The Strange Tale of the Snake Ring (3 page)

Gerda missed Thomas very much. She went about her work on the farm very much as before, but she rarely sang at her work as she had done in the past. When she did, her little song had changed, and the words were now like this:

Every day after her work was done, she waited for a while at the gate, but no one ever came. The weeks and months went by. Winter came and spring, and then haymaking season came round again.

One day Gerda had been sent alone to begin mowing the field by the river. It was hard work, as she could never get her scythe as sharp as Thomas used to make it. After a while she tried to lighten the work by singing, but found that the words had changed again:

As soon as she had sung the last line, she was sorry, and thought to herself,
I should not sing words like that, as I expect Thomas is working very hard to make enough money to come home and marry me
. And she was so unhappy that she stopped her work, sat down on the riverbank and began to cry. To comfort herself, when she had rubbed the tears from her eyes, she took off the ring that Thomas had given her, and pressed it between her hands.

But her fingers were wet with her tears, and the next moment she had dropped the ring, which rolled down the steep bank into the water. Immediately Gerda stooped down and stared into the water. The river ran deep by the bank, and all she could see in the depths was a large fish, which flicked its tail and disappeared into the middle of the stream.

Although Gerda had lived by the river all her life, she had never learned to swim and dare not trust herself to the swirling water. So she sought out Wilhelm, who was working on another part of the farm. With tears still streaming down her cheeks, she told him what had happened. He quickly called Robert, and the three of them returned, with nets on long poles, to where the ring had disappeared. They spent a long time dredging the bottom of the river with the nets, but without success. In the end Robert stripped and dived repeatedly into the water, but found nothing.

“Either the current has carried it away,” he said, “or it has sunk too deeply into the mud to be found.” What none of them realised was that the brightness of the ring as it entered the water had attracted a fish, which had immediately swallowed it.

This was the selfsame fish that Gerda had seen swimming away when she first looked into the water.

When Robert had returned to the farm to dry himself, Gerda turned to Wilhelm, and said sadly, “This is the worst day of my life. What shall I do? How am I to tell Thomas when he returns that I have lost the ring? It was the only valuable thing he possessed, and he gave it to me to keep forever!”

“You must be in despair,” answered Wilhelm, “but you must remember that you are much more precious than any ring, no matter how valuable. I am sure that Thomas will think so too.”

Gerda knew that Wilhelm was right, and that Thomas would value her more highly than any possession; but from now on she was torn between a longing for his return, and fear of his discovery that the ring was lost.

Many times she stood in the place where the ring had disappeared, hoping that one day the water would be clear enough for the ring to be seen at the bottom of the river. But of course, it was nowhere to be found.

Then, three months later, a letter from Thomas arrived. Now in those days, it was both difficult and expensive to send letters. They could take weeks or even months to be delivered, and sometimes they never arrived at all. Also, not many people could read and write, and it was fortunate that both Gerda and Thomas had been taught to do so when they were children, by the nuns at a nearby convent. The letter consisted of a piece of parchment rolled up, and sealed with a piece of red sealing wax. The letter read as follows:

A tear trickled down Gerda's cheek as she read the words about the ring. She was still very depressed by the loss of it, but after reading the letter several times, she felt a little better. “I must not mope about, as I have been doing,” she said to herself. “Thomas is working so hard for me, and saving his wages. Some young men, if they were far away, would spend all their money on themselves. So I must be brave, and as soon as he comes home I must own up about the ring and hope that he will forgive me.”

The weeks rolled by at the king's palace, and now it was spring again – two years after Thomas left the farm. By this time he was well liked by both the king and the chancellor. Each mealtime he stood behind the king's chair and attended to his needs, and sometimes the king even asked him to taste a little of the royal food, to see whether it was properly cooked.

Sometimes the queen sent for him to attend her in the royal chambers, where he was asked to tell a bedtime story to the two little princesses. By now he was quite well paid, and was able to put away money each week towards the time when he would have saved enough to buy a house and marry Gerda.

Now each year, at the time called Lent, which comes just before Easter, it was the custom for the king to give a banquet for the learned professors from the nearby university. There were seventeen of them, all very old and wise. The king found it very difficult to talk with them through the meal, because it was not considered polite for anyone but the king to begin a conversation. The professors were not interested in the weather, or his family, or how good the hunting was this year, or any of the other things that the king normally talked about.

He usually solved the problem by asking them a question that he thought they could not answer, and by the time each one of them had tried to answer it, the meal would be over. This year he had decided to ask: “What holds up the world?” and thought their answers would take at least an hour.

The day before the banquet was to take place, the king sent for the head cook. “Tomorrow is the professors' feast,” he announced, “and as usual in Lent, we eat no meat; so the main course will be fish.”

“Certainly, Your Majesty,” replied the cook.

“Now listen carefully,” continued the king. “The last time you served fish at one of my banquets, you cut it into pieces and smothered it with sauce so that I couldn't tell whether it was salmon or stockfish. So this year, I want one fish, big enough for nineteen people. Cook it whole and serve it on your biggest dish. And if you make sauce, serve it separately.”

