to such a venerable age that he absurdly imagined he would never die.
The idea gained strength daily in his mind and thus he mused:
"David, king of the Jews, I knew, and afterward his son, the wise King
Solomon. But wise as he was, Solomon had to appeal to me for
assistance in building his wondrous Temple, and it was only with the
aid of the skilled workmen I sent to him that he successfully
accomplished the erection of that structure. David, the sweet singer
in Israel, who, as a mere boy slew the giant Goliath, has passed away.
I still live. It must be that I shall never die. Men die. Gods live
for ever. I must be a god, and why not?"
He put that question to the chief of his counselors, who, however, was
much too wise to answer it. Now the counselors of the king had never
yet failed to answer his queries, and so Hiram felt sure he had at
last puzzled them by a question beyond the power of mortal man to
answer. That was another proof, he told himself, that he was different
from other men and kings--that, in short, he was a god.
"I must be, I must be," he muttered to himself, and he repeated this
to himself so regularly that he came to the conclusion it was true.
"It is not I, but the voice of the Spirit of God that is in me that
speaks," he said to himself, and he thought this remark so clever that
he regarded it as still further proof. It is so easy to delude one's
self.
Then he decided to make the great secret known to the people, and the
doddering old man thought if he would do this in an unusual way, his
subjects would have no doubts. He did not make a proclamation
commanding everybody to believe in him as a god; he whispered the
secret first to his chief counselor and instructed him to tell it to
one person daily and to order all who were informed to do likewise. In
this way the news soon spread to the remotest corners of the country,
for if you work out a little sum you will discover that if you take
the figure one and double it thus: two, four, eight, sixteen, and so
on, it will run into millions.
In spite of this, nothing happened. Hiram, now quite idiotic,
commanded the people to worship him. Some obeyed, fearing that if they
refused they would be punished, or even put to death. Others declared
there was no evidence that the king was a god. This came to the
knowledge of Hiram and troubled him sorely.
"What proof do the unbelievers require?" he asked of his counselors.
They hesitated to reply, but presently the vizier, a shrewd old man
with a long beard, said quietly, "I have heard people say a god must
have a heaven from which to hurl lightning and thunderbolts, and a
paradise in which to dwell."
"I shall have a heaven and a paradise," said Hiram, after a few
moments' silence, adding to himself: "If Solomon could build a
marvelous temple by the help of my workmen, surely I can devise a
paradise."
He spent so much thought over this that it seemed to become easier
each day. Besides, it would be so nice to live in a paradise all to
himself. At first he decided to build a great big palace of gold, with
windows of precious stones. There would be a high tower on which the
throne would be placed so far above the people that they must be
impressed with the fact that he was God.
Then it occurred to him this would not do. A palace, however vast and
beautiful, would only be a building, not a paradise. Day and night he
pondered and worried until his head ached badly. Then one day, while
watching a ship on the sea, an extraordinary idea came into his head.
"I will build a palace which will seem to hang above the water on
nothing!" he said to himself, chuckling. "None but a god could
conceive such a brilliant idea."
Hiram set about his ingenious plan at once. He sent trusted envoys far
and wide for skilled divers. Only those who did not know the language
of the country were selected. Hiram himself gave them their orders and
they worked only at night, so that none should see or know of their
work. Their task was to fasten four huge pillars to the bottom of the
sea. Their work completed, the divers were well paid and sent away.
Next, a different gang of workmen was brought from a strange land.
They constructed a platform on the pillars in the sea. Then a third
lot of artisans began to erect a wonderful edifice on the platform.
They, too, only worked at night, but the building could no longer be
concealed. It was showing itself above the sea. The people were
therefore told, by royal proclamation, in these words:
I, Hiram of Tyre, the King, and of all the People,
GOD OMNIPOTENT,
Hereby make known to you that it has become my pleasure to
reveal unto you my
PARADISE
which hitherto I have concealed in the clouds. Ye who are worthy
shall behold it
TODAY!
Of all the clever things he had done, Hiram believed the composition
of that proclamation the cleverest.
