- Godfather Death
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Godfather Death (Der Gevatter Tod) is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm as tale number 44.[1] It is Aarne-Thompson type 332.[2]
Contents
Synopsis
A poor man has twelve children, and works just hard enough to feed each of them every day. When his thirteenth child was born, the man decided to find a godfather for this child. So he runs out into the highway, and found God walking on the highway. God asked to be the godfather, promising the child health and happiness. The man, after finding out that the man was God, declined, saying that God condoned poverty, and was ignorant that God rewards suffering in Heaven. Then the man met the Devil on the highway. The Devil then asked to be the godfather, offering the child gold and the worlds joys. The man, after finding out that the man was the Devil, declined, saying that the Devil deceives mankind.
The man, still walking down the highway, meets Death. The man decides to make Death the child's godfather, saying that Death takes away the rich and the poor, without discrimination. The next Sunday, Death became the child's godfather.
When the boy came of age, Death appeared to him and led him into the woods, where special herbs grew. There, Death promised the boy to make him a famous physician. Death then explained that whenever the boy would visit an ill person, Death would appear next to the sick one. If Death stands at the persons head, that person is to be given the special herb found in the forest, and cured. But, if Death appears at the persons feet, any treatment on them would be useless, as they would soon die.
The boy soon becomes famous, just as Death had foreseen, and received plenty of gold for his amazing ability to see whether a person would live or die. Soon, the king of all the lands became ill, and sent for this famous physician.
When the physician went to see the king, he noticed immediately Death standing at the foot of the king's bed. The physician felt pity for the king, and decided to trick Death. The physician then turned the king in his bed so that Death was over his head, and gave him the herb to eat. This healed the king, and sped his recovery.
Soon after, Death approached the physician, expressing his anger for tricking him and disobeying Death's rules. But because the physician was Death's godchild, he did not punish him. Death then warned the physician that if he was to ever trick Death again, he would take the physician's life.
Not much later, the king's daughter became ill as well, and the physician went to see her as well. It was there that the king promised his daughter's hand in marriage and inherit the crown if he was to cure her. When the physician visited the princess, he saw Death at her feet. But the physician ignored this, as he was captivated by the princess's beauty and thoughts of being her husband. He then turned the princess so that Death was at her head, then fed her the herb.
Just as the princess was coming around, Death grasped the physician by the arm and dragged him to an underground cavern. In this cave were thousands upon thousands of candles, each melted at different lengths. Death explained that the length of the candle showed how much longer a person has to live. When Death showed the physician his candle, he noticed that it was very short, showing that he didn't have much longer to live.
The physician pleaded with his godfather to light a new candle for him, so that he may live a happy life as king and husband to the beautiful princess. Death reconsidered, and gathered a new candle to pass the flame of his godchild.
Just as he was going to light the new candle, Death took his revenge on the physician by letting the flame of the first candle fall. As soon as the candle extinguished, the physician fell to the ground, dead.
Ending
This story was included in the first edition of Kinder- und Hausmärchen, but the first edition version included a different ending. The first edition version ended at the part of Death showing the physician the candles. The second edition version of Kinder- und Hausmärchen included the part of Death pretending to light the candle and failing on purpose, killing the physician.[3]
Other media
Grimm's Fairy Tale Classics adapted the story for one of its episodes, with a few alterations. Instead of God, an angel offers to be the godfather, and the greedy man refuses because angels traditionally reward souls in Heaven, while the man wants his son to be rich. It then cuts to Death. Another difference is the end, the protagonist is disgusted with the tricks from the start, and sacrifices himself to save a child princess, delaying Death and allowing her to get better.
The Storyteller featured an episode heavily inspired by this story. In that telling the man isn't Death's Godson , but has the same trick of healing people if death is at their head and being unable if at their feet. In that version he traps Death in a sack when he sees him at his own feet.
Andrew Peters's Strange and Spooky Stories contains an Irish variant in which a girl makes a deal with Death to become a doctor. She betrays him to save the life of a prince, who marries her. Unlike the Grimm's version, there is a happy ending. On her wedding night, Death takes her to the afterlife and shows an hourglass that represents her life, and it shows that she will die in a few hours. She is able to trick Death into falling asleep, and then fills up her hourglass (and her husband's) to the point where they are now immortal.
A similar story exists in some cultures and countries, such as Mexico and Lithuania, where Death is portrayed as female, becoming the child's godmother instead of his godfather. In at least the Mexican variant of this story, Death's godson does not come to her because it is nearing his time to die and is allowed to die, but when he falls in love with a woman, his godmother tries to warn him away from her. When he insists she explain why, she takes him to her cave in which the candles that represent all of the lives of all of humanity burn, and shows him that the candle that represents his lover's life is much shorter than his. While at first he insist it will not matter to him, when her time comes, he betrays his promise and uses the magical powers Death gave him to extend her life. In a rage, Death comes to punish him, but shows mercy to him... of a cruel sort. She blows out both her godson's candle and that of his lover, so they die at exactly the same instant.
References
External links
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