“Very well, Your Majesty,” said the cook; and he bowed and returned to the kitchen.

The next day at the appointed time all the professors arrived for dinner. The king and queen sat in their usual places at the head of the table, and the professors in order of age round the rest of the table, the oldest next to the king. Thomas stood in his usual place behind the king's chair, ready to carry out any task that the king ordered. Other servants were hurrying round, serving everyone with bowls of steaming onion soup.

No one spoke, as they were all waiting for the king to ask his question. After he had taken a spoonful of soup, as a signal that the others could begin, he asked in a loud voice: “What holds up the world?”

“Atlas, the son of Lapetus, holds up the world, Your Majesty,” said the oldest professor.

“Then who holds up Atlas?” asked the king.

“He stands on the back of a giant turtle,” said the second oldest professor.

“And what holds up the turtle?” enquired the king.

“It rests on the back of an enormous elephant,” answered the third professor.

“And the elephant,” continued the fourth, “stands with its legs firmly in the waters that are beneath the earth, which were divided on the second day of creation.”

No one else spoke. After a few minutes' silence, the king asked, “Do you all agree on that?”

“Yes. Yes, we do, certainly, quite true, quite true,” said all the professors together.

Silence again.

This is going to be quite embarrassing
, thought the King.
What can I ask them now?

Fortunately there was an interval filled with the clatter of bowls and spoons as the servants collected the soup plates. The head cook appeared in shining white hat and apron, carrying an enormous oval dish, on which had been cooked the largest fish Thomas had ever seen.

“What a wonderful fish!” cried the king. “Thomas, give my congratulations to the cook, and tell him to pass them on to the fisherman who caught it! It's a fish fit for a king – so much so, that I shall serve it out myself.”

So the king took a sharp knife, slit the great fish in two, and opened it. As he did so, he was amazed to see the gleam of gold and the flash of jewels from the fish's inside. In a moment, with the point of his knife, he had recovered from the fish's belly – a ring! He held it up for everyone to see.

“Look, gentlemen, what I have found inside the fish,” he exclaimed. “A ring, the like of which I have never seen before. I have many rings in my treasury, but none like this.”

As he said that, a wonderful idea came into his mind – another question he could ask the professors, that would keep them talking until the end of the meal.

Telling the servants to carry on quietly with the serving of the fish, he turned to the professors. “I am going to ask you learned gentlemen another question, and perhaps you can help me to find the correct answer. The question is, who is the rightful owner of the ring – because it is clearly very valuable?”

No one answered.

So the king continued: “Is it mine, because the fish was bought with my money? But I paid for a fish, not a precious ring. Does it belong to the fisherman? Well, he didn't ever know it was there, or he would have kept it for himself, or sold it to me for a good price. Or does it belong to the person who owned it before it got inside the fish? If so, who could that be?”

Again, there was silence.

“Come, come, gentlemen!” exclaimed the king. “One of you must have some idea.”

“Your pardon, Your Majesty,” ventured the oldest professor, “but we do not know. There is no way of finding the right answer to your question.”

The king could hardly believe that none of the professors could give an opinion. “Look,” he said in the end, “I will give a bag of gold to anyone in this hall who can give me the answer.”

Another embarrassing silence.

Just then a small voice from behind the king's chair said, “Please, Your Majesty, may I speak?” It was Thomas.

“Yes, Thomas you may. I suppose you can solve the puzzle when the learned professors have failed?” He smiled, while the professors began to laugh and chatter between themselves.

“Silence!” barked the king. “Let the boy speak.”

“Please, Your Majesty,” began Thomas, “with respect, the ring does not belong to you. Neither does it belong to the fisherman. The ring is mine.”

There were gasps of surprise. Then the king spoke again: “How can that be? How could it be yours?”

“If Your Majesty will look again at the ring, you will see that it is made from two snakes with jewels for eyes. And if you will look carefully at the tails, you will see how my name has been engraved on one, and that of my sweetheart Gerda, on the other. There is no other ring like this in the whole world.”

The king looked carefully. “It is just as he says: the names of Thomas and Gerda are written here. Thomas, take your ring and after supper come to my private chamber and we will talk about your reward.”

When the banquet was over, the professors returned safely to their lodgings in the university. Thomas made his way to the king's chambers. He was in a confused state of mind regarding Gerda: a little cross, perhaps, that she had not kept the ring safely.

“Perhaps she sold it,” he said to himself. “In which case, either she is in trouble and needed money, or she doesn't care about me any more. Or perhaps she lost it. If so, she will be very upset about what I shall say to her when I get home.”

As he arrived at the king's door he was just saying to himself: “If the king keeps his promise and gives me a bag of gold, I must set off at once and go back home and if he doesn't…

“Come in, come in, my boy,” said the king in a friendly manner as Thomas arrived at the door of his chamber. “Sit down here.” He pointed to a stool, which was beside his feet. Thomas sat rather uncomfortably on the edge of the stool.