"Those who do not see, will think themselves unworthy," he said, "and
will tremble in fear of my wrath. They will see a little more each day
and will think themselves growing worthy. And they will believe; they
must, when they see it all. Besides, they will look upward, toward the
clouds, to see the paradise descending. They will never think of
looking below to see it rising."
And so it happened. The people could not help but be impressed when
they saw the amazing structure. It grew daily, apparently of its own
accord, for no workmen were seen; and most wonderful of all, it seemed
to rest on nothing in the air!
This was because the first story was of clearest glass, so clear,
indeed, that the people saw through it and thought they saw nothing.
On this the other stories were erected, and, of course, they appeared
to be suspended in space.
There were seven stories to represent seven heavens. The second, the
one above the glass, was constructed of iron, the third was of lead,
the fourth of shining brass, the fifth of burnished copper, the sixth
of glistening silver, and the last story of all, of pure gold.
The whole building was lavishly studded with precious stones, gems and
jewels of many hues. By day, when the sun shone and was reflected from
the thousands of jewels and the polished metals, the appearance was
dazzling; the people could not help but regard as a heaven that which
they could scarcely look upon without being blinded. In the setting
sun the uppermost story, with its huge golden dome, glowed like an
expanse of fire; and by night, the myriad gems twinkled like
additional stars.
Yet some people would not believe this was a paradise, and so Hiram
had to set his wits to work again.
"Thunder and lightning I must produce," he said, and this part of his
ambition he found not at all difficult.
In the second story he kept huge boulders and round heavy stones. When
these were rolled about the people thought the noise was thunder. By
means of many revolving windows and reflectors, Hiram could flash a
light on the town and delude simple people, who were easily impressed
and frightened, into the belief that they saw lightning.
"When I am seated here above the forces of the storm," said Hiram,
"the people must surely accept me as God and extol me above all mortal
kings."
He was foolishly happy on his throne in the clouds, but his counselors
shook their heads. They knew that such folly would meet with its due
punishment. They warned Hiram against remaining in his paradise during
a storm, but he replied, in a rage: "I, the God of the storm, am not
afraid."
But when the real thunder rolled and the lightning flashed all around
his paradise, Hiram lost his boastful courage. He saw visions.
Trembling in every limb, he crouched on his throne and imagined he saw
angels and demons and fairies dancing round him and jeering at his
pretensions and his wonderful structure.
The storm grew fiercer, the lightning more vivid, the thunder-crashes
louder, and Hiram screamed when there was a tremendous noise of
crashing glass. The first story could not withstand the terrible
buffeting of the waves. It cracked and crumbled. There was no support
left for the six heavens above. They could no longer hang in space.
With a mighty crash, that struck terror into the hearts of the
beholders, the whole structure collapsed in a thousand pieces in the
sea.
Marvelous to relate, Hiram was not killed or drowned. It seemed a
miracle that he should be saved, but such was the case; and some
people thought that proved him to be a god more than his unfortunate
paradise. But his life was only spared to end in greater misery and
sorrow. He was dethroned by Nebuchadnezzar and ended his days a
wretched captive. And all the people knew that Hiram, once the great
king of Tyre, the friend of King David and King Solomon, was but a
mortal and a foolish one.
The Rabbi's Bogey-Man
Rabbi Lion, of the ancient city of Prague, sat in his study in the
Ghetto looking very troubled. Through the window he could see the
River Moldau with the narrow streets of the Jewish quarter clustered
around the cemetery, which still stands to-day, and where is to be
seen this famous man's tomb. Beyond the Ghetto rose the towers and
spires of the city, but just at that moment it was not the cruelty of
the people to the Jews that occupied the rabbi's thoughts. He was
unable to find a servant, even one to attend the fire on the Sabbath
for him.
The truth was that the people were a little afraid of the rabbi. He
was a very learned man, wise and studious, and a scientist; and
because he did wonderful things people called him a magician. His
experiments in chemistry frightened them. Late at nights they saw
little spurts of blue and red flame shine from his window, and they
said that demons and witches came at his beck and call. So nobody
would enter his service.
[Illustration: The monster was battering down the door of the
synagogue. (_Page 249_).]
