, but the water grew deeper and rose to his throat. Will you admit that you ate the heart? "No," said Brother Lustig. "I never ate it." The water rose to his mouth, and he cried, "Brother, help me!" Saint Peter asked again, and again the answer was no. Even so, he would not let the poor fellow drown. He made the water sink, and helped him across.

Some days later they came to a kingdom, and there they heard that the king's daughter lay sick, close to death. "Here is our chance, brother!" cried Brother Lustig. "Cure her, and we are rich for life!" But Saint Peter walked slower and slower, as if he were half asleep. Brother Lustig pushed him and hurried him, but it was no use. At last a messenger brought sad news: the princess was dead. "Now we are finished!" cried Brother Lustig. "It is all your fault, with your sleepy way of walking!" "Quiet," said Saint Peter. "Curing the sick is not all I can do. I can raise the dead as well." "You had better earn us half the kingdom, then!" grumbled Brother Lustig. At the palace, everyone was weeping. Saint Peter asked for a kettle and some water, sent everyone out, and kept only Brother Lustig with him. He boiled the dead girl's limbs in the kettle, took out the white bones, and set them in order on the table. Three times he called, "By the holy Trinity, rise up, dead maiden!" At the third call the princess stood up, alive, healthy and beautiful. The king was overjoyed and offered half his kingdom as a reward. Saint Peter took nothing. "You great fool!" Brother Lustig poked him. "You need nothing, but I do!" Then the king saw that Brother Lustig wanted a reward very much, so he told his treasurer to pour gold into his knapsack until it could hold no more.

They went on their way, and when they came to a forest, Saint Peter divided the gold into three piles. "There are two of us, but you made three piles," said Brother Lustig. "I have divided it fairly," said Saint Peter. "One pile for me, one for you, and one for whoever ate the lamb's heart." " cried Brother Lustig, and he swept the gold into his arms, confessing in a hurry. " "But you told me a lamb has no heart," said Saint Peter. "Oh, that was just talk!" said Brother Lustig. "A lamb has a heart like every other creature. Why should a lamb alone have none?" Saint Peter smiled. "Then keep the gold," he said. "But I will walk with you no longer. I will go my own way." Brother Lustig hugged the gold tight and did not mind at all. "As you please, dear brother," he said. "Goodbye to you!" He never guessed that Saint Peter had given him far more than gold that day.

After Saint Peter went his own way, Brother Lustig threw his gold about, bought this and that, and gave money away to anyone who asked. Soon his pockets were empty again. "That saint is a strange fellow," he said to himself. "He gives money away as fast as he earns it." Then he came to a kingdom where he heard that the king's daughter had just died. "This is my chance!" he thought. "I will raise her from the dead, and the king will pay me well." He went to the king and offered to bring the girl back to life. The king had heard of a soldier who could raise the dead. Still, he had little faith in the man, and he asked his councillors. They said, "She is dead anyway. Let him try. Nothing is lost by trying."

So Brother Lustig asked for a kettle and some water. He sent everyone out, took off the girl's limbs, put them in the water and lit a fire — just as he had watched Saint Peter do. The water boiled, and the flesh came away. He took out the bones and laid them on the table. But he did not know the order of the bones, and he set them down all wrong, in a muddle. His hands shook, and his heart beat fast. Then he stood before them and called, "By the holy Trinity, rise up, dead maiden!" Three times he called, and the bones did not stir. Three times more, and still nothing. "Get up, girl!" he shouted. "Get up, or you will be sorry!"

The words were hardly out of his mouth when Saint Peter appeared at the window, dressed as a discharged soldier. "You godless man!" he cried. "How can the dead girl rise when you have thrown her bones about in such confusion?" "Dear brother, I did my best," said Brother Lustig. Saint Peter shook his head, set the bones in their right order, and called three times, "By the holy Trinity, rise up, dead maiden!" The princess stood up, as healthy and beautiful as ever. The king and queen wept for joy. Then Saint Peter warned him, "This once I have saved you. Try such a thing again, and it will go badly with you. And this time, you shall take nothing from the king, not the smallest thing." With that he climbed out of the window and was gone.

Brother Lustig dared not ask for a reward. But by hints and cunning he made the king fill his knapsack with gold. The king thanked him kindly, for he believed that Brother Lustig had saved his daughter. He carried the gold out with a happy heart. At the door, Saint Peter was waiting. "Just look at you!" he said. "Did I not forbid you to take anything?" "How can I help it," said Brother Lustig, "if people will put things in for me?"

"Then hear this," said Saint Peter. "Do such a thing again, and you will suffer for it. Still, so that you never go down the wrong road again, I give your knapsack this power: whatever you wish to be inside it shall be there. Goodbye. You will not see me again." Brother Lustig was glad to see him go. "A strange fellow, that saint," he said to himself, and he did not look back. As for the magic power of the knapsack, he thought no more about it at all. He took it for the saint's idle talk.

Brother Lustig wandered on, and he wasted his money as before. Money never stayed long in his hands. When only four coins were left, he passed an inn. "The money will be gone soon enough," he thought, and he spent three coins on wine and one on bread. As he sat drinking, the smell of roast goose came to his nose, and his mouth began to water. He looked around and saw two geese roasting in the landlord's oven. Then he remembered what Saint Peter had said: whatever he wished to be inside his knapsack would be there. "Aha," he thought. "Let me try that on the geese."

