The Shepherd and the Dragon/Godfather Matej

by Božena Němcová

GODFATHER MATEJ

GODFATHER MATEJ

GODFATHER MATEJ went to visit Godfather Jiri. Not far from the cottage he met the godfather’s boy.

“What is your father doing, Josifko?” he asked him.

“Just now he was sitting down to eat but when he saw you coming he got up and left the table,” answered the too truthful boy.

“And why did he so?”

“Papa said that you would eat too much, and he told mamma to take it all away from the table.”

“And where did she hide it, Josifko?”

“She put the goose in the bread-oven, the ham on the stove, the sausages with cabbage in the stove oven, the coffee cakes in the cupboard, and the two pitchers of beer under the bench.” Godfather asked no more, but smiled, and in a moment stepped across the threshold into Godfather Jiri’s house.

“God grant you health,” Godfather Jiri greeted him. “If you had only come a little sooner you might have eaten with us, but now we have nothing with which we can honor you.”

“I could not get here sooner, dear friend, because something so extraordinary happened to me on the way.”

“Tell us what it was.”

“I had to kill a snake, and this snake had a head as large as the ham you have in the stove, it was fat like the goose in the bread-oven, it had flesh white as the coffee cakes which you have in the cupboard, it was as long as the string of sausage which lies swollen on the cabbage in the bread-oven, its blood was like the beer which you have in the two pitchers under the bench.”

Matej understood it all too well. Godfather Jiri was ashamed of his lack of hospitality, had the woman place the food and drink on the table and he and the guest enjoyed it together.