XV. Of the Bloody King.
When the last night of the seventh year was come Smetse was in his smithy, looking at the enchanted sack, and asking himself with much anxiety how he could make the devil get into it.
While he was wondering, the smithy suddenly became filled with an evil stench of the most putrid, offensive and filthy kind. Innumerable lice swarmed over the threshold, ceiling, anvils, sledges, bars and bellows, Smetse and his men, who were all as if blinded, for these lice were as thick in the smithy as smoke, cloud, or fog.
And a melancholy but imperative voice spoke, saying: “Smetse, come with me; the seven years have struck.”
And Smetse and his workmen, looking as well as they could in the direction whence the voice came, saw a man coming towards them with a royal crown on his head, and on his back a cloak of cloth-of-gold. But beneath the cloak the man was naked, and on his breast were four great abscesses, which formed together a single wide sore, and from this came the stench which filled the smithy, and the clouds of lice which swarmed round about. And he had on his right leg another abscess, more filthy, rank, and offensive than the rest. The man himself was white-faced, auburn-haired, red-bearded, with lips a little drawn, and mouth open somewhat. In his grey eyes were melancholy, envy, dissimulation, hypocrisy, harshness, and evil rancour.
When the older workmen saw him they cried out in a voice like thunder: “Smetse, the Bloody King is here, take care!”
“Silence,” cried the smith, “peace there, silence and veneration! Let every man doff his bonnet to the greatest king that ever lived, Philip II by name, King of Castile, Leon, and Aragon, Count of Flanders, Duke of Burgundy and Brabant, Palatine of Holland and Zeeland, most illustrious of all illustrious princes, great among the great, victorious among victors. Sire,” said he to the devil, “you do me unparalleled honour to come hither in person to lead me to hell, but my humble Ghentish lowness makes bold to suggest to your Royal and Palatine Highness that the appointed hour has not yet struck. Therefore if it pleases your Majesty I will pass on earth the brief time which is still left to me to live.”
“I allow it,” said the devil.
Meanwhile Smetse seemed unable to take his eyes off the devil, and showed himself very sorrowful and heavy, nodding his head, and saying several times: