Do you know of modern versions of deal with the devil fairytales/folktales?
Hmm, if you mean modern media inspired by those type of folktales, I’m afraid not. My interest lies with the folktales much more than modern fantasy! But if you mean “modern folktales”… Possibly my favourite fairy tale about a deal with the devil is a literary fairy tale written in 1965 by Dutch writer Godfried Bomans. I’ll try to do it justice in a retelling, it’s called The Stolen Heart:
There once was a fisherman who was rich in family but lacking in almost everything else. He and his wife lived in a little house by the sea. They had six children and one more on the way, but the fisherman barely caught enough fish to feed them all.
Since he loved them all very much it hurt him terribly to see them hungry. And one evening when he had caught even less than usual, he sighed: “If only I was able to catch more.”
“That can be arranged,” a voice behind him spoke, and the fisherman saw the voice belonged to a richly dressed nobleman who was blowing on his hands as if he was freezing cold. “Sell your soul to me and you will be rich beyond belief. All you have to do is breathe into my mouth.”
The fisherman considered this and while he did so a chill wind touched his face. “Then you are the devil,” he replied.
The nobleman stopped smiling. “Sell me your soul and you will be rich beyond belief.”
“Alright,” the fisherman relented and he did as the nobleman instructed and exhaled his breath into the mouth of the stranger. The very moment he did so he felt a coldness in his chest where his heart ought to beat. “What have you done with my heart?” he asked, frightened.
The stranger smiled. His cheeks were no longer pale. “In ten years you may see me again if you wish it, but you won’t wish it. I thank you.” And with that he jumped on his horse and rode off.
The fisherman could do nothing but roll up his nets and go home. But the net that had been empty before, now hid an oyster within the mesh, and in that oyster a giant pearl. The fisherman hurried home, but when his wife embraced him she startled because he felt cold as ice. The fisherman did not mind her, however, and told her to fetch the mayor.
He traded the pearl for a piece of land. It was a miserable little plot, but the first time the fisherman dug into the ground he found a chest full of treasure. This treasure he brought to the king and it bought him three ships, each with a crew one hundred strong. They set off in a merchant’s fleet, but tragedy struck. The fleet was destroyed in a terrible storm. Only the fisherman’s ships returned with their cargo of grain.
Now there was famine in the country, because the fleet had been lost, and the fisherman sold his cargo at ten times the price. Now he was truly rich beyond belief. He bought the royal palace to live in, because even the king had grown poor, and he sat on the sunny balcony listening to the starving people begging below. But he would give them nothing, because they could not pay.
This became too much for the King and he told the fisherman the people would die if nothing was done.
“What do I care?” the fisherman spoke. “I want for nothing.”
For the first time in his life the old king grew angry and he cried out: “You know what is wrong with you? You are heartless.”
The fisherman grew pale. “How do you know that?”
“Even a child can see it!” the king replied. “You laugh while the people starve in the street. It’s as if you’ve sold your soul to the devil.”
Now the fisherman grew as white as a sheet. “How do you know that?” he repeated.
The king startled. “You do not mean to say you truly sold your soul?”
“Yes,” the fisherman replied. “That is why I sit in the sun all day. I am cold.” And he took the king’s hand and placed it on his chest.
The king hastily drew back. It was like touching ice. The king, shaken to his core, ordered the fisherman to leave. He made a proclamation that the man who sold his soul was not to be harmed and that his leftover grain would be divided amongst the hungry.
Now everyone knew what the fisherman had done. He wandered from place to place, but everywhere the people fled from him. And no matter how much gold he offered, no one would give him bread or board. At last he remembered his wife and children and returned to his little house by the sea. Not because he loved them, but because he was hungry.
When he arrived he found his wife bent over the cradle, because their seventh child had just been born. But when she embraced him in greeting he pushed her away and when she placed her cheek against his chest she shrank back, because she felt the cold against her skin.
“So it is true,” she whispered. “And I have never believed it.”
“It is true,” the fisherman confirmed and he explained to his wife that they would never again have to worry about money and that once the people had gotten used to him, they would get whatever they wanted.
“That may be so,” his wife said. “But you no longer love me. And whatever you get, it won’t make you happy.” And she held up his newborn child to him, but all he could do was look at them both with cold eyes.
“You’re right,” he said. “That was the price.”
And so the fisherman lived with his wife and seven children, whom he no longer cared for. The youngest of them grew up strong and merry in spite of his father. When he was almost ten years old, he heard from his siblings what had happened to his father and why he was always cold and quiet. The boy grew to pity his father, so one day he went to him and said:
“Father, is it true you no longer have a heart?”
“That is true,” his father answered. “That was the price.”
