Long ago, in a faraway village by a river, there lived two brothers named Dee and Jonel.
Jonel was a kind-hearted and patient man, always eager to help others, and it was with gratitude that he took over the running of his parents’ farm once they had become too old to care for the animals. Jonel was a successful farmer and soon married a beautiful woman who was as gentle and hardworking as he.
Dee helped his brother at the beginning, but he soon tired of farming and moved on from one job to another, first becoming a carpenter’s apprentice, then a baker’s assistant, and then a blacksmith’s assistant. Being a lazy man, Dee was unable to stay in any one job and would always move on when the work became too hard or too tiresome. Finally, he settled down and married the daughter of a very rich widow and lived a comfortable and luxurious life which required very little work.
Jonel, despite being a diligent and compassionate man, had no such luck. He toiled in the fields but his crops did not yield very much come harvest time. The wheat that did grow was soon beaten down by angry storms and merciless winds, and his cattle were plagued by disease and hunger.
His wife fell ill, and just as she began to recover, four of his children were struck down by yellow fever.
When he finally ran out of money, Jonel was forced to pay a visit to his heartless brother.
‘Dee, lend me some money,’ pleaded Jonel. ‘My beloved children are ill, my horse is dying, and my ox is lame. I cannot work, and we are so hungry.’
‘Alright, but you must pay me back what you owe and more,’ replied Dee with a smug grin on his face.
Jonel was saddened by his brother’s lack of goodwill, but he had no choice but to borrow the money despite such unreasonable demands.
Jonel borrowed and borrowed from his brother, and Dee let this happen, believing that one day he would
be able to take over the family farm and reap the rewards.
It was not too long before the mean brother got his wish. Jonel fell behind in his payments and was unable to continue the upkeep of the farm. Eventually he was forced to search for a new home.
Dee was a very mean fellow and began to move all of his possessions into the farm before Jonel and his family had even had a chance to move out.
Despite this terrible run of bad luck, Jonel remained positive. He told his wife: ‘There is a small house at the very edge of the village where a shepherd once lived. We can just about manage to live in such a place.’
Although he was determined to remain optimistic, Jonel wept as he bid farewell to his childhood home. He left the farm with his wife and seven children. They carried their humble possessions on their backs and made their way towards their new home. Dee was so mean that he even refused to lend them his cart for the journey.
Jonel sold his remaining cattle for less than half what they were worth and tried his best to settle into the little house on the edge of the village.
His wife and children tended a small vegetable patch in the modest garden, while Jonel took on various odd jobs around the village. The family spent many years living an impoverished life, all of the time wary of the wolves who roamed in the forest, all the time hungry for food or in need of extra money to buy clothes or medicines.
During those hard years, Dee, the mean-hearted brother, became the wealthiest man in the county, but never once did he offer to help his poor brother.
One day, as Dee was hosting a lavish wedding for his eldest daughter, Jonel decided to visit the church to pray for help. In the church he saw his brother and his family – all sitting in the front row, all dressed in extravagant silks and furs and smooth leather boots, while poor Jonel remained at the back of the church: a cold and hungry figure hiding in the shadows.
Once the ceremony had come to an end, Jonel followed the wedding procession towards his old family home. He stayed in the background where he would not be seen, tears filling his eyes, overcome with grief at all he had lost. When he reached the farmhouse, he stood hunched in the doorway and pleaded with his brother. ‘Brother,’ he whispered, ‘God be with you. I am famished. My wife and children are starving. Take a moment from your festivities to help us, please.’
Upon seeing his poor brother, Dee growled: ‘I do not help idle creatures.’ And with that he grabbed a bone with barely a few scraps of meat on it and thrust the feeble offering into his brother’s hands.
Jonel was overcome with despair and anger at how his own brother could treat him so callously. He took the bone and ran from the farm into the cold, dark night. It was not too long before Jonel found himself on the bank of the river. A strange voice inside his head whispered: ‘Why must you suffer so? Jump in, jump in! The water is deep. You can finish this.’
But Jonel knew that he could not leave his family to fend for themselves. He slumped down onto the damp grass and began to gnaw on the scraps of meat still left on the bone his brother had given him.
Suddenly, Jonel felt a cold hand on his shoulder, then a quiet voice said: ‘Give some meat to me. Give some to me too.’
‘What do you want me to give you?’ Asked the poor farmer. ‘You see for yourself that this bone is almost stripped bare of all meat.’
‘You just give me the final scraps,’ whispered the creature. ‘Let me lick the juices clean from the bone. I am Leila, who has been following you for many years. We share everything, you and I.’
