The Legend of Ulenspiegel. Volume 2 of 2

The butchers and Lamme murmured low:

“’Tis van te beven de klinkaert; ’tis van te beven de klinkaert.”

“So that ye may not talk too much,” said Ulenspiegel, “the seven will bring you bound as far as Peteghem, to the Beggars. Ye shall have ten florins when ye are on the sea; we shall be certain till then that the camp victual will keep you faithful to bread and soup. If ye are valiant men, ye shall have your share in the booty taken. If ye try to desert, ye shall be hanged. If ye escape, thus avoiding the rope, ye shall find the knife.”

“We serve who pays us,” said they.

“’Tis van te beven de klinkaert! ’Tis van te beven de klinkaert!” said Lamme and the seven striking upon the table with shards of broken pots and glasses.

“Ye shall take with you also,” said Ulenspiegel, “Gilline, the Stevenyne, and the three damsels. If one of them tries to escape, ye shall sew her up in a sack and throw her into the river.”

“He has not killed me,” said Gilline, leaping out from her corner, and brandishing her viol in the air. And she sang:

“Of blood was all my dreamThe dream so near my heart,Of Eve the child I seem,Of Satan, too, a part.”

The Stevenyne and the others were like to weep.

“Fear nothing, darlings,” said Ulenspiegel, “you are so soft and sweet, that everywhere they will love you, feast you, and caress you. At every war capture ye shall have your share in the booty.”

“They will give nothing to me, for I am an old woman,” wept the Stevenyne.

“A sou a day, crocodile,” said Ulenspiegel, “for thou shalt be serving woman to these four beauteous damsels; thou shalt wash their petticoats, blankets, and chemises.”

“I, Lord God!” said she.

Ulenspiegel replied:

“Thou hast ruled them long, living on the earnings of their bodies and leaving them poor and hungry. Thou mayst whine and bellow, it shall be as I have said.”

Thereupon the four girls began to laugh and mock at the Stevenyne, and say to her, putting out their tongues:

“To each her turn in this world. Who would have said it of Stevenyne the miser? She shall work for us as a servant. Blessed be the lord Ulenspiegel!”

Then the three turned to Gilline:

“Thou wast her daughter, her support; thou didst share with her the fruits of thy foul spydom. Wilt thou ever dare again to strike and insult us with thy brocade dress? Thou didst scorn us because we were but fustian. Thou art clothed so richly only with the blood of victims. Let us take her dress so that she may be even like ourselves.”

“I will not have it,” said Ulenspiegel.

And Gilline, leaping on his neck, said:

“Blessed be thou that hast not killed me, and wouldst not have me ugly!”

And the girls, jealous, looked at Ulenspiegel, and said:

“He has lost his wits for her like all the men.”

Gilline sang to her viol.

The seven set out towards Peteghem, taking with them the catchpolls and the girls along by the Lys. As they went on their way they murmured:

“’T is van te beven de klinkaert; ’t is van te beven de klinkaert!”

As the sun was rising they came to the camp, sang like the lark, and the clarion of the cock made them answer. The girls and the catchpolls were closely guarded. For all that, on the third day Gilline was found dead, her heart pierced through with a great needle. The Stevenyne was accused by the three girls and brought before the captain of the band, his dizeniers and sergeants formed into a tribunal. There, without their having to put her to the torture, she confessed that she had killed Gilline through jealousy of her beauty and rage because the damsel treated her as her servant pitilessly. And the Stevenyne was hanged, and afterwards buried in the wood.

Gilline, too, was buried, and the prayers for the dead were said above her sweet body.

Meanwhile, the two catchpolls instructed by Ulenspiegel had gone before the castellan of Courtray, for the tumult, uproar, and pillage made in the Stevenyne’s house must needs be punished by the said castellan, as the Stevenyne’s house was in the castle ward, outside the jurisdiction of the town of Courtray. After having narrated to the lord castellan what had taken place, they told him with great conviction and humble sincerity of language:

“The murderers of the preachers are in no wise Ulenspiegel and his trusty and well-beloved Lamme Goedzak, who went to the Rainbow purely for their repose and refreshment. They even have passes from the duke, and we have seen these ourselves. The real culprits are two Ghent merchants, one a lean man and the other very fat, who went away towards France, after breaking everything at Stevenyne’s, taking her away with her four girls along with them for their pleasure. We had them well and duly taken prisoners, but there were in the house seven butchers, the strongest in the town, who took their side. They tied us all up and only let us go when they were far away on the French soil. And here are the marks of the ropes. The four other catchpolls are on their tracks, waiting for a reinforcement to lay hands on them.”

