Divjak

Besedilo

Divjak

A priest and his pupil were travelling through a vast mountain forest when night overtook them. Seeing that they could no longer reach their intended destination that day, they began looking about for somewhere to spend the night, and far off they spied a fire in a cave. They drew near and called out, “Good evening! Is anyone there?” And what should they see? No people, nor anyone else, but a wild man with a single eye on the top of his head. They asked him, “Will you let us into your home?” He answered that he would. But a great stone slab lay across the mouth of the cave, so heavy that a hundred men could not have moved it. The wild man rose, lifted the slab, let them in, and then set it back across the entrance. He built up a great fire for them, and they sat down to warm themselves. Once they had warmed up a little, the wild man began feeling the backs of their necks to see which was the fatter, so that he might slaughter and roast him. Finding the priest the fatter of the two, he seized him and killed him, thrust him onto a spit, and set him beside the fire to roast. When the pupil saw this, he knew what was in store for him too, but there was no way he could escape from the cave. Once the priest was roasted, the wild man called the pupil to eat with him, but the poor pupil would not, saying that he was not hungry. “Oh, you will,” said the wild man, “by force, if you will not do it willingly.” What could the pupil do? He sat down with him, and while the accursed wild man ate, the pupil put the meat into his mouth and then tossed it aside. “Eat!” the wild man began to shout. “For tomorrow I shall do the same to you.” When the wild man had eaten his fill, he lay down beside the fire, and the pupil began whittling a small pointed stake. The wild man asked him, “What are you whittling that stake for?” The pupil answered that, sitting idle while tending sheep, he had fallen into the habit of whittling, and now the fancy had taken him again. The wild man closed his eye and fell asleep. The poor pupil, seeing that tomorrow the knife would be at his own throat, thought of a way to save himself: he drove the stake into the wild man’s eye and blinded him. The blind wild man leapt up like a madman and said to the pupil, “Very well, thanks be to God! You have put out my one eye because I had not the sense to put out both of yours, but you shall not escape me.” When morning dawned, the wild man felt for the cave entrance, and, finding it closed, began groping about the cave to catch the pupil. But he could not find him, for he kept a great many animals in the cave, and the pupil had thought to skin a ram, dress himself in its fleece, and mingle with the sheep. At last the wild man saw that he could do nothing with so many animals in the way, so he went to the cave entrance, opened a gap at one side, and began calling the animals to him and tossing them out one by one. The pupil, in his ram’s fleece, began edging forward with the sheep, hoping to be thrown out as well. Little by little he drew near, until he came within reach, and the wild man caught him up and tossed him out among the other rams. Once the pupil found himself in the open and saw all the animals before him, he called to the wild man, “Do not look for me! I am outside already.” When the wild man realised that he had escaped, he thought of a trick, opened the entrance wide, and held out a staff to him, saying, “Since you have escaped me, here, take this staff to drive the flock, for without it not one of them will stir.” The unlucky pupil was taken in and went to take the staff, but the moment he grasped it, one of his fingers stuck fast. Seeing that he was done for, he began darting this way and that around the wild man to keep out of his grasp. Then he remembered the little knife he had with him, drew it, cut off the finger that was stuck to the staff, and escaped. He then began mocking and laughing at the wild man as he drove the flock before him. Blind as he was, the wild man followed, and in this way they came to a great body of water. The pupil saw that he could now drown him, so he began whistling all around him, taunting him. Edging closer and closer in an effort to catch him, the wild man came right to the water’s edge. Then the pupil ran up behind him and pushed him into the water, and the wild man drowned. After that, the pupil drove the flock away in peace and with God’s blessing, and reached home safe and sound, but without the priest.