Fruits of Insanity

Romania: A Hermit's Quest

A long time ago, when the world was younger and wilder, a hermit decided it was time to seek an apprentice—a human child still young enough to gain wisdom and still kind enough to protect the world against the dark. And so, the hermit gathered his long staff and his bowl for collecting alms, and put on his most tattered robes, and left his cave in otherworld to wander ours.

He emerged on a forest path in Wallachia, where the wolves still roam and sometimes walk on two feet and devour lonely travelers in the night under a full moon. The hermit looked up and down, and tasted the breeze because he followed the flow of the air, then turned and walked south towards a little town—so little that its name is not important—which lay in the shadow of a great count’s keep.

He walked for an hour, and if his heels were sped by the dragons that dwell in the clouds, no one was around to see it. He walked for another hour, and the beasts felt his passing and were glad. He walked for a third hour until he found himself at the door of a woodcutter’s hut. He knocked once. He knocked again and the door opened and the woodcutter’s wife looked out.

“Alms, mistress,” he said, and smiled at the little child hovering behind her skirts.

Her apron was stained and her hair was frazzled. “Who are you to ask for bread from our lack? But you may have a crust of bread and a place by our fire for the night if you will cut wood for tonight’s fire. My husband is wolf bitten, and I have seven mouths to feed. Though your hair is white, you have strength in your arms.”

The hermit nodded and went to the back, followed by five little children, who he ignored. With one hand, he took up the woodman’s ax, and there was a blur and wood chips flew all around, and in five minutes, there was enough wood cut for the whole winter. The children gasped and ran away to tell their mother, but the hermit was disappointed that none came to ask him how it was done.

The next morning, the woodcutter’s wife thanked him and sent him on his way with a crust of bread and her thanks.

He walked for an hour, and if his heels were sped by the dragons that dwell in the clouds, no one was around to see it. He walked for another hour, and the beasts felt his passing and were glad. He walked for a third hour until he came to the edge of a prosperous farm. The farmer was harvesting with a great scythe, seven young men ranged around him with scythes nearly as great as his.

“Alms, master,” the hermit said, and bowed at the farmer and his sons.

“Leave my lands,” the farmer said, and he swung his scythe close enough that the wind of it ruffled the hermit’s white hair. “I’ll not have beggars here, when there’s work to be done.” Six of the young men laughed at their father’s words, but the youngest looked away in shame.

“Do you have nothing, then, to spare for a hungry traveler?”

“Be off, or I’ll cut you down as you stand.”

The hermit shook his head. “Yes, you have nothing,” and he thrust his staff into the ground with a force like thunder and said three words that split the sky like lightning, and then turned to walk south again. Behind him, hail erupted from the clear sky, sending the men running for cover, and battering the crop to the ground. Only the youngest went to bed that night unbruised.

The hermit walked for an hour, and if his heels were sped by the dragons that dwell in the clouds, no one was around to see it. He walked for another hour, and the beasts felt his passing and were glad. He walked for a third hour until he came upon a Roma camp where a family danced around the blazing bonfire.

“Alms, good folk,” the hermit said into the stillness that fell as he approached.

An old woman rose and waved him into her place. “We enough and to spare this night. Dance to our music. Eat at our fire. Sleep by our fire. Be welcome this night.”

“Thank you, grandmother,” the hermit said. That night he danced and ate and was welcome, and constantly from the corner of his eye, he saw a little child, watching him. As he lay down to sleep, he saw that the child was still awake, still watching, although the others were worn down by the festivities.

With one hand, the hermit called down a cloud dragon from the sky, and it hovered over his hand and he whispered to it. The little child gasped, with wide eyes and crept closer.

The hermit nodded. This was the one.

In the morning as the caravan prepared to depart, he called the child to him. “What’s your name?

“Marie, if it please you, sir.”

“Do you want to learn to make the hail and ride on the cloud dragon’s backs?”

“Oh, yes,” she breathed. Her mother smiled for Marie had always been curious.

“It won’t always be safe.”

“But it will be wonderful.”

And that is how Marie, your mother’s, father’s, wife’s cousin, who lived so long ago, left our family to become a solomonar. And that is why, when a beggar approaches, we give what we can, because it may be our family come home again.


word count: 939