“Do you not long to have it back?” the boy asked. “Do you want me to fetch it for you?”
“I don’t want anything,” his father replied. “How could I?”
“The ten years have almost passed,” his son said. “You could see him again, if you wished it.”
“How could I want or wish for anything? I have no heart for longing with.”
So the boy turned away from his father and prepared for a journey he did not know the length of. Then he hugged his siblings and kissed his mother and went to speak to his father one last time. But his father would not shake his hand or wish him well, so the boy set off to go to the devil.
He walked and walked, until he reached a place where the people told him there was a nobleman living nearby who had changed so suddenly almost ten years ago. He had always been cold and silent, but suddenly he had become cheerful and talkative. He had grown fond of children, though he had none. And of fishing, though he never worked a day in his life.
“Then he must have my father’s heart,” the boy thought and he set off towards the nobleman’s house.
On the way there he met an old woman, who greeted him kindly and asked where he was off to.
“I am going to the devil,” the boy replied.
“Is that so?” the old woman hummed. “Well, you may do so. He has no power over the innocent. But you must hurry, because tomorrow he is to set off on a journey.”
When he heard that, the boy’s own heart glowed, because tomorrow was the day he was born. The day his father lost his heart. So that had to mean that his father had wished to see the devil again after all, no matter how faintly, and that strengthened his resolve.
He reached the nobleman’s house at dawn and the devil himself opened the door when he knocked.
“Come in,” he said. “You are just in time, for I was about to go visit someone. You look quite like him.”
He led the boy into a large room filled with a rushing sound as if a hundred clocks were ticking all together. But when the boy looked around he saw rows and rows of glass cases lining the walls, each holding a heart that still beat.
“A hobby of mine,” he said carelessly. “Sit down, boy, and tell me, what can I do for you.”
But the boy did not sit. “You are the devil,” he said.
Now the devil sat down, because he knew he had met his adversary. “How do you know that?” he said softly.
“I know,” the boy said. “And I wish to know more. Who do these hearts belong to?”
Never in a million moons would the devil have answered such a question, but suddenly he felt quite weak. The father’s heart beat in his chest and he could not deny the boy.
“Ask something else,” he said.
“No. I ask this.”
The devil could not fight this strange feeling that he had never felt before. He was powerless to stop it. “Fine,” he said. “They are the hearts of the people who sold their soul to me. Now go, because you know too much already.”
“And why do you visit them again after ten years?”
“Ask something else,” he said.
“No. I ask this.”
Again the devil could not resist him. “I have to,” he replied. “After ten years they can get their hearts back, but most of them do not wish it. They have grown too used to me. Now go, because you know too much already.”
But the boy did not go and suddenly said: “Then give me my father’s heart.”
The devil grew pale. “Ask something else,” he whispered.
“No. I ask this.”
The devil looked at him in desperation. That strange, irrepressible feeling grew stronger and stronger and he could not deny this boy anything he asked for. But suddenly he had an inspiration. He reached into his chest, pulled out the father’s heart and placed it onto the table. At once he breathed a breath of relief, because the child’s hold over him had been broken. He looked at him with cold eyes and answered: “No.”
But the boy had already darted forward and snatched the heart off the table. He ran, and he ran as if he had the devil at his heels. Only he didn’t, because the devil didn’t have the heart to go after him.
So all the way home ran the boy, clutching his father’s heart, and he arrived there at nightfall.
“Father! Father!” he cried, running into the house. “I have stolen your heart!” And he placed the heart, that he had carried all the way, back into his father’s chest.
And no sooner had he done this, or the fisherman rose from his feet and wrapped his arms around his son. For the first time in ten years he looked around and saw his wife and children. Tears washed down his cheeks.
“How much you have all grown!” he wept. “And how much I love you all!”
Suddenly he felt the warmth of the flames in the hearth and he smelled the kettle boiling above it. He heard the wind whistle in the chimney and the rain ticking against the windows. Everything was new to him and everything was a delight.
He kissed his wife and he hugged his children and he took his place among them at the table and he could not stop telling them how much he loved them all.
But they do say he loved the youngest most of all. Because he had truly stolen his heart.
-
[Freely translated from “Het Gestolen Hart”, as published in Godfriend Bomans Groot Sprookjesboek, 1975]
Iemand die zegt dat hij ook betrouwbare Chinezen kent en dat er in sommige "negers" heus wel iets aardigs steekt, maakt zich aan rassendiscriminatie schuldig, evenals iemand die royaal beweert dat er ook goede joden zijn als een antisemiet door de mand valt. Hij velt een vonnis, niet door wat hij zegt maar door wat hij verzwijgt.
Hij meldt de uitzondering. Hij suggereert de regel.