The castellan gave each of them two carolus and a new coat for their loyal services.

He then wrote to the Council of Flanders, to the Sheriff’s Court at Courtray, and to other courts of justice to announce to them that the real murderers had been discovered.

And he recounted to them the whole adventure in detail and at length.

Whereat the people of the Council of Flanders and the other courts of justice shuddered.

And the castellan was greatly praised for his perspicacity.

And Ulenspiegel and Lamme journeyed in peace upon the road from Peteghem to Ghent, along the Lys, wishing to arrive at Bruges, where Lamme hoped to find his wife, and at Damme, where Ulenspiegel, all a-dream, would have wished to be already, to see Nele, who lived in sadness with Katheline the madwife.

XXXVI

During a long while, in the country of Damme and round about, there had been committed several abominable crimes. Lasses, young men, old men, who had been known to go forth carrying money in the direction of Bruges, Ghent, or some other town or village of Flanders, were found dead, naked as worms and bitten in the back of the neck by teeth so long and so sharp that they all had the bones of their necks broken.

Physicians and barber-surgeons declared that these were the teeth of a huge wolf. “Robbers,” said they, “had doubtless come up, after the wolf, and had stripped the victims.”

Despite all search, no man could ever discover who were the robbers. Soon the wolf was forgotten.

Several townsmen of note, who had proudly set forth on their way without an escort, disappeared without any one knowing what had become of them, save that at times some country fellow, going out in the morning to plough the earth, found wolf tracks in his field, while his dog, digging in the furrows with his paws, brought to light a poor dead corpse carrying the marks of the wolf’s teeth on the nape or under the ear, and oftentimes on the leg, too, and always behind. And always the neckbone and legbone were broken.

The peasant, affrighted, would go off at once to give information to the bailiff, who would come with the clerk of the court, two aldermen, and two surgeons to the place where lay the body of the murdered man. Having visited it diligently and carefully, having sometimes when the face was not eaten by worms recognized its quality, even its name and lineage, they were nevertheless always astonied that the wolf, a beast that kills for hunger, should not have carried off some part of the dead man.

And the folk of Damme were sore terrified, and no woman dared to go out by night without an escort.

Now it came that several valiant soldiers were sent out to look for the wolf, with orders to hunt for it day and night in the dunes, along by the sea.

They were then near Heyst, among the great dunes. Night had come. One of them, confident in his strength, wanted to leave them to go alone on the hunt, armed with a musket. The others allowed him, certain that, valiant and armed as he was, he would kill the wolf if he dared to show himself.

Their comrade having gone, they lit a fire and played at dice while drinking brandy out of their flasks.

And from time to time they called out:

“Now, then, comrade, come back; the wolf is afraid; come and drink!”

And he made no answer.

Suddenly, hearing a great cry as of a man that is at the point of death, they ran in the direction whence the cry came, saying:

“Hold on, we are coming to the rescue!”

But they were long before they found their comrade, for some said the cry came from the valley, others that it came from the highest dune.

At length, when they had well searched dune and valley with their lanterns, they found their comrade bitten in the leg and in the arm, from behind, and his neck broken like the other victims.

Lying on his back, he was holding his sword in his clenched fist; his musket was on the sand. By his side were three severed fingers, which they carried off, and which were not his fingers. His pouch had been taken.

They took up on their shoulders their comrade’s body, his good sword, and his gallant musket, and grieved and angry, they carried the corpse to the bailiff’s where the bailiff received them in the company of the clerk of the court, two aldermen, and two surgeons.

The severed fingers were examined and recognized as the fingers of an old man, who was no worker at any trade, for the fingers were long and tapering, and the nails were long as the nails of lawyers and churchmen.

Next day the bailiff, the aldermen, the clerk, the surgeons, and the soldiers went to the place where the poor slain man had been bitten, and saw that there were drops of blood upon the grass and footmarks that went as far as the sea, where they ceased.

XXXVII

It was at the time of the ripened grapes, in the wine month and the fourth day of it, when in the city of Brussels they throw, from the top of the tower of Saint Nicholas after high mass, bags of walnuts down to the people.

At night Nele was awakened by cries coming from the street. She looked for Katheline in the room and found her not. She ran down and opened the door, and Katheline came in saying:

“Save me! Save me! the wolf! the wolf!”

And Nele heard in the country far-off howlings. Trembling, she lighted all the lamps, wax tapers, and candles.

