The Old Man Made Young Again (Grimm)
Division into chapters is editorial.
The divine miracle
In ancient times when divine figures still walked among mortals, Our Lord and St. Peter traveled together and sought lodging one evening at a blacksmith's house. The smith welcomed them and provided free quarters for the night. During their stay, a poor, elderly beggar arrived at the house, severely weakened by age and infirmity, desperately seeking alms from the smith.
St. Peter's heart filled with compassion upon seeing the suffering man, and he appealed to his divine companion, asking if it would please him to cure the beggar's torments so that the poor soul might be able to earn his own bread again. Our Lord responded kindly to this request and approached the smith with an extraordinary proposal.
Smith, lend me thy forge, and put on some coals for me, and then I will make this ailing old man young again.
The smith willingly agreed to this unusual request. St. Peter operated the bellows, causing the coal fire to sparkle up large and high. When the flames reached their peak intensity, Our Lord performed an incredible miracle. He took the frail old beggar and pushed him directly into the forge, into the midst of the red-hot fire, where the man glowed like a rosebush and praised God with a loud voice.
After the divine heating process, Our Lord went to the quenching tub and carefully placed the glowing man into the water, which closed over him completely. Following careful cooling and receiving God's blessing, a miraculous transformation was revealed.
behold the little man sprang nimbly out, looking fresh, straight, healthy, and as if he were but twenty.
The failed imitation
The smith, amazed by what he had witnessed, invited everyone to supper. During the meal, his elderly mother-in-law, who was half-blind and crooked, approached the transformed youth with great curiosity and earnestly asked whether the fire had caused him much pain. The young man's response astonished her.
He answered that he had never felt more comfortable, and that he had sat in the red heat as if he had been in cool dew.
These words echoed in the old woman's ears throughout the night. Early the next morning, after Our Lord and St. Peter had departed and heartily thanked the smith for his hospitality, the blacksmith conceived a dangerous plan. Having watched the divine procedure so carefully and believing it fell within his professional expertise, he decided to make his old mother-in-law young again. When he proposed this idea, asking if she would like to go bounding about like an eighteen-year-old girl, she eagerly agreed, encouraged by the youth's successful transformation.
The smith's attempt proved catastrophic. He built a great fire and thrust the old woman into it, but unlike the divine miracle, she writhed in agony and uttered terrible cries of murder. When the smith commanded her to sit still and questioned why she was screaming and jumping about, he continued blowing the bellows until all her clothing burned away. The old woman's cries never ceased, and the smith began to realize his error.
The old woman cried without ceasing, and the smith thought to himself, 'I have not quite the right art,' and took her out and threw her into the cooling-tub.
The woman's screams grew even louder in the cooling water, alerting the smith's wife and daughter-in-law upstairs. They rushed downstairs to discover the horrifying scene: the old woman lying in a heap in the quenching-tub, howling and screaming, her face wrinkled, shriveled, and completely disfigured. The shock of witnessing this gruesome sight had devastating consequences for both women, who were pregnant at the time.
The terror they experienced was so overwhelming that both women gave birth that very night to children who were not formed like humans but resembled apes. These strange offspring immediately ran into the woods, and according to the tale, from them sprang the entire race of apes, serving as a permanent reminder of the smith's foolish attempt to replicate divine power without divine authority.