events. Once again he had the prisoner locked up and put under guard, as he did his two brothers, and for a long time he sat lost in thought. He realized, of course, that only one of the brothers could be the murderer and that the others had offered themselves up to the hangman out of magnanimity and a strange kind of brotherly love.
His meditations came to an end as he understood that the reasoning that generally applied produced no results in this case. Thus, the next day, he left the prisoners in protective custody and went to see the Elector, to whom he related the remarkable story as clearly as possible.
The Elector listened to him with the greatest astonishment, and in the end said: âThis is a strange and unusual case! In my heart I believe that none of the three has committed the murder, not even the youngest, whom your sentries apprehended, but rather that all he said in the beginning is the truth. However, since this concerns a crime punishable by death, we cannot simply allow the accused to go free. Thus I will call upon God Himself to pronounce judgment on these three loyal brothers, and to His judgment they must submit.â
And so his plan was carried out. It was springtime, and on a bright warm day the three brothers were taken out to a green plot of ground; and each one was given a strong young linden tree to plant. But they were to plant the lindens not with their roots but with their young green crowns in the earth, so that the roots stood out against the sky; and whose sapling would be the first to perish or wither, he would be regarded as the murderer and judged accordingly.
And so each of the brothers carefully dug a hole for his little tree and planted its branches in the earth. Only a short time had passed when all three of the trees began to bud and set new crowns, a sign that all three brothers were innocent. And the lindens quickly grew tall and stood for many hundreds of years in the cemetery of the Hospital of the Holy Ghost in Berlin.
The Man of the Forests
I N THE BEGINNING of the Age of Man, even before the human race had spread over the face of the earth, there were the men of the forests. They lived, timid and confined, in the twilight of the tropical primeval forests, perpetually in battle with their relatives the apes, while over them stood the one godhead and the one law that governed them in all their actions: the Forest. It was their homeland, refuge, cradle, nest, and grave, and life outside its boundaries was unthinkable. Even approaching its borders was to be avoided, and whosoeverâthrough some strange turn of Fateâwas forced toward them, in hunting or fleeing, told in fear and trembling of the white Void beyond, where one could see the fearful Nothingness glistening in the deadly burning rays of the sun. An old man of the forest, who decades before had fled from wild beasts beyond the forestâs outermost rim, still lived, blind from that day. He was now a kind of priest and holy man and was called mata dalam (he whose eye is turned inward). It was he who had composed the sacred Song of the Forest, which was sung whenever there was a great storm, and the forest people listened to him. That he had seen the sun with his own eyes and had survived was his glory and the secret of his power.
The forest people were small and brown and very hairy; their posture was hunched, and they had timid, wild eyes. Like men and like apes, they could walk, and they felt just as secure high in the branches as they did on the ground. As yet they had no knowledge of building houses and huts, but they used various weapons and tools, and they made jewelry. Out of hardwoods they made bows, arrows, lances, and clubs. From bast fiber they made necklaces, hung with dried berries or nuts, and around their necks or in their hair they also wore other objects of value: boarsâ teeth, tigersâ claws, parrotsâ feathers, the shells of freshwater mussels. Through the middle of the
His meditations came to an end as he understood that the reasoning that generally applied produced no results in this case. Thus, the next day, he left the prisoners in protective custody and went to see the Elector, to whom he related the remarkable story as clearly as possible.
The Elector listened to him with the greatest astonishment, and in the end said: âThis is a strange and unusual case! In my heart I believe that none of the three has committed the murder, not even the youngest, whom your sentries apprehended, but rather that all he said in the beginning is the truth. However, since this concerns a crime punishable by death, we cannot simply allow the accused to go free. Thus I will call upon God Himself to pronounce judgment on these three loyal brothers, and to His judgment they must submit.â
And so his plan was carried out. It was springtime, and on a bright warm day the three brothers were taken out to a green plot of ground; and each one was given a strong young linden tree to plant. But they were to plant the lindens not with their roots but with their young green crowns in the earth, so that the roots stood out against the sky; and whose sapling would be the first to perish or wither, he would be regarded as the murderer and judged accordingly.
And so each of the brothers carefully dug a hole for his little tree and planted its branches in the earth. Only a short time had passed when all three of the trees began to bud and set new crowns, a sign that all three brothers were innocent. And the lindens quickly grew tall and stood for many hundreds of years in the cemetery of the Hospital of the Holy Ghost in Berlin.
The Man of the Forests
I N THE BEGINNING of the Age of Man, even before the human race had spread over the face of the earth, there were the men of the forests. They lived, timid and confined, in the twilight of the tropical primeval forests, perpetually in battle with their relatives the apes, while over them stood the one godhead and the one law that governed them in all their actions: the Forest. It was their homeland, refuge, cradle, nest, and grave, and life outside its boundaries was unthinkable. Even approaching its borders was to be avoided, and whosoeverâthrough some strange turn of Fateâwas forced toward them, in hunting or fleeing, told in fear and trembling of the white Void beyond, where one could see the fearful Nothingness glistening in the deadly burning rays of the sun. An old man of the forest, who decades before had fled from wild beasts beyond the forestâs outermost rim, still lived, blind from that day. He was now a kind of priest and holy man and was called mata dalam (he whose eye is turned inward). It was he who had composed the sacred Song of the Forest, which was sung whenever there was a great storm, and the forest people listened to him. That he had seen the sun with his own eyes and had survived was his glory and the secret of his power.
The forest people were small and brown and very hairy; their posture was hunched, and they had timid, wild eyes. Like men and like apes, they could walk, and they felt just as secure high in the branches as they did on the ground. As yet they had no knowledge of building houses and huts, but they used various weapons and tools, and they made jewelry. Out of hardwoods they made bows, arrows, lances, and clubs. From bast fiber they made necklaces, hung with dried berries or nuts, and around their necks or in their hair they also wore other objects of value: boarsâ teeth, tigersâ claws, parrotsâ feathers, the shells of freshwater mussels. Through the middle of the
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