Episode 194 – Idle Hands – Myths Your Teacher Hated

Episode 194 Show Notes

Source: German Folklore

This week on MYTH, three soldiers are going to decide that military life is not for them. You’ll discover that you should plan better when you desert from the royal army, that rich people have always paid starvation wages to line their own pockets, and that you should always trust strange old ladies. Then, in Gods and Monsters, it’s a listener request story about three arrogant army surgeons. This is the Myths Your Teacher Hated podcast, where I tell the stories of cultures from around the world in all of their original, bloody, uncensored glory. Modern tellings of these stories have become dry and dusty, but I’ll be trying to breathe new life into them. This is Episode 194, “Idle Hands”. As always, this episode is not safe for work.
Spooky season may be over, but it will live forever in my heart. That’s why, this week, we’re heading back to the delightfully macabre collection of the Brothers Grimm. This particular story was related to Jacob and Wilhelm by Dorothea Viehmann, a German storyteller who is the source for more than 40 of the fairy tales collected by the brothers. The translation used here comes from Grimm’s Complete Fairy Tales from 1993.
Once upon a time, there was a great and terrible war. Which war doesn’t really matter since, in a lot of ways, they’re all more or less the same for those sent to fight and die. War. War never changes. The king on one side of the conflict had assembled a massive army. Wars are expensive though so, to save costs, this cheapskate king decided to pay his soldiers as little as he possibly could. These were no mercenaries but peasant soldiers raised from the villages controlled by the king. Their pay was so little that they couldn’t afford to support themselves, and very few people are willing to die for minimum wage. Thus it was that three of these soldiers got together and decided to desert.
Abandoning the army, regardless of whether the pay was slowly starving you to death, was considered treason. “If we get caught, they’ll take us to the gallows to be hanged, so we best not get caught. How do we do this so that we live to tell the tale?” asked one of the men. A second gestured out towards an enormous cornfield beside where the soldiers were camped. “If we slip away into that cornfield and hide, no one will be able to find us. As you know, the troops have been forbidden to go out to where the crops grow so that we can’t eat any of it (which we totally would because they don’t fucking pay us enough to buy any damned corn). No one will even notice us as they march away tomorrow. We’ll be safely left behind.”
It sounded like a good plan to the other two men and so they did exactly that. It was easy enough to slip into the cornfield without being seen, and the men hunkered down to spend a less-than-comfortable night hiding there. In the morning though, the army didn’t march away as they had expected. Nor did they move the next day. After two days of hiding with no food (and they’d been lean and hungry from meager rations already), the three men were starving. They were faint with hunger and close to keeling over dead from it, but if they had tried to return to the barracks, they would surely have been hanged as traitors. They might die if they had to hide here much longer, but they definitely would if they didn’t. It was an impossible situation. “What’s the point of deserting if our asses just starve to death immediately?”
And here’s where things get all weird and fairy tale-y. See, that’s when a motherfucking dragon appeared. And that’s part of why I said it didn’t matter which war this was, because I’m pretty sure none of them were fought with dragons. This isn’t Westeros. Anyway, this fiery dragon plummeted out of the sky and landed beside the cowering men in the cornfield. “This is kind of a strange place to be hanging out, fellas. Whatcha doin’ out here?” The three men weren’t entirely sure what to make of a talking dragon, but it certainly wasn’t an officer in the army. They were desperate enough to take a chance on the dragon and be completely honest. They were already between a rock and a dead place – how much worse could things really get?
“You see that army camped over there? Well the three of us have deserted from it because they don’t pay us enough to live, let alone enough to die, but now they won’t leave. If we stay out here without food much longer, I reckon we’ll starve to death but if we go back we’ll be hanged at the gallows. In short, we’re fucked.” The dragon considered the three men sagely. “That is indeed a terrible predicament. You all seem like decent chaps, so I’m inclined to offer you a bargain. If you each agree to serve me for seven years, then I’ll carry you away from here without anyone in the army being able to stop you.” It sounded entirely too good to be true but the three men were short of other options. “I feel like there’s got to be a catch, but we don’t really have a choice. We accept.”
