He begins: “There was a father and a mother who had a son who was not very bright, and they decide that they must send him to sea. They load a ship with sand for him. He sells this sand very well, and pays the heavy debts of a dead man whom they were keeping at the church doors (without burial).”
When the second officer saw and heard that, he perceived that his life was in danger, and that it was all up with him, and he begs the king for the key of the door, saying that he must go out; but he could not give it him, so he was forced to remain, and not at all at his ease. Juan Dekos begins again:
“His father loaded the ship again with iron, and he sells it and bought with this money seven Christians, and,” pointing to the king’s daughter, “there is the eighth.”
The king knew this story already from his daughter. What do they do then? When they see how wicked the second officer had been, they had a cartload of faggots brought into the middle of the market-place, they put a shirt of sulphur upon him, and burn him in the midst of the place.
Juan Dekos and Marie Louise marry and are very happy. They had a child, and at the end of a year an angel comes to fetch the half of it. Juan Dekos was very sorry, but as he had given his word he was going to cut it in half. The angel seizes him by the arm, and says to him:
“I see your obedience; I leave you your child.”
If they lived well, they died well too.
Variation of the above.
Juan de Kalais.[72]
As there are many in the world, and as there will be, there was a mother and her son. They had a small fortune. Nothing would please the boy but that he should go and learn to be a sailor. The mother allows him to do so, and when he was passed as captain she gives him a ship with a valuable cargo. The lad starts off and comes to a city. While he was there he sees a crowd of men on a dung-heap, who were dragging an object, some on one side and others on the other. He approaches and sees that they have a dead man there. He asks what they are doing like that for, and why they do not bury him. They tell him that he has left debts, and that they will not bury him, even though he should fall to pieces.