He stepped outside the door. "I wish those two roast geese to be in my knapsack," he said. He opened the bag and looked, and there they lay, one and two. "That is the way!" he laughed. "Now I am a made man!" He went off to a meadow, took out one goose, and ate it with great joy, humming a tune as he ate.

While he was eating, two journeymen came by and stared with hungry eyes at the second goose, which he had not touched. "One goose is enough for me," said Brother Lustig. "Take this one and eat it. Drink my health!" The two men thanked him, carried the goose to the inn, ordered half a bottle of wine and a loaf of bread, and began to eat.

The landlady saw them and said to her husband, "Those two are eating a goose. Go and see whether it is one of ours. Such a fine dinner, and they did not pay for it!" The landlord ran to the oven — it was empty! "Thieves!" he cried. "So you want your goose for nothing, do you? Pay for it at once, or I will give you a good beating!"

"We are not thieves," said the two men. "A soldier gave us the goose, out in the meadow." "You will not fool me with that story," said the landlord. "That soldier left by the door like an honest man. I watched him go myself. You are the thieves, and you will pay." But the two men had no money, so he took a stick and drove them out of the inn. They were beaten for nothing, and to this day they wonder where that kind soldier found such a goose.

Brother Lustig went on his way and came to a place where a grand castle stood, with a small, shabby inn not far away. He asked for a bed at the inn, but the landlord turned him away. "Every bed is taken by noble guests," said the landlord. "And do not think of the castle. No one who sleeps a night in there has ever come out alive." "That is strange," said Brother Lustig. "Why do they crowd into your inn and leave that fine castle standing empty?" The words made him all the more curious.

"It will cost you your neck," warned the landlord. "It will not kill me in a hurry," said Brother Lustig. "Give me the key, and some good food and wine to go with it." The landlord could not talk him out of it, so he handed over the key, the food and the wine, and begged him to be careful. He carried the lot into the castle, ate a fine supper, and since there was no bed, he lay down on the floor and fell asleep.

At midnight a great noise woke him. He opened his eyes and saw nine ugly devils in the room, dancing round him in a ring. They pressed closer and closer, until their hideous feet almost touched his face. Brother Lustig grabbed a chair leg and struck out at them. But nine devils against one soldier were too many; while he hit those in front, the ones behind pulled his hair without mercy.

"Devils' crew!" he cried. "This is too much! Into my knapsack, all nine of you!" In that instant all nine devils jumped into the bag. He buckled it up and threw it into a corner, and everything fell quiet at once. He slept till broad day, and he even dreamed of becoming rich. In the morning he told the owner of the castle that he could live there again in peace, for all nine devils were safe in the knapsack. The nobleman thanked him, offered him rich gifts and a home for life, but Brother Lustig refused. "I am used to wandering," he said. "I must go on."

So he went on, and at a smithy he laid the knapsack on the anvil and asked the smith and his apprentices to strike it with all their might. Down came their great hammers, and the devils inside set up pitiful howls. When he opened the bag, eight of the devils were dead. The ninth had hidden in a fold of the cloth and was still alive. It slipped out, ran off, and went all the way back to hell, and it never dared to trouble the world of men again.

Years passed, and Brother Lustig grew old. His back bent, and his legs grew slow, and he began to think about his end, and where he would go after death. So he went to a hermit, a man known for his piety, and said, "I am tired of wandering. I want to live in such a way that I may enter the kingdom of Heaven."

The hermit answered, "Two roads lie before you. The broad and pleasant one leads down to hell. The narrow and rough one leads up to heaven." Brother Lustig stood at the crossing and thought for a long while. "Only a fool would take the narrow, rough road," he said at last. So he set out along the broad and pleasant road, and came at last to a great black door. It was the door of hell.

He knocked on the door, and the doorkeeper looked out to see who was there. It was the ninth devil, and he was terrified of the knapsack. He remembered how the smiths had hammered him black and blue. He shot the bolt back as fast as he could and ran to the devil's lieutenant. "A man with a knapsack is outside," he cried. "Keep him out! If he comes in, he will wish the whole of hell into his bag! That is how he served me once!"

So the devils shouted at Brother Lustig to go away. "If hell will not have me," he thought, "let me try heaven. I must be somewhere." He turned and walked on until he stood before the door of heaven, and there he knocked. Saint Peter sat close by as doorkeeper. "I believe it is heaven you are after," said Saint Peter. "Let me in, brother," said Brother Lustig. "Hell would not take me, so I have come to trouble you."

"No," said Saint Peter. "You shall not come in." "Then take your knapsack back," said Brother Lustig. "I will keep nothing of yours." He passed the bag through the bars into heaven, and Saint Peter hung it on a hook by his seat. Then Brother Lustig said, "And now I wish myself inside my knapsack." A second later he was in it — and so he was inside heaven. Saint Peter could not send him back, so he let him stay. From that day on, heaven had one more cheerful old soldier at its gate. Saint Peter shakes his head at him every day, and yet, deep in his heart, he is glad he stayed. Even today, they say, the noisiest corner of heaven is the place where Brother Lustig lives.