Jonel jumped to his feet and cried out: ‘You pest! You nuisance! It is your fault that my family and I are suffering from hunger and cold. It is you who has brought on this wretchedness and misery that plagues my life! I will get rid of you once and for all!’ But Leila did not move, did not seem disturbed by the poor man’s outburst. She simply looked at him and asked: ‘What will you do to me when no man can hurt me nor kill me? I am an apparition and cannot be harmed. Give me the bone and I will leave you and your family in peace for one whole day.’
Jonel was very hungry, but he could not resist the offer of one whole day of peace; one whole day without poverty preying on his family.
He wiped the tears from his eyes and surrendered the bone to the strange creature. Leila snatched the bone from Jonel’s shaking hand and began eagerly gnawing every last scrap of meat. Seeing a small hole at the rounded end of the bone, she placed a skeletal hand inside, then another; then, like a ghostly snake, she slid inside the bone so that she could better suck all the juicy marrow hidden in the hollow.
Jonel suddenly had an idea. He found a short twig in the grass at his feet and jammed the twig into the hole, trapping poverty inside the bone. Then he threw the bone out across the river and watched it splash into the water and sink beneath the murky surface.
As soon as the bone disappeared from sight, Jonel felt peace in his heart, as if a great weight had been lifted off for the first time in many years.
Jonel turned away from the river and cast the apparition from his mind forever. He began to whistle a happy tune and, for the first time that he could remember, he began to feel optimistic about the future.
On his way home he passed by the village inn and was greeted by old friends and neighbours. They invited him inside to share a drink. They began to reminisce about old times, and many of the villagers gathered that night recalled Jonel’s hardworking nature and his kindness towards others. They began to ask him if he might help them around their farms or businesses, as they all remembered that Jonel was very skilled and very diligent in his work.
The eldest of the group brought out a stack of gold coins, giving Jonel two hundred pieces of gold with which to buy a horse and provide for his family. Jonel gratefully accepted, vowing to repay the gold as soon as he was able, and immediately returned home to his wife.
By the time Jonel arrived at his little house on the edge of the village, the sun was rising across the fields. He found his wife and children in the garden waiting for him, all of them smiling and joyful.
‘The people of the village came to visit us while you were away and they gave us a cart full of flour and wheat and barley and beans!’ Exclaimed his wife. ‘There is also meat and warm clothes for the children!’
Jonel was overcome with joy and dropped to his knees and said a prayer of gratitude.
‘Finally,’ he thought, ‘the curse of Leila has been lifted from my family so that we might once more live in peace and happiness.’
From that day forwards, Jonel’s luck grew from strength to strength. He built a new house for his family and bought a small farm in a neighbouring field. He also bought two horses and some cows and even an ox.
He busied himself in the forest, cutting wood and selling the timber to villagers all across the county. Soon he became so busy that he was able to hire a young farmhand, and he watched with a happy heart as his family grew strong and healthy.
Everybody in the village was pleased for Jonek and his family – everybody except for Dee, who grew jealous and resentful of his brother’s good fortune.
One day, Dee invited his brother back to their childhood farm for some hot mead. Jonel, forever willing to forgive his brother’s mean ways, accepted the invitation in the hope that they might once more become friends.
The brothers sat and drank in front of the fire whilst talking over old times. But it did not take very long for Dee’s mood to darken. He could not stand to see his brother so happy and contented, and he insisted on knowing how Jonek had turned his bad fortune into good. He accused his brother of many foul deeds. ‘Surely you stole the money,’ he said. ‘Or perhaps you visited a neighbouring village and took food and cattle during the night?’
Jonel was hurt that Dee should think he had gained good fortune by dishonest means, so he decided to confide in his brother and told him all about how Leila had haunted his family for many years and how, in the end, he had tricked Leila by trapping her inside the bone and casting her into the river during the night.
This news was exactly what the treacherous brother had been waiting for.
After bidding Jonel farewell, he waited until nightfall and then ran down to the river as fast as his legs would carry him. Once there, he jumped into the river and dived down into the murky waters in search of the bone. Eventually his hands landed upon the bone, which had settled among the tall weeds in the riverbed.
Dee swam to the surface and climbed out onto the riverbank and hastily pulled the twig from the hole in the end of the bone.
There was a whooshing sound and a very bright light which made Dee drop the bone in fright. Leila appeared before him and swept him up into her arms, singing at the top of her voice: ‘Oh, my saviour, you have freed me! Now it is you who I will faithfully accompany until the day that you die!’
Dee grew uneasy. ‘Not me,’ he cried. ‘It is my brother who you must haunt.’
