The Old Man Made Young Again

In the time when our Lord still walked the earth, he and Saint Peter stopped at a smith's house one evening and were given a place to stay. Then a poor beggar, worn out by age and sickness, came to the house and asked the smith for alms.

Saint Peter felt sorry for him and said, "Lord and master, if it pleases you, cure his suffering so he can earn his own bread." The Lord kindly said, "Smith, lend me your forge and put on some coals, and I will make this old man young again." The smith was happy to help.

Saint Peter worked the bellows, and when the coal fire blazed up big and high, the Lord took the little old man and pushed him into the middle of the red-hot fire. The old man glowed like a rosebush and praised God loudly.

Then the Lord went to the quenching tub, put the glowing little man into the water so it closed over him, and after cooling him carefully, gave him a blessing. Suddenly the little man sprang out nimbly, looking fresh, straight, and healthy, as if he were only twenty years old.

The smith, who had watched everything closely, invited them all to supper. But the smith had an old, half-blind, crooked mother-in-law. She went to the youth and asked very earnestly if the fire had burned him much.

He answered that he had never felt more comfortable, and that he had sat in the red heat as if in cool dew. The youth's words echoed in the old woman's ears all night long.

Early next morning, after the Lord had gone on his way and heartily thanked the smith, the smith thought he could make his old mother-in-law young again too, since he had watched everything so carefully and it was part of his trade.

So he called to ask if she would also like to bound around like a girl of eighteen. She said, "With all my heart, since the youth came out of it so well." So the smith built a great fire and thrust the old woman into it.

She writhed this way and that and uttered terrible cries of murder. "Sit still! Why are you screaming and jumping like that?" he cried, and blew the bellows again until all her rags were burnt.

The old woman cried without stopping, and the smith thought to himself, "I haven't quite got the right art," and took her out and threw her into the cooling tub. Then she screamed so loudly that the smith's wife upstairs and her daughter-in-law heard it.

They both ran downstairs and saw the old woman lying in a heap in the quenching tub, howling and screaming, her face wrinkled and shriveled and all out of shape. The two women were both pregnant, and they were so frightened that that very night two boys were born.

They were not made like men, but like apes, and they ran into the woods. From them sprang the race of apes.