Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 5.djvu/43

25 THE BLACKSMITH WHO COULD HANDLE FIRE WITHOUT HURT.

A certain pious man once heard that there abode in such a town a blacksmith who could put his hand into the fire and pull out the red-hot iron, without its doing him any hurt. So he set out for the town in question and enquiring for the blacksmith, watched him at work and saw him do as had been reported to him. He waited till he had made an end of his day’s work, then, going up to him, saluted him and said to him, ‘I would fain be thy guest this night.’ ‘With all my heart,’ replied the smith, and carried him to his house, where they supped together and lay down to sleep. The guest watched his host, but found no sign of [special] devoutness in him and said to himself, ‘Belike, he concealeth himself from me.’ So he lodged with him a second and a third night, but found that he did no more than observe the ordinary letter of the law and rose but little in the night [to pray]. At last he said to him, ‘O my brother, I have heard of the gift with which God hath favoured thee and have seen the truth of it with mine eyes. Moreover, I have taken note of thine assiduity in[in [sic] religious exercises], but find in thee no special fervour of piety, such as distinguisheth those in whom such miraculous gifts are manifest. Whence, then, cometh this to thee?’ ‘I will tell thee,’ answered the smith.

‘Know that I was once passionately enamoured of a certain damsel and required her many a time of love, but could not prevail upon her, for that she still crave fast unto chastity. Presently there came a year of drought and hunger and hardship; food failed and there befell a sore famine in the land. I was sitting one day in my house, when one knocked at the door: so I went out and