‘No, my friend,’ hissed Leila, ‘you have set me free, so it is you who will now have Leila until the end of your days.’
It was only then that Dee truly realised his terrible mistake.
The mean-hearted brother ran from the river, but when he approached his home he found that a fire had taken hold of the roof and his cattle were running free across the fields. His wife ran towards him in distress. She told him how wolves had also attacked the sheep and how the horses were missing from the barn. ‘What are we to do?’ She cried. ‘How could such bad luck have befallen us in a single night?’
Dee fell to his knees, overcome with sadness and guilt at what he had done. And he was also afraid. He was afraid because he knew that his bad luck had only just begun.
As the weeks and months passed, Dee and his family suffered a great deal from hunger and misfortune. Jonel tried to help his brother, but no matter what he did, it seemed that disaster was fated to befall Dee and his family.
Soon Dee grew very ill and there was nothing that anybody could do to help. Every good deed ended in failure, every attempt to help ended in misery. Only Dee knew the reason why… ‘Leila will not set me free until my death,’ thought the mean brother. ‘It seems I must pay for my misdeeds after all.’
Some time later, on a quiet winter’s night, Dee was healed out of miracle, And it was only then that Leila released the family of the curse so that they might start a new life in peace.
Years later, Dee’s son, Satyr, together with two siblings and his parents lived in peace but still felt the misfortune bought by Leila to their family. They took over the old farm that was left by Jonel and his family.
One evening, just before harvest, the family was sitting round enjoying steaming bowls of chicken soup with homemade macaroni when the news began. The top story was about a mysterious robbery from Castle in the nearby city. During the night thieves had snuck in and taken the treasure from the lair!
Everybody in city knows the story of the Dragon who lived in Castle many hundreds of years ago. Aegis lived in the caves beneath the castle and used to eat the the ruler’s cattle. The ruler offered his daughter’s hand in marriage to the man who could slay the mighty Aegis. Many brave knights and noblemen tried and failed, but in the end it was a simple cobbler who had slain the mighty dragon.
As every school girl and boy knows, dragons sleep on a bed of gold treasure.
The lair had such a bed of gold, and when the dragon was slain, the ruler did not move the gold because he wanted other dragons to think that Aegis still lived in Castle. ‘That way,’ the ruler had exclaimed, ‘I will never be bothered by dragons again!’
And so the gold coins stayed in the dragon’s lair for hundreds of years, each new ruler believing that the gold brought good luck to his people.
The gold coins had stayed in the lair for all of that time until they were stolen, and it was while eating his dinner in front of the television that Satyr first learned of the robbery.
The reporter was at Castle. She was interviewing a tall policeman. The policeman said: ‘We believe that the thieves came into the castle during the day pretending to be tourists. They must have hidden in a dark corner of Aegis’ lair and waited until the castle closed for the day. They then filled two large suitcases with as much gold as they could. This,’ he said, while pointing to a spot on the castle floor, ‘is all that remains of the precious gold coins.’
The camera zoomed in on a few gold coins that were scattered on the floor.
Standing next to the policeman was a very forlorn castle curator. He was shaking his head and murmuring something about it being very unlucky for the castle and for the city.
Dee gasped: ‘All that treasure gone!’
‘What if another dragon comes along and sees that all the gold is missing?’ asked Satyr. ‘Will they know that Aegis isn’t there anymore? The castle might be attacked and we would have a new dragon after all these years!’
Ana, Satyr’s older sister, chuckled to herself and said: ‘Well then, the ruler had better go to the bank and get some more gold coins out before it is too late.’
The family laughed and returned to eating their delicious chicken soup. It seemed to Satyr that nobody believed in dragons anymore so maybe there was nothing to worry about after all.
The next day, Satyr woke up very early with the rest of his family. His parents and older brother and sister were all going out to the fields to bring in the harvest. They would be gone for the whole day. The fields were far away from the farmhouse so they had to leave very early. It would be hard work for everybody.
Every harvest, different members of the family would take it in turn to stay at home and look after the farm animals and prepare the barn to store the crops. It was also their job to prepare a feast for the hungry family to eat when they returned home. This year it was Satyr’s turn.
As his family left in the tractor, Satyr gathered food scraps for the farm animals and headed for the stables to feed the horses their hay. Then he milked the cows and walked them out to the field to graze.
The next job was to clean out the barn.
Satyr opened the large doors and went inside. Once inside, Satyr noticed a strange, golden light shimmering from the shadows towards the back of the barn. ‘I wonder what that could be,’ he thought, and went to investigate.
