The Impossible Pot

A SMALL MOUNTAIN OF A MAN towered over Steven as he shook his head to clear the ringing in his ears. His hat shook wildly back and forth with each movement and Steven put both hands on it to steady his head. In one ham-fisted hand, the tinker held a cast iron frying pan.

“Well?” demanded the tinker. “What do you have to say for yourself?” Steven pointed a shaky finger at the tinker’s cart and donkey now coming into focus.

“I thought it was a dragon,” he said feebly. For a moment the man stared at him in incomprehension, then he chuckled, and then he let out a huge guffaw that echoed off the side of the mountain. He tossed the pan into the back of his wagon and reached down to offer Steven a hand up. When Steven finally stood, the tinker looked him up and down.

“Now aren’t you the sorriest excuse for a dragonslayer that ever wandered the mountains,” he laughed. “Come sit by the fire and warm yourself, man. Let me see if I can guess the story.” Steven sat on a rock opposite the tinker and accepted a warm cup of soup from the man’s fire.

“Thank you,” said Steven. “I’m awfully sorry to have disturbed you, but I’m Steven George the Dragonslayer and I am trying to find the dragon that threatens our village to put an end to our fears.”

“Don’t! Don’t tell me,” the tinker said. “Let me guess. There is a fair maiden from your village who is missing and no one thought to check in the next village where her lover lives?” Steven shook his head, confident that the jovial tinker would never guess the truth. “No?” continued the tinker. “I have it. A mysterious fire burned a field of crops and threatened the home of a particularly foul old man who lives outside the village? No? Cattle or sheep were mysteriously slain and the carcass was found amid a charred circle? Ah! I got it! And you were elected to go out and fight the dragon, even though neither you nor anyone else in your village has ever actually seen a dragon.”

“Well, sort of,” Steven admitted.

“How did you get to be as old as you are and still be so naïve?” the tinker laughed. “Boy, you’ve been blindfolded, spun in a circle, and pointed the wrong direction!”

“I don’t understand,” said Steven. “I’ve always known I was the dragonslayer.”

“Think, did you own a piece of property that others wanted? Did you have a particularly beautiful wife? Did you offend a village elder?” asked the tinker all at one time.

“No. It’s not like that,” said Steven. “I was raised to be a dragonslayer from birth. My village always knew the time would come that we might need one because of the prophecy. When the sheep was killed, we knew that now was the time.”

“I see,” said the tinker. “And has this prophecy been around for a long time?”

“Yes. For ever so long,” Steven answered.

“And how many dragonslayers have there been before you?”

“None. I was chosen at birth by the village as dragonslayer.”

“Really?” asked the tinker. “And how exactly did the village know that it was time to raise a dragonslayer? Were there attacks previously?”

“I don’t think so,” Steven thought it out carefully. “I think the village just decided now was the time.”

“Let me tell you, Steven George the Dragonslayer,” said the tinker. “Villages don’t just up and decide things. Someone in the village had to suggest the idea, and that someone had a reason to need a dragonslayer. It had nothing to do with the supposed slaughter of a sheep. Think who could have planned this for, what? Thirty years? And then you will know why you were sent out on this ridiculous chase.”

“Do you mean that there is no such thing as a dragon?” gasped Steven in alarm.

“Heavens no, man! I’d never suggest that. I knew a man once who...” The tinker broke off abruptly and considered the situation. “Well, now. Let me see. Here you are, miles from home and I’m about to just up and give you a perfectly good story. There ought to be something to trade for that.”

“I can tell a story, too,” Steven jumped in excitedly. “I know many good stories. Perhaps you’d like to know about my hat,” he said proudly.

“Hmmm,” answered the tinker. “Is it a good story?”

“Oh, very good,” Steven declared, searching his mind for a good story he could use to tell about his hat. He was sure he could come up with something before it was his turn to tell a story.

“It is an interesting hat,” the tinker mused. “I’ll make that trade. I’ll tell you the story of ‘The Impossible Pot’ if you’ll tell me about your hat.”

“It’s a deal,” Steven said yawning.

“Tomorrow,” said the tinker. “You are about to go to sleep tonight. You must have come far.”

