Prevod

Once upon a time there was a poor woodcutter who worked from morning until late at night. When at last he had saved a little money, he said to his boy, "You are my only child, and I mean to spend the money I have earned by the sweat of my brow on your education. If you learn something worthwhile, you will be able to support me in my old age, when my limbs have grown stiff and I must sit at home." So the boy went to a university and studied diligently, earning the praise of his teachers, and remained there for some time. But after he had completed several courses of study, though he had not yet mastered everything, the little his father had scraped together was all spent, and he had to return home. "Alas," said his father sadly, "I can give you nothing more, and in these dear times I cannot earn a penny beyond what we need for our daily bread." "Dear Father," answered the son, "do not trouble yourself about it. If this is God's will, it will turn out for the best. I shall make the best of it." When the father was about to go into the forest to earn a little by cutting and stacking firewood, the son said, "I will go with you and help." "Ah, my son," said the father, "you would find it hard. You are not used to heavy work and would never stand it. Besides, I have only one axe and no money to buy another." "Just go to the neighbour," answered the son. "He will lend you his axe until I have earned enough to buy one of my own."

So the father borrowed an axe from the neighbour, and at daybreak the next morning they went out into the forest together. The son helped his father, working briskly and cheerfully. When the sun stood high above them, the father said, "Let us rest and eat our midday meal. We shall work all the better afterwards." The son took his bread in his hand and said, "You rest, Father. I am not tired. I shall walk about in the forest a little and look for birds' nests." "You silly fellow," said his father, "why do you want to go wandering about? Afterwards you will be tired and unable to lift your arm. Stay here and sit beside me!"

But the son went into the forest, eating his bread in high spirits and peering into the green branches to see whether he could spot a nest. He wandered to and fro until at last he came to a great, forbidding oak, surely many hundreds of years old, so broad that five men could not have encircled it with their arms. He stopped and looked at it, thinking, "Many a bird must have built its nest in there." Suddenly he thought he heard a voice. He listened and heard a deep, muffled cry: "Let me out! Let me out!" He looked all around but could see nothing, though the voice seemed to come from beneath the ground. So he called, "Where are you?" The voice answered, "I am down here among the oak roots. Let me out! Let me out!" The student began clearing away the debris beneath the tree and searching among the roots, until at last he discovered a glass bottle in a little hollow. He lifted it up and held it to the light, and inside he saw something shaped like a frog, hopping up and down. "Let me out! Let me out!" it cried again, and the student, suspecting no harm, pulled the stopper from the bottle. At once a spirit rose out of it and began to grow, swelling so swiftly that within a few moments a dreadful creature, half as tall as the tree, stood before the student. "Do you know," it cried in a terrible voice, "what your reward shall be for letting me out?" "No," answered the student fearlessly. "How should I know?" "Then I shall tell you," cried the spirit. "I must break your neck for it." "You should have told me that before," answered the student. "Then I would have left you where you were. But my head is not yours to take. Others must have a say in that." "Others or no others," cried the spirit, "you shall have the reward you deserve. Do you think I was shut up there all that time as a kindness? No, it was my punishment. I am the mighty Mercurius. Whoever releases me, I must break his neck." "Easy now," answered the student. "Not so fast. First I must be sure that you really were inside that little bottle, and that you are indeed the same spirit. If you can get back into it, I will believe you, and then you may do whatever you please with me." Full of pride, the spirit said, "That is a simple trick," and drew himself together, becoming as thin and small as he had been at first, until he could creep back through the same opening and down the neck of the bottle. But scarcely was he inside when the student thrust the stopper back in and tossed the bottle among the oak roots where it had lain before. The spirit had been outwitted.

The student was about to return to his father, but the spirit cried most pitifully, "Oh, do let me out! Do let me out!" "No," answered the student, "not a second time. Once someone has tried to take my life, I will not let him loose again after I have caught him." "If you set me free," cried the spirit, "I will give you enough to last you all your days." "No," answered the student, "you would deceive me as you did the first time." "You are throwing away your good fortune," said the spirit. "I will do you no harm, but reward you richly!" The student thought, "I will risk it. Perhaps he will keep his word, and I shall see to it that he does me no harm." So he took out the stopper, and the spirit rose out as before, stretching and swelling until he was as tall as a giant. "Now you shall have your reward," he said, and handed the student a little scrap of cloth, just like a plaster. "If you rub a wound with one end," he said, "it will heal; and if you rub steel or iron with the other, it will turn to silver." "I must try that first," said the student. He went to a tree, cut a gash in its bark with his axe, and rubbed it with one end of the plaster. At once the bark closed up again and was healed. "Well, it is just as you said," he told the spirit. "Now we may go our separate ways." The spirit thanked him for setting him free, and the student thanked the spirit for his gift and went back to his father.

"Where have you been wandering?" said his father. "Why have you forgotten your work? I said from the start that you would get nothing done." "Do not fret, Father. I will make up for it." "Make up for it indeed!" said his father angrily. "This is no way to work." "Watch, Father. I shall fell that tree in a moment, and down it will come with a crash." He took his plaster, rubbed the axe with it, and struck a mighty blow. But because the iron had turned to silver, the cutting edge bent over. "Why, Father, just look! What a poor axe you have given me. It has bent right out of shape." His father was horrified and said, "Oh, what have you done? Now I must pay for the axe, and I do not know what with. This is all the good your work has done me." "Do not be angry," answered the son. "I shall pay for the axe." "You blockhead!" cried his father. "What will you pay for it with? You have nothing but what I give you. Your head is full of students' tricks, but you know nothing about woodcutting."

After a little while the student said, "Father, I cannot do any more work now, so we might as well call it a day." "What nonsense!" his father answered. "Do you think I mean to sit with my hands in my lap as you do? I still have work to do, but you can be off home." "Father, this is my first time in this forest. I do not know the way on my own. Please come with me!" By now his father's anger had cooled, and at last he allowed himself to be persuaded and went home with him. There he said to his son, "Go and sell the ruined axe, and see what you can get for it. I shall have to earn the rest to pay the neighbour back." The son took the axe and carried it into town to a goldsmith, who tested it, laid it on the scales, and said, "It is worth four hundred thalers. I do not have that much in ready money." The student said, "Give me what you have, and you may owe me the rest." The goldsmith gave him three hundred thalers and remained a hundred in his debt. Then the student went home and said, "Father, I have some money. Go and ask what the neighbour wants for the axe." "I know already," answered the old man. "One thaler and six groschen." "Then give him two thalers and twelve groschen. That is twice as much, and quite enough. You see, I have money to spare." He gave his father a hundred thalers and said, "You shall never want for anything. Live as comfortably as you please." "My God," said the old man, "how did you come by such riches?" Then the son told him all that had happened, and how, trusting to his good fortune, he had made so rich a catch. With the rest of the money he returned to the university and continued his studies, and because he could heal every wound with his plaster, he became the most celebrated doctor in the whole world.