There is a particularly obscure central European fairy tale known as the ‘Conjustespieler.’ It exists in one fragment of a 15th century codex, which was found on a farm somewhere in Bavaria. The tale (recounted in brief) goes like this:
In a certain kingdom lived a good king, and his subjects were content with his rule. He had been chosen by a peculiar custom: their kings were selected by a device called a conjustespieler. The conjustespieler, by its operation, always selected the most adequate person in the land to rule it – man or woman, child or adult.
This king, however, grew tired of rule and began casting about for a worthy successor. By use of the conjustespieler, he found some possible candidates. The first was Sir Frederick Mountebank, the captain of the royal guard, a man of great virtue and good public standing, with legions under his command, who had already great power in the palace and beyond. There were, following him, several good contenders, likely replacements. A grand intellectual, a famous adventurer, a sea captain, and other strong figures, and an honourable young man from a poor family with a great number of loyal friends about town.
And then the conjustespieler rang out one more time, and its last and most unlikely choice was…
Anders Edelweiss was a young man who had, while on a journey, apropos of nothing, found himself in this land many years ago. He had come from a distant place. Nobody knew where. Nobody knew how old he was. Since his arrival in the kingdom of the conjustespieler, he had become known across the land in pockets, in little hamlets and villages, on the outskirts of towns, as a sort of purposeless wandering adventurer, helpful, polite, always ready with a quip or a joke, and willing to help with local problems. [This is the first clue that…]
And so, having been selected, Anders was found (with great trouble) in some local bar and summoned to the capital city. The women marvelled at him passing by on his way to the palace; they laughed at his rustic peaked cap and admired his confident bearing. He traded jokes with the leader of a group of youths, who promised to rendezvous with him later – and in this style, accompanied by all manner of riff-raff, roguish boys, whores and hangers-on, Anders Edelweiss entered the royal palace where the king, and Sir Frederick, awaited.
“You have been chosen, young man, as a contender for the throne.” The king said.
“Well, hell.” Anders said.
He often spoke in this informal, parochial way, totally unlike everyone else around him. [That is the second clue that…]
The king scheduled their contest for the morrow; he bade they each assemble their supporters in the great dining hall, above which the conjustespieler would be positioned, to begin the testing. And Anders and Sir Frederick and the others went away.
Now Anders went with the poor young man to meet with the youths from the city, and they gave him several pieces of choice advice and guided him a short ways beyond the walls for a certain purpose. And Sir Frederick remained in his barracks with his knights, awaiting the morning. [And this is the third clue that…]
And when morning came, all congregated – the lords and ladies of court, the jester, the king, the contestants for the throne, and a host of townspeople curious to witness the coronation of the king. Everyone stood underneath the conjustespieler, and awaited its choice.
Now the conjustespieler’s mechanism worked thusly: its main apparatus, apart from a sensor at its top and its spindly supporting legs, appeared to be a one-sided scale, with a concave underside. A spoon, facing upside-down. And suspended seemingly independently inside the ‘spoon’ was a heavy, implacable iron ball. This iron ball had been secured by the king upon his own coronation. Only he – or the next person chosen to replace him – could secure it in the impossible receptacle – others would suspend the ball and, if they were not strong enough to hold it, be crushed underneath.
So the king, under the watchful eyes of all, took the iron ball – light for His Majesty despite his great age and ailing strength, for that was the principle of the conjustespieler – and he disengaged the royal lock. The iron cannonball now lay on the ground, ready to be lifted by the hopeful candidates.
They went one by one and all failed: the intellectual, the adventurer, the captain, and so on…until finally Sir Frederick picked up the ball and inserted it into the spoon. And there it stayed – for some seconds – before it began to wobble, and to fall, and Sir Frederick picked it up and placed it on the ground again.
“It seems am I to be challenged.”
And then the young man from the poor family lifted the ball and placed it into the spoon. And it wobbled, and again fell, and Sir Frederick quickly caught it with his own strength.
The king announced – they were to fight in a trial by combat.
And Anders Edelweiss pulled from his pocket the things he had gathered from outside the city. And when the trial by combat began he approached the now deserted conjustespieler, and he applied his trick, and then he whistled so the crowd’s attention came off the trial by combat – which the poor youth was slowly losing – and he bade the youth try again, citing a shaking in the mechanism that indicated the conjustespieler’s doubts. And the youth picked up the iron ball and stuck it perfectly into the conjustespieler, and it held fast.
(And Sir Frederick was astonished, for how could his trick have failed? Swapping the conjustespieler for a fake, and engineering a trial by combat where he could easily overpower anyone. The only thing that foiled his plot was Anders’ counter-trick of applying adhesive sap found in the forest to the underside of the conjustespieler and allowing the young man to retry the test. Of course, no one knew of this save Anders and the young man.)
And Anders Edelweiss requested his role remain untold, and history proceeded as it was ‘supposed to’. The young man was crowned. [And this is the final clue…]
This story is the only record we have. And yet it cannot be the true original story. In the true story, the youth would have won by the help of his conventional friends, who would have discovered Sir Frederick’s treachery independently, the true conjustespieler would have been brought from its storage space in Sir Frederick’s chambers, and the retrial conducted would establish the youth honestly. There would have been no Anders Edelweiss and no counter-trick. And so we must ask where Anders came from, and how he came to interfere in another’s story so blatantly that we have even forgotten the true protagonist’s name.
verso folio 