“Two hundred twenty-eight thousand eight hundred seventy-three steps,” Steven recited as he prepared his bedroll by the fire. Then he added, “That way,” pointing back down the road he had come by.

“You don’t say,” said the tinker, genuinely amazed. “I didn’t know the world went on so far. Well, there are a good many more steps ahead of you than behind,” he chuckled. Then pointed up the road they were headed and added, “This way.”

The next morning, the two travelers set out together talking of the road and the adventures that could be found on it. The tinker questioned Steven about his village and said that he had never found a way to cross the river that far downstream with his wagon, so had never journeyed so far as Steven’s village. But when Steven mentioned the town of Lastford, the tinker knew all about that and the melon festival. He had been there many times.

They passed the journey more leisurely than Steven had been walking of late, but the company was so good and the prospect of a story so compelling that Steven did not mind the slower pace as the donkey toiled up the mountain. They stopped in the mid-afternoon to make camp so the poor animal could rest. Steven proved his skills of survival by trapping a squirrel and preparing it on a spit for dinner. The tinker prepared a pot of vegetables on the fire as well and Steven sprinkled a pinch of the wise woman’s herbs over all. It was a fine feast for the two men as they sat in the gathering evening. At last, the tinker belched loudly, stretched his hands so that all his knuckles cracked and set out to tell his story.

ONCE UPON A TIME, a long time ago and very far away, there traveled the roads a famous tinker named Armand Hamar. He was skilled like no other tinker that ever lived. If there was a pot that was broken, a roof to mend, or a ditch to dig, Armand Hamar could fix it, mend it, or dig it. It was said once that when the Queen of Arabie had broken her favorite mirror, she sent away for Armand Hamar and refused to see anyone until he had mended her mirror and she could see herself first. So good was his repair that no seam showed where he sealed the mirror together.

When the Prince Lukas Leonard Hector Quentin von Melicia was to be married to Lady Hyacinthe Annabelle Arianna of Sendebois, he called upon Armand Hamar to create the most marvelous wedding gift the world had ever known. He entrusted the project to Armand with the words that it was to be useful, beautiful, and one-of-a-kind, promising to pay a fortune for the right gift.

Armand Hamar considered this for a long time trying to decide what a simple tinker could make that was not only useful, but beautiful and one-of-a-kind. Fortunately, he had been given a year’s notice for the creation as the wedding day had been set for the following Midsummer Eve.

Now, it was a well-known fact that Lady Hyacinthe was a terrible cook. Prince Lukas had been sick for two days after his first dinner with her, but she had other charms and the prince was willing to overlook the culinary deficiencies of his bride-to-be.

Armand was clever and thought it would be a wonderful thing if the newlyweds had a new kettle. This would certainly be useful. Even the worst cook needed a kettle to cook in. But how would he make a common kettle beautiful and unique?

It happened that Armand was a sand-scratcher. You’ve undoubtedly seen the type. When they are thinking, and even when they are talking, they are constantly scratching pictures in the sand with a stick, with their finger, or if they particularly don’t want to be noticed, even with their toe. While Armand puzzled over his dream pot, he scratched out pictures with a stick, then scrubbed them out with his foot and scratched again. As he lost himself in thought, he suddenly looked at the pictures he had scratched in the sand an answer came to him.

He could make a pot that was beautiful. Rather than being a simple black kettle, he would scratch pictures in the metal. He experimented with various rocks and other metals and finally came up with a combination that would cut into the iron of the pot and leave a shining silver scratch deep enough that it would not polish out with the first scrubbing that it got. Thus, it was Armand Hamar who invented the art of engraving. But what would he engrave on the pot that would be unique and beautiful?

That is where serendipity came to play; for as Armand traveled the lesser mountains of the east, he witnessed a most amazing sight. Armand Hamar saw a dragon. In that day and age, dragons were more common than they are now, not having been so widely hunted, but nonetheless to see one and to live to tell of it was a rare occurrence indeed. Armand saw the sparkling creature flying far overhead, leaving a trail of smoke in the sky behind it. He marked the direction it had gone and set out to find the dragon.