There was a man in the city of Worms whose widowed mother died without leaving a will. Now he knew very well that she had been wealthy, and he searched everywhere in the house but he could not find where her fortune was hidden. The matter became an obsession to him. He searched through everything again and again. He looked between the pages of each and every book she owned. Nothing. Then he dug up the yard to a depth of three feet. Still nothing. After that, he began to tear out the floors, in case the money was hidden there. It was not. At last he realized that he simply could not find it on his own. So he decided to go to a kishefmacher for help.
Now this kishefmacher was famous for the power of her spells. She said, “Yes, yes, I can find it, if you are willing to pay the price—one half of the inheritance.”
The desperate man said, “One half is better than nothing.”
Then the kishefmacher said, “Good. Now you must leave, for no one can be present when I work my magic.” When he was gone, she took out a knife and said a spell over it. Then she hid the knife beneath her pillow and went to sleep.
That night the kishefmacher dreamed that a demon came to her who had a knife in his heart. The demon cried out to the kishefmacher, “Take the knife out of my heart!”
The kishefmacher said, “No! Not until you bring me this man’s mother, and she reveals where she hid the inheritance. Until then the knife will stay exactly where it is!” It woke her up, she felt beneath the pillow—, and the knife was gone. Feeling quite satisfied, she smiled to herself.
The next night the kishefmacher dreamed that the same demon came back to her, the knife still in his heart. He was accompanied by a younger demon and the man’s mother. The young demon demanded, “Take the knife out of my father’s heart!”
“No,” the kishefmacher yelled, “Not until she reveals where she hid her fortune.”
“That I will never do!” the woman said.” Why not?” asked the kishefmacher. “After all, you are dead; what good will it do you now?” The woman replied, “If I had wanted him to know where the money was, I would have told him. I don’t want him to know.” With that, the dream came to end and the kishefmacher awoke. The knife was still gone.
The third night the demon came back, in the same company, the knife still in his heart. He looked feeble and unable to speak. His son spoke for him and begged the kishefmacher to remove the knife. The kishefmacher insisted she would not take it out until the woman revealed the secret. Then the demon’s son begged the woman to take heed of the suffering of his father and to speak, and at last she relented, saying, “To spare you any more suffering I will reveal this much, and this much only: the money is hidden in a box.” At that, the dream ended.
When the kishefmacher awoke, the first thing she did was to pronounce another spell. Then she put her hand beneath the pillow and found that the knife was there. In this way, she knew that the demon no longer had the knife in his heart. Then she hurried off to the home of the man and told him the hint she had wrenched out of his mother. This clue astonished him, because he had looked in all the boxes first, and several times thereafter, and he had found nothing. That is what he told the kishefmacher, and the kishefmacher replied, “Look in the boxes. When you find the inheritance, remember that half of it belongs to me.” She then turned and left.
Now the minute the kishefmacher went away, the man tore each and every box apart, and in this way he found one with a false bottom, with the fortune hidden beneath it.
Now that the hidden inheritance was his, the man decided to leave town at once, for he had no intention of sharing the money with the kishefmacher. This he did, and on the third day, the kishefmacher came back to his house and discovered that he was gone. She was not worried. That night she placed the knife under her pillow again.
A Jewish-German folktale from the Twelfth Century
May all your tales end with Shalom (peace)
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Tell it to your children, and let your children tell it to their children, and their children to the next generation. (Joel 1:3)