Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Charles Fraser

Once upon a time there was a blacksmith named Jack Oldfield. He was regarded as particularly miserly and addicted to drink. On All Hallows' Eve, the Devil himself appeared to him in a tavern and wanted to claim his soul. But Jack negotiated for one final drink. Since the Devil had no money with him, he transformed himself into a coin to pay for the drink. Jack quickly pocketed this coin in his purse, which contained a small silver cross, so the Devil could not transform back. Thereupon the Devil promised to leave him in peace for several more years. When the Devil came ten years later to claim Jack's soul again, Jack arranged with the Devil to have one last apple as a final meal from the apple tree. The Devil climbed the tree and Jack thereupon carved a cross into the trunk as quickly as he could. The Devil could thus no longer climb down from the tree and was trapped. Therefore the Devil promised to leave Jack's soul in peace for all eternity. When Jack died of natural causes decades later, he was turned away from Heaven's gate. But when he knocked at the Devil's door, the Devil likewise sent him away because he had made him a promise. However, the Devil did give him a piece of hellfire, and so Jack has wandered ever since in the gloomy in-between world with the hellfire, which he placed in a turnip he had brought with him...

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