As he stumbled along the forest path, his heart was in his throat, and his eyes darted left and right, where the deep wood was shrouded in blackness. In his mind he heard his father’s voice as if he were walking beside him: “There is a hungry old wolf, lives in this wood, my son. Better you should be home now that night has fallen, for he may smell your young blood on the breeze…”

 

I am going to tell you a very old story.
My Polish grandfather, Tadeusz, told this story to my mother, Stephanie. My mum told it to me. It is one of the many stories my grandfather told my mother, when she was a little girl, about a very clever and brave young boy in Poland, called Tadek.

My mum:
“Because we had no TV and no books in the house, your grandfather’s stories about Tadek’s adventures were a bedtime fixture.
When we got a little older we realised that Tadek was actually our own wonderful father, because that was what our mother called him, when their friends came to visit.
We wondered how our father could have had such a magical, adventurous life? Perhaps Poland was a magical place?
I loved listening to my father’s stories, no matter how many times I heard them, and I have always loved telling those stories to you.
When I grew up and read hundreds of books to you, my three children, I discovered that my father had adapted a great many fables and legends, from European folklore: tales in which quick thinking and courage always beat the bigger, more powerful foe.”

 
My grandfather, Tadeusz, was born into a big family in a tiny village. The Poland he grew up in became a frightening and dangerous place. As a boy, he saw his family torn apart by war. He survived to adulthood, against the odds, married, emigrated to Australia, raised his children and made a prosperous life for himself. Many of his family were not so lucky.
My grandfather never spoke very much about what he suffered during the war, but his stories were a testament to his indomitable optimism, imagination and strength of spirit. Those stories became my mother’s, and then she gave those stories to me. This is one of them.

 

Tadek and The Wolf.

Not ‘once upon a time’, but just a mere century ago – between the wars, during the great depression – there lived, in Poland, a poor peasant boy named Tadek.

Tadek lived with his ten brothers and fourteen sisters, in a tiny cottage beside a dark forest. In a clearing in the forest was a small lake, where the family drew their water, and where Tadek and his father fished.
Tadek had no time for school. All summer, which was only three months long, he helped his parents get food to feed the large family.   He was very good at finding mushrooms and wild strawberries in the forest and catching fish in the lake.   In winter, deep snow fell, and the family survived by eating the food they had pickled during the short, abundant summer.

Every year, toward the end of winter, when the days were coldest and very dark, the food started to run out.   The snow lay metres deep all around the house. There were no strawberries or mushrooms in the ice-bound forest. The cabbages froze and turned black in the garden.   Tadek’s little brothers and sisters cried, from cold and hunger.

For the last month of winter, all the family got to eat was fish. Tadek and his father would get up at first light and walk through the forest to the lake. The lake was frozen over, but there was one small hole in the ice that Tadek and his father fished through. By threading a lump of stale bread on their hooks, they would sometimes catch a small, hungry fish, with their short lines. It was so cold on the lake that new ice formed even as they sat, shivering, with their fishing rods in their hands. Every few minutes, Tadek would jump up, stamp his feet and crack the new ice with his father’s rusty axe.
The winter days were as short as they were frigid. Shortly after noon, the sun began to dip toward the treetops, and Tadek and his father would hasten home through the forest.
“There is a hungry old wolf, lives in this wood” Tadek’s father would grumble, under his breath. “Best we be home before nightfall, or he may smell your young blood on the breeze.”

 
One dark winter day, Tadek’s father fell ill. The old man was too sick to go out in the cold, so Tadek went, by himself, through the forest, across the frozen lake, to try and catch some fish for his hungry family.
The day was freezing. The winter sun was low in the sky, and very weak. Tadek battered at the ice with his father’s axe until he had broken through and re-opened the fishing hole. He unrolled his fishing line, took a little bread from his pocket, and baited the hook. He gazed hungrily at the small lump of bread, and his stomach growled. He prayed that the bread would not be wasted, and dropped his fishing line into the frigid water.

It was lonely on the ice. Tadek sat patiently, waiting for a fish, even though his hands and feet were stiff from the cold.  
“How many loaves of bread have I fed to these fish?” he grumbled to himself. “They really are an ungrateful lot. With all that my father and I have fed them, you would think they would put in an appearance a bit more often.”
He stomped his feet and chipped the ice out of the fishing hole with the axe again.

Hours passed, and the sun slipped rapidly down the sky. Tadek, blue-faced and shivering, threaded the last piece of bread onto his hook. As the sun was sinking toward the treetops, and darkness was creeping across the lake, suddenly he felt his rod jerk in his hand. At first, Tadek thought it was just new ice grabbing at his line. He picked up the axe to chip it away, but as he peered into the inky water, the rod jerked again, so strongly, this time, that he almost lost his grip on it. He had a fish on his hook!
Tadek dropped the axe on the ice, seized the rod in both his trembling hands and pulled. The fish fought hard. Excitement swelled in Tadek’s chest. This fish must be a big one. With the last of his strength, Tadek heaved on the line. Glittering in the red sunset light, a big fat cod flopped onto the ice.

Hastily, Tadek gathered up the fish, rolled up his line, and set out homeward. He was so happy.   He knew his family would have a good dinner and his father would be very proud of him. The darkness was drawing down fast, and Tadek walked as quickly as his numb feet would carry him.
As he entered the forest, Tadek’s high spirits faded. The sun was lost to sight, and the trees leaned close together over the narrow pathway.
Tadek was a brave boy, but as he stumbled along the forest path, his heart was in his throat, and his eyes darted left and right, where the deep wood was shrouded in blackness. In his mind he heard his father’s voice as if he were walking beside him:
“There is a hungry old wolf, lives in this wood, my son. Better you should be home now that night has fallen, for he may smell your young blood on the breeze.”
In his haste, Tadek tripped over his own numb feet, and when he raised his head, his gaze met two great, yellow eyes, staring back at him.

The wolf before him was a giant of a beast. It stood taller than Tadek at the shoulder, and its greasy jowls were pierced by rows of sharp teeth, each as long as Tadek’s middle finger.
The wolf came out of the forest and blocked the path with its hairy bulk. It growled, low in its throat.
“Ho, boy! The winter has been long, and I am hungry. Your flesh will look well on my bones.”
Fear gripped Tadek by the throat, but he was a clever lad, and he raised his voice boldly to answer the beast.
“Good even’ Sir Wolf! It is a hungry winter for us all. My family starves, just as do you. I have been to the lake to catch a fish for my ten brothers and fourteen sisters to eat. If you will spare me, to fish another day, I will give you this big cod that I caught.”
With trembling hands, Tadek held up the fish to the wolf.
The wolf sneered and narrowed his eyes.
“That fish is a prize indeed boy. It will make a good appetiser, but it will not still my hunger. You should have heeded your old father’s words, and traversed the wood before nightfall. Now surely your brothers and sisters will go hungry, for I shall have a two-course meal this night.”
The wolf moved toward Tadek, threateningly, his lips curling back, slick with drool.
“Wait, Sir Wolf!” Tadek squeaked. “Do you not know that the lake is full of fish this night? My rod and hook are poor, and I had nothing for bait but stale bread, so I could catch only one. But if you come with me, back to the ice, I can show you how to catch a dozen or more!”
The wolf hesitated, his slavering jaws inches from Tadek’s face, and a greedy look crept across his countenance. He was a powerful beast, but his mind was weak and his thoughts were always of feasting.
“Boy, your words intrigue me. How can we catch many, where you have caught but one?”
Tadek thought as quickly as he could. It was distracting having the wolf’s foul breath upon his face.
“Well, Sir Wolf, don’t you know, that the best bait to catch cod is the scent of a wolf’s tail? If you will accompany me to the lake and plunge your magnificent tail into the water for but a minute, we will catch more fish than we can carry between us! I have made a fishing hole in the ice, and I will gladly show you where it is.”
The corrupt mind of the beast turned this over. ‘I will have a feast of fish’ said the wolf to himself ‘ and then when the boy has served his purpose, I will gobble him up as well!’
Tadek waited for the wolf to speak, scarcely breathing. He watched the creature’s hairy lips draw back into an oily rictus.
“Take me to your fishing hole, boy” came the wolf’s reply. “If we catch as many fish as you promise, I will consider sparing your life.”

 
In the darkness, Tadek and the wolf walked back to the lake. All the way, Tadek felt the wolf’s hot breath on the back of his neck and smelled his rank dander, and the boy trembled with fear and loathing.
When they reached the fishing hole, Tadek cracked the ice with his boot, and spoke to the wolf in the calmest voice he could command.
“Here, Sir Wolf. The fish are circling below. plunge your tail into the water and we shall soon have a feast.
The greedy wolf sat upon the ice and dropped his bushy tail into the freezing lake.
“By all the Saints” cried the wolf, “the water is colder than the grave! How long must I sit thus?”
“Just a few minutes” the boy replied soothingly. “A tail with such powerful scent as yours will draw the fishes quickly. Be still, lest you scare them away!”
Five minutes passed, and the wolf began to tremble from the cold. “By the crown of thorns,” he cried, “I cannot feel my nether regions any longer! How much longer until we get a bite?”
“Soon, soon” the boy murmured, patting the wolf’s coarsely haired shoulder. “Keep still, for I see the fishes circling close now. Think how good they will taste.”
Ten minutes more went by. The wolf’s long teeth began to chatter in his skull.
“By the Holy Virgin’s maidenhead” he wailed, “I cannot bear this cold much longer! My rear is so numb I will not know if the fish are biting!”
Tadek began to back away. “Keep your tail still in the water,” said he, “a fish will seize upon it any moment now!”
Suspicion bloomed in the wolf’s mind.
“Where are you going, boy?” he snarled at Tadek. “I think you are toying with me! Well, no matter. I have caught no fish, but you will still make a tasty meal!”
The wolf lunged toward the retreating boy, but then yelped with pain, and stopped short. The frozen lake had sealed his tail in a collar of ice, and he was stuck fast.
The wolf roared with pain and rage. “You have tricked me, boy? You dare to try and trap me, the mightiest beast in the wood?”
“Fear not, Sir Wolf” the boy called out. “I will soon have you free!”
Quick as lightning, Tadek snatched up his father’s rusty axe, from where it lay on the ice, and with one swift stroke, chopped the wolf’s tail clean off.
“AWOOOOOOOOOO!” the great beast cried out, and he danced around in a circle, trying to see the place on his haunches where the bloody stump of his tail gushed black blood onto the snow.
Tadek raised the axe high above his head, and with one more mighty blow, struck the wolf’s head from his shoulders.

 
Tadek returned to his family that night, with the fish in one hand, and the wolf’s pelt in the other.
His mother wept for joy when Tadek stepped through the cottage door, for she had not expected to see his face again.
Tadek’s eldest sister crafted the wolf’s pelt into a warm cape, and they draped it about the shoulders of his ailing father, where he huddled before the stove.
In the weeks that followed that fateful winter’s night, Tadek took his brothers to the lake and taught them to fish. Now that the wolf was slain, they could fish for longer each day, without fear of travelling through the woods after sunset.
The family ate well then, and Tadek’s old father recovered his health.

 
In time, Tadek grew to be a man. His adventures took him across the world, to far lands where the sun always shone, even in the winter, and where snow never fell.
He married and had two beautiful daughters, who in turn, blessed him with grandchildren. He lived to be a contented old man and in his dotage, he liked nothing better than to entertain and terrify his grandsons and granddaughters with tales of his adventures.

 
During his long life, Tadek knew many hardships. He learned that not all wolves have yellow eyes and hairy coats; that beasts dwell in the hearts of some men, just as they do in the dark woods of old Europe.
His path was sometimes dark and lonely, but Tadek never lost the courage and wit that allowed him to prevail, on that long ago night, on the frozen lake. And Tadek never forgot his father’s words, repeated so often on cold winter evenings, as they trudged through the gloomy woods side by side:

“There is a hungry great wolf, lives in the wood, my son. Best you be home before nightfall, or he may smell your young blood on the breeze.”

 

Thank You.

Like my grandfather was, my mum is a wonderful tale-teller. She spent literally thousands of hours reading to me when I was a kid and I’ve loved words ever since. Thank you Mumz for everything but especially for the stories.

 

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