Folk Tales from Gascony: The Bastard, Part 2.
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This is post #26 of my penance after I have been blacklisted by Hivewatchers for plagiarizing.
No need to upvote this post, as the payout has been declined.
But comments are welcome. I will continue to upvote all meaningful comments.
THE BASTARD
The Bastard greeted the nobleman and left. As he was crossing a small wood, not far from the castle, he met the young lady.
“Good evening, young lady."
"Good evening, Bastard. I was behind the bedroom door when you came to ask me to marry you. Bastard, I don't want any other man than you. Go and enlist in the service of the King of France and quickly earn enough to support both of us and our children. If you come back, count on me as well as yourself. If you die, I will become a nun in a convent, and I will pray to God for your soul until they take me to the cemetery."
The Bastard saluted the young lady and left. As he walked along, he thought:
“This is a brave young lady. If I make her my wife, I won't be pitied."
Immediately, he went to enlist in the service of the King of France and left for a foreign country to fight the enemies. After three years, the general said to him, in front of all his comrades:
“Bastard, there is not, in the whole army, a strong and bold soldier like you. I make you captain."
"Thank you, general. But I still need something else."
"Speak, Bastard."
"General, I am dying of pain, thinking of my mistress, whom I left behind for three years. Give me a hundred days off to go see her."
"Bastard, leave and come back at the promised time."
The Bastard saluted the general and returned to France. Arriving in a town, he saw many people circling around a man who was beating a drum.
“Ran plan plan ran plan plan ran plan plan. You are all informed, by the King of France, that he has just lost his son, and that all the people must go into mourning. However, the King of France still has a bastard, who has gone who knows where. This bastard will only be recognized as his father's heir when he has cut the wind in two and proven that he is of royal blood."
"Good!" thought the Bastard. "The great eagle did not lie to me."
Immediately, he set off again, walking night and day, to see the young lady again sooner. Finally, he arrived very close to his country on All Saints' Eve. Unfortunately, it was already dark, and thick mists covered the entire countryside. The Bastard lost his way, and he searched for it for a long, long time, without ever finding a house or a man. At midnight, he arrived in front of the gate of a cemetery lost in the fields, with a church in the middle. It was the church of La Roumiouac, which belonged to the Order of Malta.
" Good! thought the Bastard. At least here is a shelter."
He entered without fear. The altar was prepared, and the candles lit as if to say mass. However, there was no one in the church. Finally, a stone from the pavement rose. An old dead priest emerged from the ground, with the alb and the chasuble, and advanced to the foot of the altar.
“Is there anyone here to serve me mass?”
“There’s me,” said the Bastard.
"My friend, I have been waiting for you for a long time. When I was alive, a widow gave me the money for a hundred masses, for her poor husband, I still had one to say when I died. This is why Our Lord condemned me to enter paradise only when I am done. For three hundred years, I have gotten up every night and called a clerk. Finally one has come, and soon I will be taken out of purgatory. My friend, confess and serve me mass. Thus, you will gain communion."
Source: Le Bâtard, from the French book Contes populaires de la Gascogne, tome 1, published in 1886.
Hello, my name is Vincent Celier.
I am writing translations of folk tales that I found in public domain French books, so that people who do not understand French may enjoy them too.
The Bastard, like La Fleur was successful in the army of the King of France, and like La Fleur, he became a captain in three years.
How do you get communion from a dead priest? You need to find one who has been condemned to finish what he was supposed to do during his life. In a folk tale, it is easy to imagine such a priest.
Yesterday, I left the house of my brother Antoine near Paris and arrived 11 hours later in the vineyard house of my wife Kati in Pécs.
First, Antoine drove me to a train station where I took a direct train to the Charles de Gaulle Airport
This is the third airport of Paris. The first one, Le Bourget Airport is now only used by private airplanes. The second one, Orly Airport is still in use, mostly by the French airline Air France.
I always arrive early when I take an airplane, as I don't want to miss my flight because there is a problem on the way to the airport. This time, I think I was one hour early.
The airplane left Paris half an hour late and arrived in Budapest 20 minutes late.
From the airport in Budapest, I took a shuttle minibus, that I had reserved online, which took me directly to Kati's house in Pécs, 230 km from Budapest airport. Seven other travelers took the shuttle with me to Pécs.
Unfortunately, two of the travelers arrived from London one and a half hours late. This
is the reason why I arrived at Kati's house around 23:30, which is five hours after my airplane landed in Budapest
-- Vincent Celier
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