“What has happened, Katheline?” said she, clasping her in her arms.

Katheline sat down, with haggard eyes, and said, looking at the candles:

“’Tis the sun, he driveth away evil spirits. The wolf, the wolf is howling in the countryside.”

“But,” said Nele, “why did you leave your bed where you were warm, to go and take a fever in the damp nights of September?”

And Katheline said:

“Hanske cried last night like an osprey; and I opened the door. And he said to me: ‘Take the drink of vision,’ and I drank. Hanske is goodly to look upon. Take away the fire. Then he brought me down to the canal and said to me: ‘Katheline, I will give thee back the seven hundred carolus; thou shalt restore them to Ulenspiegel the son of Claes. Here be two to buy thee a robe; thou shalt have a thousand soon.’ ‘A thousand,’ said I, ‘my beloved, I shall then be rich.’ ‘Thou shalt have them,’ said he. ‘But is there none in Damme who, woman or damsel, is now as rich as thou wilt be?’ ‘I know not,’ I answered. But I had no mind to tell their names for fear he might love them. Then he said to me: ‘Find this out and tell me their names when I come back.’

“The air was chill, the mist rolled over the meadows, the dry twigs were falling from the trees upon the roadway. And the moon was shining, and there were fires on the water of the canal. Hanske said to me: ‘It is the night of the were-wolves; all guilty souls come forth out of hell. Thou must make the sign of the cross thrice with the left hand and cry: Salt! Salt! Salt! which is the emblem of immortality, and they will do thee no hurt.’ And I said: ‘I shall do what thou desirest, Hanske, my darling.’ He kissed me, saying: ‘Thou art my wife.’ ‘Aye,’ said I. And at his gentle word a heavenly happiness glided over my body like an ointment. He crowned me with roses and said to me: ‘Thou art fair.’ And I said to him: ‘Thou art fair, too, Hanske, my darling, and goodly in thy fine raiment of green velvet with gold trimmings, with thy long ostrich feather that floats from thy bonnet, and thy face pale as the fire upon the waves of the sea. And if the girls of Damme saw thee, they would all run after thee, beseeching thee for thy heart; but thou must give it only to me alone, Hanske.’ He said: ‘Endeavour to know which are the richest; their fortune will be for thee.’ Then he went away, leaving me after straitly forbidding me to follow him.

“I stayed there, chinking the three carolus in my hand, all shivering and frozen by reason of the mist, when I saw coming up from a steep bank and climbing the slope a wolf that had a green face and long reeds among his white hair. I cried out: Salt! Salt! Salt! making the sign of the cross, but he seemed to be in no dread of it. And I ran with all my might, I crying, he howling, and I heard the dry clashing of his teeth close upon me, and once so near to my shoulder that I thought that he was about to catch me. But I ran faster than he did. By great good luck, I met at the corner of the street of the Heron the night watch with his lantern. ‘The wolf! the wolf!’ I cried. ‘Be not afraid,’ said the watchman to me, ‘I will take you home, Katheline the madwife.’ And I felt that his hand, holding me, was shaking. And he was afraid like me.”

“But he hath got back his courage,” said Nele. “Do you hear him now chanting in a drawling voice: ‘De clock is tien tien aen de clock’: It is ten o’ the clock, o’ the clock ten! And he springs his rattle.”

“Take away the fire,” said Katheline, “my head burns. Come back, Hanske, my darling.”

And Nele looked on Katheline, and she prayed Our Lady the Virgin to take away from her head the fire of madness; and she wept over her mother.

XXXVIII

At Belleau, on the banks of the Bruges canal, Ulenspiegel and Lamme met a horseman wearing three cock’s feathers in his felt hat and riding at full speed towards Ghent. Ulenspiegel sang like a lark and the horseman, pulling up, answered with the clarion of Chanticleer.

“Dost thou bring tidings, headlong horseman?” said Ulenspiegel.

“Great tidings,” said the horseman. “On the advice of M. de Châtillon who is in the land of France the admiral of the sea, the prince of freedom hath given commissions to equip ships of war, beyond those that are already armed at Emden and in East Frisia. The valiant men who have received these commissions are Adrien de Berghes, Sieur de Dolhain; his brother Louis of Hainaut; the Baron of Montfaucon; the Sieur Louis de Brederode; Albert d’Egmont the son of the beheaded count and no traitor like his brother; Berthel Enthens of Mentheda, the Frisian; Adrien Menningh; Hembuyse the hot and proud man of Ghent; and Jan Brock.

“The prince hath given all his having, more than fifty thousand florins.”

“I have five hundred for him,” said Ulenspiegel.

“Take them to the sea,” said the horseman.

And he went off at a gallop.

“He gives all his having,” said Ulenspiegel. “We others, we give nothing but our skins.”

“Is that nothing then,” said Lamme, “and shall we never have aught talked of but sack and massacre? The orange is on the ground.”

“Aye,” said Ulenspiegel, “on the ground, like the oak; but with the oak they build the ships of freedom!”

“For his profit,” said Lamme. “But since there is no danger now, let us buy asses again. I like to march sitting, for my part, and without having a chime of blister-bells on the soles of my feet.”

“Let us buy asses,” said Ulenspiegel; “these are beasts it is easy to sell again.”

They went to market and found there, by paying for them, two fine asses with their equipment.

XXXIX

As they rode on astraddle, they came to Oost-Camp, where there is a great wood the fringe of which touched the canal.

Seeking therein shade and sweet fragrance, they went into it, without seeing anything but the long forest alleys going in every direction towards Bruges, Ghent, South Flanders, and North Flanders.

Suddenly Ulenspiegel jumped down from his ass.

“Dost thou see nothing yonder?”

Lamme said:

“Aye, I see.” And trembling: “My wife, my good wife! ’Tis she, my son. Ha! I cannot walk to her. To find her thus!”

“What are you complaining of?” said Ulenspiegel.

“She is beautiful thus half-naked, in this muslin tunic cut in open work that lets the fresh skin be seen. That one is too young; she is not your wife.”

“My son,” said Lamme, “it is she, my son; I know her. Carry me. I can go no more. Who would have thought it of her? To dance clad in this way like an Egyptian, shamelessly! Aye, it is she; see her shapely legs, her arms bare to the shoulder, her breasts round and golden half emerging from her muslin tunic. See how with that red flag she excites that great dog jumping up at it.”

“’Tis a dog of Egypt,” said Ulenspiegel; “the Low Countries give none of that kind.”

“Egypt … I do not know… But it is she. Ha! my son, I can see no more. She plucks up her breeches higher to show more of her round legs. She laughs to show her white teeth, and loudly to let the sound of her sweet voice be heard. She opens her tunic at the top and throws herself back. Ha! that swan neck amorous, those bare shoulders, those bright bold eyes! I run to her!”

And he leaped from his ass.

But Ulenspiegel, stopping him:

“This girl,” said he, “is not your wife. We are near a camp of Egyptians. Beware… See you the smoke behind the trees? Hear you the barking of the dogs? There, here are some looking at us, ready to bite perhaps. Let us hide deeper in the brake.”

“I will not hide,” said Lamme; “this woman is mine, as Flemish as ourselves.”

“Blind and madman,” said Ulenspiegel.

“Blind, nay! I see her well, dancing, half-naked, laughing and teasing this great dog. She feigns not to see us. But she does see us, I assure you. Thyl, Thyl! there is the dog hurling himself on her and throws her down to have the red flag. And she falls, uttering a plaintive cry.”

And Lamme suddenly dashed towards her, saying to her:

“My wife, my wife! where are you hurt, darling? Why do you laugh so loud? Your eyes are haggard.”

And he kissed her and caressed her and said:

“That beauty spot you had under the left breast, I see it not. Where is it? Thou art not my wife. Great God of Heaven!”

And she never stopped laughing.

Suddenly Ulenspiegel cried out:

“Guard thee, Lamme!”

And Lamme, turning about, saw before him a great blackamoor of an Egyptian, of a sour countenance, brown as peper-koek, which is ginger bread in the land of France.

Lamme picked up his pikestaff, and putting himself to his defence, he cried out:

“To the rescue, Ulenspiegel!”

Ulenspiegel was there with his good sword.

The Egyptian said to him in High German:

“Gibt mi ghelt, ein Richsthaler auf tsein.” (Give me money, a ricksdaelder or ten.)

“See,” said Ulenspiegel, “the girl goes away laughing loudly and even turning round to ask to be followed.”

“Gibt mi ghelt,” said the man. “Pay for your amours. We are poor folk and wish you no harm.”

Lamme gave him a carolus.

“What trade dost thou follow?” said Ulenspiegel.

