VIIII
Being the first item of the Third Document, and contains the history of the rapidly growing tree with the golden fruit which undid a king and made another. This document, in its several items, gives many startling details of facts and fables not generally known and heretofore unpublished.
STO RY begat An An Ias, who begat Wha Pur, who begat Ala Din, who begat Sin Bad, who begat El Ra Shad, who begat Mun Chau Sen (the elder), who begat Mun Chau Sen the younger (my grandfather), who submits the following Items with knowledge they will be favorably received and conscientiously preserved by his descendants:
My five-great-grandfather was walking in an orchard one day when he discovered a tree laden with a peculiar fruit. He gazed on it with wonder,for but the day before he had planted the sprout which had been sent to him by his grandfather. He could scarcely comprehend he was awake and in his right senses, but such was the case. The fruit seemed of gold, and as he was a poor man his heart immediately yearned for the possession of enough of it that he might buy a cow that his children might have milk; to buy a few bees that they might have honey with which to eat the milk; to buy a horse that he might no longer have to walk to the city; to buy a farm on which to raise food; to buy a few sheep to grow wool for clothing; to buy seed to sow, and to buy material with which to build a house, for they were very, very poor and had lived in a cave and subsisted on roots and things like that.
And he went up to the tree, put forth his hand to take some of the fruit, when lo, the tree grew so rapidly he could not reach the fruit. He became frenzied with the desire for it and he put forth such strength to reach the lowest shining globe his arm was lengthened thereby to a length almost sufficient to reach it, but not quite. So he persevered until his arm had grown so long he had not strength in his body to keep it longer inan upright position and it fell to the ground, from whence he could not raise it, nor did it resume its former length, but remained as it was.
He gazed aloft at the golden fruit, tears streaming down his face.
Then he started off in great haste in search of a ladder, as the tree seemed to have stopped its remarkable growth, and he was forced to drag his arm and hand after him trailing on the ground.
When he had gone a great distance he was suddenly stopped by the king, who was out riding, for the king had not ever seen a man with such an arm. In answer to the king’s question as to how he came by it, he told his story. The king immediately ordered one of his attendants to dismount, and had my forefather put on the horse and directed him to lead the way to this wonder, which they very soon reached.
Thereupon the king commanded one of his attendants (who happened to be one of the ancestors of Sin Bad) to climb the tree and throw down the fruit.
When the man began to climb, the tree began to grow above him; he climbed and climbed and climbed until he was worn out with exhaustionand slid down with such force he lay stunned for several hours.
In the meantime the king ordered his hewer to cut down the tree, which he proceeded to do with a great show of confidence. But, strange though it may seem it is nevertheless in strict accord with veracity, before the chopper could make a second stroke the cut he had made had risen above his reach by reason of the swift growth of the tree; and he was fain to desist after a long and hard struggle to strike the blows quickly enough to get two cuts in the same place.
He was at once beheaded by the order of the king, who was frantic with rage at his defeat.
He then ordered his bridgemaker to tie a chain around the tree, hitch twenty oxen to the chain, and thus pull the tree up by the roots.
Now, this driver of oxen was a vainglorious man and earnestly sought emulation in the sight of his majesty, and it was with exceeding readiness he set about obeying the command. He dextrously switched his oxen into line, and they were lusty ones, and with much adroitness took a lockstitch around the trunk of the tree. Then he reached for his whip, and observed the oxen alldangling in the air above his head, bellowing with fear and liked all to have their necks broken by the phenomenal growth of the tree. Had the chain not broken by the efforts of the oxen to free themselves, they had all surely been done to death by the tree.
But the extreme weight of the oxen thus hanging on one side of the tree had made a kink in the trunk, and a peculiar thing happened—the tree now grew upward in kinks.
The king was simply beside himself with passion and with his own hand cut off the head of the oxen driver; and he then commanded his commander of war engines to knock the tree down with a battering ram.
Now, this commander had had nothing to do for ages, as the king had hitherto been a peaceable man, and he felt the honor of receiving a command from his monarch so keenly he strutted about the work of arranging the ram for decisive action.
This was a ponderous piece of machinery, had cost many talents of gold, but had never been brought into actual use. It had an ugly-looking ram which seemed powerful enough to haveknocked down a castle with a single blow. It was worked by electricity, and all the commander had to do was to press the button and it would do the kicking.
When all was ready, he pressed the button. The ram shot forward with enormous velocity, only to come at the tree as one of the kinks removed the trunk from its track. And no matter how rapidly the button was pushed, so it was thought, a kink in which there was no tree was always found in front of the shooting ram. So the commander was beheaded, and the king jumped from his horse and danced up and down in a frightful state.
He turned upon my forefather and would have beheaded him on the spot for having told him about the thing, had not my forefather asked the privilege of cutting down the tree. He was at once commanded so to do, and in not very choice language, for the king was so far gone he had entirely forgotten the rules of polite society.
My forefather had been thinking all this time and thinking pretty hard, too, for he felt pretty sure he would not be home for supper that night if the king got no golden apples. And he thoughtto some purpose, and had observed the tree very minutely.
He took a long piece of heavy wire from his pocket, quickly placed it around the trunk of the tree, and, though he was carried some distance up before he could fasten it to his liking, he succeeded in doing so and dropping safely to the ground, though it was a goodly jump he had to make.
As the tree expanded in its growth of girth in proportion to its upward movement the wire soon began to cut into the trunk. Thus the tree was caught, for it had now grown to such a height if it did not keep on growing larger around it would become top-heavy and break off at the narrow point where was the wire.
And now the king’s pleasure knew no more bounds than did his wrath, and he knighted my forefather on the spot.
The work of the wire was made apparent by the waving of the tree top, which soon became quite visible; but the tree had grown so high when the wire had finished its task, the top fell far out into the ocean, with all its golden fruit.
And now the king did a very mean thing—he directed his sword-bearer to give him his longsword, which was about twenty feet long, with which he desired to have the honor of removing my forefather’s head.
But my forebear was not to be outdone. He grasped the king about the middle with the long fingers of his long hand on his long arm, held him high above his head for a moment, then threw him far out to sea, telling him to bring him some of the golden fruit and he would sit on his throne until he did so, which he proceeded to do, and thereby attained all the things he would have bought with the golden fruit, and many more besides.
So great had been the effort in throwing the king into the ocean, my forefather’s arm at once resumed its natural length.