charlemagne

A fairy tale by me.

The Grimm Tale of Unbedeutend Karl


"On the cold and rugged coast of Maine one night, three men sat around a campfire. One stood up and said, 'Pete, tell us a story.' So Pete began, 'On the cold and rugged coast of Maine--'"

"No! Not that story again, Uncle Chuck! Tell us a real story."

"Hey! Your grandpa told me that bedtime story when I was a little kid, you guys. It should be good enough for telling by this campfire while we roast hotdogs."

"And you've told us a hundred times how you used to get mad when he didn't tell you a real story! Come on, Uncle Chuck!"

"Okay, okay! What kind of story do you kids want to hear?"

"How about a fairy tale with lots of witches and monsters and stuff. Make it bloody, gory and scary--just like the ones you used to tell us when we were little."

"Can't I just go get a book of fairy tales and read you a story?"

"No! Don't be a dork! Make it up yourself. We've all read those stories a billion times, and besides, we're a little old for them anyway."

"Do you all hate me, or what? My brain doesn't work all that well this late at night."

"What does the time of day have to do with your brain not working right, Uncle Chuck? When did your brain ever work right? Don't let that hold you back."

"All right! Give me a minute to think. I'm going to get a beer--I need some inspiration. Does any one else want something to drink?"

-- -- --

In a faraway kingdom many hundreds of years ago, a very beautiful witch lived in a dark, enchanted forest, a forest that was old when King Arthur ruled in ancient Britain. How beautiful was she? you ask. Helen of Troy, whose lovely face launched a thousand ships, was drab compared to her. Snow White, whom the forest witch resembled in coloring and figure, was a shoddy copy. Only a few men who ever saw the witch survived the experience to describe her, and they could love no one else forever afterwards. In case you are wondering, her beauty was no glamour, nor did she cast a spell to make men love her. She was just that beautiful!

How long she had lived in the forest no one knew. In the villages around the forest, grandmothers recited stories about her that their own grandmothers had told them ages before. She certainly was not an ordinary witch like those the inquisition burned at the stake.

Those who had patience enough--mostly little children--to sit by a smoky hearth and listen to feeble old women tell unbelievable stories of bygone days were treated to wondrous tales about the beautiful witch in the forest. These tales related how brave men and foolish ventured into the forest to win her or tame her, and how none of those hardy adventurers ever returned from the forest's gloomy glades. The only men who ever saw the witch and returned, the tales explained, were lost hunters and woodcutters who had strayed too far into the forest and had accidentally caught a glimpse of her from afar. That one brief glimpse had been enough to drive them mad, and it was their very madness that had eventually saved some of them. Wandering aimlessly through the forest seeking to see her again and to possess her, they had blundered out of the forest into the arms of their worried families. Broken men, these survivors spent the rest of their lives in restraints babbling muddled stories of their adventures. It was no wonder, the grandmothers said, that mothers, wives and sweethearts forbade their men folk to go into the forest.

It was strange, the grandmothers' tales added, that women and girls were never in danger from the witch of the forest. The only danger girls faced in the forest, besides the weather, was the flesh-eating beasts that lived there in great numbers. The many huntresses and woodcutters daughters who trekked through the forest plying their trade never once saw the witch. The only oddity about these girls who worked in the forest was their ugliness. If any girl had been comely when she went into the forest, when she came out of it, she was peculiarly ugly. However, because most people in the world are not beautiful, this did not especially upset anyone who lived in the villages around the forest, and only the most finicky ever took much note of it. Every job had its hazards, the villagers were fond of saying, and good money made up for a lot of ugly.

Every boy and girl who lived in the mountain valley that sheltered the mysterious forest was familiar with all of the old grandmothers' tales, and none more so than the three sons of an old woodcutter who lived in a small, comfortable cottage at the edge of the forest. The woodcutter's wife made sure her sons never wandered off into the forest while they were playing when they were little lads, and the only time she allowed them to venture very far from her sight was when they attended school in the nearby village. If she and the woodcutter had not believed that the boys needed at least a bare minimum of book learning, she would have never allowed them to go even that far from home. Her fear that her sons would succumb to the witch of the forest made her an over-protective mother, and not without reason, as things turned out.