“All trades,” replied the Egyptian: “being master of arts in suppleness, we do miraculous and magic tricks. We play on the tambourine and dance Hungarian dances. More than one among us make cages and gridirons to roast fine carbonadoes therewith. But all, Flemings and Walloons, are feared of us and drive us forth. As we cannot live by trade, we live by marauding, that is to say, on vegetables, meat, and poultry that we must needs take from the peasant, since he will neither give nor sell them to us.”

Lamme said to him:

“Whence comes this girl, who is so like to my wife?”

“She is our chief’s daughter,” said the blackamoor.

Then speaking low like a man in fear:

“She was smitten by God with the malady of love and knows naught of woman’s modesty. As soon as she seeth a man, she entereth on gaiety and wildness, and laughs without ceasing. She saith little; she was long thought to be dumb. By night, in sadness, she stays before the fire, weeping at whiles or laughing without reason, and pointing to her belly, where, she saith, she hath a hurt. At the hour of noon, in summer, after the meal, her sharpest madness cometh upon her. Then she goeth to dance near naked on the outskirts of the camp. She will wear naught but raiment of tulle or muslin, and in winter we have great trouble to cover her with a cloak of cloth of goat’s hair.”

“But,” said Lamme, “hath she not some man friend to prevent her from abandoning herself thus to all comers?”

“She hath none,” said the man, “for travellers, coming near her and beholding her eyes distraught, have more of fear than desire for her. This big man was a bold one,” said he, pointing to Lamme.

“Let him talk, my son,” said Ulenspiegel; “it is the stockvisch slandering the whale. Which of the two is the one that gives most oil?”

“You have a sharp tongue this morning,” said Lamme.

But Ulenspiegel, without listening to him, said to the Egyptian:

“What doth she when others are as bold as my friend Lamme?”

The Egyptian answered sadly:

“Then she hath pleasure and gain. Those who win her pay for their delight, and the money serves to clothe her and also for the necessities of the old men and the women.”

“She obeyeth none then?” said Lamme.

The Egyptian answered:

“Let us allow those whom God hath smitten to do as they wish. Thus he marks his will. And such is our law.”

Ulenspiegel and Lamme went away. And the Egyptian returned thence to his camp, grave and proud. And the girl, laughing wildly, danced in the clearing.

XL

Going on their way to Bruges, Ulenspiegel said to Lamme:

“We have disbursed a heavy sum of money in the enlisting of soldiers, in payment to the catchpolls, the gift to the Egyptian girl, and those innumerable olie-koekjes that it pleased you to eat without ceasing rather than to sell a single one. Now notwithstanding your belly-will, it is time to live more circumspectly. Give me your money. I will keep the common purse.”

“I am willing,” said Lamme. And giving it to him: “All the same, do not leave me to die of hunger,” said he, “for think on it, big and strong as I am, I must have substantial and abundant nourishment. It is well for you, a thin and wretched fellow, to live from hand to mouth, eating or not eating what you pick up, like planks that live on air and rain on the quays. But for me, whom air hollows and rain hungers, I must needs have other feasts.”

“You shall have them,” said Ulenspiegel, “feasts of virtuous Lents. The best filled paunches cannot resist them; deflating little by little, they make the heaviest light. And presently will Lamme my darling be seen sufficiently thinned down, running like a stag.”

“Alas!” said Lamme. “What henceforth will be my starveling fate? I am hungry, my son, and would fain have supper.”

Night was falling. They arrived in Bruges by the Ghent gate. They showed their passes. Having had to pay one demi-sol for themselves and two for their asses, they entered into the town; Lamme, thinking of Ulenspiegel’s word, seemed brokenhearted.

“Shall we have supper, soon?” said he.

“Aye,” replied Ulenspiegel.

They alighted in de Meermin, at the Siren, a weathercock which is fixed all in gold above the gable of the inn.

They put their asses in the stable, and Ulenspiegel ordered, for his supper and Lamme’s, bread, beer, and cheese.

The host grinned when serving this lean meal: Lamme ate with hungry teeth, looking in despair at Ulenspiegel labouring with his jaws upon the too-old bread and the too-young cheese, as if they had been ortolans. And Lamme drank his small beer with no pleasure. Ulenspiegel laughed to see him so miserable. And there was also someone that laughed in the courtyard of the inn and came at whiles to show her face at the window. Ulenspiegel saw that it was a woman that hid her face. Thinking it was some sly servant he thought no more of it, and seeing Lamme pale, sad, and livid because of his thwarted belly loves, he had pity and thought of ordering for his companion an omelette of black puddings, a dish of beef and beans, or any other hot dish, when the baes came in and said, doffing his headgear: