“Their mother cursed them in the womb, and they can never enter Paradise.”
“And the maidens?”
“They traded in milk, and they mixed water with their milk; and now for all eternity they must ladle out water.”
“And the old men?”
“They lived in the white world, and they used to say: ‘How pleasant it really might be to live in this world! But, as it is, there is nothing worth caring about!’ So they must bear up against the mire.”[[24]]
Then Christ led the boy into Paradise, and told him his place was ready for him there, and you may be sure the boy was none too anxious to leave it on that day. And afterwards He led him into Hell, and there the peasant’s mother was sitting.
So the peasant boy began to beseech Christ to have mercy on her. “Have mercy on her, Lord!”
And Christ bade the lad plait a rope of brome-grass. The peasant plaited the rope of brome-grass, and the Lord must have supervised.
And he brought it to Christ, Who said: “Now you have been weaving this rope for thirty years and have laboured sufficiently for your mother, rescue her out of Hell.”
And the son dangled the rope down to the mother who was sitting in the boiling pitch. And the rope never burned nor singed: so did God provide. And the son tried and tried to drag his mother up, and caught hold of her head, and she cried out to him: “You savage dog! Why, you are almost choking me!” Then the rope broke off, and the guilty soul once more flew down into the burning pitch.