The dragon grinned a toothy grin, caught hold of the men with his claws, and launched himself into the sky. The three deserters found themselves carried away over the heads of the army, which was utterly unable to do a thing about it. To be honest, it’s not clear if the people still camped below could even see the dragon or his three, for lack of a better word, passengers. The dragon landed some ways away, far enough from the still-encamped army to be definitely safe by the terms of the bargain. It was then that the dragon transformed, revealing him to be none other than the Devil himself. I doubt very much that the three men were all that surprised.
The Devil was still grinning toothily as he handed the three men a small whip. “Take this and crack it at the earth. When you do, as much gold as you can dream of will well up from the ground, more than enough for you to live like great lords. You can have the finest horses and carriages for your estates. You can rock and roll all night and party every day. At the end of seven years though, you will become my property.” From god only knows where, the Devil pulled a massive book out and presented it to the three former soldiers. Each was forced to sign his name to indicate that he had accepted this increasingly terrible bargain. “Don’t be so gloomy, boys. I’m a friendly demon, so I’ll give you a chance to get out of this free and clear. I’ll pose a riddle to you; if you can guess the answer, you’ll be freed from my power. Toodaloo, boys! Enjoy your gold until I see you again.”
The Devil returned to its dragon form (or perhaps had never changed at all, simply revealing itself to be the Prince of Hell) and took to the skies. Shrugging, the three men took their whip and cracked it at the ground beneath their feet. Sure enough, piles of gold appeared, as much as the men could carry away and more. They went to the nearest town and used their magic money to order themselves fine garments fit for their new elite station in life. Once they looked the part, they bought fine horses and carriages to travel the world in. They lived a life of luxury wherever the wind took them, riding their magnificent steeds and drinking their nights away. They could have had anything that money could buy (and then as now, money can buy a lot of truly terrible things) but they were, at heart, good men so they did nothing wicked.
Time slipped away quickly as it often does when you’re living it up on what is essentially an endless vacation. In what seemed like the blink of an eye, the end of the seven years was looming over the three men. Two of the deserters grew more and more anxious as the end approached, unable to enjoy their wealth for the thought of the horrors that surely awaited them once they were forced to surrender themselves into the Devil’s cruel clutches. The third seemed utterly unconcerned by their impending doom, which thoroughly aggravated his fellows. “Brothers, chill! Don’t worry about a thing, guys – I got this. I don’t know if you know this, but I’m a pretty clever guy so I think I can nail that riddle the Devil promised us. We’ll get out of this easy peasy.”
When the day was nigh, the three men went out together into the open country and sat down to wait. The Devil could appear in a crowded city they were sure, but there was no sense in putting anyone else in danger, just in case. Two of them were dour and mournful as they sat, but the third simply whistled tunelessly, not a care in the world. As they sat and waited, an old woman approached them. “Why the long faces, youngsters? You seem like you’ve got anything you could want.” “It’s nothing to concern you, old woman. There’s nothing you can do to help us and we don’t want you to get involved in our troubles.” The old woman eyed them with a shrewd squint. “You’ll never know if I can help or not if you don’t tell me what’s wrong, so spill. Tell me what’s bothering you.” And so they did. Their souls were about to be claimed by the literal Devil, so how much worse could things get?
They told her that they had been the Devil’s servants for the last seven years, bringing forth gold like blackberries growing wild beside the road. It had been a wild time but, now that it was over, their freedom was forfeit and they were indebted to the lord of all evil unless they could guess the answer to a riddle. “Is that all? If you want to be saved, then one of you needs to go out into the forest. Search for a fallen rock that looks like a little house, and go inside. There, you will be able to get the help you need.” The two gloomy men stared at the old woman like she had gone mad. “How could a wild story that you just made up help us? Finding a weird rock won’t solve a riddle.” And they went back to their brooding. The third man stood up though. “In for a penny, in for a pound, right? There’s no harm in checking this out. It’s not like I can get more damned to hell than I already am.” And so he set out.
He walked through the forest until, sure enough, he found a fallen rock that did indeed look just like a little house. Inside, he found a truly ancient woman sitting in a rocking chair. He knew, though the story doesn’t explain how, that this old crone was none other than the Devil’s grandmother. Why does the Prince of Lies have a grandmother when he’s supposedly a fallen angel? Don’t worry about it.
