Page:Czech Folk Tales.pdf/194

174 Death was immediately imprisoned in the knapsack.

The soldier was carrying Death about for some time, until at last the Lord appeared to him and told him he must not do that: he must let Death go, for people could not die, and there would soon be too many of them in the world. So he let Death go. He wanted to go to Heaven himself. But he went to Hell, and as he drew near Hell the devils closed the gate, they were so frightened of him. When he reached the gate of Heaven, he knocked. St. Peter opened the gate, but he wouldn't let him in. The soldier asked him to let him have just one peep, so that at least he might know what Heaven looked like.

Now, he remembered that he still had his soldier's cloak in his knapsack, so he took it out of the knapsack and threw it into Heaven. Then he jumped after it and sat down on it, and then he said he was sitting on his own property. He sat there for a full hundred years, though it only seemed a short time to him. But he couldn't come to an agreement with St. Peter on the case, so our Lord told him that he must first die,