Reading Godfather Death

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In the fairy tale Godfather Death (full text above), there is a supernatural bond between Death and the living that is established at birth. This link is so strong it is likened to kinship and is based on a pre-Christian tradition. Like the ancient Norns, Death bestows gifts of fortune upon the newborn and then accompanies the young protagonist through key stages of his life. Here, Death is conceived as a benevolent force actively shaping a person's life, creating human happiness and enjoying even more popularity than God himself. The sentence about “not knowing how wisely God distributes riches” was not part of the original version of the story and was added later. In subsequent Christian traditions, the saints took on the function that Death had performed in these earlier stories. We especially see St. Mary, St. Michal and St. John the Baptist filling the role that Death had occupied and acting as intercessors helping the soul navigate its path in the afterlife. This tale, reflecting an obsession with death that was evident in the Middle Ages in Europe, expressed both a longing to cheat death or at least to know the exact hour of one’s death. Last rites were very important to Christians in the Middle Ages. It was believed that if a person was prematurely anointed, he would be doomed to continue life as a walking dead person because the sacrament permanently terminated all human pursuits of the living on earth. As in many pagan traditions, the candle appears in this fairy tale as a symbol of life force. In Christian traditions candles were used to represent life, renewal and power over evil.