Although the three boys grew up in the same cottage and had the same education in the village school, they had become very different kinds of men by the time they left home to make their way in the world. Johann, the youngest, was strong and courageous, so he went off to become a soldier and hero. Reinhardt, the second son, was gifted with a quick mind, so he was sent to King Heinrich's new university in the capital to become a great scholar and teacher. Karl, the eldest--well, no one ever expected much from Karl. As the eldest, when the time came, he was supposed to take his father's place as the village woodcutter. Always out of place no matter where he went, he became a daydreamer who spent most of his time in the outhouse reading borrowed books. However, even though each one of the sons had followed a different path in life after he left his parents' home, eventually all of those paths were to lead back to an intersection in the forest at the witch's hut.

Before the woodcutter and his wife died, both Johann and Reinhardt had become quite famous in the kingdom. Two successful sons out of three was not a bad accomplishment, the old parents proudly boasted to their neighbors, and when they died, they were quite content. Karl in his outhouse was discreetly forgotten. Johann served in many bloody campaigns for the empire with good King Heinrich, and his heroic deeds earned him a commission in the king's own royal guard. Reinhardt's scholarship in the classics, folklore and alchemy gained him the respect of doctors and students far beyond the arbitrary borders of Heinrich's kingdom and the empire, and he traveled from university to university, winning great honors and titles. Karl's greatest deeds never got outside of the outhouse walls.

It was Reinhardt's studies of the classics and folklore that brought the stories of the beautiful witch in the forest to King Heinrich's notice. King Heinrich was an unhappy bachelor who wanted nothing more than to have a beautiful queen to rule by his side. Search as he might throughout his kingdom and the empire beyond, nowhere could he find his perfect mate. No woman he met matched his ideal of perfection. Then one day, to relieve his boredom, he read a monograph by Reinhardt about the witch in the forest. Folktales abounded throughout the kingdom in those days, but this story of Reinhardt's sounded as if it might contain a grain of truth. If the witch were real, might not she be his perfect bride? King Heinrich summoned Reinhardt before his throne and commanded him to tell what he knew of the truth behind the tale.

With a pedagogue's patience, Reinhardt told the king all he knew about the witch. He spoke of his youth spent by the forest and of the tales he had heard from his mother's own mouth about the witch. One fact he knew for certain, he told the king, was that no man had gone into the forest while he had lived near it. After he began his studies at the university, his scholarly curiosity had led him to wonder who the witch might be. Was she a lost sister or daughter of an Isis, Ishtar, Venus, Circe, Calypso or Frigg? Or was she a Siren or a Lorelei far from her watery home? Without some tangible proof from the witch, nothing could be known for certain about her or her origins except that she was a legendary temptress, and no one he knew had enough foolhardy courage to go and ask her. With that observation, Reinhardt finished his presentation to the king.

King Heinrich looked closely at Reinhardt and decided he liked him. Soon after, Reinhardt became a boon companion of the king, sharing his meals and revels. It was not long before Reinhardt became one of the king's closest advisors and was entrusted with some of the kingdom's most complex affairs. However, the beautiful witch was never far from the king's mind, so one day he brought up to Reinhardt the subject of going into the forest to search for her. Although Reinhardt did his best to discourage the king, Johann, who was also a close companion of the king, thought it was a wonderful idea when Reinhardt reported it to him.

Johann had always had doubts about the grandmothers' tales of the beautiful witch when he was a boy, and only his respect for his parents' wishes had prevented him from charging off into the woods to search for her while he lived at home. The king's proposed foray into the forest would offer him another chance to prove his bravery, and it would also provide him with the opportunity to disprove all of the silly stories about the forest. It was Johann's enthusiasm that finally persuaded the king to undertake the hazardous adventure to find the beautiful witch.

Good King Heinrich was beloved by all of his subjects, and when the villagers of the valley learned he was coming to capture their witch, they were filled with joy and sadness all at the same time. It would be the first time the king ever visited their valley, but it also might be the last time any living man ever saw him alive. Putting their fears aside, the villagers from all around the forest came to greet the king's cavalcade with cheers and feasts. The king was impressed by his reception and by the beauty of the valley. At one of the feasts, he remarked to Reinhardt and Johann that in future years, if he survived the current quest, he wanted to return to this valley to hunt in the forest. Reinhardt and Johann raised their glasses and drank to the king's future, and both hoped that he would indeed return.