"If, as they declare, I am truly a magician," he said to himself, "why
should I not make for myself a servant, one that will tend the fire
for me on the Sabbath?"
He set to work on his novel idea and in a few weeks had completed his
mechanical creature, a woman. She looked like a big, strong, laboring
woman, and the rabbi was greatly pleased with his handiwork.
"Now to endow it with life," he said.
Carefully, in the silence of his mysterious study at midnight, he
wrote out the Unpronounceable Sacred Name of God on a piece of
parchment. Then he rolled it up and placed it in the mouth of the
creature.
Immediately it sprang up and began to move like a living thing. It
rolled its eyes, waved its arms, and nearly walked through the window.
In alarm, Rabbi Lion snatched the parchment from its mouth and the
creature fell helpless to the floor.
"I must be careful," said the rabbi. "It is a wonderful machine with
its many springs and screws and levers, and will be most useful to me
as soon as I learn to control it properly."
All the people marveled when they saw the rabbi's machine-woman
running errands and doing many duties, controlled only by his
thoughts. She could do everything but speak, and Rabbi Lion discovered
that he must take the Name from her mouth before he went to sleep.
Otherwise, she might have done mischief.
One cold Sabbath afternoon, the rabbi was preaching in the synagogue
and the little children stood outside his house looking at the
machine-woman seated by the window. When they rolled their eyes she
did, and at last they shouted: "Come and play with us."
She promptly jumped through the window and stood among the boys and
girls.
"We are cold," said one. "Canst thou make a fire for us?"
The creature was made to obey orders, so she at once collected sticks
and lit a fire in the street. Then, with the children, she danced
round the blaze in great glee. She piled on all the sticks and old
barrels she could find, and soon the fire spread and caught a house.
The children ran away in fear while the fire blazed so furiously that
the whole town became alarmed. Before the flames could be
extinguished, a number of houses had been burned down and much damage
done. The creature could not be found, and only when the parchment
with the Name, which could not burn, was discovered amid the ashes,
was it known that she had been destroyed in the conflagration.
The Council of the city was indignant when it learned of the strange
occurrence, and Rabbi Lion was summoned to appear before King Rudolf.
"What is this I hear," asked his majesty. "Is it not a sin to make a
living creature?"
"It had no life but that which the Sacred Name gave it," replied the
rabbi.
"I understand it not," said the king. "Thou wilt be imprisoned and
must make another creature, so that I may see it for myself. If it is
as thou sayest, thy life shall be spared. If not--if, in truth, thou
profanest God's sacred law and makest a living thing, thou shalt die
and all thy people shall be expelled from this city."
Rabbi Lion at once set to work, and this time made a man, much bigger
than the woman that had been burned.
"As your majesty sees," said the rabbi, when his task was completed,
"it is but a creature of wood and glue with springs at the joints. Now
observe," and he put the Sacred Name in its mouth.
Slowly the creature rose to its feet and saluted the monarch who was
so delighted that he cried: "Give him to me, rabbi."
"That cannot be," said Rabbi Lion, solemnly. "The Sacred Name must not
pass from my possession. Otherwise the creature may do great damage
again. This time I shall take care and will not use the man on the
Sabbath."
The king saw the wisdom of this and set the rabbi at liberty and
allowed him to take the creature to his house. The Jews looked on in
wonderment when they saw the creature walking along the street by the
side of Rabbi Lion, but the children ran away in fear, crying: "The
bogey-man."
The rabbi exercised caution with his bogey-man this time, and every
Friday, just before Sabbath commenced, he took the name from its mouth
so as to render it powerless.
It became more wonderful every day, and one evening it startled the
rabbi from a doze by beginning to speak.
"I want to be a soldier," it said, "and fight for the king. I belong
to the king. You made me for him."
"Silence," cried Rabbi Lion, and it had to obey. "I like not this,"
said the rabbi to himself. "This monster must not become my master,
or it may destroy me and perhaps all the Jews."
He could not help but wonder whether the king was right and that it
must be a sin to create a man. The creature not only spoke, but grew
surly and disobedient, and yet the rabbi hesitated to break it up, for
it was most useful to him. It did all his cooking, washing and
cleaning, and three servants could not have performed the work so
neatly and quickly.