As he approached the shimmering light, he could not believe what he saw on the floor of the barn… Gold! A suitcase split open and full of gold! And beside that another case, this one still closed. Satyr was amazed. He was sure that this was the gold from Aegis’ lair.
‘The thieves must have been making their getaway and hidden the cases here so that the police would not find them,’ he thought.
Satyr ran back to the house to tell his family what he had found. But once he reached the house, Satyr remembered that his family was not there. So he ran to the phone and picked up the receiver… then he paused again. Who was he going to call? He didn’t have the number for the castle. He could call the police, he thought, but they probably wouldn’t believe him. He put the phone down and thought for a moment.
Suddenly Satyr knew what he must do. He ran back to the barn and gathered the gold coins together and zipped up the suitcase. Then he fetched the wheelbarrow from the stable and, after much heaving and puffing, managed to get both cases inside the wheelbarrow.
The next part of his plan he was really not looking forward to. He was going to have to take the bus to the city and return the gold himself. Satyr had never in his life been on a bus, and he had never been to the big city with its thousands of people and its noisy traffic and tall buildings. The thought made Satyr very nervous, but the young boy was determined to be brave and return the gold to Aegis’ lair no matter what. ‘After all,’ he reasoned, ‘somebody has to save the castle from dragons.’
Satyr took the jar containing his pocket money from under his bed and remembered to grab his coat from the hook behind the door. Then he locked the front door to the farmhouse and ran towards the barn to collect the wheelbarrow. Once he had gotten the hang of the wheelbarrow, which was very heavy indeed, he began on his journey towards the bus stop at the edge of the village.
Satyr had no idea when the next bus would be. He hoped he wouldn’t have to wait too long as he was already starting to feel nervous about the journey and whether or not the driver would let him on with his wheelbarrow. Then the bus came around the bend in the road and stopped right there in front of him.
The doors opened and the driver stared at the young boy, then at the wheelbarrow. Satyr didn’t know what to do. After a moment the bus driver said: ‘Are you getting on or not?’
‘Can I bring my wheelbarrow?’ asked Satyr.
The driver paused for a moment. This wasn’t the first time he’d been asked by somebody from one of the villages if they could bring a wheelbarrow onto his bus. Luckily for Satyr, the bus wasn’t already full of hay or live chickens, or even a sheep which the driver had once let an old woman bring on board as long as she paid for two tickets.
‘Fine,’ said the driver. ‘Just hurry up.’
After some more heaving and puffing, Adam managed to push the wheelbarrow onto the bus and quickly found himself a seat at the back.
‘Haven’t you forgotten something?’ shouted the driver from the front of the bus.
Satyr looked at the bus driver, trying to think what he could possibly mean.
‘You haven’t paid!’
Of course! He had to buy a ticket. Satyr jumped up from his seat and ran to the driver. He handed over his jar of pocket money and asked to be taken to Castle. The driver opened the jar and took out the money for a single trip to the city. He issued a ticket from the machine and passed it to Satyr along with the jar containing the remainder of his pocket money. Satyr walked back to his seat next to the wheelbarrow and sat down.
As the bus drove out of the village, Satyr concentrated on the cases in the wheelbarrow. He was afraid to look out of the window because he didn’t like the thought of leaving the village and travelling all by himself. Satyr knew everybody in the village, but in a big city, he would not know a soul and might easily get lost.
The bus travelled very slowly, stopping every few minutes to pick up more passengers.
‘This will take forever,’ thought Satyr.
Eventually, he grew bored of staring at the suitcases and decided to brave a look out of the window. He didn’t recognize where he was anymore, and he was afraid that he would not be able to find his way back home. The scenery had changed. It wasn’t green or spacious. The open fields that he was used to had been replaced by tall, grey buildings. Where before there were herds of cattle, now all he could see were crowds of people walking on massive stretches of pavement. Satyr felt overwhelmed. ‘Where could all these people possibly have come from?’ he wondered.
Suddenly, the bus came to a halt and the driver shouted back towards Satyr that this was his stop. Wawel Castle! Finally he had arrived!
Satyr pushed the wheelbarrow up to the guards who were standing on either side of the giant gates. Beyond the gates, Satyr could see the imposing castle. It was very big and even a bit scary.
‘Going on a little holiday?’ asked one of the guards with a wry smile.
‘No,’ said Sathr. ‘I have something that belongs to the castle and I am here to return it… so that you don’t get anymore dragons.’
The guards looked down at the suitcases, then back at Satyr. Just as they were about to tell Satyr to run along, the curator appeared at the gates. Satyr recognized him immediately from the news. The young boy seized his chance and opened one of the suitcases and took out a single gold coin. He held the coin up to the curator triumphantly and said: ‘I believe this belongs to you.’
The curator was overjoyed! He could not believe his ears when Satyr told him how he had discovered the abandoned cases in his family’s barn. Satyr also told the curator how he had gotten the wheelbarrow and his pocket money, and how he had travelled on the bus all the way to the city which he had never done before. Quite a crowd had gathered to hear Satyr’s story and everybody was very impressed with the young boy.
Then the guards picked up the suitcases and, together with Satyr, they followed the curator through the castle to Aegis’ lair.
Satyr had never been inside a real castle before. He had never even been outside a real castle before. He looked on in wonder as he was led through huge rooms adorned with fancy silks and old paintings. Every room seemed bigger and fancier than the last.
The convoy of people eventually reached the entrance to Aegis’ lair and carefully descended the steps. The deeper they went the darker and colder it got, but still they went on until the narrow stairwell opened out into the lair itself.
‘It looks just like it did on the television yesterday,’ Satyr said to nobody in particular.
The guards opened the suitcases and Satyr and the curator both grabbed big handfuls of the shiny gold coins and began throwing them across the floor in sheer delight. The curator was laughing out loud with a mixture of joy and relief. And Satyr was laughing because he was so proud that he had succeeded in his mission to return the gold and keep the castle safe.
‘No more dragons!’ he thought.
Once all of the coins were back where they belonged, Satyr started to say goodbye because he had a long journey ahead of him. But the curator was not about to let the young boy depart in such a manner.
‘You really are the bravest boy in the whole city,’ said the curator. ‘You should stay a while so that we might thank you properly.’
Satyr wanted very much to stay, but he was thinking about his home and his family and the long bus journey ahead. He said: ‘I would like to stay but I haven’t prepared the barn for the harvest or the meal for the evening. My family will be wondering where I am and they will be angry that I have not done all of my chores.’
‘Don’t you worry,’ said the curator. ‘You have done a wonderful thing for the city. Now it is our turn to do something for you. Follow me!’
And with that, the curator led Satyr up the dark stairwell and out across the main hall of the castle. Along the way, the old man issued instructions to the guards who then barked instructions into their radios. Suddenly the castle seemed to be alive with activity.
By the time Satyr and the curator reached the castle gates, there was a shiny black limousine and a very large truck awaiting their arrival.
Castle guards, in their royal red and gold uniforms, were boarding the back of the truck carrying an array of large and small boxes. A very smartly dressed chauffeur opened the door to the limousine and tipped his hat as Satyr got inside.
The journey back to Satyr’s village was much quicker than his original bus journey into the city, and he didn’t even have to spend any of his pocket money!
In no time at all they had reached the village and were soon turning off of the main road towards Satyr’s home.
As the limousine drove up the gravel path towards the house, Satyr could see his family standing in the yard. They all looked very worried and very confused at the sight of the limousine and the truck and the guards in their red and gold uniforms.
When the convoy stopped and Satyr got out of the limousine, the whole family rushed towards him: all of them were speaking at once so that Satyr found it difficult to understand them and more impossible still to answer their questions.
Just as Satyr was busy apologizing for not completing his chores, the curator stepped in and explained how Satyr had returned the missing gold to the castle.
‘A very brave boy you have here,’ said the curator as he introduced himself to the family. ‘All of us at the castle are so very grateful.’
Satyr’s mother and Dee were beaming with pride by the time the curator had finished recounting their son’s brave deeds.
Then the curator said: ‘I understand that there are a few things that still need doing around the farm. Please don’t worry about a thing.’ And with that he turned to the guards and nodded.
The guards instantly divided themselves into three groups. The first ran to the barn and began clearing space for the harvested crops, while another group began unloading the crops from the trailer. The third group ran to the house and brought the family dining table out into the farmyard and laid the table with a fine cloth, plates, glasses, and fancy silver cutlery from the castle.
Huge platters of delicious smelling foods were carried from the back of the truck and placed on the table.
Satyr’s family seated themselves at the table and the curator proposed a toast in Satyr’s honor. They were surrounded by a guard of honor and Satyr thought to himself: ‘This is what is must be like to be royalty.’
The family laughed and ate together, and all the while Satyr told them about the tall buildings in the city and the crowds of people and the castle and the limousine ride.
It really had been an incredible day. And as Satyr enjoyed the wonderful feast, he told himself that he was sure he would never forget his adventure. But he was also very pleased that next year it would be his brother’s turn to stay at home while Satyr joined his family in the fields for the harvest.
Kayl's blog 