It was on a misty morning when King Heinrich mounted his charger to ride into the forest to find his new queen. He chose only one knight to accompany him, and that was Johann, for his other knights were overcome by fear and superstition. He turned down Reinhardt's offer of a magical sword to carry into the forest because he felt his old sword was good enough. He had carried the old blade through many battles and had been victorious in every one. "I've come to do away with superstition," were the last words the king said before he disappeared into the forest.

Weeks and months passed by, and King Heinrich and Johann never came out of the forest. With the king gone, the kingdom's affairs began to deteriorate. Was he dead? If so, who was his heir? If not, who should rule in his stead? Reinhardt and the other ministers who governed in the king's absence were beside themselves in despair. Finally, Reinhardt called all of the ministers to a meeting, and there he proposed that they send someone into the forest to find out what had happened to the king.

"Send a woman," said one of the ministers.

"No," replied Reinhardt, "for although women might be able to enter the forest safely, none of them has ever seen the witch or the remains of her victims. It is risky, but I believe only a man can do the job--a man equipped with a magical sword. And he must be a daydreamer, for only a gullible daydreamer has the imagination to accept the quest and have a chance to succeed."

"Do you have anyone in mind?" asked another minister.

"Yes, my brother Karl. He's a daydreamer, he's smart enough, and he is expendable. Do I have your support?"

The ministers gave Reinhardt their hearty support, so taking with him the same magic sword he had offered to the king, Reinhardt returned to the valley to find an outhouse and Karl.

As a lad, Karl never had much ambition, and when he grew into manhood, he still did not have much ambition. It was not that he never had any dreams--he just had too many of them. Dreams are fine if they become goals, but Karl's dreams just stayed dreams. Like any man, he longed for a comfortable house and a lovely wife, but all he ended up with was a shack, an outhouse and a too many cats and dogs. To the pretty girls of the village, he was just too creepy to have as a boyfriend, so the joys of love passed him by. Someone once mentioned to him that his pets gave him all the love he needed, but Karl knew in his heart that it was not true--not that he did not appreciate his pets. The Karl who gathered and chopped wood to sell in the village was a very lonely old man.

Reinhardt clattered into the village calling for Karl. His poor horse was covered in lather, and his own backside was sore. He had no patience for the bumbling villagers who had no idea where Karl was. Finally, a little girl came up to him and said, "I think I know where he is. He's probably in his outhouse conjuring dreams." And she led Reinhardt to Karl.

"Pull the plug, Karl!" Reinhardt shouted at his brother who was in his outhouse. "Your king needs you! It's time for you to become the hero you always dreamed you could be. The time for dreaming is over. The time for action has come!"

Karl emerged from the outhouse with a book tucked under his arm, and looked upon Reinhardt for the first time in many decades. "What do you want?" he grumbled.

"No time for pleasantries, Karl," Reinhardt said, and without wasting anymore time or words, he began to explain to Karl his mission.

Karl stared at the ground while his brother spoke, and when Reinhardt had finished, Karl said, "All right! I'll do it. I'm tired of this life, anyway."

On the following morning, the two brothers stood at the edge of the forest. One of them was about to embark upon the quest that would define him forever; the other was bidding farewell to a brother he had always underestimated. Reinhardt handed Karl the magic sword, and when he did so, he translated the runes inscribed on the rusty old blade: "Courage before Wisdom."

"What sense does that make?" asked Karl.

Reinhardt answered with another question, "What good is it if a man has all the wisdom in the world, but is afraid to speak the truth? I think the words refer to an old saying about there being no honor without courage and wisdom."

Karl took a moment to digest this puzzling information, and then asked, "Don't I need a shield?"

"You're not going to fight a monster--at least, I don't think so! Anyway, for a good swordsman, his sword is the only shield he needs. You should know that. If my memory serves me, you were always a better fencer than Johann. Have faith in yourself and this sword. You'll be safe enough," Reinhardt remarked, and he walked away to mount his horse.

Karl waved goodbye and turned to enter the forbidding forest, his trusty old dog limping along by his side. I'm too old to be a hero, he thought to himself, and then walked in without ever looking back.

