The Spirit in the Bottle

There was once a poor woodcutter who worked from early morning until late at night. When at last he had saved some money, he said to his son, "You are my only child. I will spend the money I earned with the sweat of my brow on your education.

If you learn an honest trade, you can support me in my old age, when my limbs have grown stiff and I have to stay at home." Then the boy went to a high school and studied hard, so that his teachers praised him, and he stayed there a long time.

When he had finished two classes but was not yet perfect in everything, the little money the father had earned was all spent, and the boy had to return home to him. "Ah," said the father sadly, "I can give you no more, and in these hard times I cannot earn a penny more than what we need for our daily bread." "Dear father," answered the son, "don't worry about it.

If it is God's will, it will turn out well for me. I will soon get used to it." When the father wanted to go into the forest to earn money by helping to pile and stack wood and also chop it, the son said, "I will go with you and help you." "No, my son," said the father, "that would be hard for you.

You are not used to rough work and will not be able to bear it. Besides, I have only one axe and no money left to buy another." "Just go to the neighbor," answered the son, "he will lend you his axe until I have earned one for myself." So the father borrowed an axe from the neighbor, and the next morning at daybreak they went into the forest together.

The son helped his father and was quite cheerful and lively about it. But when the sun was right overhead, the father said, "We will rest and have our dinner, and then we will work even better." The son took his bread in his hands and said, "Just rest, Father, I am not tired.

I will walk around a little in the forest and look for birds' nests." "Oh, you fool," said the father, "why do you want to run around there? Afterwards you will be tired and no longer able to lift your arm.

Stay here and sit down beside me." But the son went into the forest, ate his bread, was very cheerful, and peered among the green branches to see if he could find a bird's nest anywhere.

So he walked up and down until he came to a great, dangerous-looking oak tree that was many hundred years old and so thick that five men could not reach around it. He stood still and looked at it and thought, "Many a bird must have built its nest in that tree." Then all at once he thought he heard a voice.

He listened and realized that someone was crying in a very muffled voice, "Let me out! Let me out!" He looked around but could see nothing. Yet he thought the voice came from the ground.

Then he called out, "Where are you?" The voice answered, "I am down here among the roots of the oak tree. Let me out! Let me out!" The scholar began to loosen the earth under the tree and search among the roots until at last he found a glass bottle in a little hollow.

He lifted it up and held it against the light, and then he saw a creature shaped like a frog jumping up and down inside. "Let me out! Let me out!" it cried again, and the scholar, thinking no harm, pulled the cork out of the bottle.

Immediately a spirit rose from it and began to grow, and grew so fast that in a few moments he stood before the scholar, a terrible fellow as big as half the tree. "Do you know," he cried in a horrible voice, "what your reward is for letting me out?" "No," replied the scholar fearlessly, "how should I know that?" "Then I will tell you," cried the spirit.

"I must strangle you for it." "You should have told me that sooner," said the scholar, "for then I would have left you shut up. But my head will stand fast no matter what you do.

More people than one must be consulted about that." "More people here, more people there," said the spirit. "You shall have the reward you have earned. Do you think I was shut up there for so long as a favor? No, it was a punishment for me. I am the mighty Mercurius.

Whoever releases me, I must strangle." "Gently," answered the scholar, "not so fast. I must first know that you really were shut up in that little bottle and that you are the right spirit. If you can get back inside again, then I will believe, and you may do as you wish with me." The spirit said haughtily, "That is a very easy thing," and drew himself together, making himself as small and slender as he had been at first, so that he crept through the same opening and right through the neck of the bottle again.

As soon as he was inside, the scholar pushed the cork he had pulled back into the bottle, threw it among the roots of the oak into its old place, and the spirit was trapped again.

Now the scholar was about to return to his father, but the spirit cried very pitifully, "Oh, let me out! Oh, let me out!" "No," answered the scholar, "not a second time! He who once tried to take my life shall not be set free by me, now that I have caught him again." "If you set me free," said the spirit, "I will give you so much that you will have plenty all the days of your life." "No," answered the boy, "you would cheat me as you did the first time." "You are throwing away your good luck," said the spirit.

"I will do you no harm but will reward you richly." The scholar thought, "I will risk it. Perhaps he will keep his word, and anyway he shall not get the better of me." Then he took out the cork, and the spirit rose up from the bottle as before, stretched himself out, and became as big as a giant.

"Now you shall have your reward," said the spirit, and he handed the scholar a little bag like a plaster, and said, "If you spread one end of this over a wound, it will heal, and if you rub steel or iron with the other end, it will turn into silver." "I must just try that," said the scholar, and he went to a tree, tore off the bark with his axe, and rubbed it with one end of the plaster.

Immediately the bark closed together and was healed. "Now it is all right," he said to the spirit, "and we can part." The spirit thanked him for his release, and the boy thanked the spirit for his gift, and went back to his father.

"Where have you been running about?" said the father. "Why did you forget your work? I said at once that you would never get on with anything." "Don't worry, Father, I will make up for it." "Make up for it indeed," said the father angrily, "that's no great skill." "Watch, Father, I will soon chop that tree there so that it splits." Then he took his plaster, rubbed the axe with it, and dealt a mighty blow.

But as the iron had changed into silver, the edge turned. "Hey, Father, look what a bad axe you gave me. It has become quite crooked." The father was shocked and said, "Ah, what have you done?

Now I will have to pay for that, and I don't have the money, and that is all the good I have gotten from your work." "Don't get angry," said the son, "I will soon pay for the axe." "Oh, you blockhead," cried the father, "how will you pay for it?

You have nothing but what I give you. These are student tricks stuck in your head, but you have no idea about woodcutting." After a while the scholar said, "Father, I really can't work anymore.

We had better take a day off." "Eh, what!" answered the father, "Do you think I will sit with my hands in my lap like you? I must go on working. But you may go home." "Father, I am here in this forest for the first time.

I don't know the way alone. Please come with me." Since his anger had now cooled down, the father finally let himself be persuaded and went home with him. Then he said to the son, "Go and sell your damaged axe, and see what you can get for it, and I will have to earn the rest to pay the neighbor." The son took the axe and carried it into town to a goldsmith.

The goldsmith tested it, laid it on the scales, and said, "It is worth four hundred thalers. I don't have that much with me." The son said, "Give me what you have, and I will lend you the rest." The goldsmith gave him three hundred thalers and remained a hundred in his debt.

Then the son went home and said, "Father, I have the money. Go and ask the neighbor how much he wants for the axe." "I know that already," answered the old man. "One thaler and six groschen." "Then give him two thalers and twelve groschen, that is double and enough.

See, I have plenty of money," and he gave the father a hundred thalers, and said, "You shall never know want. Live as comfortably as you like." "Good heavens!" said the father, "How did you come by these riches?" The scholar then told how everything had happened, and how, trusting in his luck, he had made such a good catch.

But with the money that was left, he went back to the high school and continued learning, and since he could heal all wounds with his plaster, he became the most famous doctor in the whole world.