The Devil’s Age

The Devil’s Age

Once, in the Basque country, a husband and wife lived in great poverty. At times their cottage held nothing but a crust of bread, and the husband kept wondering how he could change their fate.

One evening he sat at a crossroads and sighed so heavily that even the crows in a nearby tree looked sideways at him.

Suddenly a stranger in a dark cloak appeared on the road.

“Why are you so sad?” he asked.

“Because I do not know how my wife and I will live through the winter,” the man answered honestly. “I work, yet there is never enough money.”

The stranger smiled in a peculiar way.

“I can give you as much money as you want, on one condition. When the appointed day comes, you must tell me how old I am.”

The man was surprised.

“And that is all?”

“That is all.”

So he agreed.

From that day, everything changed in their home. They mended the roof, bought warm clothes, filled the pantry with grain, and no longer went to sleep hungry. The man even stopped counting every coin.

Months passed. He nearly forgot the strange agreement.

Then one morning he suddenly remembered that the appointed day was very near.

From then on he walked about gloomy as an autumn cloud. At first his wife said nothing, but at last she could bear it no longer.

“We have food, the roof does not leak, and we have no debts. Why do you sigh as though you had lost a mountain of gold?”

The husband told her everything: the crossroads, the stranger, and the question whose answer he did not know.

His wife listened and laughed.

“And you have worn that face for days because of this? We need not strength, but cleverness.”

“Do you know how old he is?”

“No. But he will tell us himself.”

She brought out a great barrel of honey and a sack of feathers.

“First, climb into the honey.”

“Into the honey?”

“Into the honey. Then roll yourself in the feathers.”

The husband looked at her as if he was no longer sure which of them had made the stranger’s bargain. But he trusted his wife.

A few minutes later, a sticky figure climbed out of the barrel. After the sack of feathers, the husband was unrecognisable. He looked at once like a huge chicken, a shaggy dog, and a cloud that had decided to walk on the ground.

“Now go to the crossroads,” said his wife. “Get on all fours, walk back and forth, and say not one word.”

In the evening, the husband reached the crossroads and followed her advice. He ran to a bush, backed away, circled in the middle of the road, and waved his feather-covered arms.

At last the same dark gentleman appeared.

He stepped forward, saw the strange creature, and stepped back at once.

The husband silently moved toward him.

The gentleman stepped back again.

The husband passed between his legs, turned, walked around him, and stood before him once more.

“What are you?” cried the stranger.

The husband only shook his feathers.

The dark gentleman turned pale.

“I have lived for exactly this many years,” he cried, naming the number, “and I have never seen such a strange animal!”

That was all the husband needed.

He turned and ran home so quickly that feathers flew behind him in a long trail.

“He said it!” he cried from the doorway. “He told me his own age!”

His wife only smiled.

“You see? Sometimes the hardest question is not meant to be guessed. You only have to make the answer speak for itself.”

When the appointed day came, the husband went to the crossroads clean, combed, and wearing his usual clothes.

The dark gentleman asked, “Well, do you know how old I am?”

The husband named the exact number.

The stranger stared.

“How?”

“There are many strange things in the world,” the husband replied calmly. “One only has to listen carefully.”

With that, the agreement ended.

The husband returned home, and his wife set supper before him.

“Only one thing,” she said. “From now on, we eat honey with a spoon, and we do not roll in feathers anymore.”

They laughed so loudly that their laughter could be heard beyond the garden.

And from then on, the husband remembered well: money can make life easier, but a clear head, trust, and good advice are what most often lead a person out of trouble.

May this story leave a little light in your heart ✨