One Friday afternoon when the rabbi was preparing to go to the
synagogue, he heard a loud noise in the street.
"Come quickly," the people shouted at his door. "Your bogey-man is
trying to get into the synagogue."
Rabbi Lion rushed out in a state of alarm. The monster had slipped
from the house and was battering down the door of the synagogue.
"What art thou doing?" demanded the rabbi, sternly.
"Trying to get into the synagogue to destroy the scrolls of the Holy
Law," answered the monster. "Then wilt thou have no power over me, and
I shall make a great army of bogey-men who shall fight for the king
and kill all the Jews."
"I will kill thee first," exclaimed Rabbi Lion, and springing forward
he snatched the parchment with the Name so quickly from the creature's
mouth that it collapsed at his feet a mass of broken springs and
pieces of wood and glue.
For many years afterward these pieces were shown to visitors in the
attic of the synagogue when the story was told of the rabbi's
bogey-man.
The Fairy Frog
Once upon a time there lived a man of learning and wealth who had an
only son, named Hanina. To this son, who was grown up and married, he
sent a messenger asking that he should immediately come to his father.
Hanina obeyed, and found both his father and mother lying ill.
"Know, my son," said the old man, "we are about to die. Grieve not,
for it has been so ordained. We have been companions through life, and
we are to be privileged to leave this world together. You will mourn
for us the customary seven days. They will end on the eve of the
festival of the Passover. On that day go forth into the market place
and purchase the first thing offered to thee, no matter what it is, or
what the cost that may be demanded. It will in due course bring thee
good fortune. Hearken unto my words, my son, and all will be well."
[Illustration: Hanina and his wife followed the giant frog.
(_Page 255_).]
Hanina promised obedience to this strange injunction of his father,
and events fell out in accordance with the old man's prediction. The
aged couple died on the same day, were buried together and after the
week of mourning, on the day preceding the Passover festival, Hanina
made his way to the market place wondering what adventure was in store
for him.
He had scarcely entered the market place, where all manner of wares
were displayed, when an old man approached him, carrying a silver
casket of curious design.
"Purchase this, my son," he said, "and it will bring thee good
fortune."
"What does it contain?" asked Hanina.
"That I may not inform thee," was the reply. "Indeed I cannot, for I
know not. Only the purchaser can open it at the feast which begins the
Passover."
Naturally, Hanina was impressed by these words. Matters were shaping
just as his father foretold.
"What is the price?" he asked.
"A thousand gold pieces."
That was an enormous sum, nearly the whole that he possessed, but
Hanina, remembering his vow, paid the money and took the casket home.
It was placed upon the table that night when the Passover festival
began. On being opened it was found to contain a smaller casket. This
was opened and out sprang a frog.
Hanina's wife was sorely disappointed, but she gave food to the frog
which devoured everything greedily. So much did the creature eat that
when the Passover had ended, in eight days it had grown to an enormous
size. Hanina built a cabinet for his strange possession, but it
continued to grow and soon required a special shed.
Hanina was seriously puzzled, for the frog ate so ravenously that he
and his wife had little food for themselves. But they made no
complaint, although their hardships increased daily. They were
compelled to dispose of almost everything they possessed to keep the
frog supplied with food, and at last they were left in a state of
abject poverty. Then only did the courage of Hanina's wife give way
and she began to cry.
To her astonishment, the frog, which was now bigger than a man, spoke
to her.
"Listen to me, wife of the faithful Hanina," it said. "Ye have treated
me well. Therefore, ask of me what ye will, and I shall carry out your
wishes."
"Give us food," sobbed the woman.
"It is there," said the frog, and at that very moment there was a
knock at the door and a huge basket of food was delivered.
Hanina had not yet spoken, and the frog asked him to name his desire.
"A frog that speaks and performs wonders must be wise and learned,"
said Hanina. "I wish that thou shouldst teach me the lore of men."
The frog agreed, and his method of teaching was exceedingly strange.