“Here is your bag of gold which I promised,” continued the king. “I believe what you said about the ring, that it belongs to you and your sweetheart, Gerda. I wish you to tell me about this girl, and about your home.”

“She is very beautiful, and also kind and loving, Your Majesty,” replied Thomas, “and she lives on the farm where I used to work before I set out on my travels. Before I left, I gave her the ring, and promised that I would make my fortune and return and marry her.”

“Now, listen to me, my boy,” said the king. “I think you can do better than go home and marry a farm girl, no matter how beautiful. Surely you prefer a palace like this to a farm!”

Before Thomas could reply, the king continued: “Now, the Lord Chancellor and I have watched you carefully ever since you came into my service. Even the most menial tasks you have carried out cheerfully and thoroughly, without ever a complaint. You have been honest and truthful. In fact, I think you might be the boy I have been seeking: to carry out a difficult and noble task, with great responsibilities but great rewards. You see, I have no son, so I am seeking a young man who could be trained to be king when I die.”

Thomas was so amazed at this speech that for a moment he could say nothing. Then at last he managed to stammer, “B-but Your Majesty, surely your people would not accept one of your servants as king?”

“By then,” replied the king, “you would be the greatest in the land. First, I would make you a knight. You would learn horsemanship and warrior's arts, and be addressed as Sir Thomas.”

Then in a year or so, you would become vice-chancellor, and after that, a lord. After a few years, you would marry one of the princesses – they both think the world of you already – so of course, you would have to be made a prince. All this time you would be learning about politics and the history of the kingdom, so you would have the knowledge to become a wise and well-loved king.”

Thomas was silent. After a while, he said quietly, “But Your Majesty, I have made a promise to Gerda.”

“Young people often make promises,” replied the king, “that life makes it impossible for them to keep. Gerda is young; if she is kind and beautiful she will soon find someone else to marry. Besides, she has either lost your ring, or sold it, so she cannot be as faithful as you may think.”

Thomas wished to deny all this, but he thought it rude to contradict the king directly. While he hesitated, the king continued: “Don't answer me now. Go to your room, think about my offer, and sleep on it, and I will send for you in the morning.”

As Thomas rose from the stool, and turned to go, the king added: “You must decide, only you, so do not speak to anyone about this. And if you decide to leave, you shall have a horse to ride, and fine clothes, as well as the gold, so that you can return home in comfort.”

Thomas returned to his room and lay on his bed. The king's words were still ringing in his ears: “You would be the greatest in the land.”

Perhaps he could accept the king's offer and still marry Gerda.
If I can be made into a prince
, he thought,
then surely someone so good and beautiful as Gerda could be made into a princess
. But it did not take him long to realise that it would be very difficult for the people of the kingdom to accept him as king, if he did not marry the eldest princess. Then he thought how he could help Gerda to bear the disappointment if he never returned to the farm. If he were king, he could send her money and fine clothes, even find a rich nobleman to be her husband.

He fell into a long daydream about the pleasures of being a king. He could, he thought, do as he pleased in every way. There would be banquets, and dances, and entertainments of all kinds. There would be hunting the wild boar in the forests, and rewarding the winning knights in tournaments of jousting…

“Thomas! Thomas! Are you there?” Thomas was surprised by a voice calling his name, and a quiet, timid knock. He awoke from his daydream and opened his door. There stood the elder of the two young princesses. She had wrapped herself in a large shawl, which must have belonged to the queen.

“I'm not really allowed in this part of the palace,” said Princess Rosa in an urgent whisper, “but I had to come and talk to you. I heard my father saying that you might be leaving, so I came to ask you to stay. Please stay, we shall miss you so much. Please promise me you'll stay.”

“I'm sorry, Your Highness, but I can't make a promise that I may not be able to keep,” answered Thomas. “In many ways I want to stay, in other ways I feel I must go. But I promise to think very carefully about it. Now you must go, or we shall both be in trouble. The king ordered me not to speak to anyone about it.”

The princess gathered her shawl more tightly around her, and without another word hurried away down the long echoing corridor towards the royal apartments.

Thomas lay down once again on his bed. The princess's visit had made it even harder to decide what to do. He had become very fond of both Rosa and her younger sister, and it would be hard to say goodbye to the two girls for ever.

His daydream had passed, and would not return, no matter how hard he tried to recapture it. Instead of passing quietly into sleep, he tossed and turned on his bed while his thoughts became ever more confused and difficult. At last he fell into a deep but troubled sleep.

In his dream, it seemed as though he was a young boy again. He was in the convent near his home, where kind Sister Agnes had taught him to read, in exchange for weeding the vegetable garden and feeding the carp in the convent fishponds. He seemed to be sitting on a stool by the nun's side, looking at the book, which lay open on her lap. He could see the great decorated letter at the head of the page, but could not make out any of the writing. But he could hear the sister's voice, saying softly but very clearly, “Remember, Thomas! Beware the kingdoms of this world, Thomas, and all their glory!”

Thomas awoke with a start. It was quite dark, and he was shivering. He covered himself with his blankets and fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.