He had been in the forest for three days and had encountered nothing more challenging than climbing over the tree trunks blown down by the wind that were scattered all over the forest floor and leaping from hummock to hummock in the forest's soggy swamps. Occasionally, he saw hungry bears and wolves hunting for food, but they left him alone. For some reason, predators were ignoring him; however, not once did he let down his guard. There was plenty of game for him to shoot with his bow to feed himself and his dog, and he was beginning to enjoy his quest. It was during the night of that third day when he met the witch.

He was just spreading his blanket over some leaves to make a bed for himself when he spotted a campfire far off in the forest. He shuddered involuntarily, for he knew what it meant. He packed up his gear, and stumbling through the dark, he made his way towards the firelight.

The first thing he saw as he approached the witch's fire wasn't the witch, but thousands of poles with skulls mounted on them. Most of the skulls were bare, but some of them had crowns, and a few, simple hats. Each skull had a placard tacked beneath it, and the placards were marked with what looked like writing. Most of the writing used alphabets he had no knowledge of, so only a few could he read. Those he could read were names. Almost all of the little signs were made of wood, but there were a good number of them made of fire-hardened clay.

Making his way between the poles, he approached the witch. Behind the witch, who stood by her fire, was her hut. Her hut was made from human bones neatly fitted together to make a snug little shelter. Karl had spent his whole life dreaming, but now he was stepping into a nightmare.

After a quick look at her hut, Karl finally allowed his eyes to come to rest on the witch. She was as beautiful as the tales had said, though even the tales fell far short of the reality. Her beauty was never meant to be described--simply just enjoyed. She was clothed in a black gown that hung gracefully from her bare shoulders to cling to the contours of her voluptuous figure, and around her outstretched right arm was coiled a black snake that lovingly caressed her soft, white flesh.

She turned her face to look straight at Karl, and with a cruel smile she asked, "Why are you here?"

"To find my king and my brother."

"You have found them," she said with a sweeping gesture of her arm toward the skulls on the poles.

"If that is true, then my business here is finished," Karl declared and turned to leave. In fact, his business was not finished. One of the reasons he had come here was to kill the witch, but after he had seen her, he could not, for he had fallen in love with her. He never thought he could love anyone like this, but he could not deny his heart. Only a man with no feelings could use the magic sword to kill her, and Karl was not that man.

"Foolish one! You cannot leave me. You have seen me, and now you are mine. You cannot walk beyond the light of my fire," she cried.

Karl kept on walking out into the forest until her campfire disappeared from view, and then he stopped. He was truly intoxicated by the witch. He turned around and went back to her.

Puzzled by his return, she said with uncharacteristic sadness, "You know you will die this night. I will let you tell me a story, and when it is finished, we will make love, and then I will kill you. However, before we begin, can you explain to me how you broke my spell and walked away from me?"

"That's easy," said Karl. "I am insignificant. All of these skulls are of brave heroes and men of significance. Your spells only seem to work on men of some account. I never counted for much in this world, so your spells don't work on me. And now I don't think you will kill me, for at this moment you have lost your significance. Where you have no power, you have no significance. The world has nothing to fear from you from now on."

It had never entered his head that maybe the magic sword protected him from her spells, but even if he had thought of it, he would still need to keep the witch ignorant of the sword's powers.

The witch remained unconvinced by Karl's sophistry and said coyly, "Let's make love."

"I thought I was supposed to tell a story first," Karl pleaded in dismay.

"Shut up!" she commanded. "I make the rules!"

Karl had no choice but to obey, and when they were done, she said, "Now then, tell me a story, and when you're finished, I will kill you."

Nothing Karl had ever dreamed about came close to the pleasure he had just experienced with the witch. To die now without the prospect of ever enjoying her again was intolerable. Of course, the thought of dying was intolerable all by itself, too. He supposed that if she did try to kill him, he would have to kill her first with the magic sword. However, if he killed her, how could he go on living without her? Somehow, he needed to buy time until he could convince her to change her mind about killing him. So it was that he began his story:

"On the cold and rugged coast of Maine one night, three men sat around a campfire. One stood up and said, 'Pete, tell us a story.' So Pete began, 'On the cold and rugged coast of Maine one night, three men sat around a campfire. One stood up and said....'"

. Copyright 2007 Charles Gehrman