He wrote out the Law and the seventy known languages on strips of
paper. These he ordered Hanina to swallow. Hanina did so and became
acquainted with everything, even the language of the beasts and the
birds. All men regarded him as the most learned sage of his time.
One day the frog spoke again.
"The day has arrived," he said, "when I must repay you for all the
kindness you have shown me. Your reward shall be great. Come with me
to the woods and you shall see marvels performed."
Hanina and his wife followed the giant frog to the woods very early
one morning, and a comical figure it presented as it hobbled along.
Arrived at the woods, the frog cried out, in its croaking voice:
"Come to me all ye inhabitants of the trees, the caves and streams,
and do my bidding. Bring precious stones from the depths of the earth
and roots and herbs."
Then began the queerest procession. Hundreds upon hundreds of birds
came twittering through the trees; thousands upon thousands of insects
came crawling from holes in the ground; and all the animals in the
woods, from the tiniest to the monsters, came in answer to the call of
the frog. Each group brought some gift and laid it at the feet of
Hanina and his wife who stood in some alarm. Soon a great pile of
precious stones and herbs was heaped before them.
"All these belong to you," said the frog, pointing to the jewels. "Of
equal worth are the herbs and the roots with which ye can cure all
diseases. Because ye obeyed the wishes of the dying and did not
question me, ye are now rewarded."
Hanina and his wife thanked the frog and then the former said: "May we
not know who thou art?"
"Yes," replied the frog. "I am the fairy son of Adam, gifted with the
power of assuming any form. Farewell."
With these words, the frog began to grow smaller and smaller until it
was the size of an ordinary frog. Then it hopped into a stream and
disappeared and all the denizens of the woods returned to their
haunts.
Hanina and his wife made their way home with their treasures. They
became famous for their wealth, their wisdom and their charity, and
lived in happiness with all peoples for many, many years.
[Illustration: The giant bird did not seem to notice its burden
at all. (_Page 274_).]
The Princess of the Tower
I
Princess Solima was sick, not exactly ill, but so much out of sorts
that her father, King Zuliman, was both annoyed and perturbed. The
princess was as beautiful as a princess of those days should be; her
long tresses were like threads of gold, her blue eyes rivaled the
color of the sky on the balmiest summer day; and her smile was as
radiant as the sunshine itself.
She was learned and clever, too, and her goodness of heart gained for
her as great a renown as her peerless beauty. Despite all this,
Princess Solima was not happy. Indeed, she was wretched to
despondency, and her melancholy weighed heavily upon her father.
"What ails you, my precious daughter?" he asked her a hundred times,
but she made no answer.
She just sat and silently moped. She did not waste away, which puzzled
the physicians; she did not grow pale, which surprised her
attendants; and she did not weep, which astonished herself. But she
felt as if her heart had grown heavy, as if there was no use in
anything.
The king squared his shoulders to show his determination and summoned
his magicians and wizards and sorcerers and commanded them to perform
their arts and solve the mystery of the illness of Princess Solima. A
strange crew they were, ranged in a semi-circle before the king. There
was the renowned astrologer from Egypt, a little man with a humpback;
the mixer of mysterious potions from China, a long, lank yellow man,
with tiny eyes; the alchemist from Arabia, a scowling man with his
face almost concealed by whiskers; there was a Greek and a Persian and
a Phoenician, each with some special knowledge and fearfully anxious
to display it. They set to work.
One studied the stars, another concocted a sweet-smelling fluid, a
third retired to the woods and thought deeply, a fourth made abstruse
calculations with diagrams and figures, a fifth questioned the
princess' handmaidens, and a sixth conceived the brilliant notion of
talking with the princess herself. He was certainly an original
wizard, and he learned more than all the others.
Then they met in consultation and talked foreign languages and
pretended very seriously to understand one another. One said the stars
were in opposition, another said he had gazed into a crystal and had
seen a glow-worm chasing a hippopotamus which a third interpreted as
meaning the princess would die if the glow-worm won the race.
"Rubbish!" exclaimed the magician who had spoken to the princess;
"likewise stuff and nonsense and the equivalent thereof in the seventy
unknown languages."
That was an impertinent comment on their divinations, and so they
listened seriously.