She didn’t seem terribly surprised or worried about a strange man entering her home uninvited and unexpected. “Well hey there, sonny. What brings you to my humble abode?” He told her the whole story because why not. He was an entertaining storyteller and a polite young man, so the ancient woman was pleased with her new friend and she took pity on him. Her grandson could be a very naughty thing after all. She lifted up a great stone, revealing the entrance to a cellar in the floor. “Hide yourself down there, sonny, and be quiet. You’ll be able to hear everything that’s said in my house and, as long as you don’t stir, my grandson will have no idea you’re here. I’ll ask him about this riddle so that you can know what you’re getting into ahead of time. He may be the incarnation of wickedness, but he’s a good grandson and he tells me everything.”
The man settled down to wait. Hours passed until, at midnight, the dragon came flying over the forest. He landed and entered the house (which has been described as a little house, but there’s no indication of how small they mean since apparently a fucking dragon capable of carrying three men in his claws can enter just fine). “Hey granny – what’s for dinner?” She had made him his favorite meal (no word on what that is) and served him fine drink to go along with it to make sure that the Devil was in a very good mood. They talked as they ate, mostly about inconsequential bullshit. After they had been talking a while, she asked her grandson how his day was going. Had he reaped any souls today?
He shrugged. “Today went pretty shitty, to be honest granny but at least I have ironclad bargains for the souls of three soldiers. They’re as good as mine.” She gasped in mock surprise. “Three soldiers! That sounds like an impressive get, but what do you mean ‘as good as’ yours? Is there a chance they can still slip away?” The Devil mocked her concern. “Is there a chance they could still FUCK NO. Those assholes are mine. I promised them a riddle, and it’s gonna be a doozy. There’s no way they’ll ever be able to guess the answer.” “And what riddle is that, grandson? Just so we can both be sure you really have these souls firmly in your clutches and all that.” He grinned. “In the great North Sea lies a dead dogfish. That shall be your roast meat and the rib of a whale shall be your silver spoon, and the hollow of an old horse’s hoof shall be your wineglass.”
That’s the most bullshit riddle since Bilbo Baggins asked ‘what’s in my pockets,’ and at least that wasn’t his first pick out the gate. The Devil continued to eat, drink, and make merry mostly by himself for a bit longer before retiring to bed. Once Old Scratch was sound asleep, his grandmother removed the rock over the cellar, freeing the hidden soldier. “Did you listen closely to everything he said and memorize the important bits?” “I have indeed. Armed with this information, I think I can pull my ass out of the fire now.” He doesn’t actually thank her for helping him, which is pretty fucking rude, but whatever. He slipped out the window to avoid any chance of waking the Devil and hurried back to his two soldier buddies.
In hushed towns, the optimistic one related everything that had happened to the two pessimists, who were suddenly reinvigorated with hope. They were suddenly in a celebratory mood, what with knowing the answer to the riddle, and so they took the whip and summoned so much gold that it covered the ground around them. They lived it up for the small sliver of time left, celebrating rather than mourning now. When the full seven years was officially up, the Devil appeared before the three men with the book in his claws. “Your time is up as you agreed when you signed the bargain,” and he showed them their signatures in the book just in case they had forgotten the single most important thing that had ever happened to them.
“Time is up so now you three are coming down to Hell with me. Don’t worry, we’ll start off with a feast.” He turned to the first soldier. “I promised you a riddle. If you can guess what kind of meat you’re going to be eating at this feast, then you shall be free to go.” This is not a riddle, this is just a bullshit guessing game that’s impossible to win without cheating. Fortunately, as we know, the soldiers were cheating. “Oh that’s easy. In the great North Sea lies a dead dogfish. What else could the roast meat be but that dead fish?” The Devil was understandably furious at the first soldier impossibly answering his ‘riddle’ which again is not actually a riddle. He whirled on the second soldier. “Fucking fuck. I guess he’s safe, but not you, not yet. What will your spoon be at this feast? That’s your riddle.” Still not a riddle. But again, the second man was ready. “Why, the rib of a whale will of course be our silver spoon. So obvious.” The Devil roared in outraged fury and stalked toward the third soldier, the only one who wasn’t already free of their deal. “But what will your wine glass be?” “Hmm, let me think.” The Devil smiled widely. Finally, something was going right. “Oh, I’ve got it. Our wine glass will naturally be the hollow of an old horse’s hoof.”
Having thus been defeated at his bullshit game, the Devil roared his impotent fury to the heavens before leaping into the sky and flying away. They had each answered what apparently passed for a riddle and so they were all free and clear of their debt. He was so angry and flummoxed, in fact, that he plum forgot to take the magic whip back from them. Thus were the three former soldiers able to make as much gold for themselves as they ever needed to live in the lap of luxury for the rest of their days.
This is such a weird variation on the ‘tricking the devil to escape a bad bargain’ trope that shows up in a lot of folk and fairy tales. Two of the soldiers do absolutely nothing to salvage their own souls, and the third mostly stumbles across a pair of helpful magic ladies who hand him the answers on a silver platter. It takes very little cleverness on his part, just a willingness to trust in the kindness of strangers. And when you’re about to be dragged to hell by the literal Devil, how much worse can things really get? And so, with the three deserters safely away from the poverty of working for a selfish king (I sure hope that they’re much more generous with their literally infinite wealth), it’s time for Gods and Monsters. This is a segment where I get into a little more detail about one of the gods or monsters from this week’s pantheon that was not discussed in the main story. This week’s unfortunate trio are the three army surgeons.
This story is actually a listener request from Anastasia on Spotify. It also comes from Grimm’s Complete Fairy Tales. Once upon a time, there were three army surgeons who were extremely arrogant about their skills. If TV medical shows have taught me anything, this is just how surgeons are. These three doctors were convinced that they had absolutely perfected their art. Remember, this is the early 1800s at the absolute latest, so I’m pretty sure I don’t agree with them. Anyway, the trio was traveling around the world showing off their skills (and helping people in the process, but that was definitely secondary to peacocking). They came to an inn in a small village on this particular night and went inside looking for a place to stay.
The innkeeper greeted them politely as they entered. “Hail and well met fellows. Where do you come from and where are you going?” “Oh, us? We’re the three greatest surgeons you’ve ever met and we’re traveling the world demonstrating our skills and practicing our art.” “I’ve never met a surgeon before. That sounds impressive. Would you mind showing me what you can do?” Now, a normal person would probably say that surgery isn’t a toy and shouldn’t be used frivolously as a bar trick. As you can probably guess, these three army surgeons were far too arrogant and proud of themselves to pass up the opportunity to bask before an adoring audience.
“Not a problem, my good man. How about I cut off my hand tonight. In the morning, I’ll reattach it so neatly you’ll never be able to tell it was ever severed from my arm?” Not to be outdone, the second piped up. “I can do you one better. I’ll tear out my heart tonight and replace it in the morning. Won’t that kill you, I hear you wondering? With any lesser surgeon, surely but I’m good enough to keep myself alive overnight without my heart.” The third surgeon wasn’t quite as bad as the second, so he didn’t go for something utterly ridiculous like cutting off his own head as I half expected. “Well then, I shall pluck out my eyes and then reattach them, blind, in the morning. My hands are so skilled that I don’t need to see to be perfect.”
These are all truly terrible ideas but there wasn’t a lot of entertainment to be had in that small village, so the innkeeper was intrigued. “Those are some truly bold claims. I imagine that if you can truly do all that, then you are as good as you say you are and have nothing left to learn.” It’s not clear if the three surgeons were actually as skilled as they claimed, but they were still absolutely sure that they could pull off these impossible feats. Any why is that? Because they had a secret weapon – a salve that magically joined things together. They carried the little bottle of this miracle cure with them constantly and it was this that allowed them to consistently do the impossible.
After rubbing themselves down with a bit of the salve (for hygiene, you understand), they got down to the bloody work of dismembering themselves. Off came the hand, out came the heart, and out came the eyes. The body parts were all laid out neatly on a little serving platter and given to the innkeeper for safekeeping. He in turn handed it to a servant to set on a high shelf in the cupboard where no one would bother it.
The servant girl had a secret lover, a soldier. I don’t know if he’s staying at the inn and they’re keeping their relationship a secret or if he’s at a local barracks and sneaking away for time with his best gal. Either way, he came by that night feeling hungry for a late night snack, as he often was. I know what you’re probably thinking, but no the girl is not about to serve her boyfriend secret cannibal snacks. She went into the cupboard for totally normal food and came back with a platter piled high with tasty treats. What she did do though was forget to close the door to the cupboard again when she was done.
While she and her soldier lover were making googoo eyes at each other over cold chicken, the cat came creeping in to see what unattended human food he might be able to sneak away with. Imagine his delight when he discovered the unexpected banquet of a hand, a heart, and a pair of eyes! Being greedy as cats can be, he snatched up all of these delicacies and carried them away for later.
It was only after the serving girl and her traveling soldier were done eating and she was cleaning up that she discovered the open cupboard. With a worried gasp, she rushed over to discover that, sure enough, the surgeon body parts were all missing from the empty platter. Well shit. She collapsed onto the bench beside her soldier, weeping piteously. “What am I going to do? The hand, the heart, and the eyes are all gone! They’re going to kill me when they find out they’re missing in the morning. I’ll get fired!” The soldier did his best to comfort his justifiably anxious girlfriend. “Hush now, don’t worry. I can fix this. You said you need a hand? Well good news – they hanged a thief a few days ago. His heart’s a mess and his eyes have been pecked out, but his hand should still be basically fine. I’ll go to the gallows, cut it off, and bring it to you. Which hand was it?”
“The right one,” hiccuped the girl, who was starting to hope she might get out of this after all. She gave him a sharp knife and the soldier slunk out to cut off the dead thief’s right hand. On his way back, he happened across the little cat who had caused this whole mess. Figuring turnabout was fair play, he caught the poor creature and cut out its eyes to replace the ones it had eaten. It feels needlessly cruel to me, but whatever. That left only the heart to be replaced. “I’ve seen a lot of dead men cut open on the battlefield and a lot of animals slaughtered for meat. And you know what – a pig’s heart is not that different from a man’s. Do you have any freshly slaughtered pork in the cellar?” It turned out that yes indeed, there was a freshly slaughtered pig (who it seems like could have provided the eyes too without maiming a poor kitty but, again, whatever). They carved out its heart and arranged it beside the hand and the eyes on the platter. It looked close enough to the way it should that the serving girl doubted anyone would know the difference. She placed the tray back in the cupboard (making very sure the door was closed) and went to bed.
In the morning, the three surgeons woke and stretched, prepared for a big day of performing miracles. Though the salve would be doing pretty much all of the heavy lifting – they’d just be playing the parts and taking the credit. They came down to the common room and called for the serving girl to bring the tray of body parts. She did so, hiding her trepidation as well as she could. Her soldier lover had been right – the surgeons never looked twice at the replacement parts, assuming they were the originals. The first smeared salve on his wrist stump and placed the executed thief’s hand to it. The skin grew quickly over the wound, attaching the dead man’s hand to the living surgeon. The second did the same with the pig heart, placing it inside his chest where it began to beat. The third placed the cat’s eyes in his own skull and blinked.
The innkeeper, who had no idea about any of the night’s shenanigans, was duly impressed by the apparent skill of the three men. I mean sure, they used magic medicine to actually accomplish the feats, but they did also actually do what they said they would. And they hadn’t charged or wagered anything for this demonstration, they just liked showing off. The innkeeper applauded and cheered these seemingly impossible medical marvels and promised to sing their praises and recommend their services to any and all who came through his inn. I’ll admit, it’s a hell of an advertising gimmick. The three surgeons basked in the applause for a bit, paid their bill, and went on their way.
It was only after they left the little town that the strange effects began to manifest. As they walked along, any time they came to a corner with thick grass where some tasty mushrooms or root vegetables might be lurking, the surgeon with the porcine heart would race over and root around in the dirt as pigs are wont to do. After the first time, his two companions tried to hold him back by his coattails but it was no use. He was simply too insistent to be stopped. Have you ever tried to keep ahold of a critter that really, really wants to go somewhere else? It’s nigh impossible. He pulled himself free each and every time to go dig wherever the dirt was thickest.
The second was having his own problems. He kept rubbing his eyes and squinting against the bright morning sun. “My friends, is anyone else having trouble seeing in this blinding light? No? Well then can one of you lead me so I don’t trip?” Which doesn’t make nearly as much sense – cats can see just fine in the daytime. Maybe it’s some weird side effect of the magic salve they used. The cat was killed at night after all. Whatever. They traveled on in this awkward and halting manner throughout the day until, as night neared, they came to another inn.
The trio headed inside together and sat at the bar. At a table in the corner was a rich man counting out his money. Which, as Kenny Rogers taught me, is an absolutely terrible idea to do in public, not to mention being a needless and gross display of wealth. The third man found himself wandering nonchalantly towards the table without fully knowing why he was interested. As if moving of its own volition (which it basically is), the hand that belonged to a dead thief shot out twice, drawing the rich man’s attention. While he was looking one way, the thief hand dipped into the pile of gold and nicked a handful of coins. The rich man didn’t notice, but one of the other surgeons did, and he was understandably confused and concerned. “My friend, why are you stealing from that man? It’s foolish and illegal and it’s not like we need the money. Shame on you!” The one with the dead man’s hand just shrugged his shoulders uncomfortably. “I don’t really understand it either. As soon as I saw that gold, my hand just started itching and twitching. It didn’t get better until I walked this way and then it started snatching things whether I wanted it to or not.”
It had been a difficult and confusing day, so the three surgeons went up to bed without offering to do their usual trick. It was pitch black in the room, so dark that two of the men couldn’t even see their own hands in front of their faces. As they were lying there, the man with the cat’s eyes suddenly shot awake, staring up into the darkness. “My friends, do you see the white mice running around in the rafters above us?” The other two grumbled awake, but said they couldn’t see anything of the sort. “I can see them clear as day and, for some reason, I can’t seem to take my eyes off them. I think something is wrong with us. I think maybe we didn’t get our parts back from the innkeeper last night like we thought. I think maybe we were deceived. We should go back in the morning.”
And so, at first light, they set out for the previous inn. “Innkeeper, you have cheated us! We did our surgery trick for you and you swore you would keep our parts safe, but you swapped them out on us! I have the hand of a thief, my friend has the heart of a pig, and my squinty friend here has the eyes of a cat. Give us back our rightful parts!” The innkeeper, naturally, had no idea what they were talking about. “I swear to you that I had nothing to do with any switcheroo. It must have been my serving girl – she’s the one who actually put the tray of your body parts away at night and fetched it again in the morning. She must have done something when I wasn’t looking.” Which is true. “Well then bring her here to face the music.”
The innkeeper went back to look for her, but the maid was gone. She had spotted the three surgeons returning and had guessed why they were back. She had wisely fled out the back door and had run away with her soldier boyfriend never to return. “I can’t find the wretched girl. She up and abandoned her post, the selfish git!” “Well someone is paying for this crime and if it’s not her, then it’s going to be you. Either you pay us what we deserve for the desecration of our bodies or we’ll burn your house down.” The terrified innkeeper gave the three army surgeons everything he had, which was actually a pretty tidy sum of money. Combined with what the surgeons had earned in their time as wandering doctors slash medical marvels, they had enough to settle down and live comfortably for the rest of their lives. They never did fully adjust to their new body parts or the urges they brought along with them. Comfortable living was nice and all, but they would have rather had their own proper body parts back.
That’s it for this episode of Myths Your Teacher Hated. Keep up with new episodes on our Facebook page, on iTunes, on TuneIn, on Vurbl, and on Spotify, or you can follow us on Instagram as MythsYourTeacherHatedPod, on Tumblr as MythsYourTeacherHated, and on Bluesky as MythsPodcast. You can also find news and episodes on our website at myths your teacher hated dot com. If you have any questions, any gods or monsters you’d want to learn about, or any ideas for future stories that you’d like to hear, feel free to drop me a line. I’m trying to pull as much material from as many different cultures as possible, but there are all sorts of stories I’ve never heard, so suggestions are appreciated. The theme music is by Tiny Cheese Puff.
Next time, we’ll sail to the island of New Zealand for a contest of wills and magical might. You’ll discover that shadows can be terrifying, that sometimes the rumors about the weird old shut-in are true, and that magical food poison is the worst. Then, in Gods and Monsters, a supernatural king will steal a man’s wife. That